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Show THE CITIZEN leach the boy not to lie and steal than to try to induce him not to smoke cigarettes, because I think the latter is a minor evil. There was a time when insurance companies asked the prosquestions about smoking. We believe that they pective policy-buylave abandoned the practice. They maintain, we hear, that tobacco, if it is harmful to health, is such a minor cause of ill health as to be hardly worth considering. A former associate of Dr. William Osier declares: Dr. Osier seems to doubt that tobacco heart has anything to do with tobacco and is convinced that whatever its cause, it is scarcely dangerous enough to be worth considering. Milton, the sacred poet of the Puritan persuasion, loved tobacco, though, of course, he is not the poet who sang Carrie Chapman Catt, Jane Addams, Minnie. Galli Curci, Mrs. Mumphrey Ward, Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavcll. Of course, the women are going to have much to say about these tobacco laws. They are going to vote as they smoke and if the reformers do not hurry up it may be that a majority of the women er will be smoking. In a leaflet that is before us as we write we read this : Pat Ryan won the hammer throw and actually laid down a cigarette to do it! The exclamation mark is not ours. We would use the exclamation mark only if the item were to read like this: Pat Ryan won the hammer throw and actually puffed a cigarette while doing it ! ! ! But, not to befog the situation with too much smoke, we will conclude by saying that the principal consideration in any discussion law is the question of as to the advisability of an law enforcement. If we are to build up an expensive organization of tobacco prohibition officers and obtain no results an A woman is only a woman, But a good cigar is a smoke. anti-tobac- co Charles Lamb, Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, Tennyson, Steven- son, Mark Twain, Byron, Scott, Emerson, Moore, IL G. Wells, Galsworthy, Kipling and scores of lesser note have sung the praises of tobacco. Caruso smokes; Marconi smokes and Edison chews. On the other hand no one will urge on us a list of inveterate smokers containing such names as these : cr anti-tobac- co law is worse than useless. It would be better to leave tobacco teetotalism among the counsels of perfection rather than give it the character of an eleventh commendment of the moral code or make it a statute of the penal code. OIL MA Y SET THE WORLD (1, ke IN or ty. ed A BLAZE appears to be the stuff of which future wars are to be made. In other centuries the rough inhabitants of lands were accustomed to make forays into southern countries where nature had been bounteous in her bestowal of corn and wine and oil. Frequently these forays became long wars of conquest resulting in perOil rs, ill-favo- to jnt cir red manent occupation of climes where organized society had produced easy conditions of living. In those old days no one would struggle for the mastery of this magical modern oil petroleum. It is recorded in the early annals H. ob-f- or the Caspian country that barbarians coming out of the north found flowing wells of oil ablaze and wondered thereat. Only after many centuries did those wells excite the cupidity and stir the rivalry of nations. Now our associates in the world war are in a combination to bar us from their lately-acquiroil lands in Turkey, Mesopotamia and Persia. They would have had us guarantee to them these oil regions by joining their League of Nations and taking an oath to defend these possessions against external aggression. And while they were asking us to sign the contract they were making commercial treaties among themselves to exclude use from participating in the exploitation of resources and from trade in the products. Those who have given even a little attention to tlte- oil situation in the last two years have seen our powerful allies joined in a combination against the United States. During the war we supplied 80 per cent of the oil needed to win the war. Our allies were grateful they said so. But after the war they gave no concrete evidence of their gratitude. On the contrary, they seized the oil buds of the Near East and offered us Armenia, a land without oil. were to have a mandate over a realm of meager possibilities and poverty-stricke- n population. We were to have the special privilege of defending the laud with 80,000 or 100,000 soldiers against the assaults of the Turks, while our war associates were to have the spceial privilege of occupying the rich oil lands and excluding us horn a share in the benefits. Phis selfish attitude would not arouse so much asperity in this couniry were it not that our oil fields are becoming exhausted. The discovery served as an object lesson and a warning. Yc found the United States furnishing 60 per cent of the worlds oil supply and permitting foreigners to exploit our oil possibilities to the maxi-muwhile they conserved their lands against the day when we should have oil no more. of hat ong to 1 ed tlicr tion t on r ui are - last that I, an net's that lrugs at it that. COU' hacco me. says; irette coflf vis to rather m The signs of a conspiracy were clear. Great Britain and other powers were willing to help us exhaust our oil resources. They would do everything they could to consume our gallon supply. Meantime they were making pacts to exclude us from the exploitation of their oil fields in Mesopotamia, Turkey and Persia. Fortunately the general leasing law of February 25, 1920, contained a clause which seems to have been overlooked by our greedy rivals. It enables our government to treat the citizens of any foreign country just as that foreign country treats us. As Mr. Davis, under secretary of state, says in a note to England and France, it is no more restrictive than the golden rule. And he adds : We have nothing but admiration for the discernment and activity shown by foreign governments to assure adequate supplies of petroleum. Nevertheless, we are tempted to wonder whether in the long run the means may not defeat the end. In addition to restraining international trade and delaying the liquidation of international obligations, the restriction or exclusion of aliens gives rise to international suspicion, misunderstanding and friction. The enlightened and friendly governments can never reach a satisfactory solution of this problem by discriminations, nationalistic exclusion, economic alliances, and treaties of special privileges, with unending possibilities of counter measures and retaliations. While our comrade nations preach ideals of peace; while they urge upon us the need of harmonious relations, of open and frank discussions and agreements, they combine secretly to exclude us from the worlds trade. They even look forward to the day when we shall have squandered our birthright and they will be powerful in the possession of the riches they have wrested from their neighbors. It is useless to preach disarmament so long as nations combine to manufacture the causes of war. We have discovered the plot in time. Public opinion on this subject will grow constantly more acute and there will arise a general demand that the remedy which the leasing law provides shall be used unless our allies can be constrained to adopt a more unselfish policy. Some say the bottom has fallen out of business, but it is only the false bottom. Our allies were fighting for humanity and they got most of it. |
