The Utah Anti-Tobacco Law of 1920

The Utah Anti-Tobacco Law of 1920 By Fred L. W. Bennett Habitual users of tobacco seem to think that smoking is natural to mankind like breathing, talking, eating, and that those persons who do not smoke are peculiar or abnormal; and so when the latter voice their objections to the use of tobacco in their presence, they are denounced as fanatics and killjoys and accused of interfering with the rights of others. This was brought out very forcibly during one of the public discussions on the anti-tobacco measure passed by the last legislature. The author of the bill was criticised by a local business man because he had asked that smoking in barber shops be made unlawful. I do not have a report of the discussion before me at the mo- ment, but this is, in effect, what was said: Business man: "Why should I not be allowed to enjoy a smoke whilst waiting for a shave?" Author of the Bill: "Whilst you are enjoying that smoke it might be very offensive to me." Business man, with an air of one who has won a great vic- tory: "Then shave yourself at home!" That is the attitude of most smokers; they seem quite in- capable of understanding that tobacco was not known to civil- ized man until comparatively recent times, and that it is those who use it who are peculiar and "different." I wish this could be flashed in the face of every smoker when he lights his to- bacco in the presence of a non-smoker; he might hesitate be- fore he did it again. It is not only that smoking is a modern fad, as history goes; but it is one that was copied from a de- graded, dirty, backward people who were not at all "smart" as their imitators imagine themselves to be! The use of tobacco has become a positive menace. There are few who will not agree that it is responsible for hundreds and thousands of disastrous fires throughout the nation, in which human life, as well as property, is often lost, but there are a great many who do not realize its danger to health. We are often told that a man has a right to hurt himself by using tobacco, if he likes, but I am not concerned here with the smoker's health — or I would have something to say on this question, I am thinking of the non-smoker who is often com- pelled to inhale tobacco fumes, hour after hour, and day after day, with no chance of escape. Take the girls — and boys, too — who are running the elevators in our office buildings; they have to breathe tobacco smoke from the time they get into their cars until it is time to go home. Many smokers will carry burning

THE UTAH ANTI-TOBACCO LAW 75 tobacco in their hands when they enter an elevator and refrain from putting it between their lips until they step out, but oth- ers will puff as hard as they would on a desert! I believe the practice of smoking in elevators is more prevalent than it was a year ago, for one rarely steps into a crowded car now with- out seeing tobacco. The law passed by the last legislature for- bids even the carrying of a lighted cigar, cigarette or pipe in a public elevator. Another section of the law in question seeks to prohibit the sale of cigarettes or cigarette papers in the state, and to many people this is the most important function of the recent act, because if it were obeyed, smoking among young people would be reduced to a minimum. Many opponents of the law have contended that it is inconsistent to select one form of tobacco for prohibition and permit the other forms to be used. Others have held that there is no logic in passing a law against the sale of a thing unless its use is to be prohibited, too. I will grant that both of these objections are reasonable. It does seem strange that a man should not be allowed to use tobacco in that form which suits him best, if he is to be permitted to use it at all, and it seems even more strange that tobacco in a certain form cannot be sold in the very place where it may be used without let or hindrance. Mr. Smoke*, Mr. Tobacco- Trade: we realize the situation and can see humor in it as well as you. But what is the alternative? Do you wish us to be perfectly logical and insist that, in the first case, tobacco be stamped out, root and branch; and in the second, that the use of cigarettes in Utah be forbidden as well as their sale? If tobacco is to be kept from the growing boy and girl with- out abolishing its use altogether, the only way it can be accom- plished is by attacking the cigarette, and in any way that seem:, expedient, for the cigarette is the door through which the to- bacco habit is entered. I have heard people who profess to be enemies of tobacco attack the cigarette law on the ground of inconsistency, but I cannot think such persons are really friends of the no-tobacco movement; they are too ready to play into the hands of its opponents. One of the greatest objections of- fered by the opponents of the anti-cigarette law when it was be- fore the legislature was that it could not be enforced. But why should it not be possible to enforce such a law? I am aware that the present act, except insofar as it relates to the advertising of cigarettes, is more or less a dead letter, but that is because the majority of those in whose hands the enforcement of law lies are opposed to or indifferent to this particular measure and wink at its violation. Let our police officers give this anti-tobacco law the same careful consideration and attention that they give other laws, and no one will be able to sneer at it on the ground

76 IMPROVEMENT ERA of lack of enforcement. But if they are determined to treat it with contempt, men should be put in their places who will uphold the law. This will not be difficult of accomplishment if our citizens who believe in the enforcement of such a law, — and they are in the large majority, or the recent act would never have been passed in the face of such strenuous opposition from the tobacco interests — would put their shoulder to the wheel. Some have said that the Salt Lake City Commission has not passed a city ordinance conforming with the anti-cig- arette act, because certain of its members desire to be re-elected and they are afraid to be thought on the side of this particular law! If our anti-tobacco friends in the city and state will stand by their convictions during the coming elections and vote for only those candidates who are prepared to enforce the law re- gardless of their own personal prejudices, this state of affairs will quickly come to an end. It is up to the people, for we are living under a democratic form of government, where the ma- jority rule, and not under Caesars, Kaisers and Czars. There is no excuse for the attitude of our city commission- ers and those county authorities who have made no effort to enforce this measure of tobacco reform. They have sworn to uphold the law, and if the enforcement of the one in question goes against their conscience ( ! ) they should resign. The whole trouble seems to be, as was said at the beginning of this article, that the users of tobacco are convinced that all who do not smoke are "cranks," and they are going to ignore any regula- tion for curtailing their "liberties" unless that regulation is pressed by the greatest determination on the part of the non- smokers. But so long as the people of Utah, who are opposed to the indiscriminate use of tobacco, allow petty politics and inertia to stand in the way of their duty to the youth of this state and their own rights as citizens and neglect to see that the right men are chosen to enforce the laws, the disgusting, nauseat- ing habit of smoking in public elevators, dining rooms, and other enclosed places and the increasing use of cigarettes among the youth will not be checked. If the law is to be ignored, if those who would be known as enemies of the tobacco habit cannot be aroused to action, let me appeal to the smokers to refrain from using tobacco in the public elevators of our city, at least. Let them not do it out of respect for law, but out of consideration for the girls and boys who are forced to earn a living and who are compelled to stay in a stuffy little elevator car hour after hour from which the smoke cannot escape, whilst they them- selves can go out into the fresh air at pleasure. If they are aggrieved at the efforts of the no-tobacconists and the action of the last legislature, let them do it IN SPITE of the Law ! Salt Lake City, Utah