Additional Information

Repeal of Prohibition in the U.S.

by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.

National Prohibition in the United States had been viewed by tens of millions of Americans as the solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other ills and they eagerly embraced it.1 Upon establishment of the Noble Experiment in 1920, Evangelist Billy Sunday staged a mock funeral for alcoholic beverages and then extolled on the benefits of prohibition. "The rein of tears is over," he asserted. "The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs."2  Since alcohol was to be banned and since it was seen as the cause of most, if not all, crime, some communities sold their jails.3

Drunk with success, temperance groups planned to extend prohibition to countries around the world. Not surprisingly, the leading prohibitionist in Congress confidently asserted that "There is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. 4

Unfortunately, Prohibition not only failed in its promises but actually created serious and disturbing social problems throughout society. This led to an increasing disillusionment by millions of Americans. Journalist H. L. Mencken wrote in 1925 that “Five years of prohibition have had, at lest, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.”5

The enthusiastic support generally given to prohibition by industrialists and business leaders had done much to prop up its support. But with the passage of time more and more business leaders became disillusioned with the consequences of the social experiment.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a lifelong abstainer who had contributed at least $350,000 and perhaps as much as $700,000 to the Anti-Saloon League, announced his support for repeal because of the widespread problems caused by prohibition. 6 He explained his change of belief in a letter published in The New York Times:

When the Eighteenth Amendment was passed I earnestly hoped- with a host of advocates of temperance-that it would be generally supported by public opinion and thus the day be hastened when the value to society of men with minds and bodies free from the undermining effects of alcohol would be generally realized. That this has not been the result, but rather that drinking has generally increased; that the speakeasy has replaced the saloon, not only unit for unit, but probably two-fold if not three-fold; that a vast array of lawbreakers has been recruited and financed on a colossal scale; that many of our best citizens, piqued at what they regarded as an infringement of their private rights, have openly and unabashedly disregarded the Eighteenth Amendment; that as an inevitable result respect for all law has been greatly lessened; that crime has increased to an unprecedented degree-I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe.7

Henry B. Joy, past president of the Packard Motor Company, had been a very active member of the Anti-Saloon League. However, after Treasury agents repeatedly came onto his land and destroyed the property of his elderly watchman looking for illegal beer, and after they fatally shot an innocent boater who couldn’t hear over his motor the demand that he stop and be searched for alcohol, Joy had seen enough. He became active in the movement to repeal prohibition.  He told a Congressional committee that "I do not want my wife, my children and my grandchildren living under such conditions as exist today (under Prohibition).8

Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy, a private-banker and a director of Guaranty Trust Co., New York Trust Co., Bethlehem Steel, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, New York Railways, Fifth Avenue Coach Co., and the Chicago Motor Coach Co. declared: "I am opposed to Prohibition because I consider that the last ten years has shown that it is absolutely impossible to enforce. It has led to more crime, more corruption, more hypocrisy than any other law. . . . People say if you mop up the wet spots in cities the thing is done. I have never seen more vicious drinking in my life than I have seen in Indiana and in South Carolina. I have never gone anywhere in the country where the liquor law was observed. . . .” He continued that "Personally I do not know a single leading banker in the U. S., a single leading industrial executive, a single important railroad executive that I can think of who does not break this law and who does not drink." 9

Frederic Rene Coudert Sr., a Manhattan lawyer stated his position strongly: "The 18th Amendment does not represent a law. ... It is a piece of fanaticism. . . . Call out the Navy. . . . Put every citizen who violates the law into jail and have accommodations for 50 or 60 million. Then take the consequences of the government that does that of being swept out of existence."10

Women, led by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), had been pivotal in bringing about national prohibition. Their interest had been a moral one: protecting the family, women and children from the effects of alcohol abuse. And with the passage of time it became women who proved to be pivotal in repealing prohibition. Their interest was again a moral one: prohibition was undermining the family and corrupting the morals of women and children.

In 1929, Pauline Sabin founded the Women’s’ Legion for True Temperance, soon renamed the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR). She had decided a year earlier to establish a women’s repeal organization after the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) asserted to Congress that “I represent the women of the United States!“

Mrs. Sabin originally supported Prohibition in the belief that “a world without liquor would be a beautiful thing” and a better place for her two sons. However, with the passage of time she became distressed at what she saw as the hypocrisy of politicians who would vote for stricter enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment and then illegally be drinking alcohol a few minutes later, the counterproductively of  Prohibition, the decline in moderate drinking and the increase in binge drinking, the growing power of bootleggers, the widespread political corruption, mob violence, increased public intoxication, growing disrespect for law, and the erosion of personal liberty at the hands of an increasingly intrusive centralized government.

In Congressional testimony, Mrs. Sabin complained that “In preprohibition days, mothers had little fear in regard to the saloon as far as their children were concerned. A saloon-keeper’s license was  revoked if he was caught selling liquor to minors. Today in  any speakeasy in the United States you can find boys and girls in their teens drinking liquor and this situation has become so acute that the mothers of the country feel something must be done to protect their children.”

Thus, Mrs. Sabin and millions of other American women came to oppose Prohibition for the very reasons they originally supported it. They wanted the world be a safer place for their children and a better place in which to live. And women were politically infinitely more powerful than before prohibition; they were now able to vote. 11 

As disillusionment and dissatisfaction spread the number of repeal organizations grew. They included:

See the Appendix below for more information on these organizations as well as on repeal leaders.

As the number and membership of repeal organizations grew the demand for repeal became louder and louder. The country had entered the Great Depression, millions were unemployed, farm prices fell, tax revenues dropped, and the future looked bleak. Many believed that legalizing alcohol would increase prices for grain and other farm commodities; increase the demand for labor to produce, transport and sell alcohol; and increase taxes.

The Democratic Party platform in the 1932 election included an anti-prohibition plank and Franklin Roosevelt ran for the presidency promising repeal, which occurred on December 5, 1933. The popular vote for repeal of prohibition was 74 percent in favor and 26 percent in opposition. 12  By a three to one vote, the American people rejected prohibition; only two states opposed repeal. A hummingbird had made the flight to Mars.
Billy Sunday had proclaimed John Barleycorn's death at the beginning of prohibition in 1920. But thirteen years later:

the cheerful spring came lightly on,
And showers began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surprised them all.13

Happy throngs sang "Happy Days are Here Again!" and President Roosevelt would soon look back to what he called "The damnable affliction of Prohibition." 14

National prohibition had been repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment which contains two short but important sentences:

Section one made it again legal to import, produce, and sell beverage alcohol, while section two delegated to the individual states authority for regulating such beverages. Some states continued prohibition at the state level. The last state repealed it in 1966. Almost two-thirds of all states adopted some form of local option which enabled residents in political subdivisions to vote for or against local prohibition. Therefore, despite the repeal of prohibition at the national level, 38 percent of the nation's population lived in areas with state or local prohibition. 15

The matter of prohibition versus repeal had long been a contentious one and often divided friends and even families. It sometimes still does. Today, there are hundreds of dry (prohibition) counties across the United States seven decades after national repeal.

Appendix

Repeal Organization

Association Against the Prohibition Amendment

The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) was established in 1918 and became a leading organization working for the repeal of prohibition, which lasted from 1920 through 1933. Its publicity campaign, begun in 1928, helped mobilize growing opposition to the Eighteenth Amendment.

Prominent in the organization were William H. Stayton (founder), Pierre S. du Pont, Irenee du Pont, John Raskob, Joust Shouse, and James W. Wadsworth. organization included William H. Stayton  Pierre S. du Pont, Irenee du Pont, John Raskob, Jouett Shouse, Grayson Murphy, Charles H. Sabin, Arthur Curtis James, E. S. Hastings, and James W. Wadsworth.

The group wanted to reform Prohibition but at first members couldn’t agree on whether to
promote the effective enforcement of the law or to encourage people to disregard a bad law. Throughout  the 1920s it appeared that repealing Prohibition was a political  impossibility and many people questioned whether it would be legal to do so even if it were possible. However, the AAPA launched a major publicity campaign in 1928 that helped mobilize the growing opposition to the Eighteenth Amendment and by 1930 it was asking voters to “vote as you drink.” 16

The Crusaders  

The Crusaders was an influential repeal organization founded in 1929 by business executive Fred G. Clark who was appalled at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago which resulted from rivalry among bootleggers. Rather than working at the national political level, the Crusaders chose to devote their efforts at the local level across the country.

Fred Clark served as the first commander in chief of the Crusaders. Its executive board consisted of fifty prominent leaders including Alfred Sloan, Jr., Sewell Avery, Cleveland Dodge, and Wallace Alexander. General membership of the organization consisted largely of men under the age of thirty. William Faulkner served on the executive committee  of the Mississippi chapter. Although it did not include women, the group worked closely with the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR).

The Crusaders described themselves as “temperance men” who would eliminate alcohol abuse without the problems caused by Prohibition. Because of this, they were criticized by prohibitionists as “Cork-screw aiders.” 17

Moderation League of New York 

The Moderation League of New York was founded by Elihu Root in 1923 to change the legal definition of the "intoxicating liquors" prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment . This seemed to its members to be an achievable goal, whereas the repeal of prohibition at that point an impossibility.

In 1924 the Joint Legislative Committee was formed with the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, the American Federation of labor, and the Constitutional Liberty League of Massachusetts. The Commission was active in collecting data and publicizing problems caused by Prohibition. It was successful in bringing about the first congressional examination of Prohibition since passage of the Volstead Act. 18

Molly Pitcher Club 

The Molly Pitcher Club was founded in 1922 in New York City as an organization of women opposed to the prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The group, led by L. Louise Gross, worked for the repeal of prohibition. However, its appeal to individual rights and freedoms failed to attract a large following of women of the time. 19

National Committee for the Modification of the Volstead Act 

The American Federation of Labor's National Committee for the Modification of the Volstead Act was created in January of 1931. It was headed by Matthew Woll, who testified before a Congressional committee that workers and organized labor opposed prohibition. Labor leadership argued that the Eighteenth Amendment establishing prohibition was the first instance in American history when an amendment to the United States Constitution denied rights instead of creating or expanding them.20

Republican Citizens Committee Against National Prohibition  

The Republican Citizens Committee Against National Prohibition was established shortly before the 1932 Republican National Convention to pressure the party to support the repeal of prohibition. Key members included Joseph H. Choate, Jr., Henry Bourne Joy, Thomas W. Phillips, Raymond Pitcairn, and Lammot du Pont.

Voluntary Committee of Lawyers 

The original Voluntary Committee of Lawyers (VCL)  was founded in  the summer of 1927 by a small group of prominent New York City attorneys because of their belief that the Eighteenth Amendment was inconsistent with the purpose and spirit of the U.S. Its goal was to bring about the repeal of prohibition and the Volstead Act.

With its urging, the American Bar Association called for repeal in 1928. Under the leadership of Joseph H. Choate, Jr., lawyers in every state were actively involved in working to bring about repeal, which occurred in 1933. At that time, the VCL closed its books and ceased to exist. 21

Wickersham Commission

The Wickersham Commission was established in May of 1929 when President Herbert Hoover appointed George W. Wickersham (1858-1936) to head the National Committee on Law Observation and Enforcement, popularly called the Wickersham Commission.

The Commission was an 11-member group that was officially charged with identifying the causes of criminal activity and making recommendations for appropriate public policy. Hoover had apparently created the commission to make recommendation for improving the enforcement of Prohibition so as to undercut the Repeal movement.

The Commission documented the widespread evasion of prohibition and the numerous counterproductive effects it was having on American society. Rather than recommending the repeal of prohibition, as many of Hoover’s opponents expected, its report recommended that much more aggressive and extensive law enforcement should be employed in an effort to force compliance.

However, the report also included separate statements by members of the commission, only four of whom supported Prohibition. Member Harry Anderson said that Prohibition violated basic economic laws and that even if complete enforcement were imposed, economic laws would win in the end: “This would inevitably lead to social and political consequences more disastrous than the evils sought to be remedied. Even then the force of social and economic laws would ultimately prevail. These laws cannot be destroyed by governments, but often in the course of human history governments have been destroyed by them.” A majority of members expressed varying degrees opposition to Prohibition.

The highly qualified nature of the report permitted both sides to claim victory. The Wickersham Commission and its report could therefore reasonably be categorized as pro-Prohibition or pro-Repeal. It is arbitrarily placed here in the pro-Repeal category.30

Women’s Moderation Union 

The Women's Moderation Union, headed by M. Louise Gross, helped belie the Women's Christian Temperance Union's insistence that it spoke for American women. When she heard the WCTU president make that assertion before Congress in an effort to enhance its power and influence, Gross decided that those women who sought the repeal of prohibition needed a vehicle through which their voice of opposition could be heard.22

Although the libertarian orientation of the Women's Moderation Union did not resonate well with many women, Gross' organization was successful in mobilizing and giving visibility to many women who opposed the national prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform 

The formation of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR) in 1929 challenged the long-held assumption that virtually all women in the United States supported  the Eighteenth Amendment and its enforcement. It was a non-partisan volunteer organization in which there was only a small paid clerical staff.

The WONPR was founded by  Pauline Morton Sabin, who had earlier helped establish the Women’s National Republican Club and served as its president from 1921 until 1926. The group received a small amount of seed money from the Association Against Prohibition but after about a month membership dues made the organization self-supporting because of its rapid growth.

Contributing to its growth was the fact that  the NONPR had specific components or “committees”  targeting specific segments of the population. They included the Service League of younger women, the Business and Professional Women’s Group, the Women’s Hotel Committee and the Committee of Foreign-born Women. WONPR speakers talked before waitress’ unions , women’s clubs, laundry workers, African-American groups, Polish groups, farmer’s groups, and many others

In less than a year WONPR had a membership of 100,000. In April, 1931 it had 300,000 and in April 1932  the number grew to 600,000. By November of that year there were over 1,100,000 and by the time of Repeal in December of that year, 1.5 million members were claimed.  Even if the numbers were exaggerated, WONPR was clearly the largest anti-Prohibition organization in the country and several times larger than the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

The success of the WONPR distressed many Prohibition supporters. In The New York Times (May 23, 1932), D. Leigh Colvin, chairman of the National Prohibition Committee, described the WONPR membership as consisting of “Bacchantian maidens, parching for wine -- Wet women who, like the drunkards whom their program will produce, would take pennies off the eyes of the dead for the sake of legalizing booze.” One prohibitionist  supporter wrote to Pauline Sabin that “Every evening I get down on my knees and pray to God to damn your soul.”

The president of the Georgia Women’s Christian Temperance Union  was dismissive of the WONPR in 1930, saying that “As to Mrs. Sabin and her cocktail drinking women, we will out-live them, out-fight them, out-love them, out-talk them, out-pray them, and outvote them.”  At the very least, it appears that the members of the WONPR and the supporters of its position out-voted the members and of the WCTU and supporters of its position.23

Repeal Leaders

Joseph H. Choate, Jr. 

Joseph Choate chaired the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers VCL), a group of highly influential attorneys established in 1927 that promote repeal. He and the VCL worked closely with other repeal organizations such as the Women’s Organization for national Prohibition repeal (WONPR), the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), and others.

Choate played a pivotal role in providing valuable assistance to state initiatives to bring about repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. He spearheaded the drafting of model legislation that states could follow in creating state conventions that would ratify the Twenty-first Amendment. Twelve states adopted the draft without  any change, at least eight others followed it with slight modifications, several adopted sections of the draft, and many others used its ideas in developing their own legislation.

Upon repeal in of Prohibition in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt named Choate the first director of the Federal Alcohol Control Administration (FACA). As head of that agency, Choate promised to let the individual states determine how they wished to regulate the production, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages within their borders. He then assisted states as they developed their individual policies.24

John William Davis 

John Davis (1873-1955) was a member of the National Advisory Council of the Crusaders. He was an influential politician who served in the House of Representatives, as Solicitor General, as ambassador to the United Kingdom, and ran for the presidency in 1924.

M. Louise Gross 

M. Louise Gross (1884-1951) was secretary to New York City Tammany Hall district leader Thomas F. Foley. She served in leadership positions in repeal of prohibition organizations including the Molly Pitcher Club, the Women's Moderation Union, and the Women's Committee for Modification of the Volstead Act. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in 1930, she stated that unless the Volstead Act were changed before her two young nieces grew older, she would be sending “abroad where they can learn to drink like ladies.”

After repeal of National prohibition she became a registered lobbyist in Washington, DC.25

Raskob, John Jakob.

John Raskob (1879-1950) was a leader in the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA).  In 1928, Raskob pledged $25,000 a year for two years to the AAPA and promised to contribute the same amount for three additional years if the organization made satisfactory progress  toward its goal of achieving repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.

It was Raskob’s belief that the government had no more right to prohibit drinking than to prohibit religious freedom. He also believed that Prohibition represented an intolerance on the part of  Protestants to regulate  what he considered traditional Catholic behavior and that it reflected intolerance. Raskob was also deeply concerned that Prohibition was breeding widespread disrespect for law. As a devoted family man, Raskob asked “What impressions are registered in the minds of my sons and daughters when they see thoroughly reputable and successful men and women drinking, talking about their bootleggers, the good ‘stuff’ they get, expressing contempt for the Volstead Law, etc.?“ He was especially concerned about “what ideas are forming in their young and fertile brains with respect to law and order?“ 26

Jouett Shouse 

Jouett Shouse (1879-1968) was a leading Democratic politician and proponent of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment.  After an early career in the newspaper business, Shouse became a Kansas state senator (1913-1915), a member of Congress (1915-1919), Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1919-1920), chairman of the Democratic National Committee (1929-1932), and president of the American Liberty League (1934-1938).

As Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, its was Shouse’s responsibility to supervise the new Bureau of Prohibition, the job of which it was to enforce national Prohibition.  Following his government service, he returned to the practice of law.

Although Shouse had  a prosperous legal practice he gave up both his practice and his leadership of the Democratic Party to become president of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment after he became disillusioned with Prohibition. In that role he played a very active role in promoting the successful effort to repeal National Prohibition.

He appeared on the cover of Time  magazine in 1930.27

Stayton, Captain William H. 

Naval Captain William H. Stayton (1861-1953) founded the Association Against the Prohibition amendment in 1918 and incorporated it in 1920. He resigned his naval commission in 1891 to practice law. Among his clients was the eccentric and penny-pinching Hetty Green, widely known as “the Witch of Wall Street,” whom he had to sue for $50,000 unpaid legal fees.

Stayton’s interest in Prohibition was based on his belief that the Eighteenth Amendment was both unnecessary and a dangerous intrusion into what should be a state and local matter. He was especially distressed that persons could be prosecuted under both state and federal law for the very same prohibition violation. He believed that this was inconsistent with Fifth Amendment protections and constituted double jeopardy.

The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment was a non-partisan, non-sectarian organization open to anyone who had not been in the alcohol business.  Membership dues were set at one dollar per year and a rapidly-growing membership and early gift of $10,000 from John Roebling assured that finances would not be a problem.

The AAPA largely attracted business and professional men. Leadership roles tended to be held by men of wealth and power and included an ex-New York City mayor, two du Pont brothers, publisher Charles Scribner, business owner Marshall Field, the president of Carnegie Institute, financier Grayson Murphy, retired auto manufacturer Henry Bourne Joy, a retired federal judge, several members of Congress and several railroad and bank presidents. Women were enrolled in an auxiliary organization.

Upon repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, journalist H. L. Mencken described Stayton as “the hero of the day” and said that he had “He has done the American people a fast service , and I only wish that they will not forget it.” The New York Times reported that Captain Stayton had convinced the vast majority of Americans that repeal could be achieved and then pushed Congress and the states to act.

Stayton authored the Naval Militiaman's Handbook (1895) and articles promoting repeal. 28

James W. Wadsworth, Jr. 

James Wadsworth (1877-1952) was a leader of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment. He was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1904 and was selected Speaker  in 1905. Wadsworth  headed the state delegation to the Republican National Convention in  1912 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914. He co-authored the Wadsworth-Garrett amendment in 1921, commonly called the back-to-the-people amendment and served as a United States Congressman (1933-1951).

Wadswoth was a firm proponent of individual rights and feared what he considered the threat of federal intervention into the private lives of Americans.  He believed that the only purpose of the Constitution was to and  limit the powers of government and to protect the rights of  citizens.  For this reason, he voted against the Eighteenth Amendment when it was before the Senate.  Before it went into effect, Wadswort predicted that prohibition would result in widespread violations and contempt for law and the Constitution .

By the mid-1920s, Wadsworth was one of a handful of congressmen who spoke out forcefully and frequently against Prohibition.  He was especially concerned that citizens could be prosecuted by both state and federal officials for a single violation of prohibition law. This seemed to him to constitute double jeopardy, inconsistent with the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution.
 
In 1926, he joined the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment and made 131 speeches across the country for the organization between then and repeal. His political acumen and contacts proved  valuable in  overturning National Prohibition.29

 

References
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  24. Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000; Lender, Mark E. The Historian and Repeal. In: Kyvig, David E. (Ed.) Law, Alcohol, Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. Pp. 177-205; Root, Grace C. Women and Repeal: the Story of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1934; Vose, Clement E. Repeal as a Political Achievement. In: Kyvig, David E. (Ed.) Law, Alcohol, Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. Pp. 97-121.
  25. Kyvig, David E. Women against Prohibition. American Quarterly, 1976 (Autumn), 28(4), 465-482; New York Public Library, Research Libraries Catalog; Torrid Talk. Time, February 24, 1930.
  26. Crowther, Samuel. Everybody ought to be rich: An interview with John J. Raskob. Ladies Home Journal,  August, 1929. Pp. 9, 36; McManus, Robert Cruise. Raskob, North American Review, January, 1931, 231, 10-15; Pringle, Henry F. John J. Raskob: A portrait, Outlook, August 22, 1928, pp. 645-649, 678; Raskob on solid ground, Outlook and Independent, April 15, 1931, , p. 516.
  27. Campaign captain. Time, November 10, 1930; Kyvig, David. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979; Shouse, Jouett. Wachman, what of the night?,  Atlantic Monthly,  February, 1931, 250-258; Shouse, Jouett. Prohibition and the Bill of Rights.  (uky.edu/Libraries/libpage.php?lweb_id=474&llib_id=13&ltab_rank=8)
  28. Engelmann, Larry. Intemperance: The Lost War Against Liquor. London: Collier Macmillan, 1979; Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000; Root, Grace C. Women and Repeal: The Story of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1934; Stayton, William H. Have we Prohibition or only Prohibition laws? North American Review, June, 1925, 221, 591-596; Stayton, William H. The official view of the Anti-Prohibition Association,  Current History, April, 1928, 4-9; Wood, Charles S. (Ed.) A Criticism of National Prohibition. Washington, DC: Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, 1926.
  29. Fausold, Martin L. James W. Wadsworth, Jr.: The Gentleman from New York. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1974; Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000; Root, Grace C. Women and Repeal: The Story of the Women’s Organization  for National Prohibition Reform. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1934; Vose, Clement E. Repeal as a Political Achievement. In: Kyvig, David E. (Ed.) Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. Pp. 97-121.
  30. Lender, Mark E. and Martin, James K. Drinking in America: A History. NY: Free Press and London: Collier Macmillan, 1982;  Root, Grace C. Women and Repeal: the Story of the  Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. NY: Harper & Brothers,1934; Thornton, Mark. The Economics of Prohibition. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1991; Vernon, John. The Wickersham Commission and William Monroe Trotter. Negro History Bulletin, 1999 (January-March).
Readings
  • Aaron, Paul, and Musto, David. Temperance and Prohibition in America: An Historical Overview. In: Moore, Mark H., and Gerstein, Dean R. (eds.) Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1981. pp. 127-181.
  • Anti-Saloon League of America. Anti-Saloon League of America Yearbook. Westerville OH: American Issue Press, 1920, p. 28. Cited by Mulford, Harold A. Alcohol and Alcoholism in Iowa, 1965. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa, 1965, p. 9.
  • Asbury, Herbert. The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968 (Originally published 1950).
  • Blocker, Jr., Jack S. Retreat from Reform. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976.
  • Childs, Randolph W. Making Repeal Work. Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania Alcoholic Beverage Study, Inc., 1947.
  • Furnas, J. C. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965.
  • Kobler, John. Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973.
  • Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
  • Lender, Mark E., and Martin, James K. Drinking in America: A History. New York: The Free Press, 1982.
  • Mendelson, Jack H., and Mello, Nancy K. Alcohol: Use and Abuse in America. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1985.
  • Merz, Charles. The Dry Decade. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1969. (Contains a new introduction by the author. Originally published in 1930.)
  • Pollard, Joseph P. The Road to Repeal: Submission to Conventions. New York: Brentano's , 1932.
  • Rose, Kenneth D. American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
  • Tietsort, Francis J., (ed.) Temperance—or Prohibition? New York: American, 1929.

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