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John Barleycorn Must Die: The War Against Drink in Arkansas

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John Barleycorn Must Die: The War Against Drink In Arkansas by Ben Johnson III (Associate Professor of History, Southern Arkansas University) begins with the early attempts to keep alcohol from the Native Americans during Arkansas' colonial period. Then temperance groups focused on outlawing alcohol in the antebellum communities of Arkansas. After the Civil War new federal taxes on whiskey production in Arkansas led to violence between revenue agents and moonshiners. The state joined the growing national movement against saloons the culminated in 1915 when the legislature approved a measure to health the sale, manufacture, and distribution of alcohol (which prohibition included the then thriving wine industry in Arkansas). The state supported national prohibition, but the people became disillusioned with the widespread violations of the law. But the state waited to repeal its own prohibition law until compelled to do so by a fiscal crisis in 1935 that required it to raise revenue. Even then, the new law only authorized retail liquor stores, and not the return of taverns or bars. A final effort to restore prohibition in 1950 was rebuffed by voters, but there are still 43 counties in Arkansas remain dry, and only 32 are wet -- with disputes over the granting of private club licenses continuing to be a lively social and political concern throughout the state. Enhanced with 50 photographs and an index, John Barleycorn Must Die is a work of considerable scholarship and an impressive contribution to both American History and Arkansas State History library reference collections.