On July 1, 1914, infamous buzzkill and then-Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels implemented General Order No. 99: “The use or introduction for drinking purposes of alcoholic liquors on board any naval vessel, or within any navy yard or station, is strictly prohibited, and commanding officers will be held directly responsible for the enforcement of this order.”
Daniels was a supporter of the Temperance movement, a turn-of-the-century mistake social movement that supported a nationwide alcohol ban. Before those pioneers of virtue could wreak havoc on the country with the 18th Amendment (also known as “Prohibition,” which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors), they actively worked to pass legislation against the beverage in municipalities across the United States.
Some of those laws are still in effect.
The U.S. Navy used to honor the grand tradition of giving its sailors a daily portion of grog, which started out as a half-pint of rum and later evolved to include good ol’ American whiskey. If a sailor didn’t drink, they earned an extra per diem for it, the 2016 equivalent of around $1.44.
The ration was reduced to a gill (quarter-pint) in 1842 and then eliminated during the Civil War. Ironically, for the rest of the country, the Temperance movement was effectively silenced in the Union during the war because states needed the tax revenues to keep paying for it. In contrast, the Confederate Navy kept the boozy naval tradition alive in an effort to recruit sailors from other countries.
American sailors were allowed to keep their own stores of liquor and beer on board until 1899, when the sale was restricted. The new rules barred “enlisted men, either on board ship, or within the limits of navy yards, naval stations, or Marine barracks, except in the medical department.” When Daniels issued General Order No. 99, the only alcohol aboard U.S. ships was reserved for the officers of the wardroom and the Captain’s Mess.
A creative reader can probably imagine what happened when the sailors learned about the ban. Daniels was already not a popular guy, but commanders rushed to sell what they had left – and they had a lot left. The Navy decided each ship should hold one last blowout to say fair winds and following seas to their beloved drink.
To their credit, American vessels the world over moved to comply with the Navy’s order. Many ships held banquets with food, others had theme parties, and some held funeral processions for their departing friend. A few ships just poured whatever they had left into a giant bowl. Pictures of these parties are hard to find – not only because cameras were rare in 1914. Presumably, the sailors didn’t want to make every American party for the next 60 years seem lame by comparison.
The Navy banned alcohol for its sailors entirely for a total of six years. Selling booze on shore and in clubs was reinstated after Congress passed the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of the Navy Edward Hidalgo (himself a World War II-era Navy veteran) changed the rules to allow sailors at sea for 45 days or more two beers a day.
Allowing sailors to tipple a drink now and then isn’t just good for morale, it’s also good for the local economies of wherever they happen to be. During a 2018 NATO exercise, for example, American sailors and Marines drank the beer supply of the entire country, probably a sales coup that Icelandic bartenders will never see again.
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