Wednesday, June 22, 2011

"ten beers at a quarter each" and more

The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1931)

"I hereby put in an expense account of ten beers at a quarter each. That is not extortion as small beer comes high these days."
When this book was written, in 1931, Prohibition was still in effect. Perhaps Prohibition did not extend to "small beer" which is a beer that contains very ilttle alchohol.

Prohibition in the United States was a major reform movement sponsored by evangelical Protestant churches, especially the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Disciples and Congregationalists from the 1840s into the 1920s. Kansas and Maine were early adopters. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1874, and the Prohibition Party were major players until the early 20th century, when the movement was taken over by the Anti-Saloon League. By using pressure politics on legislators, the Anti-Saloon League achieved the goal of nationwide prohibition during World War I, emphasizing the need to destroy the political corruption of the saloons, the political power of the German-based brewing industry, and the need to reduce domestic violence in the home.

Prohibition was instituted with ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on January 16, 1919, which prohibited the "...manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States..." Congress passed the "Volstead Act" on October 28, 1919, to enforce the law, but most large cities were uninterested in enforcing the legislation, leaving an understaffed federal service to go after bootleggers. Although alcohol consumption did decline, there was a dramatic rise in organized crime in the larger cities, which now had a cash crop that was in high demand.

Prohibition became increasingly unpopular during the Great Depression, as the repeal movement, led by conservative Democrats and Catholics, emphasized that repeal would generate enormous sums of much needed tax revenue, and weaken the base of organized crime. The Repeal of Prohibition in the United States was accomplished with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.

I gazed at the faded picture of an earnest young man in baggy clothes who was shaking one fist in the manner of a curbstone orator.
Curbstone Philosopher (1920s): anyone who appoints themselves a purveyor of knowledge and delivers that knowledge from a position on a street corner or outside a store.

"Restaurants call fried flounder filly of sole, but it's flounder."
Fillet of sole (or filly as Cape Codders pronounce it) is "lean flesh of any of several flatfish."
Sole is:
1. a European flatfish, Solea solea, used for food.
2. any other flatfish of the families Soleidae and Cynoglossidae, having a hooklike snout.

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