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.Sputnik had fallen to earth by thistime and the Supreme Court had ordered the states to hurry up and de-segregate and now two more states called Alaska and Hawaii had joinedthe union and Xerox had produced its first commercial copying ma-chine and Ayn Rand had published a monumental novel of ideas calledAtlas Shrugged.And Oklahomans were going to vote on a referendumto make booze legal in their state.It was the fifth time they would doso in fifty-two years; the previous four had resulted in a continuation ofthe status quo.To some people, both inside the state and elsewhere, this was a mys-tery.Why keep voting one way and drinking the other? The humoristand native son Will Rogers explained as best he could. Oklahoma willbe dry, he drawled, as long as its citizens can stagger to the polls. The opposition to legalized alcohol in 1959 was led by two groups.One was preachers.The other was bootleggers.The preachers wantedprohibition to continue for moral reasons, the bootleggers for economicones.The preachers sponsored prayer meetings; the bootleggers, notwanting their opposition to repeal to make headlines, sneaked into theback pews and moved their lips.The preachers lobbied the politiciansduring office hours; the bootleggers saw them at night.The preacherssolicited money; the bootleggers donated as much as they could spare,although by indirect and circuitous routes. 300 EpilogueIt was all to no avail.Neither the Almighty nor the electorate wassympathetic to the dry cause in Oklahoma as the 1950s drew to a close.The final vote was 396,845 people in favor of repeal, 314,380 against.Even a local-option provision failed, by the even larger margin of469,503 to 221,404.The clergymen and the bootleggers commiserated separately. Acknowledgmentsam not, by training, a historian, but I play one in the pre-ceding pages and have been well prepared for the role.The most notable guidance was provided by W.J.Rora-baugh.First came his book, The Alcoholic Republic, which Iread upon its publication in 1979 and as a result of which IIwas inspired to learn more about the role of spirits in Amer-ican life.Second came his direct input in this book; Rora-baugh read the manuscript, fine-tooth-combed it, and pro-vided me with many pages of notes and suggestions.I amimmensely grateful.As I am to the reference staff at the Westport Public Li-brary, which was able to locate some of the most arcane vol-umes ever written on either alcohol or anything else.Thestaff includes Kathy Breidenbach, Marta Campbell, Deb-bie Celia, Tilly Dutta, Marjorie Freilich-Den, Sylvia Schul-man, Sheri Szymanski, Joyce Vitali, and George Wagner.Also: Carole Braunschweig, Suzanne Bush, Beth Domini-anni, Judy Hinkle, Jackie Kremer, Beth Paul, and JanieRhein.Rachel Rice arranged my interlibrary loans.Sometimesthe books took a few weeks to arrive.Sometimes I askedwhether she could cut the time to a few hours.She did notseem annoyed.My thanks also go to William Beatty, the librarian-archi-vist of the Woman s Christian Temperance Union, whotook a dozen or more phone calls from me and never failedto answer my questions or lead me in the right direction.301 302 AcknowledgmentsIn the course of researching this book, I visited the homes of NealDow and Carry Nation, as well as WCTU headquarters in Evanston,Illinois, where the staffs cheerfully provided me with detailed informa-tion and lengthy tours.No less am I grateful to Micah Kleit, Jennifer French, Ann-MarieAnderson, and Gary Kramer of the Temple University Press, and CarolBifulco of BookComp.All made the book read better, look better, orsell better than it would otherwise have done.One of the many authors cited in the text, besides Rorabaugh, is theestimable Gilbert Seldes.His son, Tim, is my literary agent and seemsto think I have brought no dishonor to the family by including his fatherin the preceding pages.For that, as well as for his formidable presencein my writing life, I am appreciative. NotesIntroductionpage 1 senior dignitaries, Tannehill, p.63
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