The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1917-01-22

any other business, but each year col
lects two thirds of all the money in
circulation, and instead of giving |
boundless service in return it cuts
down the efficiency of four fifths Of |
our producers, entailing loss OF tens |
OF billions of National wealth each |
year. producing the bulk of our politi-
cal corruption, the bulk Of our crime,
pauperism, insanity immortality, di- |
sease and premature death all this |
staggering hoard with the taking away |
OF men and capital from productive !
pursuits, is being endured that a few
private citizens may enormously en-
rich themselves.
THE third finding of modern sci
ence declares alcohol to be the speci-
fic for degeneracy, which brings down
| the curse of mature, both in the short
ening of life and in the blighting of
offspring If both parents are alco-
| holic only one child in six is normal;
( five out Of six are blighted and be-
come charges upon society, while the
/ family itself gradually becomes ex-
tinct. A Nation is made up of fami-
/ lies When liquor runs its course and
a Nation becomes generally debauched
it breeds degenerates and must go
down to extinction This is the real
cause of the downfall of the Nations
Of the past that have perished. No
great Nation ever even begin to de-
cline until it became dissipated, and
no matter how great a Nation may
have become while sober, once de-
generate it went down inexorably to
destruction.
when both the parents are total
abstainers nine out of ten of their
children are normal and tend to rise
one degree higher and nobler in char
acter than the average Of their par
ents. So a family and a nation that
are sober will have indefinitely a
natural increase and will gradually
produce a thoroughbred race OF men
We have thoroughbred corn, thorough
bred cotton, thoroughbred horses and
dogs, but liquor keeps us a race of
scrubs If both parents drink but once
a day, at one meal, wine or beer, this
temperate drinking will quadruple the
chances of miscarriage on the mother,
will multiply the number of children
born dead, and will double the number
of children dying the first year. Tens
Eof thousands of little children are dy-
ing every year from cruel wounds in
flicted upon their innocent lives before
they are born, undermining the re.
newal of the Nation and the race in
der that a few score thousand citi.
zens may enrich themselves.
The European war has brought
this great alcoholic tragedy home to
the governments and to the hearts and
minds of men throughout the world as
nothing else could have done, advanc-
ing by decades. perhaps by genera
tions, the fulfillment of Nation wide
and World wide Prohibition. The
hour of destiny Is now striking. A
call to duty is now sounding to good
men in every land such as has never
sounded since the morning stars sang
together. Our generation must cut the
mill stone of degenercy from the neck
of humanity with tightening like pro-
gress in every surviving land 1t does
not take prophetic eye to see the
fast approach of the day when the
whole world will be sober. Our gene
ration, of course, contains many old
drinkers who will continue to drink
until they die, but the debauching of
the young will end with the liquor
traffic and no new drinkers will rise
to take the place of the old. In the
generations to come men will rise and
call this reform the greatest reform in
the history OF the world A reform
that ushered in a new era in the life
history of the human race"