PROHIBITION 



of William H. Taft the more radical Repub- 

 lican leaders became active opponents of his 

 conservative policies, and in the convention of 

 1912 there was great opposition to his renomi- 

 nation. The strongest candidate of the liberal 

 element was Theodore Roosevelt. In organiz- 

 ing the convention, however, Mr. Taft's sup- 

 porters were able to seat Taft delegates in al- 

 most all contested delegations and thus obtain 

 sufficient votes to nominate their candidate. 

 The Progressive leaders, charging fraud, retired 

 from the convention and organized a new party, 

 later selecting Theodore Roosevelt as their 

 nominee for President and Hiram W. Johnson, 

 governor of California, for Vice-President. The 

 platform urged social, political and economic 

 reforms. 



In the subsequent election the Progressives 

 polled 4,126,020 votes (as compared with 3,483,- 

 922 for the Republicans), carrying California, 

 Washington, South Dakota, Minnesota and 

 Pennsylvania. However, the various elections 

 held in November, 1914, revealed a weakness 

 in the party, which carried only California and 

 lost in all 2,213,090 votes. The total Progres- 

 sive vote in that year was 1,916,417, while the 

 Republican vote showed a gain of 2,528,418, 

 indicating that a very large proportion of the 

 Progressives had returned to the parent party. 

 The Progressives maintained their organization, 

 however, and in 1916 held a national conven- 

 tion in Chicago, nominating Roosevelt for 

 President and John W. Parker of Louisiana for 

 Vice-President. No campaign was made, as 

 Roosevelt declined to run. Instead, he gave his 

 support to the Republican candidate, Charles 

 E. Hughes, and most of the Progressive lead- 

 ers followed his example. The fall election, 

 which resulted in victory for Woodrow Wilson, 

 Democrat, indicated that the breach in the Re- 

 publican party was not yet healed and that 

 Progressive ideals were still a force to be reck- 

 oned with. See POLITICAL PARTIES. 



Consult Payne'* The Birth of a New Party; 

 Roosevelt's Progressive Principles. 



PROHIBITION, prohibish'un. "The world 

 against John Barleycorn" is the picturesque 

 phrase used by the antiliquor forces to de- 

 scribe the extent of the prohibition movement 

 of to-day. When the sources of opposition to 

 the liquor traffic are counted, it does not seem 

 surprising that what has appeared to be an 

 impregnable business should totter under the 

 assaults directed against it. The traffic in al- 

 coholic beverages has been fought on moral, so- 

 economic and scientific grounds, with the 

 303 



PROHIBITION 



economic issue probably having the greatest 

 weight. All of these points are discussed in 

 these volumes under the heading ALCOHOLIC 

 DRINKS. It is the purpose of this article to 

 show the status of the prohibition movement 

 in those countries of the world where it has 

 made headway. 



In the United States. Previous to the War 

 of Secession Maine and a few other Eastern 

 states passed state-wide prohibition laws, but 

 they were repealed in all of the states except 

 Maine. After the war the liquor business de- 

 veloped rapidly; millions of dollars were in- 

 vested in breweries and distilleries, and saloons 

 multiplied throughout the country. With the 

 development of the liquor industry came a 

 strong counter-movement for prohibition. In 

 1872 the Prohibition party held its first national 

 convention. This organization represented an 

 attempt to make the temperance cause a po- 

 litical issue, as both the Republican and the 

 Democratic parties refused to insert prohibi- 

 tion planks in their platforms. Two years later 

 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was 

 organized. Both of these organizations, and 

 numerous smaller bodies, have aided the anti- 

 liquor movement immeasurably by keeping the 

 issue constantly before the people, but the more 

 practical results have been achieved through 

 the efforts of the Anti-Saloon League, organ- 

 ized in Ohio in 1893. 



This society has worked on the principle that 

 if you cannot cut down the whole tree it is a 

 good plan to lop off some of the branches. Ac- 

 cordingly, where it was not found possible to 

 secure a state prohibition law at the outset, 

 its leaders worked hard for local option, with 

 the city, township or county as the prohibition 

 unit. In many instances states have almost 

 voted themselves "dry" by applying in sections 

 the local option principle. What had been ac- 

 complished is shown in the "wet" and "dry" map 

 of the United States, on page 4834. On July 

 1, 1919, thirty-one states were already in the 

 dry column, or had voted to have state-wide 

 prohibition go into effect on a definite date. 

 There is little doubt that soon all the states, 

 with notable exceptions, would have been "dry" 

 territory by local action. As the map shows, 

 there were numerous dry sections in most of the 

 wet states. Alaska (1918), Porto Rico (1917) 

 and the District of Columbia (1917) have also 

 been voted prohibition territory. 



However, the nation became interested in 

 the liquor question. The United States Con- 

 grew passed and the Supreme Court declared 



