Another nail bomb in Prohibition’s coffin was the fact that it penalised the poor more than the rich. Before the ban had come in it was perfectly legal to buy up booze for personal use and stock pile it. A poor man had no chance of doing this on his meager salary, but a rich man was laughing. There are tales of the elite buying up entire shop-fulls of alcoholic drinks and filling cellars, or in fact whole buildings with their supply. That annoyed the poorer folks to no end. Workers putting in long shifts and going home exhausted in the knowledge that their boss was sipping sherry whilst he sipped water.

Below is a poster drawn up by the Ku Klux Klan in favour of Prohibition. As a general rule of thumb, if the KKK are for it, you should be against it. And this is no exception.

Bootlegging and production of illegal booze, called moonshine or bathtub gin, exploded across the country. The black market was having a boom time and the government were not pleased about it one bit. The government desperately needed tax revenue that was basically being stolen by people distilling alcohol in their homes for resale.

Look at these guys wasting all that perfectly good booze…. now that’s criminal.

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