Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1912-11-13
The Great Destroyer.
Hon, Richmond P. Robson.

poison will not only snuff out life
and main ten thousand times more
than war, but in addition, it will
actually invert and reverse the very
processes of nature, the very pur-
poses of the universej it will de-
generate.
Nature takes a peculiar attitude
toward degeneracy-an attitude
that would almost appear ruthless
and uncompromising. Nature is
trying, IN all, forms ofllfe,to produce
higher and nobler type. and she
employs two general laws for her
purpose. One is to have the family
adaptitself to overcome more and
more the obstacles of the law of
environment. The other is the
great law of heredity, b. which
through the mating of pareuts--or
natural election-nature will trans
init to the offspring, those cells
that are associated with the line of
evolution stronger than the cells
that were in the parent. 1t is as
though, in the line of evolution,
the strength of both parents will be
added; and that means, that follow
ing the line of evolution, each geu-
Grafton will be higher and nobter
than the previous. That is what
nature is trying to do.
But woe to the offspring if the
parents do things which tend to de-
stroy the very cells that nature is
trying to transmit, and in that case,
nature will visit the results in the
most appalling manner upon the
offspring.
The Life of Total Abstinence the Only
Rational Life.
In other words, a man or woman
who proposes to be a temperate
drinker, should do so with eyes
wide-open. ! wish, particularly, to
leave this conclusion with this great
body of noble women because some
times the very name of your great
organization is misapplied, and be-
cause there is widespread impress
sion throughout this country and
throughout the world, that the
harm which comes from alcohol Is
due to the abuse of it. There are
80 many who actually pride them
selves upon its temperate use, and
there are many who simply advo-
cate total abstinence because, for
sooth, alcoholic drinking might
cause their brother to fall; as if,
In itself, Independently, it were not
evil or wrong. Here is natures
answer:
There is not much difference, be-
fore nature, between the temperate,
regular drinker, and the heavy
drinker. The temperate, regular
,drinker has enough of the poison in
mis- system to produce the degenera-
ting results.
You know when the British found,
in the Boer War, that their men
could not measure up to the require
ments, that they lad degenerated
since the time of the Crimean
War, Parliament ordered search
ing investigation. That is the
origin of most of the statistics l
have cited.
Great scientists took up this in
vestigation. They located ten large
families in which both parents were
alcoholic, and ten living in the
same conditions, who were teetota-
lers. The ten families of alcoholics
had fifty-seven children. Of these
ffty-seven children ten were de-
formed, six were epileptic, six were
idiotic. and only ten were normal,
or an even seventeen per cent. OF
the ten families of teetotalers there
were sixty-one children, and all
these were normal except eleven
and fve-tenths per cent, and they
were not seriously abnormal. Of
the children, eighty-eight and five
tenths per cent were normal in the
one case, and only seventeen per
cent in the other.
Drink had absolutely wiped out
normality in seventy one and five,
tenths per cent Of the offsprir G.
Can you not see the terrific effect: