Prohibition

FDR begged him to take the SEC job. Roosevelt knew that the best guy for that job was a guy who knew all the angles,
and would be able to throw roadblocks in the way of the "mine, mine, mine" angleshooters -- not just another Wall Street handmaiden.

Could use that, today.

 

I turned on night one late and promptly fell asleep on the couch, but before I fell asleep, there was a brief mention of Joe Kennedy's father, P.J. Kennedy.

It was around the time they were talking about the breweries opening bars. They said how nearly anyone who agreed to serve a particular brewery's beer could open a bar.

Then, they talked about people distributing liquor and mentioned Kennedy and how he would build an empire that would lead to his grandson becoming President.

I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.

 

Another thing histories of the 1920s leave out is the incredible popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, and not just in the south. The KKK was a huge supporter of Prohibition, and it many of the most powerful white men in their respective states to ensure it got passed and enforced.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1107362364.html

The anti-immigration fears exploited and fomented by the KKK in the 1920s also have a lot to do with why we have such a thing called "illegal immigration." The 1920s weren't the first time legislation was passed restricting immigration (restrictions on the Chinese were enacted in the 1890s), but that was when the most sweeping legislation came through.

 

And brutally anti-Catholic Bob. Since support for Prohibition was also linked to anti-Catholic sentiment, this is unsurprising.

I always wondered if Catholic Al Smith (who was trounced by Hoover in the 1928 presidential election) would actually have won if he first ran against Hoover in 1932 instead of FDR.

 

Growing up in Indiana, I may have heard more of the history of that time than most, considering that the state elected a Klan-backed governor, a (long-dead) Indianapolis newspaper won a Pulitzer for exposing Klan links in politics, and the Klan's decline following the rape and murder conviction of Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson. At least, I remember it being discussed in my high school history classes.

 

The Klan stuff and anti-immigration policies were discussed in the high school and college classes I had that covered the 20s.

Also, the eugenics movement played a major part in getting the immigration restrictions passed. Keeping out Chinese and Japanese immigrants was seen as a way to keep from "polluting" the gene pool in the U.S.

To add some more, Indiana was the first place in the world to have a eugenics-based compulsory sterilization act, in 1907. The Supreme Court eventually ruled in Buck v. Bell in 1927 that sterilizing those deemed as "unfit" is legal.

 

Was there a 20th-century major-party POTUS-nomination slot more valuable than '32 for the Dems?

Think not.

Talk about following the oblivious.

 

Kennedy, however, badly wanted to be secretary of the treasury instead.

 

78 years ago today the 21st Amendment was passed ending Prohibition.

 

To alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!