Prohibition

1930 · réf. BK0040 — Texas 1930. Journal measuring 9 ¼ x 7 ¾ inches 67 double-sided pages filled thoroughly with many loose newspaper clippings tucked inside. Many pages with newspaper clippings pasted over writing some fairly loosely attached. Cover heavily worn good; contents worn and somewhat delicate though generally very good or better. With appx. 200 sheets of other material mainly 5 x 8 inch note papers generally good to very good. Overall very good. The scrapbook journal and papers of a Texas preacher likely the Methodist reverend Charles B. Garrett documenting his anti-alcohol stance and his efforts to come up with convincing empirical arguments in favor of Prohibition. The journal begins in about 1900 or 1901 starting with numerous newspaper clippings concerning alcohol-induced killings domestic violence and other tragedies. Alongside the clippings are Garrett's own notes and writing. These include some fully thought-out short essays on topics like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment and drinking rates alcohol-related death rates crime and so on. For example Garrett writes: "These boys and girls who are determined to drink because the government has prohibited the sale of intoxicants come as a rule from fathers and mothers who have failed to endow their sons and daughters with elimental sic decency. Yet the wets make the best of this. It is a fact. Drinking flask toting and cocktail jerking is not done in the best American society. . Bottle made conversation is never worth listening to only fools are entertained by such." He also comments on certain Texas happenings in particular including the impeachment of anti-Prohibition Governor James Ferguson appearing to blame Ferguson's behavior on drink. Next to clippings about Texas v James E Ferguson he writes: "A self confessed degenerate / An impeached Governor / A proven grafter using the state money to pay his own debts . a. To hell with these cigarette smoking boys my pockitt book is my principal / b. I am a degenerate son of a noble sire". However his writing is typically tempered with the acknowledgement that "this is a public question with two sides and this is a free country or is supposed to be therefore each individual has the right of choice." His aim seems to have been to construct an argument for Prohibition using rather than moral rhetoric as much convincing empirical evidence as he could; entries often include specific statistics such as crime and car accident rates rates before and after bans on alcohol sales in Texas counties. He also shows great consideration for the opposing side's arguments; for instance a more stream-of-consciousness entry reads: "1 The all important Q is shall a man be deprived of selling what he pleases - this is an inalienable right. 2 Any man has the absolute right to buy liquor. Minors are not allowed. We got ar sic right to do these things - it is God gave it. Dont 14 chapter on thithing sic. There is the whole field of the liquor question covered. . The law provides that it may be sold for every purpose . Prohibition is violation of the Holy Scriptures / Will one of you who laughed at his ridicule tell where he found the scripture / No man new wine in old bottles / The ax is laid at the root of the tree. / Paul said take wine for the stomach sick / We don't prohibit we regulate. . Our forefathers fought for these rights / Sam Houston and others ." In another similarly free-associative entry his reasons against prohibition include that "It is boy's nature to do what you say he shan't" "Can't make men good by law" and "I drank boat loads of it but harmed nobody"; and he remarks that "Men who have strong opinions on one side of a subject will not see the other side." These stream-of-consciousness entries sometimes veer into the bizarre such as the following entry titled "Anecdotes": "Get 'em in the open. Like the cowboy who saw a bald headed man on the train out West scratching the fringe of hair at the base of his skull. The cowboy leaned forward and said: 'Stranger if you will run them up into the clearing you can catch em' / Got his eyes open - Old Sook John and Dad / The Arkansas girl and the Texas Cowboy. / The negro who grew in grace. / The stammering boy and his palseyed Dad / The stammering a peculiarity. / The two men who bought a fan each one wore his out fanning while the other kept his by holding the fan still moving his head from side to side. / The Lousanna sic man who drank corn whiskey till he saw so many snakes that he decided to start a snake show / Mr Nesbitt and his namesake / A rabbit took a drink of No 4 and broke the latch on a bull dog's door / A peckerwood took a drink of No 3 and peeled the bark from a hickory tree / A bull frog took a drink from No 2 and when he jumped he fairly flew / A mouse took a drink from No 1 and said I am a cat lickin son of a gun." The journal continues throughout and after Prohibition. An entry from during Prohibition again focusing on opposition arguments reads: "The U.S. has stood the depression better than most any nation. We have had to lend several of the soaking wet nations money to keep them out of bankruptcy. Irving Fisher. Why do you oppose the 18A It destroys my personal liberty . / When I want a drink I want to walk right in and take it / Women didnt drink till the 18th A was adopted / Pro. made bootleggers / It interferes with my personal liberty . / Americans will not stand for any one saying they shall not they shall not do this or that." After the repeal his focus shifts somewhat to the moral responsibility of nonvoting "drys" for the evils resulting from legalization. He writes: "The wets now refer to repeal of the 18A. without sic emphasizing the overwhelming majority for repeal and many drys swallow that like they swallowed the diabolical propaganda against the 18A. . No honest person wet or dry will vote for or give their consent to anything that will double drunkenness and increase car accidents and crime if they know it will but that is exactly what every wet voted for and drys who didnt vote consented to and became responsible for if they knew what it was." The loose materials mainly seem to be sermon notes though they also contain a significant amount of Prohibition-related material. These include anecdotes about alcohol-related car accidents; a letter from the Texas Liberal Legion favoring Roosevelt's Beer and Wine Revenue Act with many of Garrett's notes on the back; and mailers with statements and sets of statistics from the Anti-Saloon League of America and the Methodist Episcopal Church's Board of Temperance Prohibition and Public Morals. Overall an engaging if sometimes strange document of a religious leader grappling with the task of convincing people of the Prohibitionist viewpoint. Of interest to historians of Texan prohibition and anti-alcohol views before during and after Prohibition. . unknown