60 



The Journal of Heredity 



for the welfare and development of the 

 higher creature, man, who was com- 

 manded to subdue and populate the 

 earth. The whole course of the prog- 

 ress of man has been the everlasting 

 control and limitation of nature, and 

 her subordination to his higher life. 

 Suri)lus seed is the most wonderful 

 phenomenon of nature on which the 

 whole human race depends for existence 

 and on which it builds its structure of 

 the higher life. So the htmian sexual 

 relations under control may temporarily 

 limit nature for the sake of elevating 

 man by securing stronger spiritual 

 union between the sexes, by securing 

 better children at ijro])cr times and 

 intervals, and thus causing the emer- 

 gence of a stronger race. Birth control 

 does not necessarily mean smaller fami- 

 lies, but it does mean better families, 

 brought forth and developed according 

 to the right mingling of reason and love. 

 America needs at jjresent a higher 

 quality of population more than she 

 needs a greater quantity; she needs 

 more normal families of the successful 

 classes, not larger families of the unsuc- 

 cessful. The number of children reared 

 into decent citizenship, not the number 

 born in i)overty, is what makes the 

 American famil\- hai)])y and the nation 

 strong. 



Will it encourage immoralit>- ? 



It may in some isolated cases in the 

 same way that any useful invention or 

 knowledge may be ])ut to evil ])urposes 

 by thcise who are so inclined, but even 

 with that assum])tion its possible bene- 

 fits outweigh all such possiVjle evils. 

 Birth control is already practiced, 

 perhaps too much, by the middle and 

 richer classes of America, but the 

 immorality of those classes apparently 

 does not exceed that of the ])oorer ])eople 

 where it is less common. Birth control 

 will ultimately have a selective eiTect 

 on the i)o]nilation in that the selfish and 

 un])atriotic will have a Ixlter o])]K>r- 

 tunity to eliminate themselves and 

 leave the world to more normal and 

 wholesome stocks. A program of me- 

 chanical contrivances handed out to the 

 ignorant peo])le without any vitalizing 

 constructive idealism for the family and 

 the nation may encourage indulgence 



in physical passion and degrade family 

 life in many cases. Birth control must 

 not be made the scapegoat for the sins 

 of selfishness and passion. We must 

 have a constructive famih- ideal and 

 race enthusiasm which will jjrovide 

 the dynamic for both ijrojjer increase 

 in the number of jjopulation and birth 

 control in the interest of the qualitv of 

 life. 



THI'; rk(JHIj;.\I OK l'OPl'I..\TIOX 



Birth control must not stand by 

 itself and be preached and judged as 

 an unrelated thing: it is only one im- 

 ]jortant factor in the great jjrogram of 

 the nation's problem of ]Jopulation and 

 race vitality. How is the ]Jopulation 

 of America to increase in the future? 

 The middle classes of the industrial 

 regions are not maintaining their num- 

 bers by natural i^rocess. The birth 

 control advocates would have the poor 

 l^eople restrict their families to the 

 limits of their income and would show 

 them how to do it. Where then shall 

 we get the next 100,000.000 which we 

 are sure to have and which the nation 

 needs and can easih' ])ro\-ide for? 

 Evidently from the poverty-stricken 

 classes of the Russians, Italians, Syrians, 

 Portuguese, Mexicans, Xegroes, etc., 

 because the western Europeans may have 

 few emigrants to send us for years to 

 come. 



If the insufficient birth rate of the 

 upper classes were to continue and we 

 were obliged to get our increase in 

 numbers either from the overflowing 

 ]:)overty-stricken families of foreign 

 countries or from the jjoor classes of 

 our own ])0]nilation, I should say, from 

 the point of view of national welfare, 

 let the increase come from our own 

 peo]:)le reared under our own flag, 

 language and customs, even though in 

 ])overty. The adojition of birth control 

 by jjoor families to the extent that it is 

 l)racticed by the economically higher 

 classes will condemn this continent 

 forever to be, not only the mixing bowl 

 of the world, but the scrajj heap of the 

 races. These people may be them- 

 seh'cs as good as any of us, but forever 

 mixed together from the ends of the 

 world, lliev cannot make a nation. 



