The Prohibition Movement Analysis

The numerous parallels between the prohibition of alcohol and the current drug war are uncanny. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) were the primary groups leading the prohibition movement. Both groups represented large non-partisan voting blocks and were founded in deep religious beliefs that blamed alcohol for much of society’s problems. They specialized in high pressure tactics and effectively ousted politicians who didn’t vote accordingly. In fact, the term “pressure group” was proudly coined by the ASL’s leader, Wayne Wheeler.
These groups were shameless and limitless propagandists. “Ethics be hanged,” said William Eugene “Pussyfoot” Johnson, one of the most aggressive members of the ASL. Johnson literally bribed newspapers from across the nation to print news articles under his pseudonym, “C.L. Trevitt, Literary

Prohibition went into effect at a contradictory time when American individualism and the economy were advancing. The prohibitionists or “drys” had promised that the nation’s moral compass would improve with prohibition; instead it led to nationwide rebellion and disrespect for the law. For instance, a San Francisco jury nullified a case against a bootlegger; in fact, they drank the evidence from the trial. As a sign of the times, a prohibition administrator Col. Ira L. Reeves once lamented, “I do not know of a single agent on my force who was accepted by the community in which he lived as a welcome neighbor and citizen in whom people could place confidence.” Likewise, Michael A. Lerner, author of Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City, pointed out how the stigma attached to an arrest dissipated during prohibition and even became a badge of honor for many people. In addition, NASCAR’s origins are based in the prohibition period, as people paid to watch bootleggers race away from prohibition