--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Unknown collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 32 number: 9 published: 1929-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Unknown, “Reaction Against Cigarette Advertising,” *Improvement Era* 32, no. 9 (July 1929): 728–729." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3209unse 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: improvementera3209unse start_page: 728 end_page: 729 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1929-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3209unse publication_year: 1929 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 1929, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Reaction Against Cigarette Advertising Reaction Against Cigarette Advertising The Pacific Printer and Publisher, of San Francisco, in its issue of May, 1929, contains the following items: THE Chehalis (Wash.) Lewis County Advocate has banned cigarette advertising from its columns. The Advocate is owned and published by Chapin D. Foster, a former president of the Washington Press Association. The Advocate is one of the outstanding weekly newspapers of Washington. Mr. Foster's editorial announcing the new policy follows: After a good many weeks of rather intensive consideration, the publisher of the Advocate has reached the conclusion that it is time for this paper to adopt a rather unusual policy with regard to one kind of advertising which has been found from time to time in the columns of this newspaper as it has in the columns of every other newspaper in the country. Speaking rather bluntly, the decision is to accept no more cigarette advertising so long as the present program is being carried on by the tobacco folks. So far as we know, the Advocate is the first newspaper to adopt such a policy, but we predict it will not be the last. Decision in the matter is not, we feel, due to any prudish or unreasonable ideas. We simply feel that there ought to be a limit to the extent any manufacturer will go to secure expansion of his busi- ness, and the cigarette people have not indicated that they have any limit in mind. The Advocate is a pretty personal proposition with its pub- lisher. He wants to produce a paper that can be a welcome guest in any home, that father, mother and the children can peruse its columns with a friendly feeling toward the editor and all the busi- ness men who aid in making its publication possible. Cigarette folks experienced a great boom during the war. Boys in the army were buried under cigarettes as well as mud, as a patriotic duty. The industry grew by leaps and bounds, and more leaps. Since the war they have been trying to keep up the wartime peak and even more. Apparently the saturation point had been reached with male smokers. Some chap got the brilliant idea that women and girls might greatly step-up the production and the manufacturers chuckled. Every known form of advertising has been brought into play — and have brought results as all intensive advertising does. Hardly a week passes but people remark about advertising in July, 1929 REACTION AGAINST CIGARETTE ADVERTISING 729 the Advocate and tell how it has helped them in one way or another. We have yet to have a mother or father tell us that they ap- preciate our aid in inducing their boy or girl to take up a questionable habit. We have heard a good many speak very emphatically against the habit and wonder how they can combat the expenditure of millions to turn boys and girls into cigarette smokers. No doubt a good many folks will smile at our stand. Cer- tainly, it will not do much to check the game of manufacturers who apparently would take their product to the cradle if not blocked. What one country editor may do will not cause any manufacturer to lose much sleep. The publisher of the Advocate may have too idealistic a notion about his profession but he does not want to be a party to the transac- tion as outlined by the cigarette manufacturers and therefore declines to accept their money, much as advertising dollars are appreciated. We confidently hope and believe that this statement of policy will be accepted by our readers in the same spirit in which it has been adopted. Cigarette Advertising Condemned In a number of towns in California there has been a discussion of the quality of certain billboard advertising for cigarettes. Various clubs and civic bodies are objecting strenuously to the exhibiting of such pictures as the one showing a young man in the act of "getting a light" from a young woman. This happened in Selma, Hemet, Corcoran, and Crockett. In some or all of these towns, the offensive boards were discontinued. Baptism When we are discussing religion several of my friends find it soothing to their conscience to repeat the old phrase, "A just God would never be so exacting as to require that every one must be baptized in a certain way before he can enter into the celestial glory." It seems to me that there is an obvious answer to that contention. Did every spirit establish its individual means of entrance into this life, or, did we all greet mortality in the same manner? Did one spirit create for itself a body from the dust? Did another raise a corpse to hide its nakedness? Or, were we all born of earthly parents to inhabit earthly bodies in accordance with the law of procreation? Even the Christ was born of woman. We all came into this life in identically the same way. Is it surprising then, that there should be laws equally strict and un- alterable, governing our entrance into that other life in the presence of the Father? Is it reasonable that the Creator should be less exacting as to the entering into his very presence than he was as to the entrance into this life? * * * and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine only begotten." Moses 6:58. Why should we hesitate to obey? — Verle N. Fry.