The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-03

balm OF Nicotina- Let the gray smoke
rise and fill the room and shut out all
view of the silver and the gold stand
ards and the battling candidates for
our suffrages. and, if in the excitement
of the campaign some of us have done
things we should not, as honest citi-
zens, have done, the smoke may help
to take the bad taste Of it out of our
mouths.
But the momentum Of the mind can
not be any more checked than can
that Of bodies. The racer cannot come
to dead stop as soon as the home
line is passed, and one who has been
running hard in a swift political race
cannot lapse into instant rest when
he has marked and deposited his bal
lot. But if we need not think Of stand
ards while we smoke, and if our
thought will run along governmental
lines, tobacco opens an easy avenue Of
profitable rumination on the relations
OF the weed to governments ever since
the plant to Catherine de Medfci, and
Won immortality for his name. Raleigh
better deserved this eminence, for it
was he who popularized the weed
among English courtiers and thus
gave it letters Introductory to Europe
and the rest of the Eastern world,
affirming his own devotion to the
product OF his Virginia province by
of tobacco a little while before Queen
Bess sent him to the scaffold. ..-a
The relation of tobacco to the pres
ent campaign is in its exemplification
OF the limits of the powers of govern
ment. We have been hearing much
of what a decree of congress can do
for metal, and, in the history of to-
bacco, we may learn how little even
the DEGREES of absolutism were able to
accomplish against a mere weed, as
1T was first considered We all know
how James blew his famous counter
blast against it when he came to rule
it was, but other monarchs with vastly
more power than James had tried he
roic measures to prevent its use. The
church Illuminated against it, doctors
warned the world Of it's injury to
health, but neither sword nor threat
of hades nor assertions of it's poison
ing effects prevailed against its Sc
ductive charms. When the weed in
vaded Persia, Abbas I. wiued its ex-
| pulsion and backed his decree by cut
ting off the lips and noses of his sub
Jects whom he caught smoking, and
one unfortunate vendor was thrown.
with his wares, into the fire. And yet,
today, Persians are the most invet-
crate smokers in the world
! The ''unspeakab1e Turk set his ar
bftrary and unlimited power against
the invader. Noses and lips and heads
were cut off when their owners were
| caught enjoying the fumes of the fas-
| cinating leaf. Mahommed ". is re-
corded as having caused one poor NOR
| IoA, Caught SiflChlDSs 10 nave MS nose
pierced,a pipe inserted and to be ridden,
on the back OF an ass his face to its
tail, through the streets of CONSTANT
nople, preceded by criers who pro-
claimed a warning to all those who
! dared, as had this culprit, to 6isobey
! the law Of the sultan. Russia's car,
Michael Fledorowitz, met the weed
with equal rigor. The knout was Wig
| orously applied, noses were slit and
death followed the second offense. But
all in vain, and Turk and Russian are
as faithful subjects of Queen Nicotina
today as she has in all her worldwide
domain. But if governments could not,
with all their powers and terrors. re-
press the weed, they took their revenge
by making it pay revenue, and today
| tobacco taxes form large part of the
money in every public ffsc. If human
| desires cannot be controlled by law.
/ they can, at least, be made to pay
| smartly for the indulgence But what
we may all learn with profit for our
| future is that governments can neither
| make people take and use what they
| do not want nor make them cease us
| ing what they want, whether it be
liquor or tobacco or metals for money.