Pussyfoot Johnson Dies
Was Internationally Known for Lifetime Fight Against Alcohol
FEBRUARY 3 – William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson, 82, who circled the globe three times and delivered 4,000 lectures in a lifetime fight against alcohol, died believing prohibition will return.
One of America's most colorful figures, he died at 3:50 p. m. yesterday in Binghamton City Hospital.
The man who singlehandedly cleaned up illegal liquor traffic in Oklahoma Indian Territory when Theodore Roosevelt was president and then carried his crusade around the world to the accompaniment of almost constant page one coverage from newspapers, entered the hospital on Tuesday when his last illness became serious.
Retired 15 Years Ago
He had been living in retirement for 15 years at Smithville Flats, resting from his rigorous life and compiling a history of the Johnson family.
He suffered a serious illness three years ago, but recovered. Recently, he suffered a heart attack, but this did not result in the illness that finally led to his death, which was caused directly by a bladder ailment.
The elderly anti-saloon campaigner would have been 83 years old March 25.
In his final public expression on his lifetime work, he wrote to a Binghamton Press reporter:
"Prohibition will come back of course."
His last public fight was a losing battle against the trend away from the Eighteenth Amendment. In 1932 Franklin Roosefelt came out flatfootedly for its repeal, while Herbert Hoover endorsed a plan letting individual states handle the problem.
Criticized Hoover Plan
With charactertistic forthrightness, Mr. Johnson lowered the boom on Mr. Hoover.
A Republican, the seasoned veteran of many a rough-and-tumble debate said:
"He (Hoover) led me up a political alley and left me stranded in a brush heap, like a wild jackrabbit. I propose to support for president that peerless statesman ... Andy Gump."
That was a bit of Johnsonia typical of that which captivated the public for years.
Matching his ready wit was a sportsmanlike cheerfulness and an engaging philosophy that his was a rugged fight in which he had to take it while he also dished it out.
In 1919, for instance, during an English anti-saloon lecture tour, be was struck in the right eye by a stone thrown from the fringes of thei crowd. A few days later, it was necessary to remove the eye. It didn't discourage him, and his declaration that "there is no ill will on my side—not a grain," endeared him to the English public, which generally was hostile to his cause. King George, the present monarch's father, expressed his regrets. The public subscribed to a $2,000 fund for his dry campaign.
How He Got Nickname
He won the nickname, "Pussyfoot" in his early days on the Indian territories of the West, where he waged night and day his fight to eliminate liquor. A newspaper said "the booze-hunter strikes like lightning even if he is a pussyfoot." The name stuck.
He used his fists and his guns in breaking up liquor traffic among the Indians. As he expanded his fight to take in the whole world, and particularly to bring about prohibition in the United States, such violent methods no longer were necessary, but his spirit and
determination increased.
Mr. Johnson was a newspaperman, also. He served in his younger days on the Lincoln. Nebraska, Daily News, was associate editor of the New York Voice; managing editor of 35 anti-saloon publications, and author of a score of books and pamphlets on prohibition.
He was born in Chenango County on March 25, 1862, and was educated in the University of Nebraska, where he first became engrossed in the subject of Prohibition.
Mr. Johnson's public life also included a term as Prohibition nominee for the Maryland House of Delegates, and once ran for Congress from Maryland.
His Affiliations
He was vice-president of the International Prohibition Federation of London; a member of the Executive Committee of the International Temperance Bureau, Switzerland; United States delegate to the Fourteenth Anti-Alcohol Congress in Italy; director of the Scientific Federation of Boston; editor of the New Republican and publicity manager of the Anti-Saloon League of America from 1916 to 1919.
His first wife was Lillie M. Trevitt of Lincoln, Nebraska. After her death, he married Mrs. May Stanley of Washington, D. Ci, in 1928.
Besides Mrs. Johnson, he is survived by two sons, Clifford of Washington, Maj. Clarence Johnson of Fort Benning, Ga.; a sister, Mrs. F. M. Skillman of Broken Bow, Neb.; a brother, Bert, of Binghamton; and two stepchildren, Howard Stanley of New York City and Mrs. Robert Nethercut of Rockford, Ill.
The body was removed to the Harry R. Rogers Funeral Home, Greene, where funeral services will be held at 2:30 p. m. tomorrow. Officiating will be the Rev. A. A. Bresee, pastor emeritus of the Zion Episcopal Church of Greene. Burial will be in nearby Sylvan Lawn Cemetery. |
In 1889, Nebraska considered statewise prohibition and Johnson emerged as an ardent supporter of the so-called dry movement. As was the accepted practice at the time, Johnson used his position with the newspaper to see that articles were published that put Prohibition in the best possible light and cast suspicion on “wet” supporters.