Temperance movement

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Image:Here lieth a temperance man -- cartoon.jpg A Temperance Movement (see definition of temperance) attempts to greatly reduce the amount of alcohol consumed or even prohibit its production and consumption entirely. The movement can be associated with any of the counter-culture, reactionary values of the early 1900s in the United States.

In predominantly Muslim countries, temperance is a widely accepted part of Islam. In predominantly Christian countries, forms of Christianity influenced by Wesleyan views on sanctification have strongly supported it at times. More specifically, religious or moralistic beliefs have often been the catalyst for temperance, though secular advocates do exist. The Women's Christian Temperance Union is a prominent example of a religion-based temperance movement.

The biggest supporters in all countries have been women, often as part of what some describe as feminism. The strong temperance movements of the early 20th century found most of their support in women who were opposed to the domestic violence alcohol frequently caused, and the large share of household income it would swallow, which was especially burdensome to the low-income working class.

Nationalism and Fascism have also been strongly connected to the cause in instances.

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Temperance movements around the world

Image:SonsOfTemperanceHillEnd1872.jpg A number of countries around the world have experienced temperance movements, a few examples of which are presented here.

In Australia, the temperance movement began in the mid-1830s promoting moderation rather than abstinence. By the late 1800s a more successful abstinence-oriented movement emerged under the influence of the U.S. temperance movement. However, it failed to bring about prohibition in spite of a long campaign for local option. The movement's major success was in prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages after 6:00 in the afternoon, laws which led to the notorious “six o'clock swill.” This refers to the practice whereby customers would rush to drinking establishments after work and consume alcohol heavily and rapidly in anticipation of the 6:00 closing. Thus, this success was counterproductive and exacerbated drinking problems.

In Canada, a temperance movement began in the 1800s. Temperance societies were established across the country except in Quebec. There, the Catholic Church promoted moderation rather than abstinence. However, over much opposition, the temperance movement managed to impose prohibition throughout the entire country early in the twentieth century. Except for Prince Edward Island, which was the first province to enact prohibition (1901) and the last to repeal it (1948), other provinces maintained prohibition for relatively short periods of time. This ranged from only one year in Quebec (1918-1919) to 13 years in Nova Scotia (1916-1929).

A temperance movement developed in Denmark in the 1860s and grew rapidly. Its base was largely labor unions and various religious groups, but the movement was never powerful enough to establish prohibition in this liberal country.

In Britain, the temperance movement was largely a middle class phenomenon that originally focused on controlling, not preventing, drinking among the working class. However, in 1832, a group emerged in the belief that "teetotalism" or abstaining by everyone was necessary. At first the group advocated persuasion but in 1851, after the state of Maine in the U.S. passed a prohibition law, the group advocated mandatory abstinence by force of law. Lacking support from churches, labor or other groups, prohibition was never established in England.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Iceland’s Youth Organization and chapters of the International Order of Good Templars, both of which promoted prohibition, grew in power and influence. National prohibition existed between 1915 and 1922 However, a ban on the importation of spirits lasted until 1934 and on alcoholic beer until 1988.

A temperance movement in India came originally from the political leadership, most of whom had been educated in the United Kingdom at a time when prohibition was being promoted. This served to link prohibition with the independence movement and give it a broad base of popular support. This base included women and a major activity of women’s groups became picketing alcohol beverage retailers. Because temperance became so interwoven with independence, it was included in the Indian constitution.

A temperance movement existed in Italy for a few years in the late 1800s, but it made little headway. The greatest success temperance forces had in Italy was under Benito Mussolini and his fascist government, which closed thousands of pubs. Although Adolf Hitler was a teetotaler, he never imposed prohibition on Germany.

In the Netherlands, temperance activists were active as early as 1800 and even before that. By about 1880, the movement lost membership. However in the late 1800s until after World War I, the temperance movement became very strong. It received much support from the socialist movement and various Christian groups. With its increased power, the movement achieved a number of successes in reducing alcohol consumption but then it began a slow decline in membership and influence.

Beginning in the early 1890s until 1918, New Zealand had a growing temperance movement. However, for the next 30 years (1918-1948), there was a political stalemate between prohibition and liberalisation. Then for about 20 years, there was a gradual liberalisation and normalisation of alcohol use.

The first temperance society in Norway was established in 1836 and by 1844 there were at least 118 such societies. They promoted moderation rather than abstinence. However, they had very limited success in reducing consumption, so in 1859 a movement for the formation of societies whose members would pledge “total abstinence from the use of alcoholic drinks” was started by the quaker Asbjørn Kloster. The moderation movements, which had been plagued by drinking scandals, mostly joined the teetotaler movements or ceased to exist.

A faction of the movement led by Sven Arrestad promoted a gradual movement toward prohibition, through local referendums. However, since the prospect of winning a national referendum looked good, the majority preferred going more quickly to national prohibition. The referendum was won, and prohibition was enacted in 1916. In 1927 it was removed again, after anoter referendum. However, the temperance movement remains strong in Norway.

In Poland, a temperance movement emerged in the mid-1800’s that was both religious and nationalistic. Temperance rhetoric equated freedom from alcohol with freedom from political bondage and the achievement of national independence. After Poland regained political independence in 1918, prohibitionist sentiment grew with the demand for prohibition, but it subsided in the 1930’s.

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Case study: The United States

In colonial America, informal social controls in the home and community helped maintain the expectation that the abuse of alcohol was unacceptable. There was a clear consensus that while alcohol was a gift from God its abuse was from the Devil. "Drunkenness was condemned and punished, but only as an abuse of a God-given gift. Drink itself was not looked upon as culpable, any more than food deserved blame for the sin of gluttony. Excess was a personal indiscretion." When informal controls failed, there were always legal ones. Alcohol abuse was treated with rapid and sometimes severe punishment.

While infractions did occur, the general sobriety of the colonists suggests the effectiveness of their system of informal and formal controls in a population that averaged about three and a half gallons of absolute alcohol per year per person. That rate was dramatically higher than the present rate of consumption.

As the colonies grew from a rural society into a more urban one, drinking patterns began to change. As the American Revolution approached, economic change and urbanization were accompanied by increasing poverty, unemployment, and crime. These emerging social problems were often blamed on drunkenness. Following the Revolutionary War, the new nation experienced cataclysmic social, political, and economic changes that affected every segment of the new society. Social control over alcohol abuse declined, anti-drunkenness ordinances were relaxed and alcohol problems increased dramatically.

It was in this environment that people began seeking an explanation and a solution for drinking problems. One suggestion had come from one of the foremost physicians of the period, Dr. Benjamin Rush. In 1784, Dr. Rush argued that the excessive use of alcohol was injurious to physical and psychological health (he believed in moderation rather than prohibition). Apparently influenced by Rush's widely discussed belief, about 200 farmers in a Connecticut community formed a temperance association in 1789. Similar associations were formed in Virginia in 1800 and New York State in 1808. Within the next decade other temperance organizations were formed in eight states, some being statewide organizations.

The future looked bright for the young movement, which advocated temperance or moderation rather than abstinence. But many of the leaders overestimated their strength; they expanded their activities and took positions on gambling, profanation of the Sabbath, and other moral issues. They became involved in political bickering and by the early 1820s their movement stalled.

But some leaders persevered in pressing their cause forward. The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826 and benefited from a renewed interest in religion and morality. Within 10 years it claimed more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,500,000 members. By 1839, 15 temperance journals were being published. Simultaneously, many Protestant churches were beginning to promote temperance.

Between 1830 and 1840, most temperance organizations began to argue that the only way to prevent drunkenness was to eliminate the consumption of alcohol. The Temperance Society became the Abstinence Society. The Independent Order of Good Templars, the Sons of Temperance, the Templars of Honor and Temperance, the Anti-Saloon League, the National Prohibition Party and other groups were formed and grew rapidly. With the passage of time, "The temperance societies became more and more extreme in the measures they championed."

While it began by advocating the temperate or moderate use of alcohol, the movement now insisted that no one should be permitted to drink any alcohol in any quantity. And it did so with religious fervor and increasing stridency.

The prohibition of alcohol by law became a major issue in every political campaign from the national and state level down to those for school board members. In promoting what many prohibitionists saw as their religious duty, they perfected the techniques of pressure politics. Women in the movement even used their children to march, sing, and otherwise exert pressure at polling places. Dressed in white and clutching tiny American flags, the children would await their instruction to appeal to "wets" as they approached the voting booth.

The Anti-Saloon League, under the de facto leadership of Wayne Wheeler, stressed its religious character and since it acted as an agent of the churches and therefore was working for God, anything it did was seen as moral and justified because it was working to bring about the Lord's will. One league leader would later write that the lies he told in promoting prohibition "would fill a big book."

The league was so powerful that even national politicians feared its strength. The 18th Amendment establishing National Prohibition decades later might well not have passed if a secret ballot had made it impossible for the league to have punished the "disobedient" at the next election.

The Civil War (1861-1865) had interrupted the temperance movement while Americans were preoccupied with that struggle. Then, after the war, the Women's Christian Temperance Union was founded. The organization did not promote moderation or temperance but rather prohibition. One of its methods to achieve that goal was education. It was believed that if it could "get to the children" it could create a "dry" sentiment leading to prohibition.

In 1880 the Women’s Christian Temperance Union established a Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges, with Mary Hunt as National Superintendent. She believed that voters "must first be convinced that alcohol and kindred narcotics are by nature outlaws, before they will outlaw them." She decided to use legislation to coerce the moral suasion of students, who would be the next generation of voters. This gave birth to the idea of the compulsory Scientific Temperance Instruction Movement.

By the turn of the century, Mary Hunt’s efforts proved to be highly successful. Virtually every state, the District of Columbia, and all United States possessions had strong legislation mandating that all students receive anti-alcohol education. Furthermore, the implementation of this legislation was closely monitored down to the classroom level by legions of determined and vigilant WCTU members throughout the nation.

Temperance writers viewed the WCTU's program of compulsory temperance education as a major factor leading to the establishment of National Prohibition with passage of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Other knowledgeable observers, including the U.S. Commissioner of Education, agreed.

Because of the correlation between drinking and what we now recognize as domestic violence -- many of the women who were beaten by their husbands observed that their husbands were likely to do so when drunk -- the temperance movement existed alongside various women's rights and other movements, including the Progressive movement, and often the same activists were involved in all of the above. Many notable voices of the time, ranging from Lucy Webb Hayes to Susan B. Anthony, were active in the movement. In Canada, Nellie McClung was a longstanding advocate of temperance. As with most social movements, there was a gamut of activists running from violent (Carrie Nation) to mild (Neal S. Dow).

Many former abolitionists joined the temperance movement and it was also strongly supported by the second Ku Klux Klan. Often called the KKK of the 1920s, it had been established (or revived) in Georgia in 1915 largely to defend that state's prohibition laws. Promoting and even enforcing temperance became a cornerstone of the Klan's agenda as it spread throughout the country.

For decades prohibition had been touted as the almost magical solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other ills. On the eve of prohibition the invitation to a church celebration in New York said "Let the church bells ring and let there be great rejoicing, for an enemy has been overthrown and victory crowns the forces of righteousness." Jubilant with victory, some in the WCTU announced that, having brought Prohibition to the United States, it would now go forth to bring the blessing of enforced abstinence to the rest of the world.

The famous evangelist Billy Sunday staged a mock funeral for John Barleycorn and then preached on the benefits of prohibition. "The reign of tears is over," he asserted. "The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs." Since alcohol was to be banned and since it was seen as the cause of most, if not all, crime, some communities sold their jails. One sold its jail to a farmer who converted it into a combination pig and chicken house while another converted its jail into a tool house.

However, hoping or even fervently believing would not make prohibition anything other than a great illusion. The actual consequences ranged from unfortunate to disastrous and deadly. Widespread disregard for law was obvious in the notorious and ever-present organized bootlegging. Organized smuggling of alcohol from Canada and elsewhere quickly developed. "Rum rows" existed off the coasts of large cities where ships lined up just beyond the three mile limit to off-load their cargoes onto speed boats. Murder and hijacking were common in this dangerous but lucrative business. Prohibition led to massive and widespread corruption of politicians and law enforcement agencies and helped finance powerful crime syndicates. It became very difficult to convict those who violated prohibition because public support for the law and its enforcement eroded dramatically.

In addition to the murders of law enforcement officers there was an even more common cause of death and disability caused by bootleggers. Blindness and "jake foot" paralysis were caused by lead poisoning, embalming fluid , poisonous industrial alcohol, creosote and other substances sometimes found in bootleg liquor.

Financial burdens caused by Prohibition were increased by the fact that bootleg, being untaxed, deprived the treasury of much needed revenue.

Billy Sunday had proclaimed John Barleycorn's death at the beginning of Prohibition in 1920. But thirteen years later:

the cheerful spring came lightly on,
And showers began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surprised them all. (Furnas, 1965, p. 337)

Happy throngs sang "Happy Days are Here Again!" and President Roosevelt would soon look back to what he called "The damnable affliction of Prohibition".


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References

  • Peterson, Herbert. The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968 (Originally published 1950).
  • Furnas, J. C. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum. New York: G. P. Pumam's Sons, 1965.
  • Heath, Dwight B. (ed.) International Handbook of Alcohol and Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.
  • McConnell, D. W. Temperance Movements. In: Seligman, Edwin R. A., and Johnson, Alvin (eds.) Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York, NY: The Macmillan Co., 1963.
  • Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York: Columbia University Press, 1928.
  • Sheehan, Nancy M. The WCTU and education: Canadian-American illustrations. Journal of the Midwest History of Education Society, 1981, P, 115-133.
  • Smith, Rebecca. The Temperance Movement and Class Struggle in Vicorian England. Loyola University, 1993.
  • Timberlake, James H. Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
  • Tucker, Richard K. The Dragon and the Cross: The Rise and Fall of the Ku Klux Klan in Middle America. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1991.
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See also


Compare: William Hogarth's "Gin Lane" 1751.

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Source

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External links

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