The Reverend J O L Spracklin, a Methodist minister from Windsor, Ontario, noted for his involvement with Prohibition issues.[1] Spracklin shot and killed a man who was engaged in the illicit liquor trade and was later acquitted of manslaughter.
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In 1918 Spracklin took up the pastoral charge of Sandwich Methodist Church, Windsor. He was noted for the eloquence of his rhetorical style.
Spracklin's ministry occurred during a period when Prohibition - especially promoted by the United Farmers of Ontario' Provincial Government - was regarded as a pressing issue by Spracklin and many of his parishioners and supporters.
These supporters included the brothers W H Hallam and S M Hallam, who were known locally less for their religious observance than for their muscular activities in support of questionable causes,[2] and who joined Spracklin in Ontario Attorney-General William Raney's Prohibition enforcement team.
The proximity of the United States' border to the Sandwich suburb of Windsor, Ontario, where Spracklin fulfilled his ministry, and the huge cross-border trade - legal and illicit - gave heightened focus to the concerns and activities of Spracklin and his zealous followers.
On August 26, 1920, the cruiser Eugenia, was stopped in the Detroit River after the speedboat Panther II, with the Reverend J O L Spracklin and his associate W H Hallam on board, fired on the cruiser; nine men were arrested and accused of attempting to smuggle whiskey into the US.[3]
It was reported also on August 27, 1920 that Spracklin had accused the mayor of Amherstburg, Dr. W. Fred Park, of harbouring large quantities of alcohol; Park was subsequently fined $1000.00.[3]
It was claimed that the pastor was not distinguishing between his spiritual and alcohol inspection duties. Complaints abounded; a Windsor, Ontario lawyer alleged that the Reverend J O L Spracklin's men would arbitrarily fill in blank search warrants at will, and it was also claimed that Spracklin's excessive zeal extended to his own parishioners, whose attention he would engage while preaching in the interior of Sandwich Methodist Church, while his associates, outside the building, would surreptitiously search his parishioners' cars at random.[3]
On Halloween night, 1920, Mrs. Spracklin narrowly escaped death when the Spracklins' manse was sprayed with bullets, presumably on the behalf of persons in the illicit liquor trade disadvantaged by Spracklin and his men.[4]
On November 6, 1920, Spracklin, as part of Ontario Attorney-General Raney's Prohibition enforcement team, shot and killed Beverly Trumble, proprietor of the Chappell House hotel, who was engaged in illicit trade in liquor,[5] and in whose hand Spracklin later claimed to have seen a gun.
At his subsequent trial, Spracklin was acquitted of manslaughter.
Historical records of the Reverend J O L Spracklin's actions on November 6, 1920, differ in emphasis. The tenor of one historical account is suggestive that Spracklin should have been charged with murder rather than of the manslaughter of which he was eventually acquitted.[6]
Other descriptions stress that the evidence should be interpreted as indicating that Spracklin acted in self-defence.[5]
In 1921 Spracklin relinquished his pastoral charge at Sandwich Methodist Church.
He later emigrated to the United States, and there he continued with his personal mission of campaigning for the anti-liquor cause.
In the US, Spracklin promoted the Anti-Saloon League. He travelled as a visiting speaker to local churches on the League's behalf.[7]
By general consent, the conjunction of events around the Canadian period of Spracklin's ministry related to the particularly excessive zeal of the Prohibition era in Ontario, when the ideas and aims of the soon to be eclipsed United Farmers of Ontario were prominent.
The Reverend J O L Spracklin's ministry at least superficially resembles that of the Reverend J. Frank Norris, of Fort Worth, Tx: Norris also widely employed his rhetorical gifts in anti-liquor campaigning in opposition to local civic leaders and was himself acquitted of murdering an associate of the local mayor in 1926 on grounds of self-defence, which were later widely challenged. Norris, whose vigorous political views exercised a deep influence upon his seminary student John Birch and others, later undertook a wide, public ministry; however, the reputation of the Reverend J O L Spracklin never eclipsed the events of 1920.