Item # 727251
July 12, 1932
THE SPRINGFIELD UNION, Mass. July 12, 1932
* Prohibition coming to an end ?
* The "Great Depression" era
* No beer - alcohol - liquor
The top of the front page has a one column heading: "SENATE KILLS BEER BILL BY 50-25 VOTE" with subheads. (see images)
Complete with all 18 pages, light toning and a little wear at the margins, generally in good condition.
Background: The Senate's decisive 50-to-25 vote on July 11, 1932, to bury the legal-beer rider to the Federal Home Loan Bank Bill stands as a critical, final legislative flashpoint before the collapse of National Prohibition. Coming deep in the Great Depression and on the heels of both major political parties' national conventions, this event highlighted a desperate, tactical clash: "wet" lawmakers sought to legalize 2.75% beer by framing it as a "non-intoxicating" source of desperately needed federal tax revenue and employment, while "dry" traditionalists and tactical leaders like Senator Joseph T. Robinson prioritized passing economic relief without a constitutional quagmire. This vote is historically significant because it drew a definitive line in the sand; it exposed the fracturing of the Prohibitionist stronghold just months before the landslide election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, serving as the absolute legislative breaking point that directly catalyzed the subsequent passage of the Cullen-Harrison Act and the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933.
* Prohibition coming to an end ?
* The "Great Depression" era
* No beer - alcohol - liquor
The top of the front page has a one column heading: "SENATE KILLS BEER BILL BY 50-25 VOTE" with subheads. (see images)
Complete with all 18 pages, light toning and a little wear at the margins, generally in good condition.
Background: The Senate's decisive 50-to-25 vote on July 11, 1932, to bury the legal-beer rider to the Federal Home Loan Bank Bill stands as a critical, final legislative flashpoint before the collapse of National Prohibition. Coming deep in the Great Depression and on the heels of both major political parties' national conventions, this event highlighted a desperate, tactical clash: "wet" lawmakers sought to legalize 2.75% beer by framing it as a "non-intoxicating" source of desperately needed federal tax revenue and employment, while "dry" traditionalists and tactical leaders like Senator Joseph T. Robinson prioritized passing economic relief without a constitutional quagmire. This vote is historically significant because it drew a definitive line in the sand; it exposed the fracturing of the Prohibitionist stronghold just months before the landslide election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, serving as the absolute legislative breaking point that directly catalyzed the subsequent passage of the Cullen-Harrison Act and the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933.
Category: The 20th Century











