WANTED
DEAD · NOT ALIVE
The Eighteenth Amendment
alias “Prohibition,” alias “The Noble Experiment”
REPEALED
The Charges
From January 17th, 1920, by authority of the Volstead Act, did make it a federal crime to make, sell, or ship liquor anywhere in these United States.
Did drive honest citizens into speakeasies and bathtubs, and fatten a generation of bootleggers, rum-runners, and racketeers.
Brought to Justice
December 5th, 1933. Utah, the thirty-sixth state, ratified the Twenty-First Amendment, and the outlaw was struck from the Constitution after near fourteen years at large.
Particulars
- The only amendment ever to repeal another.
- The only one ratified by state conventions, not legislatures.
- Its second section left liquor to the states, which is why Texas keeps dry counties to this day.
Deputies of Note
- The Speakeasy Doorman. Passwords, knock codes, and a peephole. Access control, 1920s edition.
- Elizebeth Friedman. Coast Guard codebreaker who cracked thousands of rum-runner radio ciphers and testified to put smugglers away.
- Justice Brandeis. When the Court blessed wiretapping a Seattle bootlegger in Olmstead (1928), he dissented for “the right to be let alone.” The Court came around in Katz (1967).
REWARD
One round, raised December 5th at the San Hack (Jac) Saloon.
By order of the Hacker Hoedown Marshals
