Save Smoke

The recent decision by Radcliffe to ban cigars from Hilles Library leaves secure no tradition sacred to learning. Sotweed has been wrongly dealt with.

Tobacco is a basic tool of learning. It soothes a mind boggling at books, smoothes the heartbeat, quiets the nerves. A man can gather information without books, but to digest it without tobacco is purest folly. Knowledge fills the mind; a good cigar expands it.

Unlike cigarettes, which are poisonous, and pipes, which give little mileage on one fueling, cigars are sublime. A moderate man can work a full evening on less than a dozen.

Cliffies object to the smell. "You smoke a good cigar," retorts the manager of Leavitt and Peirce, "you get a good smell." Ban bad cigars.

But it is wrong and hopeless to try to part a man from his trusty weed. The new rule will make it impossible to study in Hilles. It effectively limits the library's use to furtive forays in search of dates. And even that may end. A woman, as they say, is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.