The Day's Dumpster Fire
In this podcast, Kara and Ed regale history's greatest mess ups. They do not celebrate humanity's successes but its most fantastic failures! This show is not dedicated to those who have accomplished incredible things, but to those who have accomplished incredible things and how they royally screwed things up in the process.
You might ask why they are doing this podcast: it's because you've botched up the best laid plans and you know what? THAT'S OKAY!
Let this show help you navigate the mishaps that you have come across where there is no clear answer available.
So sit back, relax, and listen about people who messed up way more than what you could of possibly imagine.
The Day's Dumpster Fire
Prohibition Fire Part 1. - Episode 59
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Kara dives into the beginnings of one of the greatest dumpster fires in American history. What started off as a noble movement to make men better men and to eliminate a societal toxin, turned into a decade of insanity, crime, and abject poverty for many.
We all know about Prohibition from the textbooks, but did you know that the movement started since before the Civil War? Did you know that the movement started because women didn't think men were bad, but alcohol turned them into something else in most cases?
Kara takes us down the origins of what would become one of the most famous constitutional amendments in modern history. Alcohol is one of the most influential contributors to the development of this nation, but simultaneously, a major detractor.
For more details and Kara's extensive show notes, check out the website. And in this episode, the Great Molasses Flood Episode is mention that is closely tied to this episode.
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Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires.
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Is there a picture of her?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, and I'm going to tell you her name after this little narrative that I go through, but yes, look her up, she's great.
SPEAKER_01:Great. Can't wait.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. She came inside the men's establishment, walked directly to the counter, and looked Mr. Dobson in the eyes, and she said, Mr Dobson, I told you last spring to close this place and you would not do it. Now I've come down with another remonstrance. Get out of the way. I do not want to strike you, but I'm going to break this place up. And with that, the woman began throwing the packages she brought with her. Dobson probably ducked out of the way as paper wrapped stones and bricks began to fly, smashing through mirrors, glasses, windows, and bottles. Once she was done at Dobson's bar, the woman went to two more and smashed those two. The final saloon she arrived at in Kiowa was kept by a Mr. Lewis. She spotted a younger man behind the bar and she told him, Young man, come from behind that bar. Your mother did not raise you for such a place. Then threw a brick at the large rectangular mirror hold uh hanging over the bar that he was hiding behind. To the woman's displeasure, however, the mirror didn't break. She looked around for something to throw at it, and then she spotted a billiard's ball on the table, and she said, Thank God, then hurled the billiard's ball at the mirror and breaking a hole in the glass. I love her.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So the woman who smashed the biggest.
SPEAKER_03:She did not listen to throw.
SPEAKER_06:She this is how I would.
SPEAKER_07:Like, see, I applaud the other side of it. I do.
SPEAKER_05:Hello, everybody. This is Kara with your day's dumpster fire, where we don't celebrate humanity's successes, but its most fantastic failures. And as ever, with always, I have Ed and Deja both with me today. How are you guys doing? Yay, hello.
SPEAKER_02:We're uh we're working IT today.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's been like a good hour and a half since we all done.
SPEAKER_07:And it's not even that severe. It I'm I'm really smart, guys. I'm so smart. We're doing great.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, everything from like troubleshooting cables to software updates. It's like we're about ready to turn into a call center over here.
SPEAKER_07:Thank you for doing great over here. Today's dumpster fire. How can I help you? Don't forget, guys, I did customer service for like eight years. So fair enough. We got that that answering the phone voice on lock and key.
SPEAKER_05:We'll have to pre-record you on like a phone line so people can call in.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_07:Thanks for calling today's dumpster fire. We can't get to the phone right now, but we'd love to hear your trash can fire.
SPEAKER_02:Bye.
SPEAKER_07:Excellent.
SPEAKER_05:See, we have ideas rolling. This is it.
SPEAKER_02:Just or just say it in an Indian voice. Thank you for calling it today's dumpster fire.
SPEAKER_07:That's one thing to do. Future Ed, edit that out.
SPEAKER_02:My name is Bob. How may I help you today?
SPEAKER_07:One thing I have to remind some people is that we are not South Park and there's things we can't get away with.
SPEAKER_02:Anybody who's ever called a call center in the past 10 years, for whatever reason, they they've got that.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I just do the bitchy, like customer service lady, and I'm just like, hey, no, I can't help you with your services today. Have a great time. Bye.
SPEAKER_02:You do that on your last day.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. No, I don't know. I think I'm a little too nice for that. I'm like, ooh, I shouldn't do that. That was kind of rude. Let me call them back. Let me go call them and apologize.
SPEAKER_02:Well, speaking of apologies, uh, I think Hara's got a banger of an episode. It's it's like a I'm looking at the notes here, and it is like 16 pages long, and she's not even done.
SPEAKER_05:Oh guys, this thing's gonna be bigger than Donner Party, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Oh man. I'm really excited. And it's all about alcohol.
SPEAKER_07:Maybe it'll change my mind about drinking because I am a little bit hungover today, and maybe I should have taken some notes. I don't know. Well, never mind.
SPEAKER_05:It is noon. I might crack open a beer. I'm like, I do I do love a good whiskey. So do I. Well, today we're talking about prohibition, and then next week we're gonna talk about prohibition, and then the week after that we're gonna talk about prohibition.
SPEAKER_07:So there's a potential for the week after that. So just put it in your next month, month and a half, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I really hope you like the 1920s. But today we're actually gonna start in the 1840s, and then we're gonna go from there. All right, chapter one, whiskey sour. Here we go. A 45-year-old Royal Navy officer, turned author, sat at a writing table in the United States during a visit there. He we likely couldn't go out after dark, especially after seeing people burning effigies in his likeness and reading newspapers, calling for his hanging. I wouldn't want to go out either, to be fair. He wrote on the page in front of him, detailing his experiences. He would call his piece of writing Diary in America, and it would be published two to three years later in 1839. Frederick Marriott was considered a comedic nautical fiction writer, talk about niche. In Diary of America, he notes an observation on a particular love affair Americans have with a favorite pastime. He says, and I quote, They say that the British cannot fix anything properly without a dinner, but I'm sure the Americans can fix nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink, if you part, you drink. If you make an acquaintance, you drink. If you close a bargain, you drink. They quarrel in their drink and they make it up with a drink. They drink because it's hot, they drink because it's cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice, if not, they drink and they swear. They begin to drink early in the morning, they leave off late at night. They commence it early in life, and they continue it until they soon drop into a grave. To use their own expression, the way they drink is quite a caution. As for water, what the man said when asked to belong to the Temperance Society appears to be of the general opinion it's very good for navigation. Unquote.
SPEAKER_07:I I need that it in itself to just become a musical, like a Broadway performance. That would have in like imagine like a Hamilton, a Hamilton-esque, like that would have hit hard bars, right? A little beat behind it. I'm like, oh, okay, what we got here?
SPEAKER_05:Not bad for a British guy. Pretty good. Especially in 1839.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, especially for a British guy.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Alcohol has been a part of American culture since the beginning of America. Perhaps for pleasure or for necessity. It was probably both. Either way, it's been ingrained in American society for a long, long, long time. In 1620, the Mayflower, the Mayflower brought it, brought with it 42 tons of beer on its voyage to the New World. This was typically commonplace as water would go bad on long journeys across the Atlantic. Beer was easier to preserve on ships, but still 42 tons is a crazy amount of beer. There's a story for the Mayflower that goes when Captain Jones anchored the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in November of that year, he stopped for passengers to find water, because it does go bad, to save the beer for his crew. So he was like, passengers, off find yourselves some water. We're gonna drink the good stuff. 140 years went by and the colonies were established across the Atlantic seaboard. By 1767, colonial families were consuming about seven barrels of hard cider per year. So to put that into perspective, that's about 35 gallons of cider per person, including women and children. By 1790, on average, the colonists were consuming about 5.8 gallons of pure alcohol per year. That number also includes women and children and people who didn't drink. That's a lot.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Now, to be fair, and I'm gonna be throwing a lot of numbers like this around, these are usually generalized numbers. There were people who didn't drink, and there were others who drank a lot, but for our purposes, colonists were drinking a lot of alcohol. In 1797, George Washington opened a commercial whiskey distillery at Mount Vernon. Most distilleries in the late 1700s were about 800 square feet in size. Washington's distillery, because he doesn't play, was 2,250 square feet. At the time of his death in 1799, it was one of the largest in the country. In that same year, the distillery produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey valued at$7,500, which today's money is$120,000. The average distillery at the same time would typically produce$650 gallons of whiskey at the value of$450. So Mount Vernon was producing sons of whiskey.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that's not including like because I know when Washington died, he was among some of the richest in America because he also had like ranches and he had farms and he had this distillery and he was an investor. He was like, Yeah, he he had his hands in all sorts of stuff. But I didn't know his distillery was that big. Like that's the size, that's the size of a decently sized house.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:It's huge. Um, and I think it's still at Mount Vernon. And you can buy Washington's whiskey.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_05:So I I a hundred percent suggest checking out the Mount Vernon website. That's where I got the new permission. Very cool. George Washington wasn't the only founding father who had a hand in alcohol, though he may have produced the most. John Adams was known to have a tankard of hard cider every morning. James Madison would have a pint of whiskey every day. In the year 1810, one pint every day.
SPEAKER_02:Oh man.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:How do you function?
SPEAKER_05:I feel like it was probably throughout the day, you know, but still, that's kind of a lot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's true. In the year 1810.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. In 1810, there were roughly 14,000 distilleries in the U.S., along with countless taverns throughout the country. A new kind of drinking establishment would soon explode in popularity as the 1800s came ahead, and that would be the saloon. The first saloon was opened in Wyoming in 1822. Now, saloons were a different kind of drinking establishment in that saloons were for men. They were a men's only establishment. And it was used for drinking, whereas like a tavern was more like a restaurant where you know families could eat and then they could have a drink while they're eating and you know all that stuff. So saloons were a men's establishment for drinking, and they started to rise in popularity throughout the Industrial Revolution, especially. They started to spring up throughout the U.S., saloons started to spring up throughout the U.S. and mining towns specifically, cities where factories were built, near mills, things like that. They were places for men who worked long hours in hard conditions. So men would gather there for lunch or after work to unwind after their shifts were over. And honestly, I can understand that. You need a place to go after you've been working for 12 hours in a factory, I guess.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, especially if you're living in like a one-room house with kids and all that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, especially in the cities.
SPEAKER_02:No, I was gonna say, like I wanted you to get to the mining town parts. Um, do you know how people paid for their drinks in these mining towns?
SPEAKER_05:Uh generally they would be pretty cheap. I mean, they'd, you know, give them their gold or whatever money they'd have in trade or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:So what they would do is these gold miners, they would carry around basically pouches of gold dust. And you'd order a drink, and the bartender, but the the tradition was they you'd order a drink and then you would put your pouch out, and then the bartender would take a pinch of gold for a payment for the drink. So what they eventually discovered was that these bartenders would hire people with massive hands so that their thumb and forefinger could pull out the maximum amount of gold. And that that that was for the because there was no real established US currency out there at that time. Everybody just paid with like pinches of gold, which was yeah, kind of kind of weird and very American at the same time.
SPEAKER_05:So saloons were built for men who worked long hours in hard conditions, and they would gather there for lunch. I think I said this already. Many saloons would offer free lunches with a purchase of purchase of a drink, and I thought this was just ingenious. So the lunches would usually consist of bread and cheese, sardines or salted fish, crackers, pickled vegetables. What do all those foods have in common? Maybe it minus the cheese.
SPEAKER_02:Um they're all fermented or salted.
SPEAKER_05:And they're all salty.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:They make you really thirsty. Savory. Oh, yeah. They make you really thirsty. So even though the food was free, they made the men very thirsty, prompting them to just buy more alcohol.
SPEAKER_07:Makes sense.
SPEAKER_05:Mm-hmm. Pretty smart.
SPEAKER_02:It's kind of like a roller coaster tycoon where you crank up the salt level in the French fries so you can sell more soda.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Which also makes you more parched in actuality. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Especially if you're especially if you're drinking hard stuff, that's gonna make you super dehydrated.
SPEAKER_07:This is a whole this is a whole cycle. It's a whole Charlie horses every night. Oh, and it gets worse.
SPEAKER_05:Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, my goodness.
SPEAKER_05:With the rise of the saloon came the rise in alcohol consumption across the U.S. In 1830, America seemed to have hit its peak. On average, nine gallons of pure alcohol per adult was being consumed. That means anybody over the age of 18, including sober adults and women, could be included in that number. That's three times today's average. Nine gallons of pure alcohol. And I'm not talking like, you know, eight percent stout or whatever. It's like just rubbing alcohol.
SPEAKER_07:My little my little white claw.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this could be anywhere between 40 to like 70 percent. Like, because they really didn't have hydrometers back then, so they didn't know what the alcohol content was truly gonna be. You you could be drinking moonshine as far as everybody knows.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I was just about to say a good old thing of moonshine.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, good old moon. Well, we're gonna talk about moonshine next fart, but I'm sure we will. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_05:It's gonna be exciting. Anyway, throughout the 1800s, saloons would continue to adjust to their clientele. Considering their customers were primarily working low-income men, they became places rifles rife with gambling, drinking, prostitution, and cheap hard alcohol, usually whiskey. And while saloons were a place to gather, especially for immigrant workers who found a place of comfort in the saloon, they also gained a really nasty reputation. Men were often seen staggering out of them, fights were frequent, and prostitution offered wasn't exactly clean with high standards like they had in Paris. Men would go home to their families or their place of employment, super drunk, blackened and bruised, or both. Job loss was very common, and domestic abuse was a very serious problem for the wives of men who took full advantage of the town saloon.
SPEAKER_07:Rife.
SPEAKER_05:Rife. Rife. Rife with it.
SPEAKER_07:With domestic violence.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Big time. It's a bad deal.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I feel like we're going to start seeing temperate societies forming.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Temperance societies were forming as early as the 1790s, but they were usually kind of small and with church groups. Well, here we are. Small groups and organizations such as the American Temperance Society, the Cold Water Army, and the Sons of Temperance began to spring up throughout the country calling for temperance. Uh, the difference between temperance and prohibition is temperance was a call for moderation of alcohol. So, like, let's just tone it down a little bit where prohibition was an all-out abolition of alcohol. Yeah. Zero total ban. These groups early on were started by religious men, but gained steamed throughout the 1800s as alcohol consumption rose. There were African American branches, there were branches for women, there were religious organizations, so it started to kind of spread all over the place. A Sons of Temperance meeting was being held in Albany, New York, in June of 1853. The room was crowded, full of men standing in the sweltering heat, ready to hear the speakers of the temperance movement. A woman in a black dress with her brown hair pulled back tightly began to prepare her speech, making her away in the front of the crowd, accompanied by a small group of women that made up the women's branch of the group. Before she could get up to the stage, however, she was stopped by the chairman of the Sons of Temperance. He looked at her and he told her, listen and learn, denying her the opportunity to speak. Understandably angry, Susan B. Anthony and the women in attendance left the hall and held their own temperance meeting without any men. She then published her experience with the Sons of Temperance in a local Albany newspaper to gain the attention of the women of the Temperance Movement. By April, Anthony gathered about 500 women to a meeting in Rochester where they created the Women's State Temperance Society. They elected Elizabeth Cady Stanton as president of their organization.
SPEAKER_07:Coolest shh stuff ever.
SPEAKER_05:Right?
SPEAKER_02:Was this before or after she wrote the uh declaration of independence for women?
SPEAKER_05:Before. So Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton are known for suffrage, but they got their start in temperance.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Many of the women caught up in the men's love for drink blamed the saloons or they blamed the booze. They usually didn't blame the men, which I thought was pretty interesting. They always blamed the alcohol or the saloon. Without the right to vote, they decided it was time to speak up. A change needed to happen, and maybe if they did it right, they could get suffrage along with temperance. However, by the mid-1850s, regional differences began to fracture the unity of the temperance movement that was going on. Northern organizations began to leave heavily into complete prohibition of alcohol along with abolitionist tendencies. So it needs to be said that the women of the temperance movement before the Civil War were also partnering with the abolitionists in the North. So they were often good friends with abolitionists who were calling for the end of slavery. And I heard a historian while I was doing this research, I thought was really interesting. In the 19th century, the big social movements were the abolitionment of slavery, suffrage, which would come later, and prohibition, which would come later, but they all start here and together. And I thought that was a pretty cool way to look at it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I didn't I didn't really realize that all three kind of started at the same time.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah. In the South, organizations held onto more moderate views, creating some tension between the regions. Once the Civil War broke out in 1861, the temperance moves started to collapse. Organizers, members, and attention to the movement were redirected to the war, which I mean fair. At the same time, alcohol was commonplace during the war, especially amongst the soldiers. The US government even raised taxes on alcohol to generate money for the war effort as it was going on. Well it seemed as though the temperance movement was over by 1865 after the war ended. Supporters proved that it was never over, only temporarily overshadowed. Chapter two, Sazerac, I think that's how you say it. It's a cocktail. The first temperance. It's kind of fun to say Sazerac. The first temperance temperance movement began in the late 18th century and lost its momentum during the Civil War. It was initiated and organized primarily by religious men on the East Coast before it expanded. The second temperance movement was launched and organized by women. After the Civil War ended, the US saw a massive increase in industrial activity throughout the nation, especially in large cities. With industrialization came immigration and an influx of working men. With that influx came the popularity of saloons and alcohol, sparking the same issues that caused the temperance movement to gain traction before the war. Men were losing jobs, domestic violence was common, and prostitution and saloons were also common. So it's really gross, but they were also bringing home diseases and stuff to the family, and it was bad. It's just a bad deal. The women continued to blame the saloon and the booze they sold there. So good on them for not blaming the men. They were blaming the alcohol and the ease of it. Tired of the effects of that alcohol had on men in their society, the women decided to try to make a change. In 1873, groups of women in Ohio began stepping inside saloons or right outside of them, out of the front door, blocking the entrance, dropping to their knees, and praying for the men inside the establishment, maybe praying for them to be shut down, just kind of depends on how bold they felt. This began a movement that would span across the country, gathering thousands of women who prayed outside of saloons with the gloat with the goal of closing down as many saloons as they could. Some shop owners did agree in that they would close, and some agreed that they would stop selling alcohol, some signed agreements or petitions that they would close. Others, however, weren't so agreeable. These women were pushed, they were spit on, some had beer thrown at them as they were praying, but they continued. And by the time they these crusades ended, the women on these protests, crusades, whatever you want to call them, it spread over 900 communities, 33 states and territories, and closed countless establishments across the country. These women's crusades lasted until 1874, so they lasted about a year. In a speech then, in a speech in that same year, Susan B. Anthony called the crusades the greatest, quote, the greatest moral crusade of our time, unquote. However, after they began to die down, saloons and establishments would just reopen. While they weren't exactly long lasting, these protests inspired a group of people to create a movement that proved to be much more influential than their predecessors.
SPEAKER_07:So I have a question. You're telling me what they did, what the women did was they would go and pray in the front of these saloons or uh whatever, these places and they would have stuff just like thrown at them. Yeah, correct. And they wouldn't stop, they would just pray through it. Correct. I'd be fighting. Yes. So good on them because I would have probably had a very quick ending to my story. Because I I could I can I just admire anyone who can have anything thrown at them out of utter disrespect. It's the it's one of the most like subhuman things you can do to someone else in in a moment where they're looking out for the the benefit of these men. Some of them don't mean anything to them, but they're still there. Like it's just I would be fighting and I'd be like I'd be just as belligerent as a drunk man, completely sober.
unknown:So good for that.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, you you'd be like throwing down fisticuffs, like you you've got like a baseball bat on you, like oh yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_07:No, we've got like, and you can't see I'm a small person, and like I'm gonna find ways to conceal my weapons because if you throw a beer on me, it's on. It's up, it's up in smoke, and uh and it's up.
SPEAKER_02:And from what I've seen in my 42 years, um never ever ever fight a small woman.
SPEAKER_07:Uh uh.
SPEAKER_02:You do not want to be attacked by a small woman.
SPEAKER_07:And I'm ethnic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, then and then when you throw in the ethnic parts, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And I'm ethnic. Yeah, it's uh I got an ethnic background.
SPEAKER_02:Can I throw in an English nerdy perspective here?
SPEAKER_07:Sure, please.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_07:If it's up in smoke, I need you to comment on it because I feel like that's pretty like good grammar there. That's a good term for it, right?
SPEAKER_04:Especially in the saloon.
SPEAKER_02:So when we look at like the time after the Civil War, and we look at and we start looking at these women's movements and these peaceful protests and all that kind of stuff, that was heavily, heavily influenced by Thoreau and civil disobedience. And after Thoreau wrote civil disobedience, the way minorities protested completely changed. So it was like you're not here to start a riot, you're here to send a message by kind of like this in by interrupting things, right? And that's what the women were doing, is um a lot of women were, and and Susan B. Anthony was one of them, was a big fan of this peaceful type of protesting, because like they become the martyrs. When they see bad stuff happen, when like the general population sees bad stuff happening to these women, and they're just praying, that makes everybody inside look a thousand times worse. And then when you like read um King's like um letters from Birmingham Jail, uh, he mentions this. He mentions the like suffragette movement, he mentions Thoreau. So, like, this is a perfect case where a simple piece of literature had like a profound impact on how Americans were gonna protest. Now, don't get me wrong, there were still riots, like there were the Pinkerton riots and and all that kind of stuff, but it did introduce the idea that you can protest and you can make a statement, but you don't have to be violent.
SPEAKER_07:Well, I think there's like this psychological like deception or perspective change that is kind of subconscious to the person who is on the obnoxious, belligerent, you know, riot side of protesting. When you are looked at like you have these people who are peacefully protesting, they're able to make a point without causing harm to anyone, gaining anyone, making anyone else feel small about themselves or their their issues or whatever. It's empowering them to stand up and say something or do something when you have that like sight let that like perspective change and you see that like oh dang, I'm sitting here like throwing bats into a house and like do you know, doing XYZ spitting on a woman who's sitting here praying, like numbers wise, eventually there's going to be a seed planted in one of their heads.
SPEAKER_02:It's like Yeah, when the alcohol I want to pause wears off, they're gonna be like even if it's one person. What did I do? And then like, yeah, and to follow on to that, what what you're saying, Deja, look at Gandhi. Gandhi looked at this movement and basically based all of his protests off of like what these women were doing, so that when the British were making um Indian workers case bullets and pork fat, which is something that really went against their beliefs, Gandhi just told the workers just sit down. Like, don't don't get upset, don't get mad in the factories, don't break stuff, don't throw stuff, just sit down. So it's amazing the impact that this movement had on various parts of the world. Because, like in the 1800s, America was a teenager, was trying to figure itself out. But the rest of the world was looking in on America like, okay, America, you're just like a little kid compared to the rest of the world. How are you navigating these problems? And then you have shining moments like this that completely redefine how to protest.
SPEAKER_05:The Women's Christian Temperance Union, or the WCTU, was established in November of 1874 during a convention in Cleveland, Ohio. From the time it was established in the early 1890s, from the time it was established, comma, to the early 1890s when its membership hit its peak, the union gained over 200,000 members, making it the largest women's organization in the United States. The WTCU accepted anybody who wanted to be a part of their movement. The focused not only on alcohol moderation but prohibition. The union's second president, Frances Willard, was elected in 1879. She took what the WCTU was doing and made it even more influential. Frances Willard was born on September 28, 1839, yay, September babies, in Churchville, New York. She was raised in Wisconsin and Illinois, and she grew up in a deeply religious family with values that would later shape her social and political views later in life. Willard graduated from Northwestern Women's College, where she would become a professor. Then in 1871, she became the dean for the Women's College and would remain there until 1874 when she took up the home of the WCTU. After gaining the presidency over the organization in 1879, Willard governed the organization under her Do Everything policy. This policy expanded the WCTU beyond temperance to include suffrage, child labor, prison reform, public health, social purity, and labor rights. By the 1890s-25 of 39 departmental programs within the organization were addressing non-temperance issues.
SPEAKER_02:So uh I did a little uh checking here. He said that uh early 1890s, when membership hit its peak, uh the the uh WCTU, the union gained over 200,000 members. I looked it up. America's women population, and I'm assuming this is like all females, uh consisted of 31.4 million people. Now, when you like 200,000 sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to 31.4 million, but compared to like if you blow that up to like today, where there's 340 million people here, and like 150 million of them are women, that's a pretty big movement.
SPEAKER_05:It's a big movement. They had branches across the country.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's massive.
SPEAKER_05:Yep, it's huge. They're they were highly influential, not just in the prohibition temperates movement, but in other movements too, like I was saying. So they're massive.
SPEAKER_02:Are they still around today?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yes, they are still around today. I got a lot of this information from their website.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting. Wow, I'll have to look that up.
SPEAKER_05:Yep, and I I will say a theme that I've been running into a lot with this topic because I I like themes, is when we talk about anything in history that we try to generalize in our heads, it's really important to remember that this country is a collection of a lot, a lot of different types of people from different types of background with different belief systems and opinions and all of that stuff. So a lot, you know, a lot of the big question that comes, how did how did Prohibition even pass if it just failed?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You have to remember that all of these people, even though we they kind of go into groups like this, they're all different and they all had different opinions. They all had a reason to why they voted which this way or that way, and they were all influenced by something.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Because it takes a lot to pass um an amendment.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like it's I can't remember the exact facts. It has to be like three-quarters of the states all have to vote on it. Or yes.
SPEAKER_05:Uh, and we'll we'll actually talk about that a little bit. Yeah. We'll have we'll we'll have some civics uh lessons included in our history lessons a day. But but yeah, it was a big deal.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:You know, and people were tired of men being idiots because of alcohol.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they're dumb enough as is when they're sober.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, right. Just kidding. We love men. The WCTU published a newspaper. They held meetings and conducted public outreach across the nation and becoming one of the most influential temperance groups in the United States. They even brought temperance into schools with their quote, scientific temperance instruction, unquote, curriculum. Children would do math problems that included alcohol and provided textbooks about the dangers of alcohol, most of which had some very dramatic, inaccurate claims. I believe one textbook claimed that if somebody drank enough alcohol, they would blow up.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, okay, okay, hang on here. There's so much. Okay, so funny story. My dad was an alcoholic and he died drinking. He actually died when he was 42. And they went to go cremate him. And according to the cremation place, he had so much alcohol in his system that when he approached, like because they light the furnace and then they kind of like push you in. Um, he caught fire before he actually got into the furnace.
unknown:Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:That's the legend. I don't know if it's true or not, but but he didn't spontaneously combust.
SPEAKER_05:Because that's what the textbook claimed would happen.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, my dad would be in the garage working and he'd have like two bottles of vodka in him. And there was one time where he had like a Bunsen burner who was working on blowing a barrel of a gun, and he got his arm too close to the flame, and there was actually a tiny little blue flame on his arm. He was sweating out that much alcohol. Jesus. So, not quite an explosion.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But flamber. There's like a couple of percentage points of truth to that.
SPEAKER_05:The state ratified a prohibition law that banned the manufacture and sell of intoxicating beverages. We're gonna hear that a lot today, in that state in particular. It officially took effect in January of 1881. Despite the new law, saloons and Kansas businesses continued to operate. They did so by either just paying the fine they were charged while selling alcohol, or they would find loopholes in the state law that was already written. Local temperance organizations worked with state government to enforce and enhance the prohibition law, but generally failed. Popular support for prohibition in Kansas began to decline, opening the door for passionate prohibitionists to take matters into their own hands. So, first and foremost, we have some foreshadowing here. I feel like this was a learning opportunity that wasn't taken. Uh, it does happen as well in Maine, which we'll talk about, but yeah, yeah. It was a Thursday morning in June when a saloon owner named Mr. Dobson in Kiowa, Kansas received quite the shock. Outside, he saw a woman clad in black, nearly six feet tall and 180 pounds, walking towards his saloon with what looked like packages in her arms. That is a big lady, friends.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I would not want to meet this woman face to face, but I find her fascinating, and whenever I read about her, I want to clap.
SPEAKER_07:Is there a picture of her?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, and I'm going to tell you her name after this little narrative that I go through, but yes, look her up, she's great.
SPEAKER_01:Great. Can't wait.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. She came inside the men's establishment, walked directly to the counter, and looked Mr. Dobson in the eyes, and she said, Mr. Dobson, I told you last spring to close this place, and you would not do it. Now I've come down with another remonstrance. Get out of the way. I do not want to strike you, but I'm going to break this place up. And with that, the woman began throwing the packages she brought with her. Dobson probably ducked out of the way as paper wrapped stones and bricks began to fly, smashing through mirrors, glasses, windows, and bottles. Once she was done at Dobson's bar, the woman went to two more and smashed those two. The final saloon she arrived at in Kiowa was kept by a Mr. Lewis. She spotted a younger man behind the bar and she told him, Young man, come from behind that bar. Your mother did not raise you for such a place. Then threw a brick at the large rectangular mirror hold uh hanging over the bar that he was hiding behind. To the woman's displeasure, however, the mirror didn't break. She looked around for something to throw at it, and then she spotted a billiard's ball on the table, and she said, Thank God, then hurled the billiard's ball at the mirror and breaking a hole in the glass. I love her.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So the woman who smashed.
SPEAKER_03:She did not listen to throw.
SPEAKER_06:She this is how I would.
SPEAKER_07:Like, I'm done. Like, see, I applaud the other side of it. I do. But sometimes if you strike me the wrong way, my little teeth come out, okay?
SPEAKER_05:So she really did say those things. She really did go to Kiowa and smash up the saloons. Oh man.
SPEAKER_07:Her name was. Just kidding, guys. I wouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_05:She really did do this. Her name was Carrie Nation. Uh, and I took that right out of her autobiography that she wrote in 1908. Uh, she was a member of Kansas, of the Kansas chapter of the WCTU, and she became extremely frustrated, obviously, with the lack of enforcement of the prohibition laws in the state. Before her first smash in Kioa in 1900, Nation wrote letters to the government officials about the saloons that were still operating, but nothing happened. Finally, she became so fed up that she took matters into her own hands. Later that December of the same year in 1900, Nation went to the most expensive, prominent bar in Wichita, Kansas, called the Hotel Carey Saloon. There, she took a hatchet with her and smashed everything inside. It took her all of 30 minutes, and it was over by 8:30 in the morning. She destroyed.
SPEAKER_02:I'm looking at pictures of her.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, she's amazing.
SPEAKER_02:She is a very intimidating looking person. Man. And like there's so many pictures of her holding a hatchet.
SPEAKER_07:That's what she was famous for. Oh god. You know, she kind of cleaned in my in my Nice.
SPEAKER_05:She's a little, she's she's a little fanatic, but she's great. Um at the hotel carry, she destroyed about$3,000 worth of property, which is uh$109,882 in today's money. She was jailed for three weeks without being charged for a crime, but she was bailed out by her husband who divorced her less than a year later.
SPEAKER_07:We don't like that man.
SPEAKER_05:He that man was an interesting fellow. I did some reading on him. He was just a guy, you know. And to be fair to that guy, she again, she was a little fanatic. If you read her her memoir, it's like I can't wait.
SPEAKER_07:I'm going to please read it. Oh, whoa. Some strong words.
SPEAKER_05:She's very passionate.
SPEAKER_07:I can understand.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:But I just, I mean, like, cool for getting her out. I'll stand by her. But like, why did you divorce? Why did they divorce?
SPEAKER_05:Um, they he felt that she was going a little ham, a little crazy.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah. And probably uh yeah, they grew apart. Maybe a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I that's fair. I mean, if we come home with a hatchet, like I was like, well, I again I don't blame the game. It's like as a man, if this what what how how tall was she? She's six foot.
SPEAKER_03:She's probably taller than him.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I'm looking at this picture of her next to this guy, and I'm pretty sure they're not even on leveled ground, and she's just the same height.
SPEAKER_05:She's a very large woman. She's a tall lady.
SPEAKER_07:I get that there are strong opinions out there that lead to strong actions. So I can understand not being able to tolerate that anymore from a perspective.
SPEAKER_05:Um hopefully it was alright.
SPEAKER_07:Hopefully.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, you want to clap for her, but also keep in mind, right?
SPEAKER_07:Like, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm not a person who loves violence. I feel like I speak a little aggressively sometimes. Um, but I don't like acts of violence.
SPEAKER_05:I do want to give it to her though. She never wanted to hurt anybody, she just wanted to smash the saloons up. Okay.
SPEAKER_07:This is why we have rage rooms now, but this is way in hindsight. You know what I mean? This is why we have rage rooms.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_05:She also message, though.
SPEAKER_07:This was her rage room.
SPEAKER_02:I I saw a picture of a bar. It had a banner on it that said, All nations welcome except for Carrie.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Yes. Yep. So Carrie Nation would continue to travel to various towns between 1900 and 1906 with her hashtag at the ready smashing saloons and gaining attention as she went. So every time she would smash a saloon, there'd be like a little crowd following her. Even the first time she gained like a little following her own. Uh-huh. Oh, she called her smashings hatchetations. Oh, and she gained quite the following doing it. We love her. Uh she would speak at various temples. Yes. She'd speak at various temperance events and sold pewter hatchet pins to make money. She would use them, yes. She would use the money she made to post her own bail whenever she got arrested.
SPEAKER_07:Queen. Queen. That's girl math.
SPEAKER_05:Dude.
SPEAKER_07:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_05:Overall, nation smashed a number of saloons in the region and was arrested about 30 times in the six years she was active. Well, she did not have any legislative impact on prohibition law. She did make sure the cause stayed alive in the eyes of the public with nothing more than a hatchet and a speech.
SPEAKER_07:So we all clap our kids. Oh gosh. I am obsessed with these like articles and newsletters. Oh, they're great. I'm like what I'm listening and like watch looking at these like headlines, like Carrie Nation fight. I just like this word, you know, but B-U-T-T-E. Oh, yeah. But Carrie Nation fights in butt hall dance hall.
SPEAKER_05:So, yes, hit pause, take some time to look at Carrie Nation. She is one of the most fascinating women I've read about in a long time.
SPEAKER_07:She's wonderful. Yes.
SPEAKER_05:It's great. So while the WTCU can WCTU, I always get it confused. While the WCTU continued to build its influence over the US, and Carrie Nation was performing her hatchetations across Kansas, another organization found its footing. The Anti-Saloon League was founded in Ohio in 1893, and by 1895, it too was a national organization. The Anti-Saloon League gained most of its following from evangelical churches, amongst other groups across the country. This one was mostly men and some women, but mostly men because the women were more drawn towards the WCTU, which is understandable. Anyway, its objective was to secure federal legislation prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the United States. They worked towards this goal by taking an active role in enforcing temperance laws in states that already had them, such as Kansas, gained public support and lobbied for politicians in line with their values. And at the helm of this group was a young lawyer named Wayne Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler. You should look at Wayne Wheeler too. Let's look him up and find a picture. Wayne Bidwell Wheeler was barely 30 years old when he earned his law degree and joined the ASL. He was kind of scrawny, standing about five feet and six to seven inches tall. He wore wire rimmed glasses, a well-manicured clipped mustache, and a tailored suit. He looked more like a bank teller than a political powerhouse, but he would change America and how it operated for the next 30 years. 13 years, sorry, 13.
SPEAKER_07:His his description is giving the bellhop in oh, he's like a French bellhop or something like that in some Disney movie or something like that. I'm gonna find it and I'll get back to you, but I'm this is what I am imagining in my head. Excellent. Just so you know it. I'll love it.
SPEAKER_05:Wheeler believed that what the WCTU was doing was noble and very respectable. They were making a mistake and being involved in other college that were not called causes that were not prohibition. He and the ASL started advertising campaigns in different magazines and newspapers opposing distilleries and brewers. Between the ASL's efforts and the WCTU's involvement in the fight for prohibition, the issue was beginning to be one of great public debate. People who wanted prohibition began calling themselves dry, while those who supported the idea of keeping alcohol in their lives called themselves wet. So we're gonna start hearing that a lot. So, how did distillers and brewers respond to all of this negative marketing about their products? They decided to fight fire with fire. Chapter three, old fashioned. So we're gonna rewind back to 1862, about one year into the Civil War, in response to both new taxes on alcohol to raise money on the war effort. German immigrant brewers formed the United States Brewers Association in New York City with the goal to reform tax laws. So these guys were all about the tax laws. They weren't, they weren't, you know, concerned about keeping their brewing up and running. They were mostly like, we have to figure out these tax issues. In 1869, the Prohibition Party was officially founded in support of the temperance, founded in support of the temperance movement that was gaining traction after the Civil War ended. The Brewers Association saw them on the rise earlier in 1867, releasing a resolution against them stating, we will use all means to stay the progress of this fanatical party and to secure our individual rights as citizens, that we will sustain no candidate of whatever party in any election who is in any way disposed towards the total abstinence cause. Unquote. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to tell those temperance people. You tell them. Yeah. Tell them. Throughout the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, before the First World War, beer was becoming extremely popular in the United States, despite the rising calls for prohibition from the people in the dry camp. According to the United States Brewers Association, Brewers Almanac from 1979, in 1865, about 2,252 beer breweries existed, producing 3.7 million barrels with adult consumption at about 3.4 gallons per person. Okay. So 1865, we've got just over 2,000 breweries producing 3.7 million barrels. Okay. Now these numbers are really interesting, and I'm going to point them out because I'm a visual person. If I don't see it, whatever I say is just a go over my head. By 1910, they were about 1,568, so 1,568 breweries, less breweries, selling a whopping 59.6 million barrels that year, with adult consumption at 20 gallons per adult. So even though the number of breweries went down, the amount of barrels sold skyrocketed.
SPEAKER_07:Reading that. Crazy numbers, dude. 20 gallons per adult.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, of beer. Not like pure alcohol, like we said before, but just beer.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. So not okay.
SPEAKER_02:Well, if we think about it, you know, six to eight ounces spread out over 365 days. Like that's that's not too bad. Yeah. Like with you, it's not crazy. It's like a beer, it's like a like a pint of beer a day.
SPEAKER_05:But you also have to remember with these numbers too, there are lots of people who are sober.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. There are they're just dividing it by the basic uh average population of America.
SPEAKER_05:Right. So just things to take into consideration.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But I'm I'm just kind of impressed that they how how few like they the number of breweries decreased, but the production went up.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, isn't that interesting? There's a big reason for like sitting here like, wait, wait, how? A lot by a lot, too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, by a lot. What I think happened when we go from 1865 to 1910, we also see the rise of the tycoons. So I have a funny feeling what happened was is like some of these larger breweries bought out other ones. For example, if you look at like Miller Coors, they have like 15 to 20 other breweries all under their umbrella. Uh so like those at like at this time, if you got bought out, like say you had a company that got bought out by Standard Oil, well, now you are Standard Oil. So I bet you anything, what happened was that there was you we have the rise of the tycoons and it can a lot of yeah, a lot of buyouts and and just absorbing other breweries in, not to mention technology, like you the tech the technology skyrocketed as well, and your distilleries are now like three stories tall versus maybe five feet tall. That's that's what I'm thinking is happening with those numbers, but that is still an impressive gain at almost 60 million barrels that year.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Man.
SPEAKER_05:So by 1910, beer brewers had control of almost 80% of the alcohol sold in saloons across the U.S.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, that tells me they consolidated.
SPEAKER_05:This growth in beer consumption was due to multiple factors that primarily stemmed from the ongoing industrial revolution occurring at the same time. Mass immigration into the United States brought Irish and German immigrants who knew better processes on how to brew beer, making it tastier and better quality, also probably making more. Bottling beer was a new technology that was being used by business partners Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser, used to make distribution a lot easier and more widespread. By 1910, they were the largest brewer in the United States. Anheuser and other large brewers also began using refrigerated train cars, buying out licensing from uh saloons, pasteurization was invented to refine distribution. So there were a lot of different pieces of technology that actually made distribution for these large brewers a lot easier and faster. And then on top of that, they're buying the licenses out from saloons. So not only did they own the beer, they owned the saloon, or at least part of it. Distribution and production weren't the only things beer brewers were refining. In response to both the WCTU and the ASL, brewers began to release their own advertising campaigns to sway public opinion. Many claimed that beer was liquid bread and beneficial to your health, even depicting children being offered a glass. Pabst became Pabst claimed that their beer was healthy, was a healthy tonic, passing it as a natural medication. Beer brewers also began running advertisements claiming that beer, due to its lower percentage in alcohol, was healthier and more beneficial than hard liquor. These claims created a division between the distillers and the brewers that would undermine public support for both institutions. So while beer was gaining popularity, America's oldest wet institutions, distilleries, also had a go against the dry groups. Between 1893 and 1903, a committee of wet scholars conducted a scientific study of the effects of alcohol, primarily in response to the WCTU's scientific temperance instruction run that they had in schools, which fair. I kind of I get it. They argued that their claims, the WCTU's claims, had no basis in logic or scientific investigation, which I think is a fair claim considering they were talking about bodies spontaneously combusting after drinking alcohol.
SPEAKER_02:And these distilleries are going to have the money to possibly actually do real studies.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. I don't think money was an issue for either group, but they argued that their claims had no basis in logic. The committee published their findings in 1903, and you can find them and you can read them under three titles. The liquor problem was one, substitutions for saloons was the next one, and the last one was Economic Effects and the IRS Prohibition Units. Very fancy. The research gave wet gold. The liquor problem. Yeah, I like that one. That's a good one. The research gave wet groups a scientific argument while fighting against prohibition at the time. And again, I kind of get it. Like I get the argument. I get both sides.
SPEAKER_02:We just gotta be careful not to fight BS with BS.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Distillers fought prohibition on a few different fronts. Going up against the ASL directly, they lobbied for wet friendly policies in state, federal, in federal, in federal and state governments, using their immense wealth and influence over the wet population, both inside and outside of government. Until 1913, taxes coming from distilleries made up over half of the government's revenue. A tax legislation from the civil, so it wasn't like official, but it was a wartime legislation that was in place. They never got rid of. Distilleries use this as a primary argument to keep wet policies in place. Unfortunately for them, however, the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 created an official income tax policy that was in effect originally as a wartime policy. So this one created a more stable income of revenue without relying exclusively on taxes from distilleries and alcohol, taking away the political advantage they had been leveraging since the Civil War. So now we have the, you know, these distilleries who were giving the government all kinds of money. And that influence goes down a little bit because the government found another way to make money and that didn't involve as much alcohol consumption. In an attempt to use religion as a defense, whiskey distiller George Garvin Brown wrote a book entitled, The Holy Bible Repudiates Prohibition. The book was essentially a collection of Bible quotes that could be taken in favor of liquor. And while it was a valiant effort, it certainly wasn't enough to win the fight against prohibition. Fighting for their reputation from both brewers and prohibitionists, distillers found themselves in a fight of survival. They were on the ropes. The early 1900s marked a period of great success for the temperates and prohibition movements while brewers and distillers were fighting. Instead of focusing on the dry groups, brewers and distillers started to blame each other, losing focus of what they were fighting against. The wet versus dry struggle became so intense that the American public became divided on the issue whenever it came up. By the time the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, the fight for prohibition finally hit the mainstream. Chapter 4, French 75. It's April 6th, 1917. The front page of the Seattle Star newspaper brandishes its headline in big, bold black letters. Quote, war is begun today. Unquote. Below the headline is an image of a ship, cannons on it as Navy officers prepare to enter World War I along with multiple pieces of information, such as other wars beginning in April, along with World War I developments, and the following was written beneath that. Washington, April 6th. War was declared at 1.30, 1.13 this afternoon. At exactly that hour, President Wilson signed the joint resolution passed by the House and the Senate declaring a state of war between the United States and Germany. An hour before the resolution was signed by Vice President Marshall at 1213, these were the last formalities necessary to make the United States an ally of England, France, and Russia in a world war of democracies against atrocities. These acts followed by the passage, followed the passage by the House 373 to 50 of the joint war resolution at 3 a.m. The first act of war, the seizure of 91 German ships in American ports came swiftly after the vote in the House. Seattle Star, 1917. You can read it. It's cool. The U.S. entered World War I after Wilson found out about the Zimmerman telegram, a telegram describing plans from Germany to attack the U.S. through Mexico. It came after a slew of different problems with German U-boats attacking US ships, and the telegram was the final straw. Once the United States entered the First World War, all of the country's resources were aimed to aid the war effort. This included yeast and grains that were used by beer brewers and distillers to produce alcoholic beverages. At the same time, anti-German sentiment throughout the U.S. escalated very quickly. Anti-German propaganda began to spring up in the US in a number of different ways. Street signs, names, schools, foods, and even town names were changed. I listed some of my favorites here. Berlin, Michigan was changed to Marne, Michigan for the Battle of the Marne. Sauerkraut was called Liberty Cabbage. Liberty Cabbage, love it.
SPEAKER_02:That's better than Freedom Cabbage, I guess.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That's pretty good. In Chicago, streets named Lubbock, Frankfurt, and Hamburg were changed to Dickens, Charleston, and Shakespeare. Hamburgers were called Liberty Sandwiches.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yes, that I remember.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's a good one. German books were banned in the States and German immigrants were often harassed. German businesses suffered similar fates, including German brewing companies that worked really hard to build what they had. Both the ASL and the WCTU took advantage of the moment. They began telling the public that supporting brewers and buying beer took away from soldiers' rations. The WCTU wrote a petition in 1918 aiming to ban alcohol during the war and sent it to Woodrow Wilson in hopes of getting his support on the issue. While fighting for prohibition, the WCTU also raised money to purchase liberty bonds that were used to pay for ambulances, food, clothing, and other resources on the front lines in Europe. They were actively working with social work camps and hospitals for soldiers who were returning home from the war, including holding celebratory welcoming parties. So they were trying to do a lot of good work over there. Like the WCTU, the ASL leaned heavily into the anti-German propaganda, calling beer unpatriotic and dangerous for American soldiers fighting overseas. Unlike the WCTU, however, the ASL continued to make prohibition its priority. They went so far as to call saloon owners and patrons draft dodgers, which is great. Driven by Wayne Wheeler, the organization used the war effort to gain support both in the public and within the government. They had a two-pronged attack here, which they could do because they weren't focused on anything except prohibition. That's the difference between the ASL and the WCTU, aside from the men-women thing. The ASL focused solely on prohibition, where the WCTU did a bunch of other things too.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Even before the U.S. entered the war, the ASL was on a roll in gaining support for the prohibition cause. Wheeler targeted dry politicians from any party they came from. He didn't care about any other policy. As long as they were dry, you had the support of Wayne Wheeler. If you have the support of Wayne Wheeler, you're going to be fine in politics. That's how influential he was.
SPEAKER_04:Jeez.
SPEAKER_05:If that politician was Republican but dry, he got ASL ASL support. If they were Democrat, but they were dry, they had Wayne Wheeler in their corner. This type of support created dry blocks in the government. And those were informal coalitions of lawmakers across party lines who supported prohibition legislatures legislation.
SPEAKER_02:That's how they did it.
SPEAKER_05:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:How interesting.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. They didn't care what you what you believed in or anything as long as you were dry.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_05:They worked in the margins, is what they what they talked about. They lobbied and they lobbied hard, targeting as much support as they could gather. Wayne Wheeler himself would be seen in the streets, donning his little business suit and his mustache, making speeches about the benefits of prohibition and what it could gain for the country, as well as strengthening war mobilization. The organization was putting pressure on dry politicians as they supported to create dry legislation in Congress. In particular, the ASL partnered with Senator Morris Shepard of Texas and Representative Andrew Volstead to make sure the pressure cooker that was prohibition never ran out of steam. It was constant. On the state level, local chapters of the ASL focused on doing the same type of lobbying, but in the state governments. So in both state and federal governments, the ASL would keep track of votes. So they would almost like a tally, they would keep track of dry vote, dry votes from politicians to see who was voting for what in terms of their causes and where their weak points were in their system. The outcome of the ASL's efforts were about to come too full on this this thing's gonna boil over here soon. About 23 states had already passed state prohibition laws by 1916 because of these efforts. And and you know, people have their opinions, but there's a lot of going on here. Dry states were generally backed by the Supreme Court, who assisted them by facilitating trade arrangements between wet and dry states to ensure that the sale and manufacture of intoxicating beverages did not occur in dry states. In 1917, the REIT Amendment was passed, penalizing anybody who imported alcohol into a dry state for personal consumption. Punishments varied from fines to imprisonment depending on what state you were in or how much alcohol you had. Throughout 1917, Congress continued to pass nationwide legislation that constricted the manufacturing and sale of alcohol in an effort to not only protect the dry states but redirect the grain and yeast resources to Europe for soldiers fighting in the war. In May of 1917, the Food Control Act was passed, which prohibited liquor producers from using food materials to produce intoxicating beverages, including beer. In November of 1918, you can just see it building up and building up and building up. In November of 1918, the Wartime Prohibition Act was passed two months before the 18th Amendment was passed. The act banned the sell and intoxicating, the sale of intoxicating beverages until the president declared an end to U.S. mobilization of military in World War One.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Yep.
SPEAKER_05:So it didn't just happen overnight. Like this, this was a very slow progression.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I I find it interesting that the Supreme Court assisted trade arrangements between wet and dry states. Like that is, I feel like that is totally out of their bounds.
SPEAKER_05:Well, they did.
SPEAKER_02:And then and then the Reed amendment was passed penalizing anyone who imported alcohol into a dry state for personal use. Um, and the Constitution, it it it forbids Congress from passing any laws or amendments that affect interstate trade. So, like, how did that not get brought to the Supreme Court?
SPEAKER_07:I mean, it's the government.
SPEAKER_02:Man, that is. But I mean, this all take all all these steps here take place in It's like a span of two years. Yeah. Yep. Man, that's pretty fast. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on there.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, no, wait, Wayne Wheeler was uh very um what's the word? Involved in a lot of this. Chapter five. On April 4th, 1917, Senator Morris Shepherd of Texas introduced to the Senate Judiciary a joint resolution on the prohibition of alcohol on a federal level in the form of an amendment to the Constitution. The report stated that an amendment should be added for prohibition for the following reasons. The popularity of prohibition amongst the public, citing states already practicing, the evils of alcohol, using the same arguments as the temperance and prohibition movements. And Congress lacked the constitutional authority to regulate prohibition during peacetime, so it was now or never. All right. The state judiciary thought it was great, and uh they moved it forward to Congress. In Congress, the proposal for an amendment was debated from July 31st, 1917 to August 1st, 1917. So they debated for a day. In Congress, the debates echoed those that others have debated for some time already, especially in the streets. The dry supporters argued that alcoholic beverages were evil and drinking was detrimental to the health and welfare of society. Now, I do want to remind you of all the nonsense that these people were going through early in this conversation. We have domestic abuse, we have violence, we have uh, you know, STDs floating around and all of that stuff. So throwing down the city. When they say things, yeah, it's it's a whole thing. So when they say things like alcohol is evil, it sounds really silly, but it is important to remember like why why this is what it is.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, because when you're when you're seeing this influence grow gradually over time and get worse and worse, essentially, I'm sure, um, within the behavior of the spouse that is going to the saloon, you're going to blame the behavior on the common denominator, and that's the substance abuse. That's the alcohol. And then you're being you're becoming a almost like a battered wife. Yeah, depending on the person for sure.
SPEAKER_05:And then there's other guys who were not depending on the person, yeah. And then there's like other dudes who did not beat their wives. They were probably great husbands and followers and fathers, but they maybe they couldn't get to work on time, they lost their job, like stuff like that. So everybody's situation's different, but right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_06:Everyone's experienced.
SPEAKER_05:So the people in the dry camp believe that a national prohibition would also prevent smuggling from wet states to dry states, a common problem that the Supreme Court had been dealing with. The wets responded by pointing out that a national prohibition on a federal level was giving too much power to the federal government by giving it the right to control individuals' social or personal habits. They also argued that it was overstepping the state's authority to police their own population. So they're bringing up a lot of legal things here. Others claimed that the new amendment would violate the American tradition of self-governance. And all of those arguments were very valid on both sides. However, I would argue that Senator Henry Cabot Lodge from Massachusetts had a very strong argument that would overshadow the next 13 to 15 years. He believed and argued that enforcing prohibition on a national and federal scale would be impossible for the federal government to take on, and the laws put in place for the amendment would easily be disobeyed. But in the end, the dry side of the argument prevailed by passing the amendment through Congress with a two-thirds vote, because remember, in Congress, you need a two-thirds vote in the Senate and the House. So this one passed in the Senate. And before they sent it to the House, the Senate did add a little blurb about states holding authority over enforcement. Just, you know, we got to get that out of the way. It's fine. So it was sent to the House, goes to the state, goes to the Senate first, then it goes to the House. So so far our steps are judiciary, it's got to pass through there, Senate, and then the House, and then it goes to the states. So if you ever want to pass an amendment, this is a step to take. The House debated the amendment for a day, kind of like the Senate, before it passed and sent it out to the states for ratification on December 18th, 1917. The states were given a span of seven years to ratify it, and the goal for successful ratification by the states was three-quarters of the states to agree. I think we're at 48 states now. It only took about a month. The 18th Amendment was ratified by the states January of 1919, approved on January 16th with the signature of the Secretary of State. Prohibition was set to be put in effect one year later on January 17th, 1920. And I actually have the amendment here and going to read it to you. This is how it is written. You can read it right now, but the amendment is written as such. After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States in all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. The Congress and several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. That's a little blurb they added. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several states as provided in the Constitution within seven years from the date of submission hereof by the states of Congress. Unquote. So that is the amendment. What do you notice about the amendment? That's all you get. It's literally some sentences, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I feel like there can be a lot of loopholes in this.
SPEAKER_07:Right. Quite vague and general.
SPEAKER_02:Like, for example, um, intoxicating liquors. But what about alcohol that is used in medicines? What about alcohol that is used to make explosives, like the 1919 Boston molasses flood? Right, generalized.
SPEAKER_05:Um what uh what constitutes as an intoxicating beverage?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's an intoxicating liquor.
SPEAKER_05:Even still, what makes it intoxicate? What what what pr what are we aiming for here, right? Like how much alcohol do you need to make it intoxicating?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So the amendment has no instruction on enforcement or what would happen if the law was broken to fix this. They knew when it passed, a legislative act needed to be passed to provide clear guidelines for prohibition. We need some clarity. Andrew Volstead, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, engineered and championed an act that would take care of this problem. And Wayne Wheeler helped him write it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Good old Wayne Wheeler. The National Prohibition Act, or the Volstead Act, was passed in Congress in late 1919. When it got to Woodrow Wilson's desk, he vetoed it, actually, but his veto was overwritten by Congress. The act was finalized on October 28th, 1919, in preparation for the 18th Amendment to go into effect. So this is what this thing says, and we're gonna end it with our lovely Volstead Act because it is very important and we should all remember it. The Volstead Act prohibited the sale, production, and transportation of any beverage that contained more than half a percent or more of alcohol. 0.5% or more. That's like maybe sauerkraut, yeah, kombucha, some sauces, you know.
SPEAKER_01:It's very that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_05:And a lot of the people who voted for this thing, especially in the public and even some members of Congress, thought that you could at least have beer and wines, like light beer, light wine. They did not expect this half percent number.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:So just to complicate it further, when people ask how this thing passed, that that miscommunication there or this surprise half a percent was a surprise.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:So this meant, you know. This meant that beer and light wines fell under this law, something that many weren't expecting. Any establishment found to be in violation of those terms were faced with civil or criminal penalties, including property of forfeiture or heavy fines. The act also gave the federal government some power to use prohibition agents to aid in enforcement of the law. There were some exceptions to this rule that the act included at the time it was passed. Alcohol sold for medicinal or religious purposes were permitted, as well as the sale of alcohol for manufacturing processes.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_05:This act also does not prohibit drinking alcohol as long as the alcohol was obtained in a legal manner. So exceptions to the rule: medicine, religion, manufacturing. And you can drink it as long as you got it legally, which is interesting. The 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act would be put into the test as soon as prohibition would go into effect at midnight on January 17th, 1920. And that's where I'm going to end this episode until we get to part two where we're really gonna get into the dirty.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, this is where the dumpster fire really starts to take off.
SPEAKER_07:That's right. Yeah. Oh goodness. You know, I wanna uh to kind of bleed off of that very last part with the percentage of alcohol and listing, you know, you're saying sauerkraut, kombucha. You can't even to this day EBT, like uh food stamps, they won't cover kombucha because it's list it can be categorized as an alcoholic beverage. Um which is it like for me, when I had my first son, I had food stamps and I was trying to be healthy, thinking, you know, like this is one way to like help after I had my son and I wasn't able to get it covered, and it's like six bucks. I'm like, oh great. But yeah, I mean, even to this day, it I I understand to a certain point, but like really you'd have to drink like 20 of them to equal like a half a beer. I mean, I would be ill from like stomach ulcers probably before I actually would get drunk from drinking 20 kombuchas. Yeah, the acidity alone would the acidity alone will burn my esophagus. I'll develop like all kinds of issues with you know, acid reflux or something. So it's it's just so interesting that even now little things like that.
SPEAKER_05:Oh today you you you always see the echo of prohibition at everywhere.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Especially like the crime elements are still around. Now let me I I got uh an American literature question for you. The great Gatsby, Jane uh Jim Gatsby. Uh, what did he do to make his millions?
SPEAKER_05:I haven't read it since high school. He was probably a bootlegger.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but how did he get away with it legally?
SPEAKER_05:Probably paid off the cops like everybody else.
SPEAKER_02:Not necessarily. He made his money by running drug stores.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, so he based him off of um Remus, George Remus.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's what George Remus did.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh. So Gatsby, because he was the clean-cut, handsome guy, wore vet with a metal. Like the mob put Gatsby as like the poster child. And he's like, Gatsby made all of his millions by owning a bunch of drugstores, but those drug stores were actually transporting large volumes of alcohol, but the police couldn't touch it because it's a drugstore chain. And so he could sell uh alcohol to like the chief of police of New York because it's coming from a it's coming from a medicinal purpose. It's how the cannabis movement got started. It's like there's there should be research in terms of like the medical benefits of this, and that's why a lot of states changed, like Arizona, Colorado, California. They said, like, okay, well, if it's for a medical purpose, then yeah, you can you can go buy it. And then you could just go to like literally any doctor. A little store. Yeah, you like I remember taking my mom to a uh a cannabis doctor in Tempe, and for$300 a year, he would just okay, here you go for migraines. So like I I feel like the whole medicinal part of this, like now you you see it in literature, and then you see it in recent history. It it's a perfect argument that you cannot separate the literature from the culture. It is uh yeah, I and I find that fascinating. My grandfather grew up in Elgin, Illinois, and Elgin, Illinois today isn't really a religious place, but my grandfather remembers as a kid because he grew up in the 20s, uh, he remembered that like every house was a church. Every house would fill out the documentation saying that they were a church. One that made him tax exempt.
SPEAKER_05:Every father was a rabbi or a priest.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah. Yep. And so like every house was like some sort of a church, and everybody could put in for their rabbi or priest license from the state, and there was there was obviously no qualifications for it. You just pencil whipped out a document and like, okay, cool, I cannot marry people. So, like, yeah, like everybody was was doing that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we're gonna get into all of that next episode. Yeah, all those juicy details.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, this this is fascinating. Uh I hope we're learning. Yeah, you put some work into this. I thought I had a good idea of like how it all started. Turns out I had no idea. I knew Susan B. Anthony.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, Carrie Nation. I'm very grateful that I've heard of her now because I'm going to be uh doing a lot of reading.
SPEAKER_02:Why in the hell was that never taught in high school? I took AP US history, never brought up.
SPEAKER_07:100%. Well, I didn't take AP history, but yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I took I took four US history classes in col between community college and university. Never brought up.
SPEAKER_07:I had a horrible history teacher who personality-wise, he sucked as an individual. I don't like him. I still think about him. But he I went to a small school where he taught multiple classes. So he was like my history teacher, my government teacher. So I'm he all he was the guy that had, I've told I've probably talked about him, but he had like the old siren um alarms for the gas bombs. So he had like 30 seconds once it's allowed. Yeah. People would fall asleep in class and he'd crank them in their next to their desk, and it's like the whole the whole neighborhood's awake, bro.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But uh all the dogs are barking, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Everyone's down on their knees, like ready to read hands and knees, like duck and cover, but red scare. Yeah, but I'm just shocked that like I never I you know, just throughout history, um my own history adventure, I've never heard of her, and I think I might put her on my wall in my room.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you can now draw a picture of her. Yeah, I can. She's pretty great.
SPEAKER_07:Oh the possibilities, Kara.
SPEAKER_05:Possibilities.
SPEAKER_02:There's a lot of drawings like comics of her and stuff like that, but I think you could do your own Kara twist on it.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, please.
SPEAKER_05:All right, and there we have it. That is how Prohibition came into effect. Next time we're gonna talk about the early days of Prohibition, what happened, we're gonna chat some bootleggers, rumro, John Barleycorn, all the things.
SPEAKER_07:I'm so excited. We're gonna talk in transatlantic accents the whole time. We're gonna be talking like this, darling. I'll let you do that. I'm not gonna do that, but I'm not very good at it. I'm gonna try.
SPEAKER_05:I'm not either.
SPEAKER_07:Put some like murder mystery sound in the background just the whole time.
SPEAKER_05:We're just oh yes. That's it. I'll let you read my little narratives so every time there's not a bullet point to narrative, you can read those. I'll try. I'll try, I'll try, I'll try. Excellent. All right, so that that's it. That's all we have. Join us next time for part two of Prohibition. I'm very excited for it. Should be fun. We probably for those of you who are wondering, because I know there's going to be some, we probably won't hit all Capone until later. Just hold on to your britches, we'll get there. But that's all I have. Otherwise, usually we ask what you guys have going on, but considering I'm hogging the next like two or three episodes, I'll just skip that for now. However, please follow us, give us a like, give us a subscribe, leave a review. It helps us out a lot. Share the show with your friends or people you know. That would be good as well. If you have any questions, you can email us at thedaysdumpsterfire at gmail.com. We have a website, thedaysdumpsterfire.com, or you can hit us up on Instagram at thedaysdumpsterfire. All the things I'm sure you see a pattern. Otherwise, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And don't be don't be afraid to check out the show notes. I'll be putting links to some of our other episodes that are kind of related to this. Like this is right around the same time as the 1919 Boston molasses flood.
SPEAKER_05:So that would be direct correlation of the prohibition.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, because that whole thing started because of this and some poor engineering. Yep. So yeah, but be sure to check out the show notes because I'll I'll have links in there for some relatable episodes while you're waiting for the next one to come out.
SPEAKER_05:Cool. All right. Keep it a hot mess, guys.
SPEAKER_02:All right.
SPEAKER_07:Hotter than ever.
SPEAKER_05:Bye.