Prohibition In The 1920's Essay

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Although many different factors ultimately led up to the chaos that unfolded in the 1920’s, there was one factor that progressively became most detrimental to the United States: Prohibition. Prohibition arose at the end of World War I, and before long, the economy began a downward spiral - one which would eventually lead to the Great Depression, a period that would forever alter the landscape of US history. There were many consequences resulting from the ban of alcohol including a very high rise in organized crime, a new sense of hatred towards religions, and most detrimentally, a dramatic loss of jobs and money. In 1919, when the 18th Amendment was put into effect, it began what was known as the "dry" period. Crime plagued the country after the Prohibition Act went into effect and the face of all of the disarray was a man by the name of Al Capone. This infamous murderous-bootlegger thrived during the “dry” era, with his illegal alcohol business, accompanied by countless human slaughterings. The gangster was in business until “1931 [when] the Chicago crime lord was found guilty of income evasion and sentenced to eleven years in prison (Pietrusza,78)”. This was not the first instance of organized crimes in the US. Before prohibition,…show more content…
All businesses that were affiliated with alcohol were shut down, thus ending the jobs of all of the workers who made alcohol, salesmen who sold it, and countless other jobs that revolved around the “lethal drink”. All in all, throughout America an estimated “$11 billion [was] lost [in] tax revenue, while [it cost] over $300 million to enforce” (Prohibition, PBS) the 18th Amendment. This is because tax revenue was highly dependent on taxes that were placed on alcoholic beverages. The ironic thing about the economy was that the only people actually profiting from prohibition were gangsters, mobsters and criminals

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