Geikie 



and 



Saleeby 



National 

 Welfare 

 Associa- 

 tion 



The Days of a Man 1913 



Congo Basin. A. Smith Woodward, the British 

 authority on fossil fishes, also welcomed me. I was 

 then beginning to intrude modestly on the vast field 

 he had made his own, and I was particularly gratified 

 by his high estimate of Dr. Ralph Arnold's mono- 

 graphic work on the fossil mollusks of Southern 

 California, among the first scientific publications of 

 Stanford University. 1 



At a dinner of scientists I found myself seated next 

 to one of the most eminent of living geologists, 

 Professor Archibald Geikie of Edinburgh, an interest- 

 ing personality, wise and self-contained. I also soon 

 became well acquainted with Dr. Caleb Williams 

 Saleeby, the accomplished eugenist, who has written 

 extensively on matters relating to his specialty. In 

 this connection he has strongly supported and extended 

 my thesis that war is destructive to race virility. 

 Primarily, however, he is a powerful and effective 

 advocate of temperance, showing by scientific evi- 

 dence that alcohol is not merely a destroyer of the 

 individual but also a "race poison," injuring the germ 

 cells and thus obstructing normal development at the 

 very source of life. 



At Saleeby's suggestion, I was invited to take part 

 in the discussions at Westminster of the Royal Birth- 

 rate Commission, an organization later merged with 

 the semi-official National Welfare Association. Of 

 this, his genial Grace, the Lord Bishop of Birmingham, 

 is president, and Sir James Marchant, an able stu- 

 dent of social conditions, author of several books, the 

 permanent secretary. In 1920 Hanover College, 



1 Ralph Arnold of the class of 1899, a brilliant student in Paleontology and 

 for a time instructor in Geology at Stanford, is now widely known as an expert 

 in the matter of oil deposits. 



C 474 II 



