Prohibition and the Scopes Trial

Do you think the passage of the Volstead Act and the ruling in the Scopes trial represented genuine triumphs for traditional values?


Think About:
• changes in urban life in the 1920s
• the effects of Prohibition
• the legacy of the Scopes trial


I believe the passage of the Volstead Act and the ruling in the Scopes trial did not represent genuine triumphs for traditional values. Many changes in society led to the breaking of traditions. To begin with cities became more crowded while people left small towns. The city was a different world full of competition and change that tolerated drinking, gambling, and casual dating. All these behaviors would never have been accepted in the small towns.


Traditional values were slowly dying and Prohibition did not do much to help reverse these effects. Prohibition was the 18th Amendment which stated the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages was legally prohibited. Traditionalists believed alcohol was the root of all evils including corruption. They believed that drinking too much alcohol led to crime, wife and child abuse, accidents on the job, and other serious social problems. Since the amendment took effect right after World War I, Americans were tired of making sacrifices and just wanted to enjoy life. Prohibition, at first, did lead to a decline in arrests for drunkenness and closed saloon doors but soon after many people began to disregard the law. Most immigrant groups were displeased by this amendment because they believed drinking was not a sin but more as a natural part of socializing. In 1919 the Volstead Act established the Prohibition Bureau in the Treasury Department. The only problem was it was underfunded. With no respect for the law and underfunded enforcement the amendment began to fail. Speakeasies, hidden saloons and nightclubs, could be found everywhere. People learned how to distill alcohol and built their own stills. With a prescription, alcohol could be used as medicine and also for religious purposes. People also bought alcohol from bootlegger who smuggled alcohol into the country. It got worse as organized crime began to develop. Discontent grew and by the mid-1920s only 19 percent of Americans supported Prohibition; it was later repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment. Prohibition caused worse effects than the initial problem and led people to go against traditional values.

There was more controversy in the 1920's but this time it was between fundamentalists and secular thinkers. Fundamentalists believed in God and all the truths of the Bible. This led them to reject the idea of evolution supported by scientists. In March 1925 a law, first of its kind, was passed in Tennessee making it illegal to teach evolution. John Scopes did so anyways with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was arrested and his trial was set. The trail became known as the Scopes trial and was more so a fight over evolution and the role of science and religion in public schools and in American society than a question of Scopes's guilt or innocence. In the end Scopes was found guilty but the Tennessee Supreme Court later changed the verdict on technicality but the law, which made it a crime to teach evolution, remained in effect.

All these events were examples of changes and conflicts during the 1920's which did not result in genuine triumphs for traditional values and showed the greater presence of modern ideas.