Americans were glad to sing ‘God Save The King’

Over the years, Amber Lights has often looked at US Prohibition, which endured from around 1920 to 1933, mainly lamenting how it damaged the Scotch and Irish whisky industries. However, I recently read A King’s Story, the memoirs of Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor, who by coincidence visited Washington DC and New York in November 1919, just as Prohibition kicked in, and he described the direct and funny effects at first hand.

How did Prohibition come about?

At the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries, alcohol misuse was a huge problem in the US and UK, giving rise to temperance movements.

America’s most militant group, the women-led AntiSaloon League, would swoop on a bar or saloon with axes and crowbars and wreck it in minutes. State after state went dry, the whole country in 1920.

In 1919 Edward, then the Prince of Wales, had to attend countless Washington dinners and banquets, often with many toasts proposed but with no wines, only tap water. At one banquet, a waiter noticed his expression and whispered: “Would he like more water or a White Rock?”

Knowing that many US distilleries had names like Blue Mountain or Red Creek, Edward asked for the White Rock.

Imagine his chagrin when he discovered White Rock was tap water with an ice cube in it.

The next day he was driven through Washington flanked by 16 motorcycle outriders whose military precision was only surpassed by the demonic wailing of their sirens.

At their destination the outriders, unfortunately, parked beside a warehouse where the police had just seized casks of bootleg whisky. By the start of the return journey, the outriders were utterly legless, two machines actually colliding with the royal car. The sozzled 16 faced dismissal and disgrace but the prince, anxious this sorry episode should not overshadow his successful Washington visit, pleaded for them to keep their jobs – and they did.

He then returned to Canada to extend a successful tour there. Canada had no prohibition and many Americans would nip across the frontier for a drink, giving rise to a widely known poem:

“Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, Went across the border to get a drink of rye. When the rye was opened, the Yanks began to sing: ‘God bless America, but God Save The King.’”

The prince memorised it and even recited it to his father. One hopes the stern King George V allowed himself at least a small smile.