176 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



century has accompanied the fall of the birth rate. A high birth 

 rate commonly goes along with a high infant mortality ; hence, it 

 is argued, the latter would diminish if the birth rate were reduced. 

 By doing away with over-population Neo-Malthusianism would 

 tend to exterminate disease and poverty, and by permitting early 

 marriages to take place without incurring the responsibility of 

 parenthood it would materially decrease prostitution and vene- 

 real disease. In place of a population living in squalor and igno- 

 rance, competing keenly for the bare means of subsistence, and 

 tending through rapid increase to encroach upon neighboring 

 nations, we should have a people with a relatively low death 

 rate, living in comparative affluence, freed largely from the temp- 

 tations to vice and crime, and enjoying the blessings of peace and 

 contentment. All this through the proper employment of con- 

 traceptives ! 



This vision of the beneficent results of checking over-population 

 has aroused in many all the enthusiasm that characterizes the 

 devotees of a new religion. We have societies for spreading the 

 gospel in various countries, as, for instance, the Malthusian 

 League of England, the ligue Neo-Malthusienne of Paris, similar 

 leagues in Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, 

 Spain, and several birth control leagues in the larger cities of 

 the United States. A number of periodicals are devoted, in whole 

 or in part, to the same propaganda, such as the Birth Control 

 Review, Birth Control News, Dr. Robinson's Critic and Guide, 

 The Malthusian (C. V. Drysdale ed.). La Generation Consciente 

 (Paris), Salud y Fuerza (Spain), L'Educazione sessuale (Italy), 

 Die neue Generation (Germany). Much of this teaching finds 

 its way into socialist pamphlets and periodicals which have no 

 small influence upon the birth rate of the better informed workers. 

 Many of the latter take an antagonistic attitude to having large 

 families, not merely because many children make greater de- 

 mands upon the family income, but believing that, as the popula- 

 tion increases, wages, and hence the welfare of the working 

 classes in general, tends to decrease, and believing also, and to a 

 certain extent rightly, that the gospel of fecundity has been 



