History Of Temperance And Prohibition Essay Example

[Title of Course]
Before the beginning of Civil War (1861-1865), organizations in the US started to oppose the alcohol consumption. The opposition started with the demand of voluntary abstinence from alcohol which later turned into enforcement of law by which alcohol should be banned. Due to the Civil War, the focus was diverted to matters that required urgent attention and people lost interest in the movement. The movement for prohibiting alcohol usage reemerged again and started to prosper following the War. This movement had large number of female participants as their prime focus was on the family protection along with providing consistent support to several church protestant gave a boost to the movement in the period of 1880s.
In 1893, there was an Anti Saloon League of America discovered in Ohio by Howard Hyde Russell who was a Congregational minister. This group created the greatest political pressure of the group that was lobbying for prohibition. They started to back up the point of views to two major political parties, which eventually led to gaining sympathy of the Congress as well and gave a good boost to the Prohibition. After the passage of the 18th Amendment, this organization went towards decline but they still continued to fight for what they believed and later on they became known as the Temperance League of America. After passage of time, the organization changed its name to the American Council on Alcohol Problems.
The protest was later supported by several states adopting the statewide (within the border) of prohibition alcohol. World War I opened the gates of protest for the national Prohibition. The anti German prejudice specifically targeted hostility towards the brewers (that were mostly from German origin). They justified their actions by putting forward the argument that the production of alcohol beverage was diverting the effort required for the War leading to less coordination and organization of the parts that were not supporting the Prohibition (commonly known as the wets), the Prohibitionists that were effectively organizing (referred as the dry’s), political intimidation, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) provided strong support, and the propaganda of temperance that effected for decades made successful the passing of 18th Amendment.
Consumption of alcohol was failed to be prevented by the National Prohibition as it led to the greater production of untaxed and dangerously unregulated alcohol, there was an increase in organized crime, massive corruption at political level, and increase in violence. The protest of Prohibition were cancelled in 1933, in the US there are still many dry counties. Several people use to believe that Prohibition was relatively successful. Prohibition is now considered by people as disastrous fail and still has no political support, there are different approached adopted by modern prohibitionist at present. They are emphasizing on the tactic of implementing a culture that marginalizes the people who drink and makes alcohol beverages less acceptable socially, instead of demanding strict legal prohibition. There is a group known as neo prohibitionists commonly known as reduction of consumptionist’s, they do not differentiate between consumption and abuse of alcohol, according to them both needs to reduced. They have proposed the following measures:
- Alcohol beverages should be levied with excessive tax.
- Reduction in number of sales outlets.
- Imposing a limit of drinking alcoholic contents.
- Advertisement of alcohol should be censored or prohibited.
- Health and safety warnings on outlets and products.
- Containers of alcohol beverages should have expanded warnings.
- Days and hours of alcohol selling should be limited.
- Impose age restriction
- Tax deductibility on alcohol beverages should be eliminated from business expense.