The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-08-11
TOBACCO SMOKING.


a thing Of the past, The Duluth Herald
says:
DIR. HI. w. Wiley said the other day
that he was willing to predict that
within twelve years smoking and to-
bacco chewing in public will have be-
come obsolete. He has joined the Nom
Smokers OF America, an organization
for the discouragement of smoking in
| public, and he has taken up the new
cause with all the energy that he has
shown in his prosecution of the pure
food propaganda.
| There has been smoking in public
and chewing In public for a good many
years, and it Is hard to believe that
Dr. Wiley's optimism isn't extreme. 1t
Is accomplishing a good deal to stop in
dozen years a practice that has been
universal almost since Sir Walter
Raleigh took tobacco back from Vir-
ginia and introduced the tobacco habit
In high circles.
Chewing. certainly, Is decreasing.
Nowhere near so many men chew to-
bacco now as formerly. Those who
do chew are more circumspect about IL
too. The scenes Dickens described in
his American Notes and In Martin
Chuzzlewit are not to be seen today,
Chewing is a very unpleasant habit, far
more so than smoking, and that very
fact tends to restrict 1t.
But smoking Is another matter. If
anything, there is more smoking re-
latively as well as actually, than ever,
Probably majority of the men you
meet on any street have pipes, cigars
or cigarettes protruding from their
faces. Whether It is annoying or not
depends great deal on who is testify
ing, and great deal more on the
quality Of the tobacco that Is being
used. Those so-called smoking tobac-
cos which smell as though they were
compounded of sagebush and ragweed
are annoying to anybody; but the to-
bacco trust has kept good tobacco so
expensive that lots Of people can't af-
ford anything better. All cigarettes
are annoying to many people, and even
the confirmed cigarette smoker usual
ly will admit that he doesn't enjoy
secondhand cigarette smoke. Good
cigars, on the other hand, are agreeable
to great many, even many women
protesting, at least, that they enjoy
the smell. And pipe. filled with good
tobacco. well lighted and drawing well.
often sends out an aroma that is far
from unpleasant.
There is one thing in favor of DIR.
Wiley's idea, and that is that no
smoker gets so much satisfaction out
of a smoke in the open air while he is
working or walking as he does out of
a smoke taken at his leisure in the
family sitting room, on the porch or
out under the trees.
If smoking In public really is dis
agreeable and annoying to large pro-
portion Of the people, doubtless they
win take measures to make their an
noyance known; and since after all
the majority of men are reasonably
considerate of others, the knowledge of
this condition viii restrain many from
infiicting annoyance on others.
Presumably, since the universal
tendency when an evil is located is to
pass law against 1t, the Non Smokers
of America will presently be asking for
anti-smoke ordinances directed against
pipes, cigars and cigarettes. That
won't hurry matters much, however, for
that sort of legislation never works
until enough people favor 1t to enforce
it. and when there are that many peo-
pie in favor of reform, the reform is
likely to come without any law.
Women will have a good deal to say
about this matter, and the probability
that DIR. Wiley's prediction will come
true would be much greater If there
wasn't so obvious an inclination among
many women to try smoking them
selves.