As we get close to December 5, the anniversary of Repeal of the 18th Amendment, I thought I would take a look at this important group that helped get Repeal passed.

The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) was founded soon after Prohibition went into effect in 1920. It was founded by many distillers and brewers, along with some important business leaders such as the Du Ponts. It was their belief that the Prohibition Amendment was not working and that repeal of the amendment would expand employment and purchasing power. They started using pressure politics in a way similar to the tactics of the Anti-Saloon League. Opponents of the AAPA used the argument that the AAPA was all about self-interest and it was just a way to let the wealthy Americans decrease their taxes by reinstating the alcohol industry, which was heavily taxed by the United States government. At first, these tactics were not very effective.

In 1928, Herbert Hoover won a close presidential race against the Democratic candidate, Governor Al Smith of New York, who was a Catholic and open “wet” candidate. Hoover believed it was only with the support of the “dry” vote, including the Anti-Saloon League, that he won. However, he did agree to have a study done on Prohibition and its impact on America. And then the Stock Market Crash of 1929 happened only months after he took office. Many Americans were out of work and suffering as the Great Depression took over American politics. Hoover’s study showed that, not only was Prohibition not working, but there was nothing they could do to make it work. Moonshining and bootlegging were rampant. Organized crime was holding power in many cities and violence was growing. However, Hoover had another election coming up and chose to ignore the results of his own study. He publicly said that Prohibition had to be modified with greater enforcement of the law, but it was still working, even though the public knew that it was very easy to get a drink during that time. Hoover did not want to lose the support of the dry citizens voting in the next election. He knew he had a tough opponent in Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was once again a wet candidate.

Americans were suffering through record numbers of unemployment. The government was running up a huge deficit as Hoover believed that the way out of this depression was through spending money on infrastructure projects such as the Hoover Dam. This only highlighted the need to repeal Prohibition and bring back the distilling and brewing industries and the taxes they paid into the government. In fact, the amount of deficit was equal to one year’s taxes on alcohol in 1917. The AAPA’s argument that repeal would create jobs and increase tax revenues was very appealing to the American voters. Roosevelt won the election in 1932 and within a year of his taking office, the 21st Amendment was passed to the delight of the AAPA.

Photo Courtesy of the Library of Congress