Whether the Volstead Act that started the Prohibition was a good idea or not is debatable; but it was certainly darn hard to enforce. A well-developed underground trade network developed running whisky from homemade stills in the Appalachian and better quality booze down from Canada. And besides that, the government was losing a lot of potential revenue from excise taxes. Franklin Roosevelt, who was never a big fan of the prohibition to begin with, decided to do something about it.

On this day, March 22, in 1933 FDR signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, called the “Beer and Wine Revenue Act”. It would allow free sale of alcoholic beverages with a concentration of 3.2% or lower.

Ostensibly the act was a necessary compromise to raise government revenue to fund Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and end the Great Depression. More likely, it was an acknowledgement by the government that prohibition does not work, and act’s passage was a step towards total repeal with the 21st Amendment just nine months later.