Date: Thu, 1 Sep 1994 07:49:45 -0700
From: Eric Sterling <esterling@igc.apc.org>
Message-Id: <199409011449.HAA07915@igc.apc.org>
To: drctalk-l@netcom.com
Subject: Prohibition Repeal

Some folks are writing about the history of prohibition repeal
without knowing anything about it, and concluding that there was
no movement to make it happen.  Ignorance is bliss.

An excellent history of the movement to repeal prohibition is
_Repealing National Prohibition_ by David Kyvig, published by the
University of Chicago Press in 1979.

There was a popular movement.  It was built, at great effort and
expense, by a number of people.  The most important organization,
which got off the ground in 1920 -- the first full year of
prohibition -- was the Association Against the Prohibition
Amendment.  AAPA "had found it difficult to work with other
antiprohibition organizations and looked upon their proliferation
as divisive." (p.118) [Does that sound familiar?]  In 1929 a new
group was founded, the Women's Organization for National
Prohibition Reform.  The founder, Pauline Morton Sabin, was the
wife of the chairman of the Guaranty Trust Corporation in New York
and one of the founders of the Women's National Republican Club.

in 1926 the AAPA was suffering a great deal of discord.  A ballot
initiative was placed on the ballot in Missouri by a strong AAPA
branch.  But the national AAPA was afraid of losing the vote and
on September 3, the national advised voters to withhold their
support!  The referendum was defeated 2-1.  The Missouri division
head, Judge Henry S. Priest wrote, "We feel constrained to
repudiate your dictatorship and express indignation at the
betrayal of the confidence we reposed in you, and to withdraw from
your organization and to form one of our own to prosecute the
worthy cause which we feel your stupid one-horse management is
endangering.

In December 1927, a small meeting was held in the home of former
U.S. Senator James Wadsworth.  they met again on January 6, 1928,
and considered the reports of two committees that had met.  The
organization was to be REORGANIZED.  "A national board of
directors would be chosen for the value of their endorsement of
the association." (p.92).

Management was placed in an executive committee chaired by Pierre
du Pont.  "The pattern of a window-dressing board of directors and
a strong executive committee to which the organization's spokesmen
and administrators were responsible followed closely the general
management systems established at the Du Pont Company and General
Motors."

The board grew to 67 by mid-Aprl 1928, 103 by the end of the year,
and 435 by 1933.  "...the board came to include notables from
various fields -- law, education, medicine, organized labor -- but
not surprisingly, for the most part from the heights of American
business and finance."

The Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR)
grew rapidly.  At the second annual meeting in April 1931, Sabin
announced a membership of 300,000, and one year later, a
membership of 600,000.  By the 1932 election, membership of 1.1
million was claimed.

WONPR was run by "fashionable ladies."  One argument about why
WONPR grew was because membes could "improve their social
standing" and emulate the fashionable ladies who led the
organization.  That has been a typical kind of denigration of the
seriousness and value of the political work of the women involved.
But generally the membership was concerned that prohibition was
subverting youth, the home and family, the economy, and respect
for all law.

There was a movement and it took a lot of time, effort and money
to build.

Eric E. Sterling The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation 1899 L
Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20036 202-835-9075 Fax
202-833-8561 esterling@igc.apc.org