BERTH SELECTION VERSUS BIRTH CONTROL 37 



contraception is mandatory on account of the danger of over-population." 

 Campbell is disposed to "credit Dr. Dublin's forecast, partly because the 

 largest life insurance company in the world depends upon him to calculate 

 its vital statistics, and even more because his calculations have proven 

 correct in other instances." Campbell further observes, "the population 

 problem, in the United States at least, can be seen to be far more one of 

 quality than of quantity. And if we seek to improve racial quality by the 

 restriction of births, especially if such restriction seemed urgent, it should 

 be evident that sterilization is a far more effective and dependable means 

 of accomplishing this purpose than contraception. Hence contraception 

 needs to find justification for itself other than on its eugenic value." 



To promote the practice of contraception the birth-control propagandists 

 claim to be benefactors of womankind whose great object is to relieve 

 women of unnecessary suffering and unnecessary burdens. The attempt to 

 relieve womankind of what may be termed the prehistoric and historic 

 burden of the female of the species naturally enlists the sympathy both of 

 the individualists of our time, who are ready to support any measure to 

 give women greater freedom of profession and of action, as well as of the 

 sentimentalists, who do not realize that women's share in the hard struggle 

 for the existence of the race is a very essential element in the advance of 

 womankind. The relief of the struggle for existence pressure from any 

 animal or plant organism is an extremely dangerous experiment, for it may 

 be said without exaggeration that the struggle for existence is the sine qua 

 non of every great human or animal quality. Campbell recalls the fact 

 that "the continuance of the race and the quality of the race rests primarily 

 with women. In short, women are more essential to racial survival than 

 men. If, for example, half the female population were exterminated — or 

 chose to be unproductive — the possibilities of reproduction would perforce 

 be diminished one-half; if, on the other hand, half the males were extermi- 

 nated there need be no such diminution, the ovum being the indispensable 

 factor. It is not difficult to see that the social organism rests upon this bio- 

 logical condition; both racial instincts and social mores decree that the pro- 

 tection and preservation of women is precedent to that of men, manifestly 

 because women are racially the more precious. We might recall that 

 ageless example in the Iliad of Hector's parting from Andromache, when 

 he consciously went forth to his death in the forlorn hope of saving her and 

 her children. ... In any woman who possesses valuable traits which she 

 has inherited and which she can pass on to offspring, the disposition to 

 evade this obligation is a manifest racial delinquency. In order that those 

 who are racially-minded might more often be saved from what they would 



