Will Rogers Quotes
The South is dry and will vote dry. That is everybody who is sober enough to stagger to the polls will.
Before we had national prohibition, many Southern states and counties outlawed alcohol. “Wets” were those who wanted to allow drinking of alcohol. “Drys” were those who did not. The South was “dry” and voted overwhelmingly for national prohibition, and later voted to keep it even when a majority of the country voted to repeal it. The irony was that the South has always been, and still is, one of the highest alcohol consumption regions and has had much alcoholism. Hence Roger’s humor.
Will Rogers, 1879-1935, Cowboy Humorist, Observation about Prohibition in the South
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The poem was his summary of the Wickersham Commission’s (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement) conclusion regarding Prohibition.
This is the basis for the Muslim prohibition on alcohol beverages.
In 1931 prohibition was a major political issue. Mayor William Hale Thompson organized campaign parades complete with circus animals. A camel carried the following sign.
This pledge was taken by over half a million Americans in Mathew's 1849-1851 tour of the United States promoting the Teetotal Abstinence Society.
The distinction between recreational drinking and heavy drinking is a subtle one and rarely made until modern times. Most leaders who would not have heavy drinkers in positions of responsibility were usually themselves teetotalers and they were very rare. Heavy drinkers and alcoholics have been in positions of responsibility throughout history including modern times—eg House Ways & Means Chairman Wilbur Mills and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Peter was unusual in that he made the distinction.
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. Early in his career, as Secretary to the Emperor, he was assigned to oversee the education of the young king of Bohemia. Piccolomini’s advice of temperance was not at all based on theological reasons as drinking was rampant, even among the clergy. Also, he recognized the major effect of peer pressure on teenagers as it affects drinking behavior.
This has always been a problem for the US Military. Attempts at prohibition have been bad for morale, and there is a cultural tradition that military men drink alcohol. However in the Gulf War, our military men and women stationed in Saudi Arabia could not drink as a consequence of the Islamic prohibition of alcohol in Saudi Arabia. There has never been, in the history of our military a period with fewer courts martials, and discipline problems in general. Very few assaults, rapes and murders.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. The Congressmen who voted for Prohibition in the next century had not read or believed this quotation of Twain’s.
The authenticity of this quotation has been in contention for years. While many sources attributed this statement to Lincoln, no one has ever found a document in which it appears. Further, it was so clearly consonant with the anti-Prohibition argument that we suspected it as a “Phantom Quotation” (See http://politicalquotes.org/node/4063). As a result, we did not include this quotation until March of 2014. The reason we changed our mind was a newspaper article that was pointed out to us, and after reading it, we tilted in favor of inclusion. The article is http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/LincolnQuote/lpq0001.jpg
William Penn Adair Rogers was an American stage and film actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator from Oklahoma. He was a Cherokee citizen born in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory.
