J. Michael Jordan Quotes
The way we won all those cases was not be spending all of Reynold’s money, but by making the other son of a bitch spend all his.
When anyone sued Reynolds for the adverse consequences, the company never settled. Few had the financial resources and legal support to sustain their lawsuit in the face of this tactic.
J. Michael Jordan, Attorney for Cigarette Manufacturer J. R. Reynolds, Quoted in Tara Parker-Pope, Cigarettes: Anatomy of an Industry From Seed to Smoke, 2001
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Note the observation about tobacco. Even then it was recognized as addicting despite the testimonies of tobacco executives who lied in Congressional Testimony more than 100 years later
Big Tobacco was very successful in forestalling the loss of their profits.
Napoleon was referring to vices like alcohol, opium, and tobacco which could be taxed heavily with much support of many citizens. This could finance the nation. That was the logic of the quote.
This historical quotation is surprising to us over a century later. We are surprised at the very large revenue from the then relatively low tax rates on alcohol and tobacco and many people who did not pay their taxes at the time. Also, the incredibly small appropriation for the military. WWI was only 4 years away. Generally, until the Second World War, the Democratic party did not advocate large military expenditures and the Republicans were more isolationist and opposed almost all defense spending. After WWII, the Republican Party flip flopped and became the champion of military readiness and defense spending.
Marijuana had been made legal in a number of states at that time. Based on the example of New York City, many other cities of the world were just then passing ordinances to make it illegal to smoke in any public place or any private establishment that serves the public.
