Prohibition Dbq Essay

The law of Prohibition of alcohol was passed on November 18, 1918. The 18th Amendment, passed on December 18, 1917, enforced he this law. Prohibition was passed because drinking was to be blamed for America’s most serious problems, such as child abuse, crime, and corruption. Also it was believed that passing prohibition would improve health and hygiene. The 18th Amendment was repealed on December 5, 1933 by the 21st Amendment. America repealed Prohibition due to its increase in crime rates, enforcing the law was difficult, and the U.S. economy wasn’t benefitting from it.

Although the main goal of Prohibition was to decrease crime, crime rates increased eventually causing the end of Prohibition. According to a picture of criminals dancing with Uncle Sam dancing on top of the word ‘depression’ drawn by a cartoonist, Winsor McCay, Uncle Sam representing the U.S. is represented as Prohibition. The main of idea of this picture is to show that criminals benefit from Prohibition while there’s depression in the country. According to the graph on Document B, the homicides per 100,000 americans

According to Document C “Smuggling from Mexico and Canada has been successful on a large scale because it is an utter impossible to patrol the thousands of miles of border…”. It was too large to be able to patrol the borders. The state agents also couldn’t do anything about the smuggling as long as the smugglers stay away the 3-mile range limit from the country. According to Document D “The very men who made the Prohibition law are violating it...”The author is arguing that the ones who make these Prohibition laws are the ones breaking them.They are drinking, yet they arrest and persecute others who break the law, such as bootleggers. The law enforcers are hypocrites for demanding that other shouldn’t drink or distribute alcohol, while they continue being