William E. Johnson

William Eugene Johnson
William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson
Born	(1862-03-25)25 March 1862 Coventry, New York
Died	2 February 1945(1945-02-02) (aged 82) Chenango County, New York
Occupation	Prohibition leader, law enforcement
Spouse(s)	Lillie M. Trevitt (m. 1886–1927) May B. Stanley (m. 1928–45)

William Eugene "Pussyfoot" Johnson (25 March 1862 – 2 February 1945) was an American Prohibition advocate and law enforcement officer. In pursuit of his campaign to outlaw intoxicating beverages, he went undercover, posing as an habitué of saloons and collecting information against their owners. He gained the nickname "Pussyfoot" due to his cat-like stealth in the pursuit of suspects in the Oklahoma Territory.

Born in Coventry, New York, Johnson was educated at the University of Nebraska. Following college, he stayed in Lincoln, Nebraska and worked at The Lincoln Daily News before becoming manager of the Nebraska News Bureau. He met Lillie M. Trevitt while in Lincoln and the two were married in 1886. Johnson's first wife died in 1927 and he married May B. Stanley of Washington D.C. in 1928.

During his time in Nebraska, Johnson's views on temperance were formed and he gained a reputation as a Prohibitionist. In 1889, while Nebraska was engaged in a debate over statewide prohibition, Johnson posed as an anti-Prohibitionist to obtain information from brewery and saloon owners. He then published information which was detrimental to the "wet" cause.

Johnson's temperance activities earned him governmental notice and he was appointed special agent of the Department of the Interior to enforce laws in Indian Territory and Oklahoma in 1906. He was chief agent of the United States Indian Service from July 1908 until September 1911 and secured more than 4,400 convictions through a practice of sweeping into gambling saloons and other disorderly places. Saloon keepers affected by Johnson's raids banded together to offer a US$3,000 reward for his death. Upon learning of the reward, Johnson changed to nighttime raids and destroyed most of the raided establishments.

After resigning from federal service, he moved to Kansas and began working with the Anti-Saloon League. There "he developed some of the tactics that would later be widely used in the Anti-Saloon League. For example, he wrote to wet leaders falsely claiming to be a brewer and asked for advice on how to defeat temperance activists. He then published the letters he received to embarrass and discredit his opposition."