Texas Prohibition

transcript

James Holloway

Parrish

History 3380

7 February 2013

Texas Prohibition

Prohibition in the United States, which occurred

from 1920 till 1933, was a national ban on the sale,

manufacture, and transportation of alcohol. The

prohibition movement began to influence Texas and

American politics in the 1840s. The prohibition movement

really began to gain ground in Texas during the 1880s.

The Eighteenth Amendment made “the manufacture, sale, or

transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the

importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from

the United States and all territory subject to the

jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby

prohibited.”1 This amendment was not put into practice

until a year after it was ratified; therefore, Texas

1 U.S. Constitution, amend. 18, sec. 1.

voters approved a state prohibition amendment that went

into effect in 1919. This was met by severe resentment by

the working class throughout the United States.

Prohibition was a controversial issue in both national

and Texas politics during the twenties. In 1925 opponents

of prohibition were in control of the Texas government

and refused to support enforcement. Nationally, popular

support for prohibition receded after the Great

Depression began in 1929; in 1933 congress passed the

Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed prohibition.

During the thirteen years of prohibition the illegal

production of alcohol, or moonshining, became a

widespread thing, especially in Texas and other southern

states, and is still prevalent in some parts of Texas

today. While many Texans were supporters of prohibition,

there was also a large percentage of the population that

was against it. Prohibition proved troublesome to

enforce, and it failed to have the intended effect of

reducing crime and other social problems—to the contrary,

it led to a rise in organized crime, as the bootlegging

of alcohol became a very lucrative operation and

eventually due to widespread public disillusionment

Congress ratified the Twenty-first amendment, which

repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.

The prohibition movement in Texas began in the

1840s. The Republic of Texas in 1943 passed a local-

option measure that allowed counties and towns to ban

alcohol within their borders; some communities then began

to outlaw alcohol consumption individually. This was one

of the first laws of its kind and because of it many

counties in the north and northwest regions of Texas

became dry counties. The advance of dry counties was

halted, however, in major cities and counties where there

were significant numbers of Germans, Mexicans, or African

Americans. Several prohibition organizations such as the

United Friends of Temperance and the Woman’s Christian

Temperance Union began to appear. Prohibitionists

believed that stopping the legal trafficking of liquor

would help solve a widespread individual and social

problem. The fight for prohibition “was a product of the

white southern evangelical churches”2 and fundamentalists.

Prohibitionists tried to present themselves as secular

reformers, but they did not deny their denominational

roots. In 1887 there was a referendum held in Texas to

vote on a prohibition amendment.

The picture above is an excerpt from James D. Ivy’s bookNo Saloon in the Valley: The Southern Strategy of Texas Prohibitionists in the

1880s showing the estimated votes for the Texasprohibition amendment of 1887.

Balloting was nowhere more closely watched nor was the

issue more hotly contested than in Waco. “Both the

2 James D. Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley: The Southern Strategy of Texas Prohibitionists in the 1880s (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2003),94.

prohibitionists and the anti-prohibitionists had their

headquarters in that city.”3 The city of Waco voted

against the amendment by a majority of twenty-nine votes,

which stunned the prohibitionists. Overall for the

prohibitionists the “final returns gave them fewer than

130,000 votes out of nearly 350,000 cast. Thirty-two

counties out of 181 returned majorities for the

amendment. Of all the cities, only Fort Worth voted with

the prohibitionists.”4 This was a devastating defeat to

the prohibitionists. Those that supported prohibition

were Texans that had the closest ties to white southern

culture. Those that did not support prohibition were

ethnic Germans and Mexicans, as well as African

Americans. This trend would continue throughout the fight

for prohibition in the state of Texas.

3 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 90.4 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 91.

The above map is taken from James D. Ivy’s book No Saloon in

the Valley: The Southern Strategy of Texas Prohibitionists in the 1880s, itshows a geographical perspective of the voting for the

prohibition amendment in 1887.

Ethnic Germans and Mexicans, African Americans, and

whites that were born in other states heavily populated

the counties that voted against prohibition. Though the

abolitionists had been badly defeated, this was not,

however, the end of the prohibition movement. Prohibition

continued to spread throughout the state of Texas and by

1895 of the 239 counties in Texas fifty-three of them

were dry and another seventy-nine were partly dry through

local option. “But this partial success was of little

value to prohibitionists when bootlegging and access to

nearby wet counties made enforced abstinence virtually

impossible. Moreover, the ethnic and cultural diversity

of central and southern portions of the state continued

to be a barrier to local prohibition efforts.”5

The prohibition movement in Texas reemerged in the

early 1900s. The reemergence of the movement was due to

several factors.

The national Prohibition Party, which had appeared in the late nineteenth century, had never offered a serious threat to the DemocraticParty in the southern states, but it had convince many in the progressive wing of the party that the ‘liquor trade’ was an important concern of many voters. The Anti-Saloon League, founded in Ohio in 1895, moved into Texas in 1907 and began to support local option prohibition and to press the legislature to submit another prohibition amendment to the voter. Finally, a progressive reform of the electoral processes in the state made it more likely that a concerted effort on the part of reformers could turn out enough votes to make statewide prohibition a reality.6

All of these factors helped with the reemergence of the

Texas prohibition movement in the early 1900s. The

progressive reform of the electoral process in Texas

5 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 105.6 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 106.

created several reforms that were passed in the effort to

further disenfranchise the poor among African Americans

and Tejanos, who had traditionally opposed prohibition.

Among these reforms was a poll tax amendment to the Texas

constitution that was ratified by the people. The tax had

to be paid between October and February prior to an

election and no one could pay it for you. The progress of

the local option began to alarm the liquor industry’s

interests. The Texas Brewers Association was created in

1901 and began to campaign against the poll tax

amendment. Failing at that, they however, supported a

bill in 1903 that would require a two-year gap between

local option elections so that they could at least delay

the expansion of the number of dry counties in Texas. The

bill was narrowly defeated by the Texas legislature.

Eventually the state legislature approved a

constitutional amendment to be submitted to the voters in

a general election in 1911 due to pressure from

constituents and the lobbying of the Anti-Saloon League.

The campaign for the acceptance of the prohibition

amendment took on a more religious connotation for the

prohibitionist side, and many religious leaders were

prominent in the campaign. “The religious thrust of

prohibition in Texas owed much to the labors of prominent

clergymen whose writings and speeches prodded politicians

and informed the faithful.”7 As wells as being pressured

religiously to vote for prohibition, social tension

influenced many Texans to convert to the abolitionist

side because of the African American opposition to it.

Many white people did not want to vote on an issue the

same way that African Americans did. “The drys liked to

boast of unity, common purpose, and righteous zeal as

compared with the baser motives and internal bickering of

opponents . . . Wets vigorously rebutted all

prohibitionist arguments. They regarded the reformers as

religious cranks and zealots bent on destroying personal

7 Lewis L. Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists: Texas Democrats in the Wilson Era (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973), 48.

freedom in a dubious cause.”8 The two sides both relied on

speakers and literature to win voters over in the 1911

prohibition referendum. The prohibitionist side created a

Statewide Prohibition Amendment Association that

coordinated the efforts of speakers and issued out a lot

of pamphlets. The prohibitionist campaign relied on the

mailing lists, speakers, and funds of the Anti-Saloon

League. The anti-prohibitionist side had speeches,

rallies, and pamphlets as well, but they also had money

to spend from the financing of the local and national

brewing interests to spend on black voters and for

advertisements in urban newspapers. The prohibitionists

tried to win over voters in the remaining dry mainstays

in North Texas, and they also tried to crack into the wet

counties in the south. On the other hand, the anti-

prohibitionists were counting on “turning out a heavy

vote in South Texas, doing well in the major cities, and

holding on to the ballots of blacks, Germans, and Mexican

8 Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists, 53.

Americans.”9 The result of the vote was that “the voters

of Texas had rejected statewide prohibition by 213,096 to

237,393. Prohibition was defeated by a margin of just

over five percent of the nearly half million votes

cast.”10 The prohibitionists blamed their defeat on the

black vote and accused the brewing interests of using a

slush fund to produce the outcome. While the

prohibitionists had been defeated again, this time it was

only by a small margin. Prohibitionists, therefore, could

hope that they were not that far away from statewide

prohibition. “In short, the 1911 election settled only

one round in the prohibition fight. As long as liquor

remained in Texas the drys would work against it. As long

as the agitation went on, the wets would persist in

opposition.”11

The next round in the fight for prohibition came in

1917-19 and advanced due to multiple reasons. The First

9 Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists, 56.10 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 117.11 Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists, 56.

World War advanced the efforts of prohibitionists as

“Drys and progressive Democrats recognized that the wars

was a splendid opportunity to realize their cherished

goals. They could attack the manufacture of liquor as

wasteful, indict brewers as the Kaiser’s agents, and

argue that alcohol endangered the health of military

personnel.”12 The basis for local prohibitionist activity

in 1917 was the protection of soldiers from the

temptations of vice and alcohol. They also began to focus

on local option elections again. In 1917, when the Texas

legislature refused to authorize a vote on a prohibition

amendment due to not having the two-thirds majority,

prohibitionists tried to call a constitutional convention

to try and append an anti-liquor clause into the existing

constitution. Governor Ferguson, however, “vetoed the

enabling resolution and killed submission until the

lawmakers met again in 1919.”13 Another reason for the

advance of the prohibition movement in Texas was the

12 Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists, 226.13 Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists, 227.

upheaval that reshaped state politics after the outcome

of the Waco convention. At the state convention in Waco

prohibitionists completed their takeover of the state

party and the “delegates approved Hobby’s administration,

urged passage of constitutional amendment to secure

prohibition and woman suffrage, and supported corrupt

practices legislation.”14 Also, the Wilson administration

proved to be receptive to the prohibitionist’s pleadings

and in 1917 Congress approved a prohibition amendment and

sent it to the states to be ratified. In 1919, after

prohibitionists took control of the Texas government,

there was another referendum for the people to vote on a

prohibition amendment. “On 24 May, prohibition passed.”15

The prohibitionists had finally won, as Texas voters

finally voted in favor of prohibition “voting in 1919

(overwhelmingly, but with extraordinarily low turnout)

for statewide prohibition in advance of the adoption of

14 Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists, 247.15 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 255.

the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”16 The

prohibition amendment for the Texas constitution was very

similar to that of the Eighteenth Amendment of the United

States Constitution. It stated that “the manufacture,

sale, barter and exchange in the State of Texas, of

spirituous, vinous or malt liquors or medicated bitter

capable of producing intoxication, or any other

intoxicant whatever except for medicinal, mechanical,

scientific or sacramental purposes, are each and all

hereby prohibited.”17 Texans voted for prohibition for the

same reasons that Americans, or state legislators,

eventually would: the triumph of progressivism, the

attack on liquor, and the animosity of the First World

When the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States

Constitution came into to effect in 1920 prohibition

finally swept across the entirety of the United States.

With the installment of national prohibition, “the

16 Ivy, No Saloon in the Valley, 119-120.17 Texas Constitution, art. 16, sec. 20.

American public an its elected officials had no

conception of the violence, corruption, and disrespect

for the law that the so-called noble experiment would

cause or encourage.”18 The prohibition era “spawned major

and long-lasting consequences for American law, politics,

government, labor criminal enterprise, and social

order.”19 The law did not have the support of the American

people, especially from the working class, and it could

not be policed, which turned the 1920s into a riot of

uncontrolled, illicit drinking. “There is no question

that a lot of liquor was consumed in the United States

while national prohibition was in effect.”20 Prohibition

was difficult to enforce due to the large amount of the

United States population that did not agree with it.

Unless there is a high degree of consensus in society that a law ought to be observed either because it makes sense or because penalties for being caught in violation are too severe to justify the rick, the police cannot isolate the

18 David E. Kyvig, ed. Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985), 124.19 Kyvig, Law, Alcohol, and Order, vii.20 Kyvig, Law, Alcohol, and Order, 12.

offenders. Law indeed becomes a social contract,and unless most of the members of society agree to honor the contract, it becomes unenforceable.In the case of prohibition, a very substantial number of people simply refused from the beginning to sign the contract. Drinking was an integral part of the culture of several large, cohesive, urban-centered ethnic groups . . . andthey could not be convinced that there was anything wrong with it.21

Because there were so many people in the United States

and in Texas that did not agree with prohibition, there

were many people in Texas and throughout the rest of the

United States that were willing to break the law.

“National Prohibition in the 1920s caused a lot of Texans

to violate the law both as makers and buyers of liquor.

But every town had its source of liquor.”22

The disapproval of prohibition led to many people in

the state of Texas, as well as other states, to start

moonshining (the illegal making of whiskey) and

bootlegging (the illegal selling of whiskey) so that they

and others could have alcohol. Moonshining was done with

21 Kyvig, Law, Alcohol, and Order, 13.22 Bootleggers supplied more than just liquor, Dallas Morning News, December 27, 1992.

stills that were usually hidden well and moved often to

avoid law enforcement as well as people stealing from

them. Below is a sketch from a 1929 case file of the

Bureau of Prohibition of a still that was used to create

moonshine during the prohibition era.23

In Texas, moonshining and bootlegging was widespread in

South and East Texas, the regions that had been against

prohibition in the Texas prohibition amendment

referendums. “I believe I would be safe in saying that at

one time or another during the prohibition period, at

least nine-tenths of the men in that part of East Texas

23 Bureau of Prohibition, Drawing of a Still, 1929, National Archives at Seattle.

dealt in whiskey in some way.”24 Not only was moonshining

and bootlegging extensive throughout Texas, but whiskey

makers usually operated with the support of the

community, as “bootleggers could not have operated, much

less reaped large profits, without widespread public

cooperation.”25 In fact, the population largely demanded

bootlegging even though it was illegal because they

wanted the product that the bootleggers supplied. In

Texas the moonshiners and bootleggers were individuals

that just wanted to make an earnest living and to have

alcohol. “The fellows in our part of the country were

known as ‘honest’ bootleggers and moonshiners and if they

resorted to unethical practices they didn’t last very

long. We had a pretty good reputation and tried to keep

it that way.”26 Moonshiners and bootleggers in Texas were

not afraid of local officers due to the fact “they didn’t

24 Henry J. Tyler, Back roads to Dallas: an autobiography of the days when bootleg liquor, not oil, was Texas tea; and the struggle for survival during the great depression of the thirties (Lincoln: Model Quarter Horse Press, 1970), 12.25 Kyvig, Law, Alcohol, and Order, 13.26 Tyler, Back roads to Dallas, 41.

dare shoot a moonshiner. If they did they would just

about have to leave the country, or else.”27 This gave

moonshiners and bootleggers a level of comfort in their

daily lifestyle. The moonshining and bootlegging business

was very big in Texas. “I bought and sold several hundred

gallons of whiskey that year.”28 Perhaps the region that

it was most pervasive was in East Texas, where “in some

parts of East Texas the woods were full of stills.”29

Moonshining and bootlegging became such a way of life

that it played a part in the lives of almost everyone in

a Texas community.

Bootlegging was also very attractive to criminal

syndicates that already existed, and during the

prohibition era “the manufacture and sale of alcoholic

beverages became the underworld’s biggest moneymaker,

supplanting gambling, which had held this position since

27 Tyler, Back roads to Dallas, 17.28 Tyler, Back roads to Dallas, 21.29 Avery R. Downing, Interview by James M. SoRelle and Thomas L. Charlton, August 1983, Written Transcript, Baylor University Oral History Collection, Waco, TX, (Texas Collection).

at least the 1870s.”30 Not only did prohibition create

moonshiners and bootleggers, it also created more extreme

criminals. “The prohibition era produced many outlaws and

gangsters and the Southwest seemed to have more than it’s

share.”31 Prohibition also caused the United States

criminal justice system to become overburdened, and it

also undermined respect for the nation’s laws. When the

Great Depression began there were even more criminals and

the authorities were constantly on the lookout for these

outlaws, which made life for bootleggers more difficult.

In the mid 1920s there was a shift in the control of

the Texas government to people that did not favor

prohibition and refused to support the enforcement of it.

During prohibition there were anti-prohibition groups,

much like the Anti-Saloon League had worked to bring

about prohibition, these groups worked to reverse the law

banning alcohol. Then in 1929 when the Great Depression

began what little support prohibition still had in Texas

30 Kyvig, Law, Alcohol, and Order, 128.31 Tyler, Back roads to Dallas, 41.

decreased dramatically. The Great Depression affected all

aspects of life and every person in the United States,

including moonshiners and bootleggers. “I could read the

handwriting on the wall. Profitable bootlegging was on

it’s way out.”32 Though there was a general disregard and

dislike of the law, the general belief was that nothing

could be done about it because it had been installed into

the Constitution. “The amendment’s author, Senator Morris

Sheppard of Texas, gloated, ‘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.’”33 Throughout the 1920s most

discussions on a remedy were concerned with increasing

enforcement efforts, changing the definition of

intoxicating beverages so that beer and wine would be

permitted, or just deliberately abandoning policing

efforts, ignoring a law that could not be enforced and

that they thought could not be removed.

32 Tyler, Back roads to Dallas, 69.33 Kyrig, Law, Alcohol, and Order, 14.

Nationwide support for prohibition, however,

eventually decreased so much that the United States

Congress was able to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment with

the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment. “The

eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of

the United States is hereby repealed.”34 This was the

first time that any amendment of the Constitution was

repealed. Prohibition was still law in Texas, however,

since they had ratified their own prohibition amendment

in 1919. It was not until 1935 that Texas voters ratified

a repeal of the state dry law. The prohibition question

from then on reverted back to the local level, and the

prohibitionists had only local option statutes available

to them.

National prohibition was repealed in 1933, but it

did not die out completely. When alcohol regulation was

handed back to individual states, many local communities

34 President, Proclamation, “President Franklin D. Rooseveltannounces the Repeal of Prohibition, Proclamation 2065, Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment,” (December 5, 1933): 1.

voted to keep the restrictions in place. There are still

a lot of dry counties in the United States today, and

many more where cities and towns within dry areas have

voted to allow alcohol sales, making them partially dry.

This is the case in Texas, as seen in the map below,

there are multiple counties that are still dry and many

that are partially dry.35

These restrictions on alcohol that still exist today are

part of the lasting legacy of the prohibition era. The

legacy of prohibition is especially evident in Texas. “In

Texas, you can’t buy hard liquor on Sundays, and you

35 Brian Wheeler, “The Slow Death of Prohibition,” BBC News,(March 2012), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17291978 (accessed May 1, 2013).

can’t buy beer or wine before noon.”36 (Calderon) Texas’

state laws governing alcohol were drafted in the 1930s

after national prohibition had been repealed; therefore,

they reflect the thinking of that era. These restrictive

laws today are the reason that moonshining is still

present in Texas today. While making and selling

moonshine is outlawed in every United States state and

distilling liquor without a license as a serious crime,

many Americans are breaking the law by making moonshine

in present times.

The prohibition movement in Texas started in the

1840s with a local option law that allowed individual

counties to decide on prohibition as well as the

formation of several temperance groups. The prohibition

movement really began to pick up speed in the 1880s when

the first prohibition amendment referendum was held;

prohibition was defeated drastically. Then in 1907 the

Anti-Saloon League came into Texas and took control of

36 Prohibition Era Rules Hold Sway on Alcohol Purchases, Houston Chronicle, December 2, 2007.

the prohibition movement. The Anti-Saloon League got

another referendum in 1911, by lobbying the Texas

Legislature, to vote on another prohibition amendment.

Prohibition was once again defeated, but by only a small

margin this time. Finally, in 1919 Texas passed a

prohibition amendment outlawing alcohol. A year later the

national prohibition amendment went into effect. This

caused widespread moonshining and bootlegging in Texas

and other states, as well as a large increase in other

criminal activities. Moonshining and bootlegging became

an important part of society in Texas, as there were few

that were not touched by it daily. Prohibition was

largely unenforced in Texas, especially after anti-

prohibitionists took control of the Texas government in

the mid-1920s. After the beginning of the Great

Depression support of prohibition decreased dramatically;

and eventually the national prohibition amendment was

repealed in 1933. Texas repealed its state prohibition

amendment two years later. The decision on prohibition

went back to a county level where many Texas counties

continued prohibition. There are still dry and partially

wet counties in Texas today. There is also moonshining

going on today as well. The battle of prohibition was a

long and hard one. After it was discovered that it was

impossible to enforce prohibition it was abandoned,

although remnants of it still live to this day.

Works Cited

Primary Sources

1. Bureau of Prohibition. Drawing of a Still. 1929. National

Archives at Seattle.

2. Downing, Avery R. Interview by James M. SoRelle and

Thomas L. Charlton, August 1983. Written Transcript.

Baylor University Oral History Collection, Waco, TX.

(Texas Collection)

3. Texas Constitution. Art. 16, sec. 20.

4. Tyler, Henry J. Back roads to Dallas: an autobiography of the days

when bootleg liquor, not oil, was Texas tea; and the struggle for survival

during the great depression of the thirties. Lincoln: Model Quarter

Horse Press, 1970.

5. U.S. Constitution. Amend. 18, sec. 1.

6. U.S. President. Proclamation. “President Franklin D.

Roosevelt announces the Repeal of Prohibition,

Proclamation 2065, Repeal of Eighteenth Amendment.”

(December 5, 1933): 1.

Secondary Sources

1. Bootleggers supplied more than just liquor. Dallas

Morning News. December 27, 1992.

2. Gould, Lewis L. Progressives and Prohibitionists: Texas Democrats in

the Wilson Era. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973.

3. Ivy, James D. No Saloon in the Valley: The Southern Strategy of Texas

Prohibitionists in the 1880s. Waco: Baylor University Press,

4. Kyvig David E. ed. Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on

National Prohibition. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985.

5. Prohibition Era Rules Hold Sway on Alcohol Purchases.

Houston Chronicle. December 2, 2007.

6. Wheeler, Brian. “The Slow Death of Prohibition.” BBC

News (March 2012). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-

17291978 (accessed May 1, 2013).

Texas Prohibition

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