p. 256 | The Liquor Evil

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 28, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 16.

The Liquor Evil

DR. LUCIUS BROWN, the head of the Tennessee Pure Food and Drug Department, comes out with the statement that this country is "far worse drug-ridden than China." So far, 1,360 "dope fiends" have registered with the state department, and the doctor calculates that the number registered represents only about one tenth of the drug users of the state. This peril of doping with drugs is very closely related to the parent peril — the liquor evil.

THE Pittsburg chapter of the American Institute of Banking has unanimously adopted resolutions condemning the liquor business. Attention is called, in the preamble of their resolution, to the city of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, where the saloons became such a nuisance that the county court revoked twenty-seven saloon licenses. A great decrease in crime was noted after this court decision; and three banks in the city of Coatesville showed a gain in their deposits, after the refusal of licenses, of over $2,000,000; and the county commissioners were able to reduce the county taxation from two and one half mills to two mills, or a reduction, in other words, of twenty per cent. The challenge is thrown out again and again for any one to come forward and say a single truthful thing that would be favorable to the saloon. There is absolutely nothing that can be said in its favor, and the facts are piled up around us like mountain ranges of evidence calling for its suppression.

THE Journal of the American Medical Association calls attention to the dangers of overdoing in athletic sports. Exercise in athletics may be overdone in such a way as to destroy permanently the physical efficiency of the individual, rather than to build it up. Physical training should be taken under the instruction of a competent director. And we might also state that the men who are connected with our agricultural experiment stations and other industrial enterprises can give the best physical training — a training that is the most useful and that will at the same time build the body up in the most healthful, symmetrical manner. There is no better physical developer than good, honest toil properly understood and properly enjoyed.

SOME 35,000,000 copies of the Bible have been put into circulation in China, and the two corresponding secretaries of the American Bible Society offer the suggestion that "possibly an impression that the empire is being flooded with Bibles was one reason for an official affirmation of Confucianism as a religion of the Chinese republic." But Confucianism will be taken at a great disadvantage in the struggle, for the reason that the writings of Confucius are in the classical form of the Chinese, and understood by the educated only, while the Bible is in the language of Him whom the common people heard gladly. Our Bible societies should be encouraged in their great work of earnestly circulating the sacred Scriptures.

ON April 4, Frederick W. Weyerhaeuser, the big lumber king, died at his winter home near Los Angeles, at the age of seventy-nine. He has not been talked about in the same way that Mr. Rockefeller has, but he has nevertheless been a close rival of Mr. Rockefeller in the amassing of a great fortune. How many hundreds of millions he was actually worth it would be difficult to tell, but it is quite probable that his holdings represent in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars. He began life in poverty, and is one of the conspicuous examples of the great amassing of wealth that one man may accomplish in these days, within his single lifetime.

THE Lackawanna Railway Company is making extensive experiments with wireless apparatus to be used in the operation of their trains. In one of the snow-storms recently, when all the telegraph wires had been broken down, a wireless apparatus on a snow-bound train reported the whereabouts and the condition of the train, and by wireless communication, though in a somewhat roundabout way, they were able to send relief that got the train out of that condition some forty-eight hours earlier than could have been done without this.

DR. CARREL, at the recent meeting of the American Surgical Society at the Hotel Astor, New York City, presented some very interesting facts in regard to experiments in surgery of the heart he has been performing upon dumb animals, and he believes that surgery on the human heart can now be safely attempted. This will be a great advance step in the healing art.