Fiorello H. La Guardia

Before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, prominent New York politician Fiorello H. La Guardia theorized that Prohibition would be impossible to enforce. He warned fellow congressman Andrew Volstead (author of the enforcement legislation bearing his name) that failure to enforce Prohibition would only breed contempt for the law. Unfortunately, all of La Guardia's predictions came true. By 1926 violations of the Volstead Act by career criminals as well as ordinary citizens were too numerous to count. Government corruption had also become widespread. The Prohibition laws were even being broken within the hallowed halls of Congress by supposedly "dry" politicians. The following is a statement La Guardia made in 1926 before a Senate committee about Prohibition policy failure. In it, La Guardia insists that present laws cannot be enforced and that modifications will have to be made in order for Prohibition to...