The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation [105]
try to obey the commands
of Jesus: "A remnant shall be saved." Caleb and Joshua were only two
in six hundred thousand but they alone of this great multitude lived to
see and inherit the promised land. Christ said. "Go out into the highways
and hedges and compel them to come in that my home may be full."
Where are the highways and hedges: They are places where men and
women are the most lost. How can they be compelled to come in? Love
is the only compelling influence. If no one goes with love, how are these
lost ones to know they are loved. Christ brought love down to us; He
came down to do it. We must take His love to the low places--"Condescend
to men of low estate." I praise my God for opening a door to
me never opened to anyone else. I find the theatre stocked with boys
of our country. They are not found in churches. I have not sought to
get into the so-called "respectable set" but I have told my managers to
get me into the worst class. They need me most. They are as brands
snatched from the burning.
I am not only a reformer on the line of the licensed or unlicensed
saloon, but on other evils. I believe that, on the whole, tobacco has done
more harm than intoxicating drinks. The tobacco habit is followed by
thirst for drink. The face of the smoker has lost the scintillations of
intellect and soul it would have had if not marred by this vice. The odor
of his person is vile, his blood is poisoned, his intellect is dulled.
A smoker is never a healthy man, either in body or mind, for nicotine
is a poison. Prussic acid is the only poison that is worse. Nicotine
poisons the blood, dulls the brain, and is the cause of disease. The lungs
of the tobacco user are black from poison, his heart action is weak, and
the worst thing to contemplate in the whole matter is that these tobacco
users transmit nervous diseases, epilepsy, weakened constitutions, depraved
appetites and deformities of all kinds to their offspring.
Deterioration of the race is upon us, and unless there is some reform,
idiocy, imbecility and extinction will be the legacy of the future
generations.
A man that uses tobacco cannot have the nice moral perceptions on
any point that he should have. I find him to be dulled and sluggish. The
Bible says: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body is full of light. If
thine eye be evil, thy whole body is full of darkness." The use of tobacco
is a vice, and to the extent of that one vice, it degrades a mail. It opens
the gate for other vices, for it is the gratification for one form of lust.
It is a filthy habit, and I care not how often the smoker changes his
clothes or washes his person, he is filthy. The stench from his breath
indicates that his body repudiates such uncleanliness.
The tobacco user can never be the father of a healthy child. Therefore
he is dangerous for a woman to have as a husband. If I were a
young woman, I would say to the men who use tobacco and who would
wish to converse with me: "Use the telephone; come no closer!" I
would as soon kiss a spittoon as to kiss such a mouth. When a man
begins to smoke he is taking his first lessons in drink. The two habits
travel together.
A man never can attain his majority and use tobacco. He never can
realize his full capabilities or his possibilities. He can always attain to a
better standard without nicotine.
There is one objection that, from a business standpoint, every business
man ought to make to tobacco. When he employs a man that uses
tobacco he gets only a certain per cent. of his employee's time and of his
brain, because the employee must serve his tobacco master part of his
time and when he is not smoking his mind is preoccupied because he is
thinking of smoking. Consequently, he cannot concentrate his mind upon
his business.
I have heard poor, silly, empty-headed women say that it is manly
to smoke. If it is manly to smoke, why isn't it womanly to smoke? The
tobacco habit is the reverse of manhood and destroys manhood, for manhood
means strength of character, not the gratification
of Jesus: "A remnant shall be saved." Caleb and Joshua were only two
in six hundred thousand but they alone of this great multitude lived to
see and inherit the promised land. Christ said. "Go out into the highways
and hedges and compel them to come in that my home may be full."
Where are the highways and hedges: They are places where men and
women are the most lost. How can they be compelled to come in? Love
is the only compelling influence. If no one goes with love, how are these
lost ones to know they are loved. Christ brought love down to us; He
came down to do it. We must take His love to the low places--"Condescend
to men of low estate." I praise my God for opening a door to
me never opened to anyone else. I find the theatre stocked with boys
of our country. They are not found in churches. I have not sought to
get into the so-called "respectable set" but I have told my managers to
get me into the worst class. They need me most. They are as brands
snatched from the burning.
I am not only a reformer on the line of the licensed or unlicensed
saloon, but on other evils. I believe that, on the whole, tobacco has done
more harm than intoxicating drinks. The tobacco habit is followed by
thirst for drink. The face of the smoker has lost the scintillations of
intellect and soul it would have had if not marred by this vice. The odor
of his person is vile, his blood is poisoned, his intellect is dulled.
A smoker is never a healthy man, either in body or mind, for nicotine
is a poison. Prussic acid is the only poison that is worse. Nicotine
poisons the blood, dulls the brain, and is the cause of disease. The lungs
of the tobacco user are black from poison, his heart action is weak, and
the worst thing to contemplate in the whole matter is that these tobacco
users transmit nervous diseases, epilepsy, weakened constitutions, depraved
appetites and deformities of all kinds to their offspring.
Deterioration of the race is upon us, and unless there is some reform,
idiocy, imbecility and extinction will be the legacy of the future
generations.
A man that uses tobacco cannot have the nice moral perceptions on
any point that he should have. I find him to be dulled and sluggish. The
Bible says: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body is full of light. If
thine eye be evil, thy whole body is full of darkness." The use of tobacco
is a vice, and to the extent of that one vice, it degrades a mail. It opens
the gate for other vices, for it is the gratification for one form of lust.
It is a filthy habit, and I care not how often the smoker changes his
clothes or washes his person, he is filthy. The stench from his breath
indicates that his body repudiates such uncleanliness.
The tobacco user can never be the father of a healthy child. Therefore
he is dangerous for a woman to have as a husband. If I were a
young woman, I would say to the men who use tobacco and who would
wish to converse with me: "Use the telephone; come no closer!" I
would as soon kiss a spittoon as to kiss such a mouth. When a man
begins to smoke he is taking his first lessons in drink. The two habits
travel together.
A man never can attain his majority and use tobacco. He never can
realize his full capabilities or his possibilities. He can always attain to a
better standard without nicotine.
There is one objection that, from a business standpoint, every business
man ought to make to tobacco. When he employs a man that uses
tobacco he gets only a certain per cent. of his employee's time and of his
brain, because the employee must serve his tobacco master part of his
time and when he is not smoking his mind is preoccupied because he is
thinking of smoking. Consequently, he cannot concentrate his mind upon
his business.
I have heard poor, silly, empty-headed women say that it is manly
to smoke. If it is manly to smoke, why isn't it womanly to smoke? The
tobacco habit is the reverse of manhood and destroys manhood, for manhood
means strength of character, not the gratification