The theocrat. [volume] (Zion City [i.e. Zion], Ill.) 1914-1949, 1920-01-17
ZION'S WAR ON TOBACCO

sponsbility of the figures myself.
A great many years ago began to study
this matter, and to examine the figures, and
to write concerning it, but have not done
much in this country in the way of writing
or speaking upon this subject; however, I
have kept up the figures, and the average,
because there is law of average.
The Indirect Cost of Liquor is Shown
In 10000 every year, in this country, who
lose their lives directly through alcoholic
liquors.
In the loss of labor by the diseases and
the disabilities engendered through intoxi-
eating liquors.
In the cost Of crimes which they produce
In the police, jails, judges, juries and
hangmen which they necessitate.
In the lunatic asylums, two-thirds of
which they fill.
In the hospitals for the incurable where
the poor are placed who are deprived of
health by them.
In the asyums for the destitute which
have to be maintained like all these others
at the public expense
In the orphanages where the poor chill
dren, bereft of one or both parents, have to
be provided for.
In the schools where they are held for
criminal correction.
In the debaucheries consequent upon
drunkenness, which fill the brothels.
According to Hall of England and Har-
grave of America, and all who have studied
this question, as the aggregate cost of these,
and a hundred other miseries that flow from
Intoxicating Liquors. you have as the direct
and indirect cost to the nation, the sum of
two thousand six hundred millions of dol
lars every year. ($2,6O0O0O,0OO.) Write it
down against the liquor traffic.
Now Take the Tobacco
AS near as I can get at it, the actual cost
to the consumer of tobacco is 100000, 900
every year. These things I am speaking of,
simply as business figures for Christian men
and patriots; for some men and women who
talk patriotism, and for the good and the
welfare of all the people.
Add to the direct cost, first, the number
of lives of those who smoke, that are cut off
by the fire and the smoke and the birthstone.
One insurance company has calculated,
that at the very least, human life is shorten
ed by eight years, if man smokes tobacco.
Of course there are exceptions, and very
few live to a sinking old age in spite of
their vice but the rule is that tobacco smok-
ing, chewing and snuffing shortens life.
There is no insurance company that will
insure man that habitually drinks, without
a very high rate of premium, and many re-
fuse to take them at all.
1t has become an accepted fact that
human life on the average, is lessened by
eight years, from the use Of tobacco, and
that at the most valuable time from an
economical point of view; when human life
counts for more in the wealth of a nation
than at any other period when human life
means the life of a man who has acquired a
trade or profession, and is able to earn a
large income, in some cases very large. 1t
is therefore, to be remembered that you
have to calculate the value of these eight
years upon the time when these lives are
worth most from an insurance point of view,
from an economic purchasing point of view,
from wage earning point of view.
Add that first: that through blood poison
ing, and through throat diseases, and
through absorption of the gastric juices
which diminishes the powers of the stomach
to digest, diseases are produced such as
chronic dyspepsia. The food remains hard
and rough, and carries with it the taint of
the nicotine poison. 1t tears the stomach,
and it tears the bowels, it produces ulcer
ations of the stomach and of the bowels, and
cancer of the stomach, and of the bowels, of
the mouth and Of the throat so that from
an economic point of view there are thou
sands and tens of thousands of most valuable
lives destroyed by it every year.
[ have seen them. There is not week
passes that do not see them I see them
daily
Calculate that as a part of the indirect
cost.
Calculate the loss to the family of the life
of the bread winner cut off on the average
eight years, and in special cases cut off
quickly, more than twenty years of life be-
ing destroyed
Visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers upon
the Children"
Take into further consideration the effect
upon the offspring of such men, especially
when they combine the two, alcohol and
tobacco or combine those two with swine's
fesh Then you have-I do not like to
speak it, but I am going to-in the pro-
creative powers of such men, the communi-
cation to women and to their unborn off
spring, of the most deadly, scrofu1ous dis
eases. Having alcohol and tobacco and pork
combined creates tuberculosis, trichinosis
and cancer in the blood, which by and by
comes out in due time in the bodies of in
nocent women, and in the hellish passions
impaired to poor boys, who grow up to ad-
mire the fire and the smoke and the brim-