The Society
Queen Who
Dethroned
Prohibition
By Norman Hill
were being violated. For Sabin, this
was the last straw.
Throughout history, speeches have
been made that served to inspire and
stir audiences. In Shakespeare’s play,
Augustus inspires listeners to take
vengeance on Julius Caesar’s
assassins. In England, in 1940,
Churchill’s speech, “We shall never
surrender,” rallied the British people
from seeming defeat by Nazi Germany.
The next day, she resigned from the
Republican National Committee.
With other society matron friends,
th y or
hat a at r t an a
hoc group to look into combatting
Prohibition. Eventually, due in part
to Sabin’s nationwide organizing, the
little group grew to include women
from all walks of life and ethnic
a
ro n
Th o ia na
or
the group came to be “Women’s
Organization for National
Prohibition Reform “(WONPR).
In the U.S., on March 4, 1929, a
similar emotional reaction occurred,
but in the opposite way. In a select
audience in Washington, D.C., Pauline
Sabin, wealthy socialite and member
of the Republican Party National
Committee, waited hopefully for
the speech of the new President,
Herbert Hoover. Sabin had initially
supported Prohibition, thinking it
would brighten everyone’s lives. In
those days, the terms “Wets” and
ri
r
htin
or
an
Sabin still considered herself a “Dry.”
But, throughout the 1920s, she had
seen Prohibition’s miserable failures,
breakdown of law and respect for
law, and an epidemic of criminal
behavior. She was gradually turning
into a “Wet.”
Sabin had supported Hoover in
the 1928 Presidential campaign.
Although he previously had made
114
some anti-liquor
remarks, she thought that he
couldn’t be a thoroughgoing
Prohibitionist—after all, he was
much more worldly and educated
than his two predecessors, Harding
and Coolidge. But Hoover’s speech
soon erased her optimism.
Everyone has said that Hoover was
a terrible speaker. But his remarks
on Prohibition were worse. He
criticized states for not enforcing
Volstead and related laws vigorously.
He went further by castigating
individual citizens for not only
associating with criminals and
bootleggers, but for looking the
“other way” when Prohibition laws
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Pauline Sabin, the Society Queen
who Dethroned Prohibition