"After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacturing, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation there of, or the exploitation there of from the US and all its territories subject to the jurisdiction there of for beverage purposes is here by prohibited" (Antony 121). These words marked a change in the American way of life forever. The law was intended to improve America and show the rest of the world that a country could survive without alcohol. Instead it led Americans to distrust and hate government officials. Drinking would become fashionable, and organized crime would take over the cities. Prohibition was therefore an impossible ideal and a disastrous social failure. It is necessary for the reader to understand what prohibition was intended to do and how it came about in order to determine if it failed. For years, people had toyed with the idea of a "dry county"; yet, until World War I, no one had ever seriously considered it. The leaders of the so called dry movement were organized and patient. They used the war to their advantage and introduced prohibition into Congress (Allen 244). At that time, the country happened to be undergoing a social change (often called the Temperance Movement) in which people grew impatient for immediate results. Americans felt that if a law was worth making, it was worth making immediately (Allen 245). With the issue of the nation's existence at stake, people did not stop to think through outlawing alcohol; they felt if it was in the nation's best interest to prohibit alcohol (27). War time also meant a shortage of good workers and grain (Thorton 71). The dry leaders pushed prohibition stating that prohibition would increase productivity and that sober soldiers were better soldiers (Thornton 73). That rationalization made sense to Americans so it was entirely supported as a simple solution. People all over the nation were excepting prohibition with all too great an ease.
