they also declared, "it is here at last - dry America's first birthday" (Kobler 11). Women established a group of their own as well. In 1874, Protestant women formed the Women's Christian Temperance Union. They, like the Anti-Saloon League of America, cited the advantages of Prohibition (Kobler 10). As a whole, groups such as these utilized their First Amendment rights to the fullest to preach what they believed. God and religion were essential to those fighting to keep Prohibition intact. Reverend Billy Sunday incorporated the issue of Prohibition into many of his sermons. In his most well-known of these sermons Sunday claims: The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now. Women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent (Thornton 8). The Women's Christian Temperance Union held a strong influence in the church scene . They spoke of Prohibition as "God's present to the nation" (Kobler 11) and sponsored conventions for all who saw Prohibition as a gift from the Father (Kobler 11-13). Some individuals saw entering politics and taking public office as the best way to mak
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