Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lincoln C. Andrews And The Enforcement Of National Prohibition, 1925 To 1927, Philip Earle Metcalfe

Dissertations and Theses

Using newspaper accounts, congressional testimony, and recently declassified personnel files, this thesis traces the institutional history of the Treasury Department's Prohibition Unit in the years 1925 to 1927. From its inception in I 920, the Prohibition Unit functioned as a constitutional morals police, signally extending federal authority into the area of states' rights, with consequent scandal and public criticism. In an attempt at reform, the Treasury Department in 1925 placed Customs, the Coast Guard, and Prohibition enforcement under a single commander: Brigadier General Lincoln C. Andrews, an efficiency expert and West Point graduate. Andrews' plan was to wage a two-front …