Shown here is a painted metal structure of “Mr. Dry,” derived from a cartoonist’s vision of a figure who symbolized the forces of National Prohibition. Three generations of the Nathan family were locked in a continuous struggle against him in three American cities. They often lost. Though their persistence, however, the Nathans at last were witness to the demise of Mr. Dry.
The founding father was Julius Nathan, born in 1836 in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany, the son of Josef and Victoria (Pohl) Nathan. In 1855 at the age of 19, Julius immigrated to the United States and settled initially in Cincinnati. Apparently destined for the whiskey trade, he and brothers Isidore, Emil, and Max founded a liquor house at 221 Walnut Street. Subsequently, perhaps because of Southern sympathies, Julius relocated to Columbus, Mississippi.
When the Civil War broke out, Julius, although running a liquor business in Columbus, enlisted in the 15th Regiment of the Tennessee Infantry in Memphis where his future wife, Johanna Ehrman, lived. His Confederate unit saw heavy fighting at the Battles of Shiloh, shown below, and later Chicamaugua, among others. Because the unit suffered heavy casualties throughout the war only a handful were left to surrender at Appomattox. Among survivors was Julius. Discharged as a sergeant, he returned to Columbus, married Johanna, and sired four children, three girls and a son whom he named Emil.
By his own account on a passport application Julius would spend the next 31 years in Columbus. During that time he would bring Emil, shown here, into the business, first as a clerk, then as a traveling salesman, and finally by 1894 as president of what became “Emil Nathan & Company.” Julius, possibly in declining health, stayed on, listed as a clerk. A year later at the age of 26 Emil wed Clara L. Furth, 21 of Memphis. Their marriage would produce two daughters and a son, Emil Junior, destined to be the third generation of Nathans fighting Prohibition.
Along the way, the Nathans were making close acquaintance with the devotees of Mr. Dry. By the mid-1880s both the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League had become major political forces in Mississippi. Through local option laws the sale of alcohol became illegal or was highly limited in a majority of jurisdictions, including Lownes County and its county seat, Columbus. Julius who had put his life on the line for the Confederate states, now found Mississippi eager to deprive him and his family of their livelihood.
Perhaps because of Memphis ties to Johanna or its reputation as a thoroughly “wet” Tennessee river town, about 1896 the Nathans moved their liquor business there. They located at 364 Front Street, moving to 404 Main Street in 1900. In Memphis Emil featured a number of proprietary brands, including "Cotton Belt Rye,” "Cream of the Still,” "Old Carter X X X Rye,” "Old Modoc,” ”Red Hick,” and "Superior Tenn.” Like other whiskey wholesalers, Emil issued advertising shot glasses to saloons, hotels and restaurants pouring his brands.
Emil soon would discover that the forces of Mr. Dry were hard at work in Tennessee. In 1877 the legislature had passed what was called “The Four Mile Law” banning the sale of alcohol within a four mile radius of a public school. A number of Tennessee saloons were forced out of business. For the next thirty years liquor sales were hobbled by local option votes but Memphis remained a haven for liquor sales. After prohibitionists gained control of the Tennessee Republican Party in 1909, a statewide ban on alcohol sales became the law. Mr. Dry had won another round.
In 1897 at the age of 60 Julius Nathan died and was buried in the Temple Israel Cemetery of Memphis. It was solely up to Emil to decide what the family response should be to Mr. Dry. He decided once again to relocate. This time he settled on Missouri, a state determinedly “wet.” About 1910 he moved Emil Nathan & Co. and his family to St. Louis.
While operating his wholesale liquor house there at 2018 Market Street, Emil recognized that “business as usual” would not suffice if National Prohibition was to be kept at bay. He became a force in the Missouri Wholesale Liquor Dealers Association, serving as first vice president and later as president. In 1914 he achieved national recognition as a member of the “Harmony Committee of Fifteen” a body representing the nation’s wholesale liquor dealers, retail liquor dealers, and brewers. Disagreements among the three interests had weaken the response to Prohibition. Meeting at the Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C., in April, 1914, the committee was able to agreed on a joint approach. Emil Nathan had established himself as a leading voice for the liquor trade.
In the end, however, unity did nothing to stem the tide that passed the Volstead Act through Congress and a Constitutional Amendment that banned the making and sale of alcohol beginning January 1, 1920. All America became woefully aware of Mr. Dry. New York World illustrator Rollin Kerby gave him life in an editorial cartoon in mid-January 1920, as a tall, lean foreboding figure wearing a frock coat, stovepipe hat, and black gloves, carrying a black umbrella, and aggressively gloating over the ban on alcohol. Reprinted widely, Mr. Dry quickly became the national symbol of despised Prohibition.
Forced to close the doors on his St. Louis liquor house after more than 50 years of Nathan family involvement in the whiskey trade, Emil refused to stop his campaign against the ban on alcohol. Running an investment and liquor brokering company, and working closely with Emil Junior, Nathan continued a drumfire of opposition to the effects of Prohibition.
When at last in 1934 Repeal was achieved, Emil Nathan stood as a leading spokesperson for America’s wholesale liquor dealers, articulating to Congress the trade’s positions on replacement liquor laws. He continued to lead Missouri liquor dealers while Emil Junior served as the executive director of the National Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America. In the meantime Mr. Dry, now a figure of scorn throughout America was being hanged in effigy and depicted as a vagabond dressed in rags and carrying a sign reading: “I am starving.”
Six years after Repeal, on Emil Nathan’s 75th birthday, his family and friends honored him with a celebration and a program bearing his photo. Inside were a series of song parodies, apparently written by one of his adult children, saluting his life. One of them reads in part: “He’s sold gin that would fill the ocean; Whiskey to fill up the sea.” The parody that particularly caught my attention, printed below, conjures up National Prohibition and Repeal. It brings to mind the Nathans’ struggle and eventual victory against the ban on alcohol epitomized by Mr. Dry.
Emil Nathan died in July 1951 at the advanced age of 84 and was buried in St. Louis County’s Valhalla Cemetery. There he joined spouse Clara who had died at 62 in 1937. Buried nearby is Emil Nathan Junior who died in 1967.
Note: A variety of sources made this post possible, but special recognition goes to Tom Spitzer who found Emil Nathan’s 75th birthday program among the effects of his father, Fred, an officer of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America. The program provided the photo of Emil and the parodies.
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