True or false: Prohibition was a failure. The average history book says true. In big cities, the attempt to outlaw the sale of alcoholic beverages led to corruption of law enforcement and disrespect for the law.

Yet when historians dig into the subject a little deeper, and look outside larger cities, crime went down, jails were emptied, and men took their paychecks home to their wives and children instead of getting drunk. Colleges didn’t worry about lacrosse teams drinking and hiring strippers who make rape accusations.

So Prohibition was a failure in the cities, but the temperance movement did help sober up a culture. Jason Lantzer, an Indiana University doctoral student, has come up with the more complex but accurate answer in his thesis on Rev. Edward Shumaker, the leader of Prohibition in Indiana and other political movements of that era. Lantzer wrote under the title: “Prohibition Is Here to Stay: The Rev. Edward S. Shumaker and the Rise and Fall of Dry Culture in America.”

“Rather than an unpopular reform forced upon the country, the 18th Amendment was the result of nearly a century of local and state activity by drys like Shumaker,” he writes. “It worked. Most Americans never saw the inside of a speakeasy, drinking fell off dramatically, and crime stayed remarkably in check.”

Abuse of alcoholic beverages threatened American civilization through the 19th Century. One personal tragedy was Indiana’s first governor, Jonathan Jennings. Oakland City University Prof. Randy K. Mills has authored a new biography of Jennings, detailing a drinking problem that was common in the early 1800s.

Liquor played a big part in political and social life and was widely available, similar to many of today’s college campuses on weekends. For Jennings, it was the tragic downfall of a talented man who led the state away from pro-slavery leanings, against the Virginia-based aristocratic position of William Henry Harrison. Jennings, hampered by his addiction to the bottle, never fulfilled his early promise, losing races for the U. S. Senate.

The temperance movement arose in response to that kind of abuse, and Shumaker’s political influence grew in both political parties. Naturally, Shumaker made enemies, including Republican State Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Willoughby. Shumaker threw his support to Willoughby’s Democratic opponent in the 1924 election, and Willoughby won a contested election by one vote. For criticizing Willoughby and Attorney General Arthur Gilliom for softness in enforcing Prohibition, Shumaker was sentenced to prison.

Shumaker had the First Amendment on his side, but Gilliom and other Republicans resented his political influence. The state’s top court convicted him, on a 3-2 vote, of contempt of court. He spent 53 days of his 60-day sentence at the State Farm in Putnamville, losing 39 pounds. He died a few months later.

Shumaker never saw the repeal of Prohibition. Had he witnessed the epidemic of drunken driving, the Duke lacrosse scandal, and other related incidents, he might have been tempted to say: I told you so.

RP Testimony On Alcohol

26:4. For preservation of life and because of respect for our bodies as God’s creation, we are to be careful in the use of drugs. Christians should avoid enslavement to alcohol, tobacco or any habit-forming drug. The Scripture strongly condemns drunkenness as a sin.

Gen. 1:27 with 9:6; 1 Cor. 6:9-10.

26:5. Because drunkenness is so common, and because the intemperate use of alcohol is constantly being promoted by advertising, business practices, and social pressure, Christians must be careful not to conform to the attitudes and the practices of the world with regard to alcoholic beverages.

To prevent damage to our neighbor, to provide mutual help in godly living, and to strengthen each other in living a disciplined life it is altogether wise and proper that Christians refrain from the use, sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages.

Prov. 20:1; Rom. 14:21; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Cor. 8:13.