Prohibition & Retribution

Back on April 7, 1933, Prohibition was repealed. Look at the happy picture of revelers in Washington, D.C. on that night.

I did my part to celebrate its ending tonight by going to the Lancaster Liederkranz and quaffed a couple of in-house beers...a Winter Ale and a Pale Ale...both quite fine. Oh yeah, I also had Schweinshaxe (pig's knuckle) with some red cabbage. That did my Teutonic soul good.

When I conducted my 40 day/40 Pennsylvania Microbrewery Tour last summer, I learned there were two forces merging into Prohibition. One was the moralistic efforts of the Temperance movement and the other was a lesser, but very much real, anti-German backlash as a consequence of World War I. C'mon, what is more German than beer? Stick it to the Krauts here in the U.S.

Prohibition was well-intentioned. Drunkenness was a real social problem. The anti-German sentiment was also understandable. Yet, both of these strains erred by concluding too much.

Example # 1: Since drinking alcohol in excess leads to intoxication, all drinking is evil and of the devil. I believe that drinking in moderation does more to promote temperance than abstinence. It is fine if someone does not want to drink. It is also fine if they do. Otherwise, it is like arguing that since some people are morons and text while they drive, cell phone's should not be able to text. I have no qualms calling people who text while driving morons...as if whatever they have to say can't wait.

Example # 2: Since the German nation is our enemy in war, all things German are evil (forgetting somehow that the largest cultural group to immigrate to America were Germans...and those fighting Germans "Over There" from here were a high percentage of German ancestry). In fact, one could argue WW I was an an international Civil War of sorts between competing and conflicting characteristics in the German psyche...one for order and authority, and one for individual rights and opportunity.

How hard it is to be wise and to not try and correct one set of errors with another set of errors on the other side of the equation. May we learn this wisdom. God expects us to use our reason...otherwise he would not have bequeathed upon us the capacity for such.