American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition

1. American Women and the Prohibition Movement

C H A P T E R O N E American Women and the Prohibition Movement The ladies joiningthe drinking forcesand organized to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment can never make drink decent nor themselves a moral force. The trend of a thousand yearsis in the opposite direction and it will continue in that direction. —Carrie Chapman Catt, ipjo T he beginnings of a revolution in American feminist politics started off innocuously enough at a congressional hearing in 1928. At that hearing Ella Boole, president of the WCTU and avid supporter of prohibition, proclaimed , " I represent th e women o f America." Listenin g to Boole was Pauline Sabin , a Republican national committeewoman an d formerly a supporter o f prohibition herself. Sabi n recalled sayin g to herself , "Well lady, here's one woman you don't represent."l Fo r a prominent Republican woman to express doubts about prohibition just ten years earlier woul d hav e bee n almos t unthinkable . I n thos e days , dr y advocate s were predicting that the passage of prohibition would herald the dawn of a new age and that by halting the "liquor traffic," many of society's other ills would also be eliminated, thereby bringing humanity to the verge of a new era. The claims made by prohibitionists, both male and female, were nothing less than millennial. The WCTU declared that "in the history of Christian civilizatio n i t [th e prohibitio n amendmen t t o th e Constitution ] wil l rank wit h th e Magn a Charta , th e Declaratio n o f Independenc e an d th e Emancipation Proclamation. " When the Eighteenth Amendment was approved b y a wide margin in 1919 , many believe d tha t their vision of a liquor -free world would soon be realized.2 9 io • American Women and the Prohibition Movement Prohibition, unfortunately , di d no t produce all the results expected o f it, and produced other results that were both unexpected and unwelcome. These result s include d th e growth o f organized crim e syndicate s t o sup ply illegal liquor (and an accompanying increase in violence), an epidemic of corruption amon g public officials, spiralin g enforcement costs , a court system clogged with prohibition cases, class inequities in the law, and the willingness o f person s o f all classe s t o ignor e thi s law . Althoug h thei r efforts wer e poorl y organize d unti l a t leas t 1926 , representative s fro m labor, bi g business , an d th e intelligentsi a al l declare d themselve s quit e early i n favor of repealing, or at least modifying, prohibition . (Th e Association Agains t th e Prohibitio n Amendment , th e mai n male-dominate d repeal group , wa s incorporate d i n 1921. ) America n women , however , showed littl e inclinatio n t o organiz e agains t a la w whos e progres s ha d claimed the energies of so many generations of women reformers . Thus, whil e i t was obviou s b y th e lat e 1920 s that prohibitio n ha d it s problems, fo r a large number o f American women th e menace of alcohol was stil l bes t personifie d bot h i n th e liquo r traffi c o f th e ba d ol d day s before prohibitio n an d i n the contemporary threa t o f prohibition repeal . Ella Boole insisted tha t prohibitio n ha d bee n a remarkable success story , claiming that u the American home is brighter, better , mor e homelike and there i s more jo y i n the live s of the averag e American famil y becaus e of prohibition."3 Bool e observe d tha t wome n ha d alway s bee n th e one s t o pay the price for male drinking in the past and argued that they would b e the one s payin g th e pric e i n the futur e i f prohibition wer e repealed . T o Boole, the logic was inescapable: "wherever men drink, women are bound to suffer." 4 Evangelin e Boot h o f th e Salvatio n Arm y agreed , callin g liquor a "masculine indulgence": "Where it is legalized, it reduces women to a...