HOW DID HE GET THERE?
If you smoked on an average of one package
of cigarettes daily, how long would it take you to
use up one 6000 meter bobbin of cigarette paper?
It is almost unbelievable, but it would take you
over 11 Vi years.
In smoking a pack each day, can you tell, with
out looking, whose portrait is on the government
stamp affixed to the top of every package of
cigarettes? The odds are 1000 to 1 that you don’t
know. Like the number of steps in your stairway,
the number of matches in your folder, the num-
mer of cubes in your ice tray—they are just too
familiar for you to remember them.
Yet, the face that has been the biggest pin-up
in history, is more unfamiliar to us than a photo
graph of a minor movie star. It has adorned mil
lions of packages of cigarettes for 70 years.
Over 361 billion cigarettes were consumed by
Americans last year. This means that this almost
unknown man’s likeness appeared before the pub
lic eye over 18 billion times during 1950.
Have you figured out the name of this man
yet? It is De Witt Clinton.
De Witt Clinton was an American political
leader around the turn of the nineteenth century,
dying thirty years before we ever heard of a to
bacco tax. He is generally regarded as the origi
nator of the "spoil system” in New York politics,
and was at one time or another a U. S. Senator,
a member of the legislature, governor of New
York and mayor of New York City. As a member
of the legislature he was very active in the aboli
tion of slavery, and in perfecting a system of free
public schools. As Governor of New York he
devoted his energies to the construction of the
Canal between Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
This sounds as if Clinton was a very prominent
and popular person in political circles, but he was
almost an obscure figure outside his native state.
Why, then, was his portrait chosen for the Cigar
ette stamp? He had no more connection with to
bacco than with a television set of today. Why
has he remained on the stamp for almost 75 years?
These are the 64 dollar questions.
No one is quite sure why he was chosen or why
he has remained. Some officials in Washington,
however, have a reasonable explanation. Search
ing through their records they have found that
northern soldiers conceived the first tobacco tax
during the Civil War to obtain additional reve
nue. They found that in 1868 the tax was being
collected.
This is where the story should end, but these
same officials prefer to go on with their own
conclusions. They point out that the first sepa
rate stamp for cigarettes was used in 1876—the
fiftieth anniversary of the Erie Canal. De Witt
Clinton had, at one time, been president of the
Commission for the Canal, and, as governor of
New York, he had devoted much time and effort
toward its promotion. Since the fiftieth anniver
sary of the Canal and the issuance of the cigarette
tax stamp came in the same year, it is generally
accepted that Clinton’s portrait was put on the
stamp due to this coincident.
To go on a little further and explain some
other things connected with the tax stamp might
be of interest to some.
The "Class A” at the top of the stamp is the
tax designation, which includes all cigarettes that
weigh less than three pounds per thousand. The
tax IS four dollars per lOUO cigaicites, or eight cents
per pack. If you are still smoking that pack each day,
you are paying over twenty-five dollars annually.
The series number indicates the year of issue.
Since this procedure started in 1932, with the
number 102, cigarettes manufactured in 1951 car
ry the number 12 i.
The first tobacco tax during the Civil‘ War
brought in a revenue of less than $500,000 for all
types of cigarettes and cigars. Last year, the reve
nue was over $1,200,000,000 for cigarettes alone.
SYMBOLS OF OUR WAY—WE SHOW ’EM
Automobiles parked around our factories, the
great supply of food in our stores, and the huge
stock of ready-to-wear clothes in our shop win
dows—these are among the real symbols of Amer
ican industry.
An American of moderate means can ride in a
better car than a man with, comparatively speak
ing, twice his income, can own in any other coun
try. The American can afford food which would
be the envy of Europe’s rich, and which is better—
more healthful—than the tood on the tables of
Oriental rulers. An American industrial employee
in his Sunday clothes is as well-dressed as a French
Banker on a vacation.
THE ECHO
VoL 13 NOVEMBER 1951 No. 11
PUBLISHED AND PRINTED MONTHLY BY
AND FOR EMPLOYEES OF ECUSTA PAPER
CORPORATION AT PISGAH FOREST,
NORTH CAROLINA
Charlie Russell, Editor
Alex Kizer, Jr., Assistant Editor
Jack D. Morgan, Art Editor
Fritz Merrell, Sports Editor
H. E. Newbury, Safety Reporter
F. B. Ayers, Safety Reporter
ON THE COVER
LET US GIVE THANKS FOR FREEDOM
On Thanksgiving Day, among the greatest of
our blessings, we can count Freedom. Let us
give thanks for Freedom and determine to do
our part in preserving it—by buying U. S. De
fense Bonds now! Freedom, like peace, is for
the strong!