Why Did Roosevelt's Campaign To End Prohibition?

“Happy days are here again!” was the main slogan for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaign to end Prohibition in 1932 (Suddath, n.d.). After a long a dry period without consumption or the selling of alcohol in the United States, a presidential nominee was promising to end it all together with passing the 21st Amendment. During the election year, citizens were not pleased with Prohibition. The economy was crashing and people of the United States were wondering why the ban started. What most people did not realize is that one of the main reasons Prohibition began was because of the 16th Amendment. In 1913, the amendment introduced a national income tax. As a result of the law, the government could receive money from the tax (McWilliams, 2008).
The national income tax helped the government’s financials immensely during the 1920s until the economy
Roosevelt was thinking about how to be profitable selling alcohol before the amendment was approved. As a result, on March 23, 1993, Roosevelt signed a legislation agreement that loosened up the interpretation of intoxicating beverages (McWilliams, 2008). This bill was known as the Beer Bill. It stated that the United States could sell beer up to 3.2 percent alcohol instead of .5 percent (American Spirits, n.d.). On April 7, 1933, the Beer Bill came into effect (McWilliams, 2008). During those 24 hours, the U.S. government made stacks of money by advertising and selling alcohol. Over 1.5 million gallons of beer were sold and consumed (McWilliams, 2008). A location a case beer was sold to was the White House (American Spirits, n.d.) Another location beer was being sold at was the Empire State Building. A former New York Governor, Alfred Smith, who was against Prohibition, bought his case of beer of a public wagon outside of the Empire State Building (McWilliams, 2008). Smith said, “My only regret is that the wagonload is not all mine,” (McWilliams,