Between 1830 and 1840, most temperance organizations began to argue that the only way to prevent drunkenness was to eliminate the consumption of alcohol. The Temperance Society became the Abstinence Society. The Independent Order of Good Templars, the Sons of Temperance, the Templars of Honor and Temperance, the Anti-Saloon League, the National Prohibition Party and other groups were formed and grew rapidly. With the passage of time, "The temperance societies became more and more extreme in the measures they championed."



While it began by advocating the temperate or moderate use of alcohol, the movement now insisted that no one should be permitted to drink any alcohol in any quantity. And it did so with religious fervor and increasing stridency.

The prohibition of alcohol by law became a major issue in every political campaign from the national and state level down to those for school board members. In promoting what many prohibitionists saw as their religious duty, they perfected the techniques of pressure politics. Women in the movement even used their children to march, sing, and otherwise exert pressure at polling places. Dressed in white and clutching tiny American flags, the children would await their instruction to appeal to "wets" as they approached the voting booth.

The Civil War (1861-1865) had interrupted the temperance movement while Americans were preoccupied with that struggle. Then, after the war, the Women's Christian Temperance Union was founded. The organization did not promote moderation or temperance but rather prohibition. One of its methods to achieve that goal was education. It was believed that if it could "get to the children" it could create a "dry" sentiment leading to prohibition.

The Anti-Saloon League, under the de facto leadership of Wayne Wheeler, stressed its religious character and since it acted as an agent of the churches and therefore was working for God, anything it did was seen as moral and justified because it was working to bring about the Lord's will. One league leader would later write that the lies he told in promoting prohibition "would fill a big book."

The league was so powerful that even national politicians feared its strength. The 18th Amendment establishing National Prohibition decades later might well not have passed if a secret ballot had made it impossible for the league to have punished the "disobedient" at the next election.

In 1880 the Women’s Christian Temperance Union established a Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges, with Mary Hunt as National Superintendent. She believed that voters "must first be convinced that alcohol and kindred narcotics are by nature outlaws, before they will outlaw them." She decided to use legislation to coerce the moral suasion of students, who would be the next generation of voters. This gave birth to the idea of the compulsory Scientific Temperance Instruction Movement.

By the turn of the century, Mary Hunt’s efforts proved to be highly successful. Virtually every state, the District of Columbia, and all United States possessions had strong legislation mandating that all students receive anti-alcohol education. Furthermore, the implementation of this legislation was closely monitored down to the classroom level by legions of determined and vigilant WCTU members throughout the nation.

Temperance writers viewed the WCTU's program of compulsory temperance education as a major factor leading to the establishment of National Prohibition with passage of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Other knowledgeable observers, including the U.S. Commissioner of Education, agreed.

Because of the correlation between drinking and what we now recognize as domestic violence -- many of the women who were beaten by their husbands observed that their husbands were likely to do so when drunk -- the temperance movement existed alongside various women's rights and other movements, including the Progressive movement, and often the same activists were involved in all of the above. Many notable voices of the time, ranging from Lucy Webb Hayes to Susan B. Anthony, were active in the movement. In Canada, Nellie McClung was a longstanding advocate of temperance. As with most social movements, there was a gamut of activists running from violent (Carrie Nation) to mild (Neal S. Dow).

Many former abolitionists joined the temperance movement and it was also strongly supported by the second Ku Klux Klan. Often called the KKK of the 1920s, it had been established (or revived) in Georgia in 1915 largely to defend that state's prohibition laws. Promoting and even enforcing temperance became a cornerstone of the Klan's agenda as it spread throughout the country.

For decades prohibition had been touted as the almost magical solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other ills. On the eve of prohibition the invitation to a church celebration in New York said "Let the church bells ring and let there be great rejoicing, for an enemy has been overthrown and victory crowns the forces of righteousness." Jubilant with victory, some in the WCTU announced that, having brought Prohibition to the United States, it would now go forth to bring the blessing of enforced abstinence to the rest of the world.

The famous evangelist Billy Sunday staged a mock funeral for John Barleycorn and then preached on the benefits of prohibition. "The reign 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." 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. One sold its jail to a farmer who converted it into a combination pig and chicken house while another converted its jail into a tool house.

However well-intentioned its proponents may have been, the practical challenges prohibition presented proved to be insurmountable. The actual consequences ranged from unfortunate to disastrous and deadly. Widespread disregard for law was obvious in the notorious and ever-present organized bootlegging. Organized smuggling of alcohol from Canada and elsewhere quickly developed. So-called "Rum rows", lines of ships just beyond the three mile limit off the coasts of large cities, off-loaded their cargoes onto speed boats destined for the shore. Murder and hijacking were common in this dangerous but lucrative business. Prohibition led to massive and widespread corruption of politicians and law enforcement agencies and helped finance powerful crime syndicates. It became very difficult to convict those who violated prohibition because public support for the law and its enforcement eroded dramatically.

In addition to the murders of law enforcement officers there was an even more common cause of death and disability caused by moonshiners. Blindness and "jake foot" paralysis were caused by lead poisoning, embalming fluid , poisonous industrial alcohol, creosote and other substances sometimes found in bootleg liquor.

Financial burdens caused by Prohibition were increased by the fact that bootleg, being untaxed, deprived the treasury of much needed revenue.

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. (Furnas, 1965, p. 337)