Compelling Policy Question: What should be the goal of substance control policies?

Policy Case Study:

H. R. 6810, “A bill to prohibit intoxicating beverages and to, regulate, the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits" (modified/link to original)

The 18th Amendment The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

H.R. 6810

Prohibition of Intoxicating Beverages

SEC. 3. No person shall on or after the date when the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except those allowed in this Act..

Liquor for a Church’s sacrament may be manufactured, purchased, sold.

Physicians with permits can prescribe liquor

SEC. 21. The owner of place where liquor is manufactured, sold, or kept shall be fined not more than $1,000 or be imprisoned up to one year, or both

SEC. 29. Any person who violates this act shall for a first offense be fined not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not exceeding six months, and for a second or subsequent offense shall be fined not less than $200 nor more than $2,000 and be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than five years.

SEC. 33. It is legal to have liquors in one's home if it is used only by the owner, his family, and his guests. The owner must prove the liquor was legally bought before the passing of this act.

Historical Context:

Before America had even declared independence, people in America were speaking out against alcohol. During the 1800's "Temperance" groups formed. "Temperance" groups were organizations who campaigned against the use of alcohol. As the groups grew larger they had more political influence, by 1855 13 of the 40 states had laws regulating the sale and use of alcohol, known as prohibition laws. In 1899 Kansas prohibition advocate, Carry Nation, began a 10-year campaign against illegal saloons in Kansas, destroying furniture and liquor containers with an ax. She was often jailed; lecture fees and ax sales paid her fines. In 1912 Congress passes a law letting states ban all alcohol. In 1914 The Anti-Saloon League proposed amending the Constitution to prohibit liquor. In 1916, the National Prohibition Party's Presidential nominee J. Frank Hanly, whose main political goal was prohibition receives 221,030 votes. In 1917, during World War One, Congress passed Wartime prohibition law. Anti-German feelings transfer into German products (sauerkraut and beer) People said liquor was unpatriotic waste of resources. In 1917- Congress proposes the 18th Amendment, creating prohibition, and it is sent to the for States for Ratification. On January 16, 1919- 18th Amendment becomes law (47 states ratified it). On June 27, 1919 ^- H.R. 6810, a bill to enforce Prohibition, is introduced by Andrew Volstead (R)Minnesota. The bill passes by the Senate on October 8, 1919 and by the House on October 10, 1919. On October 27, 1919 the bill is Vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson. Following Wilson's Veto, Congress votes again on the bill, overriding Wilson's Veto.

Section #1 Supporting Question: Why do some people support the Government regulating a substance?

In 1919, the Republican Congressman from Minnesota Andrew Volstead, introduced H.R. 6810 to Congress by saying...

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Mr. Volstead's biography

The American people have said that they do not want any liquor sold, and they have said it emphatically by passing almost unanimously the constitutional amendment

…

Gentlemen, I feel deeply interested in this bill. Not that I have any personal concern in it. Simply the interest of any citizen. ... When you have done that you can go home and say to your people, "We did what you told us to do."

Wherever prohibition has gone into effect … you will be surprised. You will find, if an effective law is passed, that the laboring man ... is infinitely better off without beer, and that his wife will never forgive you for having voted or spoken against prohibition. She will get that money that now goes into the bill of the saloon keeper. It will go to the children. It will go ... (to) the home. That man will feel very much different. He will feel much more independent, happier, and more contented(sic.). Hope and courage will brighten his life, and he will not care for the fellow that has been selling him his booze and that now is so solicitous of his personal liberty. He will realize that a sober life, with all its rewards, is worth a good deal more to him than liberty to drink or swill over a bar.

A Democrat Representative from Alabama named Richmond P. Hobson said in a 1914 speech to Congress on Prohibition...

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Hobson's biography

Science has shown alcohol is a poison, it is a habit-forming drug that makes slaves of our citizens, that it lowers the efficiency of the Nation’s workers, reducing the national wealth; the crime, poverty, and insanity it causes leads to increases in taxation to pay for services; that it corrupts politics and public servants, corrupts the Government, corrupts the public morals, and undermines the liberties and institutions of the Nation; that it undermines families, hurts education, attacks the young when they are entitled to protection, ruins the public health by leading by killing, and hurting our citizens more than war, disease, and starvation combined; that floods the land with degenerates; that it strikes deadly blows at the life of the Nation itself and at the very life of the race, reversing the great evolutionary gains and the purposes of the Almighty.

There is one verdict, and that is this great destroyer must be destroyed. The time is ripe for fulfillment. The present generation must cut this millstone of degeneracy from the neck of humanity....

This generation could place prohibition in the Constitution..

The Liquor Trust would disintegrate. The youth would grow up sober. The final, scientific conclusion is that we must have constitutional prohibition.

A Message to the President and the Congress of the United States of America from the National Service and War-Time Commissions of the American Churches, 1918 (modified/link to original)

Our Nation has, we profoundly believe, with clean hands and pure heart engaged in war for lofty and unselfish ends.

The power of our country to win this important war is hurt by the liquor traffic and all its evils, resulting in the waste of food, the waste of labor, and the waste of life itself.

Since our army and navy have taken measures to prevent the use of liquor by our troops, we believe that those who remain and serve at home should willingly make the same sacrifice for the welfare of the nation.

Therefore, in the interest of those who defend our nation, for the saving of our own supplies of food, for the highest efficiency of the industries which provide our means of warfare, and for the strengthening of the moral health of the people, we earnestly urge the President and the Congress of the United States to take steps to prevent, during the entire period of the war, the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor of all kinds.

Julia H. Johnson, Wanted--A Father; A Little Boy's Plea

Thomas Nast's cartoon "Bar of Destruction" was published by Harper's Weekly in 1874.

Explanation

The Ram's Horn magazine published a cartoon titled "Building Up His Business" in 1896.

Bottom print: And there would be ENOUGH MONEY LEFT to buy a good present for your wife and babies.

"Committee of One Hundred, "Am I my Brother's Keeper",

Safeguard the Babies: Parent's Drinking Weakens Children's Vitality.

Print on bottom: Professor Taav. Laitinen, University of Helsingfors, Report XI International Congress vs Alcoholism

The Full Father and the Empty Stocking , American Issue Publishing

Children in Misery Parents' Drink to Blame, Boston, MA and Westerville, Ohio: Scientific Temperance Federation and American Issue Publishing Company, 1913.

text on bottom: Statistics compiled by Gertrude H. Brittan, Supt. Chicago Juvenile Protective Assn., from 1,739 cases of Adult Delinquency, Jan 1-June 30, 1910

Alcoholism and Degeneracy, Boston, MA and Westerville, Ohio: Scientific Temperance Federation and American Issue Publishing Company, 1913.

“Quarrels between Mr. and Mrs Litimer, and brutal violence between them were the natural consequences of the too frequent use of the bottle”

Geo F. Hunting, Devil's Toboggan Slide, 1887

"The evils of booze", Ohio prohibition campaign cartoon.

The White Man’s Burden, "Preaching Prohibition by Postcards." The Literary Digest, 1908.

Ohio Dry Federation, Vote "Yes" for Prohibition November 5th

Cartoon shows a “booze” submarine attacking an American ship.

Text reads: Hun submarines sank EIGHT MILLION bushels of grain last year, but American brewers wasted SIXTY-EIGHT MILLION bushels of grain. Booze and beer in America did more to HELP THE KAISER than his pirate submarines. A SOBER NAVY is fighting the enemy submarines. It’s your duty to abolish the ENEMY liquor traffic.

Where is your Corn going Neighbor?

"Strong Drink Threatens the Cradle." Nebraska Dry Federationist

The below PDF is a copy of Frank Beard's book Fifty Great Cartoons, 1899

The below PDF is a copy of Donald Farquharson Stewart and Henry W. Wilbur's book Prohibition Cartoons.

Supporting Question #2: Why do some oppose the United States government regulating a substance?

In 1915, the leader of the National Association of Commerce and Labor, Percy Andreae wrote "A Glimpse behind the Mask of Prohibition". In it he said...

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The National Association of Commerce and Labor was funded by the brewing industry.

Somewhere in the Bible it is said: "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off." I used to think the remedy somewhat radical. … Merely cut off my own right hand if it offend me? What business have my neighbors to keep their right hands if I am not able to make mine behave itself? Off with the lot of them!

….

[T]he leaders of the so-called prohibition movement know as well as you and I do that you can no more prevent an individual from taking a drink ... than your can prevent him from scratching himself if he itches.

….

Now, if the habit of drinking to excess .... were as general and as contagious as is claimed ... the human race would have been destroyed by it long ago.

….

In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, (Prohibition) aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. [W]hat would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?

….

And what does it all mean? It means that government by emotion is to be substituted for government by reason, and government by emotion ... (is) the most dangerous and pernicious of all forms of government.

Let the greater public ... pause and ponder these things before they are allowed to progress too far. Prohibition ... is already causing incalculable damage, may never succeed in this country…

Woodrow Wilson, Message to Congress on Veto of H.R. 6810 October 27, 1919, (modified/link to original)

Wilson opposed prohibition while he was governor of New Jersey, and as President he continued to oppose it. This note explains the veto.

This act includes two types of the prohibition legislation. The first part of the act is to enforce war-time prohibition. The second is to enforce the 18th Constitutional Amendment. I object to and cannot approve the war-time prohibition part of the law. It has to do with the enforcement of an act which was passed because of the emergencies of the war. The war is now over, so Congress should repeal the war-time prohibition.

It should be easy for Congress to consider both parts of the legislation and vote wisely. They must consider if the war-time emergencies are still needed, and decide how to intelligently deal with the 18th Amendment.

In all matters having to do with the personal habits and traditions of large numbers of our people we must be certain that the established processes of legal change are followed. The goal of great reforms such as this cannot be made satisfactory or permanent if they do not done correctly.

Letter from Gov. Woodrow Wilson to Thomas B. Shannon, 1912 (modified/link to original)

At the time this letter was written Wilson was the Governor of New Jersey, and Shannon was the superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League in New Jersey.

I am a believer in local self-government and believe that every community should have the right to control the matter of the regulation of the who can sell liquor.

Social and moral questions should not be made into party politics. Whenever party politics take over these questions they cause confusion and get in the way of all other political actions, no matter how important.

So far as I am myself concerned, therefore, I can never consent to have the question of local option made an issue between political parties in this State. My judgment is very clear in this matter. I do not believe the important political debates that impact the political life of the State and of the nation, should be pushed aside for long periods together by making a political issue of a great question which is essentially non-political, non-partisan, moral and social in a nature.

International Union of the United Brewery Workers of America created a broadside called “We appeal for a square deal vote and work against prohibition” in 1918.

The Statue of Liberty has dropped her torch and raised her hands in the air. Six men pointing guns at her. The men are labeled "Prohibitionist", "Pat. Medicine Faker", "Anti-Saloon League", "Anti-Everything Agitator" and "Hypocritical Reformer". The poster was made by the International Union of the United Brewery Workers of America, 1918

Cartoonist William H. Walker drew a cartoon titled the “Spirit of Prohibition: ‘Get Down and Give the Lady Your Place’” for Life Magazine.

The “Spirit of Prohibition” is depicted as a preacher-reformer, his “wings” implying a holier-than-thou attitude. Temperance activist Carrie Nation carries a book of blue laws, laws that restrict commercial activities, especially the sale of alcohol, on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath.

Edwin Marcus, “What a Queer Looking Camel”, The New York Times

The camel was a symbol for the Prohibition supporters. Sticking out of the Camel are legs labelled “Bigotry” and “Religious prejudice”. Prohibition opponents included many Roman Catholics.

Anheuser-Busch published an advertisement titled: "Budweiser is 'Liquid Bread' in the New York Times in 1916.

What were the results of the debate?

H.R. 6810 was passed by Congress over Wilson’s Veto, and was used to enforce the 18th Amendment. H.R. 6810 is known as the “Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Act”

The time period after the passing of the 18th Amendment is called “Prohibition”.

Prohibition ended December 5, 1933 when Congress passed the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th Amendment.

“After Prohibition, nearly all states adopted a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) of 21. Between 1970 and 1975, however, 29 states lowered the MLDA to 18, 19, or 20, largely in response to the change in the voting age.

Several States raised the drinking age in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but others did not.

In 1984 Congress enacted the national MLDA. The National Minimum Legal Drinking Age Act does not directly force a state to set its purchase age at 21, but if state decides not to have it at 21 the amount of money the state receives from the Federal Government for Highway maintenance will be cut by 10% (changed to 8% in 2012)

“Bullet Proof” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 29, 1926 Cartoonist: Carey Orr

Source: https://lib.msu.edu/branches/dmc/tribune/detail.jsp?id=12573