“After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
“This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the Legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.”
– Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1919), later repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933
At the time that I write this, I have watched more than 20 documentaries by Ken Burns. These include some of his better-known films (like “The Civil War,” “Baseball,” and “Jazz”), and lesser-known films like “Huey Long,” “Frank Lloyd Wright,” “The Dust Bowl,” and “The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God” (one of his earliest films). I am a big fan of many of them, but my reaction to his series about Prohibition was somewhat more mixed. As storytelling goes, the film definitely works, since it tells everything from the story of the two amendments that are relevant to this story, to the gang violence of infamous mobsters like Al Capone (whose story makes for great television). I am also fascinated by the “Jazz Age” that was going on concurrently with Prohibition, so I thus love the soundtrack for this film. (It includes both period recordings, and original jazz pieces from Wynton Marsalis and his group.) But I also found this film somewhat biased, since it ignores much evidence that Prohibition was actually working at this time. The traditional telling of Prohibition is that it “didn't work,” and that making alcohol illegal also increases the amount of “crime” associated with it. Ken Burns' telling is decidedly in this tradition, and comes across as anti-Prohibition propaganda, which is not always objective in its conclusions.
It's almost impossible not to have bias in one's coverage of a controversial topic …
In fairness, it would be nearly impossible to tell the story without some amount of bias, and the mythical ideal of “unbiased coverage” is not always desirable anyway. If someone told the story of Nazi Germany without portraying it negatively, this would come across as somewhat offensive, not to mention lacking in objectivity. Objective coverage sometimes involves honest evaluations, and does not necessarily involve “equal time” or staying neutral in related controversies. The problem is that Ken Burns' take on this seems to be at odds with the historical evidence, since alcohol consumption levels were actually far lower during Prohibition. (More on that later, when I develop these arguments in more detail.)
Removal of liquor during Prohibition
… and their coverage of the nineteenth-century roots of Prohibition is quite interesting
But first, I should give some coverage of some of the strengths of this documentary. For example, its coverage of the history behind the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment is extremely interesting. His first episode covers its roots going back to before the Civil War, from the fact that many Founding Fathers drank liberally, to the fact that there were crucial advances in distillation techniques. These advances led to beverages with higher alcohol content at this time. They also note (accurately) that the movement to prohibit alcohol was driven by many of the women's organizations of this time, such as the “Women's Christian Temperance Union” (or “WCTU”). Of course, the movement also had the support of a number of men, but women's organizations were among its most prominent supporters. They also note that the movement was intertwined with other efforts to give women the right to vote, and that their staunch support of Prohibition was often cited as a reason to give them the vote. This documentary may even be correct to say that the “temperance” movement was not really a conservative movement, but a radical movement that wanted to scrap centuries' worth of tradition. In fairness, the increased alcohol content of nineteenth-century alcoholic beverages led to some problems that had never been seen before to the same degree. Thus, this upsurge in alcoholism was a motivation for them to address it through some sort of legislative action – which they eventually did in 1919, when the Prohibition Amendment was passed.
Frances Willard, president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union for 19 years
There were a number of loopholes in the amendment, which made enforcement more difficult …
The problems come when it gets to the second and third episodes, and paints Prohibition as increasing the amount of drinking in this country. In fairness, some of the criticisms that it hurls at the Prohibition laws were actually accurate. For example, the Prohibition Amendment would not go into effect until after “one year from the ratification of this article [of amendment].” This meant that the wealthy had all of “one year” to stockpile more than a decade's worth of booze, all of which was legal for both storing and consuming. Many of them had enough to last them until the amendment was repealed, nearly 14 years later. Other criticisms include that the amendment punished the “manufacture, sale, [and] transportation” of alcoholic beverages (not to mention their “importation” and “exportation”), but did not punish their consumption, or the eventual intoxication that their contents caused. The owners of a bar could be arrested for selling the stuff, but its customers could not be arrested for buying or drinking it. They could also get alcohol for so-called “medicinal” reasons, and could buy “near-beer” and “near-wine” that they could ferment themselves with great ease – for example, buying grape juice that could easily be fermented into wine. Some of these products even included so-called “warnings” against leaving their contents in a dark place, for “fear” that they would ferment and turn into alcoholic beverages. Of course, these “warnings” were more like how-to instructions for breaking the laws. It is not hard to see how such laws (with such loopholes) were so easily flouted at this time. I actually agree that it was appropriate for the enforcing “Volstead Act” to make exceptions to this rule for the sacramental wine in churches and synagogues, because the First Amendment protections for religious freedom required this kind of an exception. Nonetheless, some churchmen admitted that the wine stockpiled by their churches was less “sacramental” and more sacrilegious, allowing their congregants to drink it for less exalted reasons.
Prohibition-era prescription for whiskey
Andrew Volstead, the manager of the “Volstead Act” that attempted to enforce Prohibition
Organized crime syndicates did not “go away” after Prohibition was repealed …
They also argue that the Prohibition law was seldom enforced, and that the politicians and police officers could often be bribed to ignore it (rather than arrest or prosecute the offenders). This may be true, but it does not follow from this that the law could never be enforced. This is the kind of case that they make, although they admit that a number of people stopped drinking by reason of “respect for the law,” and that there were some honest enforcers (although they downplay their numbers somewhat, in their coverage of these enforcers). Even they concede that “at first,” Prohibition was actually working – even if they do not agree that it was working long afterwards as well. They blame the gang violence of this period (including Al Capone's activities) on Prohibition, particularly in places like New York and Chicago. This seems to be stretching it a bit, since the documentary agrees that the organized crime syndicates continued long after Prohibition. To argue that legalization “abolishes organized crime” (as some might do) may be just as utopian as the idea that Prohibition “abolishes alcoholism” – a straw-man argument that few Prohibition supporters would actually make, despite the rare counter-examples that this documentary points out. (As Theodore Roosevelt once noted, “Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe” – something that applies to both the initial Prohibition movement, and the later movement to repeal it, which was just as successful.) They delight in noting that the repeal movement, too, was a “women's movement” – something that I actually agree with. They also note that a significant portion of the pre-Prohibition federal budget was based on “sin taxes” on things like alcohol, and that the illicit trade in alcoholic beverages (by contrast) was usually tax-free. This was because records of illegal actions for tax purposes often lead to prosecution for these actions, by the honest enforcers that even this documentary acknowledges to exist.
Al Capone, one of the most notorious gangsters of the twentieth century, who was based in Chicago
They personally attack Prohibition supporters as “hypocrites,” and paint them as anti-immigrant “racists” …
They also note the hypocrisy of some advocates of Prohibition, many of whom wanted Prohibition to apply only to other people. This may be true, but it does not really impeach the pro-Prohibition arguments, even if true. They also paint Prohibition supporters as “anti-immigrant,” a label that is not always accurate. They even paint advocacy for Prohibition as pious “self-righteousness” (labeling Wayne Wheeler as “self-righteous”), and note with delight that the Ku Klux Klan supported it, too – mentioning only briefly that many black civil rights organizations were also in favor of it. The civil rights leaders who had been in favor of it included the then-late Booker T. Washington, who believed that alcoholism held back the African American community, and prevented them from progressing. Their coverage here is almost stereotypical, trying to make the “extremist” element more prominent than it really was at this time. One might as well say that there are “no poor in America,” because Bill Gates is rich. A number of Americans are indeed rich, but this is not really representative of the entire country, and is thus inaccurate as a characterization of the majority, no matter how convenient this “extremist” interpretation may be for Ken Burns and company.
Booker T. Washington, a black civil rights leader who was among the supporters of Prohibition
Alcohol consumption rates did not reach their pre-Prohibition levels until the 1960's …
I should also make note of their argument that Prohibition “did not have any real effect” on alcohol consumption rates in the United States, even going so far as to say that there was more drinking during Prohibition than before or after it. But the evidence shows that alcohol consumption rates did not again reach their pre-Prohibition levels until the 1960's (Source: Website of the National Institutes of Health, part of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services). Whether legal alcohol is good or bad may be a question that is more about values than empirical investigation, but whether or not it can be curbed through Prohibition is an empirical question, since it can be empirically shown to have an effect (and a massive one at that). Despite what Ken Burns would tell you, Prohibition really does work when it's actually tried;=, and bans on other drugs likewise work when they're really tried. (Although some amount of them will always be with us, and no one is arguing that total abolition of these things is actually possible in this world.)
Orange County, California, sheriff's deputies dumping illegal alcohol, 1932
Actually, you can legislate morality – including respect of others' rights to life and to liberty …
They also argue that “you can't legislate morality,” a tired old argument that the left has repeated for decades. If this were true, one might as well do away with laws against murder; since according to this argument, you “can't legislate the morality” of respecting life (which is a moral necessity). Yet I don't hear anyone arguing in this way, because such a position is ultimately untenable, and is in gross contradiction with the facts. There are occasional murders despite the strict laws against it, of course, but that does not mean that those murder laws “don't work,” or that they should be scrapped. To abandon them would be dangerous, not to mention irresponsible. They also argue that making something illegal causes people to “want to do it more.” If so, then they should ask themselves if making chattel slavery illegal causes people to “want to do it more” – an absurd conclusion that even they would reject. Acknowledging this fact allows one to consistently support a legal prohibition on chattel slavery (and other kinds of slavery), on the solid grounds that it does indeed discourage people from “wanting to do it” – a belief that their side would reject, if they insisted on this problematic belief. Oddly enough, no one on this side applies the same logic to the Thirteenth Amendment as they do to the Eighteenth Amendment, but it is equally unsound for the one as it is for the other.
Twenty-First Amendment in the national archives (the amendment that repealed Prohibition)
Conclusion: This documentary is fatally biased, although I suppose that this was inevitable
But regardless of the merits of Prohibition, I should acknowledge that it is obviously unattainable in the current environment. Moreover, a campaign to reinstate it would be political suicide for whoever advocates it, with little (if any) chance of its actually being enacted. Thus, I am not minded to campaign publicly for its return, but to focus merely on opposing the legalization of marijuana wherever possible. But since I have no plans to run for office, I am fully at liberty to say what I please on a blog like this, and have few inhibitions against saying what I really think on this issue (something that is quite liberating for me). I may not openly campaign for Prohibition, but nor will I pretend that I wouldn't support it if it were actually possible again. I can correct the record of history, even if my chances of changing public opinion on this issue are somewhat less than promising. (Although the continuance of federal restrictions on alcohol is still possible. For example, the federal government still has a minimum drinking age of 21, and a maximum blood alcohol level for those driving while intoxicated. Such laws are actually on the books at this time, and have a good chance to continue being such throughout my lifetime.) I acknowledge that my time on the soapbox here may have rivaled my time actually describing the content of this documentary. But in a documentary so focused on attempting to persuade people, comments on the merits of its arguments cannot be irrelevant to this review. Thus, I believe that these comments belong here, as a response to the problematic case made by PBS here, and by Ken Burns himself. This bias is a glaring weakness in this documentary, and one that compromises its quality in a number of ways.
“The Eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”
“The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”
“This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.”
– Twenty-First Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1933), which is still the law of the land today
DVD at Amazon
Disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate marketer, and can sometimes make money when you buy the product using the link(s) above.
If you liked this post, you might also like:
A review of Ken Burns’ “Not For Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony”
A review of PBS’s “The Great War” (the American Experience of World War One)
Ken Burns’ “The Dust Bowl” (during the Great Depression)
A review of “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression”
A review of Ken Burns’ “The War” (World War Two series)
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American history
The Prohibition Era
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