From January 16, 1919 To December 5,1933, The Volstead

From January 16, 1919 to December 5,1933, the Volstead Act made it illegal to sale, manufacture, or transport alcohol. Although the Volstead Act was to stop drinking completely, it did just the opposite. People were willing to drink alcohol illegally which gave way to bootlegging, speakeasies, gangsters and organized crime.Mark Twain summarizes this time by saying, â€Å"Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and does not cure it, or even diminish it.† Prohibition, by this time, had become a long-standing issue. Groups such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had been around since the 1800s. Conceived by Wayne Wheeler, the leader of the Anti-Saloon League, the Eighteenth Amendment passed†¦show more content†¦(Beverly Gage)These groups became known as the â€Å"Drys† and those who were against them were known as the â€Å"Wets†. The â€Å"wets† were in favor of keeping alcohol and wanted to keep it by any means necessary. After the Volstead Act was passed, bootlegging and gangsterism became very popular. Bootleggers first began to import alcohol from Canada and Mexico, but soon began importing from the Bahamas, Cuba, and the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, off the southern coast of Newfoundland. (Britannica). As time went on, the citizens of the United States became more daring and began making their own alcohol and created â€Å"underground† bars called speakeasies. One of the most famous bootleggers of this time was Al Capone. New York Times called him,†The symbol of a shameful era, the monstrous symptom of a disease which was eating into the conscience of America.† Not only were these bootleggers transporting and selling alcohol in speakeasies, but now doctors pushed prescription alcohol to â€Å"cure† illnesses. Once Prohibition took effect, many doctors championed alcohol as medicine. I have always maintained that every family oug ht to have an alcoholic stimulant in the house all the time, one physician told the New York Times. There is nothing more valuable in emergency. The doctor himself always took a drink at the end of the day—It braces me up, he explained—and often prescribed it for patients stricken with nerves. For pneumonia, he