The log cabin Democrat., 1916-09-27
CONDEMNS DOUBLE MORALS STANDARD .EUCtNIC LEADER SPEAKS Prof. Shannon of Ohio Says ImmOr- ality, Liquor and Tobacco Cause
 90 Percent of Crime.

Prof. T. w. Shannon, president of the Practical Eugenic Movement and editor of the Practical Eugenic Mag azine of Delaware, O., addressed the Hendrix College students at the chapel hour today on, Did God Make Men and Women Morally Equal?" In part he said:
 There are many more women in our churches than men; twenty times as many men in our penal institu- tons as women; men swear hun dred times to where women swear once in respectable society, drink a barrel of whiskey where women drink pint; use a ton of tobacco where women use pound; SOW their wild oats where women SOW purity and love. Do these facts prove that God made women morally superior to men?
 "ln all ages, in every land, among all nationalities, sages and saints, Jews and Gentiles, savage and civi- lized peoples, all have held higher moral standard for women than men. Men have selfshly affirmed it; women have vainly believed. That women have been better than men cheerfully admit. That they are in- herently better than men l positively deny.
 Why do men swear hundred times where women swear once? I do not ask why either may swear. l ask, why this difference? It is not because men are men and women are women; and not because one is nat urally better than the other. There is hundred times as much public sentiment favoring, encouraging and fostering profanity among boys and men as among girls and women. The same is true of the habits of tobacco, strong drink and immortality. Public sentiment is perverted by a double standard of morals-do right for women; do as you please for men.
 Looking back to the days of primitive savagery, when might made right, we find men owned wom en, sold or exchanged their daugh- ters on the marriage market. Their value was based upon their virtue. To keep them pure, erring women were stoned to death Men, being the owners and lawmakers, were left free to do as they pleased. The pen- atty that fell heavily upon women kept her pure. Unfortunately the same penalty did not fs!! upon the equally guilty man.
 Our double standard of morals is relic of savagery, the monster curse of civilization, the greatest hindrance to race betterment, the enemy of enemies to Christianity.
 Have we improved upon what savagery gave us? We no longer stone the guilty woman; We kill her industrially, socially and morally. We banish her from society, close every door of honest industry, and refuse to forgive her. The equally or more guilty man goes unmolested, unarrested, unconvicted, unwhipped, can unite with any church, club or lodge, or become nationally honor- ed reformer or statesman. A quar- ter of million unfortunately born children annually are robbed of their fathers names, civil rights and are made targets of jest, sheer and rid icule by un-Christ-like society. We are rapidly amalgamating the negro and white races, not by inter mar riage endorsed by federal law and supported by public sentiment, but by our immoral double standard of morals. We double our population and quadruple our defective classes. Examinations made of all the chil- dren of school age in number of cities reveal that less than 10 per cent are physically normal and Is per cent are mentally defective. Ninety-eight per cent of the lower animals are physically normal at birth, grow to maturity and rarely ever sick. Why this difference? They keep law and we violate law. Their blood is not tainted and poison ed with nicotine, alcohol and vicious social disease germs. Nine out of ten children born in America today spring from parental blood poisoned in one of these three ways.
 Immortality, alcohol and tobacco are responsible for 90 per cent of race degeneracy. To the extent that men indulge in these habits more than women is the double standard of morals responsible. A consistent single standard of morals is the sanest, most practical, and least ex- pensive method of solving all of these problems.
 "Can we change public sentiment?