In the first two decades of the
twentieth century progressivism was at its height. They fought for many reforms
that were great things for our society: antitrust action, women's suffrage,
direct democracy, better working conditions, safer food and drugs.
They also wanted to get rid of
alcohol.
Its rarely talked about in the
same breath as these reforms but during that period there was an odd alignment
of religious leaders like Billy Sunday with politicians on both sides of the
aisle to lead a campaign to ban alcohol. And they were incredibly good at it.
By 1919 33 of the 48 states plus Alaska, D.C. and Puerto Rico were 'dry'.
At the same time they managed to
invade both parties and after the 1916 election to make a movement for what was
first known as 'wartime prohibition' even though it only took event in July of
1919, eight months after Armistice day.
As early as 1907 TR would write:
"Everybody out to believe in temperance but the professional advocates of
(it) tend towards a peculiarly annoying form of egoistic lunacy. But the 'Dry's
were such a force that in 1917 both houses of Congress approved the Eighteenth
Amendment or Prohibition by what amounted to supermajorities. Exactly one year
and eight days later Nebraska became the 36th state to ratify it. On
October 28 1919 Congress enacted what would be known as the Volstead Act to
enforce it. President Wilson, who never
liked the act, vetoed it. Two hours later, Congress overrode it.
On January 17th 1920
William Jennings Bryan, one of the biggest leaders of the Temprance
movement quoted Matthew 2:200 "They
are dead that sought the child's life! They are dead! They are dead!"
Needless to say the fact that it
was now part of the Constitution that the drinking of alcohol was a crime
didn't resolve the issue. Indeed if you've seen any movie or TV show about the
1920s you know that bootleggers, flappers, speakeasy patrons and most of the
politicians who'd voted for the act in the first place were essentially
ignoring it, even as the Justice Department enforced it with all of the effect
of putting bandages on bullet holes.
It says a lot about how misguided
this movement was that alcohol was on the right side of history for once. The
main reason both political parties went along with it was it was an election
year and both sides wanted the votes of the Dry's and the 'Wets' as of yet
didn't have nearly enough political power to overcome it. The biggest fights
over it came in the Democratic Party which at the time had its greatest
strengths in rural America rather then the cities. Because Bryan was still such
a force in the Democratic Party at the time that it was difficult to get around
the dry part of it and as a result during the 1920 and 1924 conventions the
party was so badly divided that its conventions took an immense amount of time
because they couldn't agree on any part of the platform, much less who should
represented. It took eight days and forty-four presidential ballots to agree on
a Democratic ticket of Ohio Governor James W. Cox and the Assistant Secretary
of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They got hammered by the horribly flawed
Warren G. Harding who received nearly 60 percent of the vote.
1924 put that to shame. It was
already clear that Prohibition was becoming a disaster but the rural states led
by Bryan refused to back away from their position and the Wet's led by Governor
Al Smith of New York. The convention that year took place in Madison Square
Garden but rather then provide home field advantage it was witness to the
greatest show of political dysfunction on history. It took two weeks to finish
the whole thing and Bryan was doing everything he could to force his vision on
to everything. It took 103 ballots to come up with a candidate nobody even
knew: John W. Davis and as a humiliation Charles Bryan, William's brother was
Vice President. This led to an even bigger disaster for the Democrats that
fall: as Calvin Coolidge won with 54 percent of the vote. Combined with third
party candidate Robert LaFollette's progressive party, the Democrats received
28. 8 percent of the votes with over 70 percent of America voting against
them.
That humiliation essentially
killed the idea of temperance as part of the Democratic Party. Four years later
Al Smith was nominated for President practically by acclimation. And while he
lost in nearly as big a landslide to Hoover as his predecessors it was the
first sign that the mantle of Prohibition political power was cracking.
Two weeks before FDR took office
Congress adopted the Blaine Act proposing the 21st amendment. It
took even less time for 36 states to ratify it then it had taken to ratify the
18th amendment: after just eight months Utah became the 36th
state to put it into law. While part of it was no doubt in order to create new
jobs because of the Great Depression in large part most of the country was
tired of it.
Of course there were quite a few
other states who never bought into it. South Carolina rejected it unanimously
and North Carolina rejected it with 70 percent of a vote to consider it.
Mississippi remained dried until August of 1966 when 19 of the counties
chose to legalize alcohol.
Of course by that point most of
the same kind of people who'd loathed the idea of alcohol leading to damnation
were now concerned of another kind of threat which in their mind lowered the
morality of the country. And that was happening because of a different kind of
political movement.
I suspect I will get torn to
pieces in some circles by comparing the temperance movement that led to
Prohibition to the battle for civil rights. But the fact is both were movements
that were based almost entirely on morality that would never have succeeded if
there wasn't some kind of electoral arithmetic involved.
Its almost unheard of for someone
who holds elected office of any kind to make a decision based entirely on the
morality of the issue. And that holds true for political parties as well. Every
decision that they campaign on is based on a kind of calculus: how many votes
this position will earn me; how many votes this position will lose me. That is
the reason why so many politicians use a lot of words to say nothing when
running for office: they're trying to piss off as few people as possible and
that's the easiest way to do it.
I suspect most elected officials
in the 1910s had as little use for prohibition as many of them did for civil
rights during the 1950s and early 1960s. But in both cases they were forced to
take positions they opposed because the electorate thought otherwise and they
wanted to hold on to power. In the latter case that same electoral arithmetic
was in play and differed depending on what part of the country you were
campaigning in as well as which party you were a part of.
And from 1948 to the early 1960s
the calculus involved whether the votes of Northern African-American
votes against the loss of Southern white votes. What was actually happening in
states like Alabama and Mississippi by Martin Luther King and his followers was
very much being done to convince those in Washington to try and influence
enough northern politicians to outnumber the Southern ones who were blocking
it.
The South had been a Democratic
stronghold since Reconstruction precisely because it has embraced white
supremacy. Not coincidentally the Republican Party had dominated politics at
every level for the next seventy years with only 16 combined years of
Democratic Presidents between 1860 and 1928 and Congress overwhelmingly in the
hands of the Republicans. When FDR began his impressive electoral run the
Southern votes became less important to the Democratic party then they'd been
in the previous eighty years.
When Truman became president and
started to cautiously embrace the Civil Rights movement, the South started to
rebel first with the Dixiecrat movement in 1948 and then with more and more
states going Republican under Eisenhower. By 1960 both parties would putting
civil rights as part of their political platforms but they were still doing so
by trying not to offend the South.
It's telling that it was mostly
the actions of a Southern Democrat – Lyndon Johnson – that the civil right
movement began to get legislation passed in Congress, first as Senate Majority
Leader and then as President. Johnson was doing so as much for the South as he
was for the black man. He genuinely believed in civil rights but he also knew,
far better then Northern liberals like Hubert Humphrey, how much Southerners
were adamant about any changes to their way of life. To Northerners, civil
rights was more of a moral issue. To Southerners, it was a direct threat.
And LBJ knew exactly what was
going to happen even as he signed the Civil Rights Act into law. "I think
we just handed the South to the Republicans for a very long time," he said
after doing so. And history has proven, sadly, that he was right.
Johnson understood politics
better than almost any President in history and part of that was the understanding
that just because something that has become a law on Monday will not make those
who virulently opposed it embrace it on Tuesday. He had grown up during the era
of Prohibition and he knew all too well that was the case. LBJ should be
celebrated for doing the right thing – and for being fully aware of the
political realities of that situation.
It's a lesson that so many of
those who've embraced the left-wing causes in the decades to follow that have
never realized.
In all the decades that have
followed since then almost every minority group has managed to make enormous
achievements when it comes to representation and legislation that has backed
their cause. Yet each group has engaged in a kind of willful blindness that I
can equate to both Prohibition and to an extent what followed in the aftermath
of the legislation of the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s.
As we all know the Republican
party and the conservative movement managed to seize electoral power starting
in the 1968 election and in four of the next five Presidential elections to
follow. In the 1990s they would take back both houses of Congress for the first
time in 40 years and hold it for the next twelve. In the 21st
century they've effectively held the House for eighteen of the 26 years so far
this century and the Senate for twelve of them.
All of that power was based has
its origins in the 'backlash' movement that came following the 1964 election.
And it was felt not just in the South but in the industrial North and its
suburbs as well as the Sun Belt.
In all the years since then the
left has increasingly chosen to frame this as morally bankrupt and racist and
there is some truth in this. But it
doesn't change the fact that both sides view politics and government completely
differently and it has cost the cause of reform more extensively in my lifetime
in ways the left refuses to acknowledge.
To the left and identity groups a
piece of legislation backing the rights of an identity group is in their minds the
end of the discussion. Once something has become the law of the land, it is
carved in stone and the people who disagree with it have to shut up and take
it. That many of their predecessors chose not to do so when segregation was the
law of the land and that they continue to protest any law that they believe
is wrong doesn't stop them from demanding their opponents take the laws they
hold dear as doctrine.
And it's not like the reformers
didn't know just how effectively the right could lead its forces. The last
sustained battle for equality on a purely political level was the fight for the
ERA during the 1970s. When that battle
was lost the left did what it always did and took the wrong lesson: they
essentially walked away from the battlefield and ceded the ground to the right.
I hold my greatest contempt for those who chose to abandon that fight. You
knew all too well just how powerful the forces who opposed equality were when
it came to achieving their goals. And yet rather then redouble your efforts you
essentially abandoned all political methods to keep all of the rights you
gained locked down. Basically you chose to argue: they wouldn't dare
touch any of the existing laws.
And that was the dumbest possible
thing you could have done having just gone through that battle. Did you really
think that the conservative forces were going to accept the decision of Roe
V. Wade as the final say on abortion? Or the Voting Rights Act the final
say on African-American rights? Hell when the Obergfell decision came in, in
your heart of hearts, did you truly think that the opposition who'd spent all
their time opposed to gay marriage were just going to start flying rainbow
flags in Tennessee and Mississippi?
I do have to admonish those in
the 1960s who walked away with the job half done and then each generation of
leftists that followed basically took such a dim view of politics that year
after year you ceded more ground to the opposition based on the concept that
'they wouldn't dare do this." It proves the critical difference between
how the left and the right view politics. The left views that their view is the
only one that counts and that the opposition must surrender when a law is
passed. Any dissenting opinion is dismissed as irrelevant. The right views the
opposing forces as a source of political power and they will cater to them regardless
of morality. You can't exactly pretend it hasn't worked out well for them.
The left has spent much of this century arguing that the problem is the
system and that wide scale reform is necessary to bring about the change we
need. I will agree that campaign finance reform and term limits are good ideas
but where I differ is that this would not solve the fundamental issue that past
movements of reform have showed us. In order to get a cause passed into law –
whether it is a horrible one such as Prohibition or a good one like civil
rights – you have to convince those who hold office that it is worth their time
to do so. The only way to do this is that your cause at a grass roots level has
enough political power to overcome the calculus that elected officials must
make when serving. For the record that's
also the only way you can change the system in the first place.
By and large the current
generation of self-styled progressives have made it clear that it is the job of
those in the system to make the reforms necessary without them personally
getting involved at any level. They are proud about being anti-establishment,
ignoring that you have to be part of the establishment – Congress or a
state legislature – to bring about the changes you campaign on. They are just
as willing to criticize Democrats as they are the Republicans as both being
obstructions to the cause and since they are unwilling to form a third party
that is separate from either that can bring about the change they need, they
basically stand on the sidelines or on the fringes of the Democrats, judging
those for not adapting a platform which they feel is correct but they don't
have any political support to pass.
None are willing to take the
battle to the grass roots level outside their own friendly confines of college
campuses or in the deep blue districts they maintain residence in. They look at the historical causes of reform
which brought about so much of the equality today and rather than take lessons
from it for a battle plan, they judge those who brought it about either for not
having the values of today or for leaving the job half done. They see no reason to learn anything from it,
believing that history is on their side and it is the job of everyone else to
get on board.
But history doesn't work that
way. Both the Prohibitionists and those who worked for civil rights understood
that you needed the overwhelming support of the people if you wanted your moral
vision to become the law of the land. If in both cases they misjudged whether
their vision would hold electorally then at least they understand how the game
was played and what the rules were. Those who argue 'the game is rigged'
deny that they don't want to play the
game by the rules that they're allowed to. And so they make a virtue of not
playing it at all. That this leaves the field to people who clearly don't have
these moral dilemmas and will keep rigging the game to make things worse for
everyone else has done nothing to make them to even try to fight the battles
that count..
Myself I'm very aware of how the
game is played and how badly its rigged. But that's not an excuse to let the
bad guys keeping changing the rules every time they get the dice. I know that
there are ways to beat them at their own game but it's a long protracted one
that's not going to be over in years or perhaps in my lifetime. But that's not
an excuse to leave the field in a forfeit.
The battle for reform in a
democracy is a game that never truly ends. It must be passed from generation to
generation to keep them informed of how previous campaigns were won and what
the rules are now. You have to know what strategies have failed and what you
have to try in the next round. You have to know that the opposition is just as
determined to beat you as you are to beat them. And you have to understand that
if you refuse to play, it affects not just your teammates but your opposition
and everyone else. It's not an easy battle and you will lose as often as you
win. But you keep fighting and you learn from your mistakes.
Most of all you have to learn
that your victories are only as permanent as you are willing to keep fighting
for them. You let your guard down for a moment, the opposition will take
advantage to tear it down. It may seem like we've been losing a lot of victories
we gained in the past but they're only permanent if we allow the opposition to
define the rules or to wear us down so that we surrender. And if you're willing
to let that happen, then you're giving your opponents an edge they'll never
relinquish.
The game isn't over. The bad guys
haven't won anything yet. Learn from your mistakes and start playing again.
Accept the rules and find a way to fight through them. Victory is still
possible if you can accept how the system works and how to win within its
confines.
Consider this another reminder
from someone who followed the advice of a real Progressive and is
spending his time getting in the arena himself this year.
