We Made History by Rose Upton Bascom
Dublin Core
Title
We Made History by Rose Upton Bascom
Subject
Prohibition
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (A.A.P.A)
18th amendment
Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (A.A.P.A)
18th amendment
Description
A document by Mrs. Rose Upton Bascom about the repeal of the 18th amendment.
Creator
Bascom, Rose Upton
Publisher
University of Mississippi Center for Digital Humanities
Date
1933?
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
Text
Identifier
M2 Box 1054
Text Item Type Metadata
Added by
Ashley Sprague
Text
WE MADE HISTORY
"Repeal of the 18th Amendment was a revolt against compulsion." The statement was made recently by a religious leader. Compulsion means compelled. The gentleman is wrong there. Of our own free will the 18th Amendment came into being. Here are a few facts.
President Hoover rolled up the largest majority up to that time. The issue, prohibition. 35 states were dry by state prohibition laws. 3/4 of the population and 2/3 of the area of the country was dry, of its own volition. The final vote of the Senante of the United States of the measure stood 65 to 20 against. The lower house stood 262 to 128 against. The aggregate vote in the Senates of the United States was 1309 to 246; in the lower house 5660 to 1265. Of the 35 dry states the cote in counties was 2412 to 665. 46 states ratified the Amendment almost overnight. Compulsion seems like a misfit in a record like that.
Result. In Massachusetts, for example, "Records for 40 years show the population of House of Correction and jails averaged 25,000. Under the 18th Amendment 4,500, and a 86.5 per cent drop in liquor consumption. State prison population for the same period averaged 6,800. Under prohibition 2,200." (Jude Joseph F. Zottoli, Boston).
And repeal was a revolt? Who then revolted? And why? The A.A.P.A Right months before the Amendment became effective, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment was organized by 250 millionaires and multi-millionaires. Object?
"(1) To prevent the country from becoming bone dry before July 1; and
(2) To make the 18th Amendment forever inactive."
It cost the A.A.P.A $4,120,000. Aim? Money.
"If we should have back the right to manufacture beer--- the income would be $1,320,000,000." (Capt. W.H. Stayton)
"A tax on beer would save one of my corporations $10,000,000 a year."
(Irene du Pont in Congress)
Another - "The laboring man would willingly pay a small tax on beer."
The real aim, to shift heavy corporation taxes to other shoulders.
Method. "I should like to call on every free thinking American to break this law. Break it whenever he can. Drink what you please, when you please. Urge others to drink. Don't betray the bootlegger who brings liquor to you. In every way possible flaunt your defiance of the law--Ignore it, Abrogate it, WIPE IT OUT. While it stands, let it be disobeyed." (Mr. Carey Ford in Vanity Fair)
Mrs. Charles S. Sabin, as Presidend of the Women's Auxilary of the A.A.P.A enlisted a host of women of wealth to abolish hypocrisy (?) and save the youth from the horrors of prohibition. The Brewery News got off on another foot the morning after the election of 1932 to say, "Not one-tenth of one per cent of the youths of America know the taste of real beer. We must educate them." These women could well have said, "We have our bootleggers, we finance gangsters and racketeers of the underworld. We serve liquors before our children and servants. We hold the law in contempt by our talk and conduct."
Courtenay R. Cooper wrote, "The bootlegger was sometimes welcomed on a plane that almost equaled social equality. A new thing is a vicious crime, yet it had its beginnings, years ago, when the first citizen, as a forerunner of many of us, opened his door to the bootlegger."
This is how the camel got his head under the tent. Not the law, but the lawless buyer brought contempt (revolt) for the law. - when for the gratification of their appetite of the promotion of their interests, lawyers, bankers, great merchants and manufacturers and social workers, both men and women, disobey and scott at this law or any other law they are aiding the cause of anarchy and promotion mob violence, robbery and homicide; they are sowing dragons' teeth and they need not be surprised when they find that no judicial or police authority can save our country or humanity from reaping the harvest. (A resolution unanimously adopted by the judicical section (composed of judges only) of the American Bar Association during our dry period.)
Results? With Uncle Sam among the distillers, 400,000 saloons licensed by the government, beer in our army camps and the administation refusing to interfere, the same spitit in the same Mrs. Sabin, now Mrs. Dwight David, who recently bodly urged beer in the Red Cross camps to be given away (Christian Science Monitor)--a move which died aborning, fortunately,--all show how little of the camel is now outside of the tent.
Are we still to "be like sheep led to the slaughter"?
Mrs. Rose Upton Bascom.
"Repeal of the 18th Amendment was a revolt against compulsion." The statement was made recently by a religious leader. Compulsion means compelled. The gentleman is wrong there. Of our own free will the 18th Amendment came into being. Here are a few facts.
President Hoover rolled up the largest majority up to that time. The issue, prohibition. 35 states were dry by state prohibition laws. 3/4 of the population and 2/3 of the area of the country was dry, of its own volition. The final vote of the Senante of the United States of the measure stood 65 to 20 against. The lower house stood 262 to 128 against. The aggregate vote in the Senates of the United States was 1309 to 246; in the lower house 5660 to 1265. Of the 35 dry states the cote in counties was 2412 to 665. 46 states ratified the Amendment almost overnight. Compulsion seems like a misfit in a record like that.
Result. In Massachusetts, for example, "Records for 40 years show the population of House of Correction and jails averaged 25,000. Under the 18th Amendment 4,500, and a 86.5 per cent drop in liquor consumption. State prison population for the same period averaged 6,800. Under prohibition 2,200." (Jude Joseph F. Zottoli, Boston).
And repeal was a revolt? Who then revolted? And why? The A.A.P.A Right months before the Amendment became effective, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment was organized by 250 millionaires and multi-millionaires. Object?
"(1) To prevent the country from becoming bone dry before July 1; and
(2) To make the 18th Amendment forever inactive."
It cost the A.A.P.A $4,120,000. Aim? Money.
"If we should have back the right to manufacture beer--- the income would be $1,320,000,000." (Capt. W.H. Stayton)
"A tax on beer would save one of my corporations $10,000,000 a year."
(Irene du Pont in Congress)
Another - "The laboring man would willingly pay a small tax on beer."
The real aim, to shift heavy corporation taxes to other shoulders.
Method. "I should like to call on every free thinking American to break this law. Break it whenever he can. Drink what you please, when you please. Urge others to drink. Don't betray the bootlegger who brings liquor to you. In every way possible flaunt your defiance of the law--Ignore it, Abrogate it, WIPE IT OUT. While it stands, let it be disobeyed." (Mr. Carey Ford in Vanity Fair)
Mrs. Charles S. Sabin, as Presidend of the Women's Auxilary of the A.A.P.A enlisted a host of women of wealth to abolish hypocrisy (?) and save the youth from the horrors of prohibition. The Brewery News got off on another foot the morning after the election of 1932 to say, "Not one-tenth of one per cent of the youths of America know the taste of real beer. We must educate them." These women could well have said, "We have our bootleggers, we finance gangsters and racketeers of the underworld. We serve liquors before our children and servants. We hold the law in contempt by our talk and conduct."
Courtenay R. Cooper wrote, "The bootlegger was sometimes welcomed on a plane that almost equaled social equality. A new thing is a vicious crime, yet it had its beginnings, years ago, when the first citizen, as a forerunner of many of us, opened his door to the bootlegger."
This is how the camel got his head under the tent. Not the law, but the lawless buyer brought contempt (revolt) for the law. - when for the gratification of their appetite of the promotion of their interests, lawyers, bankers, great merchants and manufacturers and social workers, both men and women, disobey and scott at this law or any other law they are aiding the cause of anarchy and promotion mob violence, robbery and homicide; they are sowing dragons' teeth and they need not be surprised when they find that no judicial or police authority can save our country or humanity from reaping the harvest. (A resolution unanimously adopted by the judicical section (composed of judges only) of the American Bar Association during our dry period.)
Results? With Uncle Sam among the distillers, 400,000 saloons licensed by the government, beer in our army camps and the administation refusing to interfere, the same spitit in the same Mrs. Sabin, now Mrs. Dwight David, who recently bodly urged beer in the Red Cross camps to be given away (Christian Science Monitor)--a move which died aborning, fortunately,--all show how little of the camel is now outside of the tent.
Are we still to "be like sheep led to the slaughter"?
Mrs. Rose Upton Bascom.
Original Format
Typed document
Collection
Citation
Bascom, Rose Upton, “We Made History by Rose Upton Bascom,” LIS 652 -Omeka Sandbox, accessed September 29, 2026, https://lis652omeka.usmcdh.org/items/show/37.