A news report for October 18, 2011, noted some of the cost of alcoholic beverage use in the United States: Heavy drinkers cost the U. S. economy over $220 billion in lost productivity, higher health costs and a busier crime system. The article noted this was an annual cost, and that smoking added another $193 billion. Further, this did not account for the pain and suffering brought upon persons by the habits. The study was made by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and labeled as conservative. There were additional costs, perhaps greater than those known, that can’t be evaluated. One of these is that deaths, caused by drunken drivers, are a major factor in the statistics of the causes of death. Now, every few days the yearly prohibition era deaths, even allowing for population inflation, are very far more than matched in tragedy accepted as standard conduct. The loss is staggering, and should be unacceptable.
This month an extensive television documentary on the American Prohibition of the 1920’s was aired, and reviewed in the press. The program was well done, especially in citing the devastating increase in alcoholism in the period before prohibition. The culture and family situation were so threatened by excess that it appeared the only hope for America was in prohibition. With the rise of the speak-easy, mountain moonshine, and other illegal sources, the underground resistance to prohibition became ugly, sometimes murderous. Almost every public statement about prohibition regards the period as totally unsatisfactory, causing criminality. I remember well when prohibition was repealed after Franklin Roosevelt became president. The promise was that the Saloon would not return, and that, if it did, we would regret the repeal. The Saloon did return under a new cleaned up rubric – the Bar. In the large city near to where I live, a common call for police is from bars. They include numerous law violations, including murder.
That there was strong leadership and support from Christians, especially from women, for prohibition has been documented. Leaders, like William Jennings Bryan, stated that making it a matter of the constitution would guarantee it for all the future. No amendment of the Constitution had ever been reversed by the congress and a president. But it was just a bit over ten years after it was passed that it was repealed. It was not well enforced, was not made acceptable through education (as the decline in the use of tobacco has been), and its story has been distorted. During the period the domestic life for the home and family gained greater advance than at any previous time in history. Space does not make way for many contrasts here.
Crime during prohibition largely affected the criminals, and persons risking their lives, reputations and futures. The men massacred in the Valentine’s Day killings in Chicago belonged in jail. The criminals usually killed criminals, and low lifes. Today, far more persons, in multiples and innocent, die from alcohol use than died from the program of prohibition, and those who die are usually rather good citizens, or the young who have yet to win life meaning. Our present situation is bizarre and tragic. An unbelievable number of persons die from alcoholism, and from alcohol induced accidents on highways and in homes.
The story might well be extended, but one thing we ought to agree about – the sordidness, the crime, the ugliness of those violating sobriety was and is high cost of the suffering for the free flow of alcohol and hard drugs in this era. During Prohibition the number of homes for families increased at an unprecedented rate. The nation spent more of its income on life improvement including mobility in transportation, better foods, schools, and conditions that made America the nation in the world to which persons wanted to emigrate in ever larger numbers. By the evidence which is really better – free flow or prohibition? Prohibition wins the argument, even if it can be shown that it is not the best solution to the problem. We ought to find the best solution without faulting the Christians, and their allies, in trying to find the good life through challenging address and attitude toward human appetites and weaknesses. There is a general wisdom for that can find solutions. The Christian means to be supportive of that which builds a fair and safe society. Rights that distort life for some may violate both freedom and rights from others. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020