with middle-class public health reformers to take action. They launched an educational campaign to teach mothers to save and improve the lives of infants and young children, with the long-range goal of uplifting the average Canadian family. Prohibition Starting in the late 1870s the Ontario Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) urged public schools to teach "scientific temperance" as a compulsory subject; it reinforced moralistic messages with the study of anatomy and hygiene. Although the WCTU was initially successful in convincing the Ontario Department of Education to adopt scientific temperance as part of the curriculum, teachers opposed the plan and refused to implement it. The WCTU reacted with an attempt to reduce alcohol sales and use in the province through government action. They started with "local option" laws, which allowed local governments to prohibit the sale of liquor. Many towns and rural areas went dry in the years before 1914, but not the larger cities. Anti-German sentiment after 1914 and the accession of Conservative William Hearst to the premiership made prohibition a major political issue, as many residents associated beer production and drinking with Germans. The Methodists and Baptists (but not the Anglicans or Catholics) demanded the province be made dry. The government introduced prohibition of alcoholic sales in 1916 with the Ontario Temperance Act. However, drinking itself was never illegal, and residents could distill and retain their own personal supply. As major liquor producers could continue distillation and export for sale, Ontario became a centre for the illegal smuggling of liquor into the United States. The latter passed complete prohibition, effective after 1920. The "drys" won a referendum in 1919. Prohibition was ended in 1927 with the Conservative establishment of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. However, the government still controls the sale and consumption of liquor, wine, and beer to ensure compliance with strict community standards and to generate revenue from the alcohol retail monopoly. In April 2007, Ontario Minister of Provincial Parliament Kim Craitor suggested that local brewers should be able to sell their beer in local corner stores; however, the motion was quickly rejected by Premier Dalton McGuinty. Great Depression Agriculture and industry alike suffered in the Great Depression in Canada; hardest hit were the lumbering regions, the auto plants, and the steel mills. The milk industry suffered from price wars that hurt both dairy farmers and dairies. The government set up the Ontario Milk Control Board