The effect of war in the battle zones themselves is hardly less definite
than that which it exerts among the home populations of the nations
involved. With no uncertain hand it writes its name across the commercial
and social life of a country. There is hardly a phase of thought and
activity which does not show marked reaction to war conditions.
For one thing, a war always offers a name and a flag under which
profiteers and promoters undertake to sail. Some find their boats capsized
early in the struggle. Others have a sufficient following to keep their
business popular and are able to establish their enterprise in more or
less permanent comfort. Vendors of wares both helpful and harmful take
occasion to push the sale of their products in the name of patriotism.
Riders of hobbies both innocent and perilous take excuse to encourage both
their own habits and the weaknesses of their fellow citizens. This is
always done in the name of patriotism, even though the effect may be
altogether antipatriotic. A certain advantage can be taken at a time when
everyone is afraid of being misjudged. Like the undertaker’s bill, such
things are often brought forward at a time when everyone feels that he
must swallow the dose and ask no questions.
During the recent conflict it became a widespread habit to advertise
various products in the name of patriotism. We were told that the person
who wanted to be patriotic must wear a certain brand of clothes, drink a
prescribed blend of coffee, and shave with a given make of safety razor.
If the Government gave an enterprise the slightest encouragement or
patronage, it was featured to the limit. The tobacco companies were not
long in taking advantage of the opportunity presented. During the war we
were continually told that the soldiers in our splendid national army
considered tobacco a necessity. Then not only the element possessing
double-jointed moral convictions but also many who had stood for high
ideals fell victims to the contagion. Even church workers took to sending
to sons what their mothers had prayed might never enter their lives and
what leading magazines have been refusing to advertise just as they have
refused to advertise intoxicating liquors.
Naturally, the members of the national army who had considered tobacco a
necessity at home also considered it so abroad. Just as naturally, those
who had not used it at home would not have cared for it abroad. The
demand was by no means of the one-hundred-percent variety. When I think
of the number of men who never knew the taste of tobacco until it was
forced upon them by some well-intentioned but misguided war agency, I
cannot believe that the demand for it was universal. When I hear parents
testify that their sons were untouched with the desire for tobacco until
they were influenced to use it in the army, I cannot help feeling that
much of the insistence upon it had its origin only in artificially
induced public opinion.
The capitalizing of a war to the advantage of a trade depending for its
profits on human weakness had an outstanding instance at the time of the
Civil War. However wise a provision for the Federal finances the leaders
of that day may have thought they were making, the fact is that the
internal revenue on intoxicating liquors fastened the business on the
country for many years. It so got its fingers upon our throat that we
have not yet wholly shaken them loose. It has robbed us of far more money
than it ever gave us. It has at the same time ruined what was worth much
more to us than all our gold—the life and happiness of our people.
There are those among us who suspect that much of the late demand for
tobacco did not come from the army at all but that it was conceived in the
minds and fostered under the guiding care of representatives of the
tobacco trade. So successful was this effort and so meekly did the country
as a whole fall into line with the program that it now looks as if another
taint is fastened upon us for at least the lifetime of the
present generation.
Though it may be admitted that the evil is less serious than that of
Civil War days, it is by no means to be considered negligible. The facts
disclosed by the physical examination of millions of our men should have
made us more careful instead of less so. The physical unfitness of much of
our male population for service overseas had a number of reasons behind
it. There is no doubt in many thoughtful minds, however, that among these
reasons were the consumption of adulterated soft drinks and the widespread
use of tobacco. Instead of discouraging these things in a time of national
crisis, we encouraged them more than we ever did before.
No reasonable person is contending that the use of tobacco is a mortal
sin. If no worse sins were committed, ours would indeed be a wonderful
Nation. This, however, is no excuse for that which is a physical evil and,
to some extent at least, a moral and religious evil. The real question is
as to why we should encourage it at all. We do not get at the danger of
any evil by comparing one evil with another. The question for a vigorous
Nation in a trying time is not as to what is the harm in a thing but as to
what is the good.
At least three undisputed facts must be recorded about the tobacco habit.
We have allowed the war to make each of the three more outstanding than
before. The first is that it is unclean. If it were true that neither
physical nor moral questions were involved, some very important sanitary
ones would still remain to be considered. It is not easy to see why anyone
should insist upon making more stained teeth, repulsive breaths,
malodorous bodies, and unclean mouths.
The second is that it is expensive. Our tobacco bill for a few years would
pay the cost of the war. It would do a much better thing: It would provide
agricultural reclamation, commercial development, and philanthropic
beneficence on a world scale. The soldier cannot afford to pay this bill.
Neither can the free-hearted public afford to assume that it is one of the
necessities of war and pay it from benevolent funds. The 1917 tobacco crop
of more than one billion pounds brought an average of twenty-five cents a
pound. This was two-fifths more than the price during the preceding year
and twice the price during the years between 1911 and 1915.
The third is that it is increasing. The 1917 tobacco crop was the largest
in our history. Estimated at 1,196,451,000 pounds, it was an increase of
43,181,000 pounds over the crop of the preceding year. The output of
cigars was 8,266,770,593, an increase of 876,587,423 over that of 1916.
A total of 35,377,751 pounds of snuff were manufactured during 1917, an
increase of two million pounds over 1916. Of smoking and chewing tobacco,
445,763,206 pounds were put upon the market, an increase of more than
twenty-eight million pounds. Tax was paid on thirty billions of
cigarettes, and nobody knows how many were rolled and smoked from prepared
tobacco. The sale of cigarettes increased almost fifty per cent during
1917. This serves to show with what success our widespread pro-tobacco
propaganda has met.
The internal revenue income on tobacco advanced fifteen million dollars
during 1917. The total was $103,201,592.16. Thirty-eight million dollars
of this was on cigarettes alone. Great as this income is, it cannot
compensate for the lowered personal standards, the physical
disintegration, and the unuttered regret that have resulted from it.