BIRTH SELECTION VERSUS BIRTH CONTROL 33 



Finally, it must be clearly understood that we eugenists are chiefly con- 

 cerned with birth selection measures which go to improve the general 

 physical, moral and intellectual qualities of mankind, while measures 

 which are designed to serve personal, individual ends and more or less 

 temporary social demands are outside our province. Positive eugenics 

 strives to improve racial quality on the one hand by increasing breeding 

 and offspring among the eugenic element, and on the other negative eugenics 

 by diminishing breeding and offspring among the dysgenic element. The 

 eugenic element of the population includes that portion which is able to 

 exert the greater amount of physical and mental energy, by so doing the 

 better to pull its own weight in the social group, and through a superior 

 moral, temperamental and intellectual endowment to make the greater 

 contribution to the understanding of human life conditions, to cultural 

 progress and to general racial improvement. It would be a mistake, how- 

 ever, to regard this element as confined to a narrow class of intellectual 

 superiority, fully granting this class to be highly essential. Many diverse 

 abilities and aptitudes are required for the consistent and balanced develop- 

 ment of humanity. In short, the eugenic element of the population may 

 be defined as that portion of existent humanity which is competent to 

 produce the best resultant evolution of the species. 



IS THE WORLD OVER-POPULATED? 



Two high authorities in the anthropological world differ widely on the 

 question whether or not the world is over-populated. From my recent 

 voyage around the world and observations in many lands I have reached the 

 opinion that over-population and underemployment may be regarded as 

 twin sisters. From this point of view I even find that the United States is 

 over-populated at the present time. Dr. Louis I. Dublin, third vice- 

 president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and an experienced 

 statistician, takes a different view as regards the United States when he 

 says: "As to the United States, I can not see that from any standpoint 

 whatever we can regard our own country as being over-populated. Our 

 exports exceed our imports and we are quite able to feed and house our 

 present population and many more that may be born or come in from abroad 

 in later years." Dr. Dublin does not agree with me as to either the pressing 

 danger or the best preventives of over-population. He writes (June 6, 

 1932): 



I have not been greatly impressed with the warnings of certain writers that the world 

 is suffering from over-population. When East's "Mankind at the Crossroads" appeared 

 and made such a stir, I wrote a review in which I took issue with his views. Wiggam and 



