| Summary |
This study relates why the North Carolina Conformity Act, better known as the Turlington Act, was enacted as a law by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1923. After federal laws such as the Eighteenth Amendment and its accompanying law of enforcement, the Volstead Act, intervened in attempts to control the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages, state efforts to maintain their original controls had to be reinforced with a stricter law. As a preliminary to the passage of the Turlington Act, this study provides a background of the prohibition movement in North Carolina from the colonial period through the passage of the Volstead Act in 1918. With North Carolina's 1908 Prohibition Law in effect for ten years, the cause which was assumed by the federal government in 1918 merely reflected the attitude of many North Carolinians. Thus, in 1923, the Turlington Act met with very little opposition in the General Assembly. This Conformity Act was the last of a series of prohibition laws passed in the North Carolina legislature and it is still applicable in those counties which did not opt for Alcoholic Beverage Control Stores once prohibition was repealed in 1933. The downfall of prohibition, particularly the lack of organized enforcement of the law, is also explored in this study. The conclusion being that the inability to correlate state and federal controls in this matter and other New Deal programs of the early 1930's prevented success with the prohibition undertaking and made other government efforts, such as relief programs, difficult to maintain. |
