SLO newspaper pushed for booze, saloon ban ahead of Prohibition. ‘They’ll all be there’
Prohibition is now widely seen as a failed social experiment.
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the only one written to restrict rights rather than expanding or protecting them.
It passed in 1919 and went into effect the following year. It would be repealed in 1933 after alcohol smuggling fueled the rise of organized crime and a host of other unintended consequences.
One of the major voting blocs that supported the anti-saloon cause were Protestant churches. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union was one of many national organizations.
Women were especially hard hit in the era when their job and divorce options were extremely limited — life was especially bleak for a family if the man was an alcoholic, especially in the era before the safety nets of Social Security or Medicare were created.
The San Luis Obispo Telegram was founded in 1905 as a temperance newspaper.
In the beginning, it did not have a traditional publisher/owner structure and went through a series of managers much like a corporate board or church committee.
The paper in fact looked much like a church newsletter with sermons from temperance-minded pastors, cautionary tales of excess drinking and lobbying events.
People knew what they were getting when they picked up the Daily Telegram, and that made it predictable and boring — the bane of any publication.
The paper almost went bankrupt by 1912 when it was bought by a Southern California journalist and transformed into a modern newspaper while toning down the scolding.
The original heavy handed tone of the Daily Telegram can be seen in the cartoon that topped the front page of the Oct. 16, 1911, edition. It showed a saloon owner, a gambler, a robber with a gun and anarchist with a bomb — most drawn to take advantage of racist and xenophobic stereotypes — as all being in favor of alcohol.
Notably, one of the most unsavory aspects of the anti-saloon movement was the acceptance of nativist demonizing of others. As Daniel Okrent wrote in his book “Last Call”, often immigrants, Jewish people, Catholic Irish and Italians, Eastern Europeans and African Americans were all demonized as objects of fear and scorn, especially if they had access to alcohol.
The 1911 Daily Telegram article continued that legacy, asserting anyone in favor of alcohol was “to further the interests of the devil himself” while the cartoon used racist imagery and stereotypes to scare its readers.
Of the nine headlines on the front page of the Daily Telegram that day, five were anti-saloon plus a photo and the cartoon.
Under the cartoon was this story:
THEY’LL ALL BE THERE TONIGHT
“The Folly of Prohibition”
Although the saloon element have not as yet accepted the challenge issued on Saturday last by Hugh Gibson of the Anti-Saloon league, they have at least reared on their hind legs and obtained the services of a stereotyped lecturer who will appear tonight at the Pavilion and address the people of San Luis Obispo on the “Folly of Prohibition.”
There will be a big house!
The people want to hear what, if any, excuse this paid orator who has been imported to further the interests of the devil himself, can advance for the existence of the open saloon in this or any other city.
Mounting the rostrum we can see him now as he soars to heretofore unknown heights of oratory and tells how everything will go to smash without the gin mill! How your taxes will raise until you can’t pay them and the county will build free soup houses on the confiscated lots! He will tell you that “the saloon has a humble mission (that’s what they call sending men to perdition) to perform, in ministering to the humble wants of the humble laboring class, in its humble way,” when the word HUMBUG would do better!
The swabs, wits and boosters will be there to applaud as they listen to the words of wisdom as they fall from the lips of the imported advocate!
The very insult contained in the title of the address of the distinguished and learned speaker is enough to create a thousand votes in favor of the cause of prohibition if it were the question!
“The folly of prohibition!”
By the time this question is settled and the votes counted it will be seen if all are fools but those who advocate the cause of booze! Folly indeed — strange that San Luis Obispo, Riverside, Tulare, Long Beach, Redlands, Pasadena, Pomona, Santa Paula and all the other thriving prosperous cities — are inhabited by fools! If folly is comprised of such, let us pray that we may be given a liberal coat of foolhardiness by all means.
Don’t forget the title, “The Folly of Prohibition!.”
