But, in short, anti-drinking organizations (or "temperance" groups) wanted to end the social problems of drinking that they observed. The problems associated with saloons included prostitution, gambling and public drunkenness. All of these were criminal, which the groups wanted to end, but additionally, they were immoral, thus it was easy to get the backing of religion.
Now considered a "failed experiment" (to paraphrase one quote), the 19th amendment ended prohibition because crime increased when alcohol went underground, instead of decreasing.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 9:29 AM, <hcarteau_at_FlAvvbquRebfJTXpZ5eM3uVXVcqyrJxcCaSjkcCdmah0aMGlbJJ0yIdrQbGPzT04cAF9K3SDiVlFKPU.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
>
>
> > Chris Lemens wrote:
>
> > > (To the non-Americans: During Prohibition -- when we constitutionally
> > > illegalized liquor -- the Bureau of Revenue within the Treasury
> > > Department was in charge of enforcing the liquor laws. Hillbillies
> > > thus called them revenuers.)
> > >
> > > I'm sure that there are lunar revenuers. Maybe that's what Ghost Gors
> > > was really about. There could be a lunar hero band called the
> > > Untouchables, with their leader, Eliotus Nessus.
>
> /// Thank you for this excellent joke, I burst into laughing so loud my
> wife
> came to see what it was about !
>
> This whole "prohibition" stuff is extremely strange to a French. You'd
> think the
> american government would avoid mingling into peoples' private lives. Was
> it
> something religious ?
>
>
>
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