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.She died in 1928.247The prosecution, if not persecution, of these prominent brewers and theirfamilies indicated the deep unease Americans felt about the presence of Ger-mans in their country.Thus, as Samuel Gompers testified before Congress aboutwartime prohibition, he sought to move the discussion away from the ethnicidentity of beer and brewers and focus on the impact of the Eighteenth Amend-ment on workers.His resolution noted that wartime prohibition and the Eigh-teenth Amendment had the effect of destroying part of the American labormovement and is crippling many international organizations affiliated with the245 Nation Gets Ehret Property, New York Times, May 14, 1918, 1.246 Adolphus Busch Dies in Prussia, New York Times, October 11, 1913, 15.247 Mrs.Lily Busch of St.Louis Dies, New York Times, February 26, 1928, 27.84 Chapter 4.Who Will Pay the Tax? Brewers and the Battle over Prohibition, 1905 1933American Federation of Labor. 248 This argument referred primarily to breweryworkers and the UBW.Therefore the committee could dismiss it as self-serving.The overall point of the resolution was to advocate for an exemption for 2.75percent beer (near beer) from the Eighteenth Amendment.Gompers did not come before the committee to argue the merits of the re-cently enacted Eighteenth Amendment, but to secure an exemption for beer.Heclaimed that the labor movement, by securing a shorter work day, had increased temperance among the working class. A better standard of living had reducedthe need for that exhilaration which comes from the drinking of alcoholic bever-ages among workers. 249 Economic change, from the Civil War on, had increaseddisposable income and leisure time enough to create the saloon and the drinkbusiness in the first place.Gompers was testifying on Flag Day and he took pains to convince the com-mittee of his patriotism.The Bolshevik Revolution was on everyone s mind; thelabor leader warned the committee that we are not wholly free from some whowould imitate in the United States and encourage in the United States what hasoccurred and is taking place in Russia within the past year. Gompers appar-ently felt that keeping 2.75 percent beer for the working man would prevent aCommunist takeover.Gompers passionately declared that he made his appeal not alone as president of the American Federation of Labor, not alone as a labor-ing man, but as a citizen of this Republic who knows no loyalty outside of devo-tion to the Republic of the United States.I am apprehensive of the results shouldCongress fail to meet the situation. 250Gompers appearance before the committee reflected the problems brewersand distillers faced in their attempts to stop Prohibition.In the heady mix ofwartime fear, anti-German, and anti-Bolshevik hysteria as well as a new sourceof revenue from the income tax, the public apparently held the brewers in suchlow regard by this point that only spokespeople who were without any con-nection to the brewing interests had any chance of being heard.There were fewavailable to make an intelligent, disinterested argument for the rights of indi-vidual Americans to lawfully drink.In 1919 the Association Opposed to Prohibi-tion seemed the only possibility.They planned a national demonstration.Thegoal of the organization was to preserve the rights of free men in a free country. The board of directors of the organization included the presidents of AmericanTobacco and B.Altman & Co.as well as Joseph Harriman, president of Harriman248 Prohibiting Intoxicating Beverages, United States Senate, Subcommittee on the Judiciary,June 14, 1919, 6.249 Ibid., 8.250 Ibid., 18.85 Brewing Battles : A History of American BeerNational Bank.There were no brewers involved.251 The fact that these prominentbusiness men opposed Prohibition highlighted the anomaly of the federal gov-ernment dismantling the country s sixth largest industry.The rhetoric of the Prohibition movement for most of its existence had beenpositive, extolling the virtues that removing alcohol from society would bring
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