The Flying Squadron of America (sometimes called Hanly's Flying Squadron) was a temperance organization that staged a nationwide campaign to promote the temperance movement in the United States. It was informally organized by J. Frank Hanly after the National Temperance Council, and its goal was prohibition, [1] specifically "A Saloonless Nation by 1920" as its member Ira Landrith stated [2] The Squadron was a non-political and inter-denominational organization. [3] In its members' own words, their "immediate and sole object is the inauguration and execution of a great forward movement for the national destruction of the liquor traffic." [4]
The Flying Squadron of America consisted of three groups of revivalist-like speakers who toured cities across the country, starting in Peoria, Illinois on September 30, 1914. The three groups covered three cities each day, and in the South visited South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana. Further West they visited Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming before heading East. The final leg of their journey began in Cheyenne, Wyoming on April 13, when they followed each other through Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York. Their final convention occurred in Atlantic City, New Jersey on June 6, 1915, marking the end of the tour. [5]
The first traveling group of the Squadron was led by Daniel A. Poling and Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, the second by Ira Landrith and Dr. Carolyn E. Geisel, and the third by Oliver W. Stewart and J. Frank Hanly, who was the creator of the Squadron.
These groups traveled 42,000 miles, [2] and had already covered 88 cities and made between 3,000 and 4,000 speeches by Cincinnati, Ohio on December 20. [3] Across all three groups, the Squadron spent 2 to 3 days in each city, giving between 12 and 25 addresses in many cities. [6] Each Flying Squadron session was open to the public without an admission fee. [7] The meetings were often held at churches, and were opened and interspersed with music provided by members traveling with the Squadron. Some of these musicians included Dr. D. V. Poling, William Lowell Patton, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Butler, Miss Vera K. Mullin, Miss Iris Robinson, and Miss Hallie McNeill. [2]
The Squadron was financially supported in part by their treasurer John B. Lewis. Ten years into retirement, Lewis was known for devoting his time to philanthropy and the temperance movement, and contributed $10,000 to the Squadron's cause. [8]
These speakers used "scientific inquiries" to convince their audiences that alcohol was dangerous, and Dr. Geisel at one point was quoted stating that "In beer drinking Munich seventy-two out of every 100 children born are physically deficient, while in prohibition Maine seventy-one and one-half out of every 100 are physically perfect." [5] In one speech Dr. Geisel also specifically addressed the women of America by asking them to remember that "God made [women] to be mothers of men and something has gone wrong with this important business of man raising ... the business is ruined by the existence of the saloon." [9] Other speakers used the fear of alcoholism to sway their crowd as well, with member Ira Landrith stating the following in North Carolina; "if the saloon is permitted to do its work with and for [an individual], he will be fit neither to live nor to live with." [5]
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, making it the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed.
The Prohibition Party is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movement. It is the oldest existing third party in the United States and the third-longest active party.
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The Anti-Saloon League, now known as the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems, is an organization of the temperance movement in the United States.
Eugene Wilder Chafin was an American politician and writer who served as the Prohibition Party's presidential candidate during the 1908 and 1912 presidential elections. He was active in local politics in Wisconsin, statewide elections in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Arizona, and campaigned throughout the United States and the world in favor of the prohibition of alcohol.
James Franklin Hanly was an American politician who served as a congressman from Indiana from 1895 until 1897, and was the 26th governor of Indiana from 1905 to 1909. He was the founder of Hanly's Flying Squadron, which advocated prohibition nationally and played an important role in arousing public support for prohibition.
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.
James Cannon Jr. was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected in 1918. He was a prominent leader in the temperance movement in the United States in the 1920s, until derailed by scandal. H. L. Mencken said in 1934: "Six years ago he was the undisputed boss of the United States. Congress was his troop of Boy Scouts, and Presidents trembled whenever his name was mentioned.... But since that time there has been a violent revolution, and his whole world is in collapse."
Marie Caroline Brehm was an American prohibitionist, suffragist, and politician. The Head of the suffrage department for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she was a key figure in the Prohibition Party and Presbyterian Church, active in both local and national politics, and an advocate of reform laws. Twice she was appointed by the President to represent the United States at the World's Anti-Alcoholic Congress in Europe. Additionally, she was the first woman to run for the Vice President of the United States after the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.
A Western saloon is a kind of bar particular to the Old West. Saloons served customers such as fur trappers, cowboys, soldiers, lumberjacks, businessmen, lawmen, outlaws, miners, and gamblers. A saloon might also be known as a "watering trough, bughouse, shebang, cantina, grogshop, and gin mill". The first saloon was established at Brown's Hole, Wyoming, in 1822, to serve fur trappers.
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.
A dry state was a state in the United States in which the manufacture, distribution, importation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited or tightly restricted. Some states, such as North Dakota, entered the United States as dry states, and others went dry after the passage of prohibition legislation or the Volstead Act. No state remains completely dry, but some states do contain dry counties.
The 1915 Alberta liquor plebiscite was the first plebiscite to ask voters in Alberta whether the province should implement prohibition by ratifying the proposed Liquor Act. The plebiscite was the culmination of years of lobbying by the province's temperance movements and agricultural groups, and was proposed through the recently implemented form of direct democracy, the Direct Legislation Act. Alberta voters approved the plebiscite on prohibition, which was implemented eleven months after the vote. The June 21, 1915 plebiscite was the first of three province-wide plebiscites held in a seven-year period related to liquor in Alberta.
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Ira Landrith was an American Presbyterian minister and temperance activist. A known orator, Landrith was part of the Flying Squadron of America, which traveled the United States advocating for 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.
Oliver Wayne Stewart was an American politician who served as the chairman of the Prohibition Party and in the Illinois state House of Representatives.
Fillmore Condit was an American inventor, temperance activist and local politician serving New Jersey and later Long Beach, California.