The banning of sin
The marijuana question is in the news, courts, legislatures and ballots these days, just like alcohol was at the beginning of the 1900s. It is interesting to take a look back at how that went.
Under the leadership of the “Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals,” the states bordering Montana went dry before we did and the result was thirsty folks from all around came here to oil their tonsils. Little border towns like Superior and Taft with a railroad boomed, which did not sit well with the Anti-Saloon League but made bar owners happy. Another factor was, in 1914 Montana gave women the right to vote, four years ahead of the U.S. Congress.
With women voting, Montana politicians were told to clean up our state and stop the “liquor-hungry, lustful hordes” coming in on the daily trains.
In 1916, Montana was ruled by the “forces of righteousness” after the citizens voted 102,776 for the state’s prohibition law and 73,890 against, but no money was provided for enforcement. There sat Montana Attorney General L.A. Foot, ordered to close every bar, saloon, brewery and still. A tall order without a dime of revenue.
Out of the blue, and out of the state, came Everett E. Van Wert to Helena, who said he’d handle the situation. Said he’d foot the bills for crackdowns until the courts began fining those he arrested. It was the only offer and he got the job, so that’s the way state prohibition started off in Montana: “Van Wert with his car, his own gasoline and his own gun, backed by the power of the State of Montana.”
Van Wert hired “guns” for raiding homes, businesses, parties and even people on the roads to search for booze. The Van Wert goons picked town loafers and hooligans across the state as paid stool pigeons. The “enforcers” lived well but over did it. Soon judges began throwing cases out of courts, and juries weren’t convinced of the guilt of those arrested. There were shootings and killings.
Two rough looking enforcers tried to stop a car on a lonely road, and the young boy driving alone became scared and sped away. He was killed with a rifle shot through the window. A country dance at Augusta was raided, and a gun battle started when the celebrants found “state men” going through their cars.
Another enforcer was shot when he tried to arrest a man with a hip flask. Then one day while he was testifying in court, Van Wert was asked by the defense attorney if he had served any time in jail. Under oath and with the attorney waving an Iowa court document in his face, Van Wert admitted he had a record. It turned out so had many of his hired guns.
Corruption and chaos continued for years with the people of Montana completely fed up with Van Wert and Prohibition. A 1923 hearing in the state legislature revealed volumes of scandal, but it wasn’t until 1925 when voters could repeal Prohibition. Montana was still subject to federal law, but it was easier to get a cold beer, and Van Wert’s enforcers were out.
That was the situation when U.S. Sen. Thomas Walsh ran again for his Senate seat in 1930. In the election of 1928, 53 percent of Montanans had voted to go wet again, yet there was Walsh, a well known teetotaler running for re-election. His Republican opponent was a popular state supreme court judge, Albert Galen, who was known to have a drink or two when he felt like it. The political prognosticators predicted big trouble for incumbent Walsh.
Sen. Walsh won, thus proving to many that in 1930 an “honest and decent man could win an election, even if he was on the wrong side of a major national issue.”
President Franklin Roosevelt’s first Congress got Prohibition killed in December 1933. Sen. Thomas Walsh had died, and Joe Kennedy’s ships full of scotch sailed into harbors of the eastern coast.
Guess we’ll have to wait a bit on this marijuana situation.
G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.