Three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan gives insight into how politicians used the Bible to push for prohibition. Bryan gave sixty speeches in one week in 1915 in Ohio to argue for temperance. In these speeches, Bryan used Daniel 1 to prove that water is superior to wine. He then argued that since the government banned alcohol at the naval school, and heavily taxed alcohol, the government must have believed that there was no moral reason to allow the sale of alcohol. Bryan looked to Europe for inspiration and argued that America should learn what the war taught Europe without the need for a war, as during the war all of the powerful European nations restricted or banned alcohol.
In Daniel 1, King Nebuchadnezzar takes over the kingdom of Judah and takes some of the Israelites of the royal family and nobility who are without physical defects, and wise, young men and teaches them the literature and language of his people. They each were assigned a portion of the royal rations of food and wine, and educated for three years. Daniel resolved not to defile himself with royal food and wine and requested to be permitted not to do so. The prince of the eunuchs protests that the king would kill him if Daniel was in worse condition than the other young men. Daniel asks the prince to test his servants by having them drink only water and eat only vegetables for ten days and compare them with the young men after ten days. At the end of the ten days, the servants looked significantly healthier than the young men.
