DIY History | Transcribe | World War I Diaries and Letters | Robert Morriss Browning correspondence to Mabel C. Williams, October 1917 | 1917-10-25 Robert M. Browning to Mavel C. Williams Page 4

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Robert Morriss Browning correspondence to Mabel C. Williams, October 1917

1917-10-25 Robert M. Browning to Mavel C. Williams Page 4 - Clipping

Life 665
[Illustration of a younger woman seated next to an older woman. A man stands nearby looking at a print with a magnifying glass.]
"My dear, he is a fine, splendid, upright fellow with such a character!"
""yes, Mother, and the worst of it is, a man like that will never get over it."
War and Tobacco
It was recorded the other day in a Boston paper that two hundred delegates to the Middlesex County W.C.T.U. assembled for their annual meeting in the First Baptist Church at Watertown, adopted resolutions condemning the practice of sending gifts of tobacco to soldiers and sailors. Dr. Louise Rand of Newton, who presented the resolutions, spoke of the injurious effects of tobacco and urged women to send books instead.
Sending books is all right and perhaps more suitable to the W.C.T.U. but the remonstrance against tobacco was funny. Tobacco is a mild poison, useful as an antidote to such other poisons as fatigue, pain, worry, bad food, boredom, anxiety, loneliness, and the like. It is the most popular and the least hurtful antidote for the great poison of war.
The W.C.T.U. is a virtuous organization, sometimes useful and sometimes very harmful. The trouble with it is that it never sees the whole of life. A fragment of life is visible to it, and to that it aspires to make mankind conform. But mankind never will. A peanut fits all right in a peanut shell, but a pumpkin doesn't.
Think of tobacco as a nerve medicine, ladies, and the war as a condition of constant nervous strain.
Dampening Bone-Dryness
In West Virginia a judge of the Federal Court has held that the federal "bone-dry" law which forbids the carrying of liquor from one stat to another does not apply if the liquor is carried for one's personal use. If this decision is upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, the bone-dry states will not only continue to be about as dry as the interior of a watermelon, but the government will assist them in demonstrating what everyone ought to know: that Prohibition is a joke. A ton of it has less value than an ounce of Temperance, properly applied.

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Life 665 [Illustration of a younger woman seated next to an older woman. A man stands nearby looking at a print with a magnifying glass.] "My dear, he is a fine, splendid, upright fellow with such a character!" ""yes, Mother, and the worst of it is, a man like that will never get over it." War and Tobacco It was recorded the other day in a Boston paper that two hundred delegates to the Middlesex County W.C.T.U. assembled for their annual meeting in the First Baptist Church at Watertown, adopted resolutions condemning the practice of sending gifts of tobacco to soldiers and sailors. Dr. Louise Rand of Newton, who presented the resolutions, spoke of the injurious effects of tobacco and urged women to send books instead. Sending books is all right and perhaps more suitable to the W.C.T.U. but the remonstrance against tobacco was funny. Tobacco is a mild poison, useful as an antidote to such other poisons as fatigue, pain, worry, bad food, boredom, anxiety, loneliness, and the like. It is the most popular and the least hurtful antidote for the great poison of war. The W.C.T.U. is a virtuous organization, sometimes useful and sometimes very harmful. The trouble with it is that it never sees the whole of life. A fragment of life is visible to it, and to that it aspires to make mankind conform. But mankind never will. A peanut fits all right in a peanut shell, but a pumpkin doesn't. Think of tobacco as a nerve medicine, ladies, and the war as a condition of constant nervous strain. Dampening Bone-Dryness In West Virginia a judge of the Federal Court has held that the federal "bone-dry" law which forbids the carrying of liquor from one stat to another does not apply if the liquor is carried for one's personal use. If this decision is upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, the bone-dry states will not only continue to be about as dry as the interior of a watermelon, but the government will assist them in demonstrating what everyone ought to know: that Prohibition is a joke. A ton of it has less value than an ounce of Temperance, properly applied.