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Last Call

the Rise and Fall of Prohibition
Feb 10, 2014StarGladiator rated this title 1 out of 5 stars
I have so many problems with this book and the author's telling OR re-telling of history: the impetus for the passage of the 16th Amendment contradicts too many other books, recountings, and newspaper articles surrounding those times; instead of collecting tax to pay the interest on the money loaned by the Federal Reserve to the US Treasury (and the Federal Reserve Act, the 16th Amendment and oil depletion allowance were all passed in 1913) they supposedly passed it in conjunction with the FUTURE passage in 1920 of Prohibition? And painting old Joe Kennedy as a saintly type again contradicts way to many books, studies and news accounts I've read over the years; his familiarity with certain mobsters, the machinations involving his Hollywood acquitions, both of companies and actresses? The entire financial angle of Prohibition, and the entities and invididuals who financed its passage, was pretty much glossed over - - it's not the Anti-Saloon League, as much as who was financing it (just as today we shouldn't be concerned with these " fill-in-the-blank Works " so much as that the Koch brothers are financing them, ditto for A.L.E.C., et cetera). Those who thought up and financed the passage of Prohibition, were the same ones who bought up the distilleries and hooches, and arranged the smuggling routes from overseas, and the youngest bank president at that time (Joe Kennedy of Columbia Trust) was often rumored to be that mastermind! SUGGESTION: Look up and read the court cases involving Joseph Kennedy during his activities in the movie business in Hollywood, quite criminal in nature.