Cigarettes

“By freely dispensing cigarettes to soldiers, the YMCA, Salvation Army, and Red Cross transferred some of their own respectability to a once-disreputable product (Tate, 81). . . . By the fall of 1917, private smoke funds were multiplying like amens at a revival (82). . . . Like the Liberty Bonds, the smoke funds provided a litmus test for public demonstrations of patriotism (89).