Russell, like most of his frontier contemporaries, took a dim view of Prohibition. He once commented that the “morilists” [moralists] who instituted such measures against drinking alcoholic beverages were the same hypocrites who snuck off to the root cellar to have a drink when no one was looking. By the time this watercolor was done, several powerful temperance groups, including the Anti-Saloon League, had triumphed in several states including Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, and North Dakota. Prohibition as the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution was not enacted until 1919.