Historical Insights The End of Prohibition

In a 1939 news column, Eleanor Roosevelt looked back at the prohibition era and concluded that “a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.” The idea that the state cannot legislate morality was a clear lesson from the federal government’s nearly 14-year attempt to prohibit the production and sale of alcohol. Ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919 led to a lucrative black market for organized crime, corruption within police departments, and a general lack of respect for the law by a broad cross section of the American public. Many people celebrated on December 5, 1933, when ratification of the 21st Amendment repealed prohibition. The editors of the Milwaukee Journal wrote: “Prohibition is gone. Few will mourn its passing. It never was a real success, for it never really shut off the supply of alcoholic beverages to those who sought them.”