More Prohibition News

So I finished my book on Prohibition. It was really interesting. In fact here are some interesting things I learned from it - 

1. There were some people that I had never been totally convinced were real people. Turns out they were. Carry Nation was a real person and was just a little bit nuts. She started breaking up saloons with rocks, hammers, bricks, etc. before switching to a hatchet. Billy Sunday was also a real person. He was a famous baseball player, stealing 84 bases one year. He gave up baseball and alcohol and became the most famous preacher of his time. Eliot Ness and his Untouchables were real, but not as effective as TV or movies would make you think. The St. Valentines Day Massacre happened. Only seven gangsters died. That's not a lot as massacres go. 

2. Anheuser-Busch, whose founders were from Germany, knew there was anti-German sentiment during World War I, which led to prohibition being enacted. At the start of WWII, they adopted a new logo with a bald eagle to seem more patriotic. 

3. Clauses in the Volstead Act allowed for wine to be used for communion. One congregation grew from 180 to 1,000 in the first month of Prohibition. 

4. The Gallo Brothers and Welch's Grape Juice got their start during Prohibition. Coca-Cola's sales tripled. After repeal, Coke considered producing Coca-Cola beer. 

5. Here's a sneaky warning label on a product produced then, which was a dehydrated block of grape juice. It said, "Be sure not to add yeast or sugar, or leave it in a dark place, or let it sit too long before drinking it because it might ferment and become wine." Sneaky, but creative. 

6. Prohibition actually worked to some degree. At the start they estimate alcohol consumption dropped to 30% of what it was and then was at about 60% by the end of it. 7. The amendment creating the income tax meant less reliance on the tax money brought in by alcohol. That helped to bring in Prohibition in the first place. When Prohibition ended, instead of doing away with income tax entirely, it was lowered a bit, but primarily used by Roosevelt to finance the New Deal. It's a cool book with a lot more that what I just mentioned - "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition".