Warren sheaf., 1903-06-04
LAYS IT TO ALCOHOL.
3s5 Gives Cause of Increased Suicides,
HOmicides and Murders.

Chicago daily papers, IN referring to
the extraordinary frequency OF sui
cides and reckless bomicides in all
parts of the country, said: ''It indi-
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-
tion both at midnight and at noon
day. Neither is the evidence of a
''recklessly impulsive" spirit confined
to the so-called criminal classes, but
it is abundantly manifest in our 60
miles-an-hour railroad trains, 4O-mile
bicycle and automobile riders, with
their destructive collisions, and in all
our athletic exercises and contents.
Looked at superficially, it would
seem as if we had developed genera
tion in which each individual is striv-
ing to outdo his neighbors, either in
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 selfshness, with but lit
tie regard for the rights or interests
of others. It is all illustrated by the
man who mounts his bicycle or auto
mobile, and runs it over the public
highway at the rate of 80 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, domineering selfshness in a
people who boast Of Christian civili-
zation resting on the golden rule, ''Do
unto others as you would have others
do unto you?" lnvestiga ton will show
that large majority of those whose
unbridled selfshness drives them to
criminal acts against life or proper
ty are in the early period of life, or
less than 80 years of age. Of those
engaged in housebreaking, highway
robbery, suicide and murder, very
large proportion are between Is and
Is years. Still further investigation
will show that three-fourths of these
were either habitual users of alcoholic
drinks and tobacco, 6r otter 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
habltual use of anaesthetic and mar
cotlc 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 sery-
ant of his own selfish instincts and
passions. Nor is this all; there is abun-
dant evidence that the presence of
alcohol in the blood so changes the
quality Of the protoplasm of both the
organized tissues and 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.
It is here that we see the truth of
the startling declaration: "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 1ono
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-
Or. N. S. Davis, in Journal of Inebriety.