From the editorial page of the January 29, 1907 NYT:

The number of cigars smoked is an index of the Nation's prosperity. The cigar manufactories have doubled their output in eight years, the number for the fiscal year 1905-1906 being 8,070,672,649, as compared with 4,063,169,097 for the year ended June 30, 1898. The United States Tobacco Journal says that the greatest expansion of the cigar industry has taken place in the past two years. Its figures for the increase by States since 1898 range from 16 per cent. in Missouri to 2,000 per cent. in South Carolina.

U.S. population in 1905? 83,822,000 with 42,965,000 males. This would imply per-capita cigar consumption of 96 cigars - for every man, woman, and child!! If we take out those who were less than 16 in 1905, the number of cigars per-person increases to 153 per person. If we imagine that, say, 90% of all cigars were smoked by men over the age of 16, this takes the per-person cigar consumption to 267.

The 1900 census indicated 76,094,000 individuals in the United States. This would imply per-capita consumption of cigars in 1898 of approximately 54 cigars per year. Indeed, cigar consumption was dramatically on the increase. While this did correspond with an increase in national income and wealth, it is more likely that smoking follows a Kuznitz-type curve: smoking is a normal good at lower ranges of income but at some level of income/wealth becomes an inferior good.

We shouldn't blame the NYT editorial page in 1907, however. It has taken us the better part of the past 100 years to become wealthy nd interdependent enough to condemn smoking - both in public and, increasingly, in private.