Friday, December 5, 2008

75th Anniversary Of Legal Hootch

EssEffChron


Trucks loaded with cartons of Tipo Chianti drive to San Francisco's Civic Center after Prohibition ends. Today, the city plans to mark the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the liquor law that made drinkers of nearly everyone.


The repeal of Prohibition was the end of an infamous era in the United States, when the whole nation seemed to turn its back on the law. When booze became illegal, gangsters took over the booze business, and it became fashionable to break the law. Although President Herbert Hoover famously observed that Prohibition was "an experiment noble in purpose," prohibiting liquor made drinkers of nearly everyone.

"It didn't work," said Robert Chandler, an author and a historian for Wells Fargo Bank. "You can't legislate morality" (my em). Although San Francisco didn't have the reputation that places such as Chicago had for breaking the law, the Volstead Act, which enabled the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition, was widely ignored in Northern California.

"San Francisco always was in favor of, shall we say, 'pleasant living,' " Chandler said.

Aren't we all?

The 'Prohibition' called the 'War On Some Drugs' needs to be repealed for exactly the same reason: a Puritanical way of turning citizens into criminals that has failed at horrendous expense, both societally and monetarily. On the other hand, if all you want to do is lock up minority people as a way to keep them down because you can no longer enslave them or keep them in their 'place' with Jim Crow laws, it has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. It has been of great benefit to the prison industry. It's the American Way.

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