Undoing Begun

Two and a half years ago, funeral services were held at the First Presbyterian Church in Chicago for a great reformer of a great reform era. Two little boys and two little girls stood up, pointed to the coffin, recited: "Miss [Lucy Page] Gaston, we thank you for what you have done for us," and then repeated the "Clean Life Pledge" which Miss Gaston had taught. Miss Gaston's body was cremated, according to her wishes.

She was no flamboyant Prohibitionist like Carrie Nation, who tossed cuspidors at bartenders. Her method was different, and so was her subject. Cigarets were to Lucy Page Gaston what alcohol was to Carrie Nation. Miss Gaston was founder and Superintendent of the Anti-Cigaret League of America. Once she wrote a letter to Queen Mary of England, reproving her, if press reports had been correct, for enjoying a cigaret after luncheon. But the climax of Miss Gastori's work came in Kansas, where she, more than anyone else, was responsible for the agitation which put a stringent anti-cigaret law on the statute books 15 years ago. This law forbids the sale of cigarets or cigaret papers to any person, prohibits minors from smoking in public places.

Last week, Miss Gaston's major achievement began to be undone. The lower house of the Kansas legislature voted, 83 to 35, to repeal the anti-cigaret law. The State Senate is expected to follow suit; Governor Paulen say's he will sign the bill. Kansans had long been ashamed of this law. They could not enforce it; bootleggers simply sold cigarets for 25c instead of 15c; Missourians jested at their alleged smokeless neighbor, sent thousands of cigaret cartons across the border.

If the pending bill is adopted, Kansas will still prohibit the sale of cigarets to minors, as does many another state.*

Meanwhile, George W. Hill, President of the American Tobacco Co., suggested that cigaret advertising ought to be prepared to appeal to the woman smoker. Manufacturers, fearing that such an act would precipitate a rabid anti-cigaret crusade, have not yet published advertising with pictures of a woman smoking. The nearest approach was the Chesterfield advertisement, wherein a charming damsel on a moonlight night asks her escort to: "Blow some my way."

*Arizona Arkansas California Delaware Georgia Idaho Indiana Iowa Kentucky Louisiana Maine Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey North Dakota New Mexico North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Utah Washington West Virginia Wisconsin

Before 1923, Utah had an anti-cigaret law as stringent as the wavering law in Kansas.