Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1920-05-19
"rHEY SHALL NOT PASS"
(By j. H. Dickson, in New Era
MagaZine)

(By j. H. Dickson, in New Era
Magazine)
The Huns were pressing toward
the French capitol. twenty-five miles
more and the coveted prize would be
in, their hands. The civilized world
was trembling with apprehension;
none knew what a single day. would
bring forth. No wonder that hearts
stood still and faces turned white.
Mighty issues were at stake. Blood
flowed like water. The Disc and the
Marne ran red.
Just then voice rang out to all
the world: "They shall not pass"
General Foch had spoken. The tide
was stayed; the Hun was beaten back
and Paris and civilization were saw
ed.
Immortal words, "they shall not
pass" Repeat them again and again,
oh friends of American youth, today,
for another horde more terrible than
that of Attila bears down upon the
boys and young men of America.
Clad in the garb of purity and of
white. the Cigarette, high officer of
the Legion of Death, rallies his fore
es against the youth of our beloved
land. Look at this army. You will
not laugh then. See the ruin and de-
vastation in his path across the years.
1t is enough to startle every lover of
the lads in our homes.
Forty billions of cigarettes were
consumed last year, from one-half to
one grain of nicotine, enough in two
of them if taken directly into the
system to kill the strongest adult!
Enough if placed end to end to ex-
tend sixty-six times around the
world! A daily consumption in this
Christian land that would reach from
New York to San Francisco and back
| to Denver! One every day of the year
for every man, woman, child and lit
tie baby in the entire country.
We are spending just for cigar
cites alone $4OO,OO0,O00 annually, or
twenty times the sum given by all
evangelical denominations last year
for the work of foreign missions.
What would this sum do for starving
millions in the East for which the
Christian world has carried on such
noble work? Or if we take the entire
tobacco bill last year, 81, 100000
how insignificant our gifts to the
church and missions.
Unless something is done, three
out of four of all the baby boys in
this country will become victims of
the cigarette. Fifteen hundred form
the habit every day; ten thousand
week, half million new recruits
each year!
We will not discuss the question
of how cigarettes given those soldiers
in training camp and the trench who
were enslaved before they entered
upon the service of their country,
but certainly none who have at heart
the interests of our young men could
regard this compulsory thrusting to-
bacco and cigarettes upon those who
had never formed the habit as any
thing less than criminal.
If the tobacco interests were actu-
ated by patriotism, as they would
have us believe, and by pity for the
soldier in his strenuous and some
times lonely life, why did they not
send chocolate candy that many de-
sired more than cigarettes?
The. answer is very simple; the
whole proposition was commercial
venture from the very start. The to-
bacco interests saw Just what would
take place-that hundredsof thou
sands of young men would come
back devotees of the weed in some
form or other, and that their example
would lead million of their little
brothers back home to follow the
footsteps of the big brother.
But they shall not pass.
"They shall not pass" That is
YOUR answer. 1t is a prophecy as yet.
May it become phophecy fulfilled!