Other side—
Clever 1990 move, following Philip Morris' previous sponsorship of "smokers' rights" campaigns. That is, the company promoted such things in public, while acting behind the scenes to stifle speech against its carcinogenic products.
It needs subscription or library access, but the
Journal of the National Cancer Institute headlined its article, "Philip Morris and National Archives Light Up Bill of Rights." And the piece reprinted this, by the great
Herblock—
When
anti-smoking groups objected, the company claimed—
"The campaign has nothing to do with cigarettes. It's about the celebration of the Bill of Rights," Guy L. Smith, vice president of corporate affairs for Philip Morris, said today.
"We're just sponsoring the messages, and the Archives is helping us to make sure they're historically accurate."
Smith added that as of this morning, 200,056 people had requested a copy of the Bill of Rights offered by Philip Morris.
"The Bill of Rights belongs to everybody," said Smith, likening his company's sponsorship of the campaign to that of American Express raising money to refurbish the Statue of Liberty.
Along with corporate image cleansing, there may have been an attempt at subliminal historic endorsement. As Howard Wolinsky noted in
this article for the American Council on Science and Health, those Founders from Virginia were
tobacco growers.
Wolinsky saw the Bill of Rights tour as a move around the 1971 ban on TV cigarette ads: tour sponsorship advertised the Philip Morris corporate brand, sans Surgeon General's warning. "Most important," wrote Wolinsky, was that
... Philip Morris has sullied our Bill of Rights. For years, it has cried out for its own rights to free speech in advertising, while depriving others of their rights by selling them a product that addicts, disables, and kills.
ACSH added this editorial note—
As Mr. Wolinsky reminds us, the Bill of Rights, in which Philip Morris is now wrapping itself, guarantees our right to free speech. But, as the just completed ACSH survey on the coverage of cigarette dangers by U.S. magazines indicates, the advertising by companies such as Philip Morris clearly has chilled the right of free speech when it comes to discussing the health risks of smoking.
"
Bill of Rights For Rent," said NYT op-ed.
Oh well: late in the last century it was
for rent; by now, it's reduced to pretty much a throwaway (with
one big exception).
Though it is true that Amendment One has recently been found
useful for buying elections.
Today, the booklet's surface sincerity about the meaning and importance of each Amendment seems almost as quaint as the facsimile within ("copy mailed on request"):
The initial section present 142 of the "200 Facts" in question and answer format. These include a capsule history of the Constitutional Convention and the writing and ratification of amendments (Facts 1–39); "WHAT IS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS?" (40–124); "WHAT ARE YOUR RIGHTS?" 125–142).
These are followed by sections on Supreme Court decisions, and "People Who Made A Difference." The latter starts with James Madison, and ends with Martin Luther King, Jr. (whose name had to be corrected in a booklet insert, to add the "Jr."}. There are nods to Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Clarence Darrow. The latter's blurb ("His famous cases include the trial of
Eugene v. Debs...") also had to be corrected in the insert: "Fact 170 refers to the labor leader Eugene Victor Debs."
Nothing about
less famous names, some of whose cases are very much about the Bill of Rights.
For the booklet's final section, we have the dazzling display of money and the latest technology—
ON THE ROAD WITH THE BILL OF RIGHTS
V.I.P. TREATMENT OF A PRICELESS DOCUMENT
... Tour personnel are backed by state-of-the-art security equipment, including dual-tech motion detectors, satellite communications, and the latest in sophisticated camera equipment.
... The document's spectacular lighting and audio/visual effects are made possible by over 600 automatic functions fed by computer-controlled laser disc players and hig-definition projectors.
... The Bill of Rights Tour visits each city in an armored, bullet-proof, six-wheel, custom-made van that projects a museum-like environment, even when on the road.
... The living record of the thoughts of visitors to the exhibit will be made possible through an experimental video kiosk — the first of its kind.
Back to that inserted "Update"—
It has been nearly a year since we first wrote this Fact book. In that time, the United States Supreme court has decided a number of important cases regarding the Bill of Rights. We have also received comments and suggestions from many readers of the Fact Book. ...
...
We received a number of letters regarding the meaning of the Second Amendment...
Uh, yeah: I'll just bet they did... The NRA had been riling up the membership, ever since the "paranoid Libertarians' hostile takeover" of the organization in the late '70s, as recounted
here. Earlier in the twentieth century the NRA had actually
promoted gun control, before its ultimate direction—
The NRA's fabricated but escalating view of the Second Amendment was ridiculed by former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger—a conservative appointed by President Richard Nixon—in a PBS Newshour interview in 1991, where he called it "one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word 'fraud'—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
Despite Philip Morris' ad campaign, a poll of the time found only
33% of Americans could identify the Bill of Rights.
Another twenty years, another survey: "
Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights."
But who needs civic education, anyway?
Inquiring minds now have the Internet, for the questions of real import—
i have an original copy of the bill of rights. the paperwork with it says it is a 200th anniv copy. phillip morris sent it from 2020 pennsilvania ave. what is it worth??
