National Affairs: Tobacco Policy

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Sir A. Maurice Low, suave Washington correspondent of the London Post (diehard Tory), suggested recently that the President's tobacco policy is different from any the Cabinet has seen this century. Roosevelt smoked not, nor did his Cabinet in Cabinet. Taft smoked not, but neither did he forbid it. Wilson also permitted smoking in Cabinet, although he did not indulge. Harding used cigarets (occasionally a pipe), passed cigarets to his ministers, but cigar smokers had to bring their own to Cabinet. Now President Coolidge likes domestic cigars. During the Cabinet sessions (Tuesdays and Fridays) there is on the long table a big box provided by the President. Hospitality fails only in this—any Cabinet member who thinks of domestic cigars as worse than tarred hemp is still obliged to bring his own Havana.