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Pour yourself a drink a appreciate some history. It's an issue of national manliness, FFS!
Prohibition Repeal Is Ratified at 5:32 P.M.; Roosevelt Asks Nation to Bar the Saloon; New York Celebrates With Quiet Restraint
Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES
Washington, Dec. 5 -- Legal liquor today was returned to the United States, with President Roosevelt calling on the people to see that "this return of individual freedom shall not be accompanied by the repugnant conditions that obtained prior to the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and those that have existed since its adoption."
Prohibition of alcoholic beverages as a national policy ended at 5:321/2 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, when Utah, the last of the thirty-six States furnished by vote of its convention the constitutional majority for ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment. The new amendment repealed the Eighteenth, and with the demise of the latter went the Volstead Act which for more than a decade held legal drinks in America to less than one-half of 1 percent of alcohol and the enforcement of which cost more than 150 lives and billions in money.
Earlier in the day, Pennsylvania had ratified as the thirty-fourth State and Ohio as the thirty-fifth.
Proclamation by President
President Roosevelt at 6:55 P.M., signed an official proclamation in keeping with terms of the National Industrial Recovery Act, under which prohibition ended and four taxes levied to raise $277,000,000 annually for amortization of the $3,300,000,000 public works fund were repealed.
But the President went further. Accepting certification from Acting Secretary of State Phillips that thirty-six STates had ratified the repealing amendment, he improved the occasion to address a plea to the American people to employ their regained liberty first of all for national manliness.
Mr. Roosevelt asked personally for what he and his party had declined to make the subject of Federal mandate -- that saloons be barred from the country.
"I ask especially," he said, "that no State shall, by law or otherwise, authorize the return of the saloon, either in its old form or in some modern guise."
Makes Personal Plea
He enjoined all citizens to cooperate with the government in its endeavor to restore a greater respect for law and oder, especially by confining their purchases of liquor to duly licensed agencies. This practice, which he personally requested every individual and every family in the nation to follow, would result, he said, in a better product for consumption, in addition to the "break-up and eventual destruction of the notoriously evil illicit liquor traffic" and in tax benefits to the government.
The President thus announced the policy of his administration -- to see that the social and political evils of the preprohibition era shall not be revived or permitted again to exist. Failure of citizens to use their new freedom in helping to advance this policy, he said, would be "a living reproach to us all."
He expressed faith, too, in the "good sense of the American people" in preventing excessive personal use of relegalized liquor. "The objective we seek through a national policy," he said, "is the education of every citizen toward a greater temperance throughout the nation."
As a means of enforcing his policy, the President has the Federal Alcohol Control Administration ready to take control of the liquor traffic and regulate it at the source of supply.
Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES
Washington, Dec. 5 -- Legal liquor today was returned to the United States, with President Roosevelt calling on the people to see that "this return of individual freedom shall not be accompanied by the repugnant conditions that obtained prior to the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and those that have existed since its adoption."
Prohibition of alcoholic beverages as a national policy ended at 5:321/2 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, when Utah, the last of the thirty-six States furnished by vote of its convention the constitutional majority for ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment. The new amendment repealed the Eighteenth, and with the demise of the latter went the Volstead Act which for more than a decade held legal drinks in America to less than one-half of 1 percent of alcohol and the enforcement of which cost more than 150 lives and billions in money.
Earlier in the day, Pennsylvania had ratified as the thirty-fourth State and Ohio as the thirty-fifth.
Proclamation by President
President Roosevelt at 6:55 P.M., signed an official proclamation in keeping with terms of the National Industrial Recovery Act, under which prohibition ended and four taxes levied to raise $277,000,000 annually for amortization of the $3,300,000,000 public works fund were repealed.
But the President went further. Accepting certification from Acting Secretary of State Phillips that thirty-six STates had ratified the repealing amendment, he improved the occasion to address a plea to the American people to employ their regained liberty first of all for national manliness.
Mr. Roosevelt asked personally for what he and his party had declined to make the subject of Federal mandate -- that saloons be barred from the country.
"I ask especially," he said, "that no State shall, by law or otherwise, authorize the return of the saloon, either in its old form or in some modern guise."
Makes Personal Plea
He enjoined all citizens to cooperate with the government in its endeavor to restore a greater respect for law and oder, especially by confining their purchases of liquor to duly licensed agencies. This practice, which he personally requested every individual and every family in the nation to follow, would result, he said, in a better product for consumption, in addition to the "break-up and eventual destruction of the notoriously evil illicit liquor traffic" and in tax benefits to the government.
The President thus announced the policy of his administration -- to see that the social and political evils of the preprohibition era shall not be revived or permitted again to exist. Failure of citizens to use their new freedom in helping to advance this policy, he said, would be "a living reproach to us all."
He expressed faith, too, in the "good sense of the American people" in preventing excessive personal use of relegalized liquor. "The objective we seek through a national policy," he said, "is the education of every citizen toward a greater temperance throughout the nation."
As a means of enforcing his policy, the President has the Federal Alcohol Control Administration ready to take control of the liquor traffic and regulate it at the source of supply.
On this day 81 years ago-December 15, 1933-the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became officially effective, ten days after being ratified. This amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, which in 1920 had initiated the era of Prohibition of alcohol.
The movement to make alcohol illegal had been around for years when James A. Garfield ran for President of the United States in 1880. His predecessor in the White House, Rutherford B. Hayes, was a temperance advocate and voluntarily banned alcohol from most White House functions during his 1877-81 term.
Neither James nor Lucretia Garfield drank very much at all, but Garfield was not a temperance advocate. Prop-temperance people encouraged Garfield to continue the Hayes ban on alcohol in the White House, but Garfield elected to simply say very little publicly on the subject. For the brief time the Garfields occupied the White House, however, official functions were not "dry" and featured wine and other spirits.
The movement to make alcohol illegal had been around for years when James A. Garfield ran for President of the United States in 1880. His predecessor in the White House, Rutherford B. Hayes, was a temperance advocate and voluntarily banned alcohol from most White House functions during his 1877-81 term.
Neither James nor Lucretia Garfield drank very much at all, but Garfield was not a temperance advocate. Prop-temperance people encouraged Garfield to continue the Hayes ban on alcohol in the White House, but Garfield elected to simply say very little publicly on the subject. For the brief time the Garfields occupied the White House, however, official functions were not "dry" and featured wine and other spirits.
If public sentiment had turned against Prohibition by the late 1920s, the advent of the Great Depression only hastened its demise, as some argued that the ban on alcohol denied jobs to the unemployed and much-needed revenue to the government. The efforts of the nonpartisan group Americans Against Prohibition Association (AAPA) added to public disillusionment. In 1932, the platform of Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt included a plank for repealing the 18th Amendment, and his victory that November marked a certain end to Prohibition.
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