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{{#badges: tobaccowiki}}
'''Charles''' (or '''Chuck) Maurice''' was a Professor of Economics at the Texas A&M University for most of the time he worked for the tobacco industry. He was also a member of the [[Cash for Comments Economists Network]] which was run for the Tobacco Institute by Professor [[Robert D. Tollison]] and lobbyist [[James Savarese]] with the help of Tollison's wife [[Anna Tollison|Anna]] and the staff from the [[Center for Study of Public Choice]] which was located on the grounds of George Mason University.
Maurice was part of the [[Public Choice Society]] run by Tollison also at GMU. And he was a member of the Executive Committee of the <B> Southern Economic Association</B> and on the Board of Editors of their journal. So he was seen as influential. However it is notable that while Maurice managed to persuade a number of his associates and students to co-sign letters he set on behalf of the tobacco industry, none of these cosignatories became part of the network. [[Morgan Reynolds]] of A&M, who was independently a network member, wrote a separate letter.
The [[Cash for Comment Economists Network]] eventually split up and most of the members transferred over to work for the tobacco industry under the cover of the [[Independent Institute]] with [[William F Shughart]] taking a leading role. Savarese and Tollison then appeared to have formalised their partnership, with Tollison and his wife becoming part of James Savarese & Associates.
{{C4C Explanation}}
==Documents & Timeline==
<b>1931 June 25</b> Born in Huntington West Virginia but raised in Pennsylvania
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<b>1953</b> AB at the University of Georgia. He served in the U.S. Army Tank Corps from 1953 to 1955 and then worked at Sears Roebuck for several years
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<b>1967</b> PhD from the University of Georgia
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<b>1967</b> joined Texas A&M University as Assistant Professor of Economics
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<b>1977</b> Professor of Economics at Texas A&M
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<b>1984 </B> The [[Hoover Institute|Hoover Institute Press]] published <B> "The doomsday myth: 10,000 years of economic crises"</B> by [[S. Charles Maurice]] and [[Charles W Smithson]]. This was published during the energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s and was a challenge to the then fashionable notion that the world is running out of resources. That book was a critical success and one of the Hoover Institution's best-selling works.
{{1985-96PackwoodC4C}}
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<b>1986 Jul 21 </B>[[Sam Chilcote]] the CEO of the Tobacco Institute writes to the members of his Executive Committee detailing the TI's successes in generating objections to the proposed <u>GSA {Government Services Administration] anti-smoking bans.</u>
They have persuaded the <u>American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)</u> to help having the rules amended, and have turned out their friends and associated companies to generate letters of objection. <BLOCKQUOTE> Included among the comments received by GSA thus far are thousands generated as a result of contact with TAN [Tobacco Action Network] activists, other tobacco family organizations, key coalitions, organized labor and <B>economists.</B>
The State Activities Division's alert of key contacts in the field, as well as TAN activists, has generated at least 3,100 letters of opposition. These are letters for which copies have been sent to division headquarters; there are no doubt many others.
Among member companies, all have asked their employees to write letters of opposition. In addition, RJ Reynolds reports its phone bank efforts to reach Washington, DC residents, may have resulted in up to 3,700 opposition letters. Reynolds also sought letters from respondents to an earlier mailing on the federal excise tax issue. Philip Morris initiated a program designed to generate up to 10,000 mailgrams to GSA by the comment deadline. </BLOCKQUOTE> Letters of objection (all remarkably similar in content) from numerous academic economists were also attached. They all seemed to focus on one extraordinary aspect: <u>the cost of implementating the ban</u> -- rather than the rights of non-smokers to breathe clean air.
The economist's letters all attacked the GSA's calculation ... "that the costs of NO-SMOKING signs in government buildings would cost less than $100 million annually." Apparently [[Robert Tollison]] had circulated a much higher estimate of costs (which some of the letter-writers mentioned) ... and all of the economists' letters completely ignored any cost savings, such as lower cleaning and painting costs in government buildings; reduced sick days; higher productivity, etc. which you would normally figure to be of significance to an economist.
These letters, were all written within a few days of each other by university professors (sometimes with multiple signatures) spread across the country, and they came from: <UL> <li> 8th July -- [[Arthur T Denzau]], Washington University, St Louis, Mo
<li> 3rd July -- [[Barry W Poulson</B>, University of Colorado, Boulder
<li> 10th July -- [[Thomas E Borcherding]], Claremont College/Graduate School, California
<li> 7th July -- [[William F Shughart]] II, [[Center for the Study of Popular Choice]], George Mason University, Washington DC
<li> Undated -- (joint) [[Cecil E Bohanon]],[[ James E McClure]], [[Stephan F Gohmann]], [[Clarence R Deitsch]], [[Lee C Spector]] -- all PhDs in economics at Ball State University, Muscie, Ind.
<li> 7th July -- [[John F Militello]], Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania,
<li> 7th July -- [[Jean J Boddewyn]], Baruch College, The City University of New York [Advertising lecturer]
<li> 5th July -- [[Morgan Reynolds]], Texas A&M University
<li> 8th July -- [[Cliff P Dobitz]], North Dakota State University
<li> 8th July -- [[William C Mitchell]], University of Oregon
<li> 11th July -- [[Arthur C Mead]], Economist, Newport RI
<li> 10th July -- [[D Allen Dalton]], Boise State University, Idaho
<li> 10th July -- [[Henry N Butler]], George Mason Univeristy
<li> 10th July -- (joint) [[S Charles Maurice]], [[Leonardo Auernheimer]], [[Niccie L McKay]], [[John R Hanson]] II, [[Lynn Gillette]], [[Gregory Delemeester]] at Texas A&M University
<li> 9th July -- (joint) [[Robert B Ekelund]], [[Richard Ault]], [[David Saurman]], [[John Jackson]], [[Robert F Hebert]], [[J. Keith Watson]], [[Mark Thonton]], at Auburn University, Alabama
<li> 9th July -- (joint) [[Richard K Vedder]], [[Lowell E Gallaway]], [[Jan Palmer]], [[David Klingaman]]</B> at Ohio University [http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xpg25b00/pdf] </UL>
==References==