7. Linking Brewers to Treason
With American soldiers streaming into France, Dries ramped up the efforts to depict prohibitionists as patriotic, and their opponents as traitors. Their task was made easier by congressional hearings about the German-American Alliance (GAA), a civic organization established in 1901 to promote unity among Americans with a German heritage. It was supported by generous donations from German-American brewers.
Subpoenaed documents demonstrated that the United States Brewers Association had funded the GAA, gained control of foreign language newspapers, and published editorials that not only attacked Prohibition but also argued in 1915 against war preparedness. The fact that America had been neutral in 1915 was neither here nor there: prohibition advocates ensured that the brewers’ stance was depicted in the most sinister light, as having been intended to deliberately weaken America at the behest of the Kaiser.