Is a Tobacco Crusade Coming?
I
WITH the prohibition of liquor an accomplished fact, there is evidence of increased activity on the part of those who oppose the use of tobacco. ‘Anti-tobacco’ leaflets flit through the mails with greater frequency. New ‘cures ’ for the tobacco-user appear in the magazine advertisements. Newspaper headlines of such tenor as ‘Nicotine Next,’ or ‘ A Tobaccoless World by 1925,’ recur. An organization that devotes a part of its energy to the elimination of smoking has just completed a moneyraising campaign. Significant indications of anxiety are to be noted among members of the tobacco industry.
In some well-informed quarters, the opinion appears that a national movement to suppress or greatly to restrict smoking may take definite form. One of the chief causes of this opinion is the vast amount of reform energy and ability that has been dumped upon the sociological market by the adoption of prohibition. When the Anti-Saloon League programme was achieved, it was supposed that a goodly proportion of its well-paid and efficient organizers would seek new employment. One change already has been made: Dr. Edwin C. Dinwiddie, the National Legislative Superintendent of the League, has resigned to become General Superintendent of the Southern Sociological Congress. The feeling naturally arises that some of these experts may look with real favor upon a war of extermination against tobacco.
It has been a year of rumors and surprises as to things political, in which were mingled some exaggerated assertions regarding the future of tobacco. One such rumor had it that a wellknown millionaire philanthropist had set aside a million and a half for an investigation of the pathological effects of smoking. That sounded in a measure like the history of the Anti-Saloon League propaganda repeating itself; for any drive against tobacco that was to be based so soundly in scientific research merited serious consideration. No such appropriation has been made by the millionaire in question, however, and the origin of the story remains to be disclosed.
Oddly enough, it was this report, later disproved, which launched me upon a period of inquiry regarding the real outlook. What follows represents no effort to assess the arguments for or against tobacco, or to augment or impair the force of the new reform’; it is merely a summary of such available material as sheds light on future possibilities.
II
Although it is but natural to expect that a movement against tobacco would draw heavily from the forces that dominated the prohibitory movement, it is somewhat surprising to note the definiteness of the New York World’s assertion (April 18, 1920) that ‘the nation-wide campaign for the abolition of tobacco’ has been under way a year or more. ‘The time when the suggestion of tobacco prohibition could be laughed at has passed,’ says the World. ‘It is a definite possibility; and unless vigorously met, it will become a real probability. The same forces that imposed prohibition on an unwilling nation are behind the anti-tobacco movement. They are the sharpest, shrewdest and most adroit politicians, — past masters in the field of practical politics, — who don’t hesitate to use any means to carry their point.’
Among the active forces that can be listed as arrayed against the use of tobacco and as in some way aligned with ideas which, when carried out, will mean the restriction or abolition of tobacco, are the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Life-Extension Institute of New York. There are a number of additional factors in the opposition to tobacco, including influential personalities and business leaders who give consideration to claims of increased physical efficiency as a result of freedom from the tobacco habit.
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is without doubt the most powerful and the most formidable organization which is actively opposing the use of tobacco. This is an organization of great scope and power, without whose efforts the adoption of national prohibition would have been extremely difficult. The New York World authority asserts that the Union, indeed, ‘used the AntiSaloon League as shock troops in the prohibition campaign’; and the figure of speech is not entirely misleading. This organization is now distributing, in large numbers, a pamphlet entitled Nicotine Next, which was prepared in 1918 by Frederick William Roman, Professor of Economics in Syracuse University. The booklet is but one of the many outgivings of the Union on the subject of smoking, which has ever been viewed by it as the twin evil of drink. It is, indeed, the cumulative result of its propaganda against tobacco which provides the foundation for the proposed crusade. For thirty years the findings of medical science on smoking, particularly by young men and women, have been constantly brought before the public, but with the advent of the Roman booklet the propaganda enters more ambitious fields. Economic questions, such as the alleged waste of land in the production of tobacco, healthconditions of tobacco-workers, the destruction of property and absorption of capital entailed in smoking, firelosses and loss of industrial efficiency, are raised, to provide an unsentimental background for the subject-matter of the argument. The publication deals also with the cases of prominent public men and leaders of this and other generations who have not been smokers. Of this publication, it may be said that it recognizes the modern method of sociological propaganda utilized so effectively by the Anti-Saloon League, and that it attempts an appeal to the reasoning process and to material interests, rather than the unmeasured attack on the smoking habit which colors a hundred publications on the shelves of the Congressional Library and has brought odium upon the critics of smoking as fanatics and extremists.
The Union maintains a ‘Department of Anti-Narcotics’ which has an impressive output of slogan material, including pledge-cards, blotters, stickers, posters, in addition to the pamphlets and booklets already referred to. The Union also publishes the weekly Union Signal at Evanston, Illinois, and the Young Crusader, whose columns provide a means of dissemination of ideas in regard to the use of tobacco.
The Union has always devoted much of its energy to the prevention of smoking among boys. Despite the extensive state legislation prohibiting the sale of tobacco to persons below sixteen or eighteen years of age, it is an opinion easily vindicated by consumption figures that smokers form a larger percentage of the rising generation than of the preceding one. The scientific facts against the use of tobacco by young persons are overwhelming. No mother is willing to have her young son smoke. Therefore, the anti-tobacco propaganda, in so far as it has been directed into this field, has been unanswerable. Legislation ought not to be necessary in any state to prevent the sale of tobacco to a growing youngster. Selfinterest should prompt tobacco-dealers to establish a voluntary prohibition. The reformers, contemplating a larger programme, rightly appreciate that the logical and strategical entering wedge in the matter of legislation is the protection of the young. Youngsters who smoke are really making a vigorous contribution, therefore, to the antitobacco crusade. This is a main consideration that has rallied the support of womankind to the reformers — this, and the average woman’s natural aversion to the aftermath of smoking by a member of her household.
Astute observers of the situation from the standpoint of the tobacco interests have given much study also to the matter of smoking among women; and it is interesting to note that at least one of the larger companies producing cigarettes makes absolutely no effort to exploit their sale among women.
A hardly less interesting bit of propaganda against the use of tobacco is a leaflet — ‘What It Costs to Smoke Tobacco ’ — which bears the imprint of the Life-Extension Institute of New York City. This leaflet, which was sent to me recently by the Institute, asserts that the Honorable William H. Taft is Chairman of the Board, and that the other officers include Professor Irving Fisher, Chairman of the Hygiene Reference Board; Eugene Lyman Fisk, Medical Director; Harold A. Ley, President; James D. Lanahan, Secretary; Henry H. Bowman, Arthur W. Eaton, Robert W. deForest, Edward L. Pierce, and Charles H. Sabin — the latter President of the Guaranty Trust Company. Interest in the potential influence of the Life-Extension Institute upon the use of tobacco is justified, not only by the personality and importance of the men whose names are used in connection with it, but also by the fact that this organization recently carried on a national advertising campaign which, no doubt, considerably increased the funds at its disposal for the support of its policy and programme. The LifeExtension Institute provides primarily a service of health-examinations and educational letters and advice, ‘available at a moderate cost to individuals applying directly, to life-insurance companies for their policy-holders, employers for their employees, and to members of clubs, societies, schools, etc.’ Its so-called ‘Keep Well’ leaflets are supposedly concerned solely with the prolongation of life and its betterment; but the authors of its publications do not restrict themselves to the field of health and physiology in their opposition to smoking. In fact, I find in the leaflet in question a most illuminating presentation of the financial aspects of the national consumption of tobacco. After showing that the United States is consuming tobacco at the annual rate of seven pounds per capita, while the United Kingdom consumes only two pounds per capita, and estimating that our annual expenditure is more than a billion dollars, the Life-Extension Institute authority essays an accounting of the other side of the ledger.
Recalling no doubt the genial defense of tobacco made by the New York Sun and other independently minded publications in the past few years, the writer suggests that, whatever the good grace with which we may have looked upon it for its association with the works of genius and its solacing of tired nerves, ‘there is little difference of opinion as to its effects on the worker in science and in industry.’ ‘ It is a curious fact,’ asserts the writer, ‘that the man of science and the hard-headed business man, on comparing notes, arrive at the same conclusion regarding both alcohol and tobacco. According to them, these drugs are not compatible with work. The cigarette-smoker is ruled against by most employers. The man who is wide-awake, snappy, and alert, who does not reach for his pipe or cigarette as he leaves his desk, is looked upon as a free man, who does not lean upon a prop; one whose brain is ready to respond to the calls on it and does not have to take medicine in the form of tobacco for a day’s work.’
Regarding this alleged effect of smoking on personal efficiency, Professor Farnum, quoted by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, asserts that such successful men of business as Henry Ford and Thomas A. Edison, and such employers of labor as the Cadillac Motor Car Company, the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, Marshall Field & Company, of Chicago, John Wanamaker, and many others, condemn the use of cigarettes by their employees.
It is too early yet to list the AntiSaloon League among the organizations threatening tobacco. The League farsightedly declines any present connection with the movement, feeling that such a commitment would complicate its present work. Its leaders are convinced that it would be unwise at this time for it to become public that they were instituting another campaign or propaganda. Time, and the more secure enthronement of prohibition, may present the subject in new aspects.
An clement in the movement that is not to be ignored is the increased activity of companies that sell the so-called ‘cures’ for smoking. These companies carry on a propaganda that is even more energetic and impetuous than that of the philanthropic organizations previously referred to in this article. They leave nothing unsaid that can be thought of to prejudice the public against tobacco. One such statement that recently caught my eye in the advertising pages of a magazine was this: ‘ You know better than anyone else that you ought to stop because, sooner or later, it [tobacco] is bound to undermine your health. Heart-trouble, indigestion, dyspepsia, nervousness, insomnia, poor eyesight — these, and many other disorders, can often be traced to the use of tobacco. Besides, it is an expensive, utterly useless habit.’ The demand for these 4 cures ’ is steadily increasing and is being developed by the utilization of modern merchandising methods; within the past six months, I am informed, 300,000 lines of space in 400 different publications have been utilized to paint the evils of tobacco and the effectiveness of tobacco cures. A reader who is induced to write for particulars is pursued for months thereafter by pamphlets and form-letter literature, intended to convince him that tobacco is a demon as greatly to be feared as the demon rum.
From the standpoint of volume, the legislation already on the statute-books of the States is quite extensive. Laws to prevent the sale of tobacco to persons under eighteen years of age, or of greater stringency, have been adopted in the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma,Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Perhaps the most drastic state law is that of Kansas, a summary of which, recently prepared, reads:—
‘It is unlawful to sell or give away or “to have in any store or other place of business” cigarettes or cigarette-papers; or to advertise cigarettes, or to sell on news-stands or trains newspapers or magazines carrying cigarette advertisements, or to sell or give away to any person less than twenty-one years of age any smoking material, including tobacco and cigarettes. It is likewise unlawful for the proprietor of a place of business, including railroads, railway stations, and street cars, to permit minors of less than twenty-one years of age to use tobacco in any form, on penalty of a fine of $25 to $100 for each offense. “If, upon what seems reasonable evidence, any person, company, or corporation is suspected of having in his or its possession any cigarettes or cigarette papers to be offered for sale, barter, or free distribution,” on sworn complaint of any citizen, “any officer authorized to make arrests” may search the premises of the suspected firm without search-warrant, and confiscate any cigarettes or cigarette papers.’1
It is notable that the most stringent legislation has been adopted in certain Western states, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa, where the tobacco-crop is not large, and the interest of the agricultural population is not challenged by the restriction. The extent of state legislation, however, while interesting, is not of great importance to the study of the possibilities of a new onslaught against smoking, because of the fact that the bulk of it has been on the statute-books for several years and is, therefore, in a sense, dissociated from a possible national development.
III
Even if first-hand material were not available to prove the existence of an extensive and energetic propaganda against tobacco, we could not ignore the many evidences of anxiety within the tobacco industry. The tobacco interests, powerfully financed and intelligently advised, have not failed to scrutinize every phase and figment of the newly energized movement. In some respects, they are availing themselves of the lessons taught by the liquor interests in their ineffective fight against constitutional prohibition. Thus, an effort has been made to unify the defensive activity of the vast army of producers and distributors of tobacco-products. To this end, the different elements of the industry have been harmonized in a national organization, known as the Tobacco Merchants’ Association. This organization is empowered to act in behalf of all branches of the industry. It has selected trained investigators to study the situation and to guide its policy, and has raised ample funds for such counter-propaganda as may be decided upon. Assurance is given that, when the time comes for aggressive action, it will be taken with due promptness.
At a recent annual meeting of the association, an interesting discussion of the anti-tobacco movement took place, and the President, Mr. Charles J. Eisenlohr, delivered a speech which deserves to be included, in part, in this article, as representing the opposite point of view from that of the antitobacco propagandists.
‘Undoubtedly,’ said the speaker, ‘the great majority of the people of this country are opposed to any movement which will further abridge their fundamental rights to enjoy the gifts of nature to mankind. If it is possible to legally restrain the people from the unrestricted use of tobacco, it is possible to deprive them of tea or coffee, regulate the styles of clothes they shall wear, prescribe rules for popular entertainment and recreation, and abolish such plays and motion-pictures as fail to meet the requirements of radicals in every walk of life who oppose everything that does not conform to their own views. The very objects for which this great Republic was founded would, if such legislation were accomplished, be subverted, and personal liberty be sacrificed beyond hope of resuscitation.’
The spokesman of the tobacco interests went into much detail in his denial of kinship between liquor prohibition and the movement against tobacco, while he charged definitely that the liquor-prohibition forces have now taken up the warfare against smoking. ‘ Tobacco does not excite or intoxicate,’ he asserted, ‘ but it soothes and pacifies. Tobacco does not incite to the commission of crime, but it promotes sober deliberation and moral contentment. Tobacco does not lure men from the fireside, but it cements family ties and adds immeasurably to the harmony of the home. The elements that constituted the “dramatic appeal” for prohibition are, as a matter of common knowledge, utterly lacking in the case of cigars, cigarettes, or tobacco in any form, with the result that the new crusade is based chiefly on the question of health and hygiene. Surely this onslaught will crumble now, as it did once before, under the infallible test of scientific examination and analysis. Under these circumstances it is certain that neither the public sympathy nor the philanthropic support which helped the prohibitionists will be accorded any movement against tobacco. Indeed, we have every reason to believe that the present gale of vilification will blow itself out and die unnoticed at the feet of scientific truth and intelligent public opinion.’
These confident assertions were hardly uttered, however, before a committee began work on a defensive policy. When that committee reported, it indorsed the following recommendations: ‘Though entirely confident of the final outcome, the situation is one that demands the utmost vigilance and the most serious consideration. It is time for everyone, in all divisions of the tobacco industry and its allied industries, to constitute himself a guardian of the personal liberty involved in this issue, working for the common good and through a common centre. Crusades, whether they are animated by a genuine desire to correct existing evils, or are projected by self-serving individuals, gather momentum, and sometimes, unless checked by intelligent and judicious opposition, sweep all before them. In so far as the anti-tobacco movement is concerned, it is of supreme importance that our industry concentrate all its energies to combat its influence. That the claims of those who inveigh against tobacco are wholly without foundation has been proved time and again by famous chemists, physicians, toxicologists, physiologists, and experts of every nation and clime. That they have given tobacco a clean bill of health and pronounced it a great God-given boon to mankind has not lessened the activities of those opposed to it, but on the contrary, seems to have stimulated their antagonism.
‘While we have no quarrel with honest reformers, we find it necessary, to protect our own interests, to make vigorous reply to the false and misleading statements contained in the antitobacco propaganda that is being spread throughout the country.’
The alertness of the tobacco interests in itself contributes to the probability that no such prohibition movement will assume important proportions. Because of their alertness, these interests will be careful to avoid blunders of policy, such as those by which the liquor producers challenged the decent opinion of the country and facilitated the objects of the Anti-Saloon League.
IV
The very magnitude of the tobacco industry, and its importance to the economic life and well-being of the country, might well give pause to those who suggest that we remove it by capital operation from the economic body. Among the giant industries of the nation at the time of the liquor industry’s destruction, its predominance over that industry was particularly evident in the field of foreign trade: while the United States was a debtor nation in so far as its imports and exports of intoxicants went, it was, to a very large extent, a creditor nation in the matter of tobaccoproducts.
Tobacco and cotton are two industries which receive special consideration from the government in statistical service, and complete information is gathered each year by the Bureau of the Census on every phase of tobaccoproduction, consumption, prices, and similar items. It is interesting in passing to observe that this special service on the part of the government’s statistical bureau is performed in deference, not to the vast manufacturing industry, but rather to the considerable number of agricultural voters who are interested in the production of tobacco and in tobacco markets. From Bulletin 139 of the Bureau of the Census, containing the latest complete tables on tobacco, we learn that in 1919 manufacturers and dealers had on hand 1,234,884,396 pounds of leaf-tobacco — a quantity so vast that only a trained statistician can overcome the inclination to shirk the task of computing how many cigars and cigarettes could be manufactured from it. The acreage devoted to the production of tobacco in 1918 was 1,549,000 of what is probably the finest and richest soil in America. The average price paid to the producer in 1918 was 27.9 cents per pound, far above the pricelevel of a few years earlier. The importance of tobacco-production in the foreign trade of the United States is revealed by the Census announcement that the total exports of tobacco-products amounted to $152,965,286, while our imports were only a little over $60,000,000. Our exportation of cigarettes reached 12,145,539,000, of which nearly seven billions went to China. The Chinaman is forswearing opium in this day of enlightenment, and finds much solace in American cigarettes.
Passing from the importance of tobacco to the agricultural population, who are owners of the million and a half rich acres devoted to its cultivation, we are not less deeply impressed by the scope of the manufacturing industry. The Census records show a total of 15,504 factories engaged in the manufacture of cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and snuff in 1918. They are operated under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, as distinct from fourteen bonded warehouses whose product is solely for export. These plants in 1914 employed 195,684 persons, at an annual remuneration of approximately $100,000,000.
The cigarette is the first pet aversion of the anti-tobacco propagandist, who is indebted to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for complete and exhaustive figures on the rapid pace at which Americans have been cultivating the cigarette habit. The Internal Revenue tables reveal a total cigarette production of approximately 50,000,000,000 in the year 1918. Of this number, nearly 11,000,000,000 were made in bonded warehouses for export, leaving a paltry residue of 39,000,000,000 for use in the United States. It will be seen that this total provided an allowance of something less than a cigarette a day for each resident of the United States — man, woman, and child alike. The statisticians of the government point with interest to the remarkable increase in the number of cigarettes consumed in recent years. In seven years preceding 1918, there was an increase of 262 per cent. Since 1897, the number consumed has been increased by more than 600 per cent: the per capita consumption of 50 cigarettes in 1897 increased to 380, although the per capita consumption of cigars, which was practically equal to that of cigarettes in 1897, has less than doubled.
The government, regarding tobacco as a luxury, has found it a prolific source of revenue ever since the Civil War, which likewise witnessed the real beginning of liquor taxes. In 1863, the government collected $3,000,000 from tobacco; in the next seven years the annual yield of these taxes increased to over $31,000,000. In 1918, Uncle Sam pocketed $155,757,278. The last figure is by no means all that the traffic will bear, in the opinion of taxation experts of Congress; and the next tax-bill written by the Ways and Means Committee may provide an additional levy on tobacco.
It is not surprising that the tobacco ‘ antis ’ have taken a leaf from the book of the prohibition propagandists in seeking to gain driving force for their arguments from the very magnitude of the tobacco industry. It is deplorable, they submit, that a million and a half of the finest acres of American agricultural lands should be devoted to the production of a plant that adds nothing to humanity’s store of food or clothing, and ‘is not conducive toward serving any legitimate demand aside from the insignificantly small quantity used in dyes and insecticides.’ An effort is made to deduce a relationship between the extent of the tobacco-growing industry on the one hand and the high price and scarcity of necessities of life on the other. The reasoning is submitted that, if these million and a half rich acres were devoted to the production of grains and other foodstuffs, it would tend strongly toward a reduction in the high cost of living. Indeed, the rapid growth of tobacco-culture, with its invasion each year of new productive areas where the soil is found suitable, is held to be one of the most harmful developments in our national economy. One of the pamphleteers of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union expresses derogatory opinions, in keeping with this point of view, of the policy of the War Industries Board in recognizing tobacco as an essential war-time industry. That writer believed it most illogical that, in a time of world-wide foodshortage and of belt-hitching economy extending to insistence upon war-gardening effort, the authorities at Washington should have allowed so large a proportion of our agricultural acreage and of farm labor to be utilized for the production of tobacco.
Always keeping foremost the contention that tobacco is a luxury, and a harmful one, the pamphleteers of the movement emphasize with increasing frequency the grand total of our annual income which is expended upon tobacco-products. They have arrived at an estimate of $1,200,000,000, although the Treasury Department and the Department of Justice accept a figure greater than two billions. In this day of heavy taxation and price-stringency there are, of course, many ways to show how usefully this vast sum might be employed in other departments of individual expenditures. The statistical experts of the movement against tobacco have not yet, however, pursued their researches to the ultimate source of information to which the handbooks of the Anti-Saloon League point the way. One of the points which they have failed to cover is the aggregate capitalization of concerns directly and indirectly participating in the production of tobacco usables. Had they the time and facilities for determining the total amount of the wealth of the country which is represented by tobacco stocks and securities, they might have another impressive total for their basic argument. But they do not fail to bring out the important claim that tobacco investments absorb large amounts of capital that might otherwise be available for the development of agriculture and so-called useful industries.
As their propaganda extends its scope, they will be confronted by many delicate questions of analysis which will perhaps not enure to their own advantage. The merest tyro in economics and finance will recognize that, whatever the grand total that annually ‘goes up in smoke,’ there would be a destructive side to the effort to save this total through prevention of smoking. The argument here comes back to the actual destruction of wealth which would be involved in ripping out the tobaccomanufacturing industry from our industrial structure. A gigantic volume of investments would, of course, vanish into thin air the moment that such an enterprise was seriously undertaken. Part of this capital would not be made available for other industries for the simple reason that it would be destroyed. It is a typical characteristic of such propaganda that it withholds complete analysis of such phases of its ultimate aims. Such movements are, of course, sociological in their nature and origin. Their supporters invade the realm of economics with a grand air of authority whenever a point can be made in support of their programme, but they retire when confronted with inevitable economic issues. In such circumstances, they disclaim willingness to have the case tried upon a materialistic basis — an attitude that was epitomized in the failure of the prohibitionists to incorporate in their programme any provision for the recognition of legitimate investments made in the liquor industry before the anti-saloon amendment was submitted.
Adoption of national prohibition of the use of intoxicants has had a farreaching effect in awakening thoughtful persons to the dangers that lie along the path of constitutional interference in personal and local matters. Constitutional law, instead of being a mysterious study mastered only by the expert, is rapidly coming out into the light of common day. The need for awakening the general public to the vital fact that the Constitution is the basis and principle of legislation, rather than an instrumentality of specific direction of individual life and habit, is fully appreciated now by many persons who did not work actively to prevent national prohibition. The recently organized Constitutional Liberty League is one of the instrumentalities through which a proper estimate of the Constitution’s function is being driven home. This organization, while it is concerned with orderly measures for liberalizing the condition with reference to existing prohibition, looks forward into the future when other efforts to amend the Constitution in similar fashion are possible, and pledges itself, ‘in all proper and lawful ways to influence public opinion, to the end that the standards of personal liberty of thought and conduct which were established by the founders of the Government of the United States shall be maintained and safeguarded’; and further, ‘to oppose any impairment of the rights of American citizens as vested in them by the first ten amendments of the Constitution of the United States, or by the Constitution itself.’ It is obvious that this declaration of purpose was drawn to cover just such interference with the rights of the individual as the antitobacco enthusiasts would perpetuate, and that it is indicative of a gathering spirit of opposition to such ‘reforms.’
This is but one of a number of factors that contribute to the opinion that the day of the anti-tobacco crusade is far off. There is not yet a real concert of action among the various organizations and individuals that are pointed in that direction, nor is there a common programme. Practically all the propaganda work is being aimed at the individual as the custodian of his own habits, while it is only by implication that the arguments for rooting out the production of tobacco are advanced. Not until there is union among these forces will there be strength sufficient to force constitutional change. In the matter of organization, the movement is in its first phase — comparable to the period before the Anti-Saloon League was organized, to give real drivingpower and an actual programme to the prohibition movement.
The easy course is to conclude that nothing will come of it; but only careless thinking tolerates that conclusion. Thousands of persons took this pose of confident assertion in the years when the prohibitory tide was rising. While it is true that the movement is only in its first phase, we should be ignoring recent political history if we relied too much upon the negative indications. The conservative view to take is that conditions have passed the stage where an anti-tobacco crusade was impossible to one where it is possible. It remains to be seen whether the movement will enter the realm of probable fulfillment.
Let us hope that the onslaught, if it comes, will be met by something better than a sudden, eleventh-hour propaganda of the corporations constituting the tobacco industry. For one thing, it is to be hoped that the ordinary man who likes his smoke will not be cowed and prevented from speaking out, as was the case with the ordinary man who indulged in intoxicating beverages.
- New YorkWorld, April 18, 1920.↩