WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 Usually when we talk about history, there's this 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:06.280 expectation of precision. Right, like it's engineering 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:08.679 or something. Exactly. Like a law is passed, 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:11.039 a war is won, and the historical timeline just 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:12.880 points and says, you know, there it is, cause 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:15.660 and effect. Yeah, but history is rarely that 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:18.719 clean. It really isn't. Because what happens 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:21.339 when a government decides to fundamentally fix 00:00:21.339 --> 00:00:25.359 society, and in the process, they... Well, they 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:27.640 accidentally create the mafia, poison their own 00:00:27.640 --> 00:00:31.719 citizens, and ironically, invent the modern nightclub. 00:00:31.899 --> 00:00:34.140 I mean, you end up with a landscape that is just 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:36.619 incredibly murky. The straight lines of history 00:00:36.619 --> 00:00:39.520 just completely shatter. And that is exactly 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:41.880 what we are unpacking today. Welcome to the Deep 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:43.920 Dive. We are so glad to have you with us today 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:45.820 sitting right here as the third person in the 00:00:45.820 --> 00:00:47.719 room. Absolutely. Because today we're looking 00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:50.079 at a comprehensive breakdown of prohibition in 00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:52.579 the United States. And our mission is to take 00:00:52.579 --> 00:00:57.020 you past that common, really simplistic narrative. 00:00:57.219 --> 00:00:59.700 Right, the cartoon version. Yeah, forget the 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:02.600 flappers and gangsters and bathtub gin. We are 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.480 going to explore the immensely complex web of 00:01:05.480 --> 00:01:08.760 political maneuvering, the baffling legal loopholes 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:12.519 and the honestly shocking unintended consequences 00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:15.030 of what they call the Noble Experiment. It's 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:17.969 a very cinematic era, which makes it incredibly 00:01:17.969 --> 00:01:20.269 easy to misunderstand. Totally. People tend to 00:01:20.269 --> 00:01:23.250 look at the 1920s as this standalone decade of 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:26.549 madness. But to really understand the sheer scale 00:01:26.549 --> 00:01:28.810 of this policy failure, you have to look at the 00:01:28.810 --> 00:01:31.170 roots. Right. The sources make it very clear 00:01:31.170 --> 00:01:33.730 that this wasn't just a bunch of puritanical 00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:35.829 buzzkills deciding to ruin everyone's fun on 00:01:35.829 --> 00:01:38.969 a whim. The temperance movement was a fragile, 00:01:39.450 --> 00:01:42.689 complex alliance built on some very real societal 00:01:42.689 --> 00:01:45.370 concerns. OK, let's unpack. Because before you 00:01:45.370 --> 00:01:47.849 can ban something as ubiquitous as alcohol, things 00:01:47.849 --> 00:01:49.969 had to be pretty dire, right? What was the actual 00:01:49.969 --> 00:01:51.790 problem they were trying to solve? They were 00:01:51.790 --> 00:01:54.609 targeting a very specific institution, and that 00:01:54.609 --> 00:01:57.290 was the American saloon. In the late 19th and 00:01:57.290 --> 00:02:00.129 early 20th centuries, the neighborhood saloon 00:02:00.129 --> 00:02:02.310 wasn't just a place to grab a drink after work. 00:02:02.590 --> 00:02:05.489 It was the center of a highly predatory business 00:02:05.489 --> 00:02:08.909 model. How so? Well... The brewing industry operated 00:02:08.909 --> 00:02:11.270 on what was essentially a tide house system. 00:02:11.669 --> 00:02:13.729 Meaning the breweries actually owned the bars, 00:02:13.909 --> 00:02:17.189 like outright. They owned the leases, the fixtures, 00:02:17.590 --> 00:02:20.050 literally everything. A massive brewery would 00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:23.069 set up a saloon keeper, but contractually obligate 00:02:23.069 --> 00:02:26.449 him to exclusively sell their beer. Wow. And 00:02:26.449 --> 00:02:28.509 because there were so many saloons competing 00:02:28.509 --> 00:02:31.629 on the exact same block, the saloon keeper was 00:02:31.629 --> 00:02:34.449 really squeezed for profit. To make rent, he 00:02:34.449 --> 00:02:37.310 had to push massive, dangerous volumes of alcohol 00:02:37.310 --> 00:02:39.810 onto his patrons. But how do you force people 00:02:39.810 --> 00:02:42.129 to drink more than they actually want to? You 00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:43.930 offer them a free lunch. Oh, I've heard of this. 00:02:44.050 --> 00:02:46.430 Yeah, saloons became famous for these massive 00:02:46.430 --> 00:02:48.889 spreads of free food. But the catch was that 00:02:48.889 --> 00:02:51.110 the meats and juices were incredibly heavily 00:02:51.110 --> 00:02:54.270 salted. Of course. It was a biological trap designed 00:02:54.270 --> 00:02:57.229 to induce relentless thirst. Working class men 00:02:57.229 --> 00:02:59.129 would go in for a cheap meal and end up, you 00:02:59.129 --> 00:03:01.289 know, spending their entire week's wages on beer 00:03:01.289 --> 00:03:03.990 just to wash it down. That's incredibly manipulative. 00:03:04.030 --> 00:03:06.840 It was. Families were left starving, which led 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:09.819 directly to spikes in domestic violence and extreme 00:03:09.819 --> 00:03:12.580 poverty. So the pre -prohibition saloon was almost 00:03:12.580 --> 00:03:15.120 like a vertically integrated tech monopoly today. 00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:17.699 Exactly. They controlled the product, the venue, 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:20.819 and the user's behavior. It wasn't just a moral 00:03:20.819 --> 00:03:22.939 crusade against having a beer. It was an attempt 00:03:22.939 --> 00:03:25.680 to break a predatory corporate machine. That 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:28.759 is a highly accurate way to look at it. And it 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:30.960 went beyond just economics, too. It was deeply 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.319 political. Right. These saloons were heavily 00:03:33.319 --> 00:03:35.419 frequented by immigrant populations in growing 00:03:35.419 --> 00:03:38.539 urban centers, and they became the literal headquarters 00:03:38.539 --> 00:03:41.199 for political corruption. Oh, like the local 00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:43.840 ward bosses? Yes. Politicians would hang out 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:46.719 in the saloons, offering job favors, legal help, 00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:49.590 or even just baskets of food. all in exchange 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:52.669 for guaranteed immigrant votes. Wow. The saloon 00:03:52.669 --> 00:03:55.389 was the engine of the corrupt political machine. 00:03:55.770 --> 00:03:58.750 But if the saloon is the engine of a political 00:03:58.750 --> 00:04:01.669 machine, how do you even dismantle it? You'd 00:04:01.669 --> 00:04:03.409 need a political machine of your own just to 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:05.689 fight back. Which is exactly what the Prohibitionists 00:04:05.689 --> 00:04:08.150 built. They found their architect in a man named 00:04:08.150 --> 00:04:10.870 Wayne Wheeler who ran the Anti -Saloon League. 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:13.219 Right. I saw his name in the text. Wheeler is 00:04:13.219 --> 00:04:16.139 a fascinating, almost ruthless historical figure. 00:04:16.459 --> 00:04:18.420 When he was young, he was actually injured on 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:21.259 a farm by a drunk worker, which gave him this 00:04:21.259 --> 00:04:24.800 deep rooted lifelong hatred for alcohol. So it 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:27.779 was personal for him. Very personal. But Wheeler 00:04:27.779 --> 00:04:30.680 didn't just preach morality on street corners. 00:04:30.939 --> 00:04:34.120 He realized that to win. He needed to control 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:36.379 the political narrative through raw pressure. 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:39.660 He pioneered a tactic that literally became known 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:42.579 as wheelerism. What did wheelerism actually look 00:04:42.579 --> 00:04:44.420 like in practice? I mean, how did he pull this 00:04:44.420 --> 00:04:47.860 off before mass? broadcast media and the Internet. 00:04:48.199 --> 00:04:50.279 He weaponized the telegraph and the printing 00:04:50.279 --> 00:04:52.839 press to manufacture a sense of overwhelming 00:04:52.839 --> 00:04:56.060 unified public consensus. Wheeler didn't need 00:04:56.060 --> 00:04:58.759 to convince every single American to support 00:04:58.759 --> 00:05:01.540 prohibition. He just needed to convince lawmakers 00:05:01.540 --> 00:05:04.300 that his supporters were the only ones who mattered. 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:07.209 So it was an illusion of a majority. Exactly. 00:05:07.810 --> 00:05:10.310 If a politician spoke out against the temperance 00:05:10.310 --> 00:05:13.110 movement, Wheeler would orchestrate thousands 00:05:13.110 --> 00:05:16.050 of telegrams to flood that politician's desk 00:05:16.050 --> 00:05:19.189 the very next day. That is brilliant. He coordinated 00:05:19.189 --> 00:05:22.029 with local churches to mobilize massive voting 00:05:22.029 --> 00:05:24.730 blocks on a dime. He made politicians believe 00:05:24.730 --> 00:05:27.350 that if they didn't support a dry America, their 00:05:27.350 --> 00:05:30.529 careers would end tomorrow. He became an absolute 00:05:30.529 --> 00:05:32.970 political powerhouse, and people started calling 00:05:32.970 --> 00:05:36.509 him the dry boss. OK, so you have anti -corruption 00:05:36.509 --> 00:05:39.269 reformers partnering with a brilliant, ruthless 00:05:39.269 --> 00:05:41.649 political strategist. Yeah. But the sources point 00:05:41.649 --> 00:05:43.670 out there was a third pillar to this alliance, 00:05:44.009 --> 00:05:45.810 right? Like an economic argument that brought 00:05:45.810 --> 00:05:48.290 in the business elite. Oh, yeah. The economists 00:05:48.290 --> 00:05:51.269 were a major piece of the puzzle. Prominent figures 00:05:51.269 --> 00:05:54.230 like Yale economics professor Irving Fisher were 00:05:54.230 --> 00:05:56.850 incredibly influential dry advocates. Fisher 00:05:56.850 --> 00:05:59.430 popularized this concept. of Blue Monday. Let 00:05:59.430 --> 00:06:03.870 me guess. Workers drinking all weekend and showing 00:06:03.870 --> 00:06:07.389 up completely useless on Monday. Completely useless. 00:06:07.790 --> 00:06:09.990 The argument was that factory workers would spend 00:06:09.990 --> 00:06:12.129 the weekend binge drinking in those predatory 00:06:12.129 --> 00:06:15.970 saloons and Monday would be a day of massive 00:06:15.970 --> 00:06:18.589 industrial inefficiency. Right. Machines sitting 00:06:18.589 --> 00:06:21.730 idle, accidents on the factory floor, sluggish 00:06:21.730 --> 00:06:24.670 production due to severe hangovers. And Fisher 00:06:24.670 --> 00:06:27.170 actually put a dollar amount on it. It was a 00:06:27.170 --> 00:06:29.540 number. He claimed that an acting prohibition 00:06:29.540 --> 00:06:32.720 would save the United States $6 billion annually 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:36.139 in lost productivity. $6 billion in the early 00:06:36.139 --> 00:06:39.480 1900s. That is a staggering economic incentive 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:42.259 for factory owners to get on board. Huge. So 00:06:42.259 --> 00:06:44.319 you have the moral crusaders worried about families, 00:06:44.500 --> 00:06:46.379 the reformers fighting political corruption, 00:06:46.379 --> 00:06:49.199 and the industrialists chasing efficiency. That 00:06:49.199 --> 00:06:52.240 is a massive, incredibly diverse coalition. It 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:54.399 was. But it still wasn't quite enough to push 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:56.420 it over the edge into a constitutional amendment. 00:06:56.810 --> 00:06:59.350 Yeah, the final catalyst came from a completely 00:06:59.350 --> 00:07:01.370 different direction, and that was World War I. 00:07:01.730 --> 00:07:03.689 When the U .S. entered the war against Germany 00:07:03.689 --> 00:07:07.129 in 1917, the political landscape shifted overnight. 00:07:07.589 --> 00:07:10.750 First, a major force against prohibition, the 00:07:10.750 --> 00:07:13.029 German Americans who ran almost all of the massive 00:07:13.029 --> 00:07:15.370 breweries, were suddenly viewed with intense 00:07:15.370 --> 00:07:17.930 suspicion and politically sidelined. So the brewing 00:07:17.930 --> 00:07:19.970 industry essentially lost its lobbying power 00:07:19.970 --> 00:07:22.990 just because of their heritage. Precisely. And 00:07:22.990 --> 00:07:26.050 second, the movement brilliantly reframed the 00:07:26.029 --> 00:07:29.550 issue of alcohol production. The war effort required 00:07:29.550 --> 00:07:32.230 massive amounts of grain to feed soldiers, right? 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:35.410 Sure. The Anti -Saloon League argued that taking 00:07:35.410 --> 00:07:37.569 precious grain and fermenting it into beer wasn't 00:07:37.569 --> 00:07:40.649 just wasteful, it was borderline treasonous. 00:07:40.670 --> 00:07:43.009 Wow. So prohibiting the production of alcohol 00:07:43.009 --> 00:07:45.589 became a patriotic duty to conserve resources 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:48.269 for the troops. It really is a fragile alliance 00:07:48.269 --> 00:07:50.670 of totally different interests. Yeah. Morality, 00:07:50.970 --> 00:07:52.829 corporate efficiency, anti -German sentiment, 00:07:52.990 --> 00:07:55.250 and wartime conservation. But they actually pulled 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:57.860 it off. They did. In 1919, the 18th Amendment 00:07:57.860 --> 00:08:00.620 passes. And logically, you know, you would think, 00:08:00.620 --> 00:08:02.600 boom, alcohol is completely illegal across the 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:04.839 board. You'd think so. But the text of the law 00:08:04.839 --> 00:08:07.959 itself, the enabling legislation called the Volstead 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:11.180 Act, wasn't a solid wall at all. Here's where 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:13.639 it gets really interesting. It was more like 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:16.300 a sieve designed to catch the poor while letting 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:18.259 anyone with a bank account slip right through. 00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:20.959 The wording of the law is one of the most glaring 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:23.379 hypocrisies in American legislative history. 00:08:23.949 --> 00:08:26.889 The 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture, 00:08:27.009 --> 00:08:30.269 sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. 00:08:30.430 --> 00:08:33.090 It says nothing about possession or consumption. 00:08:33.730 --> 00:08:36.450 Not a single word. It was not a federal crime 00:08:36.450 --> 00:08:38.649 to drink alcohol, nor was it a crime to keep 00:08:38.649 --> 00:08:41.149 it in your home, provided you had legally acquired 00:08:41.149 --> 00:08:43.409 it before the law went into effect in January 00:08:43.409 --> 00:08:46.210 1920. Which means if you had the fiscal space 00:08:46.210 --> 00:08:48.779 and the capital, You just bought a lifetime supply 00:08:48.779 --> 00:08:51.399 before the deadline. Exactly. Wealthy families 00:08:51.399 --> 00:08:54.559 emptied out wholesale warehouses. Private clubs 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:56.820 moved their inventories into the basements of 00:08:56.820 --> 00:08:59.519 the richest members. It even reached the absolute 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:01.399 highest levels of government. Like the president. 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:05.000 Yes. President Woodrow Wilson legally moved his 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:08.080 own massive private supply of alcohol to his 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:11.259 residence after his term ended. And his successor, 00:09:11.580 --> 00:09:14.840 Warren G. Harding, moved a huge stash of liquor 00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:17.399 right into the White House. You're kidding. Nope. 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:19.620 He continued to serve it to his guests while 00:09:19.620 --> 00:09:21.679 his own Justice Department was supposed to be 00:09:21.679 --> 00:09:25.220 enforcing the ban. That is wild. Historian Elizabeth 00:09:25.220 --> 00:09:27.440 Cohen points this out brilliantly in The Sources. 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.419 She says this was a law that fundamentally targeted 00:09:30.419 --> 00:09:33.080 the working class poor. If a rich family had 00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:35.940 a sprawling cellar full of imported wine, they 00:09:35.940 --> 00:09:38.580 were law -abiding citizens. Right. If a poor 00:09:38.580 --> 00:09:40.960 family in a tenement apartment fermented a single 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:43.320 bottle of homebrew, they were criminals subject 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:45.980 to federal raids. Wait, so hoarding was the loophole 00:09:45.980 --> 00:09:48.460 for the elite. Yeah. But what if you were moderately 00:09:48.460 --> 00:09:51.059 wealthy and I don't know, ran out of your stash. 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:53.200 I was reading about the medical exemptions, and 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:55.779 my mind is still blown. How did doctors get away 00:09:55.779 --> 00:09:58.059 with prescribing alcohol during a federal ban? 00:09:58.179 --> 00:10:00.059 You'd think the government would have outlawed 00:10:00.059 --> 00:10:02.559 medicinal use too, but the medical lobby was 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:05.820 incredibly powerful. Congress actually held formal 00:10:05.820 --> 00:10:08.379 hearings on the medicinal value of alcohol. And 00:10:08.379 --> 00:10:10.940 the doctors won. They successfully fought to 00:10:10.940 --> 00:10:13.240 retain the right to prescribe medicinal liquors 00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:16.220 for ailments ranging from anxiety to the flu. 00:10:16.419 --> 00:10:18.320 And the scale of this was just absurd. I mean, 00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:20.399 the sor - says that after only six months of 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:25.320 prohibition, over 15 ,000 doctors and 57 ,000 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.259 pharmacists had applied for licenses to prescribe 00:10:28.259 --> 00:10:31.279 or sell alcohol. It was massive. They estimate 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:34.179 that throughout the 1920s physicians wrote roughly 00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:37.059 11 million prescriptions a year. It became an 00:10:37.059 --> 00:10:41.080 entire shadow economy. From 1921 to 1930, doctors 00:10:41.080 --> 00:10:44.460 earned an estimated $40 million just for writing 00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:47.200 whiskey prescriptions. Wow. The going rate was 00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:49.860 about $3 for the doctor's visit and another $3 00:10:49.860 --> 00:10:52.179 or $4 to the pharmacist to fill the prescription. 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:54.299 Which was a lot of money back then. Definitely. 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:56.399 And bootleggers caught on quickly. They would 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:58.879 just buy massive stacks of signed prescription 00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:01.679 forms from crooked doctors to run widespread 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:05.179 distribution scams. It was such an open, lucrative 00:11:05.179 --> 00:11:07.889 secret. that it transformed the retail landscape. 00:11:08.169 --> 00:11:11.289 Didn't Walgreens get huge during this time? Yes. 00:11:11.970 --> 00:11:14.230 Charles R. Walgreen, the founder of the Walgreens 00:11:14.230 --> 00:11:17.230 pharmacy chain, expanded his business from 20 00:11:17.230 --> 00:11:20.610 stores to a staggering 525 stores during the 00:11:20.610 --> 00:11:24.009 1920s. That is exponential growth. A massive 00:11:24.009 --> 00:11:26.629 driver of that unprecedented expansion was the 00:11:26.629 --> 00:11:29.590 legal sale of medicinal alcohol. Take two shots 00:11:29.590 --> 00:11:31.909 of whiskey and call me in the morning, and suddenly 00:11:31.909 --> 00:11:35.529 you have a national retail empire. Okay, I understand 00:11:35.529 --> 00:11:37.409 the medical loophole. That's just a doctor signing 00:11:37.409 --> 00:11:40.370 a pad. But how on earth did the agricultural 00:11:40.370 --> 00:11:43.389 sector get away with selling actual fermentable 00:11:43.389 --> 00:11:46.659 grapes? Tell me about this. wine brick situation. 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:48.960 This is one of the funniest parts. The Volstead 00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:51.639 Act contained a provision intended to allow farmers 00:11:51.639 --> 00:11:54.220 to naturally preserve fruits. It permitted the 00:11:54.220 --> 00:11:56.559 home production of non -intoxicating cider and 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:58.600 fruit juices. Okay, I see where this is going. 00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:00.779 Enterprising grape farmers in California read 00:12:00.779 --> 00:12:02.980 the fine print and realized what they could do. 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:05.659 They increased their vineyard acreage by roughly 00:12:05.659 --> 00:12:08.620 700 percent. 700 percent. Yeah, and they started 00:12:08.620 --> 00:12:11.039 producing these semi -solid dehydrated blocks 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:13.639 of grape concentrate known as wine bricks. And 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:15.870 they sold them. with what has to be the most 00:12:15.870 --> 00:12:18.789 hilarious warning label in commercial history. 00:12:18.970 --> 00:12:22.529 It was pure, unfiltered, malicious compliance. 00:12:23.350 --> 00:12:25.629 The packaging included a highly detailed warning 00:12:25.629 --> 00:12:28.009 label that essentially functioned as a step -by 00:12:28.009 --> 00:12:31.009 -step recipe. Like reverse psychology. Exactly. 00:12:31.110 --> 00:12:33.929 It would read something to the effect of Warning, 00:12:34.570 --> 00:12:37.470 after dissolving this brick in a gallon of water, 00:12:38.070 --> 00:12:41.750 do not place the liquid in a jug and store it 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.509 in a dark cupboard for exactly 20 days, because 00:12:44.509 --> 00:12:46.809 then it will turn into illegal wine. Whatever 00:12:46.809 --> 00:12:49.009 you do, don't follow these precise fermentation 00:12:49.009 --> 00:12:51.649 instructions. It's absurd. But you know, it also 00:12:51.649 --> 00:12:54.409 highlights the central tragedy of this era. You 00:12:54.409 --> 00:12:56.830 have wealthy politicians drinking in the White 00:12:56.830 --> 00:12:59.070 House, upper middle class people buying doctor's 00:12:59.070 --> 00:13:01.549 notes and suburbanites making wine from mail 00:13:01.549 --> 00:13:03.440 order bricks. Right. They all had a safety valve. 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:06.600 But for the masses, the everyday working people 00:13:06.600 --> 00:13:08.919 access was brutally restricted. And when you 00:13:08.919 --> 00:13:11.360 have massive demand among millions of people 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:13.659 and the only legal avenues are priced out of 00:13:13.659 --> 00:13:16.840 their reach, where do they turn? They turn into 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:20.059 the criminal underground. And this is where the 00:13:20.059 --> 00:13:23.379 narrative shifts from quirky regulatory loopholes 00:13:23.379 --> 00:13:27.159 into a very dark, very lethal reality. Yeah, 00:13:27.159 --> 00:13:29.279 the black market. Because the federal government 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:32.399 was entirely unequipped to police a shadow economy 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:35.720 of this magnitude. To enforce prohibition across 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:38.820 the entire continental United States, the federal 00:13:38.820 --> 00:13:43.080 government initially assigned a total of 1 ,520 00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:47.600 prohibition agents. 120 agents. For a nation 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:50.740 of over 100 million people, that's a statistical 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:53.120 rounding error. It's mathematically impossible, 00:13:53.340 --> 00:13:55.639 especially when you factor in the sheer geography 00:13:55.639 --> 00:13:57.820 of the American borders. Take the Detroit River, 00:13:57.820 --> 00:13:59.840 for example, which forms a watery border with 00:13:59.840 --> 00:14:02.200 Canada. It was a smuggler's paradise. Right, 00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:04.039 because alcohol was still legal over there. Exactly. 00:14:04.259 --> 00:14:06.879 Distilleries legally operating in Canada, Mexico, 00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:09.360 and the Caribbean ramped up production because 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:11.679 it was incredibly easy to just load up a speedboat 00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:13.340 in the middle of the night and run the alcohol 00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:16.889 right over the border. Even with all those speedboats, 00:14:17.090 --> 00:14:19.350 smuggling wasn't enough to meet the sheer volume 00:14:19.350 --> 00:14:22.230 of American demand, right? Bootleggers needed 00:14:22.230 --> 00:14:25.610 a massive domestic supply, and they found it 00:14:25.610 --> 00:14:27.570 in the industrial sector. They did, and this 00:14:27.570 --> 00:14:29.370 was the turning point that cost thousands of 00:14:29.370 --> 00:14:32.210 lives. Bootleggers realized they could bypass 00:14:32.210 --> 00:14:35.190 the long, complicated fermentation and distillation 00:14:35.190 --> 00:14:38.769 process entirely by stealing industrial alcohol. 00:14:39.129 --> 00:14:42.080 Like cleaning supplies. Basically, we're talking 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:44.860 about industrial ethyl alcohol used in factories 00:14:44.860 --> 00:14:48.120 to manufacture ink, cleaning chemicals, cosmetics, 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:51.620 and fuels. It was being produced in massive quantities 00:14:51.620 --> 00:14:54.340 stateside, and criminal syndicates found it relatively 00:14:54.340 --> 00:14:56.899 easy to steal, hijack, or buy off the books. 00:14:57.299 --> 00:14:59.200 But humans can't just drink printer ink solvent. 00:14:59.389 --> 00:15:01.409 I mean, how do they get it to the speakeasies? 00:15:01.649 --> 00:15:03.490 Well, the federal government had long required 00:15:03.490 --> 00:15:06.470 manufacturers to denature industrial alcohol, 00:15:06.789 --> 00:15:09.149 meaning they legally had to add foul -tasting 00:15:09.149 --> 00:15:11.570 chemicals to it to ensure it couldn't be consumed 00:15:11.570 --> 00:15:14.009 as a beverage. Makes sense. But the bootleggers 00:15:14.009 --> 00:15:17.629 just hired their own rogue chemists. These chemists 00:15:17.629 --> 00:15:20.750 developed processes to wash or redistill the 00:15:20.750 --> 00:15:22.669 industrial alcohol, stripping out the bitter 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:25.210 additives, adding some artificial flavoring and 00:15:25.210 --> 00:15:27.350 food coloring, and selling it as gin or whiskey. 00:15:27.529 --> 00:15:30.090 Wow. So when the government realized the bootleggers 00:15:30.090 --> 00:15:32.230 chemists were successfully cleaning the industrial 00:15:32.230 --> 00:15:34.649 alcohol, what did they do? Did they just increase 00:15:34.649 --> 00:15:37.429 security at the factories? No, they escalated 00:15:37.429 --> 00:15:40.639 the chemistry war. Oh, no. The Treasury Department, 00:15:41.019 --> 00:15:43.080 deeply frustrated by their inability to stop 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:46.500 the bootleggers, mandated the addition of deadly 00:15:46.500 --> 00:15:49.820 lethal poisons into the industrial alcohol supply. 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:53.259 Wait, lethal? Yes. They required manufacturers 00:15:53.259 --> 00:15:56.080 to add chemicals like methyl alcohol, which is 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:58.980 wood alcohol, which is catastrophically toxic. 00:15:59.519 --> 00:16:02.120 At the time, there was no reliable, cost -effective 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:04.279 way for the bootleggers' chemists to completely 00:16:04.279 --> 00:16:06.480 remove it from the stolen supply. Wait a minute. 00:16:06.779 --> 00:16:09.240 The government intentionally mandated putting 00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:11.980 lethal poison into a liquid supply that they 00:16:11.980 --> 00:16:14.399 absolutely knew was being diverted to human consumption. 00:16:14.740 --> 00:16:18.159 Yes. They used the toxicity as a deterrent, assuming 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:20.279 people would simply stop drinking. But they didn't. 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:23.279 They didn't. The results were devastating. A 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:25.820 very small amount of undiluted methyl alcohol 00:16:25.820 --> 00:16:30.049 can cause blindness, paralysis, and death. By 00:16:30.049 --> 00:16:32.429 the end of Prohibition, historians estimate that 00:16:32.429 --> 00:16:35.230 as many as 10 ,000 Americans died from drinking 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:37.929 poisoned denature alcohol. That is horrific. 00:16:38.210 --> 00:16:42.409 In 1926, in New York City alone, 585 people died 00:16:42.409 --> 00:16:44.950 from this. I mean, what does this all mean? It's 00:16:44.950 --> 00:16:47.450 as if the government today tried to stop people 00:16:47.450 --> 00:16:50.230 from speeding on the highway by secretly rigging 00:16:50.230 --> 00:16:52.919 their car engines to explode. That's a very apt 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:55.879 comparison. It is a massive, horrifying ethical 00:16:55.879 --> 00:16:59.000 line to cross. You are essentially enacting the 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:02.720 death penalty on citizens for a misdemeanor drinking 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.039 offense. The New York City medical examiner at 00:17:05.039 --> 00:17:07.799 the time, a man named Charles Norris, was absolutely 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:10.240 horrified by the influx of bodies arriving at 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:12.880 his morgue. He publicly accused the U .S. government 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.940 of being an accessory to murder. His quote from 00:17:15.940 --> 00:17:24.680 the source material is chilling. He said, It 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:30.240 completely shatters the idea of a noble experiment. 00:17:30.700 --> 00:17:32.880 I mean, you have bodies piling up in the morgue. 00:17:32.650 --> 00:17:35.990 from government -mandated poison. You have bootleggers 00:17:35.990 --> 00:17:39.970 adding tar, tree oil, and even dead rats to moonshine 00:17:39.970 --> 00:17:42.210 just to give it color. Yeah, it was grim. You 00:17:42.210 --> 00:17:45.369 have organized crime exploding into heavily armed 00:17:45.369 --> 00:17:48.150 syndicates like Al Capone's outfit in Chicago, 00:17:48.549 --> 00:17:50.990 practically fighting wars in the streets, and 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:53.309 the government is burning tens of millions of 00:17:53.309 --> 00:17:56.250 dollars a year, failing to enforce it. The system 00:17:56.250 --> 00:17:58.410 is fundamentally broken. Right. What finally 00:17:58.410 --> 00:18:01.380 forced them to abandon it? A total economic collapse. 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:05.019 The Great Depression struck in 1929, and it completely 00:18:05.019 --> 00:18:07.619 altered the political math. How so? Well, before 00:18:07.619 --> 00:18:10.220 Prohibition went into effect, approximately 14 00:18:10.220 --> 00:18:13.559 % of federal, state, and local tax revenues came 00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:17.240 directly from alcohol commerce. 14 %? Yeah, 14 00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:19.500 % of the nation's budget vanished overnight. 00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:22.000 When the Depression hit, the government was starving 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:24.720 for capital. The opposition movement, the Wets, 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:27.000 seized the narrative. They argued that we're 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.460 in an unprecedented economic crisis. crisis. 00:18:29.900 --> 00:18:32.940 We desperately need the tax revenue that is currently 00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.819 lining the pockets of violent criminal syndicates, 00:18:35.819 --> 00:18:38.380 and we need the jobs that legal breweries would 00:18:38.380 --> 00:18:41.019 provide. The economic reality of the Depression 00:18:41.019 --> 00:18:44.779 just crushed whatever was left of the moral argument. 00:18:44.900 --> 00:18:47.539 Completely. And once the tide turned, it moved 00:18:47.539 --> 00:18:52.460 incredibly fast. In March 1933, President Franklin 00:18:52.460 --> 00:18:55.160 D. Roosevelt signed the Cullen -Harrison Act, 00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:58.210 legalizing low alcohol beer and wine. He famously 00:18:58.210 --> 00:19:00.210 remarked upon signing it, I think this would 00:19:00.210 --> 00:19:02.990 be a good time for a beer. Classic FDR. And then 00:19:02.990 --> 00:19:05.589 by December of that same year, the 21st Amendment 00:19:05.589 --> 00:19:08.509 was ratified, completely repealing the 18th. 00:19:08.509 --> 00:19:10.549 Which remains the only time in American history 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:12.789 that a constitutional amendment has been passed 00:19:12.789 --> 00:19:15.529 for the sole purpose of repealing another constitutional 00:19:15.529 --> 00:19:18.069 amendment. It's an incredible reversal. But as 00:19:18.069 --> 00:19:20.410 we look at the complete picture of these 13 years, 00:19:20.730 --> 00:19:22.589 we can't just write it off as 100 % failure, 00:19:22.670 --> 00:19:25.009 can we? The sources point to a truly bizarre 00:19:25.009 --> 00:19:27.240 paradox when you look closely at the data. It 00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:31.279 is a profound paradox. If you isolate the specific 00:19:31.279 --> 00:19:33.740 public health metrics regarding severe alcohol 00:19:33.740 --> 00:19:36.539 abuse, prohibition was actually a surprising 00:19:36.539 --> 00:19:39.720 success. Wait, really? Yeah. Studies, including 00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:42.220 retrospective analyses from the National Institute 00:19:42.220 --> 00:19:45.359 on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, show that death 00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:47.759 rates from cirrhosis of the liver plummeted. 00:19:47.869 --> 00:19:50.589 They dropped by nearly two -thirds during the 00:19:50.589 --> 00:19:52.769 Prohibition years. A two -thirds drop in liver 00:19:52.769 --> 00:19:55.410 disease. That is an undeniable public health 00:19:55.410 --> 00:19:58.349 victory. And remember Irving Fisher's Blue Monday 00:19:58.349 --> 00:20:01.150 argument about factory efficiency? Right, the 00:20:01.150 --> 00:20:03.130 six billion dollars. The data actually backed 00:20:03.130 --> 00:20:06.259 him up. During the era, rates of factory absenteeism 00:20:06.259 --> 00:20:08.980 decreased from 10 percent to roughly 3 percent. 00:20:09.079 --> 00:20:11.500 Companies like Ford documented massive drops 00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:13.920 in Monday no shows. That's fascinating. Because 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:16.619 alcohol was suddenly expensive, dangerous and 00:20:16.619 --> 00:20:19.079 hard to get, the casual drinker largely stopped 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:22.240 drinking. So for the individuals who truly struggled 00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:24.859 with severe alcoholism and the families suffering 00:20:24.859 --> 00:20:26.720 from the domestic violence that the temperance 00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:29.160 movement originally targeted, the reduced supply 00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:32.380 did have a tangible life saving impact. So it 00:20:32.380 --> 00:20:34.690 was an abject failure of criminal justice and 00:20:34.690 --> 00:20:37.730 civil liberties, but a bizarre measurable success 00:20:37.730 --> 00:20:40.210 for targeted public health. Exactly. And the 00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:43.349 legacy doesn't stop at health statistics. It 00:20:43.349 --> 00:20:46.009 fundamentally rewired American social culture, 00:20:46.430 --> 00:20:49.490 specifically around gender in music. Paint a 00:20:49.490 --> 00:20:51.769 picture for me of the transition from the old 00:20:51.769 --> 00:20:54.680 saloon to the speakeasy. It's a total paradigm 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:57.819 shift in public life. The pre -prohibition saloon 00:20:57.819 --> 00:21:01.039 was, by design, an overwhelmingly male -only 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:03.900 establishment. It was rough, filled with sawdust 00:21:03.900 --> 00:21:06.680 and spittoons. And if a respectable woman drank 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:09.440 publicly in a saloon, she was viewed with deep, 00:21:09.859 --> 00:21:12.420 lasting social stigma. Right. But when the legal 00:21:12.420 --> 00:21:14.839 saloons were boarded up and the illegal speakeasies 00:21:14.839 --> 00:21:18.240 took over, the physical spaces changed. Speakeasies 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:20.490 had to operate in secret. They were smaller, 00:21:20.910 --> 00:21:23.009 often hidden in basements or behind storefronts. 00:21:23.049 --> 00:21:24.910 So they needed a different business model. They 00:21:24.910 --> 00:21:27.789 did. To cover the exorbitant costs of bribes 00:21:27.789 --> 00:21:29.690 and smuggled liquor, they needed to attract a 00:21:29.690 --> 00:21:31.950 wealthier clientele. They couldn't rely on selling 00:21:31.950 --> 00:21:34.089 high volumes of cheap beer to factory workers 00:21:34.089 --> 00:21:36.250 anymore. They needed people willing to pay top 00:21:36.250 --> 00:21:39.500 dollar for cocktails. Exactly. And to attract 00:21:39.500 --> 00:21:42.779 that wealthier crowd, speakeasies became glamorous. 00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:45.920 They brought in high end decor. They required 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:48.839 a softer, more refined atmosphere. And crucially, 00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:51.460 they welcomed women. Oh, wow. Public drinking 00:21:51.460 --> 00:21:55.500 lost its rough macho connotation. It became fashionable 00:21:55.500 --> 00:21:58.160 and daring for men and women to socialize and 00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:00.759 drink together in these semi -public environments. 00:22:01.079 --> 00:22:03.480 So by pushing alcohol underground, the government 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:06.640 accidentally birthed the modern mixed gender 00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:10.059 night They absolutely did, and because these 00:22:10.059 --> 00:22:13.119 speakeasies needed to entertain this new, sophisticated 00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:16.480 mixed -gender crowd, it served as a massive catalyst 00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:18.539 for the spread of jazz. That makes total sense. 00:22:18.660 --> 00:22:20.700 Jazz was already thriving in New Orleans, but 00:22:20.700 --> 00:22:23.039 the explosive demand for speakeasy entertainment 00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:25.960 during Prohibition drew musicians north to cities 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:28.180 like Chicago and New York. Right, looking for 00:22:28.180 --> 00:22:30.279 gigs. And because the speakeasies were already 00:22:30.279 --> 00:22:32.539 operating illegally, they were far more willing 00:22:32.539 --> 00:22:35.480 to ignore segregation laws. They became melting 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:38.339 pots, mostly black jazz musicians with mostly 00:22:38.339 --> 00:22:41.319 white affluent audiences, pushing racial integration 00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:43.579 forward in social spaces during an otherwise 00:22:43.579 --> 00:22:46.660 deeply segregated era. It is just staggering 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:49.579 to look at the massive web of cause and effect 00:22:49.579 --> 00:22:52.299 over this 13 -year period. I mean, you pass a 00:22:52.299 --> 00:22:54.920 law to stop men from drinking away their paychecks. 00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:58.160 The result. You get a poisoned industrial alcohol 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:00.920 supply, the rise of the mafia, a constitutional 00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:03.759 crisis, but also a massive drop in liver disease, 00:23:04.039 --> 00:23:06.460 the birth of the modern nightclub, and the nationalization 00:23:06.460 --> 00:23:09.500 of jazz music. Yeah, it's wild. How do we synthesize 00:23:09.500 --> 00:23:12.480 all of this? Why does this specific piece of 00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.279 history matter to you, the listener sitting here 00:23:15.279 --> 00:23:18.369 today? Prohibition is the ultimate masterclass 00:23:18.369 --> 00:23:20.809 in the unintended consequences of sweeping public 00:23:20.809 --> 00:23:22.930 policy. Absolutely. It demonstrates that when 00:23:22.930 --> 00:23:25.190 a government tries to forcibly legislate morality 00:23:25.190 --> 00:23:27.410 or dramatically alter human behavior through 00:23:27.410 --> 00:23:29.990 restriction, it rarely achieves a clean result. 00:23:30.190 --> 00:23:32.289 Right. You might solve the initial problem, but 00:23:32.289 --> 00:23:34.710 the pressure you apply to society will inevitably 00:23:34.710 --> 00:23:37.250 blow out the sides of the container, creating 00:23:37.250 --> 00:23:40.589 entirely new, unpredictable structures. It proves 00:23:40.589 --> 00:23:42.990 that in policy, a straight line between intent 00:23:42.990 --> 00:23:45.920 and outcome almost never exists. It brings us 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:47.920 right back to that historical expectation of 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:49.720 precision we talked about at the beginning. It's 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:52.859 never just a clean break. It's a spider web of 00:23:52.859 --> 00:23:55.359 fractures that reshape the entire bone. Well 00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:58.180 said. And it leaves me with this lingering question 00:23:58.180 --> 00:24:01.579 for you to ponder as you go about your day. If 00:24:01.579 --> 00:24:06.440 a failed deeply flawed law from the 1920s accidentally 00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:09.240 created the modern mixed gender nightlife scene 00:24:09.240 --> 00:24:13.619 and accelerated the spread of jazz, What restrictive 00:24:13.619 --> 00:24:16.599 laws or sweeping policies happening right now 00:24:16.599 --> 00:24:19.140 might be secretly architecting the cultural norms 00:24:19.140 --> 00:24:21.079 of our next century? It's a fascinating thought. 00:24:21.140 --> 00:24:22.960 We are almost certainly building something completely 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:24.859 by accident right now. We'll leave you to think 00:24:24.859 --> 00:24:27.119 on that. Thanks for joining us on this Deep Dive.