In An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind, published in 1785, physician and Founding Father Benjamin Rush wrote that drunkenness, an “odious disease (for by that name it should be called),” appeared with, among other symptoms, “unusual garrulity…unusual silence…a disposition to quarrel…uncommon good humor and an insipid simpering or laugh…disclosure of their own or other people’s secrets…a rude disposition to tell those persons in company whom they know, their faults…certain extravagant acts which indicate a temporary fit of madness.”

About the presidential election of 1928, between anti-Prohibitionist Al Smith and Prohibitionist Herbert Hoover, H.L. Mencken wrote, “If Al wins tomorrow, it will be because the American people have decided at last to vote as they drink.” Hoover won, earning 444 of the 531 electoral-college votes.