I See by the Papers...

Imagine an America which seems to become increasingly divided with every passing day. One side is mainly rural and feels their values are under attack. They are warned by religious and political figures that evildoers could be plotting to sneak into their neighborhood to commit terrible crimes and these fears are also fueled by popular media repeating stories which are lies and exaggerations. This group disdains city folk as being morally weak and believe urbanites must be forced - by new laws, if necessary - to behave properly. They think sex outside of marriage is dangerous and children should be taught to be afraid of it. Meanwhile, the Republican party is being torn apart by the loud upstarts who now dominate the party, much to the dismay of the old guard.

 Welcome to 1914 - exactly 105 years ago.

 This is the story about the swirling conflicts in the years leading up to Prohibition - a kind of cultural civil war that started in 1914, so it's probably fair to say that was the year when the 1920s really began.

 The divide was not red-state versus blue-state, Bugtussle Miss. vs. Boston Mass. The nation was still mostly rural/semi-rural and small towns like Santa Rosa were almost evenly split between those who were certain the country was headed on the wrong track or not.



The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott