The Falls City tribune., 1910-05-20

AGENT FOR RACE CULTURE7
Alcohol, Instead of Eliminating In
ferlor Stock, Makes More Degen-
crates Than It Destroys.

II has been asserted by some that al
cohol Is a beneficent agent for rae
culture in that it is constantly elm
mating inferior stocks. The answer
to this Is that, as DR.. Sullivan says:
I'm the ultimate result alcoholism may
be counted on to make a good many
more degenerates than It is likely to
destroy" writes DIR. c. w. Salesby, an
eminent English authority. We must
endeavor to understand, as so many
students of heredity-some of them by
no means undistinguished-fail to II
derstand, what is really meant by the
doctrine of the Notwithstanding OF
acquired characters. This means, for
instance, that the chronic inflamma-
ton of the lining membranes of the
brain produced by alcohol cannot be
transmitted 10 a child. 1t does not
mean that the germ-plasm, The racial
elements of the body, are incapable
Of suffering injury by any poison circu-
lating in the blood by which they are
no%urished. Still less does 1t mean that
the eXpectant mother is not poisoning
her child when she pours alcohol into
the blood whereby she nourishes it. AS
has been already stated, alcohol is
beyond doubt capable of causing true
racial degeneration, whether through
father or mother, and in the case of
the mother, whether by its influence
upon the g%erm-plasm or by it's influ-
ence on the unborn child.
1t is no longer open to question that
the amount of drinking by the women
of Great Britain to-day is greater than
ever heretofore; and to say by the wo-
men is, unfortunately, to say, by the
mothers, present and prospective. RAJ
cial poisoning is being practised in
Great Britain today to an extent
which is certainly Unprecedented in
our history. This is really by far the
most serious aspect of the alcohol
question. 1t is, also, in some ways the
most capable remedy; and the bust
ness of the eugenist is to rouse public
opinion on this matter. Drunkenness
on the part of the woman of 60 may
ia hpA NC q pAiNdlS VICE Will
aslle6 it Is not the duty of public law
to Interfere, but drinking ON the part
OF the factory gil who will marry ere
long and become a mother, and will al
most certainly continue the habit ac-
quired before marriage-this concerns
not herself alone.
1t may be said, and not without truth,
as We have already quoted, that in a
few generations alcohol will extermin-
ate the alcoholic stock, leaving the I'M
poisoned in possession of the field. It
may thus be questioned whether the
any case what moral being can con-
template with content the spectacle of
this ruin. ven If 1t be comparatively
confined and limited in time? And, fur
Their, to what extent is this process to
be permitted? What If 1t extends to
one-tenth or one-fourth or one-half of
the productive stocks of the commu-
nifty? Will 1t not then be thought time
to arrest 1t? We have to remember the
evidence furnished by native races.
which reminds us that, sufficiently
widespread, the abuse of alcohol makes
for racial extinction: and Its abuse Is
daily becoming more widespread
amongst the young mothers of what are
at present our fertile classes. Palpable
drunkenness they may never exhibit:
but drunkenness might wholly cease
from ~henceforth In Great Britain. and
alcohol yet defeat the aims of ~race-cul-
ture. A woman may we'll be sober
enough, and her unborn child intoxi-
Gated. l leave these questions to the
consideration of the reader, and not the
least of him who calls himself a patriot
or an i%mperialist.