Prohibition

Prohibition.

Members of groups such as 'Anti-Saloon League' - were often christians who believed the use of alcohol was a sin. They blamed the 'demand drink' for many social problems such as violence, crime, the breakdown of marriage and sexual immorality.
On 20th January, 1920 the government agreed to the 18th Amendment to the Us Constitution this banned the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol.
However many people in the cities such as; New York and Chicago, still wanted to drink and resented this attack on their personal freedom.

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Some Americans took to creating their own alcohol called moonshine or bath-tub gin.
To meet the needs of those Americans who still wanted to drink 'organised crime' set up an alternative, illegal industry producing and selling alcohol.
Bootleggers smuggled alcohol across the Canadian border or opened secret breweries to make their own drink.
They also set up 'speakeasies' - illegal bars, which could be found in every town in the country. They were st in secret and were shut down if found out by the authorities. -in New York, 1925 there were 100,000 speakeasies.

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Gangsters, like Al capone and Bugs Moran ran rival gangs to control the bootlegging.
They were able to avoid prosecution by bribing polititians and police men- in Chicago capone used the Mayor, Bill Thompson as his 'puppet'.
Also there were only 2.500 enforcement agents making it impossible to stop the bootleggers.
Capone was not afraid to use violence to remove those who stood in his way to tried to compete.
Capone is thought to have been behind most of the 130 murders in Chicago in 1926/7.
The most notorious incident took place on 14th February 1929 when Capone had 6 members of Moran's gang murdered by his mobsters, dressed as policemen. The St Valentine;s Day Massacre did not lead to Capone's arrest throuugh as he was in Florida that day, providing himself with an alibi.
The end of Capone was prosecuted for income tax evasion and sentanced to 11 years in jail.

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