The Facts on Those Cigarette Ads - II
Harding, T. Swann
The Facts on Those Cigarette Ads — II By T. SWANN HARDING WE turn now to Philip Morris cigarettes whose advertising copy writers have made gorgeously imaginative flights into the higher...
...Then purchasers were also led to believe they were smoking English cigarettes when they used this brand...
...But...
...Lerner says this plan is applicable in a collectivist society, but he also makes the statement startling to radicals, that full employment is also possible within a limited capitalist order...
...Bevin's office that determines who can be spared for work in the armed forces, who should be granted deferments and exemptions...
...It is usually to be found among engineers who do not understand the complexity of the economy outside of the engineering shop and is largely responsible for the great and unnecessary suffering that has usually accompanied revolutions and which has made revolutions so difficult to bring about, even when they are necessary and useful...
...IN Britain the administration of the entire manpower situa-* tion is placed in the hands of the Ministry of Labor, headed by Ernest Bevin...
...In return they cannot be discharged except for gross misconduct, and are guaranteed full pay for the normal work week whether or not there is work for them...
...It assumes that there is a good reason for collectivizing everything, even though some of this worthwhileness should perhaps be sacrified for the sake of the additional safeguards to individual freedom...
...at the end of October, announced the inauguration of the system in this country...
...If any private enterprise is able by reason of greater efficiency to produce and sell the product in competition with such collectivist concerns, it should be permitted to flourish and to eliminate the collectivist undertakings, because it serves the public better than the collectivist enterprise can...
...The latter dogma is firmly established in the Soviet Union...
...that anybody who does not want all the collectivism he can get is "reactionary...
...In this regard it is relevant to report that according to the Bureau of Employment Security women can do 80 per cent of the jobs in defense industries, that out of 937 occupations in civilian industries women wer* found suitable for all but 80, that women are easier to supervise, that women's labor turnover is lower, that their accident rate is lower, and that they do less damage to tools and materials than men...
...The existence of private enterprise lessens the dependence of everyone on the state as an employer sad to that degree is a good thing...
...On the other hand it is conceivable that a completely collectivized economy would guarantee all the freedoms that the individual cherishes, freedom of speech, freedom from want, freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination, freedom of movement, freedom from oppression of every kind...
...IT seems reasonable to conclude that cigarette smoking is * not very harmful if held within reasonable limits...
...The "eminent doctors" were said to have declared that inhaling smoke from Philip Morris cigarettes was beneficial in an exceptional way...
...The makers of the cigarettes also offered to send upon request reprints of all papers published on the influence of hygroscopic agents on cigarette-smoke irritation, but failed to do so—if the reprints showed that the agents used in the manufacture of Philip Morris were irritating...
...Although this would not pet at the heart of the problem it would ease the manpower shortage sad probably help the discrimination problem itseH by brmginf about greater contact with the groups that are now being discriminated against...
...Thus the advertising insisted that the superiority of Philip Morris cigarettes was so outstanding as to be without, paralled in cigarette history...
...So precious is individual liberty that as many safeguards as possible should be provided against the dangers that threaten it...
...A collectivized economy can solve the unemployment problem, but it also brings with it possible clamps on the freedom of individuals, argue some...
...Plants which could not operate at full time had to make arrangements with others similarly situated and decide which one would remain open working at capacity...
...Bevin is not only in charge of civilian manpower, but is given the authority and the responsibility for taking charge of what we in this country call the selective service system...
...3. The total manpower needed in these industries to meet production requirements should be estimated, so that the...
...Overtime has consistently been paid for in England on the basis of from one and a quarter to one and a half on weekdays, one and a half on holidays and Saturdays and double time on Sundays...
...Under Complaint 4794, August 8, 1942, the Federal Trade Commission appeared to be unconvinced...
...How to reconcile the two—that is the crucial problem for all men of social rood wilL Professor Abba P. Lerner says that modern economic theory can provide s plan for full employment and at the same time minimize the dangers to our basic freedoms...
...were scientifically unwarranted...
...By their squawks ye shall know them...
...the owners or stock holders were not compensated by the government for any financial loss thereby...
...On the same principle Adam Smith was a collectivist since Laissez Faire is also a plan for social organization...
...It is a problem which was scarcely envisaged by Congress or by the public as little as six months ago— but it is today America's No...
...in the corporate name, a device resembling the royal arms was used, and the words English, London, W., and By Special Appointment appeared...
...All single 'women between twenty and forty were rendered liable to compulsory national service...
...If that monopoly could be broken, the new man would have a chance...
...It would include what is now the Selective Service System, the WPB, and Lend-Lease procurement...
...The principal obstacle is the lack of telegraphic news service...
...Some hold that the combustion of tobacco containing glycerine produces throat irritation, while this irritation disappears if v<hethylene glycol is ased and the throat returns to normal...
...All these freedoms can be provided in a completely collectivist economy if the government believes in them and wishes them to be made available for the citizens...
...Old-line capitalism brings with it long periods of hardship and suffering, though a man has a given area of freedom of expression, point out others...
...factual: "Factories in London, Cairo, Hamilton, Canada," Richmond, Va...
...Lerner is widely known in economic circles for his provocative writings on the nature of s Socialist economy...
...The belief that a mixed economy, because it contains elements of private enterprise, cannot solve the problem of unemployment has no discernible basis in observation or in modern theory- Full employment has been achieved or is being achieved in Germany, in England and in the United States...
...Prof...
...2. All essential civilian and war industries should be listed...
...On January 8, 1941, the Federal Trade Commission issued an order telling Philip Morris & Co...
...It would follow a definite planned program covering certain specific actions...
...This is not a very powerful safeguard, as the state will always be strong enough to persecute any individual even if it were not a. direct employer itself...
...The Commission instead held that the cigarettes' were not manufactured in England, nor were the company's Player's Navy Cut Cigarettes ever manufactured by- John Player & Sons...
...Both were made by manufacturers who claimed that they were less irritant to the throat than competitive brands...
...There is no room for the dogma that the government must not compete with private enterprise any more than there is room for the dogma that private enterprise must not compete' with the government...
...The Facts on Those Cigarette Ads — II By T. SWANN HARDING WE turn now to Philip Morris cigarettes whose advertising copy writers have made gorgeously imaginative flights into the higher stratosphere of pseudo-science...
...Witness the Gestapo...
...The necessity for such action can be realised when we recognize that we have 13 million Negroes...
...cream of the tobacco crop or from finer, lighter tobacco', and, ab^ve all, do not afford protection against coughing...
...The best evidence that this suit against the Associated Press really means something is the way the big newspaper...
...Nevertheless we may consider the two halves of the issue separately...
...We*think readers will find his present article stimuating, and we invite comments...
...As the employer has to take everyone tne Ministry sends, a balanced proportion of neew trainees alongside of skilled workers is assured...
...The other claim of Philip Morris is more complex...
...The compatibility of collectivism with democracy and the compatibility of mixed economy with full efficiency looks like two issues, but since a failure of the mixed economy to provide the maximium use of resources would inevitably result in its replacement by some form of collectivism, this has to be taken into account by those who prefer a mixed economy for fear that collectivism most destroy democracy...
...Oh August 31, 1942, the Federal Trade Commission goC'around to Pall Mall and to Lucky Strike cigarettes...
...To'build up the British atmosphere, prominence was given to "Ltd...
...Some tests, indicate that these agents prove irritating to smokers...
...mobilization of sufficient industrial and agricultural 4 manpower to handle essential wartime military and civilian production...
...It is possible for any economy, even if it admixes collectivism with capitalism only to the extent of guaranteeing an adequate money demand for the products of private enterprise, to provide and maintain full employment...
...Many of the claims hinged on a special moisture-holding agent used in the cigarettes which made them less irritating to the nose and throat than competitive brands in which another agent was used...
...a pragmatic decision in each case between collectivist and private enterprise will result in an economy which satisfies the needs of the population in the most efficient manner...
...You must accept" and "you must believe" all this, "because they are the impartial findings of a group of distinguished doctors," cautioned the advertising...
...44 million Jews, 7 million citizens of German origin...
...It also provides for the training or retraining of men and women for productive work, and it arranges for large scale transfers of men and women to work mote vital to the war effort, even if it is necessary to transfer them from the armed services to civilian life...
...Those between twenty and thirty-one must enter either the non-ombatant branches or war industryThe government through the Labor Ministry instituted a vast training program for elderly men and for women...
...News Monopoly...
...It finds employment through its labor exchanges for those who are unemployed...
...that all cigarettes have about the same qualities, good or bad1...
...At present, it is difficult to start a competing newspaper in any town...
...And if the government does not believe in them, it is powerful enough in any form of mixed economy to destroy them almost as effectively as in the completely collectivist economy...
...There was no consistency whatever...
...To make sure that trainees would be absorbed in an orderly and efficient manner the government passed a Restriction on Engagement Order, whereby no employer in essential industries can employ new help except by applying to the Ministry of Labor...
...Not only were the cigarettes said to cause no throat and nose irritation but, if the smoker already had such irritation and changed over to Philip Morris, he could cure it.'He could smoke as freely as he wished "without smoking penalties...
...The various non-essential industries were told, by the Ministry, to "concentrate...
...6. All labor in essential industries should be "frozen" to their Jobs...
...Complaints 4826-27...
...Joseph L. Weiner of the WPB...
...It should be headed by a man who is acceptable to labor and who would be powerful enough to speak for labor...
...This has by now been sufficiently established and is denied only: by 'nineteenth century' classical economists who are too interested in the implications of an assumed full employment economy to notice that in the actual world full employment does not come about automatically, and by 'nineteenth century' communists who refuse to recognize this possibility because it would interfere with a different intellectual sport in which they are engaged...
...This work was done "through the splendid cooperation of Philip Morris and Co...
...is 100 per cent wrong...
...Trrne, even allowing for some overlapping, one-fourth of our population fall* into categories widely subject to employment discrimination...
...Treat the A. P. as a "Common Carrier" Says Keating By EDWARD KEATING Editor nf Labor I THINK Oswald Garrison Yillard...
...and one of the safee-uards in the existence of independent sources of income so that anyone who displeases some government bureaucrat shall not bare bis livelihood imperiled by the team-spirit of the other bureaucrats...
...And although for many reasons the British experience is not wholly analagous to ours, we have much to gain from a study of the labor and production policy and administration as developed in war-time England...
...a pernicious irresponsibility which is much more reprehensible than attachment to the status quo just because it is the status quo...
...Crisis in American Manpower Reserve Demands New Over-All Plan With Labor By RICHARD CANTOR...
...This will mean that the price reflects the degree to which it is desirable* for consumers to economise in the aee of the product so as to set free these resources for other uses...
...attack on freedom of the press " On th* contrary, it is a move to make the newspapers in Xmerin really free...
...Even the most staid medical journals have often accepted this twaddle as serious...
...While strongly tempted to join in the fun of throwing brickbats, I shall endeavor to limit myself to the more significant issue...
...But when Hoick and Carlson, competent and unprejudiced- scientists, summarized all this work in the April, 1937, Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, they found little of value...
...In the interest of the welfare of all the people, I am in favor of giving him his chance...
...in his New Leader artic e *· two weeks ago...
...The claim "Established over 80 years" alone appeared justified, as there had been unbroken continuity since Philip Morris, the founder, conducted a tobacco shop in London 'from 1846...
...And so the wheel has made a complete turn, carrying with it many of the social thinkers of the day...
...But every little safeguard is of value...
...For, of course, cupidity could never triumph over virtue in the best medical journals...
...Tolan has suggested an Office of War Mobilization— with supreme authority for mobilizing America's economic resources, directing war economy, military and civil...
...Collectivism and Freedom An Attempt to Resolve "the Conflict" By a Modern Economic Approach By ABBA P. LERNER Profeetor of Economies at Amherst College u IN two articles in the November issue of "Common Sense," * Carl Dreher and John Chamberlain not only name each other "reactionary" and "fascist" but raise the mere significant issue of the compatibility of collectivism with democracy, and the compatibility of a mixed, or incompletely collectivized, economy with efficiency and the full utilization of resources...
...This should be done as a basis for determining through a clear coherent report the industries in which production must be maintained, labor, materials and priorities must be supplied, etc...
...According to a Gallup Pall of housewives taken in March of this year 49 per cent of American house-wive* would be willing to take jobs in defense factories...
...IN this country we will ha\e to establish a single agency * —Rep...
...to cease and desisl making such claims, and also to stop the display of the'TOyri arms...
...And/Or YEARS ago people used to say...
...Moreover, the findings were not impartial, the persons who participated were untrained, and publication of the inaccurate and unscientific findings in medical journals did...
...Agents and depots all over the" world...
...The job of increasing the efficiency of workers by adjusting industrial disputes, by broadening the scope of existing industrial-welfare services and by providing new social services for the improvement of their health is also left to Bevin's Ministry of Labor...
...they were made for the benefit of the makers who paid for them...
...But perhaps Stuart Chase was only using the word facetiously to parody the practice of calling anything "red" which implies the growth of responsible government...
...The rest had to close down or convert to war production...
...Surprisingly enough, Bevin reported on the infinitesimal number of complaints on the compulsory job transfers and placements...
...If the criterion of efficiency is put in place of these dogmas there will emerge a mixed economy in which the additional safeguards to individual freedom in the availability of alternative employment possibilities will automatically be provided (in addition to more substantial guarantees such as a minimum inalienable income for everybody...
...The new man can't get that service because some publisher or publishers have purchased a monopoly of all the news-gathering facilities and feature services...
...in fact, the makers of Pall Malls went so far as to say they would protect the threat' Also that they would not produce tell-tale finger stains!' To judge from the other complaint, Lucky Strike ciga"retteV are not toasted, do not have the favor of expert smokers, are not less acid than other brands, are not" less irritating to the throat because they are toasted— or f;orany other reason, do not contain better and higher priced, tobacco than competing brands, are not made from the...
...however we decide to use the w-ords...
...OCCASIONALLY any economy in which the government provides some social services and plans for full employment is called collectivist (as in Stuart Chase's account of New Zealand in the same (November 1942) number of "Common Sense...
...They said that the methods of experimentation used were unsatisfactory and that it was not scientific to judge the relief of throat congestion by the absence of a cough...
...Similarly, the workers, for giving up their right to strike and subjecting themselves to the possibility of a fine and two years imprisonment, are given the protection of an impartial tribune which has twenty days to adjust grievances, after which time they may strike...
...4. All non-essential industries which, because of the us* of scarce materials or skilled labor, hamper essential industries must be done sway with...
...Fortunately, cigarette smokers usually pick the brand they like, do not expect it to build up their health, and pay little attention to the imaginative pseudo-scientific material conjqcjed by advertising copy writers...
...The purported, surveys and figdihgs, it said, were not based upon accurate scientific tests and were not those of a group of distinguished doctors for the sole benefit of their own profession...
...This formulation is improper because there is no presumption that complete collectivism is always more efficient or better in some other way than partial collectivism...
...7. Outlaw through legislation racial and religious dif* criminatory practices in employment, violation subject to <?· and imprisonment...
...Its plan would probably have to include the following points: 1. Registration and classification of all women between the ages of 18 and 55...
...It is Mr...
...This means establishing uniform costing procedures and the adoption in every government or collectivist enterprise of the principle of producing that amount of product which will sell at a price equal to the value of the marginal quantity of the factors of production needed to produce another unit of the product...
...Instead of acting as umpire between competitors for War Production, it would integrate and coordinate individual production plants as a part of a national war production program...
...The effect in protecting smokers from irritation due to inhaling contrasted sharply with that of four other leading brands which were said to be three times as irritating...
...This attitude (which is clearly seen in many of Dreher's remarks) reflect* an infantile attachment to change for the sake of change as "progressive...
...Striking similarities exist between the problem which has developed in this country and the problem as it developed in England...
...And the basic questions that will have to be faced are—how we can add to the available manpower market sufficient workers, both skilled and unskilled, to allow the President's production program to continue unhampered—how to end labor pirating—how to organize a tremendous nation-wide training program for women, older men, and those sections of our population which are being subjected to discriminatory practices in employment—how to discourage workers in war industries from transferring from one job to another, thereby slowing production—and how to prevent the wastage of labor and materials in non-essential industries...
...Indeed, some investigators would go so far as to hold that the use of diethylene glycol is beneficial to the smoker...
...denounce the proposal...
...Legislative action taken in England to facilitate the workings of the Labor Ministry includes the Essential Work Ordei according to which five million workers engaged ir work of national importance cannot change their place of work...
...As a result of this program 22 million persons out of a total population of 33.300,000 between the ages of fourteen and sixty-five are employed in the armed forces, civil defense, and industry, excluding about two million part-time and voluntary workers...
...1 problem on the Home Front The armed forces will be withdrawing new millions from our total manpower forces, the reserves...
...They were merely to find out whether Philip Morris cigarettes were any different...
...it provides the additional safeguards of individual freedom that Chamberlain is rightly concerned about, and presents those who will insist on pedantic discussions, with the permanent pleasures of endiess argument about whether the economy in which they live is capitalist or collectivist...
...that human beings are unable to tell one cigarette front' another under controlled test conditions, and that most special claims made by cigarette manufacturers for their product may be regarded as bunk...
...The question then appears to be "to what extent is it advisable to sacrifice the benefits of collectivism to get these a'dditional safeguards of the freedom of the individual?' But this is an improper formulation...
...extent of our training program can be clearly seen...
...Once the government undertakes planning to the extent of guaranteeing full employment by creating an adequate money demand for the products of industry, the rest of the economy can be divided between private enterprise and government or collectivist enterprise through the pragmatic device of letting that form of enterprise prevail in any case which proves itself superior to the other...
...there is sense in the' fear of a completely collec-* tivist economy as a danger to the freedom of the individual...
...Where the private enterprise cannot withstand such competition by the collectivist enterprise it should disappear and let the more efficient collectivist enterprise supply the product Of course the conditions for competition between the two kinds of enterprise will have to be conducted fairly so that the more efficient enterprise will win...
...I*HIS opens an interesting question...
...To use the word in this sense is to destroy the usefulness of language...
...The former dogma is the more strongly entrenched in the United States...
...The evidence on all this is confusing...
...See "The Economic Steering Wheel".University Review, June 1941...
...Why Ulk of liberty * when a man has got an empty belly.' Today people say, Why talk of "economic security" when man's mind is in chains...
...This would have to be done so that, even if a draft of women is not necessary, we will have a clear picture of the number of women available for industrial work, the types of work they can probably do, their marital status, health, etc...
...5. Start a vast training program of women, older men, and Negroes to replace all men who are physically fit and of draft age who are employed in essential industries, and to fill the gap between the existing supply of manpower and the amount needed...
...The Labor Ministry provides the manpower necessary to maintain the output of goods and services for the armed forces and for civilian needs...
...not .constitute proof of the superiority of Philip Morris cigarettes...
...It also made it impossible for an employer to coax experienced workers away from a rival...
...Certain substances *¦· tike glycerine and diethylene glygol are used in cigarette making to keep the product moist longer...
...An effort was then made to have various subjects classify cigarettes as to their irritant quality...
...Naturally, those who benefit from the AP monopoly decn this as ar...
...This could effectively be don* through the extension of the priorities system, more extensiv* conversion, and the "concentration" system which Britain developed...
...It is also interesting thst the same poll reported that 76 per cent of the single women between 21 and 35 would be fa*-or of drafting single women in that age group ) ? her* might be some advantages in instituting an advertising campaign "glamorizing" women in industry...
...August 13, 1939, the Federal Trade Commission held the following words on Philip Morris cigarette containers to...
...Established by John Player & Sons, England...
...The same person would sometimes judge the same cigarette as mild at one time and as irritating at another...
...It is true that this occurred only in the preparation for or in the cause of war, but the belief that the human race is incapable of learning that the same expenditure of money on peacetime goods would have the same effect on employment indicates so arrogant a pessimism and so irresponsible a disregard for the peacetime achievements of the Scandinavian countries that we need not bother with it very much...
...There is nothing to add...
...Another source of confusion is to be found ir the insistence that collectivism is necessary if there is really to be progress...
...Finally upon request from the Labor Ministry the government legislated to apply the principle of conscription to get its adequate supply of womanpower...
...The Associater Press should be treated like any other "common carrier ' Any responsible person, prepared to pay the price, shoun: be able to get its service That price, if necessary, should hr fixed by some public tribunal, just as the ICC now fixef freight rates...
...44 milhon citizens of Italian background, and 5 million aliens...
...This could probably be done most satisfactorily through the support and cooperation of labor unions •no management employment offices, rather than through compulsory legislation...
...In other words, the claims made by Philip Morris & Co...
...Carefully controlled experiments indicated that neither treatment was better or worse than the other...
Vol. 25 • November 1942 • No. 48
