Wayne B. Wheeler

Wayne B. Wheeler was a spokesman for the Ohio-based AntiSaloon League. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Prohibition movement and helped draft the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act. Wheeler had a terrible alcohol-related accident as a child, so his hatred for alcohol was intense. He was not afraid to use any means possible to further his organization's Prohibition aims. The following 1921 article is Wheeler's unabashed response to the dry propagandists' claim that Prohibition was unconstitutional and un-American. He cites historical examples of the liquor industry's insurrectionist tradition of defying the law. Wheeler even exploits the insecurities left by World War I by questioning the loyalty of German American brewery owners.

A rebellion is an organized attempt to forcibly resist the government. A rum rebellion is an attempt of the liquor interests...