Things We Read Today: Republican Murder, 1930s Style Edition

In order to make sure that folks really, really obeyed the Volstead Act, the Coolidge and Hoover administrations poisoned the alcohol. From Slate:

Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.

It seems like a remote event, but one truth is eternal: never trust a so-called moralist.

(h/t to the NYT’s Idea of the Day blog)

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One Response to “Things We Read Today: Republican Murder, 1930s Style Edition”

  1. John Says:

    Paraquat, anyone?

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