Prohibition Party

a political party of the United States. Its avowed purpose is the prohibition of traffic in alcoholic drinks. It was organized in 1869. The party put its first presidential ticket in the field in 1872, receiving 5,607 votes. The candidates in 1900 received 207,820 votes; in 1908, 253,119. The party has refused to take up other issues. The single issue was defined clearly by the national platform of 1892:

"The liquor traffic is a foe to civilization, the arch enemy of popular government, and a public nuisance. It is the citadel of the forces that corrupt politics, promote poverty and crime, degrade the nation's home life, thwart the will of the people, and deliver our country into the hands of rapacious class interests. All laws that, under the guise of regulation, legalize and protect this traffic, or make the government share in its ill-gotten gains, are 'vicious in principle and powerless as a remedy.' We declare anew for the entire suppression of the manufacture, sale, importation, exportation, and transportation of alcoholic liquors as a beverage by federal and state legislation. The full powers of government should be exerted to secure this result. No party that fails to recognize the dominant nature of this issue in American politics, deserves the support of the people."

In 1909 prohibitory laws were in force in Maine, Kansas, North Dakota, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. In South Carolina the sale of liquors at retail was for a time restricted to agents chosen by the state under a statute known as the Dispensary Law. In all of the states the voters are authorized to exclude the liquor traffic from their respective localities. They have done so in many counties, towns, and cities. Prohibition authorities claim that, during the years 1904-9, 20,000,000 American people have been included in the states and parts of states added to prohibition territory. According to the United States internal revenue bureau, the manufacture of alcoholic liquors fell off 40,000,000 gallons in 1908. The view of the situation taken by the saloon men was set forth by Secretary Jerry Sullivan at the May, 1909, meeting of the International Bartenders' League of America:

We are free to admit that our opponents have caused us some annoyance; that we surrendered doing business with former locals with mighty poor grace, and gave vent to fervid hope that the apex of the wave that was sweeping over the land had passed and that tranquil conditions would be with us long ere this. Instead of realizing our wishes, we are still confronted with the increased momentum of the storm; a storm that has been vigorous and unceasing, destroying with what seemed little effort locals whose foundations appeared to be unshakable, scattering the members of such to all four points of the compass, some carrying mental wounds that will not heal short of several years of steady employment under most favorable conditions.

I would be guilty of reckless assertion and unfaithful to my trust were I to hold out to you surcease from these troubles in the very near future. The opposition to licensed cafes and saloons, which affects every man and woman in this International Union, has, according to the best authorities, but started seriously to impose restrictive legislation; they have just begun, and if what has been accomplished is any criterion to go by, when they get started there is no telling where they will finally stop.

Originally the prohibition agitators were regarded with little or no concern. That has changed within the last six years to such an extent that their campaign for "dry legislation" has actually become the greatest movement this country has ever witnessed, compelling attention but very little positive, tangible, aggressiveness on the part of those whose interests were at stake. In fact we make bold to assert that our international union has done more campaigning in opposition to the anti-saloon agitators than all of the other allied organizations directly and indirectly connected with the traffic. It seems but a few short years since the opposition could only boast of two dry states, Maine and Kansas, aggregating a total of something like 115,120 square miles of territory; today they can boast of 407,602 square miles under state prohibition, and 1,836,895 square miles under local option laws, while there remains to us, and those like us, that depend on the traffic for a livelihood, exactly 1,303,249 square miles undisturbed by restrictive legislation. That means more than two-thirds of the United States where the saloon and cafes where intoxicating beverages were formerly sold have gone out of business and those who were employed swallowed up in that fearfully and ever-increasing national problem, the army of the unemployed.

To you fellow members and those whom you represent, the question is not one of ethics, but of your future salvation; it is down to that common ground where that home expression is apropos: it's a case of talking brass tacks; it means bread and butter for you and those dependent on you. You and your members are right where you must decide what you can and shall do to retain what you have; if you belong to the indifferent guards, you will smile and say that you will wait until it happens to you before you worry; several thousands of your fellow members occupied that position and declined to wake up; they are roaming around the land now seeking jobs at any price or at any vocation. If your future bread and butter is worth five, ten, or fifteen cents a week; if you have the backbone to take a chance and are willing to put up the coin, you will enable those whom you elect as your executive board, to lay plans and follow out a campaign that may prove successful; it will at least give your representatives an opportunity of teaching some of the citizens of the land that prohibition spells idleness for many good and faithful men and women who love their fellow man as much, if not more, than some of the sanctimonious hypocrites whose mission is allegely the saving of souls, but whose principal asset, so far as can be observed, is the creation of perjurers, corruptionists, blind tigers, kitchen hells, bootleggers, blind pigs, and a host of similar undesirables.