The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 75, July 1971 - April, 1972 Page: 6

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

compare with "the cultural 'provincialism' of the loo per cent Amer-
ican nativists."
Modern historians may shrink from an endorsement of the aims
and goals of prohibitionism, fundamentalism, and the Ku Klux Klan
between 1910o and i93o, but the movement deserves at least sustained
examination. The views that Klansmen expressed, for instance, mir-
rored the attitudes of many who never wore a hood. It is too easy to
dismiss the qualms that citizens felt about the liquor traffic as cranky
and narrow bigotry. One must then explain why a generation of
Americans found the issue of alcohol control so compelling. The
cluster of ideas that made up the rural and prohibitionist wing of the
Democratic party have lost their force, but they gave a sizable number
of party members a conceptual structure upon which to base partici-
pation in public life. Most important, such attitudes did not arise
solely from cramped spirits or blighted lives. In much of the United
States a concern over the decline of agrarian and religious values,
fears about the emergence of the city, and suspicions of the effects of
liquor represented a comprehensible response to existing circumstances.
Many Democrats who supported the tents of rural, old-stock Amer-
icans did not see themselves as agents of reaction. Veterans of pro-
tracted local contests before 192o, they regarded their cause as progres-
sive and believed their programs served the interest of reform. These
men worked for the nomination of Woodrow Wilson, endorsed the
measures of his presidency, and looked to William G. McAdoo as the
heir of the Wilsonian legacy. What represented social change in a
state or regional context, however, appeared parochial when trans-
ferred to the counsels of the national party. This seeming paradox left
some Democrats from the South and West bitter and confused, and
does much to explain their frustration and rancor in the 19 o's.
Few states offer a better opportunity for an examination of this
wing of the Democrats than Texas. In the decade after 1911 the state
enjoyed a deserved reputation as a bastion of reform. Nationally, it
contributed heavily to Wilson's nomination in 1912, and supplied
three cabinet officers, an influential advisor in Colonel Edward M.
House, and several important bureaucrats to the Wilson administra-
tion. Texas congressmen gave vital votes for Democratic legislation,
and Senator Morris Sheppard sponsored the prohibition amendment
2Burner, Politics of Provincialism, 74-io2, o09; J. Joseph Huthmacher's review of
Burner's book in American Historical Review, LXXIV (October, 1968), 323. The quote
is from the review.