George Will and 1920
So I stumbled across this article today. I have always enjoyed history (minored in it in college), but I don't consider myself an expert. I do consider myself "literate" however. That being said, I had never considered how close together the Amendments for Income Tax (16th - 1913), Prohibition (18th - 1919), and Women's Suffrage (19th - 1920) were together. I had always considered them separate from each other.
George Will implies that they are somehow tied together in the linked article.
I guess I see what he's saying about Prohibition and Women's Suffrage. He asserts that women, devoutly Christian women, were the main ones strongly behind Prohibition, particularly through the Anti-Saloon League. The fact that women were gaining significant influence in politics via the ballot box brought this issue to the forefront in a way it may never have with a male-only constituency. Women were already getting the right to vote in many states well before the passing of Women's Suffrage. So, I can see how one may have caused the other. Women were able to influence the election of both Houses, putting in a friendly Congress to get both of these Amendments through. The states were similarly affected, allowing the ratification.
Where I disagree with Will is the Income Tax Amendment's correlation. I don't think it was tied to the others, but created an economic situation for Prohibition to work because it was in place already (a mechanism to replace the loss of significant liquor tax revenues).
What I'm now curious about is how this ties together with the Roaring 20's and subsequently into the Depression. I'm also curious about its indirect impact going into the New Deal and our continual rise of socialist tendencies in this country.
It's ironic that, given our current economic situation, we are somewhat considering lifting the criminalization of drugs, but I digress...
1 comment:
First of all, the Income Tax was tied directly to Prohibition, because everyone at the time knew that in order to enact Prohibition, the tax revenue would need to be replaced. This was obvious and widely known at the time.
Second, women's suffrage played a big role in the New Deal and the continuing advance of socialism, because women as a group tend to favor socialism. Women see the state as a more reliable provider than a husband, and with state support, women are free to compete for the most desirable men (re hypergamy or harem) rather than settling for a beta-provider husband.
Men favor this system less, because most of them have little to offer to women, that the state is not already guaranteeing to them. However, since society depends on these men not to throw off the yoke, the women and alpha males who benefit from socialism wage a media compaign to shame men to decide to go their own way (MGTOW).
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