Catholics and German Lutherans, the targets of the Protestant purifiers, believed that the state should steer clear of moral legislation, leaving personal behavior to the strictures of church and conscience, and allow immigrants to freely practice the customs of their country of origin, especially the drinking of alcohol on Sunday social occasions. It was a struggle, as novelist Nelson Algren would later say, between “The Live and Let-Livers” and “The Do as I Sayers,” or as Irish alderman “Bathhouse” John Coughlin put it: “A Republican is a man who wants you to go t’church every Sunday. A
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