Tobacco and Its Curse by Ada M. Learned

Pacific Press Publishing Association

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 12.

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Tobacco and Its Curse

By Ada M. Learned

[A paper read by Ada M. Learned before the Mutual Edification Club, of Mountain View, Cal.]

TOBACCO is productive of more evil in the world than is alcohol:

(1) It is the most potent factor in the degeneracy of the race morally.

(2) It is more ruinous to the youth of to-day than is alcohol.

(3) It is more deceptive in its operations.

(4) It is a greater curse to the national life.

I. Race Degeneracy.

Lucy Page Gaston, founder and promoter of the Anti-Cigaret League, says: "Weaklings and degenerates by thousands—the product largely of cigaret indulgence—to-day afflict the nation, crowding reformatories, prisons, asylums, and sanitariums."

From a comparative study of the symptoms of tobacco poisoning and the stigmata of degeneracy, Dr. L. Pierce Clark, well-known neurologist of the Manhattan State Hospital, is convinced that the degenerate is an outcome of the tobacco habit, either in the individual or in his ancestry. "Tobacco seems to be the determining cause of the existence of degenerates."

Mary Foote-Henderson, wife of the ex-speaker of the House of Representatives, says: "It has counted its victims by hundreds where alcohol has counted them by tens. It has become the chief source of the degeneracy of the race."

II. Effect upon Youth.

Tobacco has a stronger hold upon the youth of to-day, is working more havoc and ruin with the youth, than alcohol. The future prosperity of a nation is dependent upon its young men and women. Young men to-day are being ruined,—

a. Morally.

Mrs. E. G. White most truly says: "Among children and youth the use of tobacco is working untold harm. The unhealthful habits of past generations affect the children and youth of to-day. Mental inability, physical weakness, disordered nerves, and unnatural cravings, are transmitted as a legacy from parents to children. And the same habits continued by the children are increasing and perpetuating the evil results. Among the most injurious of these habits is the use of tobacco. To this cause, in no small degree, is owing the physical, mental, and moral deterioration which is becoming such a cause of alarm."

A Field of Tobacco, One of the World's Very Worst Curves.

Again, quoting from Lucy Page Gaston (speaking of tobacco): "The effect is a lowering of other moral standards, and cigaret-smokers are liable to live loose and irregular lives in other respects. Cigarets are at war with purity of thought and action in old and young."

The strongest possible evidence is given by Judge Stubbs, of the Indiana Juvenile Court, who said: "I have before me (in twenty months' experience on the bench) one thousand two hundred and eight boys and girls,—mostly boys,—all of whom have been charged with offense against the law. These offenses have covered the entire list of offenses known to the law of Indiana, from the most trivial misdemeanor to the greatest crimes. . . . In inquiring into the causes that have brought about such a great increase in the number of offenses against the law in the last few years by boys, I have reached the conclusion that aside from the frailties that afflict our common humanity, and which are apt to blossom and develop into crime, especially where there is a lack of parental control, or where the parents themselves belong to the vicious classes, by far the most potent factor is the cigaret habit."

James B. Duke, Head of the Tobacco Trust.

John Wanamaker says: "The cigaret is the starting-point of the downfall of thousands who fall into its clutches, and eventually drift away from all sense of morality."

The president of the Armour Institute at Chicago, says: "I do not believe there is any agency more destructive of soul, mind, and body, or more subversive of good morals, than the cigaret. The fight against the cigaret is a fight for civilization. This is my judgment as an educator."

H. H. Cully, Principal Glenville High School, Cleveland, Ohio, says: "In all my twenty-six years' experience as a teacher, I have never known an exception to the rule that a boy, in taking on the tobacco habit in any form, immediately begins to deteriorate mentally. If he takes cigarets, he will degenerate morally very rapidly. I am firmly convinced that tobacco in any form causes degeneration morally as it relates to growing boys."

b. Mentally.

An English writer says: "There is overwhelming evidence to show that juvenile smoking is an evil of the first magnitude—an evil which is sapping our boyhood's strength and so undermining our national manhood."

Prof. Richard M. Sherry, President of the Baltimore Academy of Medicine, says: "The effect of tobacco on schoolboys is so marked as not to be open for discussion."

An English educator says: "A boy smoker is certainly a worse student than the ordinary boy. . . . He is usually dull, dense, and generally stupid and indolent."

It is unnecessary to enumerate proof after proof that could be presented relative to the stand being taken against the tobacco habit on the ground that it is demoralizing to the intellect of the youth of this age. And it must not be forgotten that the very reason for so much harm and evil is wrought because tobacco can be so readily secured by minors. This is not true of alcohol. Alcohol is debarred to minors, but the crusade against tobacco is only barely getting in a swing.