Last week I watched Ken Burns' five-and-a-half-hour three-part
documentary on Prohibition, the so-called “Noble Experiment” and
one of the country's biggest civic failures. I like Ken Burns'
work, especially his Jazz series, and Prohibition didn't
disappoint me. I already knew some of the causes that led to the
passage of the 18th Amendment: the force of the Temperance
Movement and how its leaders were also pushing for women's
rights, how the passing of the income tax amendment made
Prohibition fiscally feasible, and the strange alliance of
militant suffragettes with white supremacists to ban alcohol
use. But there were some other facts that I was not aware of,
like the vilification of German-Americans —which included most
of the large brewery owners— when the US entered World War I.
And I didn't realize that women, after lobbying so hard for
prohibition, became so pivotal in the effort to repeal it.
Pauline Sabin, a wealthy heiress from a Republican family,
initially supported prohibition, but as crime incre