A Revisionist History Of Prohibition - Alexander Baron

A REVISIONIST HISTORY OF PROHIBITION
drink dink was at one time known as the tlrc good creature creenue of Godl God! (10) (10) Rum was even the principal medium of exchange
in the 18th Century slave trade, and at one time a Negro slave on the African coast could be had for a few gallons.
(11) Obviously, Obviousty, if people witl will sell their kinfolk into slavery I'or for a barrel of hooch, it must be highly highly regarded for
its its medicinal and other other properties. properties.
A local-option law came into force in the New World as early as 1829, in the State of Maine. Maine. This was was the the lirst first
partially successful attempt at Prohibition, allowing €ach each county to vote itself wet or dr1. dry. (12) This sort of
propaganda, that a state, city or some other arbitrary area area has has a a iight ight to to vote itself either wet wqt or dry, is tempting, ternpting
but contains a colossal fallacy, the fallacy that just just because you are in in a minority, minority, (13) a majority majority has the right ight to
take away awayyour your rights by a dentocratic democratic vote.The vote. The great American Libertarian Libertarian Ayn Rand put down this nonsense in
a nutshell: "Individual rights are not sulject sulr.iect to to a a public vote; votel a majority has no right to vote away the therights rights of a
minority..." (14)
In 1895, the Anti-Saloon League, founded by "preachers,
teachers and businessmen" businessmen'was was preaching its message,
as usual for the benefit of of the working class, but it took until 1919 for Prohibition in the krm form of of the VolsteadAct
Volstead Act
(after its framer) to become law. taw. This made it illegal to manuf'acture manufacture or sell any drink drinkwith with more than .5% .57o alcohol alcohol
content, and provided a tine line of of $1,000 or 6 months in gaol for fbr breaking this law. /aw. (15)
Prohibition: Bad Law LawBreeds Breeds Contempt For ForAll All Law
So this is where Al comes in. Nphonse Alphonse Capone was born in January 1899. (f6) (16) The son of ltalian Italian immigrant
parents, he would later open a secondhand shop in Chicago, and such was the climate of intolerance in that city
that by the time Alphonse was thirte thirteen, en, refontrcrs refol7ners had pressurised the city administration into closing its red light
district. (17) Alphonse Capone was a big kid, and by all accounts a rough one. As a youth lie he had his faced slashed
in in a Brooklyn barber shop, the memento of which earned him the name Scartace Scarface Al. (18) As Alphonse - henceforth
Al - grew up, Prohibition came in, but there had been jackets rqckets before this, and Al started his career in so-called
crime running errands for a small time racketeer named named'I)iamond 'I)iamond Jim' Jim'Colosimo. Colosimo. (19)
With the start. start of Prohibition, Colosimo moved into liquor, but in May 1920 he was murdered, and his shoes
were filled by one Johnny Torrio who took on Al as a junior partner. (20) Five Five years later, Torrio was seriously
wounded in a revenge attack, allegedly by the rival O'Banion gang. He decided to quit the mob, and at the age of
twenty-six, Al Capone was numero uno. (21)
By this time, the evil effects of Prohibition had long been recognised, although it would be another eight years
before this piece of repressive legislation was consigned to the trashcan of history where it belongs. One of its its
most ntost evil effects was the fierce competition it it induced for increasingly scarce resources, which which led to businessmen
cutting each others throats (and killing cacti each other by other means) in order to service their customers. (22)
Another was, of course, the widespread disrespect it earned for the law from ordinary citizens. Even Eliot Ness
himself recognised this, for tie he %%Tote wrote in iii his his autobiography, "Doubts raced through my rnind mind as I considered the
feasibility of enforcing a law which the majority of honest citizens didn't seem to want." want. (23)
Ness also cited a contemporary source which claimed that "Chicago has the most corrupt and degenerate
municipal administration that ever cursed a a city - a politico-criminal alliance formed between a civil administration
and a gun-covered underworld for the exploitation of the citizenry." (24) It It shows the sort of man he was that,
knowing this, and holding such doubts (in his words), that in in 1928 at at the the age age of of twenty-six, Ness willingly took
charge of the special detail Prohibition Unit rvhen when it was transferred from the Treasury to the Justice Department.
(25) In any case, this claim, that the so-called underworld exploited the citizens of Chicago is not suppofted supported by
the slightest empirical evidence. These so-called gangsters were simply simplybusinessmen businessmen who whowere were providinga providing a service.
How Howwere were the citizens exploited? Were they forced to attend speakeasies
arid and drink home brewed hooch? Did this
gtut-coveredtutderworld
gun-covered unde,'world do do exactly that, make them partwith part with theirmoneyatthe their money at the point of a gun? Stuffand Stuff and nonsense!
The simple fact is that the bootleggers,
the numbers operators and the brothel keepers were providing providing bona tide fide
services which nobody lmd had to to patronise. Such cnnres dimes are victimless, as far as they are crimes at all. all. Nobody's
property rights are violated by by drinking alcohol; nobody is brought into hatred and contempt, neither individuals individuals
nor nor the public public peace are threatened. These were (and in some places still are) crimes cinrcs only because
the state said
they were. By the the same sanie token, at at a a certain time in in ancient Egpt Ept it was a crinrc c,ime for parents to concdal conceal the birth of
their first first born son, who was to be slain by' by order of the Pharaoh. Phara oh. A A law that violates the rights of the individual
in such an arbitrary manner may be a statute, but it it is is not law in any meaningful sense.
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