| Publication information |
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Source: New York Tribune Source type: newspaper Document type: article Document title: “Dr. Pease Assails Nicotine, but Doesn’t Rebuke Senate” Author(s): anonymous City of publication: New York, New York Date of publication: 7 February 1921 Volume number: 80 Issue number: 27112 Pagination: 3 |
| Citation |
| “Dr. Pease Assails Nicotine, but Doesn’t Rebuke Senate.” New York Tribune 7 Feb. 1921 v80n27112: p. 3. |
| Transcription |
| excerpt |
| Keywords |
| Charles G. Pease; Charles G. Pease (public statements); McKinley assassination (personal response); William McKinley (medical condition). |
| Named persons |
| Leon Czolgosz; Warren G. Harding; William McKinley; Charles G. Pease. |
| Notes |
| Click here to view an item from the Evening Public Ledger written in response to Pease’s comments (below). |
| Document |
Dr. Pease Assails Nicotine, but Doesn’t Rebuke Senate [excerpt]
Questions Whether McKinley, for Smoking, Was Not Guilty of Greater
Crime Than His Assassin; Says Fight on Tobacco Is Gaining.
It looks as though the United States
Senate’s audacity in striking from an appropriation bill the Smoot amendment
prohibiting smoking in any building in the District of Columbia used by the
executive departments of the government is to go unrebuked.
Dr. Charles Giffin Pease, indubitably the champion
rebuker of the age, was asked yesterday at his home, 101 West Seventy-second
Street, what he was going to do about the Senate.
“Is it not a legitimate question,” demanded Dr.
Pease, “to inquire who is guilty of the greater crime, President McKinley, who
practiced the poison addiction (smoking, the doc meant; even the word makes
him shudder) to his own hurt and a greater hurt to the human race by elevating
the example to the highest political office in the land, or the assassin who
fired the shot under the excitement of the moment?”
It may have been a legitimate question, but it
wasn’t a fair one. No question is fair if one of the two possible answers is
Czolgosz. Dr. Pease sent a stern glance after the query, however, and proceeded.
Classes Smoking as Crime
“Unless we as a people,” he said,
“are willing to face such serious and potent questions we are not well-wishers
of humanity.”
He looked at the reporter as though he suspected
him of not being a well-wisher of humanity.
“That’s true, doctor,” said the reporter, hoping
to allay this suspicion, “but what are you going to do about the Senate? It
has given President-elect Harding permission to smoke in his office.”
“It is difficult,” replied Dr. Pease, “to move
people to a sense of responsibility as an example or progenitor, especially
those holding high official positions. They should be willing to sacrifice all
harmful addiction for the sake of humanity. It is said that McKinley’s surgeons
said that he would have recovered from the gunshot wound had he not had a tobacco
heart.”
“So it is,” said the reporter, who had just heard
it with his own ears, “but about the Senate now”—