New-York tribune., 1919-08-20
For the Enslaued

IO Iho AJulto1 VI Cue LIlOuHS'
Sir: The editorial Of August entitled
"Tho Impudcnce of Reform" is to say tho
least, rather unusual. 1t certainly would
indicate that the person who wrote it was
an ensavcd soul, held under the cravings
of the appetite that he there so weakly
seeks to defend.
The craze is on with terrible power I pass
on quotation that came to my notice re-
Gently:
"a few weeks ago it was currently re-
ported that tho temperance forces would
now formulate a constitutional amendment
against the raising of tobacco and the
manufacture of cigarettes. We sent out
an emphatic denial that the temperance
forces contemplated doing anything Of the
kind. The use of tobacco may be a per-
sonal vice, but it is not, in the sense that
the liquor traffic is, crime.
"If the tobacco trust continues to put the
moose around its own neck, and it is pulled
by the American people, there will be
autopsy over it some day, and the verdict
ought not to be 'Murdered,' or Executed
but Suicide
owe have an anti-tobacco programme.
We will publish millions of educational
leaflets on the nicotine poison and the
doped cigarettes, hoping to prevent boys
from taking up the practice, or parents
from allowing their children to fall VIC
tins to tho cigarette evil; and it will set
forth appalling facts from the battlefront,
how young men trained at great ex-
pense by the government to fight it's bat
ties had to be led out of the fighting ranks
hoyo cir CT, ro1 hoi, tbo
before they could stand up and hold gun.
The attempt to call this shaking shell
shock is amusing to every one who knows.
1t the taking away Of the nicotine
after the system had become accustomed
thereto. If any one wants to prove this for
himself demonstration is easy. If he is
cigarette victim made by tho government,
the Y. M. c. A., or the Red Cross or the
ladies who stood at the depot and pressed
cigarettes upon every young man who wore
the uniform, and is now habituated to the
use Of about thirty cigarettes day, let
him try to go without them for few days
and nights and see how he feels. He will
experience another shell shock such as I
have described many young fellow as
having on the battlefront"
This long quotation is from tract en-
titled, "The Reformers New Programme;
or, After Prohibition - What?" by DR..
Clarence True Wilson. These things are
enough to stir the blood of any normal
who in any sense realizes the dan
ger to a white heat against this most
vicious habit that is gripping the life
of the American public. Then for this
editorial to come out and speak of "The
Impudencc of Reform! lmpudence of
reform, forsooth why not entitle it "The
Impudcncc of Lying"?-for in the face of
the fact that the woman Christian Tenn
perance Union has done a wonderful edu-
cational work, felt throughout the nation,
this editorial proposes to laugh at the pro-
Cramme of education that that remarkable
organization has done to train the school
children Of the nation to the highest and
clcanest living possible. One is led to
wonder that the editor could let such
vaporngs dribble from his pen in the sight
Of the great American people. Go on with
your slavish smoking if you have to, my
good editor, but do not laugh at those who
are trying to do good in the field, and, bv
so doing, seek to neutralize the good that
they doing
It may be that this may not be printed
in The Tribune, it ought TO be, but it
seems to that you ought to publish it
in order to counteract the damage done by
your editorial of August g.
THEOPHILUS.
Union Valley, n. Y, Aug. Is, 1919