Pennsylvania and Utah are the only two states that have kept monopolies on the sales of beer, wine, and spirits in the decades after the 18th Amendment was repealed and Prohibition ended in 1933.

The law passed on party lines, with most Republicans voting for it, while Democrats were united in their opposition.

Democratic leaders in the state senate have asked for 30 to 60 days of additional hearings and have said revisions are expected before, or if, the law comes up for a vote on the Senate floor.

The complicated resolution will privatize sales to consumers, taking away much of the power from the state’s Liquor Control Board, one of the biggest buyers of booze in the world.

In its current form, the law would require the Liquor Control Board to sell most of its proprietary state stores to private interests, with people who have dedicated beer distributorships getting the first chance to buy licenses. Grocery stores would be able to sell wine, though probably not beer, and big-box stores and pharmacies would sell wine, with limited beer sales.

Currently, Pennsylvania consumers need to travel to specially designated state-controlled stores to buy wine and spirits, with limited amounts of beer sold at bars, restaurants, and a handful of grocery stores. Cases of beer can only be sold by select beer distributors.

The law’s future in the Pennsylvania Senate is far from certain, as a united coalition of unions, social conservatives, drunk-driving opponents, and Democratic lawmakers oppose it for various reasons.

On Thursday, interests representing the beer industry seemed split on the bill.

Historically, that coalition has been very successful in articulating its points and rallying opposition across political and social lines.

The supporters of the liquor privatization law include Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and many Republicans, tea party members, and fiscal conservatives. The state’s voters also have approved, in various polls, moves to allow liquor sales at retail and convenience stores, like many other states, and more products in more stores.

But Corbett’s powerful predecessors lost the booze battle in previous years to a fight that has its roots in the second term of former Governor Gifford Pinchot in 1933.

Related Story: A look at Pinchot’s liquor control system in 1933

Corbett and privatization supporters hope to realize $800 million from the sales of liquor and beer sales licenses. The money would go into the state’s education budget.

Privatization opponents will also point to the struggles of another state, Washington, which recently ended its Prohibition-era battle over liquor.

In November 2011, Washington voters decided in a referendum to end its Pennsylvania-style liquor system. Prices were higher for hard liquor after privatization, reports a local newspaper as of January 2013, because of taxes that were tacked onto the law.

Taxes aren’t currently part of Pennsylvania’s proposed law, except that the state will continue to levy an 18 percent Johnstown Flood Tax on liquor products, which dates back to 1936.

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Editor’s Note: If you are in the Philadelphia area in the next few weeks, check out the National Constitution Center’s acclaimed feature exhibition, American Spirits: The Rise And Fall Of Prohibition, on view through April 28.  For more info, go to prohibition.constitutioncenter.org.

The competition, held at the Stratus Rooftop Lounge at the Hotel Monaco, featured mixologists from Square 1682 at the Hotel Palomar, XIX at the Hyatt at the Bellevue, Amuse Bar at the Le Meridien, and 10 Arts Lounge at The Ritz-Carlton.

Nate Churchill of XIX won “Judge Favorite” with his Orange Blossom. Stephen Diaz of 10 Arts Lounge won “Guest Favorite” with his Red Fizz Charleston. Just in time for the weekend, here’s a look at the winning recipes:

Nate Churchill’s Orange Blossom

• Bluecoat Gin
• Lemon juice
• Fresh orange juice
• Honey
• Dashes bitters
• Glass: 8 oz. mason jar or shot glasses
• Garnish: Orange zest

Stephen Diaz’s Red Fizz Charleston

• 2 oz. Bluecoat Gin
• 1 oz. St. Germaine
• 1 1/2 oz. fresh raspberry syrup
• 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
• Glass: Shake with ice and strain into a martini glass
• Top with a splash of Dry Brut Champagne
• Garnish: Fresh lemon twist with fresh raspberries on a skewer

Gifford Pinchot in The Rotarian

Governor Tom Corbett is expected to announce a sweeping plan to privatize Pennsylvania’s liquor sales system, which literally dates back to the end days of Prohibition in 1933.

The state’s voters have approved, in various polls, moves to allow liquor sales at retail and convenience stores, like many other states, and more products in more stores.

Corbett’s powerful predecessors have lost the booze battle in previous years to an unlikely coalition that has its roots in the second term of former Governor Gifford Pinchot.

Pinchot is best known nationally for his conservation role in the Theodore Roosevelt administration.

But as a vocal “dry” in late 1933, Pinchot used his position as the Keystone State’s governor to make sure the state’s liquor system made buying booze very difficult.

Just days before Prohibition’s end, Governor Pinchot called a special assembly of the state legislature, with the goals of setting up the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and making access to liquor very tightly controlled.

The 21st Amendment ended national Prohibition laws and allowed the states for themselves decide how to regulate the manufacture, transportation, and sale of liquor. (Pinchot also oversaw efforts to ratify the amendment within Pennsylvania.

In a January 1934 issue of The Rotarian, Pinchot laid out his “State Store Plan” for Pennsylvania to curb liquor consumption through a strict Soviet-style system of controlled access. (Actually, Pinchot pointed to Canada as the inspiration for the system.

“Private profit is to be eliminated as far as possible from the liquor traffic,” Pinchot said.

The Pinchot plan states that the system will be able to sell liquor at a cheaper price to consumers and some of the funds will go to social benefits plans. Hours of sale are controlled by the state, as well as how liquor is imported into the state.

And at all costs, saloons should be barred forever, and “liquor money” should be kept out of the hands of politicians.

But private competition was the evil that Pinchot really feared.

“If sales were in the hands of private retailers and wholesalers, there would be sharp competition for business. People would be urged to buy this brand and that brand. Under our plan anyone may purchase any brand or kind of liquor. If the article wanted is not in stock, the state stores must obtain it,” Pinchot said.

Flashing forward to the year 2013, the battle is still on as privatization forces prepare to fight a coalition of modern “drys,” state unions, social conservatives, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

In the past, the liberal-conservative alliance defeated efforts by two powerhouse Republican governors, Dick Thornburgh and Tom Ridge, to privatize liquor.

Ridge was the last to tackle privatization in 1997.

Currently, the board’s critics point to the two same issues that Pinchot talked about in 1934. They say that consumers are paying too much for beer, wine, and liquor in Pennsylvania, with access to fewer products.

The board’s counterclaim is that the system is one of the largest bulk buyers of liquor in the world, and it passes those savings on to consumers. And the state has changed its laws in recent years to extend store hours and offer some products at grocery stores and other outlets.

In 2010, Corbett, then the attorney general, said as a candidate he favored the privatization of liquor sales. After becoming governor, he asked for research to be updated about how much money the state would make from selling its retail stores and issuing more licenses to private outlets.

Previous estimates said the state would possibly realize a one-time gain as high as $2 billion from auctioning off its liquor assets. An updated 2011 study put the number at $1.6 billion.

Another state recently ended its Prohibition-era battle over liquor. In November 2011, the state of Washington let voters decide in a referendum if its Pennsylvania-style liquor system should stay intact.

Last June, the new rules went into effect in Washington privatizing liquor sales, and the results have been mixed at best.

Prices were higher for hard liquor after privatization, reports a local newspaper, as of January 2013.

Washington state’s board also has a bonus problem this year: It gets to figure out how to distribute marijuana after another voter referendum made the substance legal under controlled circumstances.

In the end, Pennsylvania’s liquor problem will rest with its Republican-controlled legislature, which is divided over the issue.

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Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Put away your lagers, your cocktail shakers, and your martini glasses. Prohibition is now in effect.

On January 16, 1919, the 18th Amendment of the Constitution was ratified. After decades of steadily growing in its political influence, the temperance movement had succeeded in prohibiting the sale, manufacture, and transportation of “intoxicating liquors” throughout the United States.

The nation had one year before the ban went into effect. During this time, Congress passed legislation to define “intoxicating liquors” that detailed how Prohibition would be enforced and the penalties for breaking the law. The National Prohibition Act–commonly known as the Volstead Act after then-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Andrew Volstead, the law’s sponsor–would come to symbolize the dysfunction of an era that turned previously law-abiding citizens into criminals.

What were some of the aspects of the Volstead Act that led to widespread corruption and disregard for the law? Try answering the true or false statements below to find out.

Buying or drinking alcohol was never illegal

True. The 18th Amendment and subsequent legislation only made manufacturing, transporting, and selling “intoxicating liquors” illegal. Prohibition supporters thought this would encourage consumers to testify against their suppliers.

You could not own any alcohol during Prohibition

False. Alcohol purchased before January 17, 1920, and stored in private homes was legal. After taking office in March 1921, President Harding had $1,800 worth of personal liquor transferred to his living quarters at the White House.

Alcohol was legally prescribed for medicinal purposes during Prohibition

True. Doctors could get permits to write up to one hundred prescriptions for alcohol a month. Patients could fill prescriptions for one pint of liquor every ten days for a variety of aliments from headaches to “debility.”

Wine was legal during Prohibition

Partially true. There were two legal exceptions for wine under Volstead: limited home manufacturing of “fruit beverages” for family use and wine for sacramental purposes. Some wineries that catered to the Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Jewish communities did very well during Prohibition.

Sauerkraut was illegal during Prohibition

False, but it could have been since its alcoholic content was more than the 0.5% permitted. Many Prohibition supporters who believed beer and light wine would remain legal were dismayed by how strictly the phrase “intoxicating liquors” was defined in the Volstead Act.

Sarah Winski is an Exhibit Developer for the Center’s traveling “American Spirits” exhibition on Prohibition, which is now at the National Constitution Center. The exhibit is curated by Daniel Okrent, former public editor of The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize finalist and the best-selling author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.

About American Spirits

Admission to American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is $17.50 for adults, $16 for seniors and students, and $11 for children ages 4 – 12. Group rates also are available.

Admission to the Center’s main exhibition, The Story of We the People, including the award-winning theatrical production Freedom Rising, is included. For ticket information, call 215.409.6700 or visit constitutioncenter.org.

Officially, Prohibition started in 1920 and ended in 1933, but it was more than a century in the making, and parts of it are still with us today.

Technically, the 18^th Amendment made it illegal to manufacture, sell or transport “intoxicating beverages.” During the 13-year experiment, America became a much different country.

So here’s a look at 10 basic trends that had lasting impact on a nation that battled between the Wets and the Drys during the Roaring Twenties. (There are a lot more, and we encourage you to check out “American Spirits: The Rise And Fall Of Prohibition” at the National Constitution Center.)

The 18^th Amendment. The law that changed it all barred most sales of booze, but it also didn’t make it illegal to drink. The Volstead Act put the law into effect in 1920.

The 16^th Amendment. As the Drys fought to ban booze, a key step was the imposition of a national income tax, to replace taxes on liquor sales. The 16^th Amendment was ratified in 1913, providing a clear path to Prohibition. Somehow, after Prohibition was repealed, the government forgot to repeal the income tax!

The 19^th Amendment. This amendment gave women the vote. The Suffragette movement had close ties to the Temperance movement, and women were able to vote on a national level starting in 1920.

The 21^st Amendment. The end of Prohibition came with its repeal via the 21^st Amendment in 1933. It allowed states to control their own liquor laws and it is the only Amendment ever approved using state conventions as part of the process.

Mobsters! Yes, the sale of illegal intoxicating spirits was a huge boom to organized, and unorganized crime. Figures like Al Capone, Owney Madden, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano made headlines, as did the exploits of moonshiners and rum runners.

The Drys. The Drys were a coalition of interest groups who wanted booze banned as a sacred cause. The Drys included religious groups, the Suffragettes and other people. The key leader of the Drys was Wayne Wheeler, who led the grassroots movement through the Anti-Saloon League. Carry Nation was another prominent Dry.

The Wets. Also known as the anti-Prohibitionists, the Wets wanted the 18^th Amendment repealed and they finally got their way in 1933. Brewers were in the anti-Prohibitionist group, and people like Al Capone definitely weren’t. Democrats Al Smith ad Franklin Delano Roosevelt were all Wet, and FDR championed the cause after becoming president, as a way to boost the economy.

The Music. The Roaring Twenties was a revolutionary era for music in America. Jazz actually had its roots in the late 1910s, as the sounds of New Orleans started to make its way north along with workers seeking new lives in areas like Chicago. By the time of Prohibition, the Jazz age had taken foot nationally. Radio broadcasts later in the decade made stars out of country musicians, and Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family became recording stars. The first Blues artists had roots in the 1920s.

The Flappers. The growth of jazz and up-tempo dance music gave birth to The Flapper, a liberated woman who wore shorter skirts, drank, smoked, danced and had a lot of attitude! Flappers were also highly attuned to any and all fashion trends. The Great Depression put an end to the Flapper lifestyle.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929. The great market crash of 1929 had a direct role in ending Prohibition, since the Great Depression that followed created a need for economic stimulus, in the form of beer and liquor sales, and the taxes that went with them. The market lost one-third of its value in two October 1929 days, and it wouldn’t see its 1920s peek again until 1954. The crash effectively put the brakes on the Roaring Twenties.

For more on American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, check out its web site at http://prohibition.constitutioncenter.org.

Prohibition-era press conference. Source: National Archives

On November 6, two states–Washington and Colorado–passed voter referendums decriminalizing recreational marijuana use in the face of federal policy that dictates otherwise. And on December 14, a young man walked into a Connecticut elementary school and killed 26 individuals with an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

On their face, these two stories are unrelated, but for their connection to questions about the application of the Bill of Rights.

But in hindsight, the issues of guns, drugs, and alcohol have been linked together since Prohibition.

Advocates for the legalization of marijuana cite the 10th Amendment as evidence of the federal government’s lack of authority to enforce nationwide criminal prohibition of the drug.

Meanwhile, those decrying federal gun control legislation point to the Second Amendment to support a constitutional right to bear arms.

In the wake of Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown, it is impossible not to think about the issue of gun violence within the context of large-scale tragedy. Throughout the 20th century, however, the debate over gun control has been marked not only by these mass shootings, but by the relationship between controlled substances and the violent industries that surround them.

Over the past 80 years, the nation has experienced a sustained link between the regulation of weapons and the regulation of alcohol and drugs.

In 1919, the passage of the 18th Amendment ushered the nation into the era of Prohibition. The restrictions on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol had a marked affect on criminal activity. With the advent of bootlegging, organized crime spread outside of the nation’s ethnic enclaves and became a dominant economic force in urban centers across the country.

As underground profit margins surged, gang rivalries emerged, and criminal activity mounted. The homicide rate across the nation rose 78 percent during Prohibition. In Chicago alone, there were more than 400 gang-related murders a year. According to scholar Edward Sullivan, writing in 1929, Prohibition resulted in “the greatest crime record ever attained by a nation.”

In 1933, the legislature passed the 21st Amendment, effectively bringing an end to Prohibition; in its aftermath, the government passed the National Firearms Act of 1934, the first federal regulation on guns in U.S. history. With the epidemic of alcohol-related violence and the sensationalized run of such criminals as John Dillinger, Al Capone, and Bonnie and Clyde, American lawmakers saw a pressing need to regulate the spread of weapons into the general population.

The law, which levied sharp regulations and high taxes on gun sales, focused on weapons generally associated with gangster violence: “A shotgun or rifle having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length, or any other weapon, except a pistol or revolver, from which a shot is discharged by an explosive if such weapon is capable of being concealed on the person, or a machine gun.”

In response to the law’s passage, the National Rifle Association (NRA) formed its legislative affairs division, what would become the organization’s powerful lobbying arm.

Nearly 50 years later, in 1982, Ronald Reagan ushered in his famous “war on drugs.” The federal government embarked on a massive anti-drug campaign, with strict regulations and harsh penalties. Between 1980 and 1984, funding for FBI anti-drug initiatives ballooned from $8 million to $95 million.

In the years that followed, new technologies, political and military alliances, and immigration patterns coalesced to create a rapidly expanding drug trade in the United States, particularly in the nation’s inner-city communities, where deindustrialization resulted in rampant unemployment.

By 1987, the rate of industrial employment among black workers had dropped to 20 percent, down from roughly 70 percent as late as 1970. With few opportunities for legal employment, an underground drug economy blossomed.

And just as Prohibition created the space for organized crime to grow in the 1920s, the war on drugs bred gun-related violence throughout the nation.

According to scholar Michelle Alexander, “crack hit the streets in 1985… leading to a spike in violence as drug markets struggled to stabilize, and the anger and frustration associated with joblessness boiled.” As scholar David Kennedy writes, “[c]rack blew through America’s poor black neighborhoods like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Once again, as violence surged, questions of gun regulation made their way into federal policy conversations.

In 1986, after four years of complex negotiations and divisive politicking, Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act. While the law did create a widespread ban on the ownership and transfer of any automatic weapon not registered before May 19, 1986, overwhelmingly the law had the effect of limiting the regulatory power of the federal government.

The legislation was alternately celebrated as “necessary to restore fundamental fairness and clarity to our nation’s firearms laws” and condemned as a “national disgrace.” Most strikingly, it signaled to the nation that the legislative arm of the NRA, and the gun rights movement more broadly, had emerged as one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the nation.

Debates over firearm regulation in recent American history have arisen out of the regulation of controlled substances and the attendant violence that follows. The resulting laws have emerged alongside–and have been influenced by–the increasing power of the national gun lobby.

Today, in both popular and policy conversations, gun control will be framed around the issue of mass shootings. But as we look back on their significance through the lens of history, will we recognize the import of these large-scale tragedies in shaping federal gun policy? Or, as these most recent horrors fade into our collective memory, will drug policy return as the primary vehicle for the regulation of firearms?

And if it does, what will be the impact of last month’s victories in efforts to decriminalize marijuana?

Abigail Perkiss is an assistant professor of history at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, and a fellow at the Kean University Center for History, Politics and Policy.

Further Reading

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (New York: The New Press, 2010).

Todd Garvey, “Medical Marijuana: The Supremacy Clause, Federalism, and the Interplay Between State and Federal Laws,” Congressional Research Service, 9 November 2012 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42398.pdf)

David Hardy, “The Firearms Owners’ Protection Act: A Historical and Legal Perspective” 17 Cumb. L. Rev. 585-682 (1986).

Michael Lerner, Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (New York: Harvard University Press, 2008).

Nate Silver, “In Public ‘Conversations, on Guns, a Rhetorical Shift,” FiveThirtyEight, 14 December 2012 (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/in-public-conversation-on-guns-a-rhetorical-shift/)

Edward D. Sullivan, Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime (New York: The Vangaurd Press, 1929).

Throughout 2012, we’ll be celebrating the 225th anniversary of the Constitution. But the Constitution drafted and signed in 1787 was just the beginning–since then, “We the People” have amended the Constitution 27 times.

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the 21st Amendment (ratified December 5, 1933). Here’s what you need to know:

WHAT IT DOES

The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, thus ending Prohibition.

WHY IT WAS ADDED

After 13 years of Prohibition, America had had enough of its “noble experiment” in banning the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating spirits. Enforcement of the ban had failed. Plus, the potential for revenues from taxes on alcohol and for new jobs in a revived alcohol industry received heightened interest with the onset of the Great Depression. “It was really the Depression that ended Prohibition as much as anything else,” said Daniel Okrent, curator of American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, at a recent event.

With the passing of the 21st Amendment, the 18th Amendment became the first–and so far, only–constitutional amendment to be repealed.

WORD-FOR-WORD

SECTION. 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

SECTION. 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

SECTION. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Constitution and civic holidays and milestones throughout the year! Download the National Constitution Center’s 2012 civic calendar here.

Holly Munson is a programs coordinator at the National Constitution Center and the assistant editor of Constitution Daily.

Uploaded to Flickr by Natalie Maynor

But did Prohibition really end on that fateful day? Kind of, but like the 18th Amendment’s path in 1919, the end of federal laws to bar the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquors took some time to wind down.

Congress first proposed the 21st Amendment in February 1933, and it took the unusual method of calling for state conventions to vote on the amendment, instead of submitting it to state legislatures.

Conventions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Utah approved the amendment on that fateful December day, making it 36 states who wanted Prohibition to end—the three-quarters majority required by the Constitution.

But the 21st Amendment returned the control of liquor laws back to the states, who could legally bar alcohol sales across an entire state, or let towns and counties decide to stay “wet” or “dry.”

Here are five interesting facts about the slow demise of Prohibition:

1. Two states rejected the 21st amendment. North Carolina and South Carolina rejected the amendment before December 5. So the vote was far from unanimous.

2. Another eight states didn’t meet before December 5 and didn’t even act to vote on the 21st Amendment: Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota

3. One state didn’t end its version of Prohibition until 1966. Mississippi decided the keep its Prohibition laws for another three decades. As of 2004, half of Mississippi’s counties were dry. Currently, 17 states don’t allow any of their counties to be dry.

4. It was never illegal to drink during Prohibition. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act, the legal measure that included the instructions for enforcing Prohibition, never barred the consumption of alcohol–just making it, selling it, and shipping it for mass production (and consumption).

5. The Cullen-Harrison Act, signed about 10 months before the 21st Amendment was ratified, allowed people to drink low-alcohol content beer and wine. Incoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the Volstead Act amended in April 1933 to allow people to have a beer, or two, while they waited for the 21st Amendment to be ratified. The first team of Budweiser Clydesdales was sent to the White House to give President Roosevelt a ceremonial case of beer.

If you want to learn more about Prohibition, don’t miss the National Constitution Center’s world premiere exhibition American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.

About American Spirits

Admission to American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is $17.50 for adults, $16 for seniors and students, and $11 for children ages 4 – 12. Group rates also are available.

Admission to the Center’s main exhibition, The Story of We the People, including the award-winning theatrical production Freedom Rising, is included. For ticket information, call 215.409.6700 or visit constitutioncenter.org.

Klan members in the 1920s.

The Gennett record label was a big independent record company in the early Jazz Age. Owned by the Starr Piano Company of Richmond, Indiana, Gennett would record anyone, including early black jazz, country, and blues musicians.

It was Gennett’s success in promoting the kind of music made popular by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Bix Beiderbecke that helped keep its record sales going strong.

All three artists, along with compatriots like the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, Hoagy Carmichael, and dozens of little-remembered acts, recorded for Gennett, a company kept afloat by Klan money.

The New York–based Okeh records was its only major national competition in the business of what was called Race Records until later in the decade, when national records companies Victor and Columbia got into the business of selling music to black audiences.

While Okeh marketed its recording of black artists in urban areas, Gennett dominated the Midwest and also had a studio in New York.

However, Gennett, based in southern Indiana, had a cash side business making “private” or “vanity” records. Anyone who had the cash could pay for a private session and have records pressed for their needs.

And the Klan was a cash customer, often getting thousands of records cut at Gennett for its own membership.

In one scenario, Armstrong made his first record ever, as part of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band at the Gennett studios in 1923. A few weeks later, a Klan orchestra was in the same studio using the same Gennett engineer.

Likewise, Jelly Roll Morton’s hits for Gennett, including “King Porter Stomp” and “Wolverine Blues,” were made at the same time the Klan was recording in Indiana.

And perhaps unknown to the Klan, Morton (who was Creole from New Orleans) was recording with the all-white New Orleans Rhythm Kings at Gennett.

In the 1920s, the Klan had a huge membership in Indiana. It was the second incarnation of the group, which found a new life after the release of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.

The Klan of the 1920s had played a role in the passing of the 18th Amendment, which established Prohibition. Its focus was on the “evils” on the immigration movement, and it saw alcohol as being linked to immigrants. But clearly, African-Americans were also not approved of by the Klan, especially since they were moving north through Indiana to the industrial Midwest.

Ironically, the Gennett brothers were Italian. But that didn’t stop Gennett and the Klan from doing business.

A Klan record from the 1920s recently surfaced on the TV show History Detectives.

Gennett historian Rick Kennedy described some of the record titles cut by the Klan, and the record unearthed by the TV show, called “The Fiery Cross,” which was made just five weeks after Louis Armstrong and King Oliver were in the same studio.

Kennedy also said the engineer who supervised the Armstrong recording sessions was a Klan member.

In the end, many of the jazz musicians who cut their teeth at Gennett played vital roles in the popularity of jazz music in the second half of the 1920s and popular music in the 1930s.

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As America prospered, jazz musicians such as Armstrong, Morton, Beiderbecke, Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, Tommy Dorsey, Sidney Bechet, and Duke Ellington had graduated from the Gennett studios to play leading roles in the jazz and swing movements.

The Klan in the state of Indiana largely died out by the end of the 1920s, after a murder scandal involving its leader in Indiana and the improving conditions of the economy.

Gennett as a record label didn’t last much longer than the Klan. The popularity of radio and the onset of the Great Depression hurt record sales, and Gennett turned to private record pressings to survive. It stopped making records just after Prohibition was repealed.

But one artist who came to Gennett in 1928 to start his recording career was Lawrence Welk, who recorded his first three songs in Indiana.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.

Source: United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

For now, it seems like the next legalization efforts will be focused on New England.

But the issue over legalized pot has crept into relations between the United States and Mexico.

Voters in Washington state and Colorado approved referendums in November that would allow citizens to use small amounts of marijuana, sold by the state, under approved conditions.

The fight over legalized pot seems headed for a court showdown and touches on several constitutional issues.

The federal government has selectively enforced its rights under the Controlled Substances Act to bust up medical marijuana facilities in the 17 states that have legalized medical marijuana.

But the widespread enforcement of national marijuana laws is quite problematic financially for the federal government if it has to staff law enforcement efforts within Colorado and Washington.

Analysis: Prohibition then and now

Supporters of legalized marijuana see the debate as a states’ rights issue and a continuation of expensive enforcement programs that infringe on personal rights.

Rhode Island and Maine seem to be the next states where pro-marijuana forces will seek referendums about the legalization of recreational use.

In Rhode Island, a new law goes into effect in April 2013 that eliminates criminal charges for possessing up to one ounce of marijuana and replaces them with a $150 civil fine.

Likewise in Maine, a 2009 law makes the possession of marijuana, up to 2 ½ ounces, punishable by a civil fine, ranging from $350 to $1,000.

Lawmakers in both states plan to introduce bills, modeled on the laws in Colorado and Washington, to seek the legal recreational use of marijuana.

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Montana, Vermont, and Massachusetts are also on the target list for The Marijuana Policy Project, a lobby group for the pro-marijuana effort. And there is an effort under way in New York state, despite the objections of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Montana voters actually restricted medical marijuana use in November, but pot advocates plan to try for a state constitutional referendum on recreational use in 2014.

Massachusetts has decriminalization laws and it legalized medical marijuana, but a proposed recreational law never made progress in 2012.

Vermont’s governor won re-election in 2012 after he supported decriminalization laws, but no legalization efforts seem to be under way so far.

California and Oregon voters have rejected referendums to legalize pot, but the issue may make it back to a vote in California in 2014 or 2016. There are also concerns in Oregon about losing tourism revenue to neighboring Washington state.

The newspaper The Oregonian recently advocated for legal pot as a way to keep revenue in the state.

To be sure, other states have decriminalization laws, but Maine and Rhode Island seem to be the next target states for legalizing recreational marijuana.

Rhode Island Representative Edith Ajello said after the votes in Washington and Colorado that her state would see $30 million in savings and revenue by legalizing pot.

“Our prohibition has failed,’’ she said. ‘‘I think legalizing and taxing it, just as we did to alcohol, is the way to do it.’’

Ajello led two past failed efforts to get pot legalized in Rhode Island.

The supporters of legalized pot has focused on branding their campaign as a fight against “Marijuana Prohibition,” equating it to the massively unpopular ban on alcohol sales, transportation, and manufacturing in the 1920s and early 1930s.

NORML, the national group that lobbies for legalized marijuana, has a current online ad campaign that features vintage pictures of Jazz Age gangsters, with a tag line that says, “Remember Prohibition: It Still Doesn’t Work.”

While the Justice Department has delayed any detailed public reaction to the referendums in Colorado and Washington, President Barack Obama and his new counterpart in Mexico, President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, were discussing drug enforcement efforts on Tuesday as Peña visited Washington.

Peña told TIME magazine, in interview excerpts released in advance, that the developments in Colorado and Washington may change relations between the United States and its Latin American neighbors.

“It creates certain distortions and incongruences, since [state legalization] is in conflict with the federal government there,” he says. “That will impact how Mexico and other countries in the hemisphere respond.”

Peña isn’t personally in favor of marijuana legalization, but he recognizes that some countries may question the U.S. resolve in the drug war if recreational marijuana is legal in at least two states.

“I am in favor of a hemispheric debate on the effectiveness of the drug-war route we’ve been on,” he said.

Scott Bomboy is the editor-in-chief of the National Constitution Center.