A BINGE OF RECTITUDE

America has had two Prohibition eras: a revivalist temperance campaign that
saw liquor banned in 13 Northern states on the eve of the Civil War; and
the better-known constitutional ban on alcohol sales from 1920 to 1933. In
"BATTLING DEMON RUM" (Ivan R. Dee, 207 pages, $24.95), Loyola University
historian Thomas R. Pegram traces anti-alcohol movements -- and their
generally baleful consequences -- from the Federalist era to the 21st
Amendment. These long-dead battles, well-described in Mr. Pegram's
account, put our own lesser war on cigarettes and narcotics (but,
bizarrely, not alcohol) in sharp relief.

It is too simple to caricature prohibitionists as reactionary scolds. True,
America's anti-alcohol movements have often been driven by religious
forces. But they have also drawn on progressive causes like feminism. ("You
refused me a vote, and I had to use a rock," said Carry Nation after a
saloon-smashing rampage in Kansas in 1901.) In any case, the early "dries"
were hardly extremists. They "aimed primarily at changing the behavior of
moderate drinkers so as to undermine the American culture of drinking."

Understandably so, since American alcohol consumption in 1830 -- 7.1
gallons per capita -- was the highest in the country's history. By the
1840s, after a decade of local regulation and homiletic haranguing,
drinking had dropped by three-quarters. Curiously, it was then that a push
for bans began, with Maine becoming the first state to outlaw booze in
1851. This shift from moral suasion to coercion occurs in every American
prohibition movement -- often at the very moment when most of its goals
have been attained.

Another constant has been the demonization of the industry being regulated.
Massachusetts agitators sought to deny licenses to saloons in the 1830s to
put the alcohol business "on the level of brothel-keeping." Meanwhile,
Gilded Age prohibitionists raised saloon licensing fees up to $1,500 a
year, forcing saloon-keepers to seek financing from breweries. Once that
happened, saloons and distillers alike were lumped together as a "liquor
trust."

For a movement that always claims to rest on common sense and shared ideas
of decency, "dry" agitation has shown a flair for propaganda and marketing
savvy. It was the Anti-Saloon League that spearheaded 20th-century
prohibitionism -- and invented modern interest-group politics in the
process. The ASL focused solely on removing from office those who didn't
vote with them. They distributed questionnaires to candidates. They set up
Protestant Youth Groups. They distributed voter guides and published 40
tons of publications a month. Most important, they raised scads of money --
$2.5 million for the 1914 elections alone -- and struck fear into
politicians. By the eve of World War I, the league had the backing of Teddy
Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson.

The ASL disingenuously focused its outrage on saloons rather than drinkers.
It disguised its ultimate aims, claiming to seek only a "local option" on
drinking laws. Once Prohibition passed, of course, there was no local
option anywhere. Just as, in our own time, once we adequately protect "the
children" from tobacco, there will be no smoking for anyone of any age. The
logic of regulation almost always leads to prohibition.

And corruption: Wayne Wheeler, the ASL's flamboyant strategist, lobbied for
Prohibition to be administered by the IRS -- an agency already stacked with
his allies. This allowed him to control both a huge patronage empire and a
J. Edgar Hoover-style satrapy of personalized law enforcement. Crime
flourished. Thousands were killed in gangland violence; ASL bigwigs were
convicted of fraud. By 1930, a third of federal prison inmates were liquor
offenders, and Herbert Hoover had to build a whole new series of lockups to
house them. Juries routinely nullified booze cases: Thousands of arrests in
Chicago and Philadelphia led to only a handful of convictions. A San
Francisco jury was indicted for drinking the evidence.

The most curious fact that Mr. Pegram culls is that, after a series of
advances between 1907 and 1909, the prohibitionists stalled out. By 1912,
all the states that wanted prohibition had it, and the movement looked
doomed. But aggressive lobbying brought the dries back from the brink. As
soon as the moment was ripe -- after the introduction of the income tax in
1913, which obviated the need for saloon taxes, but before the 1920 census,
which would have counted six million new, presumably "wet" immigrants --
the ASL moved for a constitutional amendment.

Thus, at the very moment when a movement appears most broad-based, it may
in fact be confined to a band of radical opportunists, generating
indifference and even hostility among middle-of-the-road voters. This may
explain why antismoking leaders have lately fallen silent in the face of
polls showing little desire for new smoking laws and taxes.

But don't think they won't be back.

Checked-by: Richard Lake