August 2018 - Sneak Peek

memorializing a dead toddler and
speaking of his will to avoid alcohol!
In this case the child was incorruptible,
serving as a lesson (or
inspiration) to others. Even circus
huckster Phineas T. Barnum was
a staunch temperance advocate,
promoting the cause of sobriety at
the American Museum in a variety
of ways, including serving only ice
water.
Throughout the remainder of
the 19th century and early 20th,
there were various temperance
groups that sprang up [Figure 7],
among the most powerful of these
were the Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union, founded in 1873
and the Anti-Saloon League of
America, founded in 1893.
On a parallel, but unrelated
note, by the beginning of the 20th
century the government that had
long been involved in raising money
through revenue taxes, and using
stamps and labels to verify consumer
revenue payments, was fully
into taxing the business of commercial
alcohol production by instituting
“beer inspection” and other taxes via the well-established use
of revenue stamps and labels [Figure 8]. In this case the inspection
was ensuring that beer was made of “wholesome”
ingredients.
By the time World War I rolled around, the field of prohibition
was ripe for
tilling. Not only was
the movement heavily
linked with the issue
of women’s suffrage,
but bars (which frequently
allowed only
men) were known as
hotbeds of political
corruption, as well
as a place where husbands
spent much of
the hard-earned family
money drinking.
Added to that is the
fact that – in an increasingly
anti-German
environment –
most breweries were
either owned or operated
by Germans.
Figure 6. A Civil War-era propaganda piece on
a cartes de visite photograph memorializing a
dead toddler, who never imbibed alcohol.
Figure 7. An 1892 cover mailed by the “Department of Narcotics” of the Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union of St. Louis, Missouri and a 1919 cover featuring
another very strong lobby group, the Anti-Saloon League of America.
Patriotic images, such as the one
shown [Figure 9], began showing
up on postcards of the day. As a final
nail, the push to conserve grains to
help feed the soldiers pushed additional
support that would not have
been present otherwise. The WWI
broadside shown [Figure 10] plays
on Americans’ guilt.
In December 1917, a resolution
calling for a Constitutional amendment
for nationwide prohibition
was introduced and passed by both
houses of Congress. Of the 48 states,
36 had ratified the bill by January
16, 1919, making it law (the cover
in Figure 7 notes 45 states by March
29). On October 28, 1919, the Volstead
Act enabled enforcement of
the 18th Amendment when it became
effective January 16, 1920.
Scenes, such as the one shown [Figure
11] on the postcard from 1914
(Kansas’ statewide prohibition was
enacted in 1881) were common
during the early months of Prohibition.
Law enforcement made a show
of seizing and destroying alcohol.
Soon after Prohibition became
law in 1920, its unintended consequences began to be felt
by the nation. Gone were the healthy revenues derived from
the taxation of alcohol and, along with it, the resources to
effectively enforce Prohibition. Soon after, workforces began
diminishing, as various alcohol-related companies that
couldn’t adapt began
to go out of business.
Prohibition wiped out
a huge part of the national
economy. At
the time Prohibition
was enacted, liquor
was the fifth-largest
national industry.
Soon after Prohibition
was enacted,
crime syndicates
sprang up, grew and
thrived under the
new conditions because
illegality of liquor
didn’t decrease
public demand for
alcohol. Bootleg liquor,
often created
from denatured al-
746 AMERICAN PHILATELIST / AUGUST 2018