Prohibition - OverSimplified

- This video was made possible thanks to Honey. Click the link below to save money on your online purchases. And also limited edition Al Capone pins now on sale. Get them quick before they sell out. Link in description below. Good morning darling. What is for breakfast? The normal. Two chests of rum, a cup of hard cider and a full bottle of wine. Oh boy. Oh, I'm late. I'll have to take it. Don't forget your lunch. It's a six-pack of beer, a flask of whiskey, six shots of tequila and, as a special treat, a banana. Oh wow, they're going to destroy me today.

Enjoy your day operating dangerous and sharp farm equipment. I can't believe this is an acceptable way to live. God bless America. Well, I have to go. (loud crash) I love my life! (upbeat music) America, the land of beautiful shopping malls, world-class infrastructure and wonderful urban sprawl. Ah yes, beautiful America. But what is the most American thing you can think of? The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, a crazy woman on a scooter yelling at a pigeon? Well, what if I told you the answer is alcohol? That's how it is. When the Puritans arrived on American shores, they brought a shipload of beer.

George Washington provided his men with a daily cup of whiskey. Andrew Jackson's inauguration party left the White House so trashed that everyone had to be ordered out. Frederick Douglass said that whiskey made him feel like a president. Me too, Federico, me too. Americans drink for breakfast. Doctors prescribe strong liquor to their patients. In the 19th century, Americans drank three times as much as their modern-day counterparts. That's a lot of whiskey. Hi Jerry, how's that report going? Already done, sir. I also organized his paperwork, watered his flowers, and was a father figure to his children. Wait a minute. (sniffs) What is that smell?

Have you been drinking at work? No sir, I never would. Well, why not?! Everyone else is doing it. But I did all my work! You are fired! (broken glass) (people applauding) Americans drink at work. They drink at barn raisings, baptisms, and public hangings. Binge drinking was so normal that it was as American as apple pie. Hello everyone, my name is Ron and I am an alcoholic. Get over yourself, Ron. We are all alcoholics. But more and more Americans began to wonder if all this was really a normal way of living. Were Americans perhaps drinking too much?

Well, one group in particular thought the answer was yes. You know them. You love them. Women. (men laughing) Oh shit, women! Run! (crowd shouting) Wait! We just want to talk. Women speaking in public? That's outrageous. Come on, Fred, you have two kids and a wife at home, but here you are spending your entire salary on alcohol. And you, Dr. Spanky, are about to discover time travel, but what did you discover instead? The sweet, sweet pleasures of whiskey. That's right, alcohol. It is destroying our families, our jobs and our homes. You're right, you're right. Wait, men. Don't let them get to you.

This room is our safe space where our wives and children cannot bother us with the reality where we are free to be real men. You're right, you're right, I'm a man. And what do real men do? Take care of your families. I don't know what you're talking about. Do you take care of your family? No. We drink beer, shoot and fight in the mud! (men applauding) As excessive drinking in America ruined more and more lives, moral resistance began to arise and women were at the forefront taking matters into their own hands at a time when women who did almost anything was shocking.

They were tired of being victims of their husbands' excessive drinking and were going to do something unprecedented. Are you going to what? I'm going to protest. (laughs) (cough) Oh honey, women can't protest. (crowd shouting) Beginning in Ohio before spreading nationwide, women began a crusade against alcohol. They marched through towns and cities, singing hymns, gathering outside halls and praying on their knees. The women's prayer was so terrifying that in some cities schools closed and businesses came to a standstill. On one occasion, firefighters were called to hose down dangerous praying women. In another, a beer garden owner allegedly held a cannon outside and threatened to reduce wild women to dust.

However, they persisted. They formed the WCTU in 1874 and organized. They established homes for drunken women. They installed water fountains in public parks. They wrote textbooks for schoolchildren that contained some interesting statements about alcohol consumption. Here's little Timmy. Uh-oh, looks like Timmy is going to take his first drink. He's taking a small sip of whiskey and Timmy has spontaneously combusted. The end. The women's efforts were not in vain. In small towns across the United States, pharmacies agreed to stop filling alcohol prescriptions. The men agreed to give up drinking. Inspired by women's moral fervor, some salon owners closed their doors.

The Women's Crusade and other temperance movements were forcing people to reconsider the role of alcohol in society, and more people began to side with the growing temperance movement. Many states had even begun to enact their own dry laws restricting the sale and use of alcohol. One of them was Kansas, where alcohol had been prohibited since 1881. Despite this, many illegal saloons remained open and the authorities had done practically nothing to stop them. One woman, disgusted by what she saw, decided to take the law into her own hands, and not just any woman, a terrifyingly sweet, axe-wielding old woman named Carrie Nation.

Armed with her steward's ax and a bag of what she called smashers, she traveled from city to city visiting taverns, but she wasn't there to be smashed, she was there to be smashed. The men could do nothing but cringe as sweet little Carrie came out and trashed the place. She went to Kiowa and wrecked, Wichita, wrecked, to Piqua, wrecked. A couple of times, they arrested her, but each time they said, okay, Carrie, we'll let you go as long as you promise to be a good girl and not destroy any more bars, okay? Fuck you pig! (spits) Yeah, I think she'll be fine.

Smash, smash, smash. Carrie's tactics surprised the other members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, but she assured them, and this is a quote: "Ladies, you don't know how much joy you'll have 'until you smash, smash, smash." She became a household name and hoped her unusual tactics would spread throughout the country, but unfortunately, many of the women's movements eventually dwindled. Why? Well, for this kind of thing, Thelma you'll have to sew them up yourself. Because I'm going out to protest. What?! I don't know how to sew. What if I burn down the house and get eaten by alligators?

Don't be stupid, I have to go. Call me stupid. she's stupid. (glass breaking) (loud explosion) Hey, Thelma! See who's stupid?, while the women were outside protesting, there was no one to cook and clean and be seen and not heard, and gradually they had to return to their duties at home. But where women had set the ball rolling, a new movement was about to take that ball to Washington, DC. I mean the Anti-Saloon League. The Anti-Saloon League was a political pressure group led by a very sweet looking old man. But don't let that fool you. This guy was an evil genius.

While the women's movements were interested in a wide range of issues, Wayne Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League only cared about enemy number one, Mr. Al Cohol, and as a result, were extremely effective. They were able to exploit the fears of the American people. And I mean everyone's fears. This is how they did it. Hello sir, welcome to the Progressive Liberal rally. Why don't you introduce yourself? Well, I'm Paddy and I'm an immigrant from Ireland. And tell me, Paddy, do you drink? Oh yes, I drink a lot. Come friends? People like Paddy come here looking for a better life and end up drunk in the gutter.

Don't worry sir, we will help you. (people applauding) Hey, you're doing great. I only need you for one more thing. Hello Christian Conservatives, I'm Paddy. He is a dirty Irish Catholic immigrant who has come to destroy America with his alcohol-fueled debauchery. (people applauding) The workers were told that alcohol was a capitalist ploy to keep them subjugated. Factory owners were told that alcohol was making their irresponsible workers lazy. The black community was warned that alcohol was hindering their progress, while racists were warned that alcohol would turn black men into brutes. In one of the most confusing times in American politics, polar opposite groups agreed on at least one thing: Alcohol was bad.

The Anti-Saloon League also made great use of propaganda, something

prohibition

ists had been doing for decades. Take as an example this copy that warns of what will happen to you if you start drinking. Let's see, first you have a drink, you get a little rowdy, okay, you make new friends. Nice. Then you become homeless. You turn to crime. And but, uh-oh. But the most effective tactic Wheeler used to impose

prohibition

in the United States was political pressure. In any election he could, Wheeler successfully garnered support for any pro-alcohol politician. In Ohio alone, he had 70 state representatives and the popular Republican governor removed from office and replaced by prohibitionists.

Suddenly, every politician in America was afraid of Wayne Wheeler. Even those who enjoyed alcohol in private began to pretend they were against it in public. Alcohol is delicious. I mean malicious. I'm sorry, Wayne. I'm very drunk right now. Then it all came true in 1917, when the United States found itself fighting in World War I against Germany. Anti-German sentiment exploded. Sauerkraut became Liberty Cabbage. German measles became Liberty measles. And dachshunds became the embodiment of evil. Do you see America? You've always been like this. America's greatest brewers were German, and Wheeler saw to it that drinking alcohol became something of a pro-German betrayal.

German brewers desperately tried to fight back, creating their own propaganda, presenting beer as a healthy drink, one that could even be given to one's children. As you can imagine, it was not well received. President Wilson instituted some temporary wartime prohibition measures to save food grains. And now that many in the country supported the ban, all that was left was to sign it into law. One problem was that taxes on alcohol accounted for almost 40% of the US government's annual revenue, and the government was unwilling to give that up. No problem. The Anti-Saloon League helped lobby for the creation of a new income tax on the American people.

And so, the government was no longer dependent on alcohol. Prohibition was finally introduced to Congress in 1913, not only as a law but as a constitutional amendment. In 1917, as the House held its final vote on the prohibition amendment, Wheeler watched from the gallery. Cowards without character. I know half of you drink, but here you are, bowing to Ned Flanders up there. Look at him like he's some kind of Caesar. Ugh, don't be so dramatic. Obviously I don't think he's Caesar. Now release the lions. (lion roaring) In the end, prohibition passed easily in the House, 282 votes to 128. And the states ratified the new amendment in 1919.

The United States, a nation obsessed with freedom, had just voluntarily given up its private right to choose whether or not to drink alcohol. We did it, friends! (crowd cheering) We fixed everything. America will be perfect forever. But they just dissolved the fifth largest industry in the United States and lost tens of thousands of jobs for us immigrants. No idiot. You do not get it. We'll help you, idiot. Ugh, I could really have a beer. Oh no! Immediately after Prohibition went into effect, alcohol consumption in the United States declined as Americans followed the law and tried not to drink.

Man, if we're going to be law-abiding good guys, we need something else to fill the dark, lonely void that delicious beer once occupied. Well, how about we open a nice can of cold water? Hell yeah, throw it away. No, this doesn't work for me. Let's try to knit. This is not filling the dark void at all. Do you want to play some kites? Ah, to hell. Let's go look for illegal beer. While it seemed that many Americans supported the ban, after the law went into effect, it seemed that many Americans intended to continue drinking and would look for a variety of ways to violate the new law.

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oversimplified

. That's joinhoney.com/

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. And as always, you will support my channel, so thank you. Now where were we? Ah yes, punching Paddy, passing the ban and getting pints.

Shortly after the new law was passed into effect, the failures of prohibition were already beginning to rear their ugly heads. For starters, the details of the new prohibition law drafted by none other than Wayne Wheeler himself turned out to be more draconian than expected. Many prohibition supporters only wanted to ban hard alcoholic beverages and hoped that beer would remain legal, but the Volstead Act banned anything over 0.5%. That would make Liberty Cabbage illegal. Second, the new law was full of loopholes that Americans quickly began to exploit. For example, while the sale and manufacture of liquor was illegal, drinking it was not.

And you could also keep any alcohol you had before the law went into effect. So many private clubs accumulated enormous quantities of alcohol that allowed them to get through the entire prohibition period. Whiskey intended for medicinal purposes was also permitted and doctors basically became bartenders. It seemed as if a full-blown epidemic had broken out when there was a sudden increase in whiskey recipes. Sacramental wines used in churches and synagogues were also permitted. Communion wine orders suspiciously skyrocketed by millions of gallons. And because rabbis had access to religious wine, suddenly everyone was becoming rabbis. There was Rabbi Pat O'Leary, Rabbi LL Cool J, and Rabbi Fluffy.

But do not worry. I'm sure all these definitely legitimate religious figures couldn't be selling wine in the alley after mass. Yeah, there's definitely nothing weird going on here. New products also hit store shelves, such as Vine-Glo, a block of dried grape juice, which itself is alcohol-free and therefore perfectly legal, but whose packaging contained an oddly specific warning. After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not put the liquid in a jar in the cupboard for 20 days, because then it would turn into wine. I'll take a thousand. Yes sir. Now at this point, I want you to think back, so to speak, to the year 2005.

You're the coolest kid in the world and you convince your parents to rent the greatest movie of all time at your local Blockbuster. But the movie starts with a strange message, something about not unloading a car. You immediately ignore it and hop on Kazaa to download the greatest song of all time, emptying your dad's bank account with copious amounts of ransomware in the process. You were breaking the law, bad boy or girl. But did someone come to arrest you? No. That's my point. If no one enforces a law while everyone breaks it, is it really a law?

And the same thing happened with the ban. You see, the Conservative-led governments of the decade were also the kind of people who believed in small public spending. So they passed a law that would be extremely difficult to enforce, but they also didn't want to spend any of the money needed to enforce it. The newly created Prohibition Office only had 1,500 agents to cover the entire country. That's one agent for every 70,666 Americans in a huge country with 12,000 miles of coastline and a gigantic land border with Canada. Good luck idiots. And all these clever little loopholes that people were using to get legal alcohol were just the beginning.

America was about to descend into alcohol-fueled criminal chaos. By prohibiting it, prohibition had turned alcohol into a precious commodity. And millions of Americans would become outlaws by finding various ways to obtain illegal alcohol. For example, many Americans began making their own liquor. Prohibition agents found illegal moonshine stills from the hills of Kentucky and the caves of Arizona to the parking lots of major cities and even in the homes of politicians who supported prohibition. Come on guys, I voted for the ban. I'm not going to have an illegal still. What is this? That's my son Freddie. Greetings Freddy.

Sir, this is obviously an illegal still. How dare you? Hey, what's this in the bathtub? That's bath water. Why does it taste like alcohol? Here's a better question. Why are you tasting my bathwater, you weirdo? Come on Freddy. Let's get away from these perverts. To discourage illegal alcohol, the government began adding additional toxins to many of the products used by illegals, resulting in many cases of serious illness and death. But alcohol was not only produced at home. Along America's vast coastlines, rum runners smuggled alcohol into the country by sea. A floating supermarket known as Rum Row stretched along the East Coast, just beyond the United States maritime boundary.

And smugglers frequently sailed in small boats to pick up shipments of alcohol. These smugglers could then be found selling their illegal products everywhere, even in the halls of Congress. Wow, dad, someday I want to work here. Well, son, if you work hard and never give up, someday even you might be a big hypocrite. President Harding was even known to serve smuggled whiskey to his cabinet. And some bootleggers were so successful that they became multimillionaires, like Roy Olmsted, a former police officer who became one of the largest employers in the Seattle area thanks to alcohol smuggling. Unfortunately, all of his whiskey came from Canada.

Gross. All of this criminality was made possible by large amounts of corruption. Across the country, armies of government officials were persuaded to turn a blind eye. The smugglers got so rich that it was no problem to put a couple thousand dollars in the front pocket of the police chief or the mayor or his disapproving mother. And some police officers were becoming almost as rich as the smugglers. All right, men, everyone gather together. I'm told that one of you has been taking bribes from smugglers. Any idea who? Kevin maybe, do you have any ideas? No sir. Many police officers came from the same heavy-drinking communities and were unwilling to arrest their own grandparents for drinking home-made gin.

But all this does not mean that the law has not been applied. Many government officials were doing everything they could to enforce the new laws. And some unfortunate people received very harsh sentences, like a Michigan mother who was sentenced to life in prison for making small-scale moonshine. Cases like these were widely reported in the media and only served to make the ban even more unpopular. But not only that, the media also loved to cover the exploits of the most famous smugglers, turning them into national icons. One of the biggest smugglers was a man named George Remus.

Originally a lawyer, he watched his smuggling clients casually pay huge fines and proclaim that smuggling is my business. But unlike most smugglers, Remus had a big brain and came up with a pretty clever system. You see, there were millions of gallons of liquor produced before prohibition that were stored in distillery warehouses. And it could only be sold with government permission to pharmaceutical companies. So Remus created his own pharmaceutical company and bought all the liquor, then he created his own transportation company to transport the liquor, and then he would send his own men with weapons to intercept his own transportation vehicles, and this would happen.

Hey man, this is a robbery. Oh no, please don't hurt me. I won't hesitate to shoot. Please, I have a wife and children. Deliver all the whiskey, greasy. Hey, the chubby guy isn't in the script, idiot! (sobs) After stealing all the whiskey, he could sell it for a lot of money. The perfect crime. Unfortunately, Remus was eventually caught by a goody two-shoe ban director in Indiana who wouldn't take Remus' bribes. And the government found Remus guilty of violating the Volstead Act 3,000 times. For two years, while Remus was in prison, his wife promised to take care of all his money, and by take care of his money she meant having an affair with a prohibition agent, selling everything Remus owned. and file for divorce.

When Remus finally emerged and found his large, elegant mansion empty without his wife, he supposedly burst into tears. A few months later, during the divorce trial, he saw his wife in a car in Cincinnati. Remus got into a taxi and asked the driver to take her off the road. The driver said, she is fine. Then Remus got out of the taxi and shot his wife dead. He immediately surrendered to the police. And his next trial, this time for murder, became a national sensation. Remus defended himself, pleading insanity, occasionally conducting skillful interrogations, occasionally crying in a corner.

But the nation felt bad for him. His wife had screwed him over. And so when after just 19 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned and found him not guilty. The courtroom erupted in celebration. And just to remind you, this guy bluntly admitted to murdering his wife. The American justice system. As alcohol flooded the country, much of it went to a new type of drinking establishment that had been gaining popularity: a secret drinking establishment. So secret that from the outside they often looked like normal shops or houses, so secret that you usually needed a password to enter, so secret that everyone knew about them, the speakeasies.

And once inside, the party lasted all night. Scantily clad flappers, snake ladies, jazz. It was an incredible time to be alive. Some publications even published reviews of these illegal clubs, and copious bribes kept the party going. It seemed like half of the police officers and federal agents in cities like New York were receiving bribes from speakeasy owners. Hey, what's Kevin Costner going on here? Officer O'Hannity, you take bribes, why am I not surprised? Prohibition director Simmons? To shame. Mother? What would dad say? Ask him yourself. Dad would tell you to stop being so useless and let Dad earn his tips.

Every time authorities shut down one speakeasy, three more seemed to pop up somewhere else. And some neighborhoods were so full of them that one resident began hanging a sign to try to stop partygoers from constantly knocking on his door. It really seemed like in some places the new alcohol laws were simply being ignored. And one Prohibition agent who traveled the country liked to see which city was the most defiant by measuring how long it took to offer him a beer after he arrived. Your winner? New Orleans where a taxi driver offered him a drink after just 35 seconds.

Bravo! Many voices in Congress were already speaking out against the ban and its failures. To show how ridiculous the whole thing was, a Republican congressman rallied the media so they could all come watch him drink a homebrew. When he asked a police officer he was passing if he wanted to arrest him, the officer said no. Hi Wayne, is this all what you had in mind? I thought we were going to improve the country but it almost seems like it is worse. What do you mean? Alcohol consumption has decreased. Well, that may be true in your small town world, but here it says that alcohol consumption in some areas has increased, as have arrests for public intoxication, drunk driving, and incidents of liver cirrhosis.

The general chaos has turned the United States into a nation of lawless criminals. And all these attempts to enforce the law are only costing the economy valuable money and consuming judicial time and resources. Release the lions. (lion roaring) The social change and corruption that Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League had been so eager to prevent, at least in the cities, were increasing. Look,When something is legal, you can usually regulate and control it, but if you make it illegal, often anything becomes fair game. The legal drinking age no longer exists. Mandatory closing times for nightclubs and bars are over.

Other unspoken sociocultural rules surrounding alcohol are gone, gone, gone. In speakeasies, different genders and ethnicities were beginning to mix like they had not done before. The Roaring '20s saw a monumental shift in culture, not least because men and women could now flirt in public without being condemned for eternity. An outraged Wayne Wheeler went to great lengths to ensure that anyone who broke the law was punished. He had even stricter legislation implemented in New York. But all this did was clog up the justice system with minor alcohol violations, and the judges started letting everyone off with similar fines so the judges could get back to dealing with things that really mattered, things like murders, and there were many murders, because bootleggers and moonshiners were one thing, but prohibition had given another type of criminal the opportunity to make a fortune: gangsters and gangsters.

Hello Fat Tony, great news. Hello Fat Joey, what's up? I just got news from Fat Louis that the government is banning alcohol. You know what it means? That means we will be rich. Quick, call Fat Paulie and we're going to hijack a liquor truck now. Alright. Wait, let me tell my wife first. Hey Fat Susan, no pizza for Fat Joey tonight, capeesh? He stopped calling me Fat Susan. Oh yeah, forget it. Rival gangs began fighting in American cities, raiding each other's transportation, murdering their rivals, and attempting to take control of their city's illicit liquor trade. Each city had its leader.

Detroit had The Purple Gang, New England had Charles King Solomon, but no city was as famous for gang violence and murder as Chicago. The city had multiple gang factions and at first they agreed to stay in their own neighborhoods, but the thing about criminals is that they are criminals and agreements were inevitably broken. One day, the leader of the South Side Italian gang was walking down the street when this happened. (firing machine guns) And he said, "You know, I think I'm done with this," and he went to New York, leaving his criminal empire to his chief enforcer, none other than Al Capone.

After being stabbed in the face in his youth, Capone earned the name Scarface. Although he curiously hated that nickname and preferred to be called Snorky. Snorky was ruthless like any other gang leader in America, but what set him apart from the others, the reason he became synonymous with the gang warfare of the 1920s, is this. Most other gang leaders would try to keep a low profile because they kill and murder and stuff, but Capone lived for fame and maintained an extremely high public profile, frequently speaking to the media about his exploits and presenting himself as a gracious host, providing good times to Chicago.

No need to thank me, folks. I simply provide the city with a valuable asset while eliminating competition. You mean you murder people? Wow, who said anything about murder? I simply forced my rivals to hide. When you do that with your hands, it sounds like you're talking about murder. Wow, look at you with your brain. No, no, I just help people retire from life. So murder? Oh! Al Snorky Capone was something of an enigma, brutal in the way he dealt with enemies, but in front of the camera he was all smiles. One day he was asking for hit after hit and the next he was signing autographs at Wrigley Field.

One day he'd be beating members of his own gang with a baseball bat for plotting against him, and the next day he'd be playing Santa Claus at a nearby parochial school. And he could never be attributed any murder. Like any other criminal, he filled the pockets of city officials with hard cash, and anyone who tried to oppose him sometimes found himself thrown down the steps of City Hall in broad daylight. Problem solved. The public couldn't get enough of Capone. He quickly became a household name as people idealized the gang life he lived, and this became a source of concern for the people at the top.

President Hoover. What happens now, Miles? I'm busy. Well, there is a lot of crime, sir. Crime. How long has that been happening? Well, since the dawn of man, sir. That? Would you like me to put the blame back on the Democrats? No, Miles, I want you to blame the squirrels. Yes, the Democrats! Now stop wasting my time. Since having a crime lord controlling public officials and winning the hearts of the people was probably not a good thing, Hoover personally ordered that something be done about this Capone guy. But before he knew it, President Hoover was also dealing with another major problem.

You know them, you love them. Women. The prohibition era had been going on for almost a decade, and anyone with a brain could see that it wasn't really going very well. One person with a brain was Pauline Sabin, an extremely influential and wealthy woman who served on the Republican National Committee, raised funds for Republican presidents, and had a secret wine room in her giant mansion. She initially supported the ban, but now she was disgusted by the chaos it had created. And she started a new women's movement, this time not for the ban, but against it. An extremely influential woman, her new organization gained nearly 1.5 million members in two years, five times more than the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

She hated that the WCTU claimed to speak for all women and began calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment. President Hoover, I helped finance her campaign and now I want you to end prohibition. Miles, what do I say when I'm not going to do anything? Will investigate it, sir. Oh yes, that's right. Pauline, I'll look into it. Sabin gave speeches on the steps of Congress and helped lead the American people to mounting pressure against prohibition. But Hoover, a prohibitionist himself, would not budge. Then, on February 14, 1929, something happened that shocked the nation. Men thought to be working for Al Capone tricked some Irish mobsters into meeting them at a garage in Chicago, thinking they were there to buy hijacked whiskey, but instead the mobsters were lined up against the wall by men dressed as police officers and shot them.

The Valentine's Day massacre outraged people. It was cruel and almost felt like the American gangsters had finally crossed the line. People were fed up with the violence and partly blamed the ban for helping to create it. The pressure on Hoover to do something was constantly increasing. Good. Miles, I want you to prepare a report to see if this is all working. You mean that thing where gangsters are getting more and more powerful and slaughtering each other in the streets and everyone ignores the law and half of our public officials are corrupt and take bribes? That thing?

Yes, I want to know if it's working or not, Miles. Stop wasting my time. Hoover continued to drag his feet on prohibition, but after the St. Valentine's Day massacre, he was still determined to do one thing. He wanted Al Capone to be in prison. Because Capone had been so careful, the FBI was having a hard time charging him with anything, but they finally caught him. Capone, we know that you are supplying Chicago with alcohol and that you have been involved in countless murders. Wow, look at you with that crazy talk. I haven't done any of that.

But you're rich, right? You're absolutely right, I am. And where did all the money come from, Capone? Alright, I'll tell you a little secret, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay? I don't pay my taxes. Oh! Despite all the murders of him, the IRS finally charged Capone with tax evasion. However, at the trial he did not seem too concerned and spent most of the time laughing with his lawyers. Hi Capone, I should know, why are you so sure you're going to win here? Well, your honor, because I am an honest and big-hearted man who is passionate about working for the good of the people and also because I threatened all the families on the jury.

Fortunately, at the last minute, the judge replaced the entire jury with a new one that Capone's men had not yet reached, and Capone was found guilty. He was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison, the harshest sentence ever imposed on a tax evader. But even with Capone locked up, violence in Chicago and other cities continued, and in response, the anti-prohibition movement continued to grow. And the final nail in Prohibition's coffin came in 1929. After a decade of flourishing economic growth under three Republican presidents, the stock market crashed and the United States fell into the clutches of the Great Depression.

It was a terrible time. One in five workers, 15 million people, would lose their job. Half of the country's banks failed. Temporary slums for the poor and homeless were built in public parks. Suddenly, very few people had time to worry about the ban. Expensive enforcement of an unenforceable law didn't seem like a high priority when people were having their homes repossessed and losing their life savings. And many began to argue that repealing prohibition would create vital jobs and tax revenue for the government, but President Hoover doubled down. Here is the report he requested, sir. Give to me.

Prohibition is great. Fantastic news. Sir, it says here that prohibition is great for undermining the rule of law in America. Miles, says the word cool. That means good. Now stop wasting my time. The public, increasingly shocked by the violence it saw in the streets, the corruption it saw in government, the general disregard for the law and now an economic calamity, had had enough. For his re-election, Hoover faced the Democratic candidate who promised to finally do something against prohibition, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Crowds applauded when FDR gave his campaign speeches promising to amend the Volstead Act. And lifelong Republican Pauline Sabin, along with her 1.5 million supporters, endorsed Roosevelt.

And on election day, the victory was overwhelming. Even before FDR took office, Republicans in Congress began the process of passing the 21st Amendment to repeal prohibition. One of FDR's first acts as president was to pass the Beer Permit Act which legalized beer while the new amendment was ratified. In 1933, with the passage of the 21st Amendment, prohibition finally ended and people celebrated as if they had just won a World War. Bars and taverns were full. The WCTU was inconsolable. Wayne Wheeler was dead. And the celebration, particularly in American cities, was intense. By the mid-1930s, the effects of prohibition were clear.

From now on, the culture around drinking had changed and men and women drank together not in saloons but in bars and taverns. The crime syndicates that had been given so much power through prohibition remained powerful as they moved on to other things. Some states chose to stay dry, and Oklahoma did not repeal its prohibition laws until 1959. To this day, there are still counties in the United States with some form of prohibition. So what did we learn today, kids? What is the big lesson here? What is the moral of this story that we can all take away and apply to our daily lives?

Maybe that you shouldn't impose your own morals on others who don't share them? Maybe if you tell Americans not to do something, that's the only thing they will definitely do. Or maybe there is no lesson at all. Maybe we're all just a bunch of dumb, smelly idiots and we're all doomed. The end. (upbeat music)