Seventy-Five Years Ago: Don't Worry. We're Ready

Counting Down to April 7, the Anniversary of the Return of Legal Beer

March 18, 1933:

A reporter in Milwaukee set out to answer a question plaguing the newspaper's readers: Were the city’s brewers really ready to go?

The answer? Yes.

“Our tanks are fairly bulging," said one brewery representative, “and if they don’t give us the word to go pretty soon, the sides of our building will be pushed out."

Well, okay, a slight exaggeration. But who cared? The sweet smell of real beer was in the air. ____________________________ Source: “Brewery Vats Bulge Awaiting Word to Go," Milwaukee Sentinel, March 18, 1933, pp. 1 and 3.

Seventy-Five Years Ago: Women Be Wise ...

Counting Down to April 7, the Anniversary of the Return of Legal Beer

March 17, 1933:

The Women's Christian Temperance Union issued a statement warning women against the dangers of beer. "If women take to the beer habit, they have only to look at some of the beer drinkers in London slums to see what is ahead of them. Beer makes fat." (No word on whether German women suffered the same fate...)

The WCTU promised to continue its war on booze, especially beer, which the organization denounced as "the most brutalizing of all drinks," because it "induces and perpetuates the alcohol habit . . . ."

"No nation," the ladies warned, "ever drank itself out of depression."

Phhhtttt! This was the same song-and-dance the group had been performing for more than fifty years. At least this time the audience wasn't watching. _____________________ Source: "Women Warned of Fattening Beer," New York Times, March 18, 1933, p. 2.

Seventy-Five Years Ago: WE WANT BEER!

Counting Down to April 7, the Anniversary of the Return of Legal Beer

March 15, 1933:

Chicago officials announced they’d received 2,138 applications to sell beer, and had already approved more than 700 of those requests.

Up in Milwaukee, that city’s Association of Commerce swooned at the idea of legal beer. Brewers and related manufacturers (like glass and barrel makers) were expected to create more than 25,000 new jobs.

The “prospect of legal beer is almost too good to be true," sighed the manager of the Blatz Hotel. But that didn’t stop him from making plans: he’d ordered new steins, lighting fixtures, and palm plants for the hotel’s restaurant. “All we are waiting for," he added, “is legal beer."*

Him and 125 million other Americans. ________________________ *Sources: “Issues 741 Beer Licenses," New York Times, March 16, 1933, p. 20; and various reports in the Milwaukee Sentinel, March 15, 1933.

Seventy-Five Years Ago: Get Ridda the Fountain Already!

Counting Down to April 7, the Anniversary of the Return of Legal Beer

March 14, 1933: The Aldermen of Ansonia, Connecticut wasted no time affirming their support for legal beer.

True, the method they used was a little odd: they voted to demolish the fountain sitting in front of City Hall.

Why? Because it had been donated to the town in 1914 by the local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, one of the prime movers responsible for Prohibition.*

And the people of Ansonia, like just about everyone else in the United States, were ready to bury anything even remotely connected to the thirteen-year disaster of the Eighteenth Amendment.

Happy days were on the way. ______________________ *Source: “Will Remove W.C.T.U. Fountain," New York Times, March 15, 1933, p. 19.

Seventy-Five Years Ago: FDR Asks for Beer

Counting Down to April 7, the Anniversary of the Return of Legal Beer

On March 13, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt sent Congress a short message: Please amend the Volstead Act to allow the sale of beer with an "alcoholic" content.

Americans had elected FDR the previous November because the nation was mired in the disaster that we now call the Great Depression. The new president promised to get the economy up and running again.

Bringing back beer was part of the plan: Legalize beer and brewers could re-open their doors. In doing so, they'd hire thousands of workers (whose paychecks would then circulate through the economy), spend millions of dollars refurbishing their dilapidated breweries (more workers, more paychecks), and deposit hefty tax revenues into federal, state, and local treasuries.

Congress had laid the groundwork the previous December, when a committee in the House of Representatives discussed the details, including the all-important matter of how much alcohol beer ought to contain. (Brewers urged Congress to allow at least 3.2%.)

Now it was up to both the House and the Senate to agree on the legislation and send the bill on to the president. An impatient nation urged them to move quickly.

Seventy-five Years Ago: FDR

March 4, 1933: Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office and moved into the White House.

Why does that matter? Because he campaigned on the Democrats’ promise to end Prohibition. He got that project underway a few days later by asking Congress to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer. On April 7, 1933, beer came back.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be blogging about that moment in our history. Stay tuned.

But today, take a few minutes to read FDR’s first inaugural address. He began his first term during the Great Depression, when Americans faced economic disaster on a scale that, bad as things are now, few of us can imagine. His message of hope is as inspiring now as it was then.