The theocrat. [volume] (Zion City [i.e. Zion], Ill.) 1914-1949, 1919-08-09

CVCly yOuIS WOIIldH OCCdSIOIlly doh
himself and herself. No one liveth unto
himself. What we do today and tomorrow
and keep on doing throughout the year helps
to make or unmake true manhood and wo-
manhood.
Every child has the inalienable right to
be well born No child, had it say in
the matter, with the knowledge men pos
sess, would by choice be the offspring of
a man who is addicted to drink Neither
would it select drug fend or cigarette
hend as a sire. If marriage was confined
to men and women who smoke, physically
and morally inferior race would be the re-
suit
What men and women do today and to-
morrow, and keep on doing throughout the
year, year after year, determines their fu
ture, physically, mentally, and morally. Not
merely that, but it also determines the fu-
ture of their offspring. 1t does not end
even there for each succeeding generation
will suffer the accumulated results of the
wrong habits of those that have gone before.
"The sins of the fathers are visited upon the
children unto the third and fourth genera
tions." Frequently by the time the fourth
generation is reached the degeneracy is so
marked that propagation ceases, and the
family tree dies. Again and again this has
been demonstrated in the history of families
and of nations Follow the drunkard whose
son and whose sons son, is also a drunkard,
and you will find that the families have about
disappeared. The same may be said of the
opium fend or of the cigarette or tobacco
hend. If men alone were the sufferers from
wrong and vicious habits, it would be seri-
Gus enough, but that the accumulated re-
suits are passed on from father to son,
makes it a problem that should receive care
full and solemn thought What sort of an
ancestor am | going to make? is therefore
a question each one should ask of himself
repeatedly
******Of one thing the youthful cigarette
hend can be assured he will never land in
the United States Presidential Chair. No
cigarette fend has ever landed there. 1t is
perfectly safe therefore for the young man
to smoke cigarettes if his purpose is to
avoid the Presidential Chair 1t will never
land him even in the presidential chair of
the Ford Automobile factory or the Cadi
lac Automobile manufactury. In neither
of these shops can a cigarette smoker OBJ
tain position in any capacity. Not because
there exists prejudice against the ciga
rette but because efficiency and the cigarette
do not combine and they want only employees
who are efficient and dependable.
The cigarette smoking boy nine times out
of ten will land in the pool room the saloon,
the reform school or the penitentiary. Only
two out of every hundred boys who find
their way to the reform schools of America
are non-smokers; ninety-eight of them are
smokers This picture is not at all over
drawn; it presents facts as they are.
The cigarette in ures morally as we'll
as physically, its user ***** Children are
frequently born with criminal tendencies,
and with craving for the same indulgences
possessed by father Unfortunately the
child possesses less will power than does his
father. He begins his career on the tobog
gan slide 1t is a downward career with
him.
The boys that have returned from the bat
tie front minus leg or an arm are subjects
of pity, but they may, if they are in possess
ion of we'll balanced minds, make a success
of life The injury they have sustained does
not extend beyond themselves. If thev mar
ry, their children will in all probability be
born with two sound legs and two sound
arms. 1t is not so with the child of the
cigarette hend It comes into the world a
degenerate.
am aware that this is strong language,
but it is the truth, and it is time for truth to
be spoken The child of the tobacco devo-
tee, and especially of the one whose custom
it is to inhale the smoke, comes into the
world handicapped in the great battle of
life
******Children of the smokers who sur
inclined to take up with the use of alcohol,
tobacco, or other habit-forming drugs
1t has been ascertained by careful scien-
ti6c study that fully Is per cent of England's
inebriates and detectives have taken to
drink because of hereditary defects But
why are there so many detectives. This is
chargeable to the sins of the parents.
1t is disputed question among scientists
whether cigarette smoking makes degener-
ates of boys or whether boys smoke because
they are degenerate. All are agreed that
degeneracy and cigarette smoking are as
sociated. Both are right for smoking makes
degenerates, and degenerates as rule take
to smoking or other drug addictions.
There are over three million drug fends
in the United States New York City alone
has one hundred thousand victims of the
drug habit, according to DR.. Copeland, New
York City'S Health Commissioner Amer
ica, last year. consumed AIS, 1000 pounds of
opium This is ten times as much as was
consumed in any other country CT the
world, not excluding China, The rule is,
bows first take up with cigarettes then drink