"Prohibition Is Here to Stay": The Reverend Edward S. Shumaker and the Dry Crusade in America

8. The Death of a Man and His Dream

159| 8  The Death of a Man and His Dream After a three-year court battle, as we know, Edward Shumaker was sentenced to the state farm, where he and his fellow drys believed him to be a martyr for their cause. Little did they realize that his time in that role would be short and that their chief accomplishment was not only about to come to an end but would also call into question their very future. Shumaker was an inmate in Indiana’s minimum security prison. The state farm’s goal was to rehabilitate prisoners by engaging them in both agriculture and manufacturing on its grounds. Despite the fact that many of the wardens and guards supported both Prohibition and Shumaker, he was treated like any other prisoner. Assigned to the dairy, he worked eleven hours per day. As the Lebanon Reporter put it, the IASL’s leader was now milking cows dry.1 Imprisonment allowed Shumaker to meet men convicted under the Wright bone-dry law. He later recounted that on the first night, his cell mates chided him for getting locked up, but when one prisoner started to make derogatory remarks, others told the man to “shut his trap.” While prison life took some adjustment, Shumaker soon won the men over by showing that he was suffering as they were. To some, he became a friend and pastor, a role he had not 160 | “Prohibition Is Here to Stay” played for nearly a quarter of a century. Many of these same men would rush to the gate to tell him goodbye when he was released.2 In all, he served fifty-three days of his sixty-day sentence, gaining his release on 5 April 1929. That morning, Shumaker arose early, in order to take care of the dairy herd one last time. After breakfast, a bath, shave, and “civilian” haircut, he exchanged his prison garb for his own clothes. Flora was brought in to see him and, after introducing her to the foreman of the dairy, they both stepped out into a rainstorm to greet the supporters who had made the trek to Putnam County.3 At the prison gates, Shumaker gave a brief speech, vowing to continue his work against wets. His incarceration had “brought new angles to my experiences that I had never dreamed of,” since befriending those men convicted of breaking dry laws only made him hate alcohol more.4 A car caravan of supporters followed him home to Indianapolis, where a celebratory dinner was held in his honor at Broadway Methodist Church. Over 250 people were guests, including delegations from the IASL, WCTU, Indianapolis Church Federation, and local Baptist and Presbyterian congregations as well as Senator Arthur Robinson, the Kentucky and Michigan ASL superintendents, and F. Scott McBride of the national office. They all reaffirmed their confidence in Shumaker as the dry cause’s leader in Indiana. Churches from around the state requested that he plan a speaking tour and sent their congratulations on his martyr-like status. Shumaker was presented with a leather-bound copy of his case and told those assembled that he was ready to return to battle. McBride showered praise upon him for making Indiana the “truest” state in the union to the dry cause. Indeed, the Indianapolis Times noted that his stay in prison had actually strengthened his power in the state.5 Shumaker attempted to go back to work for the IASL. He faced new challenges, such as the proposed ending of primaries in Indiana , which would negate the effectiveness of the IASL’s voter guides. However, he was confident he could overcome this obstacle, since few Hoosiers in 1929 had as much experience lobbying the state legislature as he did.6 Additionally, Shumaker was writing his auto­ biography, perhaps as a way to cash in on the fame of his case. He The Death of a Man and His Dream | 161 had started the project prior to going to the state farm and had been allowed to work on it while in prison. He had drafted chapters up to 1903, when he first joined the League, but had gotten no further. For it was then that he became ill.7 Few friends who saw him in the days after his release were surprised . Shumaker had lost thirty-nine pounds while at the farm, something that “astounded” him when he saw himself in a...