Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-01-18
WOMEN AND TOBACCO.
MISS ALICE LOWRY'S NOVEL CRUSADE
AGAINST THE WEED.

She Will Form a League of Young WOm-
en- Pledged to Refuse Matrimonial Of
fers From SmOkers-Discussion of Four
Simple Questions on This Topic.
From La Grange, Ind, comes an an
nouncement that has set all the m
ried smokers Of America a-tremble. A
telegram states that Miss Alice E. Low
ry, a young woma of Cass county,
Mich, has had a call to devote her life
to a crusade against tobacco. She will
at once proceed to abolish the evil by
forming a league Of young women
pledged to refuse to marry men addict
ed to the weed.
But even the average smoker, all
a-tremble as he is, would like to ask
Miss Lowry these four simple little
questions:
1. Is the use Of tobacco an evil? 2.
Granted that it is an evil that should be
suppressed, can it be suppressed? 8.
Granted that it can be suppressed, is
woman willing to refuse to marry in
the attempt to suppress it? 4. Granted
that woman is willing, would her re-
fusal be awaiting?
To discuss the first question is thrash
ing over old straw. In the good old
Puritan days men were fined for max
ing a chimney Of their nostrils. Doubt
less as late as two generations ago there
were people who considered smoking
not only a vice, but a sin. Apparently
the present generation does not even
consider it a vice. At any rate, 4,375,-
$4,000 cigars were smoked in America
in 1896, an increase of 200, 900, 600 over
1895. At this rate Of progress, apparent
ly, a generation hence the use of tobacco.
will be considered a virtue, even if it is
not made obligatory Oh every male citi-
zen.
The second question can hardly be
answered until the experiment is tried,
but it would seem that if Miss Lowry's
league cannot suppress it no other hui
man agency can.
When we take up the third query,
we strike a number Of questions in one.
The political economist will take one
view, the s~entimentalist another and
the scoffer a third. And they will all
be against Miss Lowry. The first will
ask: What is the chief end of woman if
not to marry? If a woman love a smoker
and the smoker loves her, is she not do.
ing herself and him and the state more
harm by refusing to marry him than
she would by cou%ntenancing his use of
tobacco? Miss Lowry will doubtless
maintain that no member of her league
will allow herself to fall in love with a
smoker. But, chimes in the sentiment
talist, the little god is no respecter of
persons and draws his bow on whom he
wills, and when a woman feels the
smart Of his arrow in her bosom she
will 60 through fire and water, not to
say tobacco smoke, when the man of
her choice bids her come. The conclu-
sion that stares us in the face, there.
fore, is that the young woman from
Michigan must get Cupid to sign an
ironclad contract not to shoot members
of her league or the crusade is lost ere
it is we'll begun.
The scoffer will attack Miss Lowry
on this third question in a tender spot.
He will say that she has forgotten that
woman is eternally bent on marrying
man to reform him. Is there a fascinat-
ing drunkard? Some woman, usually
fifty times too good for him, is always
ot hand 70 ,,Ioytnly y tho inb of ,ootyf,,u
a sober man of him through marriage.
Was there ever a meier do we'll Of en-
gaging ways who went minated because
woman despaired of making a new man
of him? Why, so addicted is woman to
this habit that she will ever marry a
man who will not reform to win her.
She eternally forgets the sad truth that
a man who will not mend his ways for
her as a maid will not mend them for
her as a wife. Hence the logical conclu-
sion seems to be that Miss Lowry must
put a high board fence around her
leaguers or they will Immediately pro-
coed to fall in love with the very first
smokers they see and marry them to re-
form them.
And, worst of all, this mischievous
third query suggests the fiat footed
question, Does woman consider the use
OF tobacco an evil? Current report has
it that woman herself is beginning to
show IA decided fondness for the weed in
the form of the insidious cigarette. Be
this as it may, does woman look on the
habitual smoker with disfavor either be.
fore or after marriage? Is not the wife
who objects to her husband smoking at
home SO rare as to wondering COM
ment? Has not experience taught woman
that the man who enjoys his cigar or
his pipe is more companionable than
the man who detests tobacco Or regards
its use a vice if not a sin? The wise wo-
man does not expect perfection in hus-
band. Is it not possible that she has
come to the conclusion that smoking is
perhaps the least Objectionable Of the
small vices to which the average man il |
heir, and that if he does not smoke he
is apt to indulge in something more Sc