"we shall not, we shall not be moved"
Temperance Unions and friends of organized crime unite and prohibit the scourge
FROM WIKI
Organized crime
Organized crime received a major boost from Prohibition.
Mafia groups limited their activities to prostitution, gambling, and theft until 1920, when organized bootlegging emerged in response to the effect of Prohibition.
A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Powerful criminal gangs corrupted law enforcement agencies, leading to racketeering. In essence, prohibition provided a financial basis for organized crime to flourish.
Rather than reducing crime,Prohibition had transformed the cities into battlegrounds between opposing bootlegging gangs.
In a study of over 30 major U.S cities during the prohibition years of 1920 and 1921, the number of crimes increased by 24%. Additionally, theft and burglaries increased by 9%, homicide by 12.7%, assaults and battery rose by 13%, drug addiction by 44.6% and police department costs rose by 11.4%.
This was largely the result of “black-market violence” as well as the diverting of law enforcement resources elsewhere. Despite the hope of the prohibitionist movement that the outlawing of alcohol would reduce crime, the reality was that the Volstead Act led to higher crime rates than were experienced prior to prohibition and the establishment of a black market dominated by criminal organizations.
Furthermore, stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle.
To prevent bootleggers from using industrial ethyl alcohol to produce illegal beverages, the government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols.
In response, bootleggers hired chemists who successfully renatured the alcohol to make it drinkable.
As a response, the Treasury Department required manufacturers to add more deadly poisons, including the particularly deadly methyl alcohol. New York City medical examiners prominently opposed these policies because of the danger to human life.
As many as 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol before Prohibition ended.[74]
In the "Chemist's War" it does not appear that the government intended to kill Americans with these poisons. They wrongly assumed that people out of fear would stop drinking alcohol.[citation needed] New York City medical examiner Charles Norris believed the government took responsibility for murder when they knew the poison was not deterring people and they continued to poison industrial alcohol (which would be used in drinking alcohol) anyway. Charles Norris said,
"The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol..."[Y]et it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible." [75]
Al Capone, the Prohibition-era leader of organized crime in Chicago.
Another lethal substance that was often substituted for alcohol was "canned heat," also commonly known as Sterno.
Forcing the substance through a makeshift filter, such as a handkerchief, created a rough liquor substitute. However, the result was poisonous, though not often lethal.
Many of those who were poisoned as a result united to sue the government for reparations after the end of Prohibition.[76]
Making alcohol at home was very common during Prohibition.
Stores sold grape concentrate with warning labels that listed the steps that should be avoided to prevent the juice from fermenting into wine. As well, some drug stores would sell a "medical wine" with around a 22% alcohol content; in order to justify the sale, the wine was given a medicinal taste.[76]
Home-distilled hard liquor was referred to as “bathtub gin” in northern cities, and moonshine in the rural areas of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. Homebrewing good hard liquor was easier than brewing good beer.
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