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Chapter 27 - Prohibition: Sale by Drink
Chapter 27 - Prohibition: Sale by Drink
ON APRIL 29, 1886, the Salt Lake Evening Democrat, a daily and weekly publication which crusaded against The Tribune and the Mormon Church for about two years before expiring from lack of financial support, had hailed as a notable news event: "The News and Tribune agree—That worthless dogs should be killed."
The point of the Democrat's jibe was exaggerated but not grossly so. For it must have seemed to some newspaper readers of that era that The Tribune and the Deseret News energetically sought out issues to disagree upon, more from a lust for controversy than from dedication to convictions. Any such tendency had completely disappeared by 1911. Thereafter The Tribune and Deseret News frequently took the same position on public issues and both newspapers quite obviously avoided confrontations over trivialities which in the old days would have put them at each other's throat. Newspaper manners had undergone a marked change not only in Salt Lake City but across the country generally.
Some differences did remain and on occasion the two newspapers found themselves on opposite sides of a controversial issue seeking to persuade the reading public to their respective points of view. Nevertheless, editorial differences were argued on the issue without assaults on the motives, veracity, intelligence and sincerity of the opposition.
One such confrontation occurred in 1933 when repeal of national prohibition came to a head, as a result of Franklin D. Roosevelt's election on a platform pledging repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and a revision of the Volstead Act.
Almost from The Tribune's birth liquor had been a bone of contention between it and the Deseret News. Frequently in agreement upon social and moral aspects of liquor consumption and the desirability of temperance, the two papers differed sharply on how best to deal with the problem. Each tended to lay responsibility for the fact that liquor was a problem in Utah at the feet of the other and its constituency. During the first two decades of its life, The Tribune often expressed irritation with temperance speeches at church conferences and News editorials which in The Tribune's opinion implied that it was the gentiles who brought the liquor traffic to the territory and perpetuated it. The Tribune devoted columns of news and editorial space to the charge that the liquor problem reached Utah ahead of the gentiles; that the business was monopolized by chosen church members and the church-controlled Salt Lake City government; that the largest distributors were church-controlled drug stores, principally Z.C.M.I.; that the early city ordinances regulating the business were inexcusably lax. Probably the most detailed attack on the church's position on liquor was delivered by Judge O. W. Powers at a Liberal Party rally on July 20, 1890, in the old Salt Lake Theater. It was a distillation of what The Tribune had been saying in the two decades past. During the 1908 campaign of the American Party the newspaper revived and republished the speech which would have filled two or three pages of present-day newspapers. Additionally, The Tribune published a long editorial lauding the speech.
The following excerpts from the editorial reflect the nature and tone of the speech as well as the editorial comment:
The answer of the Deseret News to the charges of The Tribune, Judge Powers and other gentile campaign orators, was to hang the early liquor problem around the necks of trappers, soldiers stationed in the area and gentile fortune hunters passing through the city on their way to the California gold fields. There can be no doubt that these groups did indeed contribute substantially to the territory's liquor consumption.
While The Tribune opposed national prohibition legislation until the early nineteen hundreds, its objections were based upon the belief that it would not work and that it was not a proper power to vest in the federal government. Its attitude toward the aims of the Prohibition National Party was expressed during the campaign of 1904 in an editorial denying that drinking habits could be governed by statutes and that consequently the Prohibition Party would fail in its appeal.
Soon after A. N. McKay became general manager of The Tribune at the beginning of 1911, the newspaper changed its position on the practicality of prohibition legislation. It praised editorially the action of both major political parties in the 1916 campaign pledging state-wide prohibition and commended Governor Simon Bamberger who, having won the election, followed through on the pledge to get a bone-dry law through the Legislature which became effective on August 1, 1917. The Tribune also abandoned its earlier objection to national prohibition, commenting in an editorial praising Nevada, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming for joining the prohibition states: ". . . but whatever the west might have been in the long ago, it is far in advance of Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania on the great moral question of the day. The people out this way do not cater to vice and do not invoke the doctrine of states' rights to protect the saloon. . . ."
Several years' experience with national prohibition convinced Fitzpatrick that the experiment, however noble it might have been in purpose, was an abysmal failure and should be discarded for some other approach to the liquor problem. Tribune editorials began reflecting this viewpoint by the late 1920s and by 1933 it was waging a temperate but persistent campaign for Utah to join the states backing repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. By this time thirty-three states had voted for repeal and six more were to vote on the issue in that year. The Tribune stated editorially:
The tide of public sentiment was running heavily against prohibition in the nation but Utah was a large question mark in the minds of the "wets." The reason was that the leadership of the Mormon Church and some of the Protestant churches were aggressively opposing repeal. The church groups argued, with considerable theoretical logic at least, that the repealists, in calling for an end to hypocrisy and corruption, were really making a case for enforcement of the noble experiment rather than its abandonment.
At the October conference of the Mormon Church, President Heber J. Grant said, in an address opposing repeal: "I have hoped and prayed that we as a people would not vote for abolition of the Eighteenth Amendment." The Tribune reported that Melvin J. Ballard and David O. McKay of the Council of Twelve Apostles "followed President Grant with pleas to uphold prohibition, asserting that the people of the church will make history when they vote on the momentous question a month hence." The voters did "make history" in the sense that they placed Utah in the national limelight by voting approximately three to two in favor of repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and of the state's bone-dry constitutional provision.
The Tribune supported the cause of repeal as unequivocally and as firmly as it had supported its positions while the "irrepressible conflict" was raging. But the tone, the style and spirit of its advocacy bore no resemblance to the slashing editorials of the earlier days. It no longer prefaced its affirmative arguments with a rude assault on the character of the opposition. A typical example of its editorial approach in the repeal campaign appeared under the heading: "The Search for Temperance":
To the plea of prohibitionists that Utah should stand out against the national trend and remain dry, The Tribune replied:
The repeal issue cut across political and ecclesiastical lines, a fact which made victory possible for the repeal forces. Democrats, whatever their religion, were under strong political pressures to publicly support repeal and many did. The state's Democratic congressional delegation endorsed repeal as did many candidates for municipal offices which were to be filled in the election. Even in Cache County, a stronghold of Mormon orthodoxy, George D. Preston, county attorney and a former Logan city judge, came out for repeal with the observation: "If everyone who has violated the prohibition laws will vote for repeal, Utah will repeal by more than a hundred to one."
Richard W. Young, Jr., then president of the Federal Land Bank in Berkeley, California, and a former Utah legislator and author of the state's bone-dry law, endorsed repeal and commented that "prohibition in Utah and the nation has been an absolute farce." John F. Bowman, a former mayor of Salt Lake City, was chairman of the Defenders, the state-wide organization formed to oppose repeal. Franklin Riter, a Salt Lake City attorney, served in a similar capacity for organizations set up to campaign for repeal. Ray L. Olson, a member of the Utah Legislature, served as campaign director for the repeal forces. One of the most active organizations backing repeal - The Crusaders - was headed by Clarence Bamberger, prominent businessman and a nephew of Governor Simon Bamberger whose administration had sixteen years earlier fulfilled a campaign pledge to give the state a bone-dry law.
Delegates elected to the constitutional convention set up to act on the repeal issue met in December to formally carry out the mandate of the voters. On the day the final action was to take place it appeared that Utah would be the thirty-sixth, and therefore the deciding state, to approve the repeal amendment. A Tribune reporter and a radio broadcaster convinced the delegates that the vote should be delayed until evening. This would give the morning Tribune the first break on the story and the delegates an opportunity to participate in a nation-wide radio hook-up. But this plan was thwarted by staff members of the Telegram, which by this time was being published from The Tribune plant and which Tribune staffers were inclined to view as "little sister" but a more pesky competitor in the news field than the rival Deseret News. Don Howard, Telegram news editor, contrived a fake news bulletin stating that Maine, scheduled to vote for repeal the following day, had decided to convene its convention and act immediately and thereby take the role of the deciding state. The bulletin was shown to some of the Utah delegates who, in a panic, took the decisive action four hours earlier than planned. Utah did become the thirty-sixth state to repeal thus receiving what some regarded as desirable publicity and some as unwelcome notoriety.
Prohibition repeal, incidentally, was a noteworthy event in the history of The Tribune for reasons other than the termination of a noble experiment. It demonstrated in more mundane ways that the Utah electorate could react in an unpredictable way; that an ecclesiastical position did not necessarily determine election results; that political dictation, as differentiated from influence, had disappeared from Utah. It demonstrated that the old and disruptive "irrepressible conflict" had been suppressed by an accommodation which permitted differences of opinion on highly controversial issues without the poisonous side effects which were so common in an earlier period. Reduced to a personal basis, it demonstrated that President Heber J. Grant of the Mormon Church and the publisher of The Tribune could disagree, and disagree vehemently, on methods of dealing with the liquor problem without disrupting their cooperative relationships within areas of agreement and without engendering personal animosity.
Immediately following repeal the so-called "wets" and "drys," both of whom were classified by The Tribune as temperance advocates, collaborated in the preparation of a liquor control law to fill the void. The new act, a product of compromise which did not totally satisfy either side, was duly enacted by the State Legislature. During the ensuing years particular provisions came under attack and minor changes were made from time to time. The Tribune was among the early critics who sought changes, particularly with respect to making liquor available by the drink. On two occasions in the 1950s the newspaper supported legislative proposals to accomplish this goal. But the bills died before reaching the voting calendars. This situation finally led to a sequel to prohibition repeal in the form of a sale-by-drink initiative proposal. Convinced that the subject was so controversial that legislators could not sponsor substantial changes without inviting political reprisals, The Tribune concluded that the electorate of the state should be given an opportunity to express its view. Accordingly there was launched under the leadership of The Tribune a campaign to place a proposed sale-by-drink act on the 1968 ballot. The first phase of the campaign, the collection of some 40,000 signatures of qualified voters on a petition required to place the proposal on the ballot, was accomplished with thousands of signatures to spare and in the face of determined and well-organized opposition to the signing of the petition.
In the second phase of the campaign — that of seeking support for the legislative proposal — The Tribune's position was strikingly similar to what it had been as a supporter of prohibition in the early nineteen hundreds and, as a supporter of prohibition repeal in 1933. The newspaper supported prohibition with a conviction that it would promote temperance. It supported repeal with a conviction based upon experience that prohibition had failed to promote temperance, but rather it had promoted disrespect for law and lawlessness.
In 1968, the newspaper urged approval of the sale-by-drink proposal on the grounds that it would substitute a controllable system of dispensing liquor for the uncontrollable system which prevailed under the bottle-only, "brown bag" system.
The 1933 editorial comment that: "Utah has nothing to gain by voting dry and remaining wet" and that "the state will suffer revenue losses without contributing anything to the morals of the people" was, in The Tribune's view, as applicable in support of the sale-by-drink proposal as it had been in support of prohibition repeal.
The Utah electorate, however, did not react to Utah's 1968 liquor law as it had to prohibition repeal. The proposal was rejected by substantially the same ratio by which repeal was approved.
The Tribune's unsuccessful campaign, however, did have one effect. It resulted in the adoption by the Legislature which convened two months after the election of a non-profit mini- bottle system for private clubs and restaurants — a solution which had theretofore been an anathema in the state's legislative body.
An intriguing question is why Utah's electorate voted three to two for repeal of prohibition in 1933 and against a rather small liberalization of the liquor laws in 1968. No one, of course, can speak the collective mind of the voters. But some theories which seem plausible to the writer are these:
Prohibition repeal was presented as a simple yes or no proposition: do you want to get rid of what you have and try to work out something better? Under Utah's initiative procedure the only way to get the sale-by-drink issue presented to the voters was by submitting a proposed implementing law. Each provision was to some degree vote-eroding. Had it been necessary, for example, to submit the question of prohibition repeal in the form of the liquor law subsequently enacted, the repeal supporters would have had a more difficult campaign to wage. Some who favored repeal would have voted against the proposed law because it did not permit sale by the drink, or because it provided for a state monopoly, or because it placed too much power in the hands of the Liquor Control Commission, and so on. That is what happened to the sale-by-the-drink law. Opponents of the proposition were in a position to exploit the differences of opinion on details to diminish support for the central position — legalization of controlled sale by the drink. One point of attack was the obvious fact that a drink would cost more under the system proposed than under the prevailing "brown bag" system. The opposition skillfully exploited this fact to win voters who favored sale by the drink but not so strongly as they opposed paying more for the drink.
More important in voter influence than all the divertive "red herrings" which burdened the sale-by-drink proposition, but not prohibition repeal, was the fact that prohibition repeal was proposed by the New Deal Roosevelt administration at the time it was rising to its peak of public acceptance. Repeal posed an issue of political loyalty which brought many people to its support who would not have publicly identified themselves with the cause in the absence of this pressure.
The sale-by-the-drink proposition, on the other hand, was a political orphan. Candidates and public officials generally viewed it as a vote-losing issue and so remained silent or came out against it. It can fairly be said that it had the open and public support of only a small percentage of even those who favored it in the privacy of the voting booth.
