Reverend Lyscum Elbert Crowson was a Methodist preacher who gained notoriety in the 1960s for leading West Virginia's "dry" movement, aimed at prohibiting the sale of "liquor by the drink." As the chairman of the West Virginia Citizens Committee for Defeat of the Liquor Amendment, Crowson frequently engaged in high profile debates with politicians, the press, and citizens alike. Crowson was known for being fiery and unwavering in his politics, which also included opposition to West Virginia's use of capital punishment. He often courted controversy.
Personal life
L.E. Crowson was born in De Kalb, Mississippi in 1903 to Frederick Lawrence Crowson, a Methodist preacher and Elizabeth S. Pope. Frederick was very active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Crowson and his family moved often around the South, spending large amounts of time in Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama. At 18, Crowson received his license to preach. He subsequently graduated from Asbury University. After returning to Florida from Asbury, he married Aline Purdom in 1924; they had two daughters.
Politics
Throughout his adult life, Crowson was often involved in the insider politics of the wider Methodist church. On multiple occasions, Crowson made waves within annual Methodist Conferences with his conservative beliefs. At the 1960 Methodist General Conference in Denver, Colorado, Crowson presented a resolution aimed at discrediting the presidential aspirations of then-candidate John F. Kennedy, on the grounds that Kennedy's Catholicism caused fundamental problems for American sovereignty. The resolution was overwhelmingly rejected, and Crowson was strongly rebuked by fellow ministers. In 1962, Crowson was the leader of a successful statewide campaign to defeat a constitutional amendment in favor of loosening alcohol laws for restaurants. Crowson's actions ranged from engaging in high-profile debates to going undercover to liquor establishments, as well as regularly preaching the evils of drink from the pulpit. While it was the newspaper coverage that made him a familiar figure in West Virginia politics, it was more often the stories about Crowson's undercover exploits that delighted the public. The most famous of these stories circulated in West Virginia for decades. Crowson had told reporters about one of his covert visits to an illicit bar, where he ordered a drink and began conversing with another patron. As a teetotaler unable to drink the alcohol, Crowson said, he discreetly poured it out on the floor. A letter-writer to the Charleston Gazette reported having discovered Crowson's ruse when Crowson accidentally poured his drink into the man's shoe. The letter-writer's claim about his alcohol-soaked shoe proved to be a spoof, but the tale circulated in West Virginia for decades. Crowson was a lifelong opponent of capital punishment, notably testifying in a 1969 state Senate hearing against a proposal to reinstate the death penalty in West Virginia.
