第81章 CHAPTER XX.(2)

There is one objection that, from a business standpoint, every business man ought to make to tobacco. When he employs a man that uses tobacco he gets only a certain per cent. of his employee's time and of his brain, because the employee must serve his tobacco master part of his time and when he is not smoking his mind is preoccupied because he is thinking of smoking. Consequently, he cannot concentrate his mind upon his business.

I have heard poor, silly, empty-headed women say that it is manly to smoke. If it is manly to smoke, why isn't it womanly to smoke? The tobacco habit is the reverse of manhood and destroys manhood, for manhood means strength of character, not the gratification of lust.

If tobacco is good for men, it is also good for women. I do not suppose that one could find a man so low and degraded as to walk down the street with a woman who had a cigarette or cigar in her mouth.

Women should make the same standard for men that men do for women.

Many women would smoke in public if men did not denounce it. MEN WOULD QUIT SMOKING IN PUBLIC IF WOMEN DENOUNCED IT AS MUCH.

I have heard some women say, "I like the smell of a good cigar."

I never smelled a good one. It is not made. They are like snakes; they are all bad. I never knew of but one good use that tobacco was put to, and that was to kill lice on cows. My father used it for that purpose on his farm. It does kill that kind of germs.

The evil has become so common that whenever you go abroad you are compelled to breathe the contents of somebody else's month. It would be rude of me to take a piece of fruit out of my mouth and throw it into somebody else's mouth, but anyone may throw his poisonous breath and smoke into my mouth and I have no defense. Spitting is forbidden in the cars. Smoking is a great deal worse, but the reason why it is not denounced is that people can get a revenue from men's smoking, while they have to clean up after spitters, and there is no money in that.

I can prevent a man spitting into my mouth, but I cannot avoid his smoke. A man seems to think that he is free to project his stinking breath in my face on the street, in hotels, in sleeping cars, coaches--indeed, in every public place. Now I would as soon smell a skunk. There is some excuse for a skunk; he can't help being one. But men have become so rank in their persons from this poisonous odor that they almost knock me down as they pass me. And when I say, "Man, don't throw that awful stench in my face," he answers, "You get away." I reply, "If I smelled as badly as you do, I would be the one to get away."

Oh, the vile cigarette! What smell can be worse and more poisonous?

I feel outraged at being compelled to smell this poison on the street.

I have the right to take cigars and cigarettes from men's mouths in self-defense, and they ought not to be allowed to injure themselves. "Liberty is the largest privilege to do that which is right, and the smallest to do that which is wrong." Governments are organized to take care of the governed. I believe it ought to be a crime to manufacture, barter, sell or give away cigars, cigarettes and tobacco in any form.

Oh, for the success of the Prohibition Party that will bring in reforms along these lines--and this is the only party that will do it! Tobacco degenerates body and mind. Physical and mental culture demand its discontinuance.

Dr. Jay W. Seaver, associated physical director of Yale University, says: "Among college students, the gain of growth, in general, is 12 per cent. greater among those who do not use tobacco than those who smoke.

It has also proven by tests in the laboratory that the nicotine in a fairly mild cigar will reduce a man's muscular power from 25 to 40 per cent."

Were it not for the tobacco habit, we would need no smoking car.

Suppose women had a vice that required them a separate apartment from the men when they travel. Even in the cars where the women travel there are rooms fixed up in luxuriant style while poor mothers with their babies have to sit upright and smell this rank and poisonous odor. But of course women have no redress, or are made to think they have none.

Shame to you men, a decent dog will not bite a female, while men the impulse of protecting their females they are lower than a decent beast.

While I was in New York City last week April the 2nd a Mr. Thomas McGuire, treasurer of the Fourteenth Ave., Theatre had his tongue cut out to prevent tobacco cancer from spreading. This was from smoking cigars. General Grants' tongue rotted from the same cause.

This is one of the best poems on the vice I ever read. Author unknown.

HE SMOKES.

"In the office, in the parlor;

On the sidewalk, on the street;

In the faces of the passers, In the eyes of those he meets, In the vestibule, the depot, At the theatre or ball;

E'en at funerals and weddings, And at christenings and all.

"Signs may threaten, men may warn him;

Babies cry and women coax;

But he cares not one iota, For he calmly smokes and smokes.

Oh, he cares not whom he strangles, Vexes, puts to flight, provokes;

And although they squirm and fidget, He just smokes and smokes and smokes.

"Not a place is sacred to him;

Churchyards, where the flowers bloom;

Gardens, drives, in fact the world is Just one mighty smoking room, And when once he quits this mundane sphere, And takes his outward flight, From the world he made a hades, Day he's turned to murky night.

"When be reaches his destination, Finds 'tis not a dream or hoax, And the Judge deals out his sentence, Then I'll wager that he smokes;

Oh, he'll care then whom he has vexed, And their mercy he'll invoke;

But although he squirms and fidgets, They'll just let him smoke and smoke and smoke."