Life — April 28, 1921 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ations Hard- trong rding April 28 as international. The President and Con- ‘ess now have full power. They can try anything that looks good to them, but passing bills in Congress will not promote prosperity unless they really meet the situation. And the situation is mainly a world situation, HAT the world always needs, but needs very particularly just now, is mething that will make it fool-proof. The need applies to small things and to creat. For example, one reads in the paper that the W. C. T. U. has started a campaign against tobacco in all its forms. It is sending out literature—so the papers tell us—asking for prohibition of smok- ing in public places, and telling how the smoker is “handicapped through life.” Clergymen are asked to attack tobacco from the pulpit and Sunday school-teachers to give it attention in their lessons, Now the W. C. T. U. is not really a very formidable organization. It ful- minated against rum for many years, but hy no means accomplished prohibition. That was done in a different way by quite a different sort of proceduri Tt was the result of a very clever application of astute and sustained political organiza- tion concentrated upon one single point. As to prohibition the W. C. T. U. never did anything, that we know of, more im- portant than to sing in the chorus of that activity. . There are annoying abuses of tobacco. There are smokers who smoke at the wrong time and in the wrong places, who are inconsiderate of everybody and every- thing except self-indulgence. There are smokers who carry lighted cigars into the public conveyances and respect as little as they dare the lawful and reasonable prohibitions of smoking that now exist. That sort of smoking should be dis- couraged with as much emphasis as pos- sible by individuals, by organizations, by officers of the law; and the sale of Gi rettes to boys should be discouraged. To- bacco is not good for the young, but the suppression of tobacco, even to the extent that rum has been suppressed, would probably turn out to be a great evil, To- bacco is a solace. It soothes the nerves of persons who are addicted to It does uot make them crazy nor intoxicate them. Wage earners do not blow in their week's carnings on tobacco, They buy it when they want it, but smoking one cigar does w NO ENTANGLING i | | ALLIANCES” | WASHINGTON. “1 RECKON THAT SIGN DOE: not make them want to smoke six more. Of course, tobacco is a poison, but a comparatively safe one. a poison, but we take some on occasion. If the W. C. T. U. could drive tobacco out of use, the world would not be better. It would be worse—more impatient, more Fatigue is also revolutionary, less reasonable in its feel- ings. Men are not like the animals who are satisfied to be fed with wholesome food and thrive peaceably if they get cnough of it. Wholesome food helps men out very much, but it does not insure their contentment: Neither does tobacco, but on. the whole tobacco seems to do more good than harm in the present condition of human life. When the millennium comes tobacco will doubtless go out of use, but meanwhile it comes in very handy, and it is worth noting that in lowa the anti cigarette law has lately been repealed. 'T MEAN AS MUCH AS IT ONCE Dib.” CA. yas URELY that young man in Buffalo, who confessed to the killing of Joseph “Iwell, deserves a first prize as a space filler. For a week the newspapers had expensive information about him by the column, and printed it on their first pages. If we knew what was the total cost of publishing his story to the world we would be astonished, and the story it seems was all a lie. ITH Ireland full of handsome women, why did the instigators of Irish Re- lief put out the picture of such an out- rageous homely one in front of the Pub- lic Library! E. S. Martin, comicbooks.com