--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Brown, Will H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 24 number: 9 published: 1921-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Brown, Will H., "Good Tobacco Business," *Improvement Era* 24, no. 9 (July 1921): 809.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2409unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2409unse start_page: 809 end_page: 809 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2409unse publication_year: 1921 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Good Tobacco Business "Good Tobacco Business" By Will H. Brown The Canadian Cigar and Tobacco Journal, last December, made some surprising admissions, in an effort to encourage to- bacco dealers to cheer up, despite unfavorable conditions and the cries of calamity howlers, saying that men will smoke, re- gardless of any other consideration. Its first statement is rather mild: "Even though the business man must curtail some of his 'luxury' money, he will continue to smoke his favorite brand of cigars." But the next declaration is brutally frank: "The worker will, even though jobless, continue to enjoy his cigarette. In the line-up of unemployed in the cities, the applicants, without an actual meal in sight, puff their cigarettes. The smoker will not do without his smoke" Then comes this cold-blooded comment: "It may be poor economics, but it is good tobacco business." Sure, it is "good tobacco business," but that any one could gloat over such facts seems incredible. It matters not that a man is out of work with not a cent in his pocket, and not a meal in sight, so long as he smokes. Yes, it is "good tobacco business" for a man to spend his last dollar for tobacco, leaving his wife and children to be fed and clothed by others, as many a man has done, while he begs his smokes from other slaves to the habit! It is "good tobacco business" to devote land, labor and money to producing the weed, even though the land, labor and money are sorely needed in producing food to keep people from starving! — This is all good tobacco business but were it possible for a visitor to drop down on our earth from some other planet, he would be excused for thinking us a very low order of human beings. A Crime Against Our Boys and Girls One of the deplorable conditions in the United States is the shortage of homes, depriving several million children of the right to live in comfort and amid helpful family surroundings. At the 1920 Building Trades Conference in Chicago the state- ment was made that the shortage of homes had reached one million. Later estimates place it at nearer two million.