Successor | American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems |
---|---|
Formation | 1893 |
Founded at | Oberlin, Ohio |
Type | Nonprofit |
Legal status | Defunct |
Purpose | Activism |
Leader | Wayne Wheeler |
The Anti-Saloon League, now known the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems, is an organization of the temperance movement in the United States. [1]
Founded in 1893 in Oberlin, Ohio, it was a key component of the Progressive Era, and was strongest in the South and rural North, drawing support from Protestant ministers and their congregations, especially Methodists, Baptists, Disciples and Congregationalists. [2] It concentrated on legislation, and cared about how legislators had voted, not whether they drank or not. Established initially as an Ohio state society, its influence spread rapidly. In 1895, it became a national organization and quickly rose to become the most powerful prohibition lobby in America, overshadowing the older Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party. Its triumph was nationwide prohibition locked into the Constitution with passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919. It was decisively defeated when Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
However, the organization continued – albeit with multiple name changes – and as of 2016, is known as the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems. It remains active in lobbying to restrict alcohol advertising and promoting temperance. [3] Its periodical is titled The American Issue . Member organizations of the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems include "state temperance organizations, national Christian denominations and other fraternal organizations that support ACAAP's philosophy of abstinence". [4]
The League was the first modern pressure group in the United States organized around one issue. Unlike earlier popular movements, it utilized bureaucratic methods learned from business to build a strong organization. [5] The League's founder and first leader, [6] Howard Hyde Russell (1855–1946), believed that the best leadership was selected, not elected. Russell built from the bottom up, shaping local leagues and raising the most promising young men to leadership at the local and state levels. This organizational strategy reinvigorated the temperance movement. [7] Publicity for the League was handled by Edward Young Clarke and Mary Elizabeth Tyler of the Southern Publicity Association. [8]
In 1909, the League moved its national headquarters from Washington to Westerville, Ohio, which had a reputation for supporting temperance. The American Issue Publishing House, the publishing arm of the League, was also in Westerville. Ernest Cherrington headed the company. It printed so many leaflets – over 40 tons of mail per month – that Westerville was the smallest town to have a first class post office.
From 1948 until 1950 the group was named the Temperance League, from 1950 to 1964 the National Temperance League, and from 1964 to 2015 the American Council on Alcohol Problems (ACAP); [7] in 2016 the group rebranded as the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems (ACAAP). [9] As of 2020 [update] the organization continues its "neo-prohibitionist agenda", [10] with the addition of "other drugs" such as opioids. [11] ACAAP is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. [11]
A museum about the Anti-Saloon League is at the Westerville Public Library. [12]
The League's most prominent leader was Wayne Wheeler, although both Ernest Cherrington and William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson were also highly influential and powerful. The League used pressure politics in legislative politics, which it is credited with developing. [13]
Howard Ball has written that the Ku Klux Klan and the Anti-Saloon league were both immensely powerful pressure groups in Birmingham, Alabama during the Post-World War I period. A local newspaper editor at the time wrote that "In Alabama, it is hard to tell where the Anti-Saloon League ends and the Klan begins". [14] During the May 1928 primary in Alabama, the League joined with Klansmen and members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). When an Alabama state senator proposed an anti-masking statute "to emasculate the order's ability to terrorize people", lobbying led by J. Bib Mills, the superintendent of the Alabama Anti-Saloon League, ensured that the bill failed. [15]
When it came to fighting “wet” candidates, especially candidates such as Al Smith in the presidential election of 1928, the League was less effective because its audience was already Republican.[ citation needed ]
The League used a multitiered approach in its attempts to secure a dry (prohibition) nation through national legislation and congressional hearings, the Scientific Temperance Federation, and its American Issue Publishing Company. The League also used emotion based on patriotism, efficiency and anti-German sentiment in World War I. The activists saw themselves as preachers fulfilling their religious duty of eliminating liquor in America. [16] As it tried to mobilize public opinion in favor of a dry, saloonless nation, the League invented many of the modern techniques of public relations. [17]
The League lobbied at all levels of government for legislation to prohibit the manufacture or import of spirits, beer and wine. Ministers had launched several efforts to close Arizona saloons after the 1906 creation of League chapters in Yuma, Tucson, and Phoenix. A League organizer from New York arrived in 1909, but the Phoenix chapter was stymied by local-option elections, whereby local areas could decide whether to allow saloons. League members pressured local police to take licenses from establishments that violated closing hours or served women and minors, and they provided witnesses to testify about these violations. One witness was Frank Shindelbower, a juvenile from a poor family, who testified that several saloons had sold him liquor; as a result those saloons lost their licenses. However, owners discovered that Shindelbower had perjured himself, and he was imprisoned. After the Arizona Gazette and other newspapers pictured Shindelbower as the innocent tool of the Anti-Saloon League, he was pardoned. [18]
At the state level, the League had mixed results, usually doing best in rural and Southern states. It made little headway in larger cities, or among liturgical church members such as Catholics, Jews, Episcopalians and German Lutherans. Pegram (1990) explains its success in Illinois under William Hamilton Anderson. From 1900 and 1905, the League worked to obtain a local option referendum law and became an official church federation. Local Option was passed in 1907 and, by 1910, 40 of Illinois's 102 counties and 1,059 of the state's townships and precincts had become dry, including some Protestant areas around Chicago. Despite these successes, after the Prohibition amendment was ratified in 1919, social problems ignored by the League – such as organized crime – undermined the public influence of the single-issue pressure group, and it faded in importance. [19] Pegram (1997) uses the League's failure in Maryland to explore the relationship between Southern Progressivism and national progressivism. William H. Anderson was the League's Maryland leader from 1907 to 1914, but he was unable to adapt to local conditions, such as the large German element. The League failed to ally with local political bosses and attacked the Democratic Party. In Maryland, as in the rest of the South, Pegram concludes, traditional religious, political, and racial concerns constrained reform movements even as they converted Southerners to the new national politics of federal intervention and interest-group competition. [20]
William M. Forgrave was superintendent of the Massachusetts Anti-Saloon League from 1923 to 1928. In his first year as leader, the statewide referendum on the state's liquor enforcement code was passed by a majority of 8,000 votes. The same referendum had been defeated by 103,000 votes two years eariler. [21] In 1928, the Massachusetts House of Representatives voted 97 to 93 to censure him and strip him of his right to act as a legislative agent after he made unsubstantiated allegations the Massachusetts General Court held a "wild party" and gave away liquor confiscated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety. [22] [23] The Senate rejected the amendment because Forgrave had censured without a hearing. [24] He resigned as superintendent on November 27, 1928 due to his impending divorce. [21] [25]
Unable to cope with the failures of prohibition after 1928, especially bootlegging and organized crime as well as reduced government revenue, the League failed to counter the repeal forces. Led by prominent Democrats, Franklin D. Roosevelt handily won the U.S. presidency election in 1932 on a wet platform. A new Constitutional amendment passed in 1933 to repeal the 18th Amendment, and the League lost much of its former influence afterwards.
As of 2016, the organization is now known as the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems and remains active in lobbying to restrict alcohol advertising and promoting temperance. [3] It additionally aims to reduce alcohol consumption by Americans. [1] Member organizations of the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems include "state temperance organizations, national Christian denominations and other fraternal organizations that support ACAAP's philosophy of abstinence". [4]
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933—the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed.
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol, either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the complete prohibition of it.
Westerville is a city in Franklin and Delaware counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. A northeastern suburb of Columbus as well as the home of Otterbein University, the population was 39,190 at the 2020 census.
Ernest Hurst Cherrington was a leading temperance journalist. He became active in the Anti-Saloon League and was appointed editor of the organization's publishing house, the American Issue Publishing Company. He edited and contributed to the writing of The Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, a comprehensive six-volume work. In addition, he was active in establishing the World League Against Alcoholism.
Howard Hyde Russell was an American lawyer and clergyman, the founder of the Anti-Saloon League.
The World League Against Alcoholism (WLAA) was organized by the Anti-Saloon League, whose goal became establishing prohibition not only in the United States but throughout the entire world.
The American Issue Publishing Company, incorporated in 1909, was the holding company of the Anti-Saloon League of America. Its printing presses operated 24 hours a day and it employed 200 people in the small town of Westerville, Ohio, where the company had its headquarters. Within the first three years of its existence the publishing house was producing about 250,000,000 book pages per month, and the quantity increased yearly. This dwarfed the output of the National Temperance Society and Publishing House, which took over half a century to print one billion pages.
In the United States, the nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages, was repealed by the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.
The Crusaders was an organization founded to promote the repeal of prohibition in the United States. The executive board consisted of fifty members, including Alfred Sloan, Jr., Sewell Avery, Cleveland Dodge, and Wallage Alexander. They wanted the government to create stronger laws regarding drunkenness.
The American Temperance Society (ATS), also known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, was a society established on February 13, 1826, in Boston, Massachusetts. Within five years there were 2,220 local chapters in the U.S. with 170,000 members who had taken a pledge to abstain from drinking distilled beverages, though not including wine and beer; it permitted the medicinal use of alcohol as well. Within ten years, there were over 8,000 local groups and more than 1,250,000 members who had taken the pledge.
The Westerville Public Library is a public library that serves the community of Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. As a school district library, its geographic boundaries are defined by the Westerville City School District which is located in both Franklin County and Delaware County. All Ohio residents can apply for a Westerville Public Library card.
Wayne Bidwell Wheeler was an American attorney and longtime leader of the Anti-Saloon League. The leading advocate of the prohibitionist movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he played a major role in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages.
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
In the United States, the temperance movement, which sought to curb the consumption of alcohol, had a large influence on American politics and American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the prohibition of alcohol, through the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, from 1920 to 1933. Today, there are organizations that continue to promote the cause of temperance.
The Temperance movement began over 40 years before the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was introduced. Across the country different groups began lobbying for temperance by arguing that alcohol was morally corrupting and hurting families economically, when men would drink their family's money away. This temperance movement paved the way for some women to join the Prohibition movement, which they often felt was necessary due to their personal experiences dealing with drunk husbands and fathers, and because it was one of the few ways for women to enter politics in the era. One of the most notable groups that pushed for Prohibition was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. On the other end of the spectrum was the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform, who were instrumental in getting the 18th Amendment repealed. The latter organization argued that Prohibition was a breach of the rights of American citizens and frankly ineffective due to the prevalence of bootlegging.
William Matthew Forgrave was an American minister and temperance activist who served as Superintendent of the Massachusetts Anti-Saloon League from 1924 to 1928. He later worked as a stock broker and was convicted of larceny.
Georgia May Jobson (1860–1924) was an American temperance reformer. She served as President of the Richmond-Henrico County Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1903–1910), before becoming the first President of the Woman's Prohibition League of America (1910–1924).
Alice Cary McKinney was an American temperance and social reformer. She served as President of the Louisiana Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
Ann Watt Milne was a Scotch temperance leader who served as president of the British Women's Temperance Association (BWTA).
The American Council on Alcohol Problems (ACAP) is a national organization with branches in 37 of the 50 states. In contemporary terms, ACAP focuses on reducing the number of alcohol advertisements available within the United States, decreasing the availability of alcohol and alcohol-related products, and encouraging Americans to reduce alcohol consumption.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)