AGAINST SMOKING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 20 February 1925, Page 5

AGAINST SMOKING.

CAMPAIGN IN U.S.A. CONVENTION CALLED. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT NEW YORK, Eeb. IS. The anti-tobacco campaign appears to he gaining, momentum. Dr Daniel Kress, a noted physician, and Dr Harvey Wiley, a formeV chief of the bureau of chemistry in the Department of Agriculture, are * heading the movement. Dr Wiley is known as the leading food expert of America.

A committee of a hundred men and women, including whites and negroes, are aiding the doctors, who have called together representatives of numerous organisations for a convention, and it is expected two hundred delegates will attend from all parts of the country. The invitation to the convention set out: “The siuation is becoming daily more critical. Our country' is now consuming in excess of six thousand million cigarettes monthly', a large percentage being smoked by' school children. A great drive must begin to save the new generation from this poison habit. A concerted movement should be made to pledge every Sunday school student against: tobacco in every form, our magazines and newspapers should he cleansed of all tobacco advertisements, smoking scenes should he omitted from all cinemas, and universal agitation should begin against smoking in restaurants, theatres, lifts and other public places.’’ The convention will plan movements wherever there is anv hope of success at this time to secure laws forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors, and will appeal for funds. The leaders declare that it is not a radical movement, hut aims, through persistence anil continuous service, to accomplish its aims. Leading physicians, clergymen, W.C.T.U., Sunday and other school officials and public men will he enlisted. Moral suasion will be the keynote of the. campaigners’ endeavours. Attemps are being made to secure a pledge from smokers to refrain from the habit. It is believed far-reaching legislative programmes would, at the present time, be doomed to failure, and reaction from their submission to the various State Legislatures would affect, other reform work adversely.