The Holbrook news., 1921-08-12
MANY INDUSTRIES TIED TO TOBACCO
Prohibition of Weed Would Mean Big Financial Loss to
 Allied Trades.
WHO USES THE MATcH7
The Smoker MaInIy-AIso Responsible for Spending Hundreds of Millions Annually for LicorIce, Sugar. Coal, Cigar Boxes, Tin
 Foil, Etc.
By GARRETT SMITH

tiOn asked in these United States?
 How many more times is the question
 unnecessary because most pockets are kept well supplied with the useful
 little article? Anyhow, inasmuch as 1t is estimated that there are 30,000,000 tobacco users in the country, we would
 guess that the answer to that question would run into the hundreds of mill lions.
 For if 1t weren't for the smokers in these days of electric lights how many matches would be used? A pretty small proportion of the number of these sticks of blazes" produced in the country every year. Abolish to- bacco and the match business would be shot to pieces.
 But the match business is only one of a dozen or more allied industries indirectly from the tobacco trade and would suffer heavily if national pro hibition of tobacco were to go into effect as some of our TefOrmers would | have it. The annual sales of tobacco products, based on retail prices, is es- timated at S1, ,937, 100000. Of the cost of producing and selling this quantity of cigars, cigarettes and other forms of the weed, some hundreds of million dollars are paid out for other things than the raw tobacco and labor of making it up.
 $25, 100000 Year for Boxes ] For example, the tobacco trade con- sumes each year 45,OOO,OOO pounds of hcorice, 5OOOO,OCO pounds of sugar, both used in favoring tobacco. and 65O,0OO tons of coal. It is estimated that the value of wooden cigar boxes used is s2j,0O0,OO0 a year, quite an item to the lumber business and to manufacturers of the boxes.
 In making these boxes 550,0OO pounds of nails are employed. Other large items used in making and pre- pairing tobacco for sale are tin and lead foil, paper for bags and cigarette wrappers, cloth for tobacco bags, la bels, coupons. etcA involving the print ing trade extensively.
 Then building contractors and manu- facturers of machinery are largely in- terested Investments in plants and machinery employed in manufactur- ing tobacco are estimated at S102000,- 0OO Replacement, up-keep and inter- est on the investment make no small sum annually.
 And let realty men note there are approximately 325,000 tobacco farms in the country, with a total estimated valuation of S160,000000 Of further in- terest to real estate men is the fact that there are 100000 retail establish ments selling tobacco, involving a total rental and up-keep impossible to esti- mate, besides the large amount of of flee space occupied by administrative branches of the general business.
 The insurance men, too, have their share of the picllings. The tobacco bus ness pays out annually $70G0,00o in premiums in the United States.
 And there are the railroads who reap revenue from 2,21O.OOO tons of tobacco products every yeaA
 As for the advertising business. here again it is impossible to form any estimate of the enormous annual outlay.
 The prohibition of tobacco would also knock a good-sized hole in tile receipts of the United States government. The internal revenue receipts from ] tobacco for the fiscal year 1920 amount ed to S295, ,SO9, ,355.44 Customs duties | provided an additional $2j.OO0OOO in | round figures, making the total revenue | return to the government S32O.O0O,O O,O00. T
 Influence on Popular Sentiment
 It is this interlocking of the tobacco bus ness with so many other interests and the vast amount of financial loss. that would be involved in the abolition of tobacco that is one of the most se- rious aspects of the proposal to pro- hibit the sale of tobacco, a proposal, 1 however, which has little support by public sentiment if the newspaper edi- tors of the country are correct in their estimate of that sentiment.
 In a poll of the editors made recently by the Tobacco Merchants Association of the United States, through the Press Service Company of New York City, 95 per cent of the 7,847 editors who replied expressed the opinion that the people of their communities were op- posed to any law against tobacco. As these editors represent some SO,OOO,OOo readers the results form a pretty gen. eraI test of national opinion.
 In their remarks accompanying their replies many of the editors expressed It as their opinion that the oppos tion of their communities to the abolition of tobacco was based to some extent at least on the damage such a change would do to the business interests of! the community. This was particularly true in the tobacco growing states and centers where there were large tobacco plants.
 But when the extent of the business involved in the allied interests of the tobacco trade is considered, as above briefly outlined, it is clear that there IS hardly a section of the country that would not be affected directly or ir- directly by abOlishing tobacco.