LCV Winter 2013-14 - (Page 50)

signaling the death of regular beer, the jazz orchestra broke into "How Dry I Am!" Customers sang slowly and quietly at first, then as their voices grew in sound and pace, everyone grabbed the closest goblet, bottle or tumbler and hurled it to the floor. The New Orleans Item called it "John Barleycorn's Requiem." Many parishes in Louisiana were already dry, but numerous saloon owners could not believe that one of the "wettest climates" in the country would actually turn dry. Approximately half of the 1,000 saloons in New Orleans remained open, chancing that the government would not classify 2.75 percent beer as intoxicating. Others cut their losses. Henry Ramos, originator of the Ramos Gin Fizz and "the most famous mixologist of the South," owned the Stag saloon with his brother William. The Stag was elegant, with a tile floor and a 50-foot-long bar with six COURTESY OF SALLY ASHER New Orleans, the local chapter of the Personal Liberty League of America joined in and wired President Woodrow Wilson directly, asking him to modify the law and to allow the country to vote on it. Entrepreneurs profited by printing the slogan on buttons and banners. A local department store sold "No Beer No Work" beer steins fast as it could stock them. On Flag Day of 1919, over 7,000 laborers, soldiers, and members of legions and women's auxiliary groups marched on the nation's capitol to retain their right to drink beer, the first time in history a permit was granted for a group to assemble there to protest legislation from Congress. Six days later in New Orleans, almost 3,000 "lovers of Bibulous liberty" and "defenders of Bacchus" paraded. The TimesPicayune encouraged all who had a "kindly spot in their hearts for the feel of a brass rail under foot and are gratified when the foam is on the schooner and the schooner on bar" to attend, and they did, with marching bands, banners and signs, and chanting their slogan. One man held a sign that read "Dixie Social Club. We want beer in our saloons. Not in the cellars of the Rich." The speakers argued that since the act was passed after the armistice, it was now invalid because its preamble said it was for war purposes, and further, Prohibition was "the mother of Bolshevism." All the movement's protests and threats were ineffectual. On July 1, 1919, the Wartime Prohibition Act went into effect. New Orleanians took this defeat more with a hoarder's mentality than a partygoer's, leaving bars with more bottles of beer in their bags than in their bellies. Shortly after midnight, a procession of brewery wagons with a calliope paraded down Royal Street as a farewell. Bands in restaurants and bars played funeral marches. As the Cosmopolitan Hotel's clock struck its final chord, 50 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES * Winter 2013-14 A postcard view of Chartres Street in the French Quarter during the 1920s. bartenders and at least nine "shakers," whose primary job was to slowly shake Ramos' gin concoction for two minutes. Locals and tourists lined up (sometimes for an hour) for his drinks. Ramos was considered a gentleman artist and a scientist of the cocktail, even though he was a teetotaler. Drunkards horrified Ramos, and with a subtle point of his finger, those who were too loose with their language or their liquor were escorted out. Equally horrifying to him was the idea of breaking the law. After more than 40 years in the bar business, Ramos severed all connections. His parting gift to the city was publishing the recipe for his world-famous namesake drink. The Stag became a bank and its contents were sold at auction. Newspapers grumbled that the "lethal club of national 

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