Connecticut western news., 1921-06-30
Prohibition of Weed Would Mea Big Financial Loss to
 Allied Trades.
WHO USES THE MATCH
The Smoker MainIy-AIso ResponsibI for Spending Hundreds of Millions Annually for Licorice, Sugar, Coal, Cigar Boxes, Tin
 Foil, Etc.
By GARRETT SMITH
"Got a match?"

1AO" uuOI6 llIDSS IS IIl6 uueSIlOI
 unnecessary because most pockets ar
 kept well supplied with the usefu
 little article? Anyhow, inasmuch as il is estimated that there are 30,0O0,00( tobacco users in the country, we would
 guess that the answer to that question
 would run into the hundreds of mil
 lions.
 For if it weren't for the smokers irI these days of electric lights how many matches would be used? A pretty
 small proportion of the number of
 these sticks of blazes" produced 1T
 the country every year. Abolish to
 bacco and the match business would be shot to pieces.
 But the match business is only one of dozen or more allied industries which derive large revenues directly or indirectly from the tobacco trade and would suffer heavily if national pro. hibition of tobacco were to go into effect as some of our reformers would have it. The annual sales of tobacco products, based on retail prices, is es- timated at $1,937, 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 licorice, 50,0OO000 pounds of sugar, both used in flavoring tobacco, and 65O,000 tons of coal. It Is estimated that the value of wooden cigar boxes used is $25,000,000 a year, quite an item to the lumber business and to manufacturers of the boxes.
 In making these boxes 550,000 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, etc., involving the print ing trade extensively.
 Then building contractors and manu- lecturers of machinery are largely in- terested. Inve stments in plants and machinery employed in manufactur- ing tobacco are estimated at $102, ,o00,- GOO. Replacement, up-keep and inter est on the investment make no small sum annually.
 And let realty men note there are approximately 325,OOO tobacco farms
 in the country, with a total estimated
 valuation of $160, 100000 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 fee space occupied by administrative branches of the general business.
 The insurance men, too have their share of the pickings. The tobacco bus ness pays out annually $7,000000 in premiums in the United States. And there are the railroads who reap revenue from 2,21O,OOO tons of tobacco products every year.
 As for the advertising business, here again it is impossible to form any estimate of the enormous annual | outlay.
 The prohibition of tobacco would alss q SOO0-SlLSu uOI6 III tue ISCSlpLB of the United States government. The internal revenue receipts from tobacco for the fiscal year 1920 amount | ed to $295, 1909, ,35544. Customs duties provided an additional $25,O00,0OO in round figures, making the total revenue | return to the government $320,O0O,OOO 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, | 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 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,S47 editors who ' replied expressed the opinion that the \ people of their cOmmun ties were op- posed to any law against tobacco. As \ these editors represent some S0.000,000 readers the results form a pretty gen. eral test of national opinion. In their remarks accompanying their replies many of the editors expressed 1t 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 Il 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 N is hardly a section of the country that would not be affected directly or in-