SELECTIVE STERILIZATION FOR RACE CULTURE 205 



how could this family have been supported — unless the man was a bank 

 president (and bank presidents it may be noted, do not have large families. 

 Why? — Because they are able to procure contraceptive information). 



But from the mental hygienic viewpoint there is a still more pressing need 

 for the proper prescribing of contraceptive information. There are thou- 

 sands of couples living abnormal lives because of the lack of such information. 

 I personally know professionally a very considerable number of women who 

 because of the constant fear of pregnancy, have been unable to allow them- 

 selves to enjoy normally the satisfying physiological act which is the main 

 spring of a happy marriage. Every physician will encounter in his practice 

 similar cases, if he investigates the biological history of his patients. It is 

 well known to physicians that a proper consummation of this act is just as 

 necessary for the woman as for the man — yet we find everywhere women 

 who have not experienced this most necessary fruition in their married lives, 

 or others who, because of fear, are able to experience it only at infrequent 

 intervals. The extreme nervous tension brought about in the woman by 

 this frequent repetition of sexual frustration is in many cases the cause of 

 a nervous breakdown. In the case of the man on the other hand, the many 

 types of physiologically improper substitutes for the normal sexual relation- 

 ship that are resorted to as means of preventing pregnancy, bring about in 

 him the same feeling of sexual frustration, which if repeated indefinitely 

 may also result in a nervous breakdown. Many cases could be cited in 

 support of this contention. The establishment of complete mutuality or 

 reciprocal emotional fruition is absolutely necessary if a marriage is to prove a 

 successful and socially constructive one. 



But after all why whould we get so excited over this question of an im- 

 mediate need for initiating steps that will further racial culture? The men- 

 tal defective portion of the population is placed at the seemingly insignificant 

 figure of only 2 per cent (or less) of the population — so why should we worry 

 ourselves about the matter? Let us consider the question carefully and 

 with a view to the type of population we will have, ten, twenty, or fifty years 

 hence. It is a well known fact that birth control knowledge (even though 

 it is in many cases of unsatisfactory type) is at the present time widely dis- 

 seminated throughout the general population. That this is fact and not 

 myth is shown by statistics to the effect that the birth rate was 20 per cent less 

 in 1930 than it was in 1920. Undoubtedly with the wider dissemination 

 of such knowledge this rate will decline still further. This means that as 

 time goes on we will come nearer and nearer to a stable population quan- 

 titatively. 



But what of the ultimate quality of this population? Careful study of 



