An advertisement in the Sunday newspaper caught my eye. A local beer distributor celebrated the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in 1933 with a half page ad that added a tag behind the old saying “Happy days are here again” with the word “Again.” This comes from a rather large distributorship operated by a family that more than likely makes a nice living from their product. They write elsewhere in the ad’s script, “Thanks for bringing Budweiser back!”
This 18th Amendment banned the “manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes” and had taken effect January 29, 1920. Prohibition ended 75 years ago on December 5, 1933, however some states continued to maintain temperance laws.
I was prompted to recall something I experienced over 40 years ago, probably in June of 1965. After one year of teaching I looked for something to do in the summer months, and it did not take long for someone to approach me — to be a combine operator on his harvesting crew in Kansas and Nebraska. I consented and it wasn’t long before I was herding a beat-up truck with a big combine loaded on it down Highway 281. After a three day trip we arrived in Medicine Lodge, Kansas and parked in a pot-holed parking lot by a truck stop. It had been raining in the area, and we had time to kill. The sign on the building next to us proclaimed itself as being a museum dedicated to the memory of Carrie Nation. Who was that? None of us knew, so a question asked of a local provided the answer. She was a famous Prohibitionist who went around smashing up bars and saloons with her hatchet. She attracted some followers, and they made quite a name for themselves at the time before Prohibition was established. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested over thirty times, and a wide-spread barroom slogan of the time was “All Nations Welcome But Carrie.”
She was a leader in the temperance fervor that resulted in the 18th Amendment’s adoption. She called herself “a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” and felt she followed orders from Heaven to promote temperance by smashing up bars. I remember my time down there and how good the cold beers tasted at the end of the day in the little bar in Sun City, Ks.
