The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-09-19
ALCOHOL AND RACE DECAY.
University Professors Views which
Bear Ont the Theories of Tenn
pernnce Advocates.

President David Starr Jordan, of the
Leland Stanford university, began in
the Popular Science Monthly of May
series of articles entitled The Blood
of the Nation: A Study of the Decay
of Races Through the Survival of the
Unfit" That class of philosophers
who are endeavoring to establish the
theory that drunkenness and its at
tending vices and miseries are clearly
part of the progress of the human
race will find little comfort in DR.. Jor-
dams article. Conceding to those gen
tlemen certain amount of truth
which it would be extremely difficult
to prove in behalf of their theories,
DIR. Jordan says:
The effect of alcoholic drink on
race progress should be considered in
this connection. Authorities do not
in race selection. Doubtless, in the
long run. the druniard will be elimin-
ated, and perhaps certain authors are
right in regarding this as a gain to the
race. On the other hand, there is great
force in DR.. Amos G. Warmers remark,
that of all caustics gangrene is the
most expensive. The people of south
ern Europe are relatively temperate.
They have used wine for centuries,
and it is thought by Archdall Reid
and others that the cause of their tenn
perance is to be found in this long use
of alcoholic beverages. All those with
vitiated or uncomfortable appetites
have been destroyed in the long eX-
perience with wine, leaving only those
with normal tastes and normal ability
of resistance. The free use of wine
is, therefore, in this view, cause of
final temperance, while intemperance
RACES only among those races which
have not long known alcohol, and have
not become by selection resistant to
it. The savage races which have
never known alcohol are even less
resistant, and are sooner destroy
ed by it.
"1n all this there must be certain
element of truth. The view, however,
ignores the evil effect on the nervous
even if the poison be only in moderate
amounts. The temperate Italian, with
his daily semi-saturation, is no more a
normal man than the Scotch farmer
with his occasional sprees. The nerve
disturbance which wine effects is an
evil, whether carried to excess in regu-
larity or irregularity We know too
LITTLE of nc E,,o1 II
give certainty to our speculations. 1t
is moreover true that most excess in
the use of alcohol is not due to primi-
tive appetite. 1t is drink which causes
appetite, and not appetite which seeks
Tor drink. In given number OF
drunkards but a very few become such
through Unborn appetite. 1t is int1u-
ence of bad example, lack of courage,
false idea of manliness, or some defect
in character or misfortune in environ
ment which leads to the first steps in
drunkenness. The taste once estab-
Hshed takes care of itself. In earlier
times, when the nature of alcohol was
unknown and total abstinence was I'M
dreamed of, it was the strong, the
boisterous, the energetic, the apostle
of the strenuous life who carried all
these things to excess. The wassail
bowl, the bumper of ale, the flagon of
wine, all these were the attribute of the
strong. We cannot say that those who
sank in alcoholism thereby illustrated
the survival of the fittest. Who can
say that as the Latin races became
temperate they did not also become
docile and weak? In other words, con-
sidering the influence of alcohol alone,
unchecked by an educated conscience,
we must admit that it is the strong
and vigorous, not the weak and per-
verified, that are destroyed by it. At
the best, we can only say that alcoholic
selection is a complex force, which
makes for temperament at all, at
fearful cost of life which without al
coholic temptation would be well
worth preserving.'
DR.. Jordan, it is to be presumed,
would not care to be understood as
indorsing the idea that the wine-drinl-
ing countries of Europe have been
made temperate by their wine-drink-
ing. He is probably much too well ac-
quainted with the current history of
France and the other so-called wine
countries" to be in ignorance of the
true state Af affairs there.-NeW
Voice.