Prohibition Dbq

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Pages: 3

Before the prohibition, alcohol was abused by an extremely large portion of America. Most Americans drink copious amounts of alcohol and drank an average of 2.6 gallons of pure alcohol in just one year. Also due to World War I ending just 2 years before the 18th amendment was ratified there is assumed to be a lot of PTSD and mental illness due to the recent War. It is suspected that after the war many soldiers turned to drinking. That is why I think that a national outbreak of alcoholism, the WCTU, and the Anti-Saloon League caused the prohibition. The WCTU was the main group in support of the prohibition in the pre-prohibition era. “W.C.T.U. would continue to work, supporting legislation that created better enforcement of the new laws, focusing on education of others …show more content…
This shows how they wanted to put Temperance in American life at a young age so that the national alcoholism at the time would not be as prominent. also, educating the youth is a form of pushing everyone to fight for prohibition. The Anti-Saloon League was one of the direct causes of the prohibition being ratified. “ASL propaganda connected alcohol with Germans and treason in the public mind. Most politicians dared not defy the ASL and in 1917 the 18th amendment sailed through Congress; it was ratified by the states in 13 months” (Burns 4). This document speaks about how the anti-saloon League (ASL) was extremely significant in the ratification of the prohibition. This document shows how the ASL used propaganda to not just fuel the fire that was World War 1 but also use some of the tension that was already there from World War I and used it as a way to push for their cause. “The ASL pushed State prohibition where it was viable. if dries could not win statewide, ASL got states to pass laws allowing local option” (Prohibition