First time, an open invitation to explore the wide range of activities we offer at smithsonian associates. Now is the perfect time to silence your cell phones. We are thrilled tonight to welcome author garrett peck back to the smithsonian. In addition to the many tours he leaves at the smithsonian, his temperance tour of prohibition sides has been featured on cspan. He was featured on a twohour documentary about prohibition on the smithsonian channel. Key is the author of seven books, including prohibition in washington, d. C. , how dry we werent. And the great war in america, world war i and its aftermath, which was published in 2018. Before we get started, i want you to invite you to join us in the lobby to sample a prohibition era cocktail. Please join me in welcoming garrett peck. [applause] good evening everyone and thank you for coming out for our wake. Our dry wake. 100 years ago today, about six hours from now, that is the exact moment the National Prohibition began. Today, yes i know. We are going to commemorate this afterwards we will a chance to celebrate our right to drink with a french 75 cocktail. I appreciate everyone coming tonight for cspan. To come out here tonight and to film for a national audience. Thank you very much. This is, i may have to worry you about this image, it is rather triggering if you are a beer drinker like myself. They are pouring beer into the sewer. It is so tragic. It is one of the most famous shots from prohibition. The Police Commissioner in the hats overseeing them pouring the break beer down the drain. We will look at how prohibition came to be. And why it didnt last white lasted less than 14 years. And why we ended up appealing that. Most of us now drink and we dont really think anything of it, prohibition didnt just appear magically on its own. There is actually a giant movement in American History that push this on the country. That movement was the Temperance Movement. They have these beautiful al frescos inside, and the Temperance Movement was this century long social movement, that was part of the progressive era, intended to make americans better people and more middle class, and sober. Their idea initially was they would try to get people to drink moderately, stop drinking so much whiskey, have beer or wine, but by the 18 thirties more radicals decided that no one could drink anything at all. If you drink at all you are on a slippery slope to becoming a drunkard. It is one of those things, they demonized drinking. See from this propaganda poster from 1872 king alcohol and his Prime Minister. You see the king standing on a barrel of spirits and the Prime Minister next to him who is deaf. You may notice a few things in the foreground showing the tragedy of this. You see for example the family to the right, minus their father, and the weeping widow in the foreground. Women were so important to the temperance union, because oftentimes women were victimized by their husbands who are drinking so much, the Temperance Movement didnt come out of nowhere. There was illegitimate response to the heavy drinking. They just took it to the extreme, that no one should drink at all. For we should change the constitution to ban alcohol which we did. In 1873 was the beginning of the womens christian temperance union. This was the ground zero for temperance, you had such allow large number of german immigrants who controlled the breweries. And also the anti saloon leak was headquartered there as well. Francis willard was this incredible woman in American History. The first woman to get a statue in the u. S. Capital. She is a big deal. She is from illinois. She is one of the leading proponents of womens rights in our history. I take my hat off to her, even if i dont agree with her on the alcohol stance. Her model was do everything. They took up everything for family rights. Domestic violence, children working in factories, it is incredible the Different Things they took up, unfortunately women did not have the vote yet. Women could only have influence but they couldnt vote on these issues. It is pique the was a very strong movement. They taught children to be ashamed of alcohol. I come from a longlived of methodists and my grandma felt shame. They have a lot of heavy moralizing. They also built numerous water fountains all around the country. Here in d. C. We have a water fountain not put up by the wta see you, here in d. C. We have the cause well temperance fountain which you have all walked past. This is our temperance fountain it once was an active water fountain, the symbolism is to tell people to drink water instead of whiskey. This was erected in the 18 eighties. Right when the Temperance Movement was becoming a National Movement. And again trying to use moral persuasion to keep people from drinking alcohol. After about 20 years or so of the wta see you, the moral persuasion was not working. People were still drinking, americans hand shifted after the civil war to drinking whiskey and now they are drinking beer and now since the civil war beer has been our national beverage. In 18 thank the three they founded this Organization Called the anti saloon bleak, they pay spanned it in 1933, this is the organization that gives us the 18th prohibition amendment. One of the early hires was this call urge student, Wayne Wheeler, probably the most powerful lobbyist in American History. He and created pressure politics. He knew how to squeeze politicians to make them to vote dry even if they were wet in their personal lives. Every politicians first job is to get reelected. So he made sure that if anyone bucked him on the prohibition he would make sure they would not get reelected. He really leveraged the base of the anti saloon lake. This was their base the Temperance Movement was a white evangelical protestant faith based initiative. It was a progressive initiative, we think today in terms of counties as being very conservative, this was a progressive movement. This was about making americans better people. Very importantly the anti saloon lake formed an alliance and this alliance finn gendered to massive constitutional amendments, obviously one of them is prohibition. The other one you can probably guess from this photo, which is the suffrage amendment. 18th and 19th advent. This is from january 1970 showing the suffrage from the National Womans Party who are protesting in front of the white house, because Woodrow Wilson would not come out supporting the suffrage amendment. Wheeler had this alliance with the Suffrage Movement so that both of them could get their way. This alliance then fell apart after 1920, after women got the right to vote. They want to go visit the speakeasy to. There is one thing in American History that really makes prohibition come about, back this up quickly, the Anti Saloon League recognized in a Public Statement that 1917 was we need to change the constitution really quickly because this is our last chance. This is where the country was this is going to be where the census is taken, they can see how much the citys are starting to teeter totter, the cities were starting to outnumber the countryside. They expected the majority of americans would be in cities, and that would outweigh the Temperance Movement, which was more rule based. We had leading up to 1920, the highest proportion ever in our history of immigration. One third of americans were foreign born or a parent that was born overseas. Hice portion ever in history. In many ways the Temperance Movement was a native movement. Many of these immigrants that were coming in in the 18 eighties and beyond our catholic overwhelmingly, or they are russian jews. All of these people are bringing in their drinking habits, which protestants that are living were shaking their finger we do not recognize these people. We need an amendment to conform to how we are living. They should not be drinking alcohol. A lot of ways prohibitionists target it at these immigrants. In the late 1800s and mid 1900s. What makes prohibition reality, the event that leads up to this poster, world war one. We declare war against germany on april six 1917 and you all know who the biggest ethnic group was german americans. And the brewers were germans. They were the biggest blow of the biggest anti saloon link. Right away as soon as we declared war wayne real or any other agencies in the begans by using an awful lot of propaganda so for this was the very good propaganda poster because it tucks at your heartstrings. They did all kinds of things, the Brewers Association had funny newspapers and so on, they brought out a lot of the shenanigans through senate hearings. This was all about embarrassing the brewers and the wet cars, and marginalizing all of the drinkers. Eventually they spun drinking into treason. In 1917 they brought forth a 19th amendment, most of the American Public as the polls were going to ratify the amendment, which took 13 months, which took 13 months during the war itself. Part of the selling point was we need to save frame, to feed our soldiers during the war and these need to be soldier sober soldiers which ignores the fact that the german army. The english army was drinking everything. That was all part of the propaganda of selling the dry cause and this emergency of the war effort. Everyone was like yes we need to do this. We need prohibition to win the war. Most people thought when they voted for this that there is simply outline liquor, not realizing that year and wine were also going to be outlawed. It was a brute surprise. Everyone here has a hand out of eight prohibition cocktails. Lets talk about the first one which we will sample after, one of my alltime favorites, the french 75. It has a couple of different origin stories behind it, one of which features a British Army Unit getting together with a french unit and they blended it together their champagne and their gym and meet this cocktail. Other people say it was invented in new orleans. Who really knows . I was an artillery officer myself and i was in the army. This was an incredible top secret project for the french, the french german called it the devil gun. But it could fire off about six shots at minute and every shell woodland in the same spot. Very very effective. Because the u. S. Had no arm and capabilities during the war had to borrow everything from the french all the tanks we had to borrow from the french the very first artillery shell is at the Woodrow Wilson house. But the here is the french 75 artillery shell. Wilson felt such a responsibility for sending off these soldiers to fight in the trenches of france that he kept it there in france for. He felt that responsibility descending that nation to war. Another famous american commanded a battery of french 70 fives during world war one, and it is this man. The only future president to fight and world war one truman from kansas city. He was 35 years old when he led his battery of kansas city mid fits. A lot were catholic and came out of reform school, a very disciplined group and whip he whipped them into shape. He let them very effectively during the war. He let this battery of french 75, his unit was both sly catholic for but he became lifelong friends and political supporters of him. They are getting to talk and they saw amendments had passed, 36 state of nebraska ratified this. Five days later harry writes his fiancee and says food, and anyway, it looks to me like the moonshine business is going to be pretty good in the land of liberty loans in Green Trading stamps and some of us want to get in on the ground floor, at least we want to get there in time to lay into the supply for future consumption i think a court of bourbon with last me about 40 years. He was talking with his soldiers that were already making plans to bootleg. You know how wet that city was like new york, detroit, chicago were. How is this ever gonna work, what were they thinking . The 18th amendment was ratified by the state of nebraska on 1919. It has three parts of the amendment. So you can read it, i highlighted the most important parts of it. The manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating with hers is hereby prohibited. That is what the amendment states. You have to have a lot to define most people thought they are going to outlaw only distilled spirits, but wheeler said no, anything with alcohol is going to be made illegal. He helped crack with this minnesota congressman, andrew vail state of minnesota, and he chaired the house judiciary committee, he was in charge of writing this bill it had 67 parts. Four he went he went down in ignominy for having written this law. They took a hard line against any alcohol. Anything above 0. 05 was now illegal. It was considered to be intoxicating. They forbade anyone from calling near beer, so they came up with names like devil. This act had a lot of number of loopholes, many of which are famous. Youve all heard of medicinal whiskey . Before prohibition they said alcohol is not medicine. During prohibition on the other hand all the doctors could prescribe, 100 prescriptions of a pint of whiskey per month. All the doctors wanted to get on on this game. So this is one of the major loopholes of being widely abused. You had sacramental wine, the catholic church, the jews, the lutherans still needed to have wine for their services. So that was one of the loopholes many of the people were declaring himself to be jewish rabbis, so they could give wine. They gave a huge license to midwestern farmers who fought take 200 pounds of fruits, take up all the fruit you wanted and make preserved fruit, if you preserve fruit it is going to ferment. For its a natural process. You might notice that even with an old banana. Its a natural process fermentation. Of course that was a carve out for the bid western farmers and the italian immigrants. You could make your own line and not. Oh bunch of loopholes got written into the act and were widely used. Widely abused. President wilson himself actually vetoed the volstead act three weeks after his stroke. He was trying to sell the treaty of versailles to the nation. He was having missed barnstorming tour. He had these terrible headaches. It effectively ended his second term as president. He vetoed the volstead act because wilson believed that wine and beer should still be legal, but Wayne Wheeler believed otherwise, and he was so in control of the politicians that congress overrode wilsons veto, thus we got this very strict interpretation of prohibition. It is kind of amazing, once people woke up, that is what we signed up for. Yeah. When wilson left the white house on march 4, 1921, he actually had a wine collection. He did not want to leave it behind because his successor Warren Harding was a known heavy drinker and a party boy. Wilson got a permit from the Prohibition Bureau to transport his wine collection. If you had alcohol in your possession before prohibition, it was yours to keep. They were not going to take that away from you. Personal possession was not outlawed, but you could manufacture, sell, or transport it. Wilson had to get special permission to transport his wine collection from the white house to his new estate. Come by the Woodrow Wilson house is appointed we have a prohibition tour that i lead sometimes. We have a prohibition era wine cellar. It is really unique. How many other houses in the country have original bottles . It is amazing. Look right up front. That is quantro. The packaging has hardly changed. Many of the bottles we believe the wilsons got from the french ambassadors house, which is effectively three blocks away. We had saved france from world war i. We believe wilsons got a perpetual resupply from the French Embassy during prohibition. Embassies themselves were considered for territory, and therefore they could supply their own alcohol. Another thing i wanted to point out to you was more time prohibition, which was wartime prohibition, which was an oxymoron. This gets attached to the prohibition bill 10 days after the war ends. Senator Morris Sheppard attaches this on to the appropriations bill, effectively outlawing the sale of distilled spirits for the rest of the war. Until we have a peace treaty, we can have no more distilled spirits sales. Come july 1, 1919, all beer must be under 2. 75 alcohol. This is a saloon in new york city on june 30, 1919, the last night before people will have to shift down to 2. 75 alcohol beer. Do you notice what they are drinking . Look at what they are all drinking. Do you see a single cocktail . They are drinking beer because that was the only thing that was legal for them to drink at the time. What else is missing from the photo . There are no women in this because women did not go to saloons. Not until the 1920s when the speakeasies came about. Before hand, saloons were mens only culture. Maybe some good things came out of prohibition. Women got about, equal rights got the vote, equal rights. Virginia yesterday ratified the equal rights amendment. [applause] my home state. Prohibition starts 100 years ago today, right as the clock ticks over to january 17. At the First Congregational Church downtown, which is still there, all the leading prohibitionists got together and went through speech after speech. You got to see the guy who dried up the navy. Wayne wheeler was there. William Howard Russell was there. Most importantly, the man who spoke at midnight, William Jennings bryan, the great commoner. He died about five years after this. His career at this point was really waning. He delivers this 45 minute dynamic sermon. He compares king herod, who is trying to kill the baby jesus, and how j