Crime And Corruption

Question 1

What did the Eighteenth Amendment do? When was it enacted?

What was this act called?

Answer 1

16 January 1920
Made it illegal to sell alcohol in the USA
Volstead Act 1919

Question 2

What was the Volstead Act?

Answer 2

To enact the amendment and set penalties breaking the law

Question 3

When did support for the prohibition of alcohol grow? How many states were in prohibition?

Answer 3

1906-19

26 states

Question 4

Who were the main groups who supported the prohibition?

3 + eg 2

Answer 4

Anti-Saloon League
Womens’ Christian Temperance Union
Religious groups such as Methodists and Baptists

Question 5

What did these groups allege that alcohol was?

The first reason of banning alcohol

Answer 5

The work of the devil and that it was against Christianity

Question 6

What did women argued?

Second reason for the ban

Answer 6

Alcohol caused men to be aggressive and violent towards children and women in the home

Question 7

What did industrialists fear? Like who?

Third reason for the banning

Answer 7

Henry Ford

Drinking alcohol decreased how effective workers were in the factories

Question 8

What was the prohibition thought to achieve?

Answer 8

Support and strengthen traditional American values of hard work and care for the family

Question 9

How did the WW1 increase the support of the prohibition?

Two examples of groups

Answer 9

Temperance movement and anti-saloon league saw it as something patriotic - many of the brewers came from Germany
It was inappropriate

Question 10

What were people who supported/didn’t support the prohibition of alcohol called?

Answer 10

Dry’s and wet’s

Question 11

Were there more drys or wets

Answer 11

Drys

Question 12

What happens in September 1918?

Answer 12

Woodrow Wilson banned beer production until the war ended

Question 13

What did the prohibition amendment stop?

When did it become official and when was it coming into effect?

Answer 13

The manufacture sale or transport of alcohol
January 1919
One year later

Question 14

What didn’t the amendment outlaw?

Answer 14

Buying or drinking alcohol

You can buy and drink it, but not sell it

Question 15

Who became responsible for enforcing prohibition?

Answer 15

IRS

Question 16

What was considered an alcoholic drink?

Answer 16

Alcoholic content greater than 0.5%

Question 17

Where did people go to drink alcohol illegally?

Answer 17

Illegal and private bars called speakeasies

Question 18

Who began to sell alcohol? What did the prohibition of alcohol prompt?

Answer 18

Gangsters began to sell it

The prohibition prompted the age of gangster

Question 19

What was the name given to people who sold alcohol?

Answer 19

Bootleggers

Question 20

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?

Answer 20

Rum-runners - Canada and Mexico

Moonshiners - mainly in the south

Question 21

By 1925 how many speakeasies were there in New York alone?

Answer 21

100,000

Question 22

What did gangsters do so that their activities were ignored?

Answer 22

Bribed police officers, judges and politicians

Question 23

Two examples of gangster criminals

Answer 23

Al Capone and John Torrino

Question 24

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?

Answer 24

Appointing a prohibition commissioner, John F Kramer
3000 agents
1921

Question 25

What happened in 1924?

Answer 25

The FBI was established under J.Edgar Hoovering

Question 26

Why was the prohibition act a failure? (3)

Answer 26

Weren’t enough agents.
Low wages
Bribed easily

Question 27

By 1921, deaths from alcoholism did what? By how much?

What happened in 1926?

Answer 27

Had fallen by 80%

50,000 people died from poisoned alcohol

Question 28

Male deaths linked to the liver fell from .. in .. to … in …?

Answer 28

29.5per 100,000 in 1911

to 10.7 per 100,000 in 1929

Question 29

Who were the following cities controlled by:
New York
Detroit
Chicago (North & South)

Answer 29

Dutch Shultz
Chester La Mare
South - Bugs Moran
North - John Torrio

Question 30

Who was the most famous gangster in the 1920s

Answer 30

Al Capone

Question 31

Who was the new president in 1919 Washington DC?

Answer 31

Warren Harding

Question 32

What mistake did Harding make?

What did this result in?

Answer 32

Employed all his friends from Ohio

Used their power to make them wealthy

Question 33

Examples of how they abused their power?

2 reasons

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What was the Teapot Dome scandal?

Answer 34

A powerful man in Hardings government (Albert Fall) sold oilfields to wealthy friends, for four hundred thousand dollars in bribes

Question 35

Why was the teapot dome scandal called teapot dome?

Answer 35

A rock in the shape of a teapot was situated where the land was sold

Question 36

When did Harding die?

Answer 36

August 1923

Question 37

How was Albert Fall abusing his power and what did he do wrong by selling oilfields?

Answer 37

The land belonged to the government - he kept the money and sold the oilfields secretly

Question 38

What happened during 1927?

Answer 38

Suspicions about the scandal had been raised and inquiries were being made
The Supreme Court determined that the oilfields had been illegally sold

Question 39

What happened to Albert Fall in 1929?

Answer 39

He was found guilty and fined $100,000

Question 40

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?

Answer 40

Harry Daugherty, the Attorney General
Accused of impairing the enquiry into the scandal
Forced to resign in 1924

Question 41

What is hardings presidency remembered as?

Answer 41

One of the most corrupt in American history