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What Hobson the Hero t Merrimac Has to Say on Temperance
His Remarkable Lecture on the Ef
fects of Alcohol, Showing How
Drink Kills More Americans
Every Year Than War Has
Slaughtered of All Mankind in the
Last 2,300 Years, and Pointing
Out How Intemperance Opens
the Door to the “Yellow Peril.”
C ONGRESSMAN RICHMOND PEARSON HOBSON lectures when
hie official dutlea permit, and one of these lectures Is on tem
perance. So remarkable and Important are the facta brought
out by Congressman Hobson, and so vitally significant are his con
clusions, that this newspaper asked the man who sank the Merrimac
for permission to print some of the most essential parts. The ar
ticle following, by Captain Hobeon. la printed by his permission
from his lecture.
By CONGRESSMAN RICHMOND P. HOBSON,
the Hero of the Merrimac.
T HE Army War College at Washington nas
an Investigation of the destructive
news of war. Taking all the wars of the
world, from the Russo-Japanese War back to
500 B. C„ It found that the total number of
killed and wounded In battle amounts to about
2.800,000 of which it is estimated that about
700,000 were killed and something over 2,000,000
wounded.
Comparative figures show the appalling fact
that alcohol Is killing off as many Americans
every year as all the wars of the world have
killed In battle In 2.300 years
If a great military power were to declare war
on unprepared America to-day, every patriotic
heart would be filled with anxiety I know the
full significance of war. especially when a na
tion la unprepared. But if 1 had the choice of
having alcohol continue In Its deadly ravage*
with the nation at peace, or of having it wiped
off the face of the land with a declaration of
war by all tho nations of the earth, I would
not hesitate for a moment; I would take sober,
undegenerate America and face the combined
world in arms.
I.ast year, on an average, each saloon In the
l T nlted States was the cause of the death of
three men. This year each saloon, on the aver
age, will kill three men. Each aaloon in the
United States, on an average, now has twenty
men made heavy drinkers or drunkards Each
saloon, on an average, has one hundred men
made regular drinkers.
I feel no bitterness against those engaged In
the liquor traffic. They are In business by the
consent of the Government, which shares the
■polls The Government belongs to all the peo
ple The blame for the business Is to be laid
at the doors of all the people who have not
done their utmost to destroy It.
In the full light of the facta I cannot look
upon any saloon otherwise than as an assassin,
the most barbarous, atrocious of assassins. It
Is vain to plead that the men who drink are
responsible for the slaughter. They drink be
cause the drug is kept in their presence. No
amount of suffering will cause them to stop, or
will warn others away. Meat with strychnine
placed along the streets will kill the dogs No
terrible examples will have any effect. The
tact of the poisoned meat being placed on the
street is the cause of the destruction When
this seductive poison alcohol is pla< od along
the streets In saloons, men will take It. The
fa< t of its being on the street la the real cause
of Its being taken Irrespective of the question
of the responsibility for its existence, the
saloon Is fundamentally an assassin.
When the true nature of alcohol becomes
better understood no community will longer
tolerate these assassins, who take their stand
on the corners and up and down the squares
of our cltle-c In the premises the State ha*
not only the right, but the bounden duty, to
put an end to this wholesale assassination.
From conclusions drawn from rclentlflc tests
it is conservative to estimate that the heavy
drinkers and confirmed drunkards in the United
States have their productive effjc!enc> lowered
at least 75 per cent; that the temperate, regu
lar drinkers, who drink alcoholic beverages
every day of their lives, suffer a loss of pro
ductive efficiency of fully 50 per cent, that the
occasional drinkers suffer a loss of fully 10 per
cent. This is what l)r. Aschaffenberg proved
by his famous test of four German typesetters
—drinking men—who averaged a tenth more
work when they drank nothing than when they
drank even one ounce of alcohol at home In
pure wine or beer
The use of alcoholic beverages I estimate as
causing a loss of fully 21 per cent In the effi
ciency of the nation’s producers. The produc
tion of wealth is at u rate of about 32,000,000,-
000 yearly, the loss due to lowered efficiency,
conservatively estimated in round figures, is
therefore fully $$,500,000,000.
It Is estimated that each one of the 700,000
men cut off ultimately every year by alcohol
would have, sober, an economic value of $8,000,
mak ng a loss of $5,600,000,000. The nation
iast year, on account of the lowered efficiency
of its producers and the death list, was over
$14,000,000,000 short in its productiveness.
Without uloohol, instead of producing only
$32,000,000,000 of wealth, we would have pro
duced over $46,000,000,000.
It is estimated that the cost of providing for
the added crime, pauperism, idiocy and insanity
produced by alcohol !n the United States ex
ceeds $2,000,000,000 per annum. The people of
the United States last year consumed more
than two and one-half billion gallons of alco
holic beverages, paying for the same nearly
$2,000,000,000.
Summing up economic losses from the low
ered efficiency of our producers, from the death
net. from the costs of crime, pauperism and in
ranity. and from the liquor bill, the total eco
nomic burcen laid upon the nation by King
Alcohol is between sixteen and seventeen bil
lions of dollars annually—more than half of
sll the wealth produced by the nation. And
this gigantic burden is put upon us for pur
poses of destruction and degeneracy
It Is Dot difficult to see the duty of the Stat*
If a foreign invader landed on our shore.* and
disinherited the people of a single county, the
nation would be up in arms. Here is a foe that
has come upon us and is taxing us for more
than the values of all the products of all our
ttsherles—equivalent to taking from our people
All that Mother
Earth produces on
land and water
combined What
ah all be the at
'itudo of the State
In face of a f 0 e
that has dlsln
berlted the whole
nation? Clearly
the Slate has not
only the clear
right, but the bounden duty to take up arms
and expect tho foe.
But even this terrific economic loss is but a
small part of the ravages of tho destroyer.
Alcohol attacks the line of evolution morp than
any other line. In the case of man the line of
evolution is in normal advancement what In
any Individual may be termed “character.”
Therefore the loss of character must be far
greater than the economic loss. We found the
farms, all our forests, all our mines, all our
economic loss to be fully 21 per cent. If char
acter could be measured by percentage, we
would nave to esiimate the loss in average
character of the nation as fully 50 per cent.
Tx>oking upon a nation as climbing a ladder
of evolution, alcohol, like a millstone, drags it
half way to the bottom. The full significance of
this drag appears when we realize that upon
the average standard of charax'ter of its citi
zens must rest the institutions of a nation. It
has become an axiom of history that if the
average standard of character is below' a cer
tain minimum level a nation cannot enjoy self-
government.
In our great cities, like New York, Chicago
and Philadelphia, the ravages upon the average
character have been so great, so many degen
erates have already been produced, that the
degenerate and corruptible vote not only holds
the balance of power between the two great
political parties and can dictate to both, hut
actually holds a majority of the votes, so that
honest and efficient self-government as a per
manent condition is now impossible.
At the present rate of the growth of cities
over country life, if no check is put upon the
spread of alcoholic degeneracy, the day cannot
be far distant when liberty in great States
must go under. It will then he hut a question of
time when the average standard of character of
the nation’s electorate will fall below that in
exorable minimum, und liberty will take her
flight from America, as she did from Greece
and Rome.
In every living thing there Is the evolution
ary impulse to rise and progress In the human
family man is not changing much in h’s physi
cal nature, hut is evolving chiefly In hlr nervous
system, building up those delicute ce iters of
?ht* brain upon whose activities rests t* r* moral
sense. Nature is trying to produce men of
Congressman Richmond Pearson Hobioa, the Hero of the Merrimac,
Whose Lecture on Temperance Has Proved a Strong Factor
in the Campaign Against Intoxicating Liquors.
high character, a race of true, noble men. Al
coholic beverages, even In moderation, reverse
the processes of nature and set back the pur
poses of creation.
• f »» peaceable red man Is subjected to the
regular use of alcoholic beverages, he w r ill
speedily be put back to the plane of the sav
age. The government long since recognized
a . ..it v prohibits the introduction
c' Hr- heveraees into an Indian reserva
tion. If a negro takes up a regular use of alco*
o short time he will degen
erate to the level of the cannibal.
. n gti the state of evolution,
he result Is the same. A white man with
-A.^jfiorate. tender-hearted,
who would not willingly harm an Insect, will be
degenerated by regular use of alcoholic bever-
he will strike with a
dagger or fire a shot to kill with little or no
»,«ovtxaUoii.
though at first a tender, loving husband and
•: cut. be will deeenerate to the point where
e w 4 ll he cruel to his own flesh and blood. It
is conservatively estimated that 95 per cent of
all the acts and crimes of violence committed in
civilized communities are the direct result of
*j P » ] ut down by alcohol toward a plane
of savagery. The degenerating process strikes
at the integrity of the reason, and is the chief
cause of idiocy and insanity. It wipes out self-
i nntrrd. self-res’ ect. th^ sense of honor, the
moral sense, and produces the bulk of tramps,
onus
During the Boer w’ar it was found that the
average Englishman did not measure up to the
I'.nardb < recruiting, and the average sol*
r low plane of vital
ity and endurance. Parliament, alarmed, insti-
ith' The commission ap
pointed brought in a finding that alcoholic poi
soning was the great cause of the national de*
i » . M j ne sreat railroads
to forbid the use of alcoholic beverages among
their employees. Science has supplemented
experience by actual and accurate measure
ments. If a man drinks one glass of beer, the
day on which he drinks it his general efficiency
n average of 8 per cent
If he takes three glasses of beer a day, or the
• •vt.’ent ? n light wine, for twelve days, his
efficiency at the end of tho twelve days will be
PCRCKRTAOI OR BACH CLASS CNTlRfD
PERCENTAGE or TEN RRlIES «
Forty Years Following 1867 and, on
Increase in the Number of Divorces
the Same Period. The Similarity Between
the Two Charts Is Significant.
Comparative
Diagrams
Showing,
on the Right,
the Increase
in the
Consumption
of Intoxicating
Liquors in
the United
States for
the Left, the
During
► iRST i9 TO REACtvOOAL
CAST 2* TO PEACH GOAL
The Above Diagram Illustrates the Re
sults Obtained in a Sixty-Two-Mile
Walking Match Between Ab
stainers and Non-Abstain
ers Held at Kiel. Ger
many, in 1608.
lowered 25 per cent to 40 per cent, depending
upon the temperament of the man and the na
ture of the work, lu doing mathematical work,
like bookkeeping, the loss of efficiency goes
iibove t^e 40 ter cent limit; in memorizing the
loss goes up as high as 7i per cent. Thus the
most moderate and temperate drinking is
harmful.
The results can be illustrated by taking the
effect of alcohol on the white blood corpuscles,
the wonderful standing army of the system,
whose organized hosts, millions strong, attack
and destroy the hordes of disease germs of all
kinds that are constantly entering the system
with the air we breathe, with our food and
drink, and through abrasions of the skin. These
disease germs seek a lodgment—germs of
tuberculosis usually in the lungs, germs of
typhoid in the intestines, each kind In its fa
vorite organs or tissues—and meet in combat
the armies of corpuscles. If the latter wtn
from the outset, the germs are thrown off. If
the germs win at first, they get a lodgment and
multiply, and the person contracts disease. If
tho corpuscles finally win, the patient recovers,
li the multiplying hordes of germs win, thh
>*io. t dies Nearly all of the diseases of
mankind and nearly all the deaths hang upon
the vitality and vigor of the white corpuscles.
I'uder the microscope It Is found that even a
moderate drink of alcoholic beverage, passing
quickly into the blood, paralyzes the white
blood corpuscles. They behave like drunken
men. In pursuit they cannot catch the disease
germs from devouring, and they cannot operate
n they cannot hold the disease
In great phalanxes, as they do when sober,
against such powerful germs as those of con
sumption.
Every time a man takes a drink of alcoholic
beverage he lays himself open for a time to
contraeting disease. Every time a man takes
a drink he puts his life In peril. No wonder
the mortality statistics show’, as they do, that
the total abstainer has nearly twice the security
and hold on life that the moderate drinker has,
and about three times the hold of heavy
drinkers.
If the drinks are repeated the microscope
shows that the fighting powers of the white
blood corpuscles are permanently impaired,
even when they are not actually drank. This
accounts for the lowered vitality of regular
drinkers, even though temperate.
After long-continued drinking, even though
temperate, the microscope shows that the white
corpuscles become carnivorous and begin to
feed upon the tissues and organs like disease
germs. The favorite tissue food of the degen
erate corpuscles are the tenser cells of latest
development. In the human being the latest
development is the brain. The microscope
actually shows the degenerate corpuscles in the
gray matter of the brain.
Statistics compiled by insurance companies
show that the death rate for the population at
large is 1.000 deaths per year out of every
61,215 of the population, and that the death
rate of total abstainers Is 560 per year in the
same number. These figures, taken from many
million? of cases, may be accepted as accurate.
They show that 440 out of every 1,000 deaths
(nearly one-half of the deaths that occur) are
due to alcohol. Alcohol is killing our people at
the rate of nearly 2,000 every day In the year
The figures of the English life insurance
s to the effect of drink on longevity
are as*follow’s:
If a young man at the age of twenty is a total
abstainer and remains a total abstainer, his
prospect of life is forty-four years, and he will
live to the average of sixty-four; hut if he is a
temperate regular drinker his prospect of life
will be thirty-one years, and he will live to the
average age of fifty-one, losing thirteen years
Wet” and "Dry” Map of the United States, January 1, 1913. Com
parison of This Map with the Map Adjoining Shows the Enor
mous Progress Made in the Last Twenty Years by the Temper
ance Crusaders.
out of his life. If he Is a heavy drinker, his
prospect of life is fifteen years, and he will die
at the average age of thirty-five, losing twenty
years out of his life. Conservative estimates
place the number of confirmed drunkards in
the United States at something over 1,000,000,
of whom 300,000 die every year; the heavy
drinkers at over 4,000,000, and temperate regu
lar drinkers at over 20,000,000.
A scientist, after wide investigation, has
found that In only 1 per cent of cases do
accidents occur In maternity to mothers where
the parents are total abstainers, while 5.25 per
cent occur where the parents are regular tem
perate drinkers, and 7.32 per cent where the
parents are heavy drinkers. Of the children
of drinkers, 10 per cent will have consumption;’
of the children of total aostainers only 1.8 per
cent.
Those who drink alcoholic beverages should
realize the terrible price they pay. They nearly
double the chances of their children dying in
infancy, and they undermine the health and
normality of those that survive. A man may
take chances with himself, but if he has a
spark of nobility in his soul he will take care
• with a deadly poison that wtll
cause the helpless little, children he brings Into
the world to be deformed, Idiotic, epileptic or
Insane.
Scientists selected from a litter of spaniels
two little brothers exactly alike in Infancy, and
brought them up, one as an alcoholic and the
other as a total abstainer, giving the former
only a small quantity of alcohol with his food,
about equivalent in proportion to w’hat be
nighted parents often give their children in
beer or light wine mixed with water. From
another litter of spaniels they selected two
little sisters exactly alike in Infancy, and
brought them up in the same way, one as ai^
alcoholic, the other as a total abstainer. When
the four dog" were grown they were mated, the
two alcoholics together, and tjie two total ab
stainers together, and the process was repeated.
The two mothers and the offspring were placed
under close scientific observation. Extraordi
nary phenomena Bet In with the alcoholic
mother She experienced difficulties and acci
dents, suffered great travail in birth, and finally
died in pupbirth with the fifth litter. Many of
her offspring were born dead. Many of them
died in infancy, and of those that survived
only 17.3 per cent were normal.
The abstaining mother had no such ex
perience; she bore large litters of healthy,
strong pups, of which 90.5 per cent were ab
solutely normal.
The same inexorable law holds for man as
for animals A scientist, having Investigated ,
more than 800 cases, announces that’of children
born to alcoholic parents, one In every five will
be hopelessly insane, one In every three will be
hysterical of epileptic, and more than two-thirds
will be degenerate.
Another scientist located ten large families
in which both parents were alcoholic, and in the'
same localities, with other conditions practically
the same, ten large families In which both par
ents were total abstainers. Of the fifty-seven
children of the alcoholic parents, ten were de
formed, six were epileptic, six were idiotic;
only 17 per cent were normal, arid 83 per cent
were abnormal Of the sixty-one children of
the total-abstaining parents, 10.5 per cent only
were abnormal, and these chiefly backward,
while 89.5 per cent were absolutely normal.
Seventeen per cent were normal In the one
L EAVING aside the great question of "Crime
and Punishment,” which occupies now so
manv prominent lawyers and sociologists,
1 shall limit my remarks to the question; "Are
prisous answering their purpose, which is that
of diminishing the numbers of anti social acts?”
To this question every unprejudiced person
w ho has a knowledge of prtsons from the inside
will certainly answer by an emphatic .Vo. On
the contrary, a serious study of the subject
will bring every one to the conclusion that the
prtsons -the best ns much as the worst are
breeding places of criminality; that they con
tribute to render the anti social acts worse and
worse: that they are. in a word, the High
Schools, the Universities of what is known as
Crime.
Of course, I do not mean that every one who
has been once in a prison will return to it.
There are thousands of people sent every year
to prison by mere accident. But I maintain that
the efTeet of a couple of years of life in prison
—from the very fact of its being a prison—is
to increase in the individual those defects
which brought him before a law court. These
causes, being the love of risk, the dislike of
regular work (due in an Immense majority of
cases to the want of a thorough knowledge of
a tradel, the despite of society with Its injus
tice and hypocrisy, the want of physical energy
and the lack of will—all these causes will be
aggravated by detention in a jail.
Five-and-twenty years ago, when 1 developed
this idea in a book, now out of print (“Ir. Rus
sian and French Prisons"), I supported it by an
examination of the facts revealed in France by
an Inquest mad” as to the numbers of
recidivlstes (second offense prisoners). The
By PRINCE KROPOTKIN,
Author of ‘‘In Russian and French Prisons.”
result of this Inquest was that from two-fifths
to one-half of all persons brought before the
assizes and two-fifths of all brought before the
police courts had already been kept once or
twice In jail. The very same figure of 40
per cent was found in this country; while, ac
cording to Michael Davltt, as much as 95 per
cent of all those w’ho are kept in penal servi
tude have previously received prison education.
A little reflection will show that things can
not he otherwise. A prison has, and must have,
a degrading effect on its inmates. Take a man
freshly brought to a jail The moment he
enters the house he Is no more a human being:
he is "Number So and So." He must have no
more a will of his own. They put on him a
fool’s ess to underline his degradation. They
deprive him of every intercourse with those
toward whom he may have an attachment, and
thus exclude the action of the only element
which could have a good effect upon him.
Then he is put to labor, but not to a labor
that might help to his moral improvement.
Prison work is made to be an instrument of
base revenge. What must the prisoner think of
the Intelligence of these "pillars of society”
who pretend by such punishment to "reform"
the prisoners?
In the French prtsons the inmates are given
some sort of useful and paid work. But even
this work is paid at a ridiculouly low scale, and.
according to the prison authorities, it cannot
be paid otherwise. Prison work, they say, is
inferior slave work. The result is that the
prisoner begins to hate his work, and finishes
bj> saying: "The real thieves are not we. but
those who keep us in.”
The prisoner’s brain is thus working over
and over again upon the idea of the injustice
of a society which pardons and often respects
such swindlers as so many company promoters
are. and wickedly punishes him. simply because
he was not cunning enough. And the moment
he is out he takes his revenge by some offense
very often much graver than his first one. Re
venge breeds revenge.
The revenge that was exercised upon him he
exercises upon society. Every prison, because
it is a prison, destroys the physical energy of
its inmates. It acts upon them far worse than
an Arctic wintering. The want of fresh air,
the monotony of existence, especially the want
of impressions, take all energy out of the
prisoner, and produce that craving for stimu
lants (alcohol, coffee) of which Miss Allen
spoke so truthfully the other day at the Con
gress of the British Medical Association. And
finally, while most anti-social acts can be traced
to a weakness of will, the prison education is
directed precisely toward killing every mani
festation of w ill.
Worse than that. I seriously recommend to
prison reformers the "Prison Memoirs” of A.
Berkman. who was kept for fourteen years in
an American jail, and has told with great sin
cerity his experience. One .will see from this
book how T every honest feeling must be sup
pressed by the prisoner, if he does not decide
never to go out of this hell.
What can remain of a man's will and good
intentions after five or six years of such an
education? And where can he go after his re
lease, unless he returns to the very same
chums, whose company has brought him to the
jail? They are the only ones who will receive
him as an equal. But when he joins them he
is sure to return to the prison in a very few
months. And so he does. The jailers know it
well.
1 am often asked what reforms of prisons
I should propose; but now, as twenty-five years
ago, I really do not see how prisons could be
reformed. They must be pulled down. I
might say, of course: “Be less cruel, be more
thoughtful of what you do.” But that would
come to this: “Nominate a Pestalozzi as gov
ernor in each prison, and sixty Pestalozzis as
warders,” which would be absurd. But nothing'
short of tl.at would help.
So the only thing 1 could say to some quite
well-intentioned Massachusetts prison officials
who came once to ask my advice was this: If
you cannot obtain th abolition of the prison
system, then—never apt a child or a youth
in your prison. If you do so. it is manslaughter.
And then, after having learned by experience
what prisons are, refuse to be jailers, and
never be tired to say that prevention of crime
is the only proper way to co” hat it. Healthy
municipal dwellings at cost price, education in
the family and at school—of the parents as well
as the children; the learning by every boy and
girl of a trade; communal and professional co
operation; societies for all sorts of pursuits;
and. above all. Idealism developed in the
youths; the longing after what is lifting human
nature to higher interests. This will achieve
what punishment is absolutely incapable to do.
case and 89.5 per cent in the other case—-a
difference of 72.5 per cent.
Parents by becoming alcoholic will sacrifice
three-fourths of their children on the altar of
drink.
Exact research has demonstrated that alcohol
is destructive and degenerating to the human*
organism Its effects upon the cells and tissues
of the body are depressive, narcotic and anes
thetic. Therefore, therapeutically, its use
should be limited and restricted in the same
way as the use of other poisonous drags.
The question has passed beyond the experi
mental stage, beyond the stage of theory, and
is a demonstration that is final, like the demon
stration that the world is round and not flat.
The last word of science is that alcohol is a
poison. It has been found to be a hydrocarbon,
produced by the process of fermentation, and is
the toxin or liquid excretion or waste product'
of the yeast or ferment germ. According to the
universal law of biology that the toxin of one
form of life is a poison to all forms of life of a
higher order, alcohol, the toxin of the low yeast,
germ, is a poison to all human or other animal
life, and to ail the living tissues and organs.
It is not a day too soon to grapple with this t
foe. When degeneracy has gone much farther
It will be too late. At the present rate it will
not be long before abnormals and degenerates
swamp our cities and overrun our States.
Nature will not tolerate a race of degenerates.
A backward, and usually a despised race, but
undegenerate, is found ready to give the coup
de grace When Persia degenerated, Greece
was on hand to strike. When Greece degen
erated, Rome was ready. When Rome degen
erated, Gaul was ready.
If America degenerates, the yellow man will
be on hand. Some may make light of the
yellow man; so did Romans make light of thet
“Barbarians.” The yellow man is not degen
erating. He can shoot as straight as a white
man now, and, undegenerated, he can live on
one-tenth of what is necessary for the white
man while he is in the field doing the shoot
ing. A race of degenerates cannot occupy the
American continent In this generation our
people must take their choice; in the next
generation it may be too late. There is no
alternative. We are fairly in the death grapple.
All the pages of history are crying out to
tmerica, "Conquer the great destroyer or
perish.”