From Chapter 6 of "AMERICAN BEER, Glimpses of Its History and
Description of Its Manufacture." By G. Thomann, New York: United States
Brewers' Association, 1909.
     http://alpha.rollanet.org/library/ambeer/AB_00.html
 
     The brewer's explanation of the rise of the temperance movement:
 
"All these impediments, however, would not so materially have retarded the
progress of brewing, if laws tending to restrict country distilling could have
been maintained; and, from the standpoint of true temperance, nothing could
have appeared so desirable as a judicious restraint upon what might be styled
rural distillation. All authorities concur in the opinion---confirmed by the
voluminous report of the Statistical Bureau of Switzerland---that in Sweden
unrestricted distillation in the rural districts rendered intemperance a
 national
vice of consequences all the more pernicious as, owing to the unavoidable
deficiencies of a primitive mode of distillation, the spirituous liquors
 produced
were of an extremely ardent nature. But it was precisely in respect to country
distilling that our first restrictive laws were only partially successful. Those
persons who distilled for the trade cheerfully obeyed the laws from the very
beginning; and had they not elected to do so, little difficulty could have been
experienced in controlling and coercing them. It was not the trade distiller, if
this term may be allowed, but the distilling farmer from whom the opposition to
excises emanated, and with him, the question resolved itself into one of
 personal
rights, on the one hand, and of a limitation of the taxing power of the Federal
Government on the other."