Prohibition National Committee (U.S.)

The Prohibition Party constituted the partisan political element of the prohibition movement. Although the party achieved few victories at the ballot box, it provided an important forum for prohibition appeals and made the liquor issue a significant element in American politics for many years. The Prohibition National Committee was the governing body of the national Prohibition Party.

In 1869, top officials of the Independent Order of Good Templars, the Sons of Temperance and the Temple of Honor issued a call for a national convention to organize a Prohibition Party committed to securing and enforcing legislation to prohibit the production, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. On September 1, 1869, nearly 500 delegates representing nineteen states gathered at Farwell Hall, Chicago, where they organized the Prohibition Party, adopted a platform and elected as the first chairman of the Prohibition National Committee John Russell of Michigan. As leader of the first state-wide effort to organize a prohibition party, Russell had earned the recognition he later received as "Father of the Prohibition Party." Convinced that the liquor problem required political solutions, that success could only be secured through the party system, and that neither of the two major parties would ever give unqualified support to prohibition, the Prohibition Party's founders drew inspiration from the Republican Party's example of abolishing slavery by forming a new party based upon one dominant moral issue.

...