The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-01-30
The CIGARETTE BILL
Reasons For War on Cigaret-
les. They Ruin Youth.
"A Correspondent in Your Paper Calls il Small
Evil. How Could He Say So? The Gig
arctic Evil is Greal Evil.
To The Editor.

To the Editor:
l have Just read communication from
correspondent in your paper asking
the honorable Legislature why it seeks
through the anti-cigarette bill, to attack
and rout small CD evil while the great
est evil to all men. and of all times-the
whiskey curse--goes unthought of and un-
noticed b. them.
There is no man who is more ready
to denounce the whiskey devil as chargea-
BILE and responsible for more sorrow sui
ferng and untold and damnable curse
and blight than is your present CORE
spondent. There is not single just rea-
son that can be rightfully urged in eX-
tenuation or palliation of this great Jug
gernaut OF ail evils.
But my purpose is to notice that part
of his excellent article which essays to
characterize the cigarette evil as small
one, and, really-to him-of little or no
moment.
Now, he and all other good men, viii
grant that because a giant evil cannot
be summarily crushed and dealt with, is
in fact, small argument that other evils,
| which the exigencies of the times, and
| because of less universal import and sway,
and less intrenched in the minds and af-
| fections of the people, may not have rec
| IGNITION at the hands of our law makers,
i and answer at that bar as amenable for
a ruination and curse, to young and old,
/ which follows close in the wake of the
greater one, and often proves the way
| and descent to indulgence in the greater
whiskey evil.
| For the purpose of this paper | do not
| care if all the best interests of our State
were involved in the cigarette business
surely that could be no argument in re-
| buttal, nor reason why. it should not
| be adjudged a giant evil, and a whitening
curse, a business which makes idiots and
] imbeciles of our boys and young men; q
| business which, by its effect and opera
| ton, eneryates, numbs. cripples, and rem
/ ders almost nugatory the minds, anr the
| energies of the boys and young
men-the hope of our government, pres
| ent and futuTe-and whom it is the duty
| of a great State, by any and every law
| full reasons-seeing it cannot be controll-
ed otherwise-to preserve and foster ii
| the manifold duties soon to be devolved
upon them
The cigarette evil is, and has SO proven
an evil the extent and power of which
is so great and widespread, and which is
made so easy to acquire, and so seductive
to the young and that by and with the
consent of the State-that it is well-nigf
| impossible for the mothers and fathers
in the home to suppress it. When it is
plainly seen that any evil is detrimental
TO the very things that must operate K
the future good of a government ant
a menace to the mainstay of that gov
eminent, it is the duty of any govern
ment, then and there. to put its powerful
foot upon and reach out its powerful arm
| to kill control or suppress.
Because all cannot get a whole loaf, i
is poor comfort to suffering and starry
ing man, to refuse any bread at all. Be
cause the government cannot, at one full
swoop. usher in the dawn of milennia
peace and sDlendcr, is poor reason. fol
not contributing the small part we car
in seeking to bring it about.
Let us, my fellow countrymen, have The
anti-cigarette law. Perhaps, as our PEG
pie grow mere cultured enlightened and
civilized. we NAV also have that grandes
and most desired of all desideratums-tht
extirpation.. root and branch of the awful
whiskey evil
WILLIAM VI. SHERRILL