Interwar Kansas City, Part 3: Prohibition Basics
The Prohibition experiment would change the game in Kansas City.
If you want the complete story, start from Part 1:
THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE
The good times in Interwar Kansas City were mostly fueled by the eighteenth amendment of the US constitution, which was a blanket ban on alcoholic drinks. Not counting irrelevant legalities, the amendment reads like this: “The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.” In basic terms it illegalized making, selling, moving, importing, and exporting alcoholic drinks in the USA.
Now I think most people can agree that alcohol addiction is a serious problem, and that drunk people have the kind of impaired judgement that will often result in criminal behavior, whether we’re talking about harassment or manslaughter. But that kind of logic wasn’t why the 18th amendment was passed…
