The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-08-02

| low women to smoke undisturbed
within its precincts. To do this the
club had to rescind a resolution adopt
ed last January, and the action shows
the power OF the feminine smoker and
| her friends. They pointed out to the
conservatives that in the best hotels
women smoke as a matter OF course,
and that in women's clubs ash trays
and a special brand of cigarets are as
much part of the comforts of home
as powder puffs and mirrors.
ANTS" Are Belligerent.
Yet only a few months ago at a
w. c. T. u. convention the embattled
delegates declared anew their unrelent-
ing hostility to tobacco in any form,
for male or female, old or young.
Here are samples of such anti-smokers
propaganda:
Tobacco not only robs life, but it
binders advancement"
Nicotine is not only an enemy to
life, scholarship and attainment, but
it is hostile to nearly every avenue OF
thought"
Tobacco robs families of food and
other necessities. The cigaret fiend
will steal from his mothers purse, rob
his fathers till or pawn books from
the library in order to secure cigarets.
The tobacco sot will buy tobacco to
feed his degraded appetite while the
bread bin is depleted, the sugar bowl
empty, the milk supply inadequate,
the cookie jar desolate and the chill
dren suffer for sweets"
The thoughtful person who reads
this dire diatribe cannot but wonder
what happens to the family which con-
tains two cigaret hends-Mr. and
Mrs. Probably such family will end
in the poor house-and, therefore, it
behooves us to enlarge our poor hous-
es, since in many a household two
cigarets are now burning where one
burned before.
Men Smokers Reinforced.
Most older men have smoked for
years-even if they had to sneak out
of the house to do it, and even if Of
fee regulations merely tolerated the
chewing of an unlighted cigar. With
the impetus given to their favorite in
diligence by the conversion to it OF
younger and older women and of the
former fighters the wicked weed"
would seem to be safe at least for a
generation.
Yet look at Utah! Just this past
winter Brigham Young's VIGOROUSLY
pure state passed a law prohibiting the
sale of cigarets and forbidding smok
ing in public places. Cigarets are con-
traband in a number of western and
middle western states, although some
Others, notably Tennessee, Iowa and
Arkansas, have repealed laws forbid
ding the sale of "coffin nails"
The blue" point of view of anti
tobacco crusaders is admittedly ex-
pressed in Gustavus Myers eye Olden
Blue Laws" just published by the
Century company.
ITO the ministers pleasure was an
invention of Satan" explains Mr..
Myers, writing of old Connecticut's
legal taboo on tobacco. when man
smoked alone there was not the in
ducement to linger and succumb to
conviviality that there was when he
smoked in company. Smoking in soli-
tude was not inconsistent with medi-
tation and decorum, whereas when
done with others it gave unseemly
pleasure and caused waste of time.
Only Solitary Smokes.
"To crush this increasing love Of
pleasure the Connecticut law of 1647
sternly decreed that only the solitary
smoke should be permitted. Only once
day, at dinner or otherwise, might
tobacco be used, and then not in COM
pany with any other No one might
use tobacco in any other house than
his own in the town where he lived
with and in company of more than
one who useth and drinketh the same
weed, and with at that time For VIC
laitng any item of the law the penal
ty was sixpence, and only one witness
was required"
Yet, according to Mr.. Myers, the
unregenerate folk of that day locked
their doors, or went off in the woods,
and held illegal smokers, just as sim
ners of today violate the Volstead act
in spirit if not in letter. Perhaps, a
few years from now we also shall be
smoking our cirgarets under the rose,
and home made tobacco will be as
popular as home brew. Perhaps not
if the attempt to reform smokers goes
ND in smoke.