Anti-Saloon League, U.S. organization working for prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquors. Founded in 1893 as the Ohio Anti-Saloon League at Oberlin, Ohio, by representatives of temperance societies and evangelical Protestant churches, it came to wield great political influence. Vigorously led by James Cannon, Jr., a Methodist bishop, the League played an important role in securing the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. Its influence waned, however, especially after the repeal (1933) of prohibition. From 1950 to 1964 it was called the National Temperance League; from then it has been known as the American Council on Alcohol Problems.
See P. H. Odegard, Pressure Politics: Story of the Anti-Saloon League (1928, repr. 1966); biography of Bishop Cannon by V. Dabney (1949).
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