BIRTH SELECTION VERSUS BIRTH CONTROL 41 



inferior to men of other races, an inferiority which he should freely admit 

 and, as far as possible, rectify by education. He is now suffering severely 

 from birth limitation which is seriously threatening the best strains of old 

 American stock. He therefore needs to thoroughly understand the prin- 

 ciples of birth selection rather than the principles of birth control. For him 

 the Third Congress of Eugenics has a peculiar significance, but since the 

 Congress is international it should carry an equally clear and distinctive 

 message to each of the nations represented as well as to each of the primary 

 races of mankind. The slogan "not more but better Americans" should 

 have its counterpart in every country in the world in which the rising spirit 

 of nationalism and of an entirely natural and reasonable pride should be 

 accompanied by the consciousness that quality rather than quantity is the 

 essential element of progress in every country and in every race. 



With such principles in mind, and with the picture of the world suffering 

 acutely from dysgenic reproduction, from the multiplication of the incom- 

 petent, and the alarming increase in the power of the criminal class before 

 me, I can not refrain from expressing my deep conviction that, of all reme- 

 dial and restorative agencies, the well-understood and well-applied principles 

 of birth selection advocated by Galton, with birth control as a subsidiary 

 principle, stand in the very front rank of progressive civilization. 



