"Mr. Edgar Hoover, chief of your Federal Bureau of Investigation, and your President Harry Truman know full well one of the main reasons for these conditions; but with liquor and alcohol traffic protected by the 21st Amendment to your Constitution, with the strong financial interest in the manufacturing and distribution of alcohol, and with the strong propaganda which strengthens the desire for the existence of these conditions, their hands as heads of Government and Investigation Bureau are tied and powerless. They and your Congress would greatly hesitate to try to do away with this evil, if doing so would close those industries with their large numbers of workers out of work and bring back prohibition conditions.
"Man's poison habits are often the cause of an innocent person losing his life or being disabled through the recklessness of the moderate or social drinker.
"Your Congress should at least pass, as soon as possible, a Federal law completely outlawing the drinking of alcoholic liquor, no matter how moderate, to anyone who has a driver's license for motor cars, buses, aeroplanes, or any other rapidly moving vehicle and make it a crime punishable with strict and heavy penalties. Driver's licenses should be issued by the Federal government only, after a thorough examination.
"Tobacco is another avenue where your Octopus gains nearly four billion dollars per year.
"If you smoke a pack a day, you inhale 400 milligrams of nicotine a week."
Said Dr. J.L. Myers of Kansas City, "Nicotine irritates the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract. Tobacco tar injures those membranes."
"Non-smokers, in four years at Yale and at Amherst, grew more in height and weight and lung capacity than did their smoking colleagues."
Knute Rockne was definite: "Tobacco slows the reflexes, and any advertising which says it helps an athlete is falsehood and fraud."
Habitual smokers have a 50 percent higher incidence of palpitation of the heart than non-smokers. There is evidence that heart disease is more prevalent among smokers than among non-smokers.
It is generally agreed that cancer of the mouth, tongue and lips is unduly prevalent among smokers.[29]