Crime And Corruption Flashcards
What did the Eighteenth Amendment do? When was it enacted?
What was this act called?
16 January 1920
Made it illegal to sell alcohol in the USA
Volstead Act 1919
What was the Volstead Act?
To enact the amendment and set penalties breaking the law
When did support for the prohibition of alcohol grow? How many states were in prohibition?
1906-19
26 states
Who were the main groups who supported the prohibition?
3 + eg 2
Anti-Saloon League
Womens’ Christian Temperance Union
Religious groups such as Methodists and Baptists
What did these groups allege that alcohol was?
The first reason of banning alcohol
The work of the devil and that it was against Christianity
What did women argued?
Second reason for the ban
Alcohol caused men to be aggressive and violent towards children and women in the home
What did industrialists fear? Like who?
Third reason for the banning
Henry Ford
Drinking alcohol decreased how effective workers were in the factories
What was the prohibition thought to achieve?
Support and strengthen traditional American values of hard work and care for the family
How did the WW1 increase the support of the prohibition?
Two examples of groups
Temperance movement and anti-saloon league saw it as something patriotic - many of the brewers came from Germany
It was inappropriate
What were people who supported/didn’t support the prohibition of alcohol called?
Dry’s and wet’s
Were there more drys or wets
Drys
What happens in September 1918?
Woodrow Wilson banned beer production until the war ended
What did the prohibition amendment stop?
When did it become official and when was it coming into effect?
The manufacture sale or transport of alcohol
January 1919
One year later
What didn’t the amendment outlaw?
Buying or drinking alcohol
You can buy and drink it, but not sell it
Who became responsible for enforcing prohibition?
IRS
What was considered an alcoholic drink?
Alcoholic content greater than 0.5%
Where did people go to drink alcohol illegally?
Illegal and private bars called speakeasies
Who began to sell alcohol? What did the prohibition of alcohol prompt?
Gangsters began to sell it
The prohibition prompted the age of gangster
What was the name given to people who sold alcohol?
Bootleggers
Who would smuggle drinks into the USA? Where would it come from?
What was the name given to those who made their own alcohol and where were they mainly based?
Rum-runners - Canada and Mexico
Moonshiners - mainly in the south
By 1925 how many speakeasies were there in New York alone?
100,000
What did gangsters do so that their activities were ignored?
Bribed police officers, judges and politicians
Two examples of gangster criminals
Al Capone and John Torrino
The legal system wasn’t working, what did the government do to try and solve this?
How many were in this squad?
When was this done?
Appointing a prohibition commissioner, John F Kramer
3000 agents
1921
What happened in 1924?
The FBI was established under J.Edgar Hoovering
Why was the prohibition act a failure? (3)
Weren’t enough agents.
Low wages
Bribed easily
By 1921, deaths from alcoholism did what? By how much?
What happened in 1926?
Had fallen by 80%
50,000 people died from poisoned alcohol
Male deaths linked to the liver fell from .. in .. to … in …?
29.5per 100,000 in 1911
to 10.7 per 100,000 in 1929
Who were the following cities controlled by:
New York
Detroit
Chicago (North & South)
Dutch Shultz
Chester La Mare
South - Bugs Moran
North - John Torrio
Who was the most famous gangster in the 1920s
Al Capone
Who was the new president in 1919 Washington DC?
Warren Harding
What mistake did Harding make?
What did this result in?
Employed all his friends from Ohio
Used their power to make them wealthy
Examples of how they abused their power?
2 reasons
Head of the Veterans Bureau fined and sent to prison for selling hospital goods from veterans hospitals for personal profit
Jess Smith was accused of selling alcohol to bootleggers
What was the Teapot Dome scandal?
A powerful man in Hardings government (Albert Fall) sold oilfields to wealthy friends, for four hundred thousand dollars in bribes
Why was the teapot dome scandal called teapot dome?
A rock in the shape of a teapot was situated where the land was sold
When did Harding die?
August 1923
How was Albert Fall abusing his power and what did he do wrong by selling oilfields?
The land belonged to the government - he kept the money and sold the oilfields secretly
What happened during 1927?
Suspicions about the scandal had been raised and inquiries were being made
The Supreme Court determined that the oilfields had been illegally sold
What happened to Albert Fall in 1929?
He was found guilty and fined $100,000
Who’s job was it to investigate the scandal and what was he accused of? What did he then have to do and in what year?
Harry Daugherty, the Attorney General
Accused of impairing the enquiry into the scandal
Forced to resign in 1924
What is hardings presidency remembered as?
One of the most corrupt in American history
