A hundred years later, travel to the "capital" of Prohibition in the United States

JOSHUA A. BICKEL FOR "THE WORLD"

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Posted today at 1:42 am

Protestant, Republican, rural, impeccably cravat, Bruce Bailey is a man from the Midwest. A bit rough but very nice, this 67-year-old avocado confesses a little weakness for the manhattans, these whiskey-based cocktails. But one hundred years after the entry into force, on January 17, 1920, of Prohibition in the United States, that did not prevent him from affirming: "We are on the right side of history. " "We" these are the 40,000 residents of Westerville, a lost town in Ohio. "A hundred years ago, we were a small town of 1,500 people that changed the course of American history by becoming the seat of the powerful and uncompromising anti-saloon League (ASL). " In a few years, the militant Protestants of the ASL succeeded where a thousand organizations had failed: to persuade the Americans to ban the production and sale of alcohol throughout the United States, by 18e amendment to the American Constitution.

At the Museum of Prohibition, in Westerville, Ohio, January 15.
At the Museum of Prohibition, in Westerville, Ohio, January 15. JOSHUA A. BICKEL FOR "THE WORLD"

"Many people sneerBailey said, as the experience ended after years of crime, corruption and hypocrisy that plagued Hollywood, with the abolition of Prohibition in 1933. But alcoholism was a huge problem ravaging the United States, which none of the previous attempts had solved. It still isn't ”, continues the lawyer, citing the case of his brother, who died of excessive drinking four years ago.

In front of Westerville town hall, where he directs legal affairs, Mr. Bailey presents the monument he had erected for the centenary of Prohibition, signed by artist Matthew Gray Palmer. Under a gutted barrel that never stops emptying, a huge corner fractures a block of marble supposed to embody America. The corner, double-sided, is like a time lapse of this moment of history: on the one hand, the good reasons which led to the adoption of Prohibition; on the other, the excesses which led to its abolition, thirteen years later. "Today's divisions remind us of yesterday's", continues the lawyer. Rural against urban, Protestant against Catholic, "native" Americans against Irish, German, Jewish or Italian immigrants.

"Protestant awakening"

How did those who presented themselves as the "real" Americans come to ban alcohol in the early 20th centurye Century? Because the country had become a "Drunkard nation", to use the expression of the American director Ken Burns, author of a reference documentary on Prohibition. In the XIXe century, water was rarely drinkable, but alcohol flowed freely – in 1830, Americans drank on average 27 liters of pure alcohol per year, three times more than today. Whiskey, of poor quality, wreaked havoc and, in 1840, six alcoholics from Baltimore created a temperance movement, the Washingtonians. The crusade was quickly recovered by the Protestant churches, which were not satisfied with volunteering and wanted to impose sobriety by law. It is at this stage in history that the small town of Westerville, colonized in 1818 by three Methodists from New York State, the Westervelt brothers, comes into play.

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