The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1903-04-02
LAYS IT TO ALCOHOL.
DIR. n. $. Davis, Eminent Physician,
Gives Cause of Increased Suicides,
HOmicides and Murders.

Gates that the American people are
becoming morbid, and unstable in
character" and then asked, seriously:
What is making the American people
morbid and recklessly impulsive?'
question of sufficient Importance to
challenge the attention of every good
citizen, regardless of partisanship in
either politics, religion or sociology.
If the number and character of the
crimes, both of personal violence and
of property interest, recorded in every
issue of the daily press as occurring IN
this country, were detailed as taking
place among any other people, we
would regard it as evidence that such
people were barbarians shrouded in
moral darkness. and sadly in need of
the services of a whole army of Chris
tian missionaries. And yet here, in
the shadow of our churches, schools,
and even police offices, the house
breaker, the highway robber, the sui
eide and the murderer, plies his voca-
ton both at midnight and at noon
day. Neither is the evidence of a
''recklessly impulsiye" spirit confined
to the so-called criminal classes, but
it is abundantly manifest in our Co
miles-an-hour railroad trains, 40-mile
bicycle and automobile riders, with
their destructive collisions. and in all
our athletic exercises and contents.
Looked at specifically, it would
seem as if we had developed a genera
ton in which each individual is striv-
ing to Guido his neighbors, either i'll
gathering riches, displaying better
clothes, riding or running faster, or
exhibiting more brutal force regard
less of consequences. Analysed more
closely, it is all seen to rest on an
uncontrolled selfishness, with but lit
tie regard for the rights or interests
of others. 1t is all illustrated by the
man who mounts his bicycle or auto
mobile, and runs it over the public
highway at the rate of 30 or 40 miles
an hour, regardless of men, women
or children, as if the road were all his
own.
But from whence comes this wide
spread, domino ering selfishness in
people who boast of Christian civili-
cation resting on the golden rule, do
unto others as you would have others
do unto you" Investigation will show
that large majority of those whose
unbridled seltishness drives them to
criminal acts against life or proper
ty are in the early period of life, or
less than 30 years of age. OF those
engaged in housebreaking, highway
robbery, suicide and murder a very
large proportion are between IS and
25 years. Still further investigation
will show that three-fourths of these
were either habitual users of alcoho Ole
drinks and tobacco, or other narcotic
drugs, or they were begotten and
nursed by parents whose blood was,
at the time, being daily impregnated
with the same alcoholic and narcotic
drugs. There is no fact within the
range of human knowledge more per-
fectly demonstrated than that the
habitual use of anaesthetic and mar
cotic drugs-that is, alcohol, opium,
cocaine and tobacco-cause such i'm
pairment of the individuals sense of
propriety and self-control, and SO be-
numb his conscience, that he becomes
the obedient and often reckless serv-
ant of his own selfish instincts and
passions. Nor is this all; there is album
dant evidence that the presence of
alcohol in the blood so changes the
quality of the protoplasm of both the
organized tissues ana of the corpus
cular elements of the blood that chill
dren begotten and nursed by such par
ents are possessed of less vitality. and
those who survive infancy and child
hood are characterized by such men
tai defects or impulses as to cause
many of them to become recruits for
the various grades of vice, imbecility
and crime, as shown in an article pub
lished in the Bulletin for October,
1899
1t IS here that we see the truth Of
the startling declarations: THE sins
of the fathers are visited unto the
heads of the children unto the third
and fourth generation" And the
ever-increasing ranks of the imbecile,
the insane, the recklessly impulsive
and the criminal will continue as long
as the people of this country consume
annually two or three billions of dol
lars worth of the anaesthetic and
narcotic drugs already alluded to-
DR.. N. S. Davis, in journal of Inebriety.
Women Drinkers in Pittsburg.
The Pittsburg Dispatch says that
with each year woman is buster, and
with the increase of her duties, socia |
and otherwise, comes the tempta ton
to use something to brace up tired
nerves, and that a nip of cognac, a
glass of Benedictine, or the "tiniest
drop" OF green Chartreuse produces re-
markable effects the first time used.
The result is that stimulants become
an indispensable part of the days pro-
gramme. 70 such an extent has the
custom grown that fashionable mer-
chants keep bottle and dainty glas 8
in a sequestered spot, and obligingly
come forward with "a drop" of some
thing to win the gratitude of the pa.
trop and insure her return.
until now he is regarded as the expert
meteorological of congress.