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The 18th amendment was ratified to come into effect on January 16 1920. It came before the Senate in 1917; it was passed by a one-sided vote after only 13 hours of debate. The House of Representatives accepted it a few months later. The debate upon the amendment as a whole occupied only a single day. The necessary three quarters agreed and it became a part of the Constitution. Only Rhode Island and Connecticut didn’t agree. Woodrow Wilson vetoed it surprisingly but his veto was overridden. There were scattered meetings – protests: a mass meeting in New York, a parade in Baltimore, a noisy demonstration before the capitol in Washington. But the arguments weren’t strong enough and nobody was (that) sure whether the amendment would or wouldn’t prove enforceable. Also, those who opposed the prohibition were poorly organized and had a bad reputation among the high society. When the USA entered the Second World War there grew a huge disgust against everything German – and many of the brewers and distillers were German. The war also brought a mood of idealism, efficiency, production and care for health so that alcohol was taken as evil. The Americans were impatient for immediate results. When they had won the war, everyone got enthusiastic about nice and quick solutions. The first Prohibition Commissioner John F. Kramer put it (p.248): “... The law says that liquor to be used as a beverage must not be manufactured... nor sold, nor given away, nor hauled in anything on the surface of the earth or under the earth or in the air. We shall see that it is not manufactured.” The congress made an estimation of only five million US dollars a year to secure Compliance with the law.
Approximate Word count = 1088
Approximate Pages = 4.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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