Tobacco industry

“ The domestic consumption of tobacco is very large. Practically every one smokes. Exportations are increasing. The tables on pages nine hundred and nine hundred one will give an adequate conception of the recent growth of the tobacco industry. ”

“ As the tobacco industry continued to expand into the interior, the need and the difficulty of regulating the quality of the leaf increased. Owing to ignorance or indifference, the frontier planters seldom resorted to methods of improving the quality of the crop. They traded their tobacco in small lots with the outport merchants, those from ports other than London, mostly Scottish, who sold the inferior tobacco to the countries in northern Europe. ”

“ The record in this case shows, however, that marketing practices in the tobacco industry have changed radically in recent years. An ever-increasing amount of tobacco is being taken from the type area in which it is grown into another type area for sale [18] -particularly into Georgia, where the higher prices which prevail on that market as a result of the commercially superior qualities of Type 14 tobacco constitute a powerful lure to growers and tobacco speculators who want to sell superficially similar tobacco of other types. ”

“ The eighth largest employer of workers engaged in manufacturing is the tobacco industry. Although the national consumption of tobacco has increased considerably, the rapid mechanization added to the manufacturing process has resulted in a decline in the total number of employees. Although only approximately six workers per 1,000 engaged in manufacturing in the United States are in the tobacco industry, in Virginia approximately 56 workers per 1,000 are so engaged. The chief locations for the tobacco industry are Richmond, Petersburg, Danville and South Boston. ”

“ The manufacture of tobacco shows as much diversity of labor conditions as the lumber industry. There are small establishments with little machinery which manufacture plug and smoking tobacco and are open only a few months in the year, as well as those which cover half a dozen city blocks. In the smaller factories the majority of the laborers are black, but in the larger establishments both negroes and whites are employed. ”

“ Smoking and chewing leaf of average grade fetches from 6 to 7 cents per lb.
From these figures it will be seen that the agricultural industry of tobacco growing is a most important one, and it is constantly increasing both in the quantity produced and in value. About 45 of the states in the Union are engaged in tobacco culture, the principal states and the quantities produced being as follows (for 1914) :
Virginia was, until recently, the premier tobacco state. ”

“ A 1972 Phillip Morris document summarized an industry conference
attended by 25 tobacco scientists from England, Canada, and the United
States: "The majority of conferees would accept the proposition that
nicotine is the active constituent of tobacco smoke. The cigarette
should be conceived not as a product, but as a package." Then they
said, "The product is nicotine."
Mr. Speaker, does anyone believe that the tobacco CEOs who testified
before Congress that tobacco was not addicting were telling the truth?
Mr. Speaker, most adult smokers start smoking before the age of 18. ”

“ The warfare produced its natural result, not only because the company acquired during the last two years of the campaign, as we have stated, control of important plug tobacco concerns, but others engaged in that industry came to terms. We say this because in 1898, in connection with several leading plug manufacturers, the American Tobacco Company organized a New Jersey corporation styled the Continental Tobacco Company, for 'trading and manufacturing,' with a capital of $75,000,000, afterwards increased to $100,000,000. ”

“ Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face — an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns.
I challenge Congress — let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down.
Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children. ”

“ Of course, when they are smoked and disliked no one uses them, and they become unsaleable, so that when Government finds that there are few or no purchasers, [295] and that their stock is accumulating, they are obliged to use a better class tobacco in their manufacture, upon which people begin to buy from them again. ”

“ Remarks pointing to the rapid growth of the smoking habit among youths were made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his recent Budget speech, where, commenting upon the augmented revenue from tobacco, he said it was mainly due to the vast consumption of cigarettes, which were specially attractive to our youthful population. ‘I am told,’ Sir Michael added, ‘of one manufacturer who makes two millions of cigarettes a day who hardly made any a few years ago.’
Every-day observation bears out the statement that the cigarette is the chosen smoke of youths. ”

“ In this production Rich declares that every fellow who came into an ale-house and called for his pot, must have his pipe also, for tobacco was then a commodity as much sold in every tavern, inn and ale-house as wine, ale, or beer. He goes on to say that apothecaries' shops, grocers' shops, and chandlers' shops were (almost) never without company who from morning to night were still taking tobacco; and what a number there are besides, he adds, "that doe keepe houses, set open shoppes, that have no other trade to live by but by the selling of tobacco." ”

“ We may, upon occasion, feel for the manufacturers and venders of 'lights,' but more generally we find ourselves constrained to sympathize with the purchasers of such contrivances for the ignition of pipes and cigars. The smoking of tobacco is an art; an art which, in its proper exercise, requires much care, much prudence, and not a little skill. This is a proposition which must, from its very nature, be startling to non-smokers, and surprising to many smokers. ”

“ In the United States the weed exhausts four hundred thousand acres of excellent land, and employs forty thousand sickly and cadaverous cigar and tobacco makers. In England, where there is a duty upon tobacco of seventy-five cents a pound, and upon cigars of nearly four dollars a pound, the government derives about six million pounds sterling every year from tobacco. The French government gets from its monopoly of the tobacco trade nearly two hundred million francs per annum, and Austria over eighty million francs. ”

“ Now we are seeing, to say nothing of smelling, either the cigar or the pipe everywhere, in the street, in the office, in court houses, in the state house, between the lips of the mechanic at his work, the provision dealer on his cart, and indeed almost in every place except the pulpit and school, from which it is a matter of congratulation that they are yet excluded. Being a smoker myself, I cannot be charged with prejudice when I express the opinion that this excessive and ill-timed use of tobacco not only violates rules of good taste and propriety, but is well nigh a nuisance. ”

“ In the evening, the planter's home is filled with the young people, bent on having a right good time, and with "stripping the willow" and other games, close the day if not the night in the most enjoyable manner. Many of the country merchants take the tobacco of the growers when in condition to handle, paying them (or at least a portion of it,) in goods, or purchasing the tobacco as they do other merchandise. They have large warehouses where they receive and pack the tobacco until shipped to market. ”

“ Parent-Duchatelet and D'Arcet, who inquired minutely into the state of the workmen employed at all the great tobacco-manufactories of France, comprising a population of above 4000 persons; and the results at which they have arrived are,—that the workmen very easily become habituated to the atmosphere of the manufactory,—that they are not particularly subject either to special diseases, or to disease generally,—and that they live on an average quite as long as other tradesmen. ”

“ The practice was hedged about and obstructed by a host of restrictions and conventions, but as the nineteenth century advanced the triumphant progress of tobacco became more and more marked. The introduction of the cigarette completed what the cigar had begun; barriers and prejudices crumbled and disappeared with increasing rapidity; until at the present day tobacco-smoking in England—by pipe or cigar or cigarette—is more general, more continuous, and more free from conventional restrictions than at any period since the early days of its triumph in the first decades of the seventeenth century. ”

“ Certainly, from that time forward, it began to grow into great request, and to be sold at a high rate; whilst in a short time many men, everywhere, some for wantonness, some for health sake, with insatiable desires and greediness, sucked in the stinking smoke thereof through an earthen pipe, which presently they blew out again at their nostrils; insomuch that tobacco-shops are now as ordinary in most towns as tap-houses and taverns. ”

“ Every man had a clay pipe, every man had a supply of the most villanous tobacco. I do not wonder the Government taxes such tobacco, that it has to be sold by license—some would not grieve if the duty were prohibitory. ”

“ In the reports of the manufactures of tobacco, snuff is classed with chewing tobacco. Chewing tobacco is put up in pressed cakes called ‘plug tobacco,’ and in a spongy mass of fine threads known as ‘fine cut.’ Usually flavoring matters, as vanilla, sugar, syrups, glycerin, etc., are added in small amounts. Different manufacturers have various formulas, considered as trade secrets, for improving their products. Smoking tobacco for pipes is put up in twists or rolls of the natural leaf or is cut fine and put up in small packages. ”

“ In the 24 years since the American Cancer Society organized the first Great American Smokeout, our country has made encouraging progress in our battle to reduce the devastating human and economic toll that tobacco products take on our society. Today we have a more comprehensive understanding of the dangers of tobacco use and the sophisticated marketing tactics used by tobacco companies, and we have developed more effective methods for helping people break their addiction to tobacco products. ”

“ The large factory of the British-American Tobacco Company is now practically completed and the leaf department already operating. They are preparing about 25,000 pounds of tobacco a day and have 300 Chinese women engaged as stemmers. The machines in the cigarette factory are being set up, and they hope to start manufacturing the middle of 1908. ”

“ The extraordinary increase of the trade and the improved quality of the tobacco are, in great measure, to be ascribed to the honest competition existing between the factories, who receive no other protection from the Government than a recognition of their operations. ”

“ In that day of leaf tobacco, the commodity was marketed in one-hundred-pound bales. My bales were made with ninety-two pounds of war tobacco, sweated free of any touch of mildew; and eight pounds of new tobacco, the latter on the outside for the sake of color and looks. Thus you may glimpse somewhat the advantage I had. Where, at forty cents a pound, the others paid on each bale of tobacco a revenue charge of forty dollars, I, with only eight pounds of new tobacco, paid but three dollars and twenty cents. And I had cornered the exempted tobacco. Is it wonder I began to wax rich? ”

“ The product of tobacco in Europe is nearly equal to the average production of the United States. Austria-Hungary produces about one-third of it, Russia one-tenth, Germany nearly as much, France about 35,000,000 pounds, and the other countries a small quantity. Europe can easily produce all the tobacco required, but American tobacco is largely imported, because it is cheap and is considered valuable for mixing with and fortifying European leaf. ”

“ Everywhere in the Pacific trade tobacco is native coin and currency. A few sticks of it will buy a man’s labor for the week, a woman’s virtue for the night. Government regulations have set a standard ration: two sticks a week. But the natives will accept only the stinking twist that traders import from Virginia. The development company had a bright idea: they would make a trade tobacco of their own and corner the business. ”

“ Smoking is to some extent gradually replacing betel-nut chewing, especially with the children, who now take to the weed when they are about five or six years old. The native tobacco is very strong, and when smoked as a cigarette wrapped in dried banana-leaf, it is decidedly unpalatable to the European. Light cigarette tobaccos of foreign manufacture are now much in vogue. Those who can afford it, roll up the tobacco in lotus leaf. ”

“ Five thousand persons are at work in it all the time, putting the imported tobacco into cigars or cigarettes, and making snuff, and they use two millions of pounds of tobacco every year. Most of these workers are women. ”

“ Page 203—Smoking Land
Montgomery, Ward and Co., the universal providers, say, "We will
not employ cigarette users."
"Morgan and Wright Tyre company, large employers, announce, "No
cigarettes can be smoked by our employees."
"At John Wanamakers.—The application blank to be filled out by
boys applying for a position reads: 'Do you use tobacco or
cigarettes?' A negative answer is expected, and is favourable to
their acceptance as employes."
"Heath and Milligan, Chicago, bar cigarette users."
"Carson, Pirie and Scott, Chicago, bar cigarette smokers as
employes." ”