by Steven Doyle
October 28, 1919 a bill was introduced and vetoed the same day by president Woodrow Wilson. The Volstead Act would criminalize intoxicating beverages containing over .05% alcohol. Not content with the veto the House and Senate over-rode the veto and the Prohibition Era was born.
The Volstead Act gave birth to speakeasies, bath tub gin and gangland violence in what would be recorded as one of the worst social experiments of our time. On December 5, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, rendered the Volstead Act unconstitutional, and restored control of alcohol to the states. Continue reading
