In the end, the explosive atmosphere of Chicago fascinated America and was even an outlet for many of the repressed. Throughout the night, State Street resounded with jazz music punctuated by the rounds of beer trucks. Until dawn, the cars of the gangsters, in long lines, crisscrossed the main arteries of the city. At the time when the settling of accounts, baptized "torpedoes", was in full swing, respectable citizens were slumming around by frequenting the kings of the underworld. High society considered it a true consecration to be able to shout Hello Al in a nightclub crowded with customers and consumers. Politicians openly fraternized with the underworld of crime. Chicago Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson, who preached the principle of the "open city", cynically declared that "it was as wet as the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean"! Elections were more akin to subversive warfare than true democracy. The rule of law was fading in the face of unbridled violence and a professor at the University of Chicago could say:“We are sinking into feudalism. »
The gangsters controlled the town hall and the judges themselves were devoted to them. Between 1927 and 1931, no less than 227 crimes were committed in the "milieu"; there was not a single indictment! High society attended lavish receptions given by the most prominent gang leaders and the whole city flocked to the extravagant funerals of crime heroes.
In 1925, the population of Chicago numbered 3 millions of souls. There were 16,000 arrests for drunkenness that year, more than for all of Great Britain, whose population exceeded 40 million! In 1927, compared to 1920, crimes caused by alcohol had increased by 427%, deaths from alcoholism by 600%. In a single year of prohibition, the United States consumed nearly 900 million liters of alcohol, more than three thousand million liters of beer and 530 million liters of wine. In 1932 alone, 2,000 individuals, gangsters or clandestine brewers, had died in the "execution of their duties" and 500 agents of the fraud department had been assassinated!
La Corruption in political circles, obtained thanks to the enormous profits of smuggling, ensured the perfect functioning of the system. To restore the rule of law and respect for the Constitution would have required drastic measures imposed by a vigorous campaign of public opinion.
The crash of Wall Street was finally the crisis of 1929 which dealt the fatal blow to gangsterism and smuggling. The economic debacle dried up the source of money that flowed into the coffers of the army of crime and contributed to doom the very principle of prohibition. After fourteen years of dry rule, the country was overwhelmed with the results of an era of “clear thinking and clean living” and with the “great economic and social experiment” announced by Hoover. During the presidential campaign of 1933, opponents of prohibition violently attacked the incumbent president, who had nevertheless banished from his program the thorny problem of the dry regime. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who was elected with the slogan “A New Policy (New Deal) and a mug of beer for everyone
December 5, 1933. The 21st Amendment ended Prohibition. With hindsight, it is easy to see the misdeeds of the unenforceable 1919 law. cloudless honeymoon Even today, the power of the mafia and gangsterism is the legacy of those sad years.