[Sailor Steve]

January 16, 1919


Nebraska becomes the 36th State to ratify the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the "manufacture sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes" is outlawed in the United States. The amendment passed both houses of Congress on December 3, 1917, and it took just over a year to gain ratification by two-thirds of the States.

The 18th Amendment:

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The Amendment's supporters were overjoyed at first due to the immediate drop in alcohol-related arrests and alcohol-induced violent crime rates, which fell to half of their pre-prohibition levels. Then the shock set in, as the numbers started rolling in on how many "good citizens" willingly became criminals, cheerfully buying massive quantities of smuggled alcohol products. The prospect of money to be made via the smuggling itself, coupled with a growing market for illegally brewed spirits, led to the rise of organized crime in the United States, which in turn led to increased violence between gangs vying for the brewing and smuggling markets. Even one very famous visitor noted the problems involved:

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
― Albert Einstein, My First Impressions of the U.S.A., 1921