Poetry in Unexpected Places
I’ve had this old cigar box ever since we moved into my wife’s grandmother’s old house eight years ago (has eight years really passed? anyway), and I had happened to just now look at the label on the side:
Sept. 1880
Union-Made Cigars
This Certifies, that the Cigars contained in this box have been made by a First-Class Workman, a member of the Cigar Makers’ International Union of America, an organization devoted to the advancement of THE MORAL MATERIAL and INTELLECTUAL WELFARE OF THE CRAFT. Therefore we recommend these cigars to all smokers throughout the world.
Beautiful. More products should have statements of purpose like this (e.g., on a car, right underneath the VIN).
Late note: I had misread the box! There is actually a comma after MORAL (…the advancement of the moral, material, and intellectual welfare of the craft). No spaces around it, easy to miss. But I’ll still hold in my head the idea of the moral material of the craft.
