Historic Beer Terrorist Birthday: Carrie Nation

November 25, 2024 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the birthday of Carrie Nation (November 25, 1846–June 9, 1911). Many biographies of her today refer to her as a “famous leader and activist,” a “temperance crusader” or “temperance advocate.” But she was also a terrorist who tried to impose her will by smashing up bars. One simple definition of terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” That’s exactly what she was doing, and why she was celebrated by temperance groups, especially the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which she was a member of and went so far as to start a local branch. None of these groups did much to stop her destroying private property and terrorizing people she disagreed with, because even though they wouldn’t come out publicly in favor of such tactics, in private they were just fine with the results. That she’s still revered in some circles today strikes me as quite odd. She was a criminal, and yet has her own page on The State Historical Society of Missouri’s “Historic Missourians,” (which is doubly odd since she was born in Kentucky and only moved to Missouri when she was a young girl). Many biographies refer to her “passionate activism against alcohol” or her “passion for fighting liquor” as positive attributes, which certainly seems like revisionist history and apologists for criminal behavior to me. Certainly, the bar owners and patrons whom she encountered have a considerably different opinion of her “passion.” According to Wikipedia, “She described herself as ‘a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,’ and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by destroying bars.”

Here’s her entry from Wikipedia:

Nation was born in Garrard County, Kentucky, to George and Mary (née Campbell) Moore. Her father was a successful farmer, stock trader, and slaveholder of Irish descent. During much of her early life, her health was poor and her family experienced financial setbacks. The family moved several times in Kentucky and finally settled in Belton, Missouri in 1854. She had poor education and informal learning.
In addition to their financial difficulties, many of her family members suffered from mental illness, her mother at times having delusions. There is speculation that the family did not stay in one place long because of rumors about Nation’s mother’s mental state. Some writers have speculated that Nation’s mother, Mary, believed she was Queen Victoria because of her love of finery and social airs. Mary lived in an insane asylum in Nevada, Missouri, from August 1890 until her death on September 28, 1893. Mary was put in the asylum through legal action by her son, Charles, although there is suspicion that Charles instigated the lawsuit because he owed Mary money.
The family moved to Texas as Missouri became involved in the Civil War in 1862. George did not fare well in Texas, and he moved his family back to Missouri. The family returned to High Grove Farm in Cass County. When the Union Army ordered them to evacuate their farm, they moved to Kansas City. Carrie nursed wounded soldiers after a raid on Independence, Missouri. The family again returned to their farm when the Civil War ended.
In 1865 Carrie met Charles Gloyd, a young physician who had fought for the Union, who was a severe alcoholic. Gloyd taught school near the Moores’ farm while deciding where to establish his medical practice. He eventually settled on Holden, Missouri, and asked Nation to marry him. Nation’s parents objected to the union because they believed he was addicted to alcohol, but the marriage proceeded. They were married on November 21, 1867, and separated shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien, on September 27, 1868. Gloyd died in 1869 of alcoholism.
Influenced by the death of her husband, Nation developed a passionate activism against alcohol. With the proceeds from selling her inherited land (as well as that of her husband’s estate), she built a small house in Holden. She moved there with her mother-in-law and Charlien, and attended the Normal Institute in Warrensburg, Missouri, earning her teaching certificate in July 1872. She taught at a school in Holden for four years. She obtained a history degree and studied the influence of Greek philosophers on American politics.
In 1874, Carrie married David A. Nation, an attorney, minister, newspaper journalist, and father, 19 years her senior.
The family purchased a 1,700 acre (690 ha) cotton plantation on the San Bernard River in Brazoria County, Texas. As neither knew much about farming, the venture was ultimately unsuccessful. David Nation moved to Brazoria to practice law. In about 1880, Carrie moved to Columbia to operate the hotel owned by A. R. and Jesse W. Park. Her name is on the Columbia Methodist Church roll. She lived at the hotel with her daughter, Charlien Gloyd, “Mother Gloyd” (Carrie’s first mother-in-law), and David’s daughter, Lola. Her husband also operated a saddle shop just southwest of this site. The family soon moved to Richmond, Texas to operate a hotel.
David Nation became involved in the Jaybird–Woodpecker War. As a result, he was forced to move back north to Medicine Lodge, Kansas in 1889, where he found work preaching at a Christian church and Carrie ran a successful hotel.
She began her temperance work in Medicine Lodge by starting a local branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and campaigning for the enforcement of Kansas’ ban on the sale of liquor. Her methods escalated from simple protests to serenading saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ, to greeting bartenders with pointed remarks such as, “Good morning, destroyer of men’s souls.” She also helped her mother and her daughter who had mental health problems.
Dissatisfied with the results of her efforts, Nation began to pray to God for direction. On June 5, 1900, she felt she received her answer in the form of a heavenly vision. As she described it:
The next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, “GO TO KIOWA,” and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, “I’LL STAND BY YOU.” The words, “Go to Kiowa,” were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but “I’ll stand by you,” was very clear, positive and emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the interpretation was very plain, it was this: “Take something in your hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them.”
Responding to the revelation, Nation gathered several rocks – “smashers”, she called them – and proceeded to Dobson’s Saloon on June 7. Announcing “Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard’s fate”, she began to destroy the saloon’s stock with her cache of rocks. After she similarly destroyed two other saloons in Kiowa, a tornado hit eastern Kansas, which she took as divine approval of her actions.
She even sold hatchet pins.
Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita, Kansas, her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, “That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you.” The couple divorced in 1901; they had no children. Between 1902-06 she lived in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, she would march into a bar and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910, she was arrested some 30 times for “hatchetations”, as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets. The souvenirs were provided by a Topeka, Kansas pharmacist. Engraved on the handle of the hatchet, the pin reads, “Death to Rum”.
In April 1901, Nation went to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars), although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City. She would be arrested over 32 times—one report is that she was placed in the Washington DC poorhouse for three days for refusing to pay a $35 fine.
Nation also conducted women’s rights marches in Topeka, Kansas. She led hundreds of women that were part of the Home Defender’s Army to march in opposition to saloons.
In Amarillo, Texas, Nation received a strong response, as she was sponsored by the noted surveyor W.D. Twichell, an active Methodist layman.
A common sight in bars and taverns at the time.
Nation’s anti-alcohol activities became widely known, with the slogan “All Nations Welcome But Carrie” becoming a bar-room staple. She published The Smasher’s Mail, a biweekly newsletter, and The Hatchet, a newspaper. Later in life she exploited her name by appearing in vaudeville in the United States and music halls in Great Britain. In October 1909, various press outlets reported that Nation claimed to have invented an aeroplane.
Nation, a proud woman more given to sermonizing than entertaining, found these venues uninspiring for her proselytizing. One of the number of pre-World War I acts that “failed to click” with foreign audiences, Nation was struck by an egg thrown by an audience member during one 1909 music hall lecture at the Canterbury Theatre of Varieties. Indignantly, “The Anti-Souse Queen” ripped up her contract and returned to the United States. Seeking profits elsewhere, she sold photographs of herself, collected lecture fees, and marketed miniature souvenir hatchets.
Suspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Nation applauded his 1901 assassination because drinkers “got what they deserved.”
Near the end of her life, Nation moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas where she founded the home known as “Hatchet Hall”. In poor health, she collapsed during a speech in a Eureka Springs park. She was taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas, the Evergreen Place Hospital and Sanitarium located on 25 acres at Limit Street and South Maple Avenue just outside the city limits of Leavenworth.
Evergreen Place Hospital was founded and operated by Dr. Charles Goddard, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and a distinguished authority on nervous and mental troubles, liquor and drug habits.
Nation died there on June 9, 1911. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Belton City Cemetery in Belton, Missouri. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union later erected a stone inscribed “Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could” and the name “Carry A. Nation.”

And this is her biography from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Carry Nation, in full Carry A. Nation, née Carrie Amelia Moore, (born November 25, 1846, Garrard county, Kentucky, U.S.—died June 9, 1911, Leavenworth, Kansas), American temperance advocate famous for using a hatchet to demolish barrooms.
Carry Moore as a child experienced poverty, her mother’s mental instability, and frequent bouts of ill health. Although she held a teaching certificate from a state normal school, her education was intermittent. In 1867 she married a young physician, Charles Gloyd, whom she left after a few months because of his alcoholism. In 1877 she married David Nation, a lawyer, journalist, and minister, who divorced her in 1901 on the grounds of desertion.
Carry Nation entered the temperance movement in 1890, when a U.S. Supreme Court decision in favour of the importation and sale of liquor in “original packages” from other states weakened the prohibition laws of Kansas, where she was living. In her view, the illegality of the saloons flourishing in that state meant that anyone could destroy them with impunity. Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, Nation, who was typically dressed in stark black-and-white clothing, would march into a saloon and proceed to sing, pray, hurl biblical-sounding vituperations, and smash the bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. At one point, her fervour led her to invade the governor’s chambers at Topeka. Jailed many times, she paid her fines from lecture tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets, at times earning as much as $300 per week. She herself survived numerous physical assaults.
Nation published a few short-lived newsletters—called variously The Smasher’s Mail, The Hatchet, and the Home Defender—and her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, in 1904 (rev. ed., 2006). Her “hatchetation” period was brief but brought her national notoriety. She was for a time much in demand as a temperance lecturer; she also railed against fraternal orders, tobacco, foreign foods, corsets, skirts of improper length, and mildly pornographic art of the sort found in some barrooms of the time. She was an advocate of woman suffrage. Later she appeared in vaudeville, at Coney Island, New York, and briefly in 1903 in Hatchetation, an adaptation of T.S. Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar-Room: And What I Saw There (1854). Despite her campaign, the enactment in 1919 of national prohibition was largely the result of the efforts of more conventional reformers, who had been reluctant to support her.

Nation-SF-Call-March-1-1903
This was the front page of the newspaper, the San Francisco Call, on March 1, 1903, when Nation visited the California city.

If you’re curious if her first name is “Carry” or “Carrie,” it’s actually both. “The spelling of her first name varies; both ‘Carrie’ and ‘Carry’ are considered correct. Official records say ‘Carrie,’ which Nation used for most of her life; the name ‘Carry’ was used by her father in the family Bible. Upon beginning her campaign against liquor in the early 20th century, she adopted the name ‘Carry A. Nation,’ saying it meant ‘Carry A Nation for Prohibition.’ After gaining notoriety, Carrie officially registered ‘Carry’ as a trademark.”

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Historic Beer Birthday: Jack “Legs” Diamond

July 10, 2024 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Jack “Legs” Diamond (July 10, 1897–December 18, 1931). He was “also known as ‘Gentleman Jack,’ [and] was an Irish American gangster in Philadelphia and New York City during the Prohibition era. A bootlegger and close associate of gambler Arnold Rothstein, Diamond survived a number of attempts on his life between 1916 and 1931, causing him to be known as the “clay pigeon of the underworld”. In 1930, Diamond’s nemesis Dutch Schultz remarked to his own gang, “Ain’t there nobody that can shoot this guy so he don’t bounce back?”

Here’s his biography from Find-a-Grave:

Gangster bootlegger. Born Jack Moran on July 10, 1897, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to an Irish immigrant family. After his mother, Sara’s death, Diamond moved with his father and brother to Brooklyn, New York. Growing up impoverished, Diamond turned to street gangs and became involved in theft and violent crime as a teen. He later began to work for gangsters Arnold Rothstein and Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen. Jack set up shop as an extremely violent and murderous figure. He earned his “Legs” nickname either due to his quickness when running from a scene or because of his excellent dancing skills. He also married Alice Schiffer in 1926. She remained devoted to Jack through his strings of crime and mistresses, which included a notable affair with Ziegfeld showgirl Kiki Roberts. In August, 1927, Jack played a role in the murder of “Little Augie” (Jacob Orgen). Jack’s brother Eddie was Orgen’s bodyguard, but Legs Diamond substituted for Eddie that day. As Orgen and Jack were walking down a street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, three young men approached them and started shooting. Orgen was fatally wounded and Jack was shot two times below the heart. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he eventually recovered. During the late 1920s, Prohibition was in force, and the sale of beer and other alcohol was illegal in the United States. Jack traveled to Europe to score beer and narcotics, but failed. He did score liquor which was dumped overboard in partially full barrels which floated into Long Island as ships entered New York. Following Orgen’s death, Jack went to work overseeing bootleg alcohol sales in downtown Manhattan. That brought him into conflict with Dutch Schultz, who wanted to move beyond his base in Harlem. He also ran into trouble with other gangs in the city. In 1930, Jack and two henchmen kidnapped Grover Parks, a truck driver in Cairo, New York, and demanded to know where he had obtained his load of hard cider. When Parks denied carrying anything, Jack and his men beat and tortured Parks, eventually letting him go. A few months later, Jack was charged with the kidnapping of James Duncan. He was sent to Catskill, New York for his first trial, but was acquitted. However, he was convicted in a federal case on related charges, and he was sentenced to four years in jail. In a third trial, in Troy, New York, he was acquitted. On October 12, 1930, Jack was shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on the west side of Manhattan. Two men forced their way into his room, shot him five times, and then fled. Still in his pajamas, he staggered out into the hallway and collapsed. On December 30, 1930, Jack was discharged from Polyclinic. On April 27, 1931, Jack was again shot and wounded, this time at the Aratoga Inn, a road house near Cairo, New York. He was eating in the dining room with three companions when he walked out to the front door. A gunman with a shotgun shot him three times, and Jack collapsed by the door. On December 18, 1931, Jack’s enemies finally caught up with him, At 4:30 am, Jack went back to the rooming house and passed out on his bed. Two gunmen entered his room around 5:30 AM. One man held Jack down while the other shot him three times in the back of the head. No other gangster of the bootlegging era of 1920’s survived more bullet wounds than Legs. He was known as “The Clay Pidgeon of the Underworld”. On July 1, 1933, Jack’s widow, Alice Kenny Diamond, was found shot to death in her Brooklyn apartment. It was speculated that she was shot by Jack’s enemies to keep her quiet.

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This is about his arly life from his Wikipedia page:

Diamond was born July 10, 1897, to Sara and John Diamond, who emigrated from Ireland in 1891 to Philadelphia, USA. In 1899, Jack’s younger brother Eddie Diamond was born. Jack and Eddie both struggled through grade school, while Sara suffered from severe arthritis and other health issues. On December 24, 1913, Sara died from complications due to a bacterial infection and high fever. John Diamond, Sr. moved to Brooklyn shortly afterwards.
Diamond soon joined a New York street gang called the Hudson Dusters. Diamond’s first arrest for burglary occurred when he broke into a jewelry store on February 4, 1914, with numerous arrests following through the remainder of his life. Diamond served in the U.S. Army during World War I, but deserted in 1918 or 1919, then was convicted and jailed for desertion.
Once free of jail, Diamond became a thug and later personal bodyguard for Arnold Rothstein in 1919.
On October 16, 1927 Diamond tried to stop the murder of “Little Augie” (Jacob Orgen). Diamond’s brother Eddie was Orgen’s bodyguard, but Legs Diamond substituted for Eddie that day. As Orgen and Diamond were walking down a street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, three young men approached them and started shooting. Orgen was fatally wounded and Diamond was shot two times below the heart. Diamond was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he eventually recovered. The police interviewed Diamond in the hospital, but he refused to identify any suspects or help the investigation in any way. The police initially suspected that Diamond was an accomplice and charged him with homicide, but the charge was later dropped. The assailants were supposedly hired by Louis Buchalter and Gurrah Shapiro, who were seeking to move in on Orgen’s garment district labor rackets.
Diamond was known for leading a rather flamboyant lifestyle. He was a very energetic individual; his nickname “Legs” derived either from his being a good dancer or from how fast he could escape his enemies. His wife Alice was never supportive of his lifestyle, but did not do much to dissuade him from it. Diamond was a womanizer; his best known mistress was showgirl and dancer Marion “Kiki” Roberts. The public loved Diamond; he was Upstate New York’s biggest celebrity at the time.

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And this is about his time during “Prohibition and the Manhattan Bootleg Wars:”

During the late 1920s, Prohibition was in force, and the sale of beer and other alcohol was illegal in the United States. Diamond traveled to Europe to score beer and narcotics, but failed. He did obtain liquor, which was dumped overboard in partially full barrels, which floated onto Long Island, as ships entered New York. He paid the children a nickel for every barrel they brought to his trucks.
Following Orgen’s death, Diamond went to work overseeing bootleg alcohol sales in downtown Manhattan. That brought him into conflict with Dutch Schultz, who wanted to move beyond his base in Harlem. He also ran into trouble with other gangs in the city.
In 1930, Diamond and two henchmen kidnapped Grover Parks, a truck driver in Cairo, New York, and demanded to know where he had obtained his load of hard cider. When Parks denied carrying anything, Diamond and his men beat and tortured Parks, eventually letting him go. A few months later, Diamond was charged with the kidnapping of James Duncan. He was sent to Catskill, New York, for his first trial, but was acquitted. However, he was convicted in a federal case on related charges, and sentenced to four years in jail. In a third trial, in Troy, New York, he was acquitted.

And this is about the many assassination attempts, prosecution attempts, and his eventual death:

On October 12, 1930, Diamond was shot and wounded at the Hotel Monticello on the west side of Manhattan. Two men forced their way into Diamond’s room, shot him five times, and then fled. Still in his pajamas, Diamond staggered out into the hallway and collapsed. When asked later by the New York Police Commissioner how he managed to walk out of the room, Diamond said he drank two shots of whiskey first. Diamond was rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital in Manhattan, where he eventually recovered. On December 30, 1930, Diamond was discharged from Polyclinic.
On April 21, 1931, Diamond was arrested in Catskill, New York, on assault charges for the Parks beating in 1930. Two days later, he was released on $25,000 bond from the county jail.
On April 27, 1931, Diamond was again shot and wounded, this time at the Aratoga Inn, a road house near Cairo, New York. Diamond was eating in the dining room with three companions when he walked out to the front door. A gunman with a shotgun shot Diamond three times, and Diamond collapsed by the door. A local resident drove Diamond to a hospital in Albany, New York, where he eventually recovered. While Diamond was still in the hospital, New York State Troopers on May 1 seized over $5,000 worth of illegal beer and alcohol from Diamond’s hiding places in Cairo and at the Aratoga Inn.
In August 1931, Diamond and Paul Quattrocchi went on trial for bootlegging. That same month, Diamond was convicted and sentenced to four years in state prison. In September 1931, Diamond appealed his conviction.
On December 18, 1931, Diamond’s enemies finally caught up with him. Diamond had been staying in a rooming house in Albany, New York while on trial in Troy, New York, on kidnapping charges. On December 17, Diamond was acquitted. That night, Diamond, his family and friends were at a restaurant. At 1:00 a.m., Diamond went to visit his mistress, Marion “Kiki” Roberts. At 4:30 a.m., Diamond went back to the rooming house and passed out on his bed. Two gunmen entered his room around an hour later. One man held down Diamond while the other shot him three times in the back of the head.
There has been much speculation as to who was responsible for the murder; likely candidates include Dutch Schultz, the Oley Brothers (local thugs), the Albany Police Department, and relatives of Red Cassidy, another Irish American gangster at the time. According to William Kennedy’s O Albany, Democratic Party Chairman Dan O’Connell, who ran the local political machine, ordered Diamond’s execution, which was carried out by the Albany Police.

Legs’ best known mistress was showgirl and dancer Marion “Kiki” Roberts, who was with him the night he was murdered.

Buddy’s Beer Garden

November 11, 2023 By Jay Brooks

looney-tunes
On the eve of the repeal of prohibition, anticipation must have been running pretty high. On November 11, 1933, Warner Brothers cartoon studios released their newest Looney Tunes animated short film, “Buddy’s Beer Garden.”

“It is a Looney Tunes cartoon, featuring Buddy, the second star of the series. It was supervised by Earl Duvall, here credited as ‘Duval,’ was one of only five Warner Bros. cartoons directed by him, and one of only three Buddy shorts. Musical direction was by Norman Spencer.”

Here’s the description of the film from Wikipedia:

We enter Buddy’s beer garden, where are gathered many merry patrons, singing “Oh du lieber Augustin”, mugs in hand. The happy opening scene fades to one of an equally merry Buddy, who balances a tray and sings of the good cheer his beer brings (to the tune of “Auf Wiederseh’n (We’ll Meet Again)”), as he fixes a tablecloth and sets down two glasses of his ware, while a black dog, pretzels on its tail, behind him barks in tune. A German oom-pah band creates an ambience (and, as the band reappears four times throughout the cartoon, each time they are seen, as a gag, a small member of the group will come out of the largest member’s brass instrument, playing, in succession, a trumpet, maracas, a piano, and a bass drum.) Beer flows on tap, and Buddy ensures that each mug has plenty of foam. Cookie neatly prepares several pretzels, which then are salted by the same little dachshund, and carried thence away. The tongue sandwiches offered as part of the bar’s free lunch sing & lap up mustard; an impatient patron (presumably the same brute who serves as the villain in later shorts, such as Buddy’s Show Boat and Buddy’s Garage) demands his beer, which he instantly gulps down upon its arrival.
All present take part in “It’s Time to Sing ‘Sweet Adeline’ Again”: some sing, one patron plays his spaghetti as though the noodles were strings on a harp, Buddy makes an instrument out of his steins, &c. Cookie comes around, offering cigars and cigarettes to the patrons, one of whom, the same impatient brute as before, accepts, but not before freshly stroking the girl’s chin. Cookie performs an exotic dance for the entire beer garden, and is joined by the selfsame patron, & a formerly stationery piano. The film goes on: Buddy whistles “Hi Lee Hi Lo”, tossing beer from one mug to another, preparing sandwiches, clearing tables.
As a final treat for his customers, Our Hero introduces a lady singer (who bears a striking resemblance to Mae West), who reveals herself only after Buddy’s departure and a brief musical interlude. The grand dame attracts the attention of the very same recurring patron, who drunkenly stumbles over to her with the intention of receiving a kiss: as the song (“I Love my Big Time, Slow Time Baseball Man”) ends, he makes his request, but a horned goat, part of a poster advertising “Bock Beer”, but nonetheless quite alive, with its horns stabs the patron’s backside, sending him flying. The patron, on his airborne journey, causes the lady singer to catch her dress on an overhanging tree; the dress tears, & the throaty performer, now grounded, is revealed to be a cross-dressed Buddy. Pleasantly embarrassed, Buddy stalks away, waving blithely to all present; in the final shot, we see that the bird cage strapped to Buddy’s posterior (there to replicate the voluptuousness of his singing persona), in fact houses an exotic bird, which shows itself to have a voice & nose like those of Jimmy Durante, as well as a saying: “Am I mortified!”

Although it’s fairly small, here’s the entire cartoon to watch. Enjoy.

Beer In Ads #3767: Prohibition Does Not Prevent You From Drinking Rainier

June 24, 2021 By Jay Brooks

Thursday’s ad is for “Rainier Beer,” from 1920. This ad was made for the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co., who made Rainier Beer, and was later known as the Rainier Brewing Company of Seattle, Washington. This one is for their non-alcoholic beer with the tagline. “You cannot tell the difference.” I personally doubt that claim, but who knows? Probably the first beer I ever had was a can of a Near Beer my mother bought for me when I was in my early teens. You could tell the difference then, and you could tell the difference will every N/A beer I’ve had up until maybe five or so years ago when people finally figured out ways to create flavorful ones. But Rainier’s was apparently made using there “patented process of de-alcohlization,” adding it’s “fully fermented and aged.”

An Appeal By American Brewers To the American People

September 22, 2019 By Jay Brooks

This is an interesting piece of history. This piece, sponsored by a trade group of brewers, though I’m not sure which one, whether a national organization or a more local one, something like a New York Brewers Association. It was published today, September 22, 1918, in the time before the passage of Prohibition, in an attempt to persuade citizens not to support the prohibitionists’ agenda and also that brewers were patriotic as World War was beginning. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

And here’s the article transcribed.

The press has in the past few days given much space to the fact that certain American brewers loaned the sum of $375,000 to Mr. Arthur Brisbane, which sum he used in the purchase of the Washington Times.
In many publications referring to this matter the word “German” is applied to the word “brewer,” and there is continued and persistent effort to create in the minds of the readers the impression that the brewers are as a class unpatriotic. An attempt to create and foster this impression is to give birth to and nourish what is a malicious and cowardly lie!
MORE THAN NINETY-FIVE PER CENT OF ALL THE BREWERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARE AMERICAN BORN. AND IN A VERY LARGE PORTION OF CASES THEIR PARENTS WERE AMERICAN BORN.
What money they have, has been made in American business and invested in America. Since the beginning of the war brewers have been among the largest purchasers of every Liberty Bond issue, the total of their subscriptions amounting to many millions of dollars. They have contributed in large amounts to the Red Cross and other war activities.
Brewers themselves are wearing uniforms of service and the sons and grandsons of brewers are fighting under the Stars and Stripes.
In the many acts of disloyalty discovered by the Department of Justice prior to and during the war, there is not one single instance where any brewer, directly or indirectly, has in any way been found guilty of any act which could be considered disloyal.
Much publicity has been given to the fact that before the war commenced brewers of the country contributed money to the German-American Alliance for the purpose of contesting Prohibition. Not one single dollar was ever paid to the German-American Alliance by any brewer after the declaration of war between Germany and our country, and this fact is well known to every man who has investigated this subject.
It has never been shown that any American brewer has contributed, directly or indirectly, to any dissemination of any unpatriotic propaganda!
A few days ago our President issued a proclamation forbidding the manufacture of beer after December 1st. Despite the fact that this order destroys a billion dollars’ worth of property, it has been accepted by the brewers without complaint, because they realize that in the judgment of our President such a ruling is necessary to the success of the war programme.
Are certain politicians, disappointed in their ambitions, and those who are opposed to the consumption of any beverage with the slightest trace of alcohol so powerful that they can use the horrors of this distressing war to heap odium and disgrace upon a class of citizens whose loyalty, measured by whatever standard, is one hundred per cent. American?
WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS APPEAR IN BEHALF OF OUR PROPERTY OR OUR PRODUCT, BUT AS AMERICAN CITIZENS APPEALING TO YOU TO HELP PROTECT THE GOOD NAME OF OURSELVES AND OUR FAMILIES.

Why Do People Drink Beer?

May 3, 2019 By Jay Brooks

That also seems like a silly question, but of course when the temperance movement was in full swing and prohibition might actually happen, it was a question people asked. And the brewers had an answer. This is an ad published in the Cattaraugus Republican on May 3, 1917. The small newspaper served the residents of and around Little Valley, New York, and I suspect the ad appeared in newspapers throughout the state since it was sponsored by the New York State Brewers’ Association.

Initially, brewers were not worried about prohibition because before the U.S. government imposed personal income taxes on all its citizens, a lot of its operating income came from excise taxes and the brewing industry contributed a sizable percentage of the U.S. budget. But once the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, and everybody began paying income tax, they understandably grew worried. Without their contributions to the government as a bulwark to prohibition, they felt it was much more likely that the prohibitionists could be successful and jumped into action with ads defending their industry and beer itself. It was too little, too late, and as we all know, the 18th Amendment was passed in 1919, just six years after the imposition of income taxes.

But I have to give them points for trying. This particular ad is Talk No. 10 and the bottom of it references that Talk No. 11 will appear the following week, suggesting a series and concerted effort to get their message out. You can find more like this one, both by the New York association and by other state guilds and they all share the theme of trying to persuade consumers not to support temperance efforts and portray beer as a wholesome drink for everyone. Some of their arguments, naturally are better than others, with a few almost laughably thin. But this one I especially like as it just sings the praises of everyday beer drinking. Who could argue with that?

Why Do People Drink Beer?
The reason most people drink beer is because it tastes good. The reason they go on drinking beer is because it continues to do them good.
Beer is an ideal beverage. It quenches the thirst, gives nutriment to the body, and cheers up the spirits.
It is a wholesome food. The term “food” includes anything, either solid or liquid, that restores the waste tissues of the body or supplies heat and energy. The food contents of beer are all wholesome and nutritious. Besides being a food it is a beverage; that is, it not only sustains the body, but it satisfies thirst.
It contains just enough alcohol to refresh the system, sharpen the appetite and produce a general feeling of well being.
Beer is pleasing to all the senses. It is good to look at, its aroma is attractive, its taste is snappy and it is ideally adapted to gratify the cravings of the human body.
Centuries of use have established beer as the ideal drink, giving the maximum of pleasure.

Lewis Carroll’s Scheme To Get People Drinking Beer At Home

January 27, 2019 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll. He was “an English writer of world-famous children’s fiction, notably Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He was noted for his facility at word play, logic and fantasy. The poems Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. He was also a mathematician, photographer, and Anglican deacon.” One of his lesser known books, two really, was Sylvie and Bruno and its sequel Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, published in 1889 and 1893, respectively.

In the latter, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Carroll writes about his idea on how to keep drunkards at home, drinking their beer there and not throwing away the family’s money, all to the betterment of society. It begins in Chapter V: Mathilda Jane.

When the full stream of loving memories had nearly run itself out, I began to question her about the working men of that neighbourhood, and specially the ‘Willie,’ whom we had heard of at his cottage. “He was a good fellow once,” said my kind hostess: “but it’s the drink has ruined him! Not that I’d rob them of the drink—it’s good for the most of them—but there’s some as is too weak to stand agin’ temptations: it’s a thousand pities, for them, as they ever built the Golden Lion at the corner there!”
“The Golden Lion?” I repeated.
“It’s the new Public,” my hostess explained. “And it stands right in the way, and handy for the workmen, as they come back from the brickfields, as it might be to-day, with their week’s wages. A deal of money gets wasted that way. And some of ’em gets drunk.”
“If only they could have it in their own houses—” I mused, hardly knowing I had said the words out loud.
“That’s it!” she eagerly exclaimed. It was evidently a solution, of the problem, that she had already thought out. “If only you could manage, so’s each man to have his own little barrel in his own house—there’d hardly be a drunken man in the length and breadth of the land!”
And then I told her the old story—about a certain cottager who bought himself a little barrel of beer, and installed his wife as bar-keeper: and how, every time he wanted his mug of beer, he regularly paid her over the counter for it: and how she never would let him go on ‘tick,’ and was a perfectly inflexible bar-keeper in never letting him have more than his proper allowance: and how, every time the barrel needed refilling, she had plenty to do it with, and something over for her money-box: and how, at the end of the year, he not only found himself in first-rate health and spirits, with that undefinable but quite unmistakeable air which always distinguishes the sober man from the one who takes ‘a drop too much,’ but had quite a box full of money, all saved out of his own pence!
“If only they’d all do like that!” said the good woman, wiping her eyes, which were overflowing with kindly sympathy. “Drink hadn’t need to be the curse it is to some——”
“Only a curse,” I said, “when it is used wrongly. Any of God’s gifts may be turned into a curse, unless we use it wisely. But we must be getting home. Would you call the little girls? Matilda Jane has seen enough of company, for one day, I’m sure!”

So Carroll insists that it’s not beer or drink that’s bad for them, it’s over-indulging in it. That seems a rather progressive idea for 1893, especially in the face of temperance movements of the day.

But his solution is sublime. To avoid so many people wasting their wages down at the pub, just give every household its own Kegerator and barrel of beer so they’ll instead come home most nights and drink their beer there with their family. Genius.

Later in the chapter, Sylvie and Bruno find themselves outside The Golden Lion.

“And that’s the new public-house that we were talking about, I suppose?” I said, as we came in sight of a long low building, with the words ‘The Golden Lion’ over the door.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Sylvie. “I wonder if her Willie’s inside? Run in, Bruno, and see if he’s there.”
I interposed, feeling that Bruno was, in a sort of way, in my care. “That’s not a place to send a child into.” For already the revelers were getting noisy: and a wild discord of singing, shouting, and meaningless laughter came to us through the open windows.
“They wo’n’t see him, you know,” Sylvie explained. “Wait a minute, Bruno!” She clasped the jewel, that always hung round her neck, between the palms of her hands, and muttered a few words to herself. What they were I could not at all make out, but some mysterious change seemed instantly to pass over us. My feet seemed to me no longer to press the ground, and the dream-like feeling came upon me, that I was suddenly endowed with the power of floating in the air. I could still just see the children: but their forms were shadowy and unsubstantial, and their voices sounded as if they came from some distant place and time, they were so unreal. However, I offered no further opposition to Bruno’s going into the house. He was back again in a few moments. “No, he isn’t come yet,” he said. “They’re talking about him inside, and saying how drunk he was last week.”
While he was speaking, one of the men lounged out through the door, a pipe in one hand and a mug of beer in the other, and crossed to where we were standing, so as to get a better view along the road. Two or three others leaned out through the open window, each holding his mug of beer, with red faces and sleepy eyes. “Canst see him, lad?” one of them asked.
“I dunnot know,” the man said, taking a step forwards, which brought us nearly face to face. Sylvie hastily pulled me out of his way. “Thanks, child,” I said. “I had forgotten he couldn’t see us. What would have happened if I had staid in his way?”

In Chapter VI, they decide to rescue Willie from his pub crawling ways.

He made for the door of the public-house, but the children intercepted him. Sylvie clung to one arm; while Bruno, on the opposite side, was pushing him with all his strength, with many inarticulate cries of “Gee-up! Gee-back! Woah then!” which he had picked up from the waggoners.
‘Willie’ took not the least notice of them: he was simply conscious that something had checked him: and, for want of any other way of accounting for it, he seemed to regard it as his own act.
“I wunnut coom in,” he said: “not to-day.”
“A mug o’ beer wunnut hurt ’ee!” his friends shouted in chorus. “Two mugs wunnut hurt ’ee! Nor a dozen mugs!”84
“Nay,” said Willie. “I’m agoan whoam.”
“What, withouten thy drink, Willie man?” shouted the others. But ‘Willie man’ would have no more discussion, and turned doggedly away, the children keeping one on each side of him, to guard him against any change in his sudden resolution.

Willie went home and gave all his wages to his wife, and she was pretty happy, as were his children. The only thing that would have made the ending better is if his wife had installed a barrel of beer so he could come home every day after work and have a drink of beer there, as was the earlier suggestion Carroll made.

Sylvie_and_Bruno — Sylvia and Bruno, from the inside cover of the original edition, with illustrations by Harry Furniss.

We Want Beer Parade

May 14, 2018 By Jay Brooks

You’ve undoubtedly seen the photographs or men marching through the streets carrying signs that read “We Want Beer.” The parade, held on May 14, 1932, was organized by the city’s mayor, Jimmy Walker, and was originally called the Beer for Taxation march, although it quickly became known more popularly as the “We Want Beer!” parade. Mayor Walker was a flamboyant showman, but prohibition was also making life difficult for New Yorkers. The criminal element took over the sale and distribution of illegal alcohol and something like 400 murders each year were attributed to bootleggers and gangsters in New York. And the increased crime was harder to combat because of the city’s lost revenue from various alcohol taxes, which forced the mayor to dramatically reduce both his police and fire departments. There was also rampant unemployment as the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression.

This is the iconic photo of marchers in the We Want Beer parade.

The photo above shows marchers at night, which may be surprising, but the parade actually lasted all day long, and continued into the evening.

NYC Mayor Jimmy Walker.

Mayor Walker gave a speech in the evening over station WEAF of the National Broadcasting Company, in which he challenged the opponents of his “Beer for Taxation” plan to produce any other form of taxation that would be “less of a burden upon people already overburdened with taxation.”

The parade began down Fifth Avenue from 80th Street in Manhattan, “with picket signs, in costume, and cars festooned with slogans. The marchers went west on 59th Street and back north on Central Park West, parading into the night,” with Mayor Jimmy Walker, “dapper in his derby and suit (and about to be brought up on corruption charges before resigning as mayor), led the procession.” Within the month, other cities held similar parades.

“Interestingly, at noon, the marchers paused for a minute of silence in honor of Charles Lindbergh Jr., whose body was found dead in woods in New Jersey two days earlier.”

It started as a fairly small protest, but quickly swelled to an estimated 100,000 marchers (and some accounts put that number closer to 150,000). One of the slogans they chanted was “Beer for Prosperity” and they also chanted the call and response “Who wants beer?” followed by “We Do!”

Today I Found Out also has an account of the parade, including:

When Congressman Emanuel Celler heard about the event, he said he’d come and bring a bunch of friends. You’d be able to pick him out in the crowd by the two signs he’d be holding: “Never Say Dry” and “Open the Spigots and Drown the Bigots.” The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and the Grand Army of the Republic (a group of Civil War veterans) also turned out to march in the parade. Students and society matrons also joined the fray.

They even created a souvenir program for the parade.

And Steuben Taverns created a hanger to put on your car’s rear view mirror.

And to get a sense of the parade itself, here is a video from the event.

Mayor James J. Walker leads the great Beer Parade in New York City:

Budweiser Clydesdales Debut On April 7, 1933

April 7, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Today, of course, is known by many names: National Beer Day, Beer is Back Day, Legal Beer Day, Brew Year’s Day, and New Beer’s Day. And that’s because while the repeal of the 18th Amendment wouldn’t be ratified until December 5, 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act took effect on April 7, 1933, having been enacted by Congress on March 21 of the same year. And that meant that at least some lower-alcohol beer could legally be served in about twenty states in the United States, which I imagine after a thirteen-year drought was a welcome relief to beer lovers everywhere. Here’s the nutshell history from Wikipedia:

The Cullen–Harrison Act, named for its sponsors, Senator Pat Harrison and Representative Thomas H. Cullen, enacted by the United States Congress March 21, 1933 and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt the following day, legalized the sale in the United States of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% (by weight) and wine of similarly low alcohol content, thought to be too low to be intoxicating, effective April 7, 1933. Upon signing the legislation, Roosevelt made his famous remark, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.”

Of course, he actually signed the bill on March 22, 1933, which is when he made that remark, still a full sixteen days before he could actually do so.

According to the Cullen-Harrison Act, each state had to pass similar legislation to legalize sale of the low alcohol beverages in that state. Roosevelt had previously sent a short message to Congress requesting such a bill. Sale of even such low alcohol beer had been illegal in the U.S. since Prohibition started in 1920 following the 1919 passage of the Volstead Act. Throngs gathered outside breweries and taverns for their first legal beer in many years. The passage of the Cullen–Harrison Act is celebrated as National Beer Day every year on April 7.

beer-for-the-president

And while you often see this photo of Budweiser’s Clydesdales pulling a beer wagon to deliver beer in Washington for the president at the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, this could not have been taken on April 7, but would have been a few weeks later at the earliest. Although the clydesdales did debut today in 1933, it was not in Washington D.C. Here’s the story, from Anheuser-Busch’s website:

On April 7, 1933, August A. Busch, Jr. and Adolphus Busch III surprised their father, August A. Busch, Sr., with the gift of a six-horse Clydesdale hitch to commemorate the repeal of Prohibition of beer.
Realizing the marketing potential of a horse-drawn beer wagon, the company also arranged to have a second six-horse Clydesdale hitch sent to New York on April 7 to mark the event. The Clydesdales drew a crowd of thousands on their way to the Empire State Building. After a small ceremony, a case of Budweiser was presented to former Governor Alfred E. Smith in appreciation of his years of service in the fight against Prohibition.
This hitch continued on a tour of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, thrilling thousands, before stopping in Washington, D.C., in April 1933 to reenact the delivery of one of the first cases of Budweiser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The St. Louis hitch also toured in celebration, stopping in Chicago and other Midwestern cities.
Shortly after the hitch was first introduced, the six-horse Clydesdale team increased to eight. On March 30, 1950, in commemoration of the opening of the Anheuser-Busch Newark Brewery, a Dalmatian was introduced as the Budweiser Clydesdales’ mascot. Now, a Dalmatian travels with each of the Clydesdale hitches.

budweiser-clydesdales-1
Original Budweiser Clydesdale Six-horse Hitch and Beer Wagon, in front of the St. Louis Brewery in 1933.

And here’s the story from Wikipedia:

The Budweiser Clydesdales were first introduced to the public on April 7, 1933, to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition. August A. Busch, Jr. presented the hitch as a gift to his father, August Anheuser Busch, Sr., who was guided outside the brewery by the ruse of being told his son had purchased him a new car, but instead was greeted by the horses, pulling a red, white and gold beer wagon. The hitch proceeded to carry the first case of post-Prohibition beer from the St. Louis brewery in a special journey down Pestalozzi Street in St. Louis.
Recognizing the advertising and promotional potential of a horse-drawn beer wagon, Busch, Sr. had the team sent by rail to New York City, where it picked up two cases of Budweiser beer at New Jersey’s Newark Airport, and presented it to Al Smith, former governor of New York and an instrumental force in the repeal of Prohibition. From there, the Clydesdales continued on a tour of New England and the Mid-Atlantic States, a journey that included the delivery of a case of beer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House.

budweiser-clydesdales-2

The Budweiser Clydesdales are still going, of course, and have been a great marketing tool for the beer company. My daughter is a horse lover, and has been doing equestrian vaulting (essentially gymnastics on the back of a moving horse) since she was six-years old. When she was seven, in 2011, I took her to see the clydesdales at the Fairfield Budweiser brewery. I had called ahead, and we had a private tour of the brewery first, which was fun, and then the horses arrived in several specially designed trucks and put on a demonstration in the parking lot. We watched as they unloaded them, groomed them and then got them ready. Then they hooked them up to the wagon and they circled the parking lot. My daughter had a great time and the horses, to her at least, were beautiful and the attention to detail they put into them was amazing. Anyway, here’s a few photos from that trip.

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My daughter Alice, ready for the brewery tour.

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The horses arrives.

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Alice in front of the beer wagon.

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After getting the horses ready, they started hitching them up, one by one.

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Until they were all hitched and ready to go.

Scrappy’s Beer Parade

March 8, 2017 By Jay Brooks

tiny-toons
As regular readers will know, I’m a huge cartoon nerd. Today, March 8, 1933, the cartoon “Beer Parade” was released by Screen Gems, and created by the Charles Mintz Studio. It was a Scrappy cartoon.

Scrappy

Here’s more about Scrappy, from Wikipedia:

Scrappy is a cartoon character created by Dick Huemer for Charles Mintz’s Krazy Kat Studio (distributed by Columbia Pictures). A little round-headed boy, Scrappy often found himself involved in off-beat neighborhood adventures. Usually paired with his little brother Oopy (originally Vontzy), Scrappy also had an on-again, off-again girlfriend named Margy and a Scotty dog named Yippy. In later shorts the annoying little girl Brat and pesky pet Petey Parrot also appeared. Huemer created the character in 1931, and he remained aboard Mintz’s studio until 1933. With Huemer’s departure, his colleagues Sid Marcus and Art Davis assumed control of the series. The final Scrappy cartoon, The Little Theatre was released in 1941.

Posters for the “Beer Parade”
beerparade_1933

Here’s the synopsis of the cartoon from its IMDb page:

Scrappy and Oopie, though little boys, happily celebrate the return of beer after fourteen years, with the help of brew-guzzling gnomes, apparently from the “Rip Van Winkle” story. They leave an allegorical “Prohibition” figure (ugly old man in stovepipe hat) stripped and chased off.

Here’s another description from a user review at IMDb:

Scrappy and Oopie are partying with some gnomes who are enjoying beer from barrels. A mean Prohibition Agent appears and attacks the barrels with an axe, but Oopie will defend the right of people to enjoy their lager in this cartoon released a month before beer sales were legalized.
It had been a long fight and this typically bizarre Scrappy cartoon has the two children strongly in support of drinking. Although they do not partake themselves, they certainly use startlingly strange methods typical of Dick Huemer’s series. It is a pretty good one because it does not ease up in the second half. Dick and his staff certainly made it clear where their sympathies lay!

This is from Scrappyland, a website dedicated to Scrappy:

Plot summary: Scrappy and Oopy joyfully serve beer by the barrelful to dozens of drunken elves until Old Man Prohibition shows up. The boys and the little men assault him from the ground and the air–even using explosives–until he chooses to bury himself. Whereupon the good times roll once more.
(I particularly like the moment when Oopy, having rigged up a rope to trip Old Man Prohibition, tugs at it to verify that it’s tight enough to do the job.)
The cartoon is an obvious allegory concerning prohibition and its repeal. But it was released on March 4, 1933, when the federal ban on alcoholic beverages was still in force, so its celebration of unrestrained imbibing was anticipatory.
FDR, who famously made repeal part of his campaign, had taken office in January; a couple of weeks after the cartoon debuted, he signed the Cullen-Harrison act, which permitted the sale of wine and 3.2 percent beer starting the following month. In December, prohibition on the federal level was fully repealed.
Prohibition was never enforced all that rigorously in cartoon land. The 1929 Silly Symphony The Merry Dwarfs presaged The Beer Parade by showing its title characters quaffing beer; 1931’s Lady Play Your Mandolin, the first Merrie Melody, takes place in a saloon and is full of tippling animals, although it’s possible that it’s set in Mexico. But the sheer quantity of beer in The Beer Parade–served by two small boys without any adult supervision–remains startling. It’s unimaginable that anyone would have made a cartoon with this theme a few years later. Or today.
(Scrappy and Oopy aren’t shown drinking in the cartoon, but they are depicted brandishing foamy mugs themselves, and do seem to be in an awfully exuberant good mood.)

He’s reviewing it from a YouTube video where someone at a public screening simply videotaped the cartoon and then uploaded it. But it’s subsequently been removed from YouTube. And as far as I can tell, Scrappy cartoons have not been released on either videotape or DVD. Which is a crying shame, because it looks like it was an amazing cartoon.

This is from Scrappyland, a website dedicated to Scrappy:

Dr. Richard Huemer–the son of Scrappy’s creator–shared this New Years’ card which was sent to his father by Joe De Nat, the Mintz studio’s musical director. The card depicts Scrappy and his Mintz stablemate Krazy Kat pumping beer into a mug inhabited by a piano player and a mermaid (presumably representing Mr. and Mrs. De Nat). Assuming that the references to 1933 and the new year mean that the De Nats distributed this card around January 1, 1933, prohibition was still in effect, but the recent election of FDR meant that its days were clearly numbered.

denatcard