472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



in a problem, I do not mean thereby that these factors are the only 

 ones, not always indeed that they are the most important ones. I shall 

 often take it for granted that the reader is familiar with the other 

 factors of a biological or ethical nature. 



I shall begin my presentation with a discussion of birth rates. The 

 falling birth rate in all civilized countries is one of the chief anxieties 

 of social students and statesmen. In France it has sunk so low that, 

 in spite of the low death rate of 22, the births from 1893 to 1902 

 exceeded the deaths by only 1.2 per thousand annually. Even in 1850- 

 60 France had the low birth rate of 26, and it has fallen steadily ever 

 since, until it has now reached the figure 21, and in some departments 

 there are three deaths for every two births. Whereas a century ago 

 the population of France formed one quarter of that of the world's 

 civilized powers, and she lorded it over the Germanic nations, now her 

 population has fallen to seven per cent., and she has almost lost her 

 place among the great powers of Europe. Between the two ten-year 

 periods mentioned above the birth rate has also fallen in England from 

 33 to 30, in Italy from 38 to 35, while in Austria it has risen from 37 

 to 38. The birth rate has also fallen greatly in the United States in 

 recent decades, especially in ISTew England among the native popula- 

 tion. Whereas at the beginning of the nineteenth century the popula- 

 tion of the United States was doubling every 22 to 23 years, in the last 

 20 years it has increased only a trifle over 40 per cent., and the increase 

 of 21 per cent, for the last decade was the smallest on record. Most 

 striking is the stationary population of the great agricultural states 

 of the middle west; here the increase for the whole decade was only 6 

 to 7 per cent., and Iowa showed an actual decrease. The three rural 

 New England states showed a gain of but 5 per cent. Only in the 

 sparsely settled far-western states was the increase over 50 per cent., 

 undoubtedly due chiefly to immigration. California, for instance, in- 

 creased her population in the last decade by 60 per cent., but the birth 

 rate for recent years has hardly exceeded the low death rate of 15 by a 

 larger margin than that in France herself. In the New England states 

 also the death rate for 1900 among the native whites actually exceeded 

 the birth rate by 1.5 per thousand. Here race suicide was even worse 

 than in France. The birth rate of the foreign-born whites in New 

 England, however, was nearly 45. This means nothing less than that 

 the native American stock is dying out in New England, and is being 

 replaced by foreign races from southern Europe. 



Now is it merely a coincidence that the high birth rate among the 

 native New Englanders began to fall rapidly after the years 1820-30, 

 at the same time that large numbers of immigrants came from Europe ? 

 The late Francis A. Walker, superintendent of the census in 1870 and 

 1880, maintained that the great immigration during the last seventy 

 years had undoubtedly been a direct cause of the fall in birth rate 



