Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1902-06-13
10 MCDILL'S MUSINGS.
GIVE US THOROUGHBREDS.

uIVE US lHUkUUuHDkEDS.
The lady superintendent of the w. c. T. U.
rescue organization publishes In the Chicago
American the startling fact that one woman
became the progenitor OF seven hundred Grim.
inals, at cost to society of $4,000, ,ooo-and
; all within period of less than one hund red
years. 1t is needless to say that the descend
ants we're carefully traced with view to teach
Ing society the Importance of looking after
people who hav. criminal tendencies, and, pre-
sumably, the statement can be verified
Now, III addition to the seven hundred GRIM
inals who were convicted at least once, three
hundred and forty.three are drunkards and one
hundred and twenty ale bad women.
So much of one family. And is the law
that governed this family of general prevalence?
and can the law be overcome? These are ques-
tious OF grave Importance. If the law is of
general application, then the theory of "the
survival of the fttest" is false, or else the sur
viva OF criminals is filter than the survival of
good people.
Intelligent people generally believe in hered-
ity. Not only are the physical but also the
mental, characteristics of parents transmitted
to children. This fact is easily noticeable in
all the walks of life; and, while there are
many departures, yet, the rule, as whole,
stands unshaken.
Now, it is generally found that, in the ex.
ceptions, environment effected the change, for
there was found, upon close investigation, to
exist-a double character in the lives of the
parents.
The preacher may have been hypocrite,
and his children simply shook off hypocrisy.
Children may have craving for alcohol that
is traced back to grandparents. Either they
were not what they seemed to be, or the lurk-
ing devil disappeared in one generation to re-
appear in the next. The law of heredity held
a whole family in its vise-like grip, in the case
referred to; but could not environment have
changed heredity?
There are families, and plenty of them,
whose members have never appeared in a court
as litigants, much less criminals-have never
produced drunkards or prostitutes, but some
time, away back in the misty past, the progen-
itors of those families were very low in the
scale of civilization. Through surrounding
influences, they were bred up to thoroughbred.
The heredity Of barbarism was overcome by
environment.
The WORKINGS of these laws are we'll known
among farmers when applied to farm animals,
and we'll known to doctors as applied to the
human race; and wherever stock or families
deteriorates, it is invariably under adverse nAu-
ences. Thoroughbred cattle rapidly deterior-
ate under bad treatment as to food and shelter,
and the scrubbiest stock found anywhere i'm
prove under right treatment 1t is just as true
of the human family as it is of stock, that en-
vironments change the course of heredity The
thoroughbred will not become scrub in gen.
eration neither will scrub become thor
oughbred without many inbreedings and favor
able surroundings. In either direction, the
process is slow, but il is as sure as that man
was at one. time barbarian, and but few re-
moves from the animal creation. Heredty has
been overcome in many families. It can be
overcome in all families.