Every 50 years or so, America loses its mind. Youth culture, entrenched wealth, progressive ideals and Christian moralism, fueled by outrage and new technologies, clash in a bloody debilitating battle for the soul of our nation. Welcome to the 1920s.
At the end of World War I, a lost generation of servicemen returned from the battle fields of France, disillusioned and infected. They carried a deadly pandemic, the Spanish flu. Public health officials issued mask mandates. Anti-mask leagues across the nation struck back while 500,000 of their fellow citizens died horrible deaths.
At the same time, red scares erupted across the nation. Communism had come to Russia. America was terrified. Riots broke out in places like Detroit. As always, minorities and the poor suffered the brunt of the retribution. In places like Denver and Galveston, the National Guard was deployed to end labor strikes.
Meanwhile, two new amendments to the Constitution were implemented. The 18th banned the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” The 19th gave women the right to vote. These amendments are intertwined. Decades of political rhetoric from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League targeting the abuses of immigrants had led to this point. In places like the meat-packing plants of Chicago, immigrant workers sometimes spent their entire week’s pay at the saloon, leaving nothing to feed their families. The WCTU supported the suffragettes. Often, they were the same people.
Prohibition proved to be a nightmare. It did not work. Speakeasies sprung up all over the country, particularly in big cities. Alcohol consumption increased. Alcoholism increased. Death from alcohol increased.
Gang wars broke out between rival bootleggers. Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt sent her Prohibition agents to war against bootleggers, with bloody results. These killings outraged the public. In Jacksonville, a Prohibition agent named Hope King gunned down John Hysler, the “Whiskey King” of Jacksonville, on the Acosta Bridge. Hysler was mourned by thousands.
At the same time, the Ku Klux Klan enjoyed a powerful revival. This second iteration of the Klan, while retaining its racist and antisemitic past, pushed a new agenda that was largely anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic and anti-alcohol. The message was popular. The Klan had strong membership in states like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In Indiana, one out of every three adult white males was a member. At its height, in 1924, this new Klan decided elections across the country.
The ’20s roared to a disastrous conclusion, fueled by a stock market that blazed until it consumed itself in an earth-shattering collapse. As the economy unraveled, the government implemented disastrous tariffs. The entire world dissolved into hardship and want.
If much of this sounds familiar, it should.
Scott A Grant is a local author and historian. He welcomes your comments at scottg@standfastic.com. Ecclesiastes 1:9
