10. Alcohol Manufacturers’ Last-Ditch Effort to Avoid Prohibition
As the incoming tide of nationwide prohibition drew ever closer, alcohol manufacturers made desperate attempts to try and improve their public images. In so doing, brewers and distillers resorted to pointing the finger of blame for alcohol’s evils at each other. The distillers, for whom saloons were not an essential outlet for their liquors, blamed the brewers for the ills of saloons.
The brewers in turn blamed “demon rum” and other distilled spirits while trying to depict themselves as honorable providers of healthy beverages. They even tried to depict beer as being as wholesome as mother’s milk, as occurred when Michigan prepared to vote for statewide prohibition. One advertisement during that period depicted a mother cradling a baby in her left arm, while holding a frothing beer stein in her right hand, with the caption: “Lager’s amber fluid mild – Gives health and strength to wife and child“.
