Prohibition - OverSimplified

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Good morning, Honey.

What's for breakfast?

The usual.

Two caskets of rum, a mug of hard cider,

and a full bottle of wine.

Oh boy.

Oh, I'm running late.

I'll have to take it with me.

Don't forget your lunch.

It's a six-pack of beer, a flask of whiskey,

six shots of tequila, and as a special treat, a banana.

Ah gee whiz, I'm gonna be smashed today.

Enjoy your day of operating sharp, dangerous farm equipment.

I can't believe this is an acceptable way to live.

God bless America.

Okay, gotta go.

(loud crash)

I love my life!

(animated music)

America, the land of beautiful strip malls,

top class infrastructure, and wonderful urban sprawl.

Ah, yes, beautiful America.

But what's the most American thing you can think of?

The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore,

a crazy lady in a mobility scooter yelling at a pigeon?

Well, what if I told you the answer is alcohol?

That's right.

When the Puritans arrived on America's shores,

they brought a ship packed with beer.

George Washington provided his men

with a daily cup of whiskey.

Andrew Jackson's inauguration party

left the White House so trashed

that everybody had to be ordered outside.

Frederick Douglass said whiskey

made him feel like a president.

Me too, Frederick, me too.

Americans drink at breakfast.

Doctors prescribe their patients hard liquor.

In the 19th century, Americans drink three times

as much as their modern-day counterparts.

That's a lot of whiskey.

Hey Jerry, how's that report coming along?

Already done, sir.

I've also organized your paperwork, watered your flowers,

and been a father figure to your children.

Wait a minute.

(sniffs) What's that smell?

Have you been drinking at work?

No sir, I would never.

Well, why not?!

Everyone else is doing it.

But I got all my work done!

You're fired!

(glass shattering)

(people cheering)

Americans drink at work.

They drink at barn raisings, baptisms, and public hangings.

Heavy drinking was so normal

that it was as American as apple pie.

Hi everyone, my name is Ron and I'm an alcoholic.

Get over yourself, Ron.

We're all alcoholics.

But more and more Americans began to wonder

whether all of this truly was a normal way to live.

Were Americans drinking perhaps a little too much?

Well, one group in particular

thought the answer to that was yes.

You know 'em.

You love 'em.

Women.

(men laughing)

Oh, crap, women!

Run!

(crowd yelling)

Hang on!

We just want to talk.

Women talking in public?

That's outrageous.

Come on, Fred, you've got two kids and a wife at home,

yet here you are spending your entire paycheck on booze.

And you, Dr. Spanky,

you run the cusp of discovering time travel,

but what did you discover instead?

The sweet, sweet joys of whiskey.

That's right, alcohol.

It's destroying our families, our jobs, and our homes.

She's right, she's right.

Hang on, men.

Don't let them get to you.

This saloon is our safe space where our wives and children

can't annoy us with reality where we're free to be real men.

He's right, he's right, I am a man.

And what is it real men do?

Take care of their families.

I don't know what she's talking about.

Do you take care of your family?

No.

We drink beer, we shoot guns, and we mud wrestle!

(men cheering)

As America's heavy drinking ruined more and more lives,

moral resistance began to arise

and women were at the forefront

taking matters into their own hands

at a time when women doing just about anything was shocking.

They'd had enough of being victim

to their husbands' heavy drinking

and they were gonna do something unprecedented.

You're going to what?

I'm going to protest.

(laughs)

(coughs)

Oh sweetie, women can't protest.

(crowd yelling)

Starting in Ohio before spreading nationwide,

women began a crusade against alcohol.

They marched through towns and cities,

singing hymns, gathering outside saloons,

and praying on their knees.

Women praying was so terrifying

that in some towns schools were shut and business stagnated.

On one occasion, firemen were called out

to hose down the dangerous praying women.

On another, the owner of a beer garden

reportedly hold a cannon outside

and threatened to reduce the savage women to dust.

Nevertheless, they persisted.

They formed the WCTU in 1874 and they organized.

They set up homes for inebriate women.

They installed water fountains in public parks.

They wrote textbooks for schoolchildren

that contained some interesting claims

about drinking alcohol.

Here's little Timmy.

Uh-oh, looks like Timmy's gonna have his first drink.

He's taking a small sip of whiskey

and Timmy has spontaneously combusted.

The end.

The women's efforts weren't in vain.

In small towns across America,

drugstores agreed to stop fulfilling

prescriptions for alcohol.

Men committed themselves to giving up drink.

Inspired by the women's moral fervor,

some saloon owners closed their doors.

The women's crusade and other temperance movements

were forcing people to reconsider alcohol's role in society,

and more people began to side

with the growing temperance movement.

Many states had even begun enacting

their own dry laws that restricted

the sale and use of alcohol.

One of them was Kansas

where alcohol had been outlawed since 1881.

Despite this, many illegal saloons remained open

and authorities had done just about nothing to stop them.

One woman, disgusted by what she saw,

decided she would take the law into her own hands,

and not just any woman, a terrifying hatchet-wielding,

sweet old lady named Carrie Nation.

Armed with her trustee hatchet

and a bag of what she called smashers,

she traveled from town to town visiting saloons,

but she wasn't there to get smashed,

she was there to smash.

The men could do nothing but cower

as sweet little Carrie hulked out

and tore the place to shreds.

She went to Kiowa and smashy smashed,

Wichita, smashy smashed,

to Piqua, smashy smashed.

On a couple of occasions, she was arrested,

but each time they were like,

okay, Carrie, we're gonna let you go

so long as you promise to be a good girl

and not smash up any more saloons, okay?

Screw you pig! (spits)

Yeah, I think she's gonna be all right.

Smash, smash, smash.

Carrie's tactics shocked the other members

of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,

but she assured them, and this is a quote,

"Ladies, you do not know how much joy you will have

"until you smash, smash, smash."

Carrie became a household name

and she hoped her unusual tactics

would spread across the country,

but unfortunately,

many of the women's movements eventually slowed down.

Why?

Well, because of this kinda thing.

Thelma!

I ripped my pants again.

Ugh, well, you'll have to sew them yourself

because I'm going out protesting.

What?!

I don't know how to sew.

What if I burn the house down and get eaten by alligators?

What?

Don't be stupid, Mitch!

Look, I've gotta go.

Call me stupid?

She's the one who's stupid.

(glass shattering)

(loud explosion)

Hey Thelma!

Look who's stupid now?

See, while the women were out protesting,

there was nobody to do the cooking and cleaning

and being seen and not heard,

and they gradually had to return to their duties at home.

But where the women had got the ball rolling,

a new movement was about to take that ball

all the way to Washington, DC.

I'm talking about the Anti-Saloon League.

The Anti-Saloon League was a political pressure group

run by a very sweet-looking old man.

But don't let that deceive you.

This guy was an evil genius.

While the women's movements

were interested in a whole range of issues,

Wayne Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League

only cared about enemy number one, Mr. Al Cohol,

and as a result, they were extremely effective.

They were able to exploit the fears of the American people.

And I mean everyone's fears.

Here's how they did it.

Hello, sir, welcome to the Liberal Progressive rally.

Why don't you introduce yourself?

Well, I'm Paddy and I'm an immigrant from Ireland.

And tell me, Paddy, do you drink?

Oh yes, I drink a lot.

See folks?

People like Paddy come here looking for a better life

only to end up drunk in the gutter.

Don't worry, sir, we're gonna help you.

(people applauding)

Hey man, you're doing great.

I just need you for one more thing.

Hey Christian Conservatives, this is Paddy.

He's a dirty Catholic Irish immigrant

who's come to destroy America

with his alcohol-fueled debauchery.

(people cheering)

Workers were told alcohol was a capitalist ploy

to keep them subjugated.

Factory owners were told

alcohol was making their irresponsible workers lazy.

The Black community was warned

alcohol was hindering its progress

while racists were warned alcohol

would turn Black men into brutes.

In one of the most confusing eras of American politics,

totally opposing groups found themselves agreeing

on at least one thing, alcohol was bad.

The Anti-Saloon League also made great use of propaganda,

something prohibitionists had been doing for decades.

Take this specimen, for example,

that warns what will happen to you if you start drinking.

Let's see, first you take a drink,

you get a little rowdy,

okay, you make some new friends.

Nice.

Then you become homeless.

You turn to crime.

And but, uh-oh.

But the most effective tactic

Wheeler used to force prohibition on America

was pressure politics.

In any election he could,

Wheeler very successfully rounded support

against any politician who was in favor of alcohol.

In Ohio alone, he had 70 state representatives

and the popular Republican governor ousted from office

and replaced with prohibitionists.

Suddenly every politician in America

was afraid of Wayne Wheeler.

Even those who enjoyed alcohol in private

began pretending to be against it in public.

Alcohol is delicious.

I mean malicious.

Sorry Wayne.

I'm really drunk right now.

Then it really hit the fan in 1917 when America found itself

fighting in the First World War against Germany.

Anti-German sentiment exploded.

Sauerkraut became Liberty Cabbage.

German measles became Liberty measles.

And dachshunds became the embodiment of evil.

See America?

You've always been this way.

The biggest brewers in America were German,

and Wheeler saw to it that drinking alcohol

became akin to pro-German treason.

The German brewers desperately tried to fight back,

creating their own propaganda,

presenting beer as a healthy beverage,

one that you could even give to your kids.

As you can imagine, it didn't go down well.

President Wilson instituted some temporary

wartime prohibition measures to save grain for food.

And with many in the country now in support of prohibition,

all that was left was to make it law.

One problem was that taxes on alcohol made up nearly 40%

of the US government's annual revenue,

and the government wasn't just about to give that up.

No problem.

The Anti-Saloon League helped lobby for the creation

of a new income tax on the American people.

And just like that,

the government was no longer reliant on alcohol.

Prohibition was finally introduced to Congress in 1913,

not just as a law but a constitutional amendment.

In 1917 as the House held their final vote

on the prohibition amendment,

Wheeler was watching from the gallery.

You spineless cowards.

I know half of you drink

yet here you are bowing down to Ned Flanders up there.

Look at him like he's some kind of Caesar.

Ugh, don't be so dramatic.

I obviously don't think I'm Caesar.

Now release the lions.

(lion roaring)

In the end, prohibition passed the House easily,

282 votes to 128.

And the states ratified the new amendment by 1919.

America, a nation obsessed with liberty and freedom,

had just voluntarily given up its private right

to choose Whether or not to drink alcohol.

We did it, folks! (crowd cheering)

We fixed everything.

America will be perfect forever.

But you just dissolved America's fifth largest industry

and lost tens of thousands of jobs for us immigrants.

No, you idiot.

You don't get it.

We helped you, idiot.

Ugh, I could really go for a beer.

Oh no!

Immediately after prohibition went into effect,

alcohol consumption in America

decreased as Americans followed the law

and tried not drinking.

Man, if we're gonna be law-abiding good boys,

we need something else to fill the dark lonely void

that delicious beer once did.

Well, how about we crack open a nice cold can of water?

Hell, yeah, toss it over.

Nah, this isn't doing it for me.

Let's try knitting.

This isn't filling the dark void at all.

Wanna play some kites?

Ah, screw it.

Let's go get some illegal beer.

While it seemed like many Americans supported prohibition,

after the law went into effect,

it seemed like just as many Americans

intended to keep on drinking

and they would go on to find a variety of ways

to break the new law.

Here's a question for you.

Do you like breaking the law?

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Now where were we?

Oh yeah, punching Paddy,

passing prohibition, and procuring pints.

Pretty soon after the new law went into effect,

the failures of prohibition

were already beginning to rear their ugly heads.

For starters, the details of the new prohibition law

written by none other than Wayne Wheeler himself

turned out to be more draconian than expected.

Many prohibition supporters

only wanted to outlaw hard liquor

and hoped beer would remain legal,

but the Volstead Act outlawed anything over .5%.

That would make Liberty Cabbage illegal.

Secondly, the new law was full of loopholes

that Americans very quickly began to exploit.

For example, while the sale

and manufacturer of liquor was illegal,

drinking it wasn't.

And you could also keep any alcohol you had

before the law went into effect.

So many private clubs hoarded huge amounts of alcohol

that saw them through the entire prohibition period.

Whiskey intended for medicinal purposes was also allowed

and doctors basically became bartenders.

It looked as though a full-on epidemic had broken out

as there was a sudden surge in prescriptions for whiskey.

Sacramental wines used by churches and synagogues

were also permitted.

Orders for communion wine suspiciously skyrocketed

by millions of gallons.

And as rabbis had access to religious wine,

suddenly everyone was becoming a rabbi.

You had Rabbi Pat O'Leary, Rabbi LL Cool J, Rabbi Fluffy.

But don't worry.

I'm sure all these definitely legitimate religious figures

couldn't possibly be selling wine

in the back alley after mass.

Yep, definitely nothing strange going on here.

New products also hit the shelves in stores,

such as Vine-Glo, a brick of dehydrated grape juice,

itself not alcoholic and therefore perfectly legal,

but the packaging did contain a strangely specific warning.

After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water,

do not place the liquid in a jug

in the cupboard for 20 days,

because then it would turn into a wine.

I'll take a thousand.

Yes, sir.

Now at this point, I want you to think back for me,

if you will, to the year 2005.

You're the coolest kid around

and you convince your parents to rent

the greatest movie of all time from your local Blockbuster.

But the movie starts with a strange message,

something about not downloading a car.

You immediately disregard that and hop on Kazaa

to download the greatest song of all time,

and in the process drain your dad's bank account

with copious amounts of ransomware.

You were breaking the law, you bad boy or girl.

But did anyone come to arrest you?

No.

That's my point.

If no one is enforcing a law while everyone's breaking it,

is it really a law?

And so it was with prohibition.

See, the conservative-led governments of the decade

were also the kind of people

who believed in small government spending.

So they passed a law

that would be extremely difficult to enforce

but also didn't wanna spend

any of the money required to enforce it.

The newly created Bureau of Prohibition

only had 1500 agents to cover the entire country.

That's one agent for every 70,666 Americans

in a massive country with 12,000 miles of coastline

and one gigantic land border with Canada.

Good luck schmuckos.

And all these clever little loopholes

people were using to score legal booze

were only just the beginning.

America was about to devolve

into alcohol-fueled criminal chaos.

By outlawing it,

prohibition had made alcohol a precious commodity.

And millions of Americans would become outlaws

as they found a variety of ways to score illegal booze.

For example, many Americans began making their own liquor.

Illegal stills for making moonshine

were found by prohibition agents

from the hills of Kentucky and the caves of Arizona

to parking lots in major cities and even in the homes

of prohibition-supporting politicians.

Oh come on now, fellas, I voted for prohibition.

I'm not gonna have an illegal still.

What's this?

That's my son Freddie.

Say hi, Freddy.

Sir, this is obviously an illegal still.

How dare you?

Hey, what's this in the bathtub?

That's bath water.

Why does it taste like alcohol?

Here's a better question.

Why are you tasting my bath water, weirdo?

Come on, Freddy.

Let's get away from these perverts.

To discourage moonshining,

the government began adding extra toxins

to many of the products moonshiners were using

which resulted in many cases of severe illness and death.

But alcohol wasn't just being made at home.

Along America's vast coastlines,

rumrunners smuggled alcohol into the country by sea.

A floating supermarket known as Rum Row

extended along the East Coast

just beyond America's maritime limit.

And bootleggers frequently sailed out in small boats

to pick up shipments of booze.

These bootleggers could then be found

selling their illegal products everywhere

even in the halls of Congress.

Wow, pop, one day, I wanna work here.

Well, son, if you work hard and never give up,

one day even you could be a massive hypocrite.

Even President Harding was known to serve his cabinet

bootlegged whiskey.

And some bootleggers were so successful,

they became bazillionaires such as Roy Olmsted,

an ex-cop who became one of the biggest employers

in the Seattle area from smuggling booze.

Unfortunately, all of his whiskey came from Canada.

Yuck.

All of this criminality was being made possible

by copious amounts of corruption.

Across the country, armies of government officials

were persuaded to turn a blind eye.

Bootleggers became so rich

it was no problem to stuff a couple thousand dollars

into the front pocket of the police chief

or the mayor or their disapproving mother.

And some cops were getting

almost as rich as the bootleggers.

All right, men, everyone gather in.

I've received word that one of you

has been taking bribes from bootleggers.

Any ideas who?

Kevin perhaps, got any thoughts?

No, sir.

Many police officers

came from the same communities that drank a lot

and they weren't about to arrest their own granddads

for knocking back some homemade gin.

But all this isn't to say

there was no enforcement.

Plenty of government officials

were doing their best to enforce the new laws.

And some unlucky individuals

received very harsh penalties

such as a Michigan mother who is sentenced to life in prison

for small-scale moonshining.

Cases like these were widely reported in the media

and only served to make prohibition even more unpopular.

But not just that,

the media also loved to cover the exploits

of the most famous bootleggers,

turning them into national icons.

One of the biggest bootleggers

was a man named George Remus.

Originally a lawyer,

he watched as his bootlegger clients

paid off enormous fines like it was nothing

and proclaimed bootlegging is the business for me!

But unlike most bootleggers, Remus had big brain

and he came up with a pretty clever system.

See, there were millions of gallons of liquor

produced before prohibition

that were sitting in distillery warehouses.

And it could only be sold

with government permission to drug companies.

So Remus set up his own drug company

and bought all the liquor,

then he set up his own transport company

to transport the liquor,

and then he would send his own men out with guns

to intercept his own transport vehicles,

and this would happen.

Hey man, this is a stick-up.

Oh no, please don't hurt me.

I won't hesitate to shoot.

Please, I have a wife and kids.

Handover all the whiskey, fatty.

Hey, fatty isn't in the script, you jerk! (sobs)

After stealing all the whiskey from himself,

he could then sell it for big bucks.

The perfect crime.

Unfortunately, Remus was eventually caught

by a goody two-shoes prohibition director in Indiana

who wouldn't take Remus's bribes.

And the government found Remus guilty

of violating the Volstead Act 3,000 times.

For two years as Remus sat in prison,

his wife promised to take care of all of his money,

and by take care of his money,

she meant having an affair with a prohibition agent,

sell off everything Remus owned, and file for divorce.

When Remus finally got out

and found his big fancy mansion empty with his wife gone,

he reportedly broke out in tears.

A few months later, during the divorce trial,

he spotted his wife in a car in Cincinnati.

Remus hopped in a cab and asked the driver

to run her off the road.

The driver was like, okay.

Then Remus got out of the cab and shot his wife dead.

He immediately handed himself into the police.

And his next trial, this time for murder,

became a national sensation.

Remus defended himself, claiming insanity,

occasionally carrying out skillful questioning,

occasionally crying in the corner.

But the nation felt bad for him.

His wife had screwed him over.

And so when after just 19 minutes of deliberation,

the jury returned and declared him not guilty.

The court erupted into celebration.

And just to remind you,

this guy bluntly admitted to murdering his wife.

The American justice system.

As alcohol poured into the nation,

a lot of it was going

to a new type of drinking establishment

that had been booming in popularity,

a secret drinking establishment.

So secret that from the outside,

they often looked like ordinary shops or homes,

so secret that you usually needed a password to get in,

so secret that everybody knew about them, speakeasies.

And once you were in, the party went all night long.

Scantily clad flappers, snake ladies, jazz.

It was a roaring time to be alive.

Some publications even posted reviews of these illegal clubs

and bribes galore kept the party going.

It seemed like half the police officers

and federal agents in cities like New York

were receiving kickbacks from speakeasy owners.

Hey, what the Kevin Costner is going on here?

Officer O'Hannity, taking bribes, why am I not surprised?

Prohibition director Simmons?

For shame.

Mom?

What would dad say?

Ask him yourself.

Dad would say quit being such a wet blanket

and let daddy earn his tips.

Anytime a speakeasy was shut down by authorities,

it seemed like three more would just pop up elsewhere.

And some neighborhoods were so full of them

that one resident began hanging a sign

to try to keep party-goers

from constantly knocking on her door.

It really seemed like the new laws regarding alcohol

in some places were simply being ignored.

And one prohibition agent who traveled the country

liked to see which city was the most defiant

by timing how long it took for him

to be offered a beer after he arrived.

His winner?

New Orleans where a cab driver offered him a drink

after just 35 seconds.

Bravo!

Many voices in Congress were already speaking out

against prohibition and its failures.

To display how ridiculous the whole thing was,

one Republican congressmen gathered the media

to all come and watch him drink a homemade beer.

When he asked a passing police officer

if he'd like to arrest him,

the officer said no.

Hey Wayne, is all this what you had in mind?

I thought we were gonna make the country better

but it almost seems like it's worse.

What do you mean?

Alcohol consumption is down.

Well, that may be true in your small town world,

but it says here drinking in some areas is up

as are arrests for public intoxication,

drunk driving, and incidents of liver cirrhosis.

The general chaos has turned America

into a nation of criminals with no respect for the law.

And all these attempts at enforcement

are just costing the economy valuable money

and eating up judicial time and resources.

Release the lions.

(lion roaring)

The social change and corruption

that Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League

had been so eager to prevent,

in the cities at least, was surging.

See, when something is legal,

you can usually regulate and control it,

but make that thing illegal

and often anything becomes fair game.

Legal drinking age, gone.

Mandatory closing hours for clubs and bars, gone.

Other unspoken sociocultural rules surrounding alcohol,

gone, gone, gone.

In speakeasies, different genders and ethnicities

were beginning to mingle in a way they hadn't done before.

The roaring 20s saw a monumental shift

in culture, not least of all,

because now men and women could flirt in public

without being damned for eternity.

An outraged Wayne Wheeler did his best to make sure

that anyone breaking the law was punished.

He had even stricter legislation put in place in New York.

But all this did was clogged up the justice system

with petty drinking violations,

and judges began letting everyone off with like fines

so the judges could get back to dealing with things

that actually mattered,

things like murder,

and there was plenty of murder,

because bootleggers and moonshiners were one thing,

but prohibition had given another kind of criminal

an opportunity to make a fortune,

mobsters and gangsters.

Hey Fat Tony, big news.

Hey Fat Joey, what's up?

I just got word from Fat Louis here

that the government is outlawing alcohol.

You know what that means?

That means we're gonna be rich.

Quick, call Fat Paulie

and let's go hijack a liquor truck now.

All right.

Hang on, let me tell my wife first.

Hey Fat Susan, no pizza for Fat Joey tonight, capeesh?

Stopped calling me Fat Susan.

Oh yeah, forget about it.

Rival gangs began to battle in American cities,

raiding each other's transports, assassinating rivals,

and trying to take control

of their city's illicit booze trade.

Every city had its top dog.

Detroit had The Purple Gang,

New England had Charles King Solomon,

but no city was as infamous

for gang violence and murder as Chicago.

The city had multiple gang factions,

and at first, they agreed to stay

in their own neighborhoods,

but the thing about criminals is that they're criminals,

and the agreements inevitably broke down.

One day the leader of the Italian South Side Gang

was walking along the street when this happened.

(machine guns firing)

And he was like, "You know, I think I'm done with this,"

and left for New York,

leaving his crime empire to his chief enforcer,

none other than Al Capone.

Having been knifed in the face in his younger years,

Capone earned himself the name Scarface.

Although interestingly, he hated that nickname

and preferred to be called Snorky.

Snorky was ruthless

just like any other gang leader in America,

but what set him apart from others,

the reason he's become synonymous

with 1920's gang warfare is this.

Most other gang leaders would try to keep a low profile

because they're killing and murdering and stuff,

but Capone lived for the fame

and kept an extremely high public profile,

frequently speaking with the media about his exploits

and presenting himself as a gracious host,

providing Chicago with good times.

No need to thank me fellows.

I just provide the city with a valuable commodity

while doing away with the competition.

You mean you murder people?

Whoa, who said anything about murder?

I just forced my rivals underground.

When you do the thing with the hands,

it seems like you're talking about murder.

Whoa, look at you with the brains.

No, no, I just help people retire from life.

So murder?

Whoa!

Al Snorky Capone was somewhat of an enigma,

brutal in how he dealt with enemies,

but in front of the camera he was all smiles.

One day he'd be ordering hit after hit,

the next, he'd be signing autographs in Wrigley Field.

One day he'd be bludgeoning members of his own gang

with a baseball bat for conspiring against him,

the next, he'd be playing Santa

at a nearby parochial school.

And no murder could ever be traced back to him.

Just like every other criminal,

he stuffed the pockets of city officials

with cold hard cash,

and any who did try to oppose him sometimes found themselves

being thrown down the steps of city hall in broad daylight.

Problem solved.

The public couldn't get enough of Capone.

He quickly became a household name

as people romanticized the gang life he lived,

and this became a source of concern

for the people at the very top.

President Hoover.

What is it now, Miles?

I'm busy.

Well, it's just that there's a lot of crime, sir.

Crime.

How long has that been happening?

Well, since the dawn of man, sir.

What?

Would you like me to blame it on the Democrats again?

No, Miles, I want you to blame it on squirrels.

Yes, the Democrats!

Now stop wasting my time.

Since having a crime lord controlling public officials

and winning the hearts of the people

probably wasn't a good thing,

Hoover personally ordered that something be done

about this Capone fellow.

But before he knew it,

President Hoover was also dealing

with another major problem.

You know 'em, you love 'em.

Women.

The prohibition era had been going on for nearly a decade,

and anyone with a brain could see

that it really wasn't going very well.

One person with a brain was Pauline Sabin,

an extremely influential and rich woman

who served on the Republican National Committee,

fund-raised for Republican presidents,

and had a secret wine room in her giant mansion.

She initially supported prohibition

but was now disgusted at the chaos it had created.

And she began a new women's movement,

this time not for prohibition, but against it.

Being the extremely influential woman she was,

her new organization gained

nearly 1.5 million members within two years,

five times that of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

She hated that the WCTU claimed to speak for all women

and she began calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment.

President Hoover, I helped fund your campaign

and now I want you to end prohibition.

Miles, what is it I say when I'm not gonna do anything?

You'll look into it, sir.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Pauline, I'll look into it.

Sabin gave speeches on the steps of Congress

and helped started growing push

among the American people against prohibition.

But Hoover, a prohibitionist himself, wasn't budging.

Then on the 14th of February 1929,

something happened that shocked the nation.

Men thought to be working for Al Capone

tricked some Irish mobsters into meeting them

at a garage in Chicago,

thinking they were there to purchase hijacked whiskey,

instead the mobsters were lined up against the wall

by men dressed as police and they were shot.

The Valentine's Day Massacre had people outraged.

It was cruel and almost felt like American mobsters

had finally crossed the line.

People were sick of the violence,

and in part they blamed prohibition

for helping to create it.

The pressure on Hoover to do something

was steadily increasing.

Fine.

Miles, I want you to put a report together

to see if this whole thing is working.

You mean the thing where mobsters

are becoming increasingly powerful

and massacring each other in the streets

and everyone is disregarding the law

and half our public officials

are corrupt and taking bribes?

That thing?

Yeah, I wanna know if it's working or not, Miles.

Stop wasting my time.

Hoover continued to drag his feet on prohibition,

but after the Valentine's Day Massacre,

he was still determined to do one thing.

He wanted Al Capone in prison.

Since Capone had been so careful,

the FBI were having a hard time charging him with anything,

but eventually they got him.

Capone, we know you're supplying Chicago with alcohol

and you've been involved in countless murders.

Whoa, look at you with the crazy talk.

I ain't done none of that stuff.

But you're rich, right?

You're damn right I am.

And so where'd all the money come from, Capone?

All right, I'll let you in on a little secret,

but you gotta promise not to tell anyone, okay?

I don't pay my taxes.

Whoa!

For all of his murdering,

the IRS finally got Capone on tax evasion.

At his trial, he didn't seem too concern though

and spent most of his time having a laugh with his lawyers.

Hey Capone, I gotta know,

why are you so confident you're gonna win here?

Well, your honor, because I'm an honest man with a big heart

who's passionate about working for the good of the people

and also because I threatened the entire jury's families.

Luckily at the last minute,

the judge replaced the entire jury pool with a new one

that Capone's men hadn't yet got to,

and Capone was found guilty.

He was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison,

the harshest penalty ever given to a tax evader.

But even with Capone locked away,

the violence in Chicago and other cities continued,

and in response, the movement against prohibition

continued to grow.

And the final nail in prohibition's coffin came in 1929.

After a decade of booming economic growth

under three Republican presidents,

the stock market plummeted

and America was thrown into the grips

of the Great Depression.

It was an awful time.

One out of every five workers,

15 million people, would lose their jobs.

Half the nation's banks failed.

Temporary shantytowns were built

for the broke and homeless in public parks.

Suddenly very few people had time to care about prohibition.

Expensive enforcement of an unenforceable law

didn't seem like that big of a priority

when people were having their homes repossessed

and losing their life savings.

And many began to argue that repealing prohibition

would create vital jobs and tax revenue for the government,

yet President Hoover doubled down.

Here's that report you asked for, sir.

Gimme.

Prohibition is great.

Fantastic news.

Sir, it says here prohibition is great

at undermining the rule of law in America.

Miles, it says the word great.

That means good.

Now stop wasting my time.

The public increasingly shocked

at the violence they saw on the streets,

the corruption they saw in the government,

the general disregard for the law,

and now an economic calamity,

had had enough.

For his reelection, Hoover faced the democratic candidate

who promised to finally do something about prohibition,

Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Crowds cheered

as FDR made his campaign speeches

promising to modify the Volstead Act.

And Pauline Sabin, a lifelong Republican,

along with her 1.5 million supporters, endorsed Roosevelt.

And on election day, it was a landslide.

Before FDR had even taken office,

Republicans in Congress began the process

of passing the 21st Amendment to repeal prohibition.

One of FDR's first acts as president

was to pass the Beer Permit Act which made beer legal

while the new amendment was being ratified.

In 1933 with the passage of the 21st Amendment,

prohibition was finally over,

and the people celebrated

like they had just won a World War.

Bars and taverns were packed.

The WCTU were inconsolable.

Wayne Wheeler was dead.

And the celebration,

particularly in American cities, was intense.

Heading into the mid-1930s,

the effects of prohibition were clear to see.

From now on, culture around drinking had changed

with men and women drinking together not in saloons

but in bars and taverns.

The crime syndicates that had been given so much power

through prohibition remained powerful

as they moved on to other things.

Some states opted to remain dry

with Oklahoma only repealing its prohibition laws in 1959.

To this day, there are still counties in America

with some form of prohibition.

So what did we learn today, kids?

What's the big lesson here?

What's the moral of this story

that we can all take away

and apply to our day-to-day lives?

Maybe that you shouldn't force your own morals

on others who don't share them?

Maybe that if you tell Americans not to do something,

that's the one thing they'll definitely do.

Or maybe there is no lesson.

Maybe we're all just a bunch of dumb stinky idiots

and we're all doomed.

The end.

(upbeat music)