Babies' Blood

"The Michigan Christian Advocate, denouncing the methods by which the tobacco trust is coining the blood of babies into dividends, says, 'The trust has overstepped itself in its greed.' The Advocate will find in the ranks of its allies thousands who are decidedly against baby-killing."--Bulletin of The Methodist Board of Morals.

Readers of metropolitan newspapers last week observed a new and particularly acrimonious development in the current advertising disagreement between tobacco & sugar, cigarets & candies, Lucky Strikes & Sweets. Begun last winter, when American Tobacco Co. initiated its famed "Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet" series, the publicity war has already produced an astonishing number of alarms and excursions. Indignant outbursts have proceeded from Candy Weekly and other sugar centres. Competing cigarets have rebuked the Lucky campaign.* Advertising itself has engaged in an intermural struggle over "tainted" v. "honest" testimonials. The Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission have been invited to act as advertising disinfectants. Object of last week's attack, however, was not directly American Tobacco Co., but Merlin Aylesworth's National Broadcasting Co., nation-wide radio chain. Possibly despairing in their endeavor to convince the Lucky Strike makers of the evils of their course, the sugar & calorie forces turned their attention to the broadcasting company as an accessory in the tobacco crime.

The attack--a page advertisement signed by National Food Products Protective Committee, consisted of an "open letter" headed: "Shall the air be given over to destructive propaganda?"/- This letter was addressed to the Advisory Council of National Broadcasting Co. Since the Advisory Council numbers among its members a long list of men and women whose U. S. citizenship is a source of U. S. pride, and since the Lucky Strike campaign has been widely, conspicuously flayed, the Open Letter was essentially a sharp contrast between the admittedly high character of the Council and the allegedly low character of the campaign. Said the Letter:

"It is impossible to believe that you, Mr. Rosenwald [Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist, Chairman of Sears Roebuck] with your record of benefactions to humanity, and you, Mrs. Sherman [Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman, clubwoman, onetime (1924-26) head of General Federation of Women's Clubs] known and trusted by millions of American women, believe that the National Broadcasting Co. is rendering a public service when it permits young men and women to be told . . . that it is 'healthy' to smoke cigarets. It is impossible to believe that you, Dr. Macfarland [Dr. Charles Stedman Macfarland, General Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America] and that you, Mr. Green [William Green, head of American Federation of Labor] representing millions of workers, can feel that broadcasting is reflecting either the interests of the church or the home when such harmful propaganda is sent through the air." Thus, half-incredulous, half-accusatory, the Open Letter appealed to the better natures, the higher selves, of Advisory Council members. It made particular reference to Owen D. Young (whose General Electric Co. it credited with controlling National Broadcasting), felt that Chairman Young could not knowingly permit the radio chain to aid in "undermining the interests of the American home and of honest business."

Aside from its ringing appeal to Advisory Councilors (who thus far have made no reply), the Open Letter devoted itself chiefly to an interpretation of the Lucky Strike campaign (which, however, it failed to mention by name) as subversive to the youth of the nation. Having told how millions of "young men, women and children" assemble to hear the Lucky Strike radio orchestra, the Letter pointed out that "once attention is centred on the dance program, a flow of tainted testimonials begins to poison the air." Young women have already dieted themselves to the very threshold of tuberculosis, yet these "future mothers of the nation" are encouraged to "substitute" cigarets for "wholesome food." Furthermore, American Tobacco Co. "flaunts" billboard posters of an "adolescent girl" smoking cigarets. Says the summing up: "Yes, it's a shocking business indeed to urge cigarets upon the youth of the nation."

The Open Letter also quotes many an anti-cigaret speech and editorial, including the previously cited Methodist Moral Bulletin. Said the Salt Lake City Deseret News: "Damage incalculable . . . dastardly campaign." Said Dr. Daniel Alfred Poling, head of International Society of Christian Endeavor: "Womanhood is being exploited for trade."

To the Open Letter neither the tobacco nor the radio company has replied. The Lucky v. Sweet campaign has not recently been appearing in U. S. newspapers. The N F P P C attributes this absence to an awakened journalistic conscience; the advertising agency (Lord & Thomas and Logan) preparing Lucky advertising says that the campaign has finished its allotted run, will shortly be followed by another. Whether this new campaign will continue the Luckies v. Sweets campaign has not been announced, though President George Washington Hill of American Tobacco Co. (originator of the anti-sweet idea) has never exhibited the slightest signs of shame or contrition over his campaign.

Indeed, as far as the theory that U. S. youth is going Over the Hill to the Poorhouse is concerned, tobacco men feel that the woman smoker has become an accepted element in the contemporary U. S. scene, and that abstinence from sweets is dictated not by the Lucky campaign but by present fashion.

* Old Golds advise smoking Old Golds, eating sweets, enjoying both. Say Camels: "With a cigaret as good as Camels, the truth is enough."

/- The NFPPC was formed to combat the Lucky Strike campaign. Chairman is A. M. Kelley, of Wallace & Co., Brooklyn candy makers.