History: Prohibition Of Alcoholic Beverages, Los Angeles, California, United States

• Unpopularity of prohibition and repeal movement
As early as 1925, journalist H. L. Mencken believed that Prohibition was not working. As the prohibition years continued, more of the country’s populace came to see prohibition as illustrative of class distinctions, a law unfairly biased in its administration favoring social elites. "Prohibition worked best when directed at its primary target: the working-class poor." Historian Lizabeth Cohen writes: "A rich family could have a cellar-full of liquor, but if a poor family had a bottle of home-brew, there would be trouble.” Working-class people were inflamed by the fact that their employers could dip into a cache of private stock while they, the employees, were denied a similar indulgence.
Before the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect in January 1920, many of the upper classes stockpiled alcohol for home consumption. They bought the inventories of liquor retailers and wholesalers, emptying out their warehouses, saloons, and club storerooms. American lawmakers followed these practices at the highest levels of government. President Woodrow Wilson moved his own supply of alcoholic beverages to his Washington residence after his term of office ended. His successor, Warren G. Harding, relocated his own large supply into the White House after inauguration.
In October 1930, just two weeks before the congressional midterm elections, bootlegger George Cassiday, "the man in the green hat," came forward and told how he had bootlegged for ten years for members of Congress. One of the few bootleggers ever to tell his story, Cassiday wrote five, front-page articles for The Washington Post. He estimated that eighty percent of congressmen and senators drank, even though they were the ones passing dry laws. This had a significant impact on the midterm election, which saw Congress shift from a dry Republican majority to a wet Democratic majority, who understood that Prohibition was unpopular and called for its repeal. As Prohibition became increasingly unpopular, especially in urban areas, its repeal was eagerly anticipated. Economic urgency played no small part in accelerating the advocacy for repeal. Prior to 1920 the implementation of the Volstead Act, approximately fourteen percent of federal, state, and local tax revenues were derived from alcohol commerce. The government needed this income and also felt that reinstating the manufacture and sale of alcohol would create desperately-needed jobs for the unemployed.