This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, November 5th, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Today marks 74 years since the official end of prohibition, but prohibition didn't vanish overnight,

so says Brandon Arnold Decato Institute's Director of Government Affairs,

it took a dark chapter of American history to learn the lessons of prohibition.

The push for prohibition predated the actual success in passing the 18th Amendment by about 100 years.

There was a long struggle by temperance advocates to at first enact laws at mostly the state and local level to push dry policies.

It all started though with the Quakers, mostly a doctor by the name of Benjamin Rush, who observed that drinking was leading to a less productive society.

So even though as Quakers, a religious group, it was grounded more in capitalists and productivity

motives than it was in pure religious, moral type things that we associate with religious advocates for less drinking and

temperance generally. Now they were very effective, the anti-drinking forces in pushing their policies at the state and local level as I mentioned and

Eventually they were able to get the country to the point where before prohibition about two-thirds of Americans

lived in counties or states that were dry.

So the eventual jump from there to prohibition was not quite the extensive leap that some might think it was.

Some of their tactics that they used were also tremendously effective and very innovative.

The Anti-Salleoon League basically was the first

major single-issue group. We think of tons of single-issue groups today, but

they were the first group that didn't care what party you were in. They

didn't care about what policies you supported except for your position on drinking. If you were a

dry candidate, they would support you. If you were wet or if you

waffled, they would not support you. And there wasn't really a counter strategy for that

at the time. The beer and the spirits industry. There were some infighting there.

...