Well, sadly, Sam Cooke was right about most of us. Last night, I saw the brilliant filmmaker, Ken Burns preview his newest documentary at the Belo Mansion, the headquarters of the Dallas Bar Association. The presentation was co-sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association. and the Dallas World Affairs Council. Burns was introduced by local attorney and author, Talmage Boston. Boston gave a very complete, and mercifully brief introduction, reminding the audience of the words of Stephen Ambrose, who said of Burns, “More people learn history from Ken Burns than anywhere else.” It’s certainly true that his PBS documentaries on the Civil War, Jazz, Baseball, and Jack Johnson present history in a particularly entertaining and accessible fashion.  Burns told us all of his projects approach a very simple question, “Who are we?” The answer is an examination of our “true, honest and complicated past.”

His latest project is about Prohibition. He began the talk by asking if a film, which featured single issue campaigns and demonizing immigrants, sounded like it was about history or current event. He returned to that idea later in the talk, as he said that our notion of history is sterile. He said, we can’t imagine our grandparents had sex. As this film will makes clear, “They did.” The documentary will be a six hour, three part film series: “Nation of Drunkards,” “Nation of Scofflaws,” and “Nation of Hypocrites.” He showed a short fifteen minute segment from the third film. It was a fascinating look at an era of history that we think we know something about, but really don’t. This ignorance was illustrated by two people who were heavily featured in the clip and who I’d never heard of: Mabel Walker Willebrandt (an US Assistant Attorney General) and Wayne B. Wheeler (an attorney and prohibitionist). Both were as well known to their contemporaries as Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid would be known to us. But they have disappeared from our consciousness, because of our ignorance of our own history.

Prohibition lasted from 1920 until 1933, and was established with the 18^th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The establishment of Prohibition brought together unlikely allies: The IWW (the Wobblies), the socialistic trade union, the KKK, political progressives and religious conservatives. All of these groups were addressing the fact that Americans consumed enormous amounts of alcohol and this resulted in much social ills and lost productivity in business. This gave rise to the enormously powerful Anti-Saloon League.

The third episode concentrated on one opponent of Prohibition, Al Smith, the Catholic candidate for President against Herbert Hoover.  The campaign degenerated into anti-catholic rants, which ultimately resulted in his defeat.

One of the really interesting things is how prohibition really played out practically. There were poker parties, supplied by bootleggers in the White House, but the immigrant mill worker, toiling seven days a week, up to twelve hours a day couldn’t get a beer at the end of the day. Thus, the hypocrisy that so defined Prohibition.  As Mark Twain said, “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits,” One of the bi-products of Prohibition is the one that we are most familiar with, the rise of organized crime. According to  Burns, there would be no organized crime if it had not been for Prohibition. This awareness should color our own thoughts about the regulation of behavior and create a reluctance to amend our Constitution.

I can’t wait to see this entire documentary, which should air on 10-2, 3 and 4 on local PBS station KERA.

Image: A horrendous, unforgivable, hedonistic crime in progress, much to the dismay of all but one righteous onlooker. Image used in Ken Burns’ documentary. Un-cropped shot here.