Pompo

Ending Prohibition - FDR's Real Defining Moment
6/26/09|CounterPunch| by Fred Gardner



Jonathan Alter writes for Newsweek and is a frequent guest of Keith Olbermann’s. He’s one of those liberals we appreciate when the rightwingers are in control but who lose their critical edge when their crowd is in.

It’s easy to imagine Alter pitching the idea for his book FDR's Defining Moment to a publisher as the prospect of a liberal Democrat in the White House became a likelihood, and easy to picture the president-elect reading it as he prepared to take office. What would it have taught or reminded Barack Obama about Franklin Delano Roose-velt’s decision to end alcohol Prohibition? What lessons might Obama apply in dealing with marijuana Prohibition? (And why does the ominous word require a capital P?)

Like millions of other Americans, FDR, personally, never abided by the ban on alcohol. It had taken effect in January, 1920 after Congress passed and 45 states ratified a Constitutional Amendment (the 18th) banning “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” Congress also passed the Volstead Act, which defined “intoxicating liquors” as any drink more than 0.5% alcohol by weight.

Alter first mentions Prohibition in describing a period in the mid-1920s when FDR, stricken with polio, was spending a lot of time aboard a yacht with his secretary, Missy LeHand: “Missy and Franklin entertained a stream of visitors with plenty of drinking (during Prohibition)...”

Running for the governorship of New York in 1928 Roosevelt distanced himself from then-governor Al Smith, the Democratic candidate for President, a “wet” who forthrightly opposed Prohibition. FDR didn’t want to risk alienating “dry” voters in upstate New York, so he took the “damp” middle position —leave it up to the states. Roosevelt won by a slim margin while Smith lost to Herbert Hoover and failed to carry New York. There was a heavy overlap between Smith’s “dry” adversaries and anti-Catholic voters. On election night Smith reportedly said, “Well, the time just hasn’t come yet when a man can say his beads in the White House.”

By 1932, when Roosevelt was running for President, a pledge to repeal the Volstead Act and legalize 3.2 beer was the key distinction between his platform and Herbert Hoover’s. Their stated plans to revive the economy were not that different. After two years of relying on the private sector to voluntarily respond to the depression, Hoover had launched versions of many reforms we associate with the New Deal. “Public works, agricultural price stabilization, bank restructuring, and even a bit of federally supported relief were begun under Hoover,” according to Alter.

Alter doesn’t tell us why FDR’s line on Prohibition shifted between 1928 and ’32, but James MacGregor Burns did in a biography called “Roosevelt: the Lion and the Fox.” In those days the New York governor’s term was two years, so Roosevelt had to run for re-election in 1930. “Two possible danger areas loomed for the Democrats,” Burns recounts.“One of these was prohibition. Roosevelt had long hedged on this issue. He had expressed the fervent hope that it would disappear from politics. It did not, but it changed in a direction favorable to the Democrats. By the end of the 1920s —a decade of speakeasies, raids by Treasury men, gang wars, and intemperance— New York Republicans were finding prohibition to be a political liability. Roosevelt had no intention of running as a wet. But when he heard that the probable Republican nominee was about to come out for repeal, the governor moved fast to outflank him on the wet side. In a letter to Senator Wagner in September 1930 he favored outright repeal [of the 18th Amendment] and the restoring of liquor control to the states. It was a potent move. The Republicans failed to pick up much wet support, yet they outraged the drys upstate...

“Time for Beer”

Roosevelt was sworn in on March 4. On Sunday evening March 12 he addressed the nation on the radio. The memorable intro was drafted by a CBS station manager: “The president wants to come into your home and sit at your fireside for a little fireside chat.”

FDR had written his speech with a worker in mind —a man he had been watching take down the inaugural scaffolding. Roosevelt’s voice had a calm tone, which Alter describes lyrically: “The voice conjured memories of a lost world, before the bitterness of economic ruin, a world where the well-liked scion of the well-to-do family on the hill went off to college, then returned to preside over the community with an easy benevolence.” Will Rogers *—the Stephen Colbert of his day— said of the speech, “He made everyone understand it, even the bankers.”

“After the first Fireside Chat,” writes Alter, “Roosevelt relaxed in his office with Howe and Rosenman [two top aides]. About 11:30 p.m. he said: ‘I think it’s time for beer.’ Preparations for a bill to speed the end of Prohibition began that night.”

The Myth of the First 100 Days

Alter’s book could have been structured as a debunking of the First-Hundred-Days myth. “The hundred days themselves have been so mythologized that the real ones are barely recognizable,” he observes. “Most of the landmark New Deal accomplishments that endure to this day **—the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934), Social Security (1935) and the pro-union legislation like the Wagner Act (1935)— date from later in the decade. The opening act of the Roosevelt administration brought fewer structural changes than is assumed... Some of the new laws simply extended Hoover’s efforts...

“For all of the liberal reveries of later years, the first thrust of the Hundred Days was fiscal prudence... The original centerpiece of the Roosevelt program was the so-called Economy Bill, which... slashed federal outlays by an astonishing 31 percent, by far the largest reduction in government spending before or since.

“Three quarters of the cuts came from veterans’ benefits, the first of what are now called ‘entitlement’ programs and the largest source of federal spending at the time.”

So how did it come to pass that Roosevelt’s first months in office are remembered so fondly by the American people? You already know the answer. Alter provides the details:

“Immediately after delivering his first Fireside Chat on March 12, he reviewed the 1932 Democratic Party platform, which called for amending the Volstead Act to legalize 3.2 beer.* The 18th Amendment, which launched Prohibition in 1918, was aimed at hard liquor and permitted the legalization of beverages with less alcohol. So FDR issued a three-sentence message to Congress on legalizing beer. The next day, March 13, the House was preparing to recess when it received FDR’s message. It stayed in session, immediately passed the bill on beer, and sent it to the Senate. As FDR knew, under Senate rules, senators could not consider modifying the Volstead Act until they voted on the Economy Bill, which was on the floor first. So they swallowed the bitter budget pill that afternoon and chased it down with a beer vote the next day, effective immediately.

“The quick amendment of the Volstead Act is one of the least appreciated elements of how FDR changed the country’s psyche during the Hundred Days. Although formal repeal of Prohibition would not come until the end of the year, beer parties were held all over the country starting in March. At 12:01 a.m. on the first day of legal beer, Hawaiian guitarists drew a crowd as a truck from Washington’s Abner Drury Brewery pulled up at the White House with a sign: PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, THE FIRST BEER IS FOR YOU. In Times Square, bands played ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.” H.L. Mencken, tipping a few in Baltimore, decided that maybe Roosevelt wasn’t so bad after all. ‘Something was happening immediately! Bars were opening overnight, with every other beer on the house!” recalled author Studs Terkel, explaining how the news played for a young man growing up in Chicago. ‘In the midst of the Depression it was a note of hope that something would be better.”

Whether or not Barack Obama has read, “The Defining Moment,” he is ceretainly aware of the analogies to FDR ending alcohol prohibition as he considers how to deal with marijuana. Evidently, to our disappointment and shame, the new president is not going to bring the troops home swiftly or enact single-payer healthcare or push through pro-union legislation. And yet he could win the enduring respect and affection of the masses, and there’ll be dancing in the streets, if only he would legalize marijuana for medical use.

Our demands are so meager it’s pathetic.

*3.2 beer is about half strength. At a campaign event one Sunday in October, 1996, Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) advised patrons of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club that if Proposition 215 passed, the Vatican was planning to assign jurisdiction over marijuana to “the twin sisters, Saintsa Maureen and Doreen, the patron saints of 3.2 beer.” It got a knowing laugh from a crowd that considered marijuana to be a relatively benign intoxicant.

reggie_the_dog

in 1937. He ended alcohol prohibition and then gave us the marihuana tax stamp act of 1937 thanks to the then racist Democratic party. Since then the racist Dixiecrats who hated the Republican party because of Abraham Lincoln have actually mostly become Republicans.

Frylok

Good summary.

LowRider

Reason I call all democrates socialist and republicians democrates, each party has gotten away from there tradional roots which is why it's time for the independants to come up hard and swinging. The two party system just isn't working anymore

reggie_the_dog

they are on the right side of center, and the Republicans are on the extreme right.

LowRider

Haven't been keeping up have you. Glen beck showed it perfectly on his show. When the US first started out, we were far right (pretty much individual freedom) close to Anarchy. Now we are far left INCLUDING Republicans. Matter of fact there's not much difference in the parties, both want gov control of some kind. Both parties have strayed from there roots. That's why we would have reduced Gov if Republicans were true to there roots but there not anymore. Some are still true but the majority are not.

I'll see if i can find the video on YouTube of Glen Beck that shows the time line on how we moved to the far left and Democrats and Republicans are pretty much the same.

Didn't take long here it is:

shears

Amen Glenn Beck

__________________
"so let me introduce to you.....the one and only billy shears!!!!"

reggie_the_dog

They think that total governement is on the left and no governemnt is on the right. That is simply not true. Total government exists on the right too. They have pictures of communists and national socialists on the left. Where is the picture of Mussolini, Franco and the fascist party for total government on the right? Right and left refers to whether or not a country has a social system and redistribution of wealth. If a country is more along the lines of the philosophy of Adam Smith (as the USA was when it was founded) then they are on the right. If a country is more along the line of philosophy of Karl Marx, the country is on the left. Most countries in the world fall in between these 2 philosophies. The USA has a very small social welfare system and very little income redistribution, you actually tax the rich at a lower percentage than the middle class. The USA is unquestionalby on the right economically speaking. Most contries in the European Union have a social welfare system and tax the wealthy at a higher rate than the middle class. These countries are on the left. Total governement is totalitarianism. It exists on the far left and the far right. Basically W. Bush was a far right nearly fascist leader, he supported total government. , but not as bad as Franco. He wanted total government in place to keep the people from revolting against a system in which the generation of coroporate wealth is of top priority and the people are not favored. In a far left communist fascist system, like in North Korea, their is totalitarianism in order to keep the people from rising up against a system which favors party memebers and does not favor the people. In this clip Glen Beck kept confusing left and right, Democrat and Republican in his speech, he had to correct himself many times. It is likely that he knows what he is saying is bullshit and does not beleive it but is paid to spew this BS to confuse people in the USA. Fox is pretty much hard right wing propaganda. At any rate their report is biased, not based on any political science that you would find in any university, and misleads people. Total governemnt is not a left or a right thing, as I have said it exists on both ends of the spectrum, Today far right total government exists in Dubai, and far left total government exists in North Korea. So to recap, the USA is on the far right as its economy has little regulation compared to a country on the left like France, has litte wage redistribution, does not have national health services or insurance, and the country is basically run for the benefit of big business at the expense of the people. In a moderately leftist country like France they have national health insurance, a good social welfare system, and redistribution of wealth without being anywhere near total government.

here is a bit from wikipedia "workers' self-management support for owners and managers Most left-wing ideologies prioritize workers interests,[38] while right-wing ideologies prioritize corporate interests."

so like I said, Cuba is total government on the left, they prioritize workers interests while Dubai is total government on the right proitizing corporate interests. Do not be duped by the bullshit they say is news on Fox.

reggie_the_dog

Three out of four Americans want the single payer national health care option, that is on the left. Compare a right wing country with a near totaltarian governement, Dubai; a leftist government, France; and the USA and see where more people living in the US would like to be. Ok

Workers rights, USA 40 hour work week, OSHA, and time and a half overtime with pollution regulation (not bad at all) and roughly a week in state or federal holidays depending on the state but there is no minimum of paid vacations.

France, on the left, 35 hour work week, equivalent of OSHA, 125% pay rate for overtime, pollution controls, 11 national holidays and 5 WEEKS PAID VACATION PER YEAR (not bad huh?)

Dubai, on the right, no hour limit per week, no overtime pay, no OSHA, no holidays, and no paid time off.

Health care

USA, pay if you can or if you are lucky your boss gives it to you otherwise only the poorest of the poor and retired people get medicare or medicaid, 60 million working poor get nothing.

France Left, single payer national health care paid for by taxes, no monthy bills for the people. Everyone has health insurance.

Dubai Right, buy health care if you can otherwise you are screwed.


Total government or no government.

USA moved much closer to total governement with the patriot act, the war on drugs ect. You can protest but risk getting busted and thrown in the can for the night

France never had the war on drugs nor the patriot act and is pretty well balanced between no govt. and total govt. You can protest with little or no risk.

Dubai, Total government, you protest, you have a dust sized grain of hash and you go to jail for several years.

now, are Americans on the left, more apt to like the policies of France or the right, more apt to like the policies of Dubai?

reggie_the_dog

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 367 - Democratic Underground

I know the source is on the left, but go down to number 3 on the top 10 and you will see several screen shots in which Fox news lists Republicans involved in scandals as Democrats, they even had it on their tv station that Lincoln Chaffe, who lost, was a Democrat! He was a Republican of course.