Since it dovetails so well with my own current research, I have an
interest in keeping this string alive.
 
I just wanted to offer a few alternate responses to Richard Hamm's
question as to why there was only one Carrie Nation, i.e., so little
evidence of "righteous violence" in the prohibition movement.  My own
research bears out his observation that most of the violence was
initiated by drys.
 
While I find quite persuasive the argument that Nation saw violence as a
last resort after other means had failed to sustain a lagging movment, I
want to lay out a few (rather obvious) reasons why the wets were more
prone to violence than the drys.  I that that to do so will point to
parallels with the abolitionist movement.
 
First, let me second Andersen Thayne's observation that the material
interest of the wets might be a factor in explaining the greater
incidence of anti-prohibition violence.  Even if only a small portion of
the population was directly involved in the production and distribution
of liquor in an immediate sense, there were others (farmers, shippers,
grocers, druggists) whose livlihood depended in part on the liquor trade,
and many western and southern boosters who feared the economically
depressing effects of prohibition.  If the material interest category is
expanded to include those who valued alcohol as a commodity, then the
list grows considerably longer.  I would not assert too strongly the
parallel with antebellum slavery, but certainly the degree to which all
white southerners had an economic stake in slavery has been a contested
issue.
 
There are two other characteristics of prohibitionists that more closely
parallel the abolitionists.  First, it was primarily an evangelical
protestant movement.  Certainly, nonviolence has not always been the
first principle of evangelical reformers, but it has often surfaced,
particularly in the face of frontier or southern violence.  In the
southern context in particular, while I disagree to some extent with
scholars who suggest an opposition of traditional southern and
evangelical values (e.g., Rhys Isaac, Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Ted Ownby), it
is certainly fair to say that evangelicals were conflicted about the
predominance of violence in their culture, and the degree to which their
personal sense of worth would allow them to participate in violent acts.
Second, as in the case of abolitionism, the object of the prohibitionists
criticism was portrayed as inherently violent.  We are all familiar with
the stock characters of temperance literature and the (literally)
senseless brutality of its drunkards.  As opponents of a violent
institution, prohibitionists would resort to righteous violence only in
extreme situations.
 
Sorry to go on so, but as Leo Marx once told me, you only know what you
know after you've written it down.  Come to think of it, he also reminded
me that you don't necessarily have to make other people read it.
 
James