Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been aware of the saying, “If March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb” (and I thought vice versa, but that seems to return a lot fewer search results). According to documentation at the Library of Congress, a 19th century American social reformer had a different take on the changeable month. Gerrit Smith wanted March to come in dry, stay dry, and go out dry, not just in March but in every month and in every year. Alcohol was freely and legally available for sale in much of the United States 150 years ago, so Mr. Smith took a couple steps to change that in March 1870.
Gerrit Smith: focus on panel 2
On March 2nd he reported the relative success of the New York State Anti-Dramshop Party in a local election in the town of Smithfield (itself dry since 1842). I don’t think it won any particular race, but it did better than the Democrats. Gerrit Smith referred to both the Democrats and Republicans as dramshop parties because neither was confronting the evil of dramselling, even though both parties had non-drinking members. The name of his party also indicated its narrow focus. “The great principle on which our party is founded and the happily-chosen name of our party afforded us a great advantage in arguing for our ticket. This principle—viz. the duty of Government to protect person and property — none could gainsay. Nor could any deny that it grossly violates this duty, when it establishes or permits the dramshop.” The party didn’t want to criminalize drinking at home, or even the manufacture and importation of alcohol because a ban on selling alcoholic drinks would dampen the demand so much that making and/or importing wouldn’t be profitable.
Mr. Smith saw a potential rift in the temperance movement between his party’s purpose and those who wanted to make any use of alcohol illegal:
Just here, is one of the very greatest perils of our cause. Just here, is where the friends of temperance are divided—perhaps, fatally divided. Whilst many of them would wage political war upon dramselling only, many of them would wage it against alcohol, every where. Such universal war would, probably, result in nothing but a reaction against the cause of temperance. On the other hand, if the war is against dramselling only, it will be espoused by tens of thousands, who, though they may continue to drink liquor at their homes, are, nevertheless, too much the friends of peace and order and too studious of the safety of person and property, to be patient with the dramshop. Moreover, such of them, as have young sons or young grandsons, take no pleasure in the thought of their growing up under the influence of the dramshop.
Mr. Smith writes to Washington
In a letter to Henry Wilson dated March 29, 1870, Gerrit Smith picked a bone with his fellow abolitionist and temperance supporter. He criticized a paper by the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts for not getting down to the nitty-gritty of politicizing the temperance movement by abolishing the dramshop. It wasn’t enough for the church to be in favor of temperance – it had to focus on voting the dramshop out of existence. Any movement that combined temperance with protestantism would be ineffective for eliminating the use of alcohol because the temperance movement needed support from people of all religions:
What in your paper before me most surprises and pains me is its perfect silence in respect to voting. For years, you were earnestly engaged in the work of voting slavery to death. Hence you connected yourself with an independent anti-slavery political party, and eloquently summoned your fellow citizens to do likewise. Why is it that you are not now at work to get the dramshop voted out of existence? I notice that you speak of the labor we have had with slavery and with its consequences as a “political” labor, and of that we have with temperance as a “moral” one. I beg you to inform the public of your grounds for this distinction. Is not the dramshop as much as slavery the creature of law? — and is not political action to shut it up as necessarily and as loudly called for, as it was to terminate slavery?
relying too much on THE CHURCH?
Your reliance for carrying forward the cause of temperance is on the reviving of an interest in it in the church. “The church must take up the matter,” say you in capitals. Now, if you had said: “the church must take up the matter of voting for temperance or, in other words, of voting against the dramshop,” my whole heart would have fallen in with your injunction. I like sermons and prayers, when their avowed end is to promote the doing of the work, that is to be done: — but I loathe them when they are made a substitute for doing it. A church, that expressly preaches and prays for men to vote the shutting up of the dramshop, is a church that I like. But such a church is not common. Nay, uncommon is the church, whose votes do not go to keep open this overflowing fountain of the heaviest curses. You refer to the guilty conduct of the church in our old struggle with slavery. Guilty wherein? She failed not to preach and pray against oppression. Her guilt was in clinging to pro-slavery parties and refusing to testify against slavery at the polls. Similar to this is her guilt in the matter of the dramshop and drunkenness; —and you must pardon me for adding that you, instead of entirely ignoring the wickedness of her dramshop voting, are, from your influential position in the church, under special obligation to bring home to her and press upon her this great wickedness. Would that, instead of writing this paper which I am criticising, you had called on the church to persuade all her voters to join the national political party organized last September for the suppression of dramselling. Some of these voters are joining it. Some of them are still foolish enough to believe that their dramshop parties will yet abolish the dramshop, just as there were persons who were foolish enough to believe that the old Whig and Democratic parties would abolish slavery. To hang upon these parties which, as a general remark, have not the least idea of ever making war upon the dramshop, is, surely, a very poor way to help temperance. Some of these voters would quit their dramshop parties to join a party (if there were such a one) which goes against the dramshop and also against certain things that they greatly dislike. But the party, which fights the dramshop, will have its hands full, though it shall fight nothing else. It will need, too, all the help it can get — Catholic as well as Protestant voters; men of whatever views of the Common School; Jews, Seventh day Baptists and No-Sabbath men as well as Sunday men. It is true that a party for temperance and protestantism might, as it is claimed it would, “sweep the State.” Such a party would, however, sweep it not with temperance — but with a protestant frenzy. It would bring no help, but, on the contrary, immense harm to temperance. No good whatever would come of such a party; whilst the sectarian animosity it would engender is an evil beyond computation. I have now referred to some of the different courses of different church members. I close under this head with saying that a large share of the church members manifest no interest whatever in the cause of temperance.
“criminality of dramselling.”
“This is a world of shams”
next up – freedom from alcohol?
_____________
not even wine on her wedding
It seems that both Gerrit Smith and Henry Wilson prioritized progressive causes. Since slavery had been abolished and reconstruction was “substantially complete,” temperance should take center stage (Mr. Smith also mentioned repudiation). Women’s rights was another movement intertwined with abolition and temperance, as Seneca County Historian Walt Gable pointed out in an excellent article about Amelia Bloomer (Finger Lakes Times, March 29, 2020, page 4B). She got married to a local newspaper publisher and moved to Seneca Falls, New York in 1840. At the wedding reception she “sweetly refused to drink wine.” Seneca Falls would have made Gerrit Smith very happy in 1842 when it passed a law forbidding the sale of liquor. She became a member of the Ladies Total Abstinence Society of Seneca Falls that formed in 1848. That Society began publishing The Lily in 1849; from 1850 Amelia Bloomer was editor and publisher until she sold the paper in 1854. The Lily publicized the newfangled pants with knee-length dress, which became known as “bloomers,” even though Amelia didn’t invent them. On May 12, 1851 Bloomer introduced Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton after a public program during which William Lloyd Garrison and a British abolitionist spoke. Sometime after their first meeting Anthony was invited to spend several days at the Stanton home. “Thus began the great working collaboration between Anthony and Stanton in both the temperance and women’s rights causes.” In 1853 the Bloomers began moving west and ended up in Iowa: “During the Civil War, she [Amelia] started the Soldier’s Aid Society of Council Bluffs to help Union soldiers.”
dry prose?
Gerrit Smith eventually got his wish. The 18th or “Prohibition” amendment went into effect in January 2020. It banned not only the sale, but also the manufacture, transportation, and importation of alcohol. Although there is evidence that the amendment did lead to some healthy results, apparently it didn’t dampen demand enough because the 21st amendment repealed prohibition in 1933 and with it the demand for speakeasies, alcohol smuggling, and bathtub gin.
I read a couple articles recently that provide a little local, upstate New York color for the prohibition era. The January 23, 2020 issue of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York pages A10-A11) flashbacked 100 years. The evening before the 18th amendment kicked in was a relatively sober affair in Syracuse, possibly because it was cold with three inches of snow falling and people were frugal – if they had any alcohol left, they wouldn’t down it all at once but would nurse it for as long as possibly during the coming months. Also, the city’s Internal Revenue collector warned that the new amendment would be strictly enforced. There were two pharmacies in Syracuse that were allowed to sell alcohol – but only with a doctor’s prescription. The travel business picked up – there was increased interest in taking a trip to “Cuba, Bermuda and the Bahamas.” “Maybe it was to get from Syracuse’s cold weather, or, maybe, it was because these were the nearest “wet” foreign countries.”
The February 2020 issue of the New York Farm Bureau’s Grassroots (page 19) tells that Utica, New York’s West End Brewing Company (now F.X. Matt) was the first brewery in the nation to legally sell (full strength) beer after prohibition was repealed. F.X. Matt I kept his company going and his workers employed during prohibition by producing soft drinks and Utica Club, a malt tonic. The tonic’s label included a disclaimer: “Caution: Do not ferment, do not add yeast, or you will create beer.” But the Matt company fervently lobbied the federal government for repeal of prohibition; the company got the first license to sell beer post-prohibition because Frank Matt was in Washington lobbying at the time. F.X. Matt I wrote his distributors that they could have all the beer they wanted at 12:05 AM on December 6, 1833 – the first wet day. Right after I wrote this summary I found out you can see it all, the original article, at the New York State Brewers Association, which even shows pictures of Mr. Matt’s notes to distributors.
I think the national political party that Gerrit Smith referenced in his letter to Henry Wilson would be the Prohibition Party:
“On September 1, 1869, almost five hundred delegates from twenty states and Washington, D.C. met in Farwell Hall, Chicago and John Russell was selected to serve as the temporary chairman and James Black serving as president of the convention. The party was the first to accept women as members and gave those who attended full delegate rights. Former anti-slavery activist Gerrit Smith, who had served in the House of Representatives from 1853 to 1854 and ran for president in 1848, 1856, 1860 with the Liberty Party nomination, served as a delegate from New York and gave a speech at the convention. The organization was referred to as either the National Prohibition Party or the Prohibition Reform Party.”
The party is still in existence. Phil Andrew Collins is its 2020 presidential nominee; the nominating convention was held by conference call last August.
Sunday morning respite
D.A.’s door
Prohibition Party symbol
The Prohibition Party symbol comes from Wikipedia. I also got The Lily masthead from Wikipedia, which got it from a blog post about Elizabeth Cady Stanton – a good example of the close relationship between temperance and women’s rights is a newspaper notice for the first annual meeting of The Woman’s N.Y. State Temperance Society, with Cady Santton as President and Bloomer as Cor. Sec.: “Although best known for their joint work on behalf of women’s suffrage, Stanton and Anthony first joined the temperance movement. Together, they were instrumental in founding the short-lived Women’s New York State Temperance Society (1852–1853). During her presidency of the organization, Stanton scandalized many supporters by suggesting that drunkenness be made sufficient cause for divorce.” The image of Amelia Bloomer was published in History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I and can be found at Project Gutenberg.
From the Library of Congress: Drunkard’s Progress from about 1826; Gerrit Smith; Senator Henry Wilson; Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph of Ted Aub’s statue “When Anthony [l] Met Stanton [r]”, Amelia Bloomer (m) introduced them – I was happy to find out Ms. Highsmith was here in 2018, 170 years after the first women’s right convention … and the founding of the Ladies Total Abstinence Society of Seneca Falls; Pioneers of freedom from about 1866 – Gerrit Smith, Henry Wilson, and William Lloyd Garrison all appear.
The photos of D.A.’s on Bridge Street, Seneca Falls, New York were taken on March 29, 2020 during the corona virus pandemic. New York State deems liquor stores essential businesses, but the owners want patrons to keep their distance inside.
A,B,CS: a spark for temperance and women’s rights, but social distancing concern
