Show THE BIG SHOW COSTS SOME presidential candidates are wafted wafred into office on a cloud of smoke while the aspirations of others are dashed to oblivion by the same breeze all of which is by way of saying that the cigar making industry is due for a boom now that a presidential election year is with us As far back as 1888 when harrison was elected the astounding number of more cigars were manufactured than the preceding year by 1920 and its increased population the boost in cigar making for the presidential year came to the tidy total of above that of 1919 the astonishing thing about the big countrywide show of an election is that the havana filler the politician stuffs into mouth is merely an item in the whole campaign and election costs the latter it has been estimated by competent and conservative observers reaches in addition to that huge sum there are other millions impossible to compute out of all this spending it is perhaps fortunate for the american public that usually mort more good than merely the choosing of a president is the result for one thing hundreds of thousands of persons are employed not the least of them being newspaper workers who figure briefly but actively in compiling election returns r in chicago for example the business of collecting returns is in the hands of the police an officer visits each precinct obtains two results of the vote one of these he speeds to the board of election commissioners the other to the city news bureau which has moved bodily into Chi cagos counell council chambers for the evening rents are paid out for organization quarters down to the smallest precinct spellbinders spell binders are employed with all expenses paid bands are hired banquets are spread and the politicians pass out cigars did we say expense well its a conservative estimate anyway |