340 
RACE SUICIDE 
At the present time considerable 
alarm has been expressed at the appar- 
ently growing disinclination of Ameri- 
can women to bear children, and a cry 
has been raised against what people call 
“Race Suicide.” Whatever the cause 
—it is undoubtedly the fact that in 
America the children of foreign-born 
parents are increasing at a much 
greater rate than the children of native- 
born parents—and the position is suffi- 
ciently grave for serious consideration. 
The desire to avoid maternity is a 
characteristic associated with lack of 
offspring, and cannot therefore go on 
increasing indefinitely in a community. 
Its natural tendency is to die out 
through lack of offspring to inherit it, 
leaving the more fertile part of the com- 
munity alone to propagate the race. 
Reflection therefore leads to the 
somewhat startling conclusion that 
even wholesale abstention from chil- 
dren, so far from lessening the fertility 
of the community as a whole will even- 
tually increase it instead. Actual race 
suicide will not result from such a cause 
alone, so long as the race is left to itself 
to work out its own destiny. 
Just consider the case of a race of 
people in which the women show a 
disinclination for motherhood,  sur- 
rounded by prolific immigrant races 
ready to take its place, then of course 
there would be serious danger of the 
native race being displaced by the im- 
migrants. The immigrants might ab- 
sorb the native race instead of the 
native race absorbing the immigrants; 
but such a result would be due to the 
presence of the competing races and 
not due directly to the operation of 
natural causes within the race itself. 
THE DESTINY OF AN ISLAND RACE 
In order to appreciate this, imagine 
our native race to be placed upon an 
island protected by suitable immigra- 
tion laws from competition with other 
races. Then it becomes obvious that 
the sentiment in favor of avoiding the 
production of offspring must neces- 
sarily diminish in process of time, on 
The Journal of Heredity 
account of the lack of offspring to in- 
herit it; and that the opposite senti- 
ment of a desire to have children will 
grow, and ultimately become predomi- 
nant, because each succeeding genera- 
tion will be composed exclusively of 
the descendants of the people who had 
children. If the desire for offspring is 
an inheritable characteristic, and it 
certainly is, then of course the next 
generation will inherit it from their 
parents to a certain extent; whereas 
there will be no descendants at all to 
inherit the characteristics of those who 
abstained from offspring. 
We have placed the people upon an 
island, and protected them from inter- 
ference from other races, so as to leave 
them to themselves to carry on their 
lives in their own way, as they desire. 
Some of these people love little 
children, and desire to have children 
of their own. Others look upon chil- 
dren as nuisances, perhaps necessary 
evils for the continuance of the race— 
but why should they be bothered with 
them when they don’t want them? Let 
others have them if they want them, 
but leave them alone. Well—let them 
have their desires. 
Let those who desire children have 
them, and those who don’t, have none, 
and see how it will all work out. 
Now does it not become at once evi- 
dent that so long as any of the people 
desire offspring and have them, com- 
plete race suicide is impossible? Some 
offspring will be produced and a second 
generation will appear. 
Suppose for example the boom 
against maternity reaches such propor- 
tions that 99 per cent of the population 
decide to have no children—and surely 
this is an extreme case—will the race 
die out? No—not immediately at all 
events. There will be another genera- 
tion composed exclusively of the de- 
scendants of the one per cent who 
desire to have children. The whole of 
the next generation will be composed 
of their children; and there will be no 
descendants at all of the other ninety- 
nine per cent. 
This is the critical time for our 
islanders. Only one per cent of the 
