On the Run

"On the Run" The Tobacco Record, one of the leading tobacco papers in the United States, published in Brooklyn, New York, has the following editorial under date of May 11, 1921, which shows the attitude of the Tobacco People on the nation-wide fight that is being made against the use of tobacco. The Era quotes it in full. Notice how they worry over the "solace of tobacco:"

"Don't Laugh When They Tell us They are Going to Make Everybody Stop Smoking!" Think of What the Prohibitionists Did

Several hundred earnest men and women assembled in New York recently to voice their protest against the enactment of blue laws. Governor Edward I. Edwards of New Jersey was one of the principal speakers, and he sounded a key note when he said: "Don't laugh when they tell us they are going to make everybody stop smoking. That's just what we did when they talked about prohibition." It would be well if these words of Governor Edwards could be forcibly impressed upon the mind of every friend of tobacco, for while there can be no question but that the friends of tobacco in the United States vastly outnumber its enemies, it is a fact that too many of these friends have been inclined to treat the efforts of the anti-tobacconists as a joke. To the great majority of the friends of the weed it has seemed inconceivable that a relatively small minority could ever bring about the enactment of laws that would deprive the majority of the solace of tobacco, and therefore they have been inclined to regard the anti-tobacconists as objects of mirth rather than as a menace to the personal liberty of the American people. Yet, the Tobacco Record submits that it is no more inconceivable today that the United States may come to be dominated by the anti-tobacconists within the next ten years, than it was ten years ago that the idea of nation-wide, bone-dry Prohibition would have become a part of the fundamental law of the land by 1920. Comparatively few of the friends of the weed seem to have the slightest conception of the fact that the anti-tobacconists are working more zealously and more assiduously at the present time than the Prohibitionists worked any time in the past. The recent announcement in the daily newspapers that four express car loads of anti-tobacco literature attached to a fast mail train has passed through Omaha on a given date on its way from New York to California, and that this shipment was part of a 50 carload lot of anti-tobacco literature that had been prepared and printed in New York for distribution in all parts of the country, demonstrated that the anti-tobacconists were not lacking in powerful financial resources. But the preparation, printing and distribution of hundreds of tons of anti-tobacco literature, is only an incident in the nationwide campaign for

742 IMPROVEMENT ERA the abolition of tobacco. In the great state of Ohio a determined band of men and women are working with a zeal and determination worthy of a far better cause. We will let Charles M. Fillmore, the general secretary of the No-Tobacco League, tell the story in his own language: "The Ohio branch of the No-Tobacco League of America is waking things up," says General Secretary Fillmore, "and if we had 40 workers in as many states doing such work as is being done by Mrs. Carrie L. Flatter, State Secretary of Ohio, we would soon revolutionize the nation on the tobacco question. She has built up a great organization already, but she is constantly adding to its strength and efficiency. Mrs. Flatter is now arranging itineraries of speakers for the county institutes of public school teachers, and next Fall and Winter she is to have speakers in over 300 Farmers' Institutes. Fifty ministers in Dayton have voted to open their churches for a no-tobacco field day, and a number of house to house educators are already in the field while others are being engaged right along. Many school teachers are enlisting to spend their Summer vacations in working for the No-Tobacco League." Intensive work such as is outlined above is bound to produce results in the creation of a sort of fictitious public sentiment which will lead timid and weak kneed politicians and legislators to lend their support to anti-tobacco legislation in the near future. Furthermore, in the several states that are more or less under the influence of the "Mormon" Church of Latter-day Saints, the anti-tobacco sentiment is being vigorously and intensively cultivated. Many "Mormon" merchants and store keepers in Idaho, New Mexico and Arizona [why forget — Utah? Ed. Era] are reported to have recently voluntarily discontinued the sale of tobacco in all forms. In the town of Cowley, Wyoming, as a result of the crusade instituted by the "Mormon" Church, all of the local merchants agreed to sell no more tobacco, and the fact was signalized by a local celebration, in which a long cortege with two bands of music followed a hearse in which was a coffin supposed to contain the mortal remains of My Lady Nicotine to a funeral pyre, where the coffin was burned and a funeral oration was delivered by a local clergyman. In view of these and many more signs of zealous activity on the part of the anti-tobacconists, the Tobacco Record feels most keenly that the warning to the friends of the weed voiced by Governor Edwards, should be taken to heart. The warfare against the personal liberty of the people to seek solace in tobacco is no matter for laughter.

M. I. A.. Slogans

1914-15, We stand for a Sacred Sabbath and Weekly Half Holiday. 1915-16, We stand for a Weekly Home Evening. 1916-17, We stand for State and Nation-wide Prohibition. 1917-18, We stand for Thrift and Economy. 1918-19, We stand for Service to God and Country. 1919-20, We stand for Spiritual Growth through Attendance at Sacrament Meetings. 1920-21, We stand for the Non-use and Non-sale of Tobacco. 1921-22, We stand for Loyal Citizenship.