The temperance movement grows larger
In 1864 the Salvation Army was founded in London, taking the military as its organizational structure, with its own flag, its own hymns, and its own uniforms. It was and is a protestant Christian religious denomination, founded to save the worst of London’s sinners; drinkers, prostitutes, and gamblers. In the eyes of its founder, former Reformed Methodist minister William Booth (who titled himself a general) the mission of the Salvation Army could be described as the three S’s. “The three S’s best expressed the way in which the Army administered to the ‘down and outs;'” said Booth, “first, soup; second, soap; and finally, salvation.”
Funding for the Army was the responsibility of Booth’s wife Catherine, who approached the well-to-do of London seeking financial support for the new religion, which demanded its converts, henceforth to be known as its soldiers, refrain from alcohol and tobacco, gambling, drugs, and other nefarious activities as they completed their duties of recruiting new members. In 1880 the Salvation Army invaded the United States and was soon at the forefront of the temperance movement in America, pushing for the removal from society of the temptations presented by the brewers, distillers, and importers of alcohol. It soon developed an enemy army.
At first in England, and later in America, pub owners and their loyal customers formed what they called the Skeleton Army, which disrupted Salvation Army parades and recruiting pitches, using the time honored technique of showering speakers with rotten eggs and vegetables, as well as more dangerous missiles. Several riots occurred in British cities as a result of clashes between the Salvationists and the Skeletons. The Skeletons emerged in opposition to the habit of Salvation Army soldiers positioning themselves outside of saloons and pubs, recording the names of who entered and attempting to convert them with the promise of free food just down the street.
In 1893 a new organization arose from the growing international temperance movement in Oberlin, Ohio, which before the Civil War had been a hotbed of abolitionism. The new Anti-Saloon League had a single goal, which at first it directed at the state level in Ohio, but soon became national. That goal was the national prohibition of alcoholic beverages. It spread throughout the nation quickly, allying itself with the church based temperance movements and the national temperance organizations. One of its chief premises was that the saloon led to the corruption of local governments, preventing the resolution of issues critical to workers and their families.
The alliances between the various temperance factions had by the turn of the century created a national propaganda campaign in the United States which accused the liquor and brewing industries of corrupting politics at the national level, saloons and bars as corrupting it at the local level, and the morals of the nation threatened by drink. The inability of women to vote was also attributed by suffragettes to alcohol in part, as drinking men sought to protect the saloon where they often ate lunch or enjoyed an after work libation. The saloons soon faced another enemy, one more dangerous than the drys and the suffragettes.