History Main / DryCrusader

-> ''"Every penny in the cash registers of that business is a penny directed toward turning our children into hopeless alcoholics, reeling in the gutter, incapable of becoming responsible family members, citizens of their community, or bread-winning employees. Now is a time to take a stand, now is the time to put every retail outlet on notice. We're not waiting until Quax has covered the countryside, until it's being sold in school vending machines and at Little League games. Rugby's is our test case and you have the power to win it. Stop everybody from entering that establishment, close the close down, send a message that will be heard from coast to coast."''

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* ComicBook/LuckyLuke: Thanks to taking place during the Old West, these characters pop up every now and then, usually temperance groups consisting mostly of women, but men too, such as the visiting scientists from ''The Black Hills'', who not only order things like tea or lemonade in a saloon they stop at with Luke, they also give a lecture about the health effects on alcohol to an Indian they meet. An interesting example is BigBad August Oyster from ''Calamity Jane'', who starts out as a saloon owner using his business to smuggle guns, but after losing it in a bet, he lies to the local temperance group that he's decided to turn over a new leaf and become this trope, so they'll help him shut it down.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* At the beginning of ''Film/TheWildBunch'', a preacher is delivering an anti-alcohol sermon during a temperance rally just before its participants get caught in the crossfire during a bank robbery. A lot of them get mowed down.

* Parodied (along with every other possible Trope) in ''Film/{{Airplane}}''. As the plane is in trouble, a passenger takes a shot from his hip flask, which he offers to the elderly, tightly-dressed-looking woman next to him. She snaps, "Certainly not!" in an offended and horrified tone before turning around and doing a line of coke.
* In the Creator/HaroldLloyd comedy ''Film/HotWater'', the main character's obnoxious mother-in-law turns out to be one, which does not bode well for his attempt to use LiquidCourage to stand up to her.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': Temperance campaigners, led by fervent, recovered-alcoholic parson Norman Grigor, protest against the Midsomer Abbas May Festival in "[[Recap/MidsomerMurdersS14E6 The Night of the Stag]]".

* At the beginning of ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'', Margaret Schroeder is a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, mainly because her husband is an alcoholic and commits DomesticAbuse.

* A sect of these appears in the ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' episode "The Night of the Stag".

You'll still come across characters who inveigh against all consumption of alcohol but, recognizing its historic total failure, they're less likely to advocate a complete ban or subjecting bars and taverns to hatchetization to achieve their goal. Rather, they'll call for restrictions on opening and closing hours, carrying open bottles, bar liquor licensing rules, and so on.

As another AlwaysFemale character, the Dry Crusader is a JustifiedTrope. Alcoholism was a serious problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and usually, it was the wives and children who had to endure the violent bouts of their alcoholic husbands, and the ensuing poverty as many men squandered their salaries on drink. In DirtyLondon during the industrial revolution, cheap gin was destroying the poor classes in body and soul. The Dry Crusader is not limited to the U.S. and can also be found in stories set in Canada, Britain, and other countries that have a history of puritanism and/or campaigns against the consumption of alcohol, such as Scandinavia.

There's also another, darker side to the Dry Crusader, at least in the US. The US was industrializing at the time and factories were going up everywhere to take advantage of the nation's abundant natural resources. As a result, the economic boom was fed by a flood of immigrants, and where you get immigrants, you get a surge in anti-immigrant bigotry (this period also saw the formation of the anti-immigrant Know Nothing political party). Alcohol and alcoholism had always been a problem, but it was viewed as an individual moral problem, rather than a social problem, and much of the rise of the various temperance movements was fed by this rise in bigotry. Thus they wanted to fight the Germans with their beer, the Irish with their whiskey, the Italians with their wine, the Slavs with their vodka, etc. who were "destroying America's moral character with their degenerate habits". People at the time were well aware of this sort of thing, as the well-known slogan "Every Nation But Carrie" made it onto commemorative products sold by or to bars like postcards and miniature hatchets.[[note]]Carrie Nation was a nationally (in)famous temperance activist who attacked saloons with a hatchet. On the flip side, bars and saloons were happy to welcome any customer (outside the South) and came close to being the Melting Pot that the US likes to proclaim itself.[[/note]]

That said, this anti-immigrant bigotry is connected with the rise of the teetotaler movement to greater prominence, power, and radicalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Temperance as a whole goes back well into the 18th century, where it could be connected with health (native American temperance movements), class (the poors and their gin), and, yes, the moral crusade against alcohol as a sinful vice. Hence, works that present a Dry Crusader may intend to present a very different message depending on the time period it was produced in and how they present the crusader. In 1790, they[[note]]Yes, there were male teetotalers, although women were overrepresented because moral crusades were one of the few ways they could participate in politics[[/note]] might be presented as a little prudish, or a stuck up prig, or one of the few upright characters. In the 1890s, they might be presented as prudish, or a prig, or one of the few upright characters, or a white supremacist (which, again, [[ValuesDissonance might be presented as one of the few upright characters]]).

ValuesDissonance also applies, as people with alcohol and drug addictions are seen in a more sympathetic light today, while in the past alcoholism was considered simply a moral failing. These days, addiction is treated more as a medical problem.

* Carrie Nation.

* In the Creator/DCComics {{Elseworld}} ''Franchise/{{Batman}}: The Blue, the Gray, and the Bat'', two Dry Crusaders are on the same coach as Bruce Wayne as he heads out West. [[spoiler: They turn out to be the {{Big Bad}}s behind the whole thing.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E18HomerVsTheEighteenthAmendment Homer Vs The Eighteenth Amendment]]'', a prohibition movement is started after [[ItMakesSenseInContext Bart is caught drunk on camera during the St. Patrick's Day parade]]. The movement discovers that alcohol has actually been banned in Springfield for over two centuries but has never been enforced, and the [[SlaveToPR Mayor]] is pressured to agree to the prohibition. At the end of the episode, it's discovered that the prohibition law was repealed only a year after the original ban, [[StatusQuoIsGod and everything returns to normal]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}} the Painful'' has Ajeet Mandeep, who hates Joy so much he will refuse to join your party if you've taken at least two Joy pills. Amusingly, a glitch in the original version made it so that he would only refuse to join you if you had taken ''exactly'' two pills. Any more and he's completely fine with you!

* Dry Crusaders appear in ''[[VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun Victoria II]]'' in several forms, such as events asking the leader to teach temperance, sometimes even asking to outright ban alcohol over the nation. The player themselves can in turn become one, but this does come with some risks such as encouraging reactionary thought or encouraging general population militancy, which may not end well.

During its long history, alcohol has caused (and [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "solved"]]) a myriad of problems. There's no dispute that [[TheAlcoholic excessive consumption has caused damage to countless lives and society]] in general, from damaged livers, domestic violence and impaired driving. Controlling its use has been a problem since the beginning of civilization; Ancient Greeks and Romans also struggled with drunkenness and wine-addled misbehavior. The solution of the Dry Crusader is one of complete prohibition.

The Dry Crusader is what you get when you cross TheTeetotaler with the MoralGuardians, the PrinciplesZealot, and (sometimes) the WellIntentionedExtremist tropes. It's a character who believes the consumption of alcohol is always evil in any amount at all times to everyone. Anyone who's unfortunate enough to be drinking a glass of beer within the Dry Crusader's line of sight will soon be subjected to an angry harangue warning him of the spiritual, moral, and health hazards that will result with one sip of the demon rum. It goes without saying that nothing short of a total ban on alcohol will satisfy the Dry Crusader. To achieve this goal, this person on occasion is not above resorting to [[ActivistFundamentalistAntics any means necessary]].

You'll still come across characters who inveigh against all consumption of alcohol but, recognizing its historic total failure, they're less likely to advocate a complete ban or subjecting bars and taverns to hatchetization to achieve their goal. Rather, they'll call for restrictions on opening and closing hours, carrying open bottles, bar liquor licensing rules and so on.

As another AlwaysFemale character, the Dry Crusader is a JustifiedTrope. Alcoholism was a serious problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and usually it were the wives and children who had to endure the violent bouts of their alcoholic husbands, and the ensuing poverty as many men squandered their salaries on drink. In DirtyLondon during the industrial revolution, cheap gin was destroying the poor classes in body and soul. The Dry Crusader is not limited to the U.S. and can also be found in stories set in Canada, Britain, and other countries that have a history of puritanism and/or campaigns against the consumption of alcohol, such as Scandinavia.

There's also another, darker side to the Dry Crusader, at least in the US. The US was industrializing at the time and factories were going up everywhere to take advantage of the nation's abundant natural resources. As a result, the economic boom was fed by a flood of immigrants, and where you get immigrants, you get a surge in anti-immigrant bigotry (this period also saw the formation of the anti-immigrant Know Nothing political party). Alcohol and alcoholism had always been a problem, but it was viewed as an individual moral problem, rather than a social problem, and much of the rise of the various temperance movements were fed by this rise in bigotry. Thus they wanted to fight the Germans with their beer, the Irish with their whiskey, the Italians with their wine, the Slavs with their vodka, etc. who were "destroying America's moral character with their degenerate habits". People at the time were well aware of this sort of thing, as the well-known slogan "Every Nation But Carrie" made it onto commemorative products sold by or to bars like postcards and miniature hatchets.[[note]]Carrie Nation was a nationally (in)famous temperance activist who attacked saloons with a hatchet. On the flip side, bars and saloons were happy to welcome any customer (outside the South) and came close to being the Melting Pot that the US likes to proclaim itself.[[/note]]

That said, this anti-immigrant bigotry is connected with the rise of the teetotaler movement to greater prominence, power, and radicalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Temperance as a whole goes back well into the 18th century, where it could be connected with health (native American temperance movements), class (the poors and their gin), and, yes, the moral crusade against alcohol as a sinful vice. Hence, works which present a Dry Crusader may intend to present a very different message depending on the time period it was produced in and how they present the crusader. In 1790, they[[note]]Yes, there were male teetotalers, although women were overrepresented because moral crusades were one of the few ways they could participate in politics[[/note]] might be presented as a little prudish, or a stuck up prig, or one of the few upright characters. In the 1890s, they might be presented as prudish, or a prig, or one of the few upright characters, or a white supremacist (which, again, [[ValuesDissonance might be presented as one of the few upright characters]]).

* Frank from ''VideoGame/HouseParty'' issues a total ban on all alcohol at what is suppose to be a normal college party. If either he or his assistant Leah catch you handling any booze they'll beat you down before you know it. He claims it's because he's straight edge and feels it's his duty to spread the philosophy by any means necessary. [[spoiler: However certain bits of random chatter and later opportunities reveal he's actually a drug dealer who is trying to peddle his wares to the partygoers, with the alcohol ban only being in place because he doesn't want anyone to get too drunk to buy from him.]]

During its long history, alcohol has caused (and [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "solved"]]) a myriad of problems. There's no dispute that excessive consumption has caused damage to countless lives and society in general. Controlling its use has been a problem since the beginning of civilization. The solution of the Dry Crusader is one of complete prohibition.

When the Dry Crusader appears, it's often in works that are set in the United States during the 19th and early 20th century which is the time the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League were at their peak of influence, and which ultimately led to the Prohibition era, which lasted [[TheRoaringTwenties from 1920 to 1933]] and saw the rise of organized crime to meet the demand. Instances of the Dry Crusader in stories set after the repeal of Prohibition in the U.S. in 1933 are far less common. You'll still come across characters who inveigh against all consumption of alcohol but, recognizing its historic total failure, they're less likely to advocate a complete ban or subjecting bars and taverns to hatchetization to achieve their goal.

As another AlwaysFemale character, the Dry Crusader is a JustifiedTrope. Alcoholism was a serious problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and usually it were the wives and children who had to endure the violent bouts of their alcoholic husbands, and the ensuing poverty as many men squandered their salaries on drink. The Dry Crusader is not limited to the U.S. and can also be found in stories set in Canada, Britain, and other countries that have a history of puritanism and/or campaigns against the consumption of alcohol, such as Scandinavia.

* Parodied in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' with the Black Ribboners, a group of vampires who have sworn off drinking (human) blood. According to ''Literature/{{Thud}}'', one of their slogans is "Lips that touch Ichor shall never touch Mine".

* ''Literature/AnimalFarm'': Among the principles of Animalism is prohibition, [[JustifiedTrope as alcoholism turned Jones into an incompetent farmer]]. [[spoiler: Napoleon and his cronies selling Boxer to a knacker to buy more booze is the most serious sign that they've turned their backs on Animalism]].