Mahch. 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



221 



in the race. Alcohol impairs the seed of the race. 

 It costs us millions of dollars to support the de- 

 fectives produced by alcohol, yet we license and pro- 

 ti'ct the sale of this most potent poison. 



Syphilis is the third great factor of mental and 

 physical degeneracy in the oflEspring. Yet we permit 

 prostitution to exist under semi-official or clandestine 

 regulation. At least four out of every five prosti- 

 tutes are actually feeble-minded — defectives. Their 

 chief function is the spreading of disease. Victims 

 of these diseases have physically or mentally de 

 fective offspring if any — and so the social evil is 

 perpetuated. The social evil would die out in a 

 short time but for the indispensable help of alcohol. 

 Alcohol is the key to the situation. We have the 

 privilege of voting for or against race degeneracy. 



We know and can demonstrate that half of all 

 insanity is due to alcoholism and syphilis, either 

 in the individual himself or his ancestors. 



IDIOTS AND IMBECILES — THE CAUSE. 



The following startling story we clip 

 from the American Issue. It is rather long, 

 I know ; but the importance of directing the 

 attention of the whole wide world to the 

 facts given is, I am sure, a sufficient reason 

 for giving the whole thing. After you read 

 it over once, read it over again, and ponder 

 on it and pray over it. How long, Lord, 

 shall we coi'tinue to burden the world with 

 helpless and idiv tie offspring? 



Some years ago at the Vienna Anti-Alcohol Con- 

 gress, Bezzola, a noti^d scientist, gave it as his opin- 

 ion that an occaFional intoxicntion causes injury 

 to the germ cells to which many cases of defective 

 offspring could be attributed. 



Later, other eminent scientists in Europe proved 

 by numerous demonstrations that Bezzola was right. 

 In fact, these scientists have removed all doubt. The 

 world of medical science now recognizee this great 

 truth. 



Last December at the meeting of the American 

 Society for the Study of Alcohol and other Narcotics, 

 Dr. Matthew Woods, of Philadelphia, told of eight 

 cases in a list of 182 epileptics investigated in which 

 he had been able to trace the history of their exist- 

 ence back to a single alcoholic intoxication in par- 

 ents otherwise abstainers. 



But we do not need to go to Europe, nor even 

 to the eastern half of our own country for evidence 

 It is right here in Ohio. Mr. .1. M. Hanson, secre- 

 tary of the Charity Organization Society of Youngs- 

 fowTi, gives the following remarkable instance of 

 the re-sult of his investigation of a familv in that citv. 



" In April, 1908, an Italian residing at 2638 

 Shannon Street came to us asking that we place 

 his three defective children in an institution. I 

 visited his home and found three hopeless idiots aged 

 6, 3. and 1^/^ years respectively. There was no 

 sign of any degree of intelligence in either of them. 

 They aU took nourishment in the form of milk from 

 bottles. Not having intelligence enough to use their 

 limbs, they had not developed, and so all were 

 helpless. 



" I found in the coTirse of my inquiry that there 

 were four older children who were normal, viz., 

 girls aged 16, 14, and 8, and a boy 10 years old. 

 These children were, with the exception of the 

 oldest, who helped her mother with the care of the 

 idiot children, in the public school, and were do- 

 ing as well as the average Italian children of that 

 grade. 



" The explanation of this appai-ent mystery of the 

 two sets of childi-en, normal and degenerate, in the 



same family, was found to be due to alcoholism in 

 the case of the parents. The history of the family 

 as it bears on the matter is as follows : 



" Prior to 1900 the man worked for the Carnegie 

 Steel Company in the Ohio works. The normal 

 children were born during this time. In 1900 a 

 local brewer wishing to establish a saloon among 

 the Italians in Brier Hill found this man, who had 

 saved some money, and got him to go into the 

 saloon business. He built this house with the 

 family living-room in the rear of the barroom and 

 the sleeping-rooms on the second floor. The wife 

 helped to tend bar, and both began to drink to 

 excess; and it was during this period when both the 

 man and his wife were drinking to excess that 

 the three idiot children were born. The two 

 older of these idiots have since died; the youngest, 

 now about 9 years old, is living. 



_ " Incidentally, it may be stated that the man lo.st 

 his property and ended in debt to the brewery, and 

 was obliged to ask charitable aid during tlie de- 

 pression of 1908. He later went to work as a day 

 laborer and became self-supporting. After their 

 saloon was closed they both quit drinking to excess, 

 tho they did not recover morally, and the youngest 

 normal daughter is now in the Girls' Industrial 

 Training School at Delaware, an incorrigible." 



" FOOLISH TOLEDO I" 



We clip the following from the American 

 Issue : 



Tax-burdened Toledo will spend $100,000 for a 

 workhouse and farm for city prisoners. A majority 

 of these prisoners are such because of booze. Toledo 

 is penny wise and pound foolish. Instead of build- 

 ing prisons and buying farms to care for the saloon 

 product, why does she not close her saloon ? They 

 do not pay their way. 



" INSANE " LEGISLATION. 



The following from Bryan, whieli we 

 clip from the Plain-Dealer, given at the 

 recent wet and dry eonventioii, seems to 

 me " liits the nail on the head " ill a 

 most remarkable way : 



" The moral effect of this victory will be tre- 

 mendous," Col. Bryan continued. " It sounds the 

 death-knell of the liquor traffic." 



He urged total abstinence as wise for the indi- 

 vidual and prohibition as 'necessary for the nation. 

 On this subject he spoke, in part, as follows: 



" One of the ways of testing a man's sanity is 

 to put him in a tank of water, turn on a faucet, 

 and then ask the man to dip the tank dry. If he 

 goes on dipping without turning off the faucet he 

 is regarded as insane. If he turns the faucet off 

 it is a sign that he has not lost his reason. 



" The illustration can be applied to legislation 

 against the evils of i.^.teniperance. We make laws 

 against drunkenness; we make provision for those 

 who have been brought to poverty, crime, and in- 

 i^anity by the saloon. Are we wise enough to turn 

 off the stream by stopping the sale of intoxicating 

 liquor, or will we content ourselves with the un- 

 ending work of taking care of those disabled by 

 alcohol without being wise enough to stop tlie 

 stream of evil that flows out from the saloons?" 



SOME OP THE VICTORIES THE YEAR 1917 IS 

 ALREADY GIVING t^S. 



We clip the following from the Jack.';on- 

 ville Times-Union: 



Washington, Jan. 8. — In the most sweeping of all 

 decisions upholding prohibition laws, the Supreme 



