“The gold standard, the unlimited coinage of silver, protection, free trade and currency reform, do not concern us in the least.” They cared only about alcohol, and freeing the nation from its grip. “The Anti-Saloon League is not in politics as a party, nor are we trying to abolish vice, gambling, horse-racing, murder, theft, or arson,” one of its early leaders said.

Francis Willard’s “Do Everything” policy had been distracting (how could members concentrate on the Prohibition effort if they were also supporting the Armenians against the Turks, as they did in 1895?) and divisive (it was a rare antialcohol industrialist who would cooperate with an organization led by a socialist, even if a Christian one.) The Prohibition Party was no better among the many reasons for its dismal electoral record-it had never gained more than 2.2 percent of the vote in a presidential election-was its earnest devotion to a list of diffuse (and sometimes nutty) causes ranging from government ownership of public utilities to judicial review of post office decisions. The decision to declare war on alcohol and only on alcohol-to choose one target at which all the organization’s weapons could be fired-was a direct rebuke to the unfocused efforts of both the WCTU and the Prohibition Party. The two ideas that drove the ASL were focus and intimidation. The Anti-Saloon league may not have been the first broad-based American pressure group, but it certainly was the first to develop the tactics and the muscle necessary to rewrite the Constitution.

Last call prohibition