David Leigh Colvin, usually known as D. Leigh Colvin, was born in Ohio in 1880. He was the son of David Taylor Colvin and Maria Larkin Colvin.

In 1906 he married Mamie White, who became politically active in the temperance movement. She was Prohibition Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1918. The Prohibition Party ran her as a candidate for Presidential Elector for New York in 1920. Next she became Prohibition Party candidate for U.S. Representative from New York’s 21st District in 1922. Finally, she was a dry (pro-Prohibition) candidate for delegate to New York convention in 1933 to ratify the 21st amendment. That was the Repeal amendment. That is, it repealed National Prohibition. Mamie White Colvin also served as president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She did so from 1944 to 1953, when she died.

D. Leigh Colvin

Colvin attended the American Temperance University and Ohio Wesleyan University. Then he studied law at the University of California and the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1913.

Dr. Colvin was the Prohibition Party’s candidate for U.S. Senator from New York in 1916. He was the party’s candidate for mayor of New York City in 1917. Then he was its candidate for the vice-presidency of the U.S. in 1920. Next, he was its candidate for U.S. Representative from New York in 1922. His final candidacy was for the presidency in 1936. He also served as chair of the Prohibition National Committee from 1926 to 1932.

D. Leigh Colvin was very intolerant of those who opposed Prohibition. He has special hostility toward members of the Women’s Organization for Prohibition Reform (WONPR).  He called them”Bacchantian maidens, parching for wine — wet women who, like the drunkards whom their program will produce, would take pennies off the eyes of the dead for the sake of legalizing booze.”

David Leigh Colvin died in 1959. That was four years after Mamie White Colvin died.

Colvin’s efforts were not entirely in vain but helped change American culture. Indeed, almost one of every five U.S. adults today favors making drinking alcohol illegal! But not even National Prohibition made drinking illegal. Discover what Prohibition did prohibit!