Prohibition - OverSimplified
OverSimplified
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0:12 Good morning, Honey.
0:14 What's for breakfast?
0:15 The usual.
0:15 Two caskets of rum, a mug of hard cider, and a full bottle of wine.
0:19 Oh boy.
0:20 Oh, I'm running late.
0:21 I'll have to take it with me.
0:22 Don't forget your lunch.
0:23 It's a six-pack of beer, a flask of whiskey,
0:25 six shots of tequila, and as a special treat, a banana.
0:28 Ah gee whiz, I'm gonna be smashed today.
0:31 Enjoy your day of operating sharp, dangerous farm equipment.
0:34 I can't believe this is an acceptable way to live.
0:37 God bless America.
0:38 Okay, gotta go.
0:43 (loud crash) I love my life!
0:46 (animated music) America, the land of beautiful strip malls,
0:53 top class infrastructure, and wonderful urban sprawl.
0:56 Ah, yes, beautiful America.
0:58 But what's the most American thing you can think of?
1:01 The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore,
1:03 a crazy lady in a mobility scooter yelling at a pigeon?
1:05 Well, what if I told you the answer is alcohol?
1:08 That's right.
1:09 When the Puritans arrived on America's shores,
1:11 they brought a ship packed with beer.
1:12 George Washington provided his men with a daily cup of whiskey.
1:15 Andrew Jackson's inauguration party left the White House
1:18 so trashed that everybody had to be ordered outside.
1:20 Frederick Douglass said whiskey made him feel like a president.
1:23 Me too, Frederick, me too.
1:25 Americans drink at breakfast.
1:27 Doctors prescribe their patients hard liquor.
1:29 In the 19th century,
1:30 Americans drink three times as much as their modern-day counterparts.
1:33 That's a lot of whiskey.
1:34 Hey Jerry, how's that report coming along?
1:35 Already done, sir.
1:36 I've also organized your paperwork, watered your flowers,
1:39 and been a father figure to your children.
1:40 Wait a minute.
1:41 (sniffs) What's that smell?
1:42 Have you been drinking at work?
1:44 No sir, I would never.
1:46 Well, why not?!
1:47 Everyone else is doing it.
1:49 But I got all my work done!
1:50 You're fired!
1:51 (glass shattering) (people cheering) Americans drink at work.
1:54 They drink at barn raisings, baptisms, and public hangings.
1:57 Heavy drinking was so normal that it was as American as apple pie.
2:01 Hi everyone, my name is Ron and I'm an alcoholic.
2:04 Get over yourself, Ron.
2:06 We're all alcoholics.
2:07 But more and more Americans began to wonder whether
2:09 all of this truly was a normal way to live.
2:12 Were Americans drinking perhaps a little too much?
2:15 Well, one group in particular thought the answer to that was yes.
2:18 You know 'em.
2:20 You love 'em.
2:21 Women.
2:21 (men laughing) Oh, crap, women!
2:24 Run!
2:25 (crowd yelling) Hang on!
2:27 We just want to talk.
2:29 Women talking in public?
2:30 That's outrageous.
2:31 Come on, Fred, you've got two kids and a wife at home,
2:34 yet here you are spending your entire paycheck on booze.
2:37 And you, Dr.
2:38 Spanky, you run the cusp of discovering time travel,
2:41 but what did you discover instead?
2:43 The sweet, sweet joys of whiskey.
2:45 That's right, alcohol.
2:47 It's destroying our families, our jobs, and our homes.
2:51 She's right, she's right.
2:52 Hang on, men.
2:53 Don't let them get to you.
2:54 This saloon is our safe space where our wives and children
2:57 can't annoy us with reality where we're free to be real men.
3:00 He's right, he's right, I am a man.
3:02 And what is it real men do?
3:04 Take care of their families.
3:06 I don't know what she's talking about.
3:08 Do you take care of your family?
3:09 No.
3:09 We drink beer, we shoot guns, and we mud wrestle!
3:14 (men cheering) As America's heavy drinking ruined more and more lives,
3:19 moral resistance began to arise and women were at the forefront taking matters
3:23 into their own hands at a time
3:25 when women doing just about anything was shocking.
3:27 They'd had enough of being victim to their husbands'
3:29 heavy drinking and they were gonna do something unprecedented.
3:32 You're going to what?
3:34 I'm going to protest.
3:36 (laughs) (coughs) Oh sweetie, women can't protest.
3:45 (crowd yelling) Starting in Ohio before spreading nationwide,
3:51 women began a crusade against alcohol.
3:53 They marched through towns and cities, singing hymns,
3:55 gathering outside saloons, and praying on their knees.
3:58 Women praying was so terrifying that in some
4:02 towns schools were shut and business stagnated.
4:04 On one occasion, firemen were called out
4:05 to hose down the dangerous praying women.
4:07 On another, the owner of a beer garden reportedly hold
4:10 a cannon outside and threatened to reduce the savage women to dust.
4:14 Nevertheless, they persisted.
4:15 They formed the WCTU in 1874 and they organized.
4:19 They set up homes for inebriate women.
4:21 They installed water fountains in public parks.
4:23 They wrote textbooks for schoolchildren that contained
4:26 some interesting claims about drinking alcohol.
4:28 Here's little Timmy.
4:29 Uh-oh, looks like Timmy's gonna have his first drink.
4:32 He's taking a small sip of whiskey and Timmy has spontaneously combusted.
4:36 The end.
4:37 The women's efforts weren't in vain.
4:38 In small towns across America,
4:40 drugstores agreed to stop fulfilling prescriptions for alcohol.
4:43 Men committed themselves to giving up drink.
4:45 Inspired by the women's moral fervor, some saloon owners closed their doors.
4:49 The women's crusade and other temperance movements were
4:52 forcing people to reconsider alcohol's role in society,
4:54 and more people began to side with the growing temperance movement.
4:57 Many states had even begun enacting their own dry
5:00 laws that restricted the sale and use of alcohol.
5:02 One of them was Kansas where alcohol had been outlawed since 1881.
5:06 Despite this, many illegal saloons remained open and authorities
5:09 had done just about nothing to stop them.
5:11 One woman, disgusted by what she saw,
5:14 decided she would take the law into her own hands,
5:16 and not just any woman, a terrifying hatchet-wielding,
5:20 sweet old lady named Carrie Nation.
5:22 Armed with her trustee hatchet and a bag of what she called smashers,
5:26 she traveled from town to town visiting saloons,
5:28 but she wasn't there to get smashed, she was there to smash.
5:32 The men could do nothing but cower as sweet
5:34 little Carrie hulked out and tore the place to shreds.
5:37 She went to Kiowa and smashy smashed,
5:39 Wichita, smashy smashed, to Piqua, smashy smashed.
5:42 On a couple of occasions, she was arrested,
5:44 but each time they were like, okay, Carrie,
5:46 we're gonna let you go so long as you promise to be
5:47 a good girl and not smash up any more saloons, okay?
5:50 Screw you pig!
5:52 (spits) Yeah, I think she's gonna be all right.
5:56 Smash, smash, smash.
5:58 Carrie's tactics shocked the other members
6:00 of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, but she assured them,
6:02 and this is a quote, "Ladies,
6:03 you do not know how much joy you will have "until you smash,
6:08 smash, smash." Carrie became a household name and she
6:11 hoped her unusual tactics would spread across the country,
6:13 but unfortunately, many of the women's movements eventually slowed down.
6:17 Why?
6:18 Well, because of this kinda thing.
6:19 Thelma!
6:21 I ripped my pants again.
6:22 Ugh, well, you'll have to sew them yourself because I'm going out protesting.
6:26 What?!
6:27 I don't know how to sew.
6:29 What if I burn the house down and get eaten by alligators?
6:31 What?
6:32 Don't be stupid, Mitch!
6:34 Look, I've gotta go.
6:36 Call me stupid?
6:38 She's the one who's stupid.
6:39 (glass shattering) (loud explosion) Hey Thelma!
6:45 Look who's stupid now?
6:48 See, while the women were out protesting,
6:51 there was nobody to do the cooking and cleaning and being seen and not heard,
6:54 and they gradually had to return to their duties at home.
6:56 But where the women had got the ball rolling,
6:59 a new movement was about to take that ball all the way to Washington, DC.
7:03 I'm talking about the Anti-Saloon League.
7:05 The Anti-Saloon League was a political pressure
7:07 group run by a very sweet-looking old man.
7:09 But don't let that deceive you.
7:10 This guy was an evil genius.
7:12 While the women's movements were interested in a whole range of issues,
7:15 Wayne Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League only cared about enemy number one, Mr.
7:19 Al Cohol, and as a result, they were extremely effective.
7:23 They were able to exploit the fears of the American people.
7:25 And I mean everyone's fears.
7:27 Here's how they did it.
7:28 Hello, sir, welcome to the Liberal Progressive rally.
7:31 Why don't you introduce yourself?
7:32 Well, I'm Paddy and I'm an immigrant from Ireland.
7:35 And tell me, Paddy, do you drink?
7:37 Oh yes, I drink a lot.
7:39 See folks?
7:39 People like Paddy come here looking for a better
7:42 life only to end up drunk in the gutter.
7:44 Don't worry, sir, we're gonna help you.
7:47 (people applauding) Hey man, you're doing great.
7:50 I just need you for one more thing.
7:52 Hey Christian Conservatives, this is Paddy.
7:55 He's a dirty Catholic Irish immigrant who's
7:58 come to destroy America with his alcohol-fueled debauchery.
8:03 (people cheering) Workers were told alcohol was
8:07 a capitalist ploy to keep them subjugated.
8:09 Factory owners were told alcohol was making their irresponsible workers lazy.
8:13 The Black community was warned alcohol was hindering its progress
8:16 while racists were warned alcohol would turn Black men into brutes.
8:19 In one of the most confusing eras of American politics,
8:22 totally opposing groups found themselves agreeing
8:24 on at least one thing, alcohol was bad.
8:27 The Anti-Saloon League also made great use of propaganda,
8:29 something prohibitionists had been doing for decades.
8:31 Take this specimen, for example,
8:33 that warns what will happen to you if you start drinking.
8:36 Let's see, first you take a drink,
8:37 you get a little rowdy, okay, you make some new friends.
8:41 Nice.
8:42 Then you become homeless.
8:44 You turn to crime.
8:45 And but, uh-oh.
8:49 But the most effective tactic Wheeler used
8:51 to force prohibition on America was pressure politics.
8:54 In any election he could, Wheeler very successfully rounded support against any
8:58 politician who was in favor of alcohol.
9:00 In Ohio alone, he had 70 state representatives and the popular
9:04 Republican governor ousted from office and replaced with prohibitionists.
9:07 Suddenly every politician in America was afraid of Wayne Wheeler.
9:11 Even those who enjoyed alcohol in private
9:13 began pretending to be against it in public.
9:16 Alcohol is delicious.
9:18 I mean malicious.
9:19 Sorry Wayne.
9:21 I'm really drunk right now.
9:22 Then it really hit the fan in 1917 when America
9:24 found itself fighting in the First World War against Germany.
9:27 Anti-German sentiment exploded.
9:29 Sauerkraut became Liberty Cabbage.
9:31 German measles became Liberty measles.
9:33 And dachshunds became the embodiment of evil.
9:36 See America?
9:37 You've always been this way.
9:38 The biggest brewers in America were German,
9:40 and Wheeler saw to it that drinking alcohol became akin to pro-German treason.
9:45 The German brewers desperately tried to fight back,
9:47 creating their own propaganda, presenting beer as a healthy beverage,
9:50 one that you could even give to your kids.
9:52 As you can imagine, it didn't go down well.
9:54 President Wilson instituted some temporary wartime
9:57 prohibition measures to save grain for food.
9:59 And with many in the country now in support of prohibition,
10:02 all that was left was to make it law.
10:04 One problem was that taxes on alcohol made
10:06 up nearly 40% of the US government's annual revenue,
10:09 and the government wasn't just about to give that up.
10:11 No problem.
10:12 The Anti-Saloon League helped lobby for the creation
10:14 of a new income tax on the American people.
10:16 And just like that, the government was no longer reliant on alcohol.
10:20 Prohibition was finally introduced to Congress in 1913,
10:24 not just as a law but a constitutional amendment.
10:27 In 1917 as the House held their final vote on the prohibition amendment,
10:31 Wheeler was watching from the gallery.
10:33 You spineless cowards.
10:35 I know half of you drink yet here you are bowing down to Ned Flanders up there.
10:39 Look at him like he's some kind of Caesar.
10:41 Ugh, don't be so dramatic.
10:43 I obviously don't think I'm Caesar.
10:46 Now release the lions.
10:47 (lion roaring) In the end,
10:49 prohibition passed the House easily, 282 votes to 128.
10:53 And the states ratified the new amendment by 1919.
10:56 America, a nation obsessed with liberty and freedom,
10:59 had just voluntarily given up its private right
11:02 to choose Whether or not to drink alcohol.
11:05 We did it, folks!
11:06 (crowd cheering) We fixed everything.
11:07 America will be perfect forever.
11:09 But you just dissolved America's fifth largest industry
11:12 and lost tens of thousands of jobs for us immigrants.
11:14 No, you idiot.
11:16 You don't get it.
11:16 We helped you, idiot.
11:18 Ugh, I could really go for a beer.
11:21 Oh no!
11:23 Immediately after prohibition went into effect,
11:25 alcohol consumption in America decreased as Americans
11:27 followed the law and tried not drinking.
11:29 Man, if we're gonna be law-abiding good boys,
11:31 we need something else to fill the dark
11:33 lonely void that delicious beer once did.
11:35 Well, how about we crack open a nice cold can of water?
11:39 Hell, yeah, toss it over.
11:44 Nah, this isn't doing it for me.
11:46 Let's try knitting.
11:49 This isn't filling the dark void at all.
11:51 Wanna play some kites?
11:52 Ah, screw it.
11:54 Let's go get some illegal beer.
11:55 While it seemed like many Americans supported prohibition,
11:58 after the law went into effect,
11:59 it seemed like just as many Americans intended to keep on drinking and they
12:03 would go on to find a variety of ways to break the new law.
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13:16 Now where were we?
13:17 Oh yeah, punching Paddy, passing prohibition, and procuring pints.
13:21 Pretty soon after the new law went into effect,
13:23 the failures of prohibition were already beginning to rear their ugly heads.
13:27 For starters, the details of the new prohibition law written by none
13:30 other than Wayne Wheeler himself turned out to be more draconian than expected.
13:34 Many prohibition supporters only wanted to outlaw
13:36 hard liquor and hoped beer would remain legal,
13:38 but the Volstead Act outlawed anything over .5%.
13:42 That would make Liberty Cabbage illegal.
13:44 Secondly, the new law was full of loopholes
13:46 that Americans very quickly began to exploit.
13:48 For example, while the sale and manufacturer
13:50 of liquor was illegal, drinking it wasn't.
13:53 And you could also keep any alcohol you had before the law went into effect.
13:56 So many private clubs hoarded huge amounts of alcohol
13:59 that saw them through the entire prohibition period.
14:01 Whiskey intended for medicinal purposes was
14:03 also allowed and doctors basically became bartenders.
14:06 It looked as though a full-on epidemic had broken out
14:09 as there was a sudden surge in prescriptions for whiskey.
14:11 Sacramental wines used by churches and synagogues were also permitted.
14:15 Orders for communion wine suspiciously skyrocketed by millions of gallons.
14:18 And as rabbis had access to religious wine,
14:21 suddenly everyone was becoming a rabbi.
14:22 You had Rabbi Pat O'Leary, Rabbi LL Cool J, Rabbi Fluffy.
14:27 But don't worry.
14:27 I'm sure all these definitely legitimate religious figures couldn't
14:30 possibly be selling wine in the back alley after mass.
14:32 Yep, definitely nothing strange going on here.
14:35 New products also hit the shelves in stores,
14:37 such as Vine-Glo, a brick of dehydrated grape juice,
14:40 itself not alcoholic and therefore perfectly legal,
14:43 but the packaging did contain a strangely specific warning.
14:46 After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water,
14:48 do not place the liquid in a jug in the cupboard for 20 days,
14:51 because then it would turn into a wine.
14:53 I'll take a thousand.
14:54 Yes, sir.
14:55 Now at this point, I want you to think back for me,
14:57 if you will, to the year 2005.
15:00 You're the coolest kid around and you convince your parents
15:02 to rent the greatest movie of all time from your local Blockbuster.
15:05 But the movie starts with a strange message,
15:07 something about not downloading a car.
15:09 You immediately disregard that and hop on Kazaa
15:12 to download the greatest song of all time, and in the process drain your dad's
15:16 bank account with copious amounts of ransomware.
15:18 You were breaking the law, you bad boy or girl.
15:21 But did anyone come to arrest you?
15:22 No.
15:24 That's my point.
15:25 If no one is enforcing a law while everyone's breaking it, is it really a law?
15:29 And so it was with prohibition.
15:32 See, the conservative-led governments of the decade were also
15:35 the kind of people who believed in small government spending.
15:38 So they passed a law that would be extremely difficult to enforce
15:41 but also didn't wanna spend any of the money required to enforce it.
15:44 The newly created Bureau of Prohibition only
15:47 had 1500 agents to cover the entire country.
15:49 That's one agent for every 70,666 Americans in a massive country
15:54 with 12,000 miles of coastline and one gigantic land border with Canada.
15:58 Good luck schmuckos.
16:00 And all these clever little loopholes people were using
16:02 to score legal booze were only just the beginning.
16:05 America was about to devolve into alcohol-fueled criminal chaos.
16:10 By outlawing it, prohibition had made alcohol a precious commodity.
16:14 And millions of Americans would become outlaws as they
16:16 found a variety of ways to score illegal booze.
16:18 For example, many Americans began making their own liquor.
16:21 Illegal stills for making moonshine were found by prohibition
16:24 agents from the hills of Kentucky and the caves
16:27 of Arizona to parking lots in major cities
16:28 and even in the homes of prohibition-supporting politicians.
16:31 Oh come on now, fellas, I voted for prohibition.
16:34 I'm not gonna have an illegal still.
16:36 What's this?
16:37 That's my son Freddie.
16:38 Say hi, Freddy.
16:39 Sir, this is obviously an illegal still.
16:41 How dare you?
16:42 Hey, what's this in the bathtub?
16:44 That's bath water.
16:45 Why does it taste like alcohol?
16:47 Here's a better question.
16:48 Why are you tasting my bath water, weirdo?
16:50 Come on, Freddy.
16:51 Let's get away from these perverts.
16:53 To discourage moonshining,
16:54 the government began adding extra toxins to many of the products moonshiners
16:57 were using which resulted in many cases of severe illness and death.
17:01 But alcohol wasn't just being made at home.
17:03 Along America's vast coastlines,
17:05 rumrunners smuggled alcohol into the country by sea.
17:08 A floating supermarket known as Rum Row extended
17:10 along the East Coast just beyond America's maritime limit.
17:13 And bootleggers frequently sailed out in small
17:15 boats to pick up shipments of booze.
17:17 These bootleggers could then be found selling their illegal
17:20 products everywhere even in the halls of Congress.
17:23 Wow, pop, one day, I wanna work here.
17:25 Well, son, if you work hard and never give up,
17:28 one day even you could be a massive hypocrite.
17:31 Even President Harding was known to serve his cabinet bootlegged whiskey.
17:34 And some bootleggers were so successful,
17:36 they became bazillionaires such as Roy Olmsted,
17:39 an ex-cop who became one of the biggest
17:41 employers in the Seattle area from smuggling booze.
17:43 Unfortunately, all of his whiskey came from Canada.
17:46 Yuck.
17:47 All of this criminality was being
17:48 made possible by copious amounts of corruption.
17:51 Across the country, armies of government officials
17:53 were persuaded to turn a blind eye.
17:55 Bootleggers became so rich it was no problem to stuff a couple thousand dollars
17:58 into the front pocket of the police
18:00 chief or the mayor or their disapproving mother.
18:02 And some cops were getting almost as rich as the bootleggers.
18:04 All right, men, everyone gather in.
18:06 I've received word that one of you has been taking bribes from bootleggers.
18:10 Any ideas who?
18:11 Kevin perhaps, got any thoughts?
18:13 No, sir.
18:14 Many police officers came from the same communities that drank a lot and they
18:18 weren't about to arrest their own granddads for knocking back some homemade gin.
18:21 But all this isn't to say there was no enforcement.
18:23 Plenty of government officials were doing their best to enforce the new laws.
18:27 And some unlucky individuals received very harsh penalties such as a Michigan
18:31 mother who is sentenced to life in prison for small-scale moonshining.
18:34 Cases like these were widely reported in the media
18:37 and only served to make prohibition even more unpopular.
18:39 But not just that, the media also loved
18:41 to cover the exploits of the most famous bootleggers,
18:44 turning them into national icons.
18:46 One of the biggest bootleggers was a man named George Remus.
18:50 Originally a lawyer,
18:51 he watched as his bootlegger clients paid off enormous fines like
18:54 it was nothing and proclaimed bootlegging is the business for me!
18:57 But unlike most bootleggers,
18:59 Remus had big brain and he came up with a pretty clever system.
19:02 See, there were millions of gallons of liquor
19:04 produced before prohibition that were sitting in distillery warehouses.
19:08 And it could only be sold with government permission to drug companies.
19:10 So Remus set up his own drug company and bought all the liquor,
19:13 then he set up his own transport company to transport the liquor,
19:16 and then he would send his own men
19:18 out with guns to intercept his own transport vehicles, and this would happen.
19:21 Hey man, this is a stick-up.
19:23 Oh no, please don't hurt me.
19:24 I won't hesitate to shoot.
19:27 Please, I have a wife and kids.
19:28 Handover all the whiskey, fatty.
19:31 Hey, fatty isn't in the script, you jerk!
19:35 (sobs) After stealing all the whiskey from himself,
19:38 he could then sell it for big bucks.
19:40 The perfect crime.
19:41 Unfortunately, Remus was eventually caught by a goody two-shoes
19:45 prohibition director in Indiana who wouldn't take Remus's bribes.
19:48 And the government found Remus guilty of violating the Volstead Act 3,000 times.
19:52 For two years as Remus sat in prison,
19:54 his wife promised to take care of all of his money,
19:56 and by take care of his money,
19:58 she meant having an affair with a prohibition agent,
20:00 sell off everything Remus owned, and file for divorce.
20:02 When Remus finally got out and found
20:04 his big fancy mansion empty with his wife gone,
20:06 he reportedly broke out in tears.
20:09 A few months later, during the divorce trial,
20:11 he spotted his wife in a car in Cincinnati.
20:13 Remus hopped in a cab and asked the driver to run her off the road.
20:16 The driver was like, okay.
20:18 Then Remus got out of the cab and shot his wife dead.
20:21 He immediately handed himself into the police.
20:23 And his next trial, this time for murder, became a national sensation.
20:28 Remus defended himself, claiming insanity,
20:31 occasionally carrying out skillful questioning,
20:33 occasionally crying in the corner.
20:34 But the nation felt bad for him.
20:36 His wife had screwed him over.
20:37 And so when after just 19 minutes of deliberation,
20:40 the jury returned and declared him not guilty.
20:43 The court erupted into celebration.
20:45 And just to remind you, this guy bluntly admitted to murdering his wife.
20:49 The American justice system.
20:52 As alcohol poured into the nation, a lot of it was going to a new
20:55 type of drinking establishment that had been booming in popularity,
20:58 a secret drinking establishment.
20:59 So secret that from the outside, they often looked like ordinary shops or homes,
21:04 so secret that you usually needed a password to get
21:07 in, so secret that everybody knew about them, speakeasies.
21:10 And once you were in, the party went all night long.
21:13 Scantily clad flappers, snake ladies, jazz.
21:16 It was a roaring time to be alive.
21:18 Some publications even posted reviews of these illegal
21:21 clubs and bribes galore kept the party going.
21:23 It seemed like half the police officers and federal agents
21:26 in cities like New York were receiving kickbacks from speakeasy owners.
21:29 Hey, what the Kevin Costner is going on here?
21:33 Officer O'Hannity, taking bribes, why am I not surprised?
21:38 Prohibition director Simmons?
21:40 For shame.
21:41 Mom?
21:42 What would dad say?
21:43 Ask him yourself.
21:44 Dad would say quit being such a wet blanket and let daddy earn his tips.
21:48 Anytime a speakeasy was shut down by authorities,
21:50 it seemed like three more would just pop up elsewhere.
21:52 And some neighborhoods were so full of them that one resident began hanging
21:55 a sign to try to keep party-goers from constantly knocking on her door.
21:58 It really seemed like the new laws regarding
22:00 alcohol in some places were simply being ignored.
22:03 And one prohibition agent who traveled the country
22:05 liked to see which city was the most defiant by timing how long it took for him
22:09 to be offered a beer after he arrived.
22:11 His winner?
22:11 New Orleans where a cab driver offered him a drink after just 35 seconds.
22:15 Bravo!
22:17 Many voices in Congress were already
22:18 speaking out against prohibition and its failures.
22:21 To display how ridiculous the whole thing was,
22:23 one Republican congressmen gathered the media to all
22:26 come and watch him drink a homemade beer.
22:27 When he asked a passing police officer if he'd like to arrest him,
22:30 the officer said no.
22:31 Hey Wayne, is all this what you had in mind?
22:33 I thought we were gonna make the country
22:35 better but it almost seems like it's worse.
22:37 What do you mean?
22:38 Alcohol consumption is down.
22:40 Well, that may be true in your small town world,
22:42 but it says here drinking in some areas
22:44 is up as are arrests for public intoxication,
22:46 drunk driving, and incidents of liver cirrhosis.
22:48 The general chaos has turned America into a nation
22:50 of criminals with no respect for the law.
22:52 And all these attempts at enforcement are just costing
22:54 the economy valuable money and eating up judicial time and resources.
22:56 Release the lions.
22:57 (lion roaring) The social change and corruption that Wheeler
23:00 and the Anti-Saloon League had been so eager to prevent,
23:03 in the cities at least, was surging.
23:05 See, when something is legal, you can usually regulate and control it,
23:09 but make that thing illegal and often anything becomes fair game.
23:12 Legal drinking age, gone.
23:14 Mandatory closing hours for clubs and bars, gone.
23:17 Other unspoken sociocultural rules surrounding alcohol, gone, gone, gone.
23:22 In speakeasies, different genders and ethnicities were beginning
23:24 to mingle in a way they hadn't done before.
23:26 The roaring 20s saw a monumental shift in culture, not least of all,
23:30 because now men and women could flirt
23:32 in public without being damned for eternity.
23:34 An outraged Wayne Wheeler did his best to make
23:36 sure that anyone breaking the law was punished.
23:38 He had even stricter legislation put in place in New York.
23:41 But all this did was clogged up
23:43 the justice system with petty drinking violations,
23:45 and judges began letting everyone off with like fines so
23:47 the judges could get back to dealing with things that actually mattered,
23:50 things like murder, and there was plenty of murder,
23:53 because bootleggers and moonshiners were one thing,
23:56 but prohibition had given another kind
23:58 of criminal an opportunity to make a fortune, mobsters and gangsters.
24:02 Hey Fat Tony, big news.
24:04 Hey Fat Joey, what's up?
24:06 I just got word from Fat Louis here that the government is outlawing alcohol.
24:09 You know what that means?
24:10 That means we're gonna be rich.
24:13 Quick, call Fat Paulie and let's go hijack a liquor truck now.
24:16 All right.
24:17 Hang on, let me tell my wife first.
24:19 Hey Fat Susan, no pizza for Fat Joey tonight, capeesh?
24:22 Stopped calling me Fat Susan.
24:25 Oh yeah, forget about it.
24:27 Rival gangs began to battle in American cities, raiding each other's transports,
24:31 assassinating rivals,
24:32 and trying to take control of their city's illicit booze trade.
24:35 Every city had its top dog.
24:36 Detroit had The Purple Gang, New England had Charles King Solomon,
24:40 but no city was as infamous for gang violence and murder as Chicago.
24:44 The city had multiple gang factions, and at first,
24:46 they agreed to stay in their own neighborhoods,
24:48 but the thing about criminals is that they're criminals,
24:51 and the agreements inevitably broke down.
24:52 One day the leader of the Italian South Side
24:55 Gang was walking along the street when this happened.
24:57 (machine guns firing) And he was like, "You know,
25:00 I think I'm done with this," and left for New York,
25:02 leaving his crime empire to his chief enforcer, none other than Al Capone.
25:07 Having been knifed in the face in his younger years,
25:09 Capone earned himself the name Scarface.
25:11 Although interestingly,
25:12 he hated that nickname and preferred to be called Snorky.
25:15 Snorky was ruthless just like any other gang leader in America,
25:19 but what set him apart from others,
25:20 the reason he's become synonymous with 1920's gang warfare is this.
25:24 Most other gang leaders would try to keep
25:25 a low profile because they're killing and murdering and stuff,
25:28 but Capone lived for the fame and kept an extremely high public profile,
25:32 frequently speaking with the media about his exploits
25:34 and presenting himself as a gracious host, providing Chicago with good times.
25:39 No need to thank me fellows.
25:40 I just provide the city with a valuable
25:42 commodity while doing away with the competition.
25:45 You mean you murder people?
25:45 Whoa, who said anything about murder?
25:48 I just forced my rivals underground.
25:51 When you do the thing with the hands, it seems like you're talking about murder.
25:53 Whoa, look at you with the brains.
25:55 No, no, I just help people retire from life.
25:59 So murder?
26:00 Whoa!
26:01 Al Snorky Capone was somewhat of an enigma, brutal in how he dealt with enemies,
26:05 but in front of the camera he was all smiles.
26:07 One day he'd be ordering hit after hit,
26:09 the next, he'd be signing autographs in Wrigley Field.
26:11 One day he'd be bludgeoning members of his own
26:13 gang with a baseball bat for conspiring against him,
26:15 the next, he'd be playing Santa at a nearby parochial school.
26:18 And no murder could ever be traced back to him.
26:20 Just like every other criminal,
26:22 he stuffed the pockets of city officials with cold hard cash,
26:25 and any who did try to oppose him sometimes found themselves
26:27 being thrown down the steps of city hall in broad daylight.
26:30 Problem solved.
26:32 The public couldn't get enough of Capone.
26:33 He quickly became a household name
26:34 as people romanticized the gang life he lived,
26:37 and this became a source of concern for the people at the very top.
26:40 President Hoover.
26:41 What is it now, Miles?
26:43 I'm busy.
26:44 Well, it's just that there's a lot of crime, sir.
26:46 Crime.
26:47 How long has that been happening?
26:48 Well, since the dawn of man, sir.
26:50 What?
26:51 Would you like me to blame it on the Democrats again?
26:52 No, Miles, I want you to blame it on squirrels.
26:55 Yes, the Democrats!
26:56 Now stop wasting my time.
26:57 Since having a crime lord controlling public officials and winning
27:00 the hearts of the people probably wasn't a good thing,
27:02 Hoover personally ordered that something be done about this Capone fellow.
27:05 But before he knew it,
27:06 President Hoover was also dealing with another major problem.
27:09 You know 'em, you love 'em.
27:11 Women.
27:13 The prohibition era had been going on for nearly a decade,
27:15 and anyone with a brain could see that it really wasn't going very well.
27:18 One person with a brain was Pauline Sabin,
27:20 an extremely influential and rich woman
27:23 who served on the Republican National Committee,
27:25 fund-raised for Republican presidents,
27:26 and had a secret wine room in her giant mansion.
27:29 She initially supported prohibition but was now
27:31 disgusted at the chaos it had created.
27:33 And she began a new women's movement,
27:35 this time not for prohibition, but against it.
27:37 Being the extremely influential woman she was,
27:40 her new organization gained nearly 1.5 million members within two years,
27:44 five times that of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
27:47 She hated that the WCTU claimed to speak for all women
27:50 and she began calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment.
27:53 President Hoover, I helped fund your campaign
27:55 and now I want you to end prohibition.
27:57 Miles, what is it I say when I'm not gonna do anything?
27:59 You'll look into it, sir.
28:01 Oh yeah, that's right.
28:02 Pauline, I'll look into it.
28:05 Sabin gave speeches on the steps of Congress and helped
28:07 started growing push among the American people against prohibition.
28:10 But Hoover, a prohibitionist himself, wasn't budging.
28:13 Then on the 14th of February 1929, something happened that shocked the nation.
28:18 Men thought to be working for Al Capone tricked some
28:21 Irish mobsters into meeting them at a garage in Chicago,
28:24 thinking they were there to purchase hijacked whiskey,
28:26 instead the mobsters were lined up against the wall
28:29 by men dressed as police and they were shot.
28:32 The Valentine's Day Massacre had people outraged.
28:35 It was cruel and almost felt like
28:37 American mobsters had finally crossed the line.
28:39 People were sick of the violence,
28:41 and in part they blamed prohibition for helping to create it.
28:44 The pressure on Hoover to do something was steadily increasing.
28:47 Fine.
28:48 Miles, I want you to put a report
28:50 together to see if this whole thing is working.
28:51 You mean the thing where mobsters are becoming
28:53 increasingly powerful and massacring each other in the streets
28:56 and everyone is disregarding the law and half
28:57 our public officials are corrupt and taking bribes?
28:59 That thing?
29:00 Yeah, I wanna know if it's working or not, Miles.
29:02 Stop wasting my time.
29:04 Hoover continued to drag his feet on prohibition,
29:06 but after the Valentine's Day Massacre, he was still determined to do one thing.
29:09 He wanted Al Capone in prison.
29:12 Since Capone had been so careful,
29:13 the FBI were having a hard time charging him with anything,
29:16 but eventually they got him.
29:17 Capone, we know you're supplying Chicago with alcohol
29:20 and you've been involved in countless murders.
29:21 Whoa, look at you with the crazy talk.
29:24 I ain't done none of that stuff.
29:25 But you're rich, right?
29:27 You're damn right I am.
29:28 And so where'd all the money come from, Capone?
29:30 All right, I'll let you in on a little secret,
29:32 but you gotta promise not to tell anyone, okay?
29:35 I don't pay my taxes.
29:38 Whoa!
29:40 For all of his murdering, the IRS finally got Capone on tax evasion.
29:43 At his trial, he didn't seem too concern though and spent
29:46 most of his time having a laugh with his lawyers.
29:49 Hey Capone, I gotta know, why are you so confident you're gonna win here?
29:52 Well, your honor, because I'm an honest
29:54 man with a big heart who's passionate about working for the good of the people
29:57 and also because I threatened the entire jury's families.
29:59 Luckily at the last minute,
30:01 the judge replaced the entire jury pool with a new one
30:03 that Capone's men hadn't yet got to, and Capone was found guilty.
30:06 He was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison,
30:09 the harshest penalty ever given to a tax evader.
30:12 But even with Capone locked away,
30:13 the violence in Chicago and other cities continued,
30:16 and in response, the movement against prohibition continued to grow.
30:19 And the final nail in prohibition's coffin came in 1929.
30:23 After a decade of booming economic growth under three Republican presidents,
30:27 the stock market plummeted and America was
30:29 thrown into the grips of the Great Depression.
30:31 It was an awful time.
30:33 One out of every five workers, 15 million people, would lose their jobs.
30:37 Half the nation's banks failed.
30:39 Temporary shantytowns were built for the broke and homeless in public parks.
30:43 Suddenly very few people had time to care about prohibition.
30:47 Expensive enforcement of an unenforceable law didn't
30:50 seem like that big of a priority
30:51 when people were having their homes repossessed and losing their life savings.
30:55 And many began to argue that repealing prohibition would
30:57 create vital jobs and tax revenue for the government,
31:00 yet President Hoover doubled down.
31:02 Here's that report you asked for, sir.
31:04 Gimme.
31:05 Prohibition is great.
31:07 Fantastic news.
31:09 Sir, it says here prohibition is great
31:11 at undermining the rule of law in America.
31:13 Miles, it says the word great.
31:15 That means good.
31:17 Now stop wasting my time.
31:20 The public increasingly shocked at the violence they saw on the streets,
31:22 the corruption they saw in the government,
31:24 the general disregard for the law, and now an economic calamity, had had enough.
31:29 For his reelection, Hoover faced the democratic candidate who
31:32 promised to finally do something about prohibition, Franklin D.
31:36 Roosevelt.
31:36 Crowds cheered as FDR made his campaign
31:39 speeches promising to modify the Volstead Act.
31:41 And Pauline Sabin, a lifelong Republican,
31:43 along with her 1.5 million supporters, endorsed Roosevelt.
31:47 And on election day, it was a landslide.
31:49 Before FDR had even taken office, Republicans in Congress began the process
31:54 of passing the 21st Amendment to repeal prohibition.
31:56 One of FDR's first acts as president was to pass the Beer
32:00 Permit Act which made beer legal while the new amendment was being ratified.
32:03 In 1933 with the passage of the 21st Amendment, prohibition was finally over,
32:09 and the people celebrated like they had just won a World War.
32:13 Bars and taverns were packed.
32:14 The WCTU were inconsolable.
32:17 Wayne Wheeler was dead.
32:19 And the celebration, particularly in American cities, was intense.
32:23 Heading into the mid-1930s, the effects of prohibition were clear to see.
32:27 From now on, culture around drinking had changed with men
32:30 and women drinking together not in saloons but in bars and taverns.
32:34 The crime syndicates that had been given so much power
32:36 through prohibition remained powerful as they moved on to other things.
32:40 Some states opted to remain dry with Oklahoma
32:42 only repealing its prohibition laws in 1959.
32:46 To this day, there are still counties in America with some form of prohibition.
32:50 So what did we learn today, kids?
32:52 What's the big lesson here?
32:54 What's the moral of this story that we can
32:55 all take away and apply to our day-to-day lives?
32:58 Maybe that you shouldn't force your own morals on others who don't share them?
33:01 Maybe that if you tell Americans not to do something,
33:03 that's the one thing they'll definitely do.
33:06 Or maybe there is no lesson.
33:07 Maybe we're all just a bunch of dumb stinky idiots and we're all doomed.
33:11 The end.
33:13 (upbeat music)