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Religion, Politics and Prohibition: The Road to Temperance in Winchester, Virginia
Ryan Hart
Spring, 2012
Dr. Denkler, Advisor
Shenandoah University
On the night of January 29th, 1933, Winchester, Virginia police officers received a tip that a shipment of illegal alcohol was going to arrive in the city. The tip alleged that “Dukes” Campbell, a local Prohibition-era criminal, was smuggling liquor from a nearby city, and the police were on the look out. Officers Cline and Bowers responded to a car of similar make and model. As they approached, Dukes fled. A short car chase ensued, ending when Dukes crashed his vehicle on the corner of Kern Street and Virginia Avenue. Dukes and perhaps another assailant escaped, but police were able to confiscate about twenty-five gallons of liquor as well as the wrecked car. For now, Dukes was on the run.[1]
This particular event was not of major importance, and it was by no means a large shipment of alcohol. However, it does give us a glimpse as to what residents of Winchester, Virginia were forced to do to procure alcohol during Prohibition. Through information reported by the city’s local newspaper, the Winchester Star, we see that breaking Prohibition laws was something that was a fairly common occurrence, and residents used many different means to obtain their alcohol. The stereotypical bootleggers and rumrunners were alive and well in the city during Prohibition. In addition, large distilleries could be found in surrounding areas, including Frederick County.[2] Winchester was far from a ‘dry’ city, despite exercising local option prohibition laws well before the Volstead Act and the Eighteenth Amendment.
Admittedly, there is very little scholarly writing specifically relating to the history of Winchester and Frederick County from the late 19th century to the beginning of Prohibition in 1920. This research, then, aims to fill this gap. Also, by examining how the prohibition movement in the area was committed to, circumvented, and at the center of local and statewide political battles, this paper argues that examining Winchester and Frederick County on a microcosmic level yields a new level of insight and understanding of this period of American history. Closely examining a local area helps provide a greater understanding of the motives and effects of the national Prohibition movement, thanks in large part to the actions of the local chapters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League, as well as legislation put forth by state and local lawmakers. These dichotomies provide historically relevant means to analyze the temperance movement on the local, state, and federal levels, as well as help explain the differences in application and enforcement of Prohibition-era legislation.
There are few things as deeply entrenched in American history as drinking alcohol. Puritan John Winthrop’s boat, on it’s way to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had over 10,000 gallons of wine on hand, and had more than three times as much beer aboard than water. Frederick Marryat, an English traveler to America, commented on America’s obsession with drink in 1839:
“I am sure Americans can fix nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink; If you part, you drink; if you make 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 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 the grave.”[3]
Today, this view seems almost comical, but it certainly wasn’t an exaggeration. In fact, it is estimated that the average American drank 1.7 bottles of 80-proof liquor each week, or, about 90 bottles a year in 1830. That equates to roughly three times the amount of alcohol consumed today.[4] One can only imagine the problems a society would face with this sort of consumption. Joblessness and violence came with a society of heavy drinkers. These societal problems spawned many early temperance movements, many of which struggled to gain traction, perhaps in part because of the ingrained tradition of drinking in the country, or due to the fact that they were generally not cohesive groups.
As alcohol consumption increased, so did the prevalence of saloons. In San Francisco in 1890, it is estimated that there was one saloon for every 96 citizens–even taking in to account women, children, and abstainers.[5] With the rise of the saloon, though, came a target for temperance groups;these groups now had something to fight. Temperance groups saw saloons as the epicenter of wickedness–despicable places that had only a negative effect on society. The most influential temperance organizations were able to hone their resources to attack saloons and eliminate the source of these problems.
Morality vs. Politics – The Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League
In the late 19th and early 20th century, there were two national organizations lobbying for temperance in America: the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and the Anti-Saloon League (ASL). Both groups were incredibly important in furthering the dry cause throughout the country, but interestingly enough, both had diametrically different means of accomplishing their goals. The WCTU took the approach of their motto, “Agitate, Educate, Organize,”and wasmore interested in stirring up public moral support for their cause.[6] The Anti-Saloon League, on the other hand, took a much different approach. The group focused on incremental political victories, like filling state and federal legislative seats with “dry” representatives. This approach ultimately led to bigger victories, like states passing prohibition legislation, and, ultimately, a national Prohibition amendment.[7] These differences caused the two groups to have differing levels of effectiveness on different levels of government. As with much of the country, the divergent tactics of the ASL and WCTU meant that the groups did not affect Winchester and Frederick County in the same way. The impact of the WCTU’s moral crusade and the ASL’s legislative reform had very different results in this area.
The WCTU became popular in the late 19th century, as manycitizens began to believe that many of the problems that society faced, like joblessness and violence, were due to the consumption of alcohol. The WCTU subsequently protested saloons through non-violent means, like shaming tavern keepers and holding silent sit-ins. Much of their work was done in a grassroots fashion, gaining local support through speeches and rallies or by educating the population on the dangers of alcohol. The WCTU even encouraged temperance instruction in both Sunday school and public school. Thomas Pegram, a preeminent temperance scholar, contends that the WCTU not only “revived prohibition as a political force”, but also “challenged the legal subordination of American women.”[8] The WCTU allowed for males to join the organization, but they were restricted from voting. This restriction helped guarantee the role women played within the group. The WCTU, in addition to its being a powerful temperance organization, served as one of the nation’s first reformist organizations for women, revealing their new public and politicized roles in American society.
The popularity of the organization spread as many saloons succumbed to the pressure exerted by the WCTU.[9] The Virginia WCTU originated in 1883, and in 1885 held their 3rd annual State Convention in Winchester. Present at this convention was the most influential figure in WCTU history, Frances Willard.[10] Willard was one of the original founders of the WCTU, and five years after its formation, she was elected President of the organization. Daniel Okrent characterized Willard’s life after this election as a “field general, propagandist, chief theoretician and nearly a deity to a 250,000 member army.”[11] She almost single-handedly turned the WCTU into one of the most influential organizations of the late 19th century. Contributing to this rise was the fact that Willard succeeded in garnering the support of many influential figures during her tenure, most notably the famous feminist Susan B. Anthony. Accordingly, not only was the scope of the WCTU’s agenda broadened, but the size of the organization increased as well. Willard pushed for the passage of temperance legislation, but as a self-proclaimed “Christian socialist,”she also argued for causes like universal suffrage, public education, and less restrictive women’s clothing. She was an excellent orator and made many public appearances in every state, as well as abroad. It is estimated that during a ten-year period she made more than 3,000 public appearances and speeches–averaging one a day[12]–and in one year made an appearance in every state capital except Idaho and Arizona.[13] Little is known of her visit to Winchester in 1885, and there is no record of a speech given. However, the mere fact that she attended the Convention would have caused quite a stir. It also shows that Virginia’s stance on prohibition was important enough for the national leader of the WCTU to make an appearance.
In Winchester in the late 19th and early 20th century, the WCTU flourished. Founded in 1884, one year after the formation of the Virginia WCTU, the Winchester Chapter of the WCTU had about 90 members after its first year. At the WCTU State Convention in 1885, Virginia WCTU Secretary Anna Fultz reported that “[t]he Winchester Union… [has] circulated temperance literature in public meetings and in private houses, held prayer meetings regularly . . . held parlor meetings, circulated the pledge and raised $46.10 for local work.”[14] As years went by, the membership and popularity of the group grew. The group held public rallies and invited notable speakers to address the citizens of Winchester. In addition to Willard’s appearance,one such notable speaker was Carrie Nation. Carrie Nation gained notoriety in the United States after being arrested more than thirty times for attacking saloons with hatchets in Kansas. In her autobiography, she describes one such attack:
“I ran behind the bar smashed the mirror and all the bottles under it; picked up the cash register, threw it down; then broke the faucets of the register, opened the door and cut the rubber tubes that conducted the beer. Of course it began to fly all over the house. I threw over the slot machine, breaking it up and I got from it a sharp piece of iron which I opened the bungs of the beer kegs, and opened the faucets of the barrels, and then the beer flew in ever direction and I was completely saturated. A policeman came in and very good-naturedly arrested me.”[15]
She paid the fines associated with these crimes by touring the nation, giving fiery speeches and, fittingly, selling souvenir hatchets. She also founded a WCTU chapter in her hometown in Kansas and was a national figurehead for the temperance movement.[16] The WCTU hosted Carrie Nation in Winchester on April 21st and 22nd of 1908. By this time, the Winchester chapter of the WCTU had well over a hundred members, including numerous honorary male members. They held biweekly meetings and even (unsuccessfully) petitioned the Winchester Star to post minutes of these meetings for the public to read.[17]
On the national level, the WCTU’s power and influence waned after the death of Frances Willard in 1898. Willard was respected as a tremendous and hard-working leader. She devoted her life to the temperance movement, and her successors struggled to fill the void. Perhaps more pivotal to the decline of the WCTU than Willard’s death was the rise of the Anti-Saloon League. After the ASL slowly proved that it was better at changing legislation than the WCTU, funding and membership were directed towards the ASL. Even Anna Gordon, the President of the WCTU when the Prohibition Amendment passed, realized this after the organization was unable to afford a key speaker. She remarked, “[We] lack the funds to push work we call on [speakers] to do. The Anti-Saloon League has money.”[18] The WCTU never truly made an impact on the national level after Willard’s death. Instead, that power was handed over to the ASL.
Although the WCTU did make some progress in the temperance movement on the national scale, the Anti-Saloon League truly made strides in securing the prohibition of alcohol. As historian Christine Sismondo contends, the Anti-Saloon League
employed an aggressive yet nonpartisan approach; it identified the culprit as the saloon as opposed to alcohol; its organizational structure was corporate as opposed to democratic; and it had the single most ambitious publishing and public relations department of any organization to date, producing a barrage of incendiary literature pumped out in unprecedented volumes.[19]
Founded in 1893, the ASL was initially a small state society. However, just ten short years later, the organization had exploded in popularity. There were State Conventions held in 43 separate states by 1904. Virginia’s own Anti-Saloon League chapter was created in March 1901, although it was recognized on paper as early as 1896.[20]
The Anti-Saloon League was incredibly powerful across the country because it was able to impact politics and policy, rather than just protest saloons like the WCTU had done. Scholars contend that one of the main reasons why the WCTU failed to have a powerful impact on legislation is because there were too many divergent ideas on how the organization should be run. Some argued for education, some moderation, others complete prohibition. There was little agreement on direction, and as a result, the WCTU failed to have a legitimate impact on legislation.[21] The Anti-Saloon League did not have this same problem. There was a single goal of the ASL–abolish the saloon through legislative means. The fanatical Carrie Nation’s of the temperance movement were replaced by calculated political action, and this technique proved to be much a more effective approach to secure Prohibition.
To accomplish this goal, the ASL had a very systematic strategy. Unlike the WCTU, who supported the Prohibition Party, the ASL was a nonpartisan organization, meaning they did not support any particular party. Rather, they supported any candidate that had views that aligned with their own. Part of the reason for the WCTU’s demise was the fact that they aligned themselves with the Prohibition Party.[22] After the Prohibition Party fell out of favor, so did the support of the WCTU. Since the ASL chose a nonpartisan approach, they were never associated with the positive or negative connotations of a party–a true single-issue organization. Also, the ASL realized the importance of small, incremental, realistic gains, as opposed to a long road to national Prohibition. To be sure, they felt that Prohibition was attainable, but not until a majority of states in the country had gone dry, and public sentiment leaned in their favor. So, the ASL initially focused on candidates within state legislatures. Any candidate that believed in the enforcement of prohibition would receive support from the ASL.[23]
A preferred method of the ASL, at least in states that had anti-Prohibition sentiment, was to opt for local-option prohibition laws. These laws were, in essence, local referenda that determined whether or not alcohol would be sold in a particular area. These areas could include cities, counties, or even states.[24] This same form of governance was exercised in Winchester, and will be discussed later in this essay. The citizens of Winchester were offered the chance to vote on Prohibition within the city in 1908. This had been done in Frederick County about twenty years prior.
The impact that the Anti-Saloon League had on the Winchester area, however, may be hard to estimate. The ASL of Frederick County was founded in 1906 in Stephens City, twenty-two years after the WCTU was created in Winchester. It may be argued that the power of the ASL led to the town being dry only two short years later, but on the other hand, the WCTU had been in the area for more than twenty years prior. The ASL may have very well capitalized on the groundwork laid by the WCTU. The President of the Frederick County ASL, Charles Clevenger, spoke to citizens in August of 1908, praising them for their work in making Winchester a dry city:
“at these times [last year], Winchester was still under the saloonblight, although it had been abolished from the county for about a score of years.[25] But today. . .there is not a licensed saloon in either city or county.”[26]
Evidence suggests that,at least in Winchester, the ASL did not have the impact that many scholars attribute to it. One notable scholar on the subject, Austin Kerr, argues that the ASL was unlike any other special interest group America had ever seen, and it was the first modern interest group in the country in its organization and actions.[27] While this may be true on the national and, perhaps, even state level, Winchester’s local temperance movement was more strongly influenced by the WCTU and its followers. From the evidence available, there is nothing showing that the ASL accomplished much in the area. While the WCTU invited speakers, had regular meetings and increased its membership over the years, there is no evidence that the ASL did the same. This lack of evidence, though, does not definitively prove that the ASL did nothing to further the dry cause in the area.