

ECONOMIC FACTORS IN EUGENICS 477 



wage-level in the north. We then have $160 for the wage index in 

 1904 and $550 for the same in 1911; and find that this means a rise in 

 average wages of 19 per cent, in the seven years. This rate would make 

 an increase of 24.4 per cent, for the nine years, 1902-1911, in contrast 

 to the increase of 44 per cent, for the cost of living in ISTew York and 

 36 per cent, for the rise in average prices during the decade 1896 to 

 1906. I see no escape from the conclusion that the cost of living has 

 increased since 1896 at least 50 per cent, more than wages have risen. 



This great uncompensated rise in the cost of living means nothing 

 less than progressive impoverishment of the mass of the American 

 people ; and is of the greatest possible injury to the welfare of the nation 

 as well as to the racial qualities of its future citizens. Here we are 

 only concerned with its effect upon the birth rate, which it tends strongly 

 to reduce among the superior, foresighted part of the population, who 

 feel the responsibility of bringing children into the world, and have 

 the knowledge and self-restraint required for limiting offspring. The 

 paupers, however, unless prevented by the state, will continue to breed 

 as rapidly as ever : and the generally inferior, less industrious, ambitious, 

 and provident part of the population will also restrict their births but 

 little. The result is, for it is actually taking place now, that the per- 

 centage of the inferior and unfit steadily increases, while that of the 

 superior and fit pari passu diminishes; and, {/ this process of degenera- 

 tion is not checked, the nation as a whole will become unfit and will 

 succumb, as most nations have done in history. 



Dr. A. P. Tredgold in the Eugenics Review for April, 1911, gave the 

 following fact in corroboration of the differential decline in the birth 

 rate. He found the average number of children among 43 incompetent, 

 parasitic working families was 7.4, while that among 91 thrifty, com- 

 petent working-class families was 3.7 or just one half. Mr. Sidney 

 "Webb also found that among the members of the Hearts of Oak Benefit, 

 which is composed of healthy, thrifty artisans of a superior type in 

 England, the birth rate had declined by 52 per cent, from 1880 to 1904. 

 which was nearly three times the decline for all England and "Wales 

 during this period. The same writer declares that both pauperism and 

 degeneracy have undoubtedly increased in England since 1901. We 

 have just reviewed the incontrovertible evidence that poverty has rapidly 

 increased in America since 1896. Have we any reason for believing 

 that degeneracy has not likewise increased for the same reasons as in 

 England ? 



In regard to the ways in which this second economic factor works to 

 reduce the birth rate it is only necessary to say that they are nearly 

 the same that have been mentioned above for the first factor; namely, 

 uncertainty of a livelihood. But the second is chiefly responsible for 

 late marriages, sterile marriages resulting from venereal disease, failure 



