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Transcription: [00:05:18]
{SPEAKER name="Warren Perry"}
Something I want to bring us to now, is why this talk and why tonight.

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I think it was because a few years ago, the Cato Institute sent me one of these.

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And I was going through my pocket Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States one day, about this time 5 years ago,

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and I noticed, "Oh my goodness, December 5th, that's the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, well goodness gracious if that's not a reason to celebrate."

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So [speaker laughter], we couldn't really have a talk here on the repeal of Prohibition without attaching it to a portrait,

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and so the Assistant Director of Public Programs here - Ian Cooke and I said, "If we've got to put a face to it, lets put FDR's face to it."

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What is this Prohibition monster? And why did it attack us?

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Prohibition, or temperance, picked up a lot of steam with the founding of the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, in Boston, in 1826.

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Within a few years, the society had thousands of chapters, and by 1851, it was illegal to drink alcohol in the state of Maine.

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Alcohol consumption throughout the United States had been diminished by 75%, and even Abraham Lincoln was not in favor of alcohol use.

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Although the push towards temperance abated in the postbellum era, by the latter part of the 19th century, temperance was a first-tier issue in all of American politics.

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By the early 20th century, politicians were being called upon continually to weigh in on temperance.

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As early as 1911, in his political career, Franklin Roosevelt, then, a senator in the New York State Legislature, had already had shown his political colors.

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This is from Jean Edward Smith's recent biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, called 'FDR':

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"FDR's attitude toward prohibition was equivocal - never averse to bending an elbow himself,

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he nevertheless accumulated a perfect voting record in the Senate, according to the Anti-Saloon League.

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In January 1913, he actually introduced a local option bill for the League, and became the subject of a laudatory editorial called, 'An Advocate of Christian Patriotism', in its national magazine.

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In this instance, FDR appears to have been too clever by half. Prohibition was anathema in New York City, and his opponents never tired of tying him to it.

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Down through 1932, the story persisted that whatever Roosevelt might say, there was a voting record to prove he was dry at heart."

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