Prohibition Politics
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Arkansas Senator Joe T. Robinson campaigned for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, promising that FDR would "bring back beer." Photo courtesy of the Arkansas History Commission. |
Before the 20th century those opposed to drink worked to dry out Arkansas county by county. After 1900, prohibitionists sought a state-wide law to banish alcohol, a strategy followed by other activists of the era who wished to modernize public services. The prohibition movement counted on the support of popular reform governors such as George Donaghey (1909-1913) and Charles Brough (1917-1921) to bolster their cause. The decisive legislative majorities in favor of the 1915 and 1917 laws that kept liquor from being sold in or brought into Arkansas demonstrated that prohibition had become a mainstream cause. The enactment of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution cheered its advocates, but the flourishing of 1920s speakeasies and bootlegging operations stirred public fears that prohibition promoted lawlessness.
In the 1928 election, Arkansas voters had to choose between their traditional allegiance to the Democratic party and backing prohibition. Gov. Al Smith of New York, the Democratic nominee for president, chose Sen. Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas to placate southerners who opposed Smith's call to repeal the 18th amendment. Herbert Hoover, who characterized prohibition as a "noble experiment," won the election, but Arkansas proved it would vote for even a "wet" Democrat.
The Great Depression undermined both Hoover's presidency and Prohibition. Shortly after the 1932 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, another Democratic New York governor who favored the end of Prohibition, Sen. Robinson pushed a resolution through Congress to adopt an amendment to repeal the 18th. Arkansas was one of the first southern states to ratify the 21st amendment, which took effect in 1933. The state, however, remained dry under the earlier state statutes. The state was also broke, owing to a large bonded debt and continued hard times.
In 1935 Gov. Marion Futrell successfully lobbied the legislature to restore liquor sales as a source of new tax revenues. Anti-liquor advocates once again began to fight their battles township by township through local-option elections.
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