[00:00] - [Narrator] This video
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[00:12] Good morning, Honey.
[00:14] What's for breakfast?
[00:15] The usual.
[00:15] Two caskets of rum, a mug of hard cider,
[00:17] and a full bottle of wine.
[00:19] Oh boy.
[00:20] Oh, I'm running late.
[00:21] I'll have to take it with me.
[00:22] Don't forget your lunch.
[00:23] It's a six-pack of beer,
a flask of whiskey,
[00:25] six shots of tequila, and as
a special treat, a banana.
[00:28] Ah gee whiz, I'm gonna be smashed today.
[00:31] Enjoy your day of operating
sharp, dangerous farm equipment.
[00:34] I can't believe this is
an acceptable way to live.
[00:37] God bless America.
[00:38] Okay, gotta go.
[00:43] (loud crash)
[00:44] I love my life!
[00:46] (animated music)
[00:50] America, the land of
beautiful strip malls,
[00:53] top class infrastructure,
and wonderful urban sprawl.
[00:56] Ah, yes, beautiful America.
[00:58] But what's the most American
thing you can think of?
[01:01] The Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore,
[01:03] a crazy lady in a mobility
scooter yelling at a pigeon?
[01:05] Well, what if I told you
the answer is alcohol?
[01:08] That's right.
[01:09] When the Puritans arrived
on America's shores,
[01:11] they brought a ship packed with beer.
[01:12] George Washington provided his men
[01:14] with a daily cup of whiskey.
[01:15] Andrew Jackson's inauguration party
[01:17] left the White House so trashed
[01:18] that everybody had to be ordered outside.
[01:20] Frederick Douglass said whiskey
[01:21] made him feel like a president.
[01:23] Me too, Frederick, me too.
[01:25] Americans drink at breakfast.
[01:27] Doctors prescribe their
patients hard liquor.
[01:29] In the 19th century,
Americans drink three times
[01:31] as much as their modern-day counterparts.
[01:33] That's a lot of whiskey.
[01:34] Hey Jerry, how's that report coming along?
[01:35] Already done, sir.
[01:36] I've also organized your
paperwork, watered your flowers,
[01:39] and been a father figure to your children.
[01:40] Wait a minute.
[01:41] (sniffs) What's that smell?
[01:42] Have you been drinking at work?
[01:44] No sir, I would never.
[01:46] Well, why not?!
[01:47] Everyone else is doing it.
[01:49] But I got all my work done!
[01:50] You're fired!
[01:51] (glass shattering)
[01:52] (people cheering)
[01:53] Americans drink at work.
[01:54] They drink at barn raisings,
baptisms, and public hangings.
[01:57] Heavy drinking was so normal
[01:59] that it was as American as apple pie.
[02:01] Hi everyone, my name is
Ron and I'm an alcoholic.
[02:04] Get over yourself, Ron.
[02:06] We're all alcoholics.
[02:07] But more and more
Americans began to wonder
[02:09] whether all of this truly
was a normal way to live.
[02:12] Were Americans drinking
perhaps a little too much?
[02:15] Well, one group in particular
[02:17] thought the answer to that was yes.
[02:18] You know 'em.
[02:20] You love 'em.
[02:21] Women.
[02:21] (men laughing)
[02:22] Oh, crap, women!
[02:24] Run!
[02:25] (crowd yelling)
[02:26] Hang on!
[02:27] We just want to talk.
[02:29] Women talking in public?
[02:30] That's outrageous.
[02:31] Come on, Fred, you've got
two kids and a wife at home,
[02:34] yet here you are spending
your entire paycheck on booze.
[02:37] And you, Dr. Spanky,
[02:39] you run the cusp of
discovering time travel,
[02:41] but what did you discover instead?
[02:43] The sweet, sweet joys of whiskey.
[02:45] That's right, alcohol.
[02:47] It's destroying our families,
our jobs, and our homes.
[02:51] She's right, she's right.
[02:52] Hang on, men.
[02:53] Don't let them get to you.
[02:54] This saloon is our safe space
where our wives and children
[02:57] can't annoy us with reality
where we're free to be real men.
[03:00] He's right, he's right, I am a man.
[03:02] And what is it real men do?
[03:04] Take care of their families.
[03:06] I don't know what she's talking about.
[03:08] Do you take care of your family?
[03:09] No.
[03:09] We drink beer, we shoot
guns, and we mud wrestle!
[03:14] (men cheering)
[03:16] As America's heavy drinking
ruined more and more lives,
[03:19] moral resistance began to arise
[03:21] and women were at the forefront
[03:23] taking matters into their own hands
[03:24] at a time when women doing just
about anything was shocking.
[03:27] They'd had enough of being victim
[03:29] to their husbands' heavy drinking
[03:30] and they were gonna do
something unprecedented.
[03:32] You're going to what?
[03:34] I'm going to protest.
[03:36] (laughs)
[03:39] (coughs)
[03:41] Oh sweetie, women can't protest.
[03:45] (crowd yelling)
[03:49] Starting in Ohio before
spreading nationwide,
[03:51] women began a crusade against alcohol.
[03:53] They marched through towns and cities,
[03:54] singing hymns, gathering outside saloons,
[03:57] and praying on their knees.
[03:58] Women praying was so terrifying
[04:01] that in some towns schools were
shut and business stagnated.
[04:04] On one occasion, firemen were called out
[04:05] to hose down the dangerous praying women.
[04:07] On another, the owner of a beer garden
[04:09] reportedly hold a cannon outside
[04:11] and threatened to reduce
the savage women to dust.
[04:14] Nevertheless, they persisted.
[04:15] They formed the WCTU in
1874 and they organized.
[04:19] They set up homes for inebriate women.
[04:21] They installed water
fountains in public parks.
[04:23] They wrote textbooks for schoolchildren
[04:25] that contained some interesting claims
[04:27] about drinking alcohol.
[04:28] Here's little Timmy.
[04:29] Uh-oh, looks like Timmy's
gonna have his first drink.
[04:32] He's taking a small sip of whiskey
[04:34] and Timmy has spontaneously combusted.
[04:36] The end.
[04:37] The women's efforts weren't in vain.
[04:38] In small towns across America,
[04:40] drugstores agreed to stop fulfilling
[04:41] prescriptions for alcohol.
[04:43] Men committed themselves
to giving up drink.
[04:45] Inspired by the women's moral fervor,
[04:47] some saloon owners closed their doors.
[04:49] The women's crusade and
other temperance movements
[04:51] were forcing people to reconsider
alcohol's role in society,
[04:54] and more people began to side
[04:55] with the growing temperance movement.
[04:57] Many states had even begun enacting
[04:59] their own dry laws that restricted
[05:00] the sale and use of alcohol.
[05:02] One of them was Kansas
[05:03] where alcohol had been
outlawed since 1881.
[05:06] Despite this, many illegal
saloons remained open
[05:09] and authorities had done just
about nothing to stop them.
[05:11] One woman, disgusted by what she saw,
[05:14] decided she would take the
law into her own hands,
[05:16] and not just any woman, a
terrifying hatchet-wielding,
[05:20] sweet old lady named Carrie Nation.
[05:22] Armed with her trustee hatchet
[05:24] and a bag of what she called smashers,
[05:26] she traveled from town
to town visiting saloons,
[05:28] but she wasn't there to get smashed,
[05:30] she was there to smash.
[05:32] The men could do nothing but cower
[05:33] as sweet little Carrie hulked out
[05:35] and tore the place to shreds.
[05:37] She went to Kiowa and smashy smashed,
[05:39] Wichita, smashy smashed,
[05:40] to Piqua, smashy smashed.
[05:42] On a couple of occasions,
she was arrested,
[05:44] but each time they were like,
[05:45] okay, Carrie, we're gonna let you go
[05:46] so long as you promise to be a good girl
[05:48] and not smash up any more saloons, okay?
[05:50] Screw you pig! (spits)
[05:53] Yeah, I think she's gonna be all right.
[05:56] Smash, smash, smash.
[05:58] Carrie's tactics shocked the other members
[06:00] of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
[06:01] but she assured them, and this is a quote,
[06:03] "Ladies, you do not know
how much joy you will have
[06:06] "until you smash, smash, smash."
[06:09] Carrie became a household name
[06:10] and she hoped her unusual tactics
[06:12] would spread across the country,
[06:13] but unfortunately,
[06:14] many of the women's movements
eventually slowed down.
[06:17] Why?
[06:18] Well, because of this kinda thing.
[06:19] Thelma!
[06:21] I ripped my pants again.
[06:22] Ugh, well, you'll have
to sew them yourself
[06:24] because I'm going out protesting.
[06:26] What?!
[06:27] I don't know how to sew.
[06:29] What if I burn the house down
and get eaten by alligators?
[06:31] What?
[06:32] Don't be stupid, Mitch!
[06:34] Look, I've gotta go.
[06:36] Call me stupid?
[06:38] She's the one who's stupid.
[06:39] (glass shattering)
[06:42] (loud explosion)
[06:45] Hey Thelma!
[06:45] Look who's stupid now?
[06:48] See, while the women were out protesting,
[06:51] there was nobody to do
the cooking and cleaning
[06:52] and being seen and not heard,
[06:54] and they gradually had to
return to their duties at home.
[06:56] But where the women had
got the ball rolling,
[06:59] a new movement was about to take that ball
[07:01] all the way to Washington, DC.
[07:03] I'm talking about the Anti-Saloon League.
[07:05] The Anti-Saloon League was
a political pressure group
[07:07] run by a very sweet-looking old man.
[07:09] But don't let that deceive you.
[07:10] This guy was an evil genius.
[07:12] While the women's movements
[07:13] were interested in a
whole range of issues,
[07:15] Wayne Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League
[07:17] only cared about enemy
number one, Mr. Al Cohol,
[07:20] and as a result, they
were extremely effective.
[07:23] They were able to exploit the
fears of the American people.
[07:25] And I mean everyone's fears.
[07:27] Here's how they did it.
[07:28] Hello, sir, welcome to the
Liberal Progressive rally.
[07:31] Why don't you introduce yourself?
[07:32] Well, I'm Paddy and I'm
an immigrant from Ireland.
[07:35] And tell me, Paddy, do you drink?
[07:37] Oh yes, I drink a lot.
[07:39] See folks?
[07:39] People like Paddy come here
looking for a better life
[07:42] only to end up drunk in the gutter.
[07:44] Don't worry, sir, we're gonna help you.
[07:47] (people applauding)
[07:48] Hey man, you're doing great.
[07:50] I just need you for one more thing.
[07:52] Hey Christian Conservatives,
this is Paddy.
[07:55] He's a dirty Catholic Irish immigrant
[07:58] who's come to destroy America
[07:59] with his alcohol-fueled debauchery.
[08:03] (people cheering)
[08:05] Workers were told alcohol
was a capitalist ploy
[08:08] to keep them subjugated.
[08:09] Factory owners were told
[08:10] alcohol was making their
irresponsible workers lazy.
[08:13] The Black community was warned
[08:14] alcohol was hindering its progress
[08:16] while racists were warned alcohol
[08:17] would turn Black men into brutes.
[08:19] In one of the most confusing
eras of American politics,
[08:22] totally opposing groups
found themselves agreeing
[08:24] on at least one thing, alcohol was bad.
[08:27] The Anti-Saloon League also
made great use of propaganda,
[08:29] something prohibitionists
had been doing for decades.
[08:31] Take this specimen, for example,
[08:33] that warns what will happen
to you if you start drinking.
[08:36] Let's see, first you take a drink,
[08:37] you get a little rowdy,
[08:39] okay, you make some new friends.
[08:41] Nice.
[08:42] Then you become homeless.
[08:44] You turn to crime.
[08:45] And but, uh-oh.
[08:49] But the most effective tactic
[08:50] Wheeler used to force
prohibition on America
[08:52] was pressure politics.
[08:54] In any election he could,
[08:55] Wheeler very successfully rounded support
[08:57] against any politician who
was in favor of alcohol.
[09:00] In Ohio alone, he had
70 state representatives
[09:03] and the popular Republican
governor ousted from office
[09:05] and replaced with prohibitionists.
[09:07] Suddenly every politician in America
[09:09] was afraid of Wayne Wheeler.
[09:11] Even those who enjoyed alcohol in private
[09:13] began pretending to be
against it in public.
[09:16] Alcohol is delicious.
[09:18] I mean malicious.
[09:19] Sorry Wayne.
[09:21] I'm really drunk right now.
[09:22] Then it really hit the fan in
1917 when America found itself
[09:24] fighting in the First
World War against Germany.
[09:27] Anti-German sentiment exploded.
[09:29] Sauerkraut became Liberty Cabbage.
[09:31] German measles became Liberty measles.
[09:33] And dachshunds became
the embodiment of evil.
[09:36] See America?
[09:37] You've always been this way.
[09:38] The biggest brewers in
America were German,
[09:40] and Wheeler saw to it
that drinking alcohol
[09:42] became akin to pro-German treason.
[09:45] The German brewers desperately
tried to fight back,
[09:47] creating their own propaganda,
[09:48] presenting beer as a healthy beverage,
[09:50] one that you could even give to your kids.
[09:52] As you can imagine, it
didn't go down well.
[09:54] President Wilson instituted some temporary
[09:57] wartime prohibition measures
to save grain for food.
[09:59] And with many in the country
now in support of prohibition,
[10:02] all that was left was to make it law.
[10:04] One problem was that taxes
on alcohol made up nearly 40%
[10:07] of the US government's annual revenue,
[10:09] and the government wasn't
just about to give that up.
[10:11] No problem.
[10:12] The Anti-Saloon League
helped lobby for the creation
[10:14] of a new income tax on
the American people.
[10:16] And just like that,
[10:18] the government was no
longer reliant on alcohol.
[10:20] Prohibition was finally
introduced to Congress in 1913,
[10:24] not just as a law but a
constitutional amendment.
[10:27] In 1917 as the House held their final vote
[10:30] on the prohibition amendment,
[10:31] Wheeler was watching from the gallery.
[10:33] You spineless cowards.
[10:35] I know half of you drink
[10:37] yet here you are bowing down
to Ned Flanders up there.
[10:39] Look at him like he's some kind of Caesar.
[10:41] Ugh, don't be so dramatic.
[10:43] I obviously don't think I'm Caesar.
[10:46] Now release the lions.
[10:47] (lion roaring)
[10:48] In the end, prohibition
passed the House easily,
[10:51] 282 votes to 128.
[10:53] And the states ratified
the new amendment by 1919.
[10:56] America, a nation obsessed
with liberty and freedom,
[10:59] had just voluntarily
given up its private right
[11:02] to choose Whether or not to drink alcohol.
[11:05] We did it, folks!
(crowd cheering)
[11:06] We fixed everything.
[11:07] America will be perfect forever.
[11:09] But you just dissolved
America's fifth largest industry
[11:12] and lost tens of thousands
of jobs for us immigrants.
[11:14] No, you idiot.
[11:16] You don't get it.
[11:16] We helped you, idiot.
[11:18] Ugh, I could really go for a beer.
[11:21] Oh no!
[11:23] Immediately after
prohibition went into effect,
[11:25] alcohol consumption in America
[11:26] decreased as Americans followed the law
[11:28] and tried not drinking.
[11:29] Man, if we're gonna be
law-abiding good boys,
[11:31] we need something else to
fill the dark lonely void
[11:34] that delicious beer once did.
[11:35] Well, how about we crack open
a nice cold can of water?
[11:39] Hell, yeah, toss it over.
[11:44] Nah, this isn't doing it for me.
[11:46] Let's try knitting.
[11:49] This isn't filling the dark void at all.
[11:51] Wanna play some kites?
[11:52] Ah, screw it.
[11:54] Let's go get some illegal beer.
[11:55] While it seemed like many
Americans supported prohibition,
[11:58] after the law went into effect,
[11:59] it seemed like just as many Americans
[12:01] intended to keep on drinking
[12:03] and they would go on to
find a variety of ways
[12:04] to break the new law.
[12:06] Here's a question for you.
[12:07] Do you like breaking the law?
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[13:16] Now where were we?
[13:17] Oh yeah, punching Paddy,
[13:19] passing prohibition, and procuring pints.
[13:21] Pretty soon after the
new law went into effect,
[13:23] the failures of prohibition
[13:24] were already beginning
to rear their ugly heads.
[13:27] For starters, the details
of the new prohibition law
[13:29] written by none other
than Wayne Wheeler himself
[13:32] turned out to be more
draconian than expected.
[13:34] Many prohibition supporters
[13:35] only wanted to outlaw hard liquor
[13:37] and hoped beer would remain legal,
[13:38] but the Volstead Act
outlawed anything over .5%.
[13:42] That would make Liberty Cabbage illegal.
[13:44] Secondly, the new law
was full of loopholes
[13:46] that Americans very
quickly began to exploit.
[13:48] For example, while the sale
[13:50] and manufacturer of liquor was illegal,
[13:52] drinking it wasn't.
[13:53] And you could also keep
any alcohol you had
[13:55] before the law went into effect.
[13:56] So many private clubs hoarded
huge amounts of alcohol
[13:59] that saw them through the
entire prohibition period.
[14:01] Whiskey intended for medicinal
purposes was also allowed
[14:04] and doctors basically became bartenders.
[14:06] It looked as though a full-on
epidemic had broken out
[14:09] as there was a sudden surge
in prescriptions for whiskey.
[14:11] Sacramental wines used by
churches and synagogues
[14:14] were also permitted.
[14:15] Orders for communion wine
suspiciously skyrocketed
[14:17] by millions of gallons.
[14:18] And as rabbis had access
to religious wine,
[14:21] suddenly everyone was becoming a rabbi.
[14:22] You had Rabbi Pat O'Leary,
Rabbi LL Cool J, Rabbi Fluffy.
[14:27] But don't worry.
[14:27] I'm sure all these definitely
legitimate religious figures
[14:30] couldn't possibly be selling wine
[14:31] in the back alley after mass.
[14:32] Yep, definitely nothing
strange going on here.
[14:35] New products also hit
the shelves in stores,
[14:37] such as Vine-Glo, a brick
of dehydrated grape juice,
[14:40] itself not alcoholic and
therefore perfectly legal,
[14:43] but the packaging did contain
a strangely specific warning.
[14:46] After dissolving the brick
in a gallon of water,
[14:48] do not place the liquid in a jug
[14:49] in the cupboard for 20 days,
[14:51] because then it would turn into a wine.
[14:53] I'll take a thousand.
[14:54] Yes, sir.
[14:55] Now at this point, I want
you to think back for me,
[14:57] if you will, to the year 2005.
[15:00] You're the coolest kid around
[15:01] and you convince your parents to rent
[15:03] the greatest movie of all time
from your local Blockbuster.
[15:05] But the movie starts
with a strange message,
[15:07] something about not downloading a car.
[15:09] You immediately disregard
that and hop on Kazaa
[15:12] to download the greatest song of all time,
[15:14] and in the process drain
your dad's bank account
[15:16] with copious amounts of ransomware.
[15:18] You were breaking the
law, you bad boy or girl.
[15:21] But did anyone come to arrest you?
[15:22] No.
[15:24] That's my point.
[15:25] If no one is enforcing a law
while everyone's breaking it,
[15:28] is it really a law?
[15:29] And so it was with prohibition.
[15:32] See, the conservative-led
governments of the decade
[15:34] were also the kind of people
[15:35] who believed in small government spending.
[15:38] So they passed a law
[15:38] that would be extremely
difficult to enforce
[15:41] but also didn't wanna spend
[15:42] any of the money required to enforce it.
[15:44] The newly created Bureau of Prohibition
[15:46] only had 1500 agents to
cover the entire country.
[15:49] That's one agent for
every 70,666 Americans
[15:53] in a massive country with
12,000 miles of coastline
[15:56] and one gigantic land border with Canada.
[15:58] Good luck schmuckos.
[16:00] And all these clever little loopholes
[16:01] people were using to score legal booze
[16:03] were only just the beginning.
[16:05] America was about to devolve
[16:07] into alcohol-fueled criminal chaos.
[16:10] By outlawing it,
[16:11] prohibition had made alcohol
a precious commodity.
[16:14] And millions of Americans
would become outlaws
[16:16] as they found a variety of
ways to score illegal booze.
[16:18] For example, many Americans
began making their own liquor.
[16:21] Illegal stills for making moonshine
[16:23] were found by prohibition agents
[16:25] from the hills of Kentucky
and the caves of Arizona
[16:27] to parking lots in major
cities and even in the homes
[16:29] of prohibition-supporting politicians.
[16:31] Oh come on now, fellas,
I voted for prohibition.
[16:34] I'm not gonna have an illegal still.
[16:36] What's this?
[16:37] That's my son Freddie.
[16:38] Say hi, Freddy.
[16:39] Sir, this is obviously an illegal still.
[16:41] How dare you?
[16:42] Hey, what's this in the bathtub?
[16:44] That's bath water.
[16:45] Why does it taste like alcohol?
[16:47] Here's a better question.
[16:48] Why are you tasting my bath water, weirdo?
[16:50] Come on, Freddy.
[16:51] Let's get away from these perverts.
[16:53] To discourage moonshining,
[16:54] the government began adding extra toxins
[16:56] to many of the products
moonshiners were using
[16:58] which resulted in many cases
of severe illness and death.
[17:01] But alcohol wasn't just
being made at home.
[17:03] Along America's vast coastlines,
[17:05] rumrunners smuggled alcohol
into the country by sea.
[17:08] A floating supermarket known as Rum Row
[17:10] extended along the East Coast
[17:11] just beyond America's maritime limit.
[17:13] And bootleggers frequently
sailed out in small boats
[17:16] to pick up shipments of booze.
[17:17] These bootleggers could then be found
[17:18] selling their illegal products everywhere
[17:20] even in the halls of Congress.
[17:23] Wow, pop, one day, I wanna work here.
[17:25] Well, son, if you work
hard and never give up,
[17:28] one day even you could
be a massive hypocrite.
[17:31] Even President Harding was
known to serve his cabinet
[17:33] bootlegged whiskey.
[17:34] And some bootleggers were so successful,
[17:36] they became bazillionaires
such as Roy Olmsted,
[17:39] an ex-cop who became one
of the biggest employers
[17:41] in the Seattle area from smuggling booze.
[17:43] Unfortunately, all of his
whiskey came from Canada.
[17:46] Yuck.
[17:47] All of this criminality
was being made possible
[17:49] by copious amounts of corruption.
[17:51] Across the country, armies
of government officials
[17:53] were persuaded to turn a blind eye.
[17:55] Bootleggers became so rich
[17:57] it was no problem to stuff
a couple thousand dollars
[17:58] into the front pocket of the police chief
[18:00] or the mayor or their disapproving mother.
[18:02] And some cops were getting
[18:03] almost as rich as the bootleggers.
[18:04] All right, men, everyone gather in.
[18:06] I've received word that one of you
[18:08] has been taking bribes from bootleggers.
[18:10] Any ideas who?
[18:11] Kevin perhaps, got any thoughts?
[18:13] No, sir.
[18:14] Many police officers
[18:15] came from the same
communities that drank a lot
[18:17] and they weren't about to
arrest their own granddads
[18:19] for knocking back some homemade gin.
[18:21] But all this isn't to say
[18:22] there was no enforcement.
[18:23] Plenty of government officials
[18:24] were doing their best
to enforce the new laws.
[18:27] And some unlucky individuals
[18:28] received very harsh penalties
[18:30] such as a Michigan mother who
is sentenced to life in prison
[18:32] for small-scale moonshining.
[18:34] Cases like these were
widely reported in the media
[18:37] and only served to make
prohibition even more unpopular.
[18:39] But not just that,
[18:40] the media also loved to cover the exploits
[18:42] of the most famous bootleggers,
[18:44] turning them into national icons.
[18:46] One of the biggest bootleggers
[18:48] was a man named George Remus.
[18:50] Originally a lawyer,
[18:51] he watched as his bootlegger clients
[18:53] paid off enormous fines
like it was nothing
[18:55] and proclaimed bootlegging
is the business for me!
[18:57] But unlike most bootleggers,
Remus had big brain
[19:00] and he came up with a
pretty clever system.
[19:02] See, there were millions
of gallons of liquor
[19:04] produced before prohibition
[19:05] that were sitting in
distillery warehouses.
[19:08] And it could only be sold
[19:08] with government permission
to drug companies.
[19:10] So Remus set up his own drug company
[19:12] and bought all the liquor,
[19:13] then he set up his own transport company
[19:15] to transport the liquor,
[19:16] and then he would send
his own men out with guns
[19:18] to intercept his own transport vehicles,
[19:20] and this would happen.
[19:21] Hey man, this is a stick-up.
[19:23] Oh no, please don't hurt me.
[19:24] I won't hesitate to shoot.
[19:27] Please, I have a wife and kids.
[19:28] Handover all the whiskey, fatty.
[19:31] Hey, fatty isn't in the
script, you jerk! (sobs)
[19:36] After stealing all the
whiskey from himself,
[19:38] he could then sell it for big bucks.
[19:40] The perfect crime.
[19:41] Unfortunately, Remus was eventually caught
[19:44] by a goody two-shoes
prohibition director in Indiana
[19:46] who wouldn't take Remus's bribes.
[19:48] And the government found Remus guilty
[19:49] of violating the Volstead Act 3,000 times.
[19:52] For two years as Remus sat in prison,
[19:54] his wife promised to take
care of all of his money,
[19:56] and by take care of his money,
[19:58] she meant having an affair
with a prohibition agent,
[20:00] sell off everything Remus
owned, and file for divorce.
[20:02] When Remus finally got out
[20:04] and found his big fancy mansion
empty with his wife gone,
[20:06] he reportedly broke out in tears.
[20:09] A few months later,
during the divorce trial,
[20:11] he spotted his wife in
a car in Cincinnati.
[20:13] Remus hopped in a cab and asked the driver
[20:15] to run her off the road.
[20:16] The driver was like, okay.
[20:18] Then Remus got out of the
cab and shot his wife dead.
[20:21] He immediately handed
himself into the police.
[20:23] And his next trial, this time for murder,
[20:26] became a national sensation.
[20:28] Remus defended himself, claiming insanity,
[20:31] occasionally carrying
out skillful questioning,
[20:33] occasionally crying in the corner.
[20:34] But the nation felt bad for him.
[20:36] His wife had screwed him over.
[20:37] And so when after just 19
minutes of deliberation,
[20:40] the jury returned and
declared him not guilty.
[20:43] The court erupted into celebration.
[20:45] And just to remind you,
[20:46] this guy bluntly admitted
to murdering his wife.
[20:49] The American justice system.
[20:52] As alcohol poured into the nation,
[20:54] a lot of it was going
[20:55] to a new type of drinking establishment
[20:56] that had been booming in popularity,
[20:58] a secret drinking establishment.
[20:59] So secret that from the outside,
[21:02] they often looked like
ordinary shops or homes,
[21:04] so secret that you usually
needed a password to get in,
[21:07] so secret that everybody
knew about them, speakeasies.
[21:10] And once you were in, the
party went all night long.
[21:13] Scantily clad flappers,
snake ladies, jazz.
[21:16] It was a roaring time to be alive.
[21:18] Some publications even posted
reviews of these illegal clubs
[21:21] and bribes galore kept the party going.
[21:23] It seemed like half the police officers
[21:25] and federal agents in cities like New York
[21:27] were receiving kickbacks
from speakeasy owners.
[21:29] Hey, what the Kevin
Costner is going on here?
[21:33] Officer O'Hannity, taking
bribes, why am I not surprised?
[21:38] Prohibition director Simmons?
[21:40] For shame.
[21:41] Mom?
[21:42] What would dad say?
[21:43] Ask him yourself.
[21:44] Dad would say quit
being such a wet blanket
[21:46] and let daddy earn his tips.
[21:48] Anytime a speakeasy was
shut down by authorities,
[21:50] it seemed like three more
would just pop up elsewhere.
[21:52] And some neighborhoods
were so full of them
[21:54] that one resident began hanging a sign
[21:56] to try to keep party-goers
[21:57] from constantly knocking on her door.
[21:58] It really seemed like the
new laws regarding alcohol
[22:01] in some places were simply being ignored.
[22:03] And one prohibition agent
who traveled the country
[22:05] liked to see which city
was the most defiant
[22:07] by timing how long it took for him
[22:09] to be offered a beer after he arrived.
[22:11] His winner?
[22:11] New Orleans where a cab
driver offered him a drink
[22:14] after just 35 seconds.
[22:15] Bravo!
[22:17] Many voices in Congress
were already speaking out
[22:18] against prohibition and its failures.
[22:21] To display how ridiculous
the whole thing was,
[22:23] one Republican congressmen
gathered the media
[22:25] to all come and watch him
drink a homemade beer.
[22:27] When he asked a passing police officer
[22:29] if he'd like to arrest him,
[22:30] the officer said no.
[22:31] Hey Wayne, is all this
what you had in mind?
[22:33] I thought we were gonna
make the country better
[22:35] but it almost seems like it's worse.
[22:37] What do you mean?
[22:38] Alcohol consumption is down.
[22:40] Well, that may be true
in your small town world,
[22:42] but it says here drinking
in some areas is up
[22:44] as are arrests for public intoxication,
[22:46] drunk driving, and incidents
of liver cirrhosis.
[22:48] The general chaos has turned America
[22:49] into a nation of criminals
with no respect for the law.
[22:52] And all these attempts at enforcement
[22:53] are just costing the
economy valuable money
[22:55] and eating up judicial time and resources.
[22:56] Release the lions.
[22:57] (lion roaring)
[22:59] The social change and corruption
[23:00] that Wheeler and the Anti-Saloon League
[23:01] had been so eager to prevent,
[23:03] in the cities at least, was surging.
[23:05] See, when something is legal,
[23:06] you can usually regulate and control it,
[23:09] but make that thing illegal
[23:10] and often anything becomes fair game.
[23:12] Legal drinking age, gone.
[23:14] Mandatory closing hours
for clubs and bars, gone.
[23:17] Other unspoken sociocultural
rules surrounding alcohol,
[23:20] gone, gone, gone.
[23:22] In speakeasies, different
genders and ethnicities
[23:24] were beginning to mingle in a
way they hadn't done before.
[23:26] The roaring 20s saw a monumental shift
[23:29] in culture, not least of all,
[23:30] because now men and women
could flirt in public
[23:32] without being damned for eternity.
[23:34] An outraged Wayne Wheeler
did his best to make sure
[23:36] that anyone breaking the law was punished.
[23:38] He had even stricter legislation
put in place in New York.
[23:41] But all this did was clogged
up the justice system
[23:43] with petty drinking violations,
[23:45] and judges began letting
everyone off with like fines
[23:47] so the judges could get
back to dealing with things
[23:49] that actually mattered,
[23:50] things like murder,
[23:51] and there was plenty of murder,
[23:53] because bootleggers and
moonshiners were one thing,
[23:56] but prohibition had given
another kind of criminal
[23:58] an opportunity to make a fortune,
[24:00] mobsters and gangsters.
[24:02] Hey Fat Tony, big news.
[24:04] Hey Fat Joey, what's up?
[24:06] I just got word from Fat Louis here
[24:08] that the government is outlawing alcohol.
[24:09] You know what that means?
[24:10] That means we're gonna be rich.
[24:13] Quick, call Fat Paulie
[24:14] and let's go hijack a liquor truck now.
[24:16] All right.
[24:17] Hang on, let me tell my wife first.
[24:19] Hey Fat Susan, no pizza for
Fat Joey tonight, capeesh?
[24:22] Stopped calling me Fat Susan.
[24:25] Oh yeah, forget about it.
[24:27] Rival gangs began to
battle in American cities,
[24:29] raiding each other's transports,
assassinating rivals,
[24:32] and trying to take control
[24:33] of their city's illicit booze trade.
[24:35] Every city had its top dog.
[24:36] Detroit had The Purple Gang,
[24:38] New England had Charles King Solomon,
[24:40] but no city was as infamous
[24:41] for gang violence and murder as Chicago.
[24:44] The city had multiple gang factions,
[24:46] and at first, they agreed to stay
[24:47] in their own neighborhoods,
[24:48] but the thing about criminals
is that they're criminals,
[24:51] and the agreements inevitably broke down.
[24:52] One day the leader of the
Italian South Side Gang
[24:55] was walking along the
street when this happened.
[24:57] (machine guns firing)
[24:58] And he was like, "You know,
I think I'm done with this,"
[25:01] and left for New York,
[25:02] leaving his crime empire
to his chief enforcer,
[25:04] none other than Al Capone.
[25:07] Having been knifed in the
face in his younger years,
[25:09] Capone earned himself the name Scarface.
[25:11] Although interestingly,
he hated that nickname
[25:13] and preferred to be called Snorky.
[25:15] Snorky was ruthless
[25:16] just like any other
gang leader in America,
[25:19] but what set him apart from others,
[25:20] the reason he's become synonymous
[25:21] with 1920's gang warfare is this.
[25:24] Most other gang leaders would
try to keep a low profile
[25:26] because they're killing
and murdering and stuff,
[25:28] but Capone lived for the fame
[25:30] and kept an extremely high public profile,
[25:32] frequently speaking with
the media about his exploits
[25:34] and presenting himself as a gracious host,
[25:36] providing Chicago with good times.
[25:39] No need to thank me fellows.
[25:40] I just provide the city
with a valuable commodity
[25:42] while doing away with the competition.
[25:45] You mean you murder people?
[25:45] Whoa, who said anything about murder?
[25:48] I just forced my rivals underground.
[25:51] When you do the thing with the hands,
[25:52] it seems like you're talking about murder.
[25:53] Whoa, look at you with the brains.
[25:55] No, no, I just help
people retire from life.
[25:59] So murder?
[26:00] Whoa!
[26:01] Al Snorky Capone was
somewhat of an enigma,
[26:03] brutal in how he dealt with enemies,
[26:05] but in front of the
camera he was all smiles.
[26:07] One day he'd be ordering hit after hit,
[26:09] the next, he'd be signing
autographs in Wrigley Field.
[26:11] One day he'd be bludgeoning
members of his own gang
[26:13] with a baseball bat for
conspiring against him,
[26:15] the next, he'd be playing Santa
[26:17] at a nearby parochial school.
[26:18] And no murder could ever
be traced back to him.
[26:20] Just like every other criminal,
[26:22] he stuffed the pockets of city officials
[26:24] with cold hard cash,
[26:25] and any who did try to oppose
him sometimes found themselves
[26:27] being thrown down the steps of
city hall in broad daylight.
[26:30] Problem solved.
[26:32] The public couldn't get enough of Capone.
[26:33] He quickly became a household name
[26:34] as people romanticized
the gang life he lived,
[26:37] and this became a source of concern
[26:38] for the people at the very top.
[26:40] President Hoover.
[26:41] What is it now, Miles?
[26:43] I'm busy.
[26:44] Well, it's just that
there's a lot of crime, sir.
[26:46] Crime.
[26:47] How long has that been happening?
[26:48] Well, since the dawn of man, sir.
[26:50] What?
[26:51] Would you like me to blame
it on the Democrats again?
[26:52] No, Miles, I want you to
blame it on squirrels.
[26:55] Yes, the Democrats!
[26:56] Now stop wasting my time.
[26:57] Since having a crime lord
controlling public officials
[27:00] and winning the hearts of the people
[27:01] probably wasn't a good thing,
[27:02] Hoover personally ordered
that something be done
[27:04] about this Capone fellow.
[27:05] But before he knew it,
[27:06] President Hoover was also dealing
[27:08] with another major problem.
[27:09] You know 'em, you love 'em.
[27:11] Women.
[27:13] The prohibition era had been
going on for nearly a decade,
[27:15] and anyone with a brain could see
[27:16] that it really wasn't going very well.
[27:18] One person with a brain was Pauline Sabin,
[27:20] an extremely influential and rich woman
[27:23] who served on the Republican
National Committee,
[27:25] fund-raised for Republican presidents,
[27:26] and had a secret wine
room in her giant mansion.
[27:29] She initially supported prohibition
[27:30] but was now disgusted at
the chaos it had created.
[27:33] And she began a new women's movement,
[27:35] this time not for
prohibition, but against it.
[27:37] Being the extremely
influential woman she was,
[27:40] her new organization gained
[27:41] nearly 1.5 million
members within two years,
[27:44] five times that of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union.
[27:47] She hated that the WCTU
claimed to speak for all women
[27:50] and she began calling for the
repeal of the 18th Amendment.
[27:53] President Hoover, I
helped fund your campaign
[27:55] and now I want you to end prohibition.
[27:57] Miles, what is it I say when
I'm not gonna do anything?
[27:59] You'll look into it, sir.
[28:01] Oh yeah, that's right.
[28:02] Pauline, I'll look into it.
[28:05] Sabin gave speeches on
the steps of Congress
[28:07] and helped started growing push
[28:08] among the American people
against prohibition.
[28:10] But Hoover, a prohibitionist
himself, wasn't budging.
[28:13] Then on the 14th of February 1929,
[28:16] something happened that
shocked the nation.
[28:18] Men thought to be working for Al Capone
[28:20] tricked some Irish
mobsters into meeting them
[28:22] at a garage in Chicago,
[28:24] thinking they were there to
purchase hijacked whiskey,
[28:26] instead the mobsters were
lined up against the wall
[28:29] by men dressed as police
and they were shot.
[28:32] The Valentine's Day Massacre
had people outraged.
[28:35] It was cruel and almost
felt like American mobsters
[28:37] had finally crossed the line.
[28:39] People were sick of the violence,
[28:41] and in part they blamed prohibition
[28:43] for helping to create it.
[28:44] The pressure on Hoover to do something
[28:46] was steadily increasing.
[28:47] Fine.
[28:48] Miles, I want you to put a report together
[28:50] to see if this whole thing is working.
[28:51] You mean the thing where mobsters
[28:53] are becoming increasingly powerful
[28:54] and massacring each other in the streets
[28:56] and everyone is disregarding the law
[28:56] and half our public officials
[28:58] are corrupt and taking bribes?
[28:59] That thing?
[29:00] Yeah, I wanna know if it's
working or not, Miles.
[29:02] Stop wasting my time.
[29:04] Hoover continued to drag
his feet on prohibition,
[29:06] but after the Valentine's Day Massacre,
[29:07] he was still determined to do one thing.
[29:09] He wanted Al Capone in prison.
[29:12] Since Capone had been so careful,
[29:13] the FBI were having a hard time
charging him with anything,
[29:16] but eventually they got him.
[29:17] Capone, we know you're
supplying Chicago with alcohol
[29:20] and you've been involved
in countless murders.
[29:21] Whoa, look at you with the crazy talk.
[29:24] I ain't done none of that stuff.
[29:25] But you're rich, right?
[29:27] You're damn right I am.
[29:28] And so where'd all the
money come from, Capone?
[29:30] All right, I'll let you
in on a little secret,
[29:32] but you gotta promise
not to tell anyone, okay?
[29:35] I don't pay my taxes.
[29:38] Whoa!
[29:40] For all of his murdering,
[29:41] the IRS finally got Capone on tax evasion.
[29:43] At his trial, he didn't
seem too concern though
[29:46] and spent most of his time
having a laugh with his lawyers.
[29:49] Hey Capone, I gotta know,
[29:50] why are you so confident
you're gonna win here?
[29:52] Well, your honor, because I'm
an honest man with a big heart
[29:55] who's passionate about working
for the good of the people
[29:57] and also because I threatened
the entire jury's families.
[29:59] Luckily at the last minute,
[30:01] the judge replaced the entire
jury pool with a new one
[30:03] that Capone's men hadn't yet got to,
[30:05] and Capone was found guilty.
[30:06] He was sentenced to 11
years in federal prison,
[30:09] the harshest penalty ever
given to a tax evader.
[30:12] But even with Capone locked away,
[30:13] the violence in Chicago
and other cities continued,
[30:16] and in response, the
movement against prohibition
[30:18] continued to grow.
[30:19] And the final nail in
prohibition's coffin came in 1929.
[30:23] After a decade of booming economic growth
[30:25] under three Republican presidents,
[30:27] the stock market plummeted
[30:29] and America was thrown into the grips
[30:30] of the Great Depression.
[30:31] It was an awful time.
[30:33] One out of every five workers,
[30:34] 15 million people, would lose their jobs.
[30:37] Half the nation's banks failed.
[30:39] Temporary shantytowns were built
[30:41] for the broke and
homeless in public parks.
[30:43] Suddenly very few people had
time to care about prohibition.
[30:47] Expensive enforcement
of an unenforceable law
[30:49] didn't seem like that big of a priority
[30:51] when people were having
their homes repossessed
[30:53] and losing their life savings.
[30:55] And many began to argue
that repealing prohibition
[30:57] would create vital jobs and
tax revenue for the government,
[31:00] yet President Hoover doubled down.
[31:02] Here's that report you asked for, sir.
[31:04] Gimme.
[31:05] Prohibition is great.
[31:07] Fantastic news.
[31:09] Sir, it says here prohibition is great
[31:11] at undermining the rule of law in America.
[31:13] Miles, it says the word great.
[31:15] That means good.
[31:17] Now stop wasting my time.
[31:20] The public increasingly shocked
[31:21] at the violence they saw on the streets,
[31:22] the corruption they saw in the government,
[31:24] the general disregard for the law,
[31:26] and now an economic calamity,
[31:28] had had enough.
[31:29] For his reelection, Hoover
faced the democratic candidate
[31:32] who promised to finally do
something about prohibition,
[31:34] Franklin D. Roosevelt.
[31:36] Crowds cheered
[31:38] as FDR made his campaign speeches
[31:39] promising to modify the Volstead Act.
[31:41] And Pauline Sabin, a lifelong Republican,
[31:43] along with her 1.5 million
supporters, endorsed Roosevelt.
[31:47] And on election day, it was a landslide.
[31:49] Before FDR had even taken office,
[31:52] Republicans in Congress began the process
[31:54] of passing the 21st Amendment
to repeal prohibition.
[31:56] One of FDR's first acts as president
[31:58] was to pass the Beer Permit
Act which made beer legal
[32:01] while the new amendment
was being ratified.
[32:03] In 1933 with the passage
of the 21st Amendment,
[32:06] prohibition was finally over,
[32:09] and the people celebrated
[32:11] like they had just won a World War.
[32:13] Bars and taverns were packed.
[32:14] The WCTU were inconsolable.
[32:17] Wayne Wheeler was dead.
[32:19] And the celebration,
[32:20] particularly in American
cities, was intense.
[32:23] Heading into the mid-1930s,
[32:24] the effects of prohibition
were clear to see.
[32:27] From now on, culture
around drinking had changed
[32:29] with men and women drinking
together not in saloons
[32:33] but in bars and taverns.
[32:34] The crime syndicates that
had been given so much power
[32:36] through prohibition remained powerful
[32:38] as they moved on to other things.
[32:40] Some states opted to remain dry
[32:42] with Oklahoma only repealing
its prohibition laws in 1959.
[32:46] To this day, there are
still counties in America
[32:48] with some form of prohibition.
[32:50] So what did we learn today, kids?
[32:52] What's the big lesson here?
[32:54] What's the moral of this story
[32:55] that we can all take away
[32:56] and apply to our day-to-day lives?
[32:58] Maybe that you shouldn't
force your own morals
[33:00] on others who don't share them?
[33:01] Maybe that if you tell
Americans not to do something,
[33:03] that's the one thing
they'll definitely do.
[33:06] Or maybe there is no lesson.
[33:07] Maybe we're all just a
bunch of dumb stinky idiots
[33:09] and we're all doomed.
[33:11] The end.
[33:13] (upbeat music)