Volstead Violated: Prohibition as a Factor in Canadian‐American Relations

Abstract

Ta•. Anti-Saloon League of America jubilantly predicted the birth of a new nation at the stroke of midnight on January 16, 1920. Thanks to the imminent demise of John Barleycorn, American citizens were about o enter era of clear thinking and clean living. • Whether such an ambitious goal could have bedn attained had (•ongress and the state legislatures chosen to appropriate the necessary funds for effective enforcement will never be known. However, the Eighteenth Amendment obviously did not usher in the millennium, and historians and iournalists have dealt extensively with the domestic aspects of national prohibition. I their studiesj these authors have given only passing mention to its effects on Canadian-American relations. Yet this phase is noteworthy for two reasons. Prohibition created additional irritants in a period when policy-makers in the two nations experienced considerable difficulty in reconciling a burgeoning Canadian nationalism with American economic dominance and political i[•norance or indifference. Moreover, f om such an examination emerge the factors and influences shaping the policy decisions oœ each nation in its relations with the other. In short, Canadian-American relations in this period can be seen in microcosm by concentrating on prohibition as a diplomatic problem. Like the United States, Canada has been fertile ground for prohibitionists. However, the labours of Canadian teetotallers did not produce the same degree of success a those of their counterparts south of the border. There was nothing comparable to the sweeping Eighteenth Amendment; rather, prohibition came piecemeal. The