On December 10th, 1913, more than 4,000 Temperance movement and Prohibition supporters took to the streets of Washington to call for a constitutional amendment banning alcohol. Women carrying a sign that read “Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Not Touch Ours,” stood out in the crowd.
They were fighting what they called the “Demon of Rum,” a battle cry that shows up in an anonymous poem from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) about the sorrow and pain alcohol brought into their lives. “The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine,” they vowed, taking a stand against the violence, financial ruin and social decay that often came with heavy drinking.
The Origins of a Mantra
The slogan goes back at least to the 1869 Woman’s Crusade Against Liquor. It turned up in newspaper articles, books and even songs, like the “Temperance” ditty by Sam Booth and George T. Evans, which was dedicated to the worldwide movement against liquor. Their lyrics, “The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine,” became a rallying cry for women trying to protect themselves and their families from alcohol.
A Cultural Phenomenon
The slogan caught on so well that it showed up everywhere, from placards at marches to joke signs on riverboats from the Mississippi Riverboat Owners Association. The industries that made money on vice pushed back, and the riverboats kept serving alcohol and offering gambling and other less-than-savory entertainment. None of it drowned out the people who marched to the Capitol that December day.
Echoes in Poetry and Legacy
When the marchers reached the Capitol, Congressman Richmond P. Hobson and Senator Morris Sheppard greeted them and introduced legislation in line with the Temperance movement’s goals. Poems like George W. Young’s “Lips That Touch Liquor,” made the same case for personal integrity and reform. Young’s words, “Your lips, on my own, when they printed ‘Farewell,’ had never been soiled by the ‘beverage of hell,'” captured the movement’s essence.
The march didn’t change the law right away, but it helped build the push that eventually led to the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment. People made fun of the movement, but it never let go of the belief behind its motto: home and family came first.
The Unseen Battles
Behind every slogan and sign are the people who carried them. The women who declared that “lips that touch liquor shall not touch ours” weren’t just temperance activists. They were mothers, daughters and wives who bore the brunt of alcohol’s damage, and their demonstration on December 10th, 1913, was a big moment for the Temperance movement, which saw Prohibition arrive seven years later.
The women who took on the “Demon of Rum” showed what people can do when they act together.
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