Quote from: RE on Jul 14, 2024, 04:46 PMA factoid you may be aware of but if not will appreciate.
The reason for Prohibition wasn't due to the sweet Christian Temperance ladies. Dirt farmers couldn't make any money off the grain they grew in the midwest because the railroads took all the profit in shipping costs. The volume was too large for them to bring it to market using wagons. By distilling it into liquor themselves they could bring the liquor into town in wagons and undersell the big distillers. Thus came the "Revenooers" and taxation on liquor and expensive licenses to distill alcohol. This kept farmers perpetually poor without a cash crop.
I was not aware of this as a factor for prohibition, but I recently learned something related, which I also did not know. Even though I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, the origins of the so-called "whiskey rebellion" were sort of glossed over and elided. A friend who lives in SW PA explained to me that the economic model you described is exactly the reason for the whiskey rebellion, which caused George Washington to call out troops to quell it. Washington called up the state militias from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey, which ultimately amounted to close to 13,000 troops, to put down the rebellion. The farmers couldn't make any money under the laws as written, and sure as hell didn't want to pay the tax. Interestingly, the tax was repealed11 years later. It proved impossible to collect.