Prohibition and the Scopes Trial

Do you think the passage of the Volstead Act and the ruling in the Scopes trial represented genuine triumphs for traditional values?

The Scopes Trial and the Volstead act were both attempts to reform the American way of life to a more traditional style. The Scopes trial was successful in accomplishing this taks, however, the Volstead act was not, and, in fact had results of quite the oppisite.
The Scopes trial, which ensured the fact that it was illegal to teach evolution in a classroom, indeed brought back more traditional values to the schooling system. It increased upon the importance of the Bible and religion in the daily lives of the American citizen. Religion's importance was not being stressed as much as it had been in past times, such as the two Great Awakenings. This ruling, however, insured that at least in the classroom the Bible's importance would be maintained. This ruleing was likely considered a victory for Americans with more traditional values, and for the time being, proved to be so.
The Volstead act, which made alchohol illegal, was extreamily unsuccessful in bringing back traditional values to the daily life of the American citizen, and actually created more moral problems than there were when such beverages were legal. Before the illegalization of alchohol pro-prohibitionists argues that such beverages caused problems in society such as: domestic abuse, poverty, and crime. Once the act was passed, however, those who still wanted to drink badly enough found ways to do so, but they were just behind the collective backs of law enforcement, and much more dangerous. Many created their own alchohol and distributed it illegalily, createing a general lack of respect for the law in the country at the time. Also, people often didn't know what they were doing when they created such beverages, and accidently hurt themselfs in the process. Another problem that the prihibition caused is a major rise in organized crime. "Gansters," as they were called, found that selling alchohol was a very successful way to make money for their gangs, which enabled them to become more powerful, and more viloent. The failure of the prohibition led to it being the first Constitutional Amendment in United States history to be repealed, and it still is the only such case today.