On the other hand, women were seen as natural supporters of temperance and so the Anti-Saloon League cautiously increased its support for the women's suffrage movement, which developed simultaneously with the temperance movement. Austin Kerr, Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League (Yale University Press, 1985), pg. The last wave of temperance was born with and led by the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), founded in the 1890s.
According to Andrew Sinclair, most of the methods used by the Anti-Saloon League to create legislative pressure were originally developed, but never fully mastered, by the WCTU.5. Furthermore, the experience gained by the Anti-Saloon League during its early years as a local organization in the state of Ohio proved invaluable in shaping the League's national efforts. For example, the Anti-Liquor League in Indiana became the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, and the initial organization's leader became a lifetime employee of the Anti-Saloon League.
A close analysis of just one of the Anti-Saloon League's publications, the American Issue, makes this very clear. Somewhere along the way, the Anti-Saloon League determined that women were respectable temperanceists worthy of the right to vote, if only on the liquor issue.
Chapter One: The Church in Action Against the Saloon
According to Cherrington, much of the long-term success of the Anti-Saloon League was due to the circumstances of its genesis. The consistency of the organization, strategy and activities of the League is due to the concentration of its power. Like almost all other aspects of the organization, what was important enough to go to press was determined by the leaders of the Anti-Saloon League.
Of course, in the early years of the Anti-Saloon League, before it fully expanded to the rest of the country, Ohio temperance news dominated the paper. Their attacks reflect a contemporary understanding that, even in the early years of the twentieth century, the Anti-Saloon League had created for itself a power-hungry, all-controlling, vindictive reputation. Throughout its history, the Anti-Saloon League suffered many defeats, even within areas of the country it had built strongholds, including its home state of Ohio.
The creation of this new publishing facility was extremely important to the Anti-Saloon League's mission and future growth into other regions of the country. Historians have paid considerable attention to the League's "browbeating and intimidation" of politicians.
Chapter Two: A Day of Calamity
In 1924, Clarence Darrow stated that “the father and mother of the Ku Klux Klan is the Anti-Saloon League. Pegram, "Hoodwinked: The Anti-Saloon League and the Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Prohibition Enforcement," The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 7, no. Careful analysis of the American edition shows that the ASL weaponized big sentiments to attract dry supporters, much as the KKK did during its revival in the 1920s.
73 Joe Coker, Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, 2007, Vol. 78 Joe Coker, Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, 2007, Vol. In 1902 the American Issue published an article under the heading "MAKE-UP OF THE SALOON VOTE.
The American Question quickly revealed at the turn of the century that the Anti-Saloon League would respond to blacks who allegedly supported saloons just as Southern racists would. 90 Joe Coker, Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, 2007, pg. 103 Coker, Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, Pg.
It is this accountability…that has contributed to the disenfranchisement of the colored race in the South. 107 For another story accusing black voters of being purchasable and corrupt, see the following from the American Issue: March 10, 1905, pg. 112 Coker, Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, Pg.
In 1902, a contemporary writing about Prohibition in Alabama declared: "The stronghold of whiskey power in the state has been eliminated by. Furthermore, the American Issue claimed "that whiskey was also the inspiring agent of the white mob". The American Issue claimed that "so much of the South has put the saloon out in self-defense.
However, the Anti-Saloon League continued to apply racist sentiment and pressure to other wet areas of the nation. However, the disenfranchisement of black Americans was not the only issue of voting rights that the Anti-Saloon League became embroiled in, primarily through its own pages in the American Issue.
Chapter Three: Back to the Path of Sobriety
Reports from the American Issue indicate that as early as 1900 the ASL had close ties with members of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Some of the skepticism and criticism of the WCTU's new direction came from women themselves. However, in an effort to build influence on its own behalf, the Anti-Saloon League supported ongoing WCTU campaigns at the turn of the century.
182 For other stories covering women's pledges and petitions, see the following American Issue: October 1900, Pg. Other instances of discreet female workers providing parlor substitutes may be found in the following issues of the American Issue: December 20, 1901, p. 7; Other instances of female temperance workers serving food during temperance meetings may be found in the following issues of the American Issue: August 22, 1902, p.
189 For another story highlighting WCTU women serving food during election days, see the following in the American Issue: May 1900, p. For other stories covering the WCTU's distribution of temperance literature, provided by ASL, see the following in the American Issue : July 1900, pp. In the eyes of many, women were seen as the main underserved victims of the salons.
One of the first times that the American Question even touched on the subject of women's suffrage, or lack thereof, was quite unique. The editors of the Anti-Saloon League had cautiously given their personal approval, but the silence from the headquarters of the organization remained deafening. The term "suffrage" appeared roughly a dozen times in the pages of the American Question between 1900 and 1903.
An August report on the state of Idaho indicated a growing sense of temperance and, consequently, the arrival of the Anti-Saloon League there. Another story at the end of the year brought news of “favorable results of women's suffrage” in Colorado. 219 A selection of these can be found in the following issues of the American Issue: February 2, 1906, Pg.
Page five of the July 20, 1906 edition of the American Affair provided a comprehensive analysis of women's suffrage throughout the world, including the United States. Seven pages later, American Issue readers learned of the results of the Ohio Anti-Saloon League Convention held in Columbus, Ohio on November 13, 1906.
Conclusion
Despite the Anti-Saloon League continuing to grow and seize political power under Prohibition, the Volstead's mandate for simultaneous enforcement by both federal and local agencies the. By simply examining the publications of the Anti-Saloon League, this thesis shows that single-issue pressure groups have the power to change even those rights protected by the Constitution. Although the Anti-Saloon League is considered by many historians to be the first official.
Additionally, for some issues, such as abortion rights, there are countless organizations involved in lobbying, political action, and advocacy on both sides of the debate. Worse, the reshaping of the electoral landscape that was once supposed to serve prohibition efforts is still ongoing. 237 I believe this to be nothing more than the wave of Southern legislation that freed Americans during the crystallization of Prohibition sentiment and the rise of the Anti-Saloon League.
235 Brian Schwartz, “The National Rifle Association's Lobbying Machine Still Potent Despite Financial Troubles That Reduced Its Influence,” CNBC, May 27, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com nra-holds-convention-has-lobbying - cash -after-texas-school-shooting.html. 237 "Voter Suppression's Impact on Communities of Color | Brennan Center for Justice," 10 Jan. 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/impact-voter-suppression-communities-color. When one considers the ever-expanding presence of modern media in all its various forms, the impact the Anti-Saloon League had on America through mere printed newspapers, books, and pamphlets becomes startling.
The same types of fear-mongering and polarizing tactics used by the Anti-Saloon League in the years leading up to and during Prohibition seem to be on the rise in modern decades. It believed that most societal problems stemmed from the uncontrolled salon industry and viewed anyone who opposed prohibition as part of the problem. While the issue of alcohol no longer causes polarizing arguments in the United States today, similar tactics to those deployed by the Anti-Saloon League can be clearly seen in other areas such as guns and abortion rights.
Unfortunately, forms of voter restriction are also still pursued and advocated by certain interest groups and politicians. Well after America's liquor stores, saloons and bars reopen, the same cycle of polarizing topics, single issue groups and attempted voter suppression continues. By better understanding the nature of powerful, single-issue pressure groups such as the Anti-Saloon League, the first such organization in our nation's history, we can be more alert and prepared to face the same unfortunate developments we see in our country. see to combat. today, more than a hundred years after the Confederacy expressed its belief that the South would have to apply "special preventive and precautionary measures".238.
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