Temperance Revisited

Hard drinking is a tradition that came over on the Mayflower. 400 years later we're still struggling to find a balance between revelry and righteousness.

When the news arrived from Utah, cannons boomed in New Orleans, sirens howled in San Francisco, boats in New York harbor blasted their foghorns and the finance committee of the Chicago City Council adjourned to a tavern so the pols could quaff a snort of legal booze for the first time in 13 years, 10 months, 18 days, 7 hours and 27 minutes.  It was Dec. 5, 1933—75 years ago this fall—and the news that sparked the momentous national celebration was the long-awaited passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution: Utah voted to become the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment, which had banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages across the land since 1920.

But, now, one would hardly know it given the omnipresence of advertising that depicts alcohol as the ultimate social elixir, America is in the midst of a new era of temperance. The national alcoholic binge triggered by the end of Prohibition 75 years ago this December peaked in 1980 and per capita alcoholic consumption has declined by 15 percent in the years since. 

Did you know:  The Puritans arrived in Boston in 1630 on a ship that carried plenty of beer—and 10,000 gallons of wine.

http://www.historynet.com/letter-from-american-history-temperance-revisited.htm