From: bagg@ellis.uchicago.edu (matthew john baggott)
Subject: Prohibition
Reply-To: bagg@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:11:12 GMT


In some article, Clayton Cramer wrote:

>In article <1992Dec11.003926.29217@midway.uchicago.edu>, bagg@ellis.uchicago.edu (matthew john baggott) writes:

># This has a lot of truth to it, but it doesn't accurately recognize
># the historical forces which initiated and 'successfully'
># implemented the prohibitionist outlook.  The drive for prohibition was largely
># initiated by wealthy businessmen who believed that liquor was
># reducing the virtue and productivity of their workers.  Their anti-liquor
># attitude was soon shared by middle-class prohibitionists who sought
># to form a third political party and who opposed alcohol because

>So why is that prominent middle-class prohibitionists predate
>(by many years) such industrialist prohibitionists as Henry Ford?
>You also left out the inconvenient fact that when Prohibition was
>repealed, it was because some of America's wealthiest men, such as
>the DuPont's, funded the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment
>(AAPA).  They went on to form the Liberty League, the primary 
>conservative opposition to FDR.

The prohibitionist outlook, as I see it, has its ideological origins
in the temperance movements of the late 1700s and early 1800s.
These early temperance societies were largely the work of wealthy
farmers who were concerned with drinking among their workers.  To
what extent this was fueled by self-interest is, I suppose, open
to debate (I read it as being very self-interest motivated).
A kinder interpretation (which is true, but isn't the whole
truth IMHO) is that they felt that men of property had a 
responsibility for society's condition.

The movement really got organized with the American Temperance
Society in 1826, though.  The ATS advocated prohibition.  They chose
as their leader, Justin Edward, who had himself only come around to the
prohibitionist outlook after an experiment at a farm demonstrated to
his satisfation that laborers w/o alcohol worked more.  When the ATS held 
its first national convention in 1833, the 400 or so delegates were
overwhelmingly from the wealthiest class of Americans and
reads like a who's who of early America.

You may consider these people prominent middle-classers,
I call them wealthy businessmen.  Is this our real disagreement?

As for the wealthy fighting against Prohibition, you are correct
that I didn't mention the role of the wealthy; I didn't mention
the repeal of Prohibition at all.  However, I don't see how that 
contradicts my argument.  There were disagreements from early on as to 
whether total prohibition or strong regulation was the best course.  
When Prohibition seemed to be failing, regulation won out.  And, as you 
note, it was again the wealthy who ran the show.

># they felt the government was supporting the alcohol trade.  These
># prohibitionists were generally opposed to industrialization and
># for them alcohol was partially symbolic of the process.  While

>My reading of the origins of opposition to alcohol was because of
>the very clear damage that alcohol was doing.  (It still does it,
>but we recognize today that prohibition just socializes private
>tragedies into public ones, without significantly lessening the
>private tragedies.)

Sure alcohol is damaging.  But the anti-alcohol movements, like the
modern anti-drug movement, phrased their propaganda largely in terms
of whether one was a good little worker.  They tried to encourage
"industry, sobriety, and thrift."  For example, the U.S. Temp.
Union claimed that "more labor can be accomplished in a month,
or a year, under the influence of simple nourishing food and un-
stimulating drink than through the aid of alcohol."  This may be
true, but why make worker productivity the index of the damage done
by alcohol?  Coming from wealthy employers, I find this suspicious.  
Can we really accept this sort of thing as being a disinterested attempt 
to realistically assess the problem of alcohol-induced human suffering?

[Since I don't think the anti-industrial middle class played the
decisive role in the temperance movement, I won't try to support
my claim that they were anti-industrial unless asked to do so.]

[My quoted comments deleted.]

>I can't take your claim seriously.  Many of the more liberal elements
>of the Progressive Era, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, supported Prohibition
>(at first).

But who began the whole movement?  I assert that it was wealthy
conservative businessmen.  I also think they donated the money,
formed the organizations, drafted the platforms, and lobbied the
law makers.

>-- 
>Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
>C++ is to C, as lung cancer is to lung.

    --M@



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