During the lifetime of humorist George Fitch, some
critics thought that he might take the place of Mark Twain in the hearts and
libraries of American readers. Sadly, Fitch's promise was cut short when he
died aged 38 from a ruptured appendix. Fitch is an author of an early form of
the famous quote "Journalism is the first rough draft of history.",
writing “A reporter is a young man who blocks out the first draft of
history each day on a rheumatic typewriter”
This column by George Fitch appeared Aug. 6, 1912, on the
State Journal editorial page:
A cigarette is a small paper cylinder which is used by some
people as a substitute for tobacco and by others as a substitute for brains.
The cigarette is poisonous in the extreme and a million of
them will kill a strong man if he lives long enough to smoke them. It has as
few friends in this country as the rattlesnake and is much more violently
denounced. Very few boys have been bitten by rattlesnakes, but millions of boys
have smoked cigarettes behind the barn just once and have been unable to walk
with comfort for a week afterward.
Cigarettes are very cheap and if a man will roll them
himself he can smoke 100 at a cost of 5 cents for material and $20 in time.
Spain has stood still for hundreds of years because its people have not learned
how to work and roll cigarettes at the same time.
Rolling cigarettes is a difficult art and many of our
college students labor years to perfect it. When a college boy comes home able
to roll a cigarette with one hand, you can see about all that he has picked up
in college on the ends of his fingers.
When a young man smokes cigarettes to excess, he becomes so
permeated with poison that microbes cannot live in him and he has to linger
along for years with a kiln dried brain that rattles in his head like a dried
pea in a wash-boiler.
Cigarettes are used mostly by boys, loafers, college
students, artists and literary men. ...
Some women smoke cigarettes. They are of two kinds. When you
see a woman smoking cigarettes you can be quite sure that either she is too
good to associate with you or you are too good to associate with her.
Sources and Additional Information:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/opinion/column/guest/george-fitch-column-from-years-ago-cigarettes-explained/article_6ebb45cb-a533-5dc9-b010-e1358c632837.html
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