December 12, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



535 



been claimed by men alone. The statistics of 

 the Census of 1920 will contribute much to 

 the discussion. Meanwhile it must be dis- 

 concerting to reactionary persons to obseiTe 

 how many young women are disposed to do 

 the very thing for which young men are com- 

 mended; namely, to select a line of work and 

 carry it through to success. 



But the declining birth-rate. If n is the 

 number of births per thousand per year and 

 n' the number of deaths per thousand per 

 year of children, say under one year of age, 

 n-n' is the effective birth-rate. Obviously 

 this can be raised by increasing n or by 

 diminishing n'. To increase n has been the 

 way of barbarism. " Wtat if the children do 

 die; the woman can bear plenty more." This 

 is not the sentiment of some distant past age; 

 for, as Francis Galton remarks, men were 

 barbarous but yesterday. 



The method of the new civilization is to 

 decrease n'. Up to last July (1918) the Fed- 

 eral Children's Bureau had weighed and 

 measured approximately six million children 

 under six years of age. A large number were 

 were found to be undernourished; many 

 others were victims of diseases easily reme- 

 died by proper medical attention. Under the 

 auspices of this bureau nation-wide plans are 

 developing to provide public health nurses, 

 better hospital care and the conservation of 

 milk for children. It appears also that really 

 effective means for saving the young children 

 involves care of the mother not only after 

 the child's birth but also months before. 



" Save 100,000 of the 300,000 children that 

 now die annually under one year of age ! " is 

 not the slogan of a few sentimental philan- 

 thropists; it is the purpose of the national 

 government. This federal bureau further re- 

 ports that 15,000 women die annually in the 

 United States from childbirth; and it declares 

 that of this total most of the deaths are 

 preventable because due to ignorance and im- 

 proper care. Nothing in this world has been 

 so cheap as child-life except mother-life. 



But I now squarely challenge Mr. Dublin's 

 fundamental assumption that a declining 

 birth-rate is an evil. What reason does he 

 give, what reason has anybody given, why the 



hither and the uttermost parts of North 

 America say, should forthwith be populated 

 as rapidly and as densely as may be — even by 

 elect stock. Why should the natural forests 

 be so hurriedly worked into lumber and the 

 country's non-restorable natural resources — 

 coal, x)etroleum, gas and others — be exploited 

 to the exhaustion point? Has the United 

 States any grounds for felicitating herself on 

 the fact that she is burning coal at the rate 

 of 600,000,000 tons per year? And how many 

 years may she expect to continue such self- 

 felicitations? It is the crudest form of col- 

 lective selfishness for any one generation to 

 act as if it had a final lien on the earth when 

 at best it is only a temporary tenant, in 

 honor bound by the highest racial ethics to 

 consider the interests of those who follow: the 

 peoples of distant centuries. This generation 

 more than any which has preceded it seems 

 bent on bequeathing an impoverished domain 

 to its " heirs and assigns forever." " Few 

 men really care what happens to posterity." 



Tour vice-chairman's protest against any 

 decrease in the birth-rate meets rebuke also 

 in the condition of the congested points where 

 most of the increase in population is to find 

 its home: the city. Are the city's streets — 

 all of her streets — clean and attractive? Are 

 her homes^ — all of her homes — sunny and 

 sanitary? At what age do her children leave 

 the public schools, and why do they leave? 

 What are the hours and wages of young women 

 in her laundries, candy-shops, stores, restau- 

 rants and factories? Are her women citizens 

 no longer discriminated against as political 

 outlaws? Has the city figured out a min- 

 imum of subsistence, of health, of education, 

 of leisure, for all of her citizens? Until 

 these questions are satisfactorily answered 

 the " socially and economically efficient class " 

 may well address itself to the practical task 

 of bettering the conditions of human living 

 rather than to an effort to state the popula- 

 tion of the city in six figures instead of five. 



Mr. Dublin's theory that the country will 

 be saved if the afore-mentioned " socially and 

 economically efficient " will only marry and 

 raise large families runs counter to facts, for 

 facts show that permanent betterment can 



