In 1881 the “Alphabet of Intemperance” mentioned
C is for Customs, which bind us in chains,
Destroying our purpose, debasing our brains,
From which all ought to break with out ready a day –
There’s hazard in ready, there’s dying in delay.1
Though this “C” was not for cider, it was actually about it.
By the Eighties, cider had been part of American tradition for hundreds of years. Its lengthy presence in American life meant many, together with some Temperance followers, by no means noticed it as a temptation, a lot much less a hazard. Why, they questioned, would Temperance ban one thing that had at all times been there and was, anyway, largely innocent? Shouldn’t cider get a move?
This debate over whether or not cider needs to be an exception (or a loophole) was referred to as the “cider query.” It started shortly after Temperance focused cider within the 1830s and continued by way of Prohibition within the early twentieth century. Whereas the “cider query” was meant to average Temperance’s reactions, it had the reverse impact, and made Temperance leaders extra extreme. For the remainder of the 1800s and into the early 1900s, leaders answered the “cider query” by saying that cider in each type, alcoholic and candy, needs to be banned.
Temperance leaders didn’t at all times contemplate cider an issue. As Temperance author James Black put it in 1869, “Within the infancy of the Temperance reform, say from 1826 to 1832, a pledge, together with spiritous or distilled liquors, was the one pledge in drive, so {that a} man might be an energetic member of a temperance society and but use and dispense in his family, wine, beer, or cider.” When Temperance started focusing on cider, many members, who had grown up with it as a part of their day by day life, have been at a loss to know why and commenced asking the “cider query.” Black famous that “this cider query has at numerous occasions created nice bother in all temperance organizations…”2
From the management’s perspective, a part of the difficulty was that some members held, “the inaccurate concept that [wine, beer, cider and malted drinks] are innocent if not helpful.”3 In 1840, only a few years after Temperance turned in opposition to cider, one member objected to the expanded checklist of prohibited drinks, claiming, “that wine, beer, and cider are usually not distilled spirits, and may subsequently escape denunciation.”4 One other Temperance author noticed that “Many individuals do not know that cider and perry are inebriating.”5 This final one was both a doubtful assertion or that was weak cider. In 1881 the rhetorical query was requested and moderately condescendingly answered: “Shall cider come beneath the ban of the pledge? That it should, is nearly too evident to confess of debate…”6 As late as 1915, one author famous that cider was regarded as “innocent and essential” in lots of locations.7 And 5 years later, as Prohibition was about to take impact, it was famous that “some individuals appear to nonetheless marvel why cider is included within the checklist of intoxicating liquors.”8
As these observations show, Temperance leaders grew exasperated with the “cider query.” When members continued to ask it, management doubled down, saying that not solely was alcoholic cider an issue, so was candy cider. Though among the extra average (and correct) amongst them noticed that, “cider just isn’t intoxicating earlier than it ferments,” extra strident leaders mentioned that, “Candy cider is the bone of rivalry. Don’t all our members know that cider in any type or form, as a beverage, is a violation of our pledge? By no means might a query be plainer than is that this.”9
Temperance writers started utilizing a “slippery-slope” argument. One author famous that “the chums of whole abstinence should discard using cider as a beverage, whether or not candy or bitter. True, there isn’t a intoxicating factor in unfermented cider; however then fermentation begins a lot earlier than individuals suppose.” He defined that “it’s unattainable for drinkers to inform when new cider turns into intoxicating…” and so it’s most secure to easily keep away from it altogether. The author went additional, saying, “When you’ve got any regard for us, for Heaven’s sake don’t set the instance of consuming even candy cider.”10
In 1859, the Unbiased Order of Good Templars tried to make Temperance’s anti-sweet cider stance clear. They laid out seven violations of the Temperance pledge incurred by consuming candy cider. These included:
1. Ingesting of candy cider is a violation of the Good Templar’s pledge.
2. The usage of expressed juice of the apple as a beverage is a violation of our pledge.
3. It’s a violation of the spirit and intent of the duty of the Order of Good Templars to imbibe unfermented wine or cider.
4. Within the opinion of this Grand Lodge, the juice of the grape is wine, and the juice of the apple is cider, whether or not in a fermented or unfermented state, and consequently using both as a beverage is a violation of the pledge.
5. To drink cider in any state as an article of meals is decidedly a violation of the pledge, for in such circumstances it turns into a beverage.
6. Ingesting the juice of the grape or apple, in any state as a beverage, is a violation of our obligation.
7. The usage of currant wine or expressed juice of the apple, as a beverage, is a violation of the pledge.11
Though they tried readability with this checklist, all they achieved was redundancy. These seven violations might have stopped at #1 and it will say the identical factor as all seven.12
Although they went to excessive lengths to reply it, Temperance leaders have been at all times stumped by the “cider query,” specializing in the slippery-slope arguments of consuming cider in any type. Cider supporters, however, centered on the sentiments of well being, residence, and historical past it engendered. Missouri Senator George Graham Vest summed up this view on the ground of Congress in his arguments on June 16, 1897. Arguing in opposition to together with cider within the Dingley Tariff invoice, Vest mentioned he didn’t, “…suggest to open up the temperance query, however I’m defending cider, the liquid of our boyhood, the beverage that “cheers however not inebriates,” that sparkles at each New England pageant and in each New England residence and within the West and South wherever the apple is raised and used.” And that, “If whiskey might have an advocate, what number of advocates ought cider to have, the beverage of sobriety, the beverage of residence?”13
Although they agreed on little else, each Temperance leaders and cider supporters agreed on one factor: the “cider query” was not at all times about cider’s current, however America’s previous. For cider supporters the reply was as a result of it was at all times right here, it at all times needs to be. For Temperance leaders it was a false-friend, acquainted however harmful.
Regardless of how one answered it, the “cider query” demonstrated that although cider was not the frequent American drink, it had turn out to be the customary drink of America.
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1. Ebenezer Bowman, “Alphabet of Intemperance, No. 171” in Temperance Tracts Issued by the Nationwide Temperance Society (New York: Nationwide Temperance Society and Publication Home, 1881), 1; https://books.google.com/books?id=wkQ2AQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=%22ciderpercent20questionpercent22&pg=RA106-PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
2. James Black, “The Cider Query” in The Cider Query and Its Relations to the Temperance Trigger, (Boston: J.M. Usher, 1869), 3; https://archive.org/particulars/ciderquestionits00unse/mode/1up.
3. “The Cider Query,” 3.
4. “What Shall Be the Drink of Reformed Males?” in Everlasting Temperance Paperwork (1840), 262; https://books.google.com/books?id=DNsXAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA262#v=onepage&q&f=false.
5. “English Cider” in The Cider Query, 10.
6. William M. Thayer, “Cider within the Pledge, No. 66” in Everlasting Temperance Paperwork Annual Report of the American Temperance Society (1881), 1; https://books.google.com/books?id=wkQ2AQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=%22ciderpercent20questionpercent22&pg=RA35-PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false .
7. Francis A. Lane, “Brewing and Actions,” The Temperance Trigger XXXVII, no. 4 (April 1915), 31; https://books.google.com/books?id=-9OPJDlUL3kC&dq=temperancepercent20cider&pg=RA1-PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false.
8. “The Cider Query,” The Temperance Trigger XLII, no. 4 (April 1920), 25; https://books.google.com/books?id=-9OPJDlUL3kC&dq=temperancepercent20cider&pg=RA8-PA27-IA10#v=onepage&q&f=false.
9. “Cider within the Pledge,” in Cider Query, Nationwide Temperance Society (1881), 12. Cider Query, 1863, 2.
10. William A. Thayer, “New Cider a Harmful Beverage, No. 5” in Temperance Tracts Issued by the Nationwide Temperance Society (New York: Nationwide Temperance Society and Publication Home, 1881), 1-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=wkQ2AQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=%22ciderpercent20questionpercent22&pg=PA5-IA2#v=onepage&q&f=false.
11. Simeon R. Chase, ed., A Digest of the Legal guidelines, Choices, Guidelines and Usages of the Unbiased Order of Good Templars (Pennsylvania, 1859), 41-42; https://books.google.com/books?id=qS9HAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=Drinkingpercent20ofpercent20sweetpercent20ciderpercent20ispercent20apercent20violationpercent20ofpercent20thepercent20Goodpercent20TemplarpercentE2percent80percent99spercent20pledge.&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q&f=false.
12. This jogs my memory of George Carlin’s summation of the ten commandments.
13. Vest’s argument was that America exported extra cider than it imported, and subsequently didn’t want protecting tariffs. Congressional Report: Proceedings and Debates, v. 30, Half 2, (Washington D.C.: Authorities Printing Workplace, 1897), 1750; https://books.google.com/books?id=ViJ36PquBcYC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=ciderpercent20questionpercent20temperance&pg=PA1750#v=onepage&q&f=false.
