Readings- the 1920s (hw 3/24- due Mon 3/27) amsco- the Era of the 1920s

In an afternoon session that day, a not guilty plea is entered on Scopes' behalf. Each side presents its opening statements. The prosecution questions the superintendent of schools and two of Scopes' students, who testify that Scopes taught his class about evolution. The defense questions zoologist Maynard Metcalf, who testifies that evolution is a widely embraced theory in the scientific community.

After the verdict is read, John Scopes delivers his only statement of the trial, declaring his intent "to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom — that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom."

Ken Ham, the founder of the Creation Museum, believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago and that the Bible tells the factual account of the universe’s beginnings and the creation of humans. Nye said he, and the rest of the scientific community, believe the Earth was created by a big bang billions of years ago and people have evolved over time.

“I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion,” said Nye, who wore his trademark bow tie. “But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old.”

Nye said technology keeps the U.S. ahead as a world leader and he worried that if creationism is taught to children the country would fall behind.

“If we continue to eschew science … we are not going to move forward,” Nye said. “We will not embrace natural laws. We will not make discoveries. We will not invent and innovate and stay ahead.”

Ham showed the theater audience of about 800 people — and those watching the debate live on the Internet — slides backing up his assertions.

“Creation is the only viable model of historical science confirmed by observational science in today’s modern scientific era,” Ham said. He also introduced scientists who he said were also creationists. “I believe the word ‘science’ has been high-jacked by secularists,” Ham said.

Some scientists were critical of Nye for agreeing to debate the head of a Christian ministry that is dismissive of evolution. Jerry Coyne, a professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, wrote on his blog that “Nye’s appearance will be giving money to organizations who try to subvert the mission Nye has had all his life: science education, particularly of kids.” Coyne pointed out that the Creation Museum will be selling DVDs of the event.

The museum quickly sold out its 800 seats, thanks in part to Nye’s celebrity as the former host of “Bill Nye The Science Guy,” a 1990s science education TV program that is still played in some classrooms. Some people in the audience wore “Bill Nye is my home boy” T-shirts. Another fan wore a bow tie and Nye’s signature lab coat.

Ham said there were hundreds of thousands of visitors to his Facebook page Tuesday, and the Creation Museum hasn’t had the spotlight shined on it like this since its opening in May 2007.

Nye waded into the evolution debate in an online video in 2012 that urged parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children. Ham rebutted Nye’s statements with his own online video with comments from scientists who work at the museum.

Since the debate was announced in early January, attention has been heaped on the Creation Museum and its directing ministry, Answers in Genesis, which is raising money for a theme park built around a replica of Noah’s Ark. The project was announced in 2011 but fundraising has been slow and its groundbreaking date is in limbo.

The Creation Museum said visitors from 29 states bought seats for the debate.

The Volstead Act, Prohibition, and Organized Crime

By the turn of the 20th century, temperance societies were prevalent in the US. Concerned citizens had begun warning others about the effects of alcohol nearly 100 years earlier. In 1826 the American Temperance Society was founded to convince people to abstain from drinking. Not long after, the Women's Christian Temperance Union pledged not only to ban alcohol and drugs, but to improve public morals. The anti-Saloon League was formed in 1893 and eventually became a powerful political force in passing a national ban on alcoholic beverages. Women were strongly behind the temperance movement, for alcohol was seen as the destroyer of families and marriages. Men would often spend their money on alcohol, leaving women with no money to provide for their children. Factory owners also supported temperance as well because of the new work habits that were required of industrial workers - early mornings and long nights. Progressive reformers also took to Prohibition for they saw it as a continuation of their efforts to improve society in general. Temperance societies and Progressives alike saw the need for more governmental control and involvement in citizens' lives. They were successful in passing several laws at the local level. Between 1905 and 1917, states across the nation were imposing laws that prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages. They did not stop there, however. The temperance societies began to push to change American society and elevate morality through national legislation. In 1917, the House of Representatives wanted to make Prohibition the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Congress sent the amendment to the states for ratification, where it needed three-fourths approval. The amendment stipulated a time limit of seven years for the states to pass this amendment. In just 13 months enough states said yes to the amendment that would prohibit the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic liquors.

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Working-class consumption largely moved from saloons into the home. “Bathtub gin” and moonshine took the place of mass-produced liquor, and hosts might use additives to turn grape juice into wine for their guests. Americans who sought to remain in the liquor business found ways to redistill the alcohol in perfume, paint, and carpentry supplies. They continued redistilling even after learning that many of these products contained poisons meant to deter such transformations.

Whether smuggled from Canada, homemade, or redistilled from industrial alcohol, liquor commanded high prices on the black market. Gangsters like Al Capone and George Remus provided alcohol to many consumers, and some became folk heroes. But their celebrity images obscured the reality of how liquor profits underwrote organized crime’s development. Criminal organizations profited from Americans’ insatiable desire for liquor, and then defended those profits by murdering hundreds of their competitors and infiltrating legitimate businesses, labor unions, and government.

Why did Prohibition fail, and why was it repealed? The roots of this problem lay in the wording of 1920’s Volstead Act, a piece of federal legislation. Specifically, the Volstead Act mandated “concurrent enforcement” of prohibition—that is, enforcement through federal laws and agencies as well as by state and local laws and agencies. While lawmakers argued that the Volstead Act would translate into extensive enforcement, in practice it meant the opposite. For example, in states where many residents did not desire prohibition, such as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, state “prohibition” laws actually violated the Volstead Act by permitting some wines and beer. There were many strategies for circumventing federal law: some states might refuse to pass prohibition laws, repeal existing laws, or underfund enforcement agencies. Federal law enforcement agencies were stretched too thin—and were too poorly funded by Congress—to make a substantial impact on American drinking habits when local and state agencies were uncooperative. The federal Prohibition Bureau never had more than 3000 agents, and about 10 percent of those agents were fired for corruption. Henry Ford recommended putting enforcement in the hands of the Army and Navy. That suggestion never had much traction, but it suggested the extent of dry frustration.

Without the financial or personnel resources to make a bold and comprehensive assault upon the liquor traffic, law enforcement agencies used “sting” operations. Prohibition agent Elliot Ness famously used wire-tapping to discern the secret locations of breweries. Prohibition agents Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith drew upon less sophisticated tactics. Once inside an illegal barroom, they would place an order, pour the liquor down a funnel and into their pockets, and then arrest the bartender. When word of their tricks spread among bar owners, Einstein and Smith began to wear elaborate disguises. By some estimates the pair made four thousand arrests in five years.

Ultimately, only a small percentage of liquor distributors found themselves arrested. But even this limited number of accused—there were approximately 65,000 federal criminal actions in the first two years of Prohibition—was enough to cripple the justice system. Prisons grew crowded, and judges tried to incentivize quick “guilty” pleas by promising very small fines. And if a liquor seller did wind up on trial, juries filled with liquor drinkers were often reluctant to find the defendants guilty; only about 60 percent of cases ended with a conviction.

The persistent problems wrought by poor law enforcement inspired Americans not only to ignore the Eighteenth Amendment, but to overturn it. The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) and the National Organization of Women for Prohibition Reform (NOWPR) were single-issue pressure groups that opposed Prohibition upon the grounds that it provoked lawlessness; members of these organizations were business-minded elites suspicious of expanding federal power, and they put a respectable face on repeal. By 1928 the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Al Smith, spoke openly of the need to repeal the prohibition amendment. In 1931 the Wickersham Commission reported to President Herbert Hoover that the costs of prohibition were greater than its benefits, giving the amendment’s opponents an additional source of support and authority. Hoover grudgingly announced his support for repeal in 1932.

The Twenty-First Amendment repealing the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified in 1933.

Most Americans greeted the end of the Prohibition era with relief. While the end of the conflict and lawlessness was a relief there was also a clear benefit that Americans could recognize. The legalization of alcohol meant that alcohol could be taxed by government; the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression and state and federal governments needed revenue to create relief programs.

Lisa Andersen teaches in the Liberal Arts Department at the Juilliard School in New York City and is working on Politics Distilled: The Prohibition Party and American Governance, 1869–1933 for publication.

Al Capone and Organized Crime

Born of an immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York in 1899, Al Capone quit school after the sixth grade and associated with a notorious street gang, becoming accepted as a member. Johnny Torrio was the street gang leader and among the other members was Lucky Luciano, who would later attain his own notoriety. About 1920, at Torrio’s invitation, Capone joined Torrio in Chicago where he had become an influential lieutenant in the Colosimo mob. The rackets spawned by enactment of the Prohibition Amendment, illegal brewing, distilling and distribution of beer and liquor, were viewed as “growth industries.” Torrio, abetted by Al Capone, intended to take full advantage of opportunities. The mob also developed interests in legitimate businesses in the cleaning and dyeing field and cultivated influence with receptive public officials, labor unions, and employees’ associations. Torrio soon succeeded to full leadership of the gang with the violent demise of Big Jim Colosimo, and Capone gained experience and expertise as his strong right arm.

In 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, surrendered control and retired to Brooklyn. Capone had built a fearsome reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the period, struggling to acquire and retain “racketeering rights” to several areas of Chicago. That reputation grew as rival gangs were eliminated or nullified, and the suburb of Cicero became, in effect, a fiefdom of the Capone mob.

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, might be regarded as the culminating violence of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or associates of the “Bugs” Moran mob were machine-gunned against a garage wall by rivals posing as police. The massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone mob, although Al himself was in Florida.

The investigative jurisdiction of the Bureau of Investigation during the 1920s and early 1930s was more limited than it is now, and the gang warfare and depredations of the period were not within the Bureau’s investigative authority.

The FBI’s investigation of Al Capone arose from his reluctance to appear before a federal grand jury on March 12, 1929 in response to a subpoena. On March 11, his lawyers formally filed for postponement of his appearance, submitting a physician’s affidavit dated March 5, which attested that Capone had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia in Miami, had been confined to bed from January 13 to February 23, and that it would be dangerous to Capone’s health to travel to Chicago. His appearance date before the grand jury was re-set for March 20.

On request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Bureau of Investigation agents obtained statements to the effect that Capone had attended race tracks in the Miami area, that he had made a plane trip to Bimini and a cruise to Nassau, that he had been interviewed at the office of the Dade County Solicitor, and that he had appeared in good health on each of those occasions.

Capone appeared before the federal grand jury in Chicago on March 20, 1929 and completed his testimony on March 27. As he left the courtroom, he was arrested by agents for contempt of court, an offense for which the penalty could be one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. He posted $5,000 bond and was released.

On May 17, 1929, Al Capone and his bodyguard were arrested in Philadelphia for carrying concealed deadly weapons. Within 16 hours they had been sentenced to terms of one year each. Capone served his time and was released in nine months for good behavior on March 17, 1930. On February 28, 1931, Capone was found guilty in federal court on the contempt of court charge and was sentenced to six months in Cook County Jail. His appeal on that charge was subsequently dismissed.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department had been developing evidence on tax evasion charges—in addition to Al Capone, his brother Ralph “Bottles” Capone, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, Frank Nitti, and other mobsters were subjects of tax evasion charges.

On June 16, 1931, Al Capone pled guilty to tax evasion and prohibition charges. He then boasted to the press that he had struck a deal for a two-and-a-half year sentence, but the presiding judge informed him he, the judge, was not bound by any deal. Capone then changed his plea to not guilty. On October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted after trial and on November 24, was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison, fined $50,000 and charged $7,692 for court costs, in addition to $215,000 plus interest due on back taxes. The six-month contempt of court sentence was to be served concurrently.

While awaiting the results of appeals, Capone was confined to the Cook County Jail. Upon denial of appeals, he entered the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, serving his sentence there and at Alcatraz. On November 16, 1939, Al Capone was released after having served seven years, six months and fifteen days, and having paid all fines and back taxes. Suffering from paresis derived from syphilis, he had deteriorated greatly during his confinement. Immediately on release he entered a Baltimore hospital for brain treatment and then went on to his Florida home, an estate on Palm Island in Biscayne Bay near Miami, which he had purchased in 1928.

Following his release, he never publicly returned to Chicago. He had become mentally incapable of returning to gangland politics. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist, after examination, both concluded Capone then had the mentality of a 12-year-old child. Capone resided on Palm Island with his wife and immediate family, in a secluded atmosphere, until his death due to a stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947.