“Shall the Mothers and Children be Sacrificed to the Financial Greed Of the Liquor Traffic? It’s up to you, voter, to decide. VOTE DRY!” From New York City to Birmingham, Alabama propaganda posters line the streets of large cities and small towns. Some flaunt scared mothers and children while others show saloons swallowing up frightened men trying to make it home.. There is a war going on for the soul of America, and the prohibitionists are winning. The saloon has been a staple of the working class since the first ships of laborers reached America’s shores. Saloons would offer a free lunch (with a purchase of a beer of course), free dinner, and a place to cash a paycheck. As more immigrants showed up on our doorsteps at the start of the Progressive
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These groups contained polarized members that would fight with ferocity to accomplish the objective. The KKK was more than willing to back prohibition if it rid the country of the threat of immigration. As the two organizations became more intertwined people started having a hard time distinguishing one group’s rhetoric from the other’s. In 1924, the Baltimore Evening Sun commented on these similarities, writing, “If [the Ku Klux Klan] is not literally a part of the Anti-Saloon League, it is at least so close an ally as to be almost indistinguishable from it in many parts of the country.” The Evening Sun wasn’t the only paper to notice the resemblance. Famed civil rights lawyer Clarence Darrow more directly connected the two remarking, “The father and mother of the Ku Klux is the Anti-Saloon League. I would not say every Anti-Saloon Leaguer is a Ku Kluxer, but every Ku Kluxer is an Anti-Saloon Leaguer.” The similarities the ASL and the KKK were not only allied through membership, but also through nativist and anti-immigrant …show more content…
Many of these immigrants came with little money or skills, however some used their knowledge of distilling alcohol back in their home country to start a business in America. Under the Russian empire, Jews were generally restricted from most careers, with the exception of producing liquor. With their expertise, Jews quickly became the leading ethnic group behind the production of hard alcohol. The ASL and the KKK sought to stop the Jewish influx into the US. The KKK feared future immigration of non-Whites and Catholics would undermine the social standing of the White Protestant in the United States. The ASL recognized that an increase in wet immigrants would undermine the cause of prohibition. Even progressives like Samuel Gompers (an immigrant himself) and the American Federation of Labor could get behind limiting immigrants. Progressives thought that an increase of workers into an already competitive labor market would harm the economic opportunities for white Americans. All of these forces united behind the Immigration Restriction Act, which set quotas based on the current US population. With such broad support, only six senators voted against the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. By aligning themselves with hate groups and using Nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes, the ASL eliminated any possibility of the eighteenth amendments destruction.
These groups contained polarized members that would fight with ferocity to accomplish the objective. The KKK was more than willing to back prohibition if it rid the country of the threat of immigration. As the two organizations became more intertwined people started having a hard time distinguishing one group’s rhetoric from the other’s. In 1924, the Baltimore Evening Sun commented on these similarities, writing, “If [the Ku Klux Klan] is not literally a part of the Anti-Saloon League, it is at least so close an ally as to be almost indistinguishable from it in many parts of the country.” The Evening Sun wasn’t the only paper to notice the resemblance. Famed civil rights lawyer Clarence Darrow more directly connected the two remarking, “The father and mother of the Ku Klux is the Anti-Saloon League. I would not say every Anti-Saloon Leaguer is a Ku Kluxer, but every Ku Kluxer is an Anti-Saloon Leaguer.” The similarities the ASL and the KKK were not only allied through membership, but also through nativist and anti-immigrant …show more content…
Many of these immigrants came with little money or skills, however some used their knowledge of distilling alcohol back in their home country to start a business in America. Under the Russian empire, Jews were generally restricted from most careers, with the exception of producing liquor. With their expertise, Jews quickly became the leading ethnic group behind the production of hard alcohol. The ASL and the KKK sought to stop the Jewish influx into the US. The KKK feared future immigration of non-Whites and Catholics would undermine the social standing of the White Protestant in the United States. The ASL recognized that an increase in wet immigrants would undermine the cause of prohibition. Even progressives like Samuel Gompers (an immigrant himself) and the American Federation of Labor could get behind limiting immigrants. Progressives thought that an increase of workers into an already competitive labor market would harm the economic opportunities for white Americans. All of these forces united behind the Immigration Restriction Act, which set quotas based on the current US population. With such broad support, only six senators voted against the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. By aligning themselves with hate groups and using Nativist and anti-immigrant attitudes, the ASL eliminated any possibility of the eighteenth amendments destruction.