American Nation Permanently Dry

New York Tribune ^ | January 17, 1920 | Staff

[NRx]

Liquorless Era Greeted in Broadway Cafes With Little Ceremony; Few Farewell Parties

Church Bells Ring in Joyous Acclaim

Persons of Many Creeds Gather in Hempstead for Service of Thanksgiving

Demon Rum, who has had more funerals of late than even the most robust cat could expect, had the last and positively final obsequies said over his bier along Broadway last night. The service was as dolorous as even the most mournful could ask. In fact, the occasion was so gloomy that there was scarcely any ceremony at all.

[NRx]

The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and comcribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.

-Evangelist Billy Sunday January 17, 1920

[MeganC]

Geez, it’s not quite 10am and after reading this I need a drink!

[jonascord]

My granddad made a comfortable living trucking 5 gallon cans of alky from Detroit to Chicago, for Deany O'Banion. (Canadians would drive the cargos across the ice from Windsor.) He made enough to open a speak on the Northwest Side, bought a house, and ran four other trucks as a small cartage company in the Chicago area. It put him right through the Depression with hardly a joggle.

Prohibition was good for my family.

[Fiji Hill]

What Are You Squawking About?--Carson Robison (1932)

What are you squawking about?
What are you squawking about?
You folks that said the world mustn’t drink
You’ve got Prohibition, so what do you think?
You say the whole country is dry,
And you can’t get a drink if you try.
Now that may be so, but don’t it seem queer,
When good, honest people are hungry and bare,
And the bootlegger making a million a year,
Well, What are you squawking about, about?
What are you squawking about?

[Fiji Hill]

Ballyhoo--Phil Spitalny & His Orchestra, with Eddie Cantor (1931)

Sure, business has stunk and Wall Street is sunk.
We're all of us broke and ready to croak.
We've nothing to dunk, can't even get drunk,
And all the while, they tell us to smile.

[CedarDave]

And today, they are trying to legalize demon Marijuana:

(Dem NM) Gov. begins push for legal marijuana