To most effectively enforce such a robust law, new methods of enforcement became necessary. …show more content…
The officers, dressed in suits with top hats and bow ties wear glasses and handle long rifles without regard for the safety of others. A mother and two children huddle over a man, most likely the father, who lies face down in the dirt. The officers show no concern over the family’s misfortune. Although it is just a drawing of an imagined yet entirely possible incident, And There Was No Liquor, accurately portrays the same disenfranchisement experienced by immigrants and minorities in 1920’s America as described by Lisa McGirr in her book, The War On …show more content…
At the center of the cartoon four men discuss their true motivations for finding the alcohol supposedly stashed inside the vehicle. The first agent looks through the car window and demands his colleague searching the car “hand the liquor out when you find it!” The man inside the car, mouth agape responds, “I don’t seem to find any liquor” and doesn’t object to his partner’s ludicrous request. The third sadly quips, “There aint a drop of anything but milk in here”. The fourth asks, “Did you look carefully all around the car?” The acts demonstrated in the image weren’t necessarily hyperbolic in their depictions. While some Prohibition officers devoutly believed in alcohol’s sinfulness, many saw the contraband they searched out as just another perk of their job. These incidents had such a pervasive effect on law enforcement that the federal government initiated commissions to diagnose the root of the problem. The report issued by the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement on the Volstead shared the frightening opinion many minorities held towards Prohibition officers to a large national audience. The report outlined “the injustices of the coercive nation-state: overzealous agents, corruption, and ‘lawlessness’ from the Prohibition Bureau” (McGirr, 223). Further chastising Prohibition enforcement, the report