- svjicj o!c. •.

AhK/79?9

RACE - SUICIDE

AND

BIRTH - CONTROL

PRICE, 10 CENTS

Seventh Printing

Fiftieth Thousand

THE AMERICA PRESS

New York, N. Y.



AMERICA
A CATHOLIC REVIEW OF THE WEEK

What Others Think About Us—
Someone has sent me a copy of the issue of America for Febru-

ary 9, enclosing an editorial commenting on my remarks in the
Senate against the secret sessions, in which the Senate indulges
when it takes up the confirmation of appointees of the President,
and I write to compliment you on your progressive attitude on this
subject. I wish more of our editors would point out the dangers of
this secrecy system. I think it is indefensible.

Washington. C. C. Dill,

17. S. Senator.

I have your marked copy of America of January 26 issue, bear-
ing on the editorial, “A Grave Menace.”

I am glad to note that one Catholic publication comes out into
the open, unafraid to condemn the idea of contraception. . . .

Brooklyn. Edward P. Doyle,

Member of Assembly,

Congratulations on the current issue of America (February 23).

We have been subscribers since the first issue and I do not re-
call a more interesting number. The editorials, the summary of the
Quirinal-Vatican treaty, the articles by Mr. Van Hoek and Mr. Dore,
The Pilgrim, and the poetry cannot be bettered, and even that list

omits many that should be mentioned. From first page to cover it
is splendid.

Baltimore. Mark O. Shriver.

The issue of America for January 26 contained an article headed

“A Defense of Headline English,” by Arthur D. McAghon, which I
read with the keenest of pleasure. Evidently written by one who
knew what he was talking about, its style was sprightly and
charming.

I am not a Catholic, but have read your publication with in-
creasing interest for some time. Such articles as “A Defense of
Headline English,” written with the accomplished skill of this au-

thor, are bound to increase your circulation.

Irvington, N. J. Herbert J. Kelly.

IMPRIMI POTEST;

NIHIL OBSTAT:

IMPRIMATUR;

Edward C. Phillips, S.J.,

Provincial Maryland-New York.

Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D.,

Censor Librorum.

Patrick Cardinal Hayes,

Archbishop of New York.



RACE-SUICIDE

By M. P. Dowling, SJ.

T
he subject which we propose to discuss under this
title has engaged the attention of the thinking men

of our country for many years. The grave offense it

connotes against morality and social order has been aptly

described by Colonel Roosevelt as race-suicide. Some

thoughtless people have made the expression a target

for sneer and ridicule, have held up to contempt those

who agree with the views of the ex-President, but in their

hearts the great mass of God-fearing persons admit that

there is in what the phrase stigmatizes, an imminent danger

to society. I take up this matter, not as a theologian

laying down canons of virtue, not as a preacher declaim-

ing against sin, not as a prophet foretelling dire things

to the guilty and repeating the forceful phrase of Nathan

to David, ‘‘Thou art the man,’’ but as a well-wisher of

our race reluctantly treating a grave social problem and

trying to solve it according to well-established Christian

principles. Those who most need to take the matter to

heart will probably regard the subject as on a par with

fashion or dress or some other foible
;
and they will con-

sider that any man who deliberately selects such a topic

for public discussion deserves to be laughed at for his

pains. Let us see if they are justified in dealing with

the matter so disdainfully.

In the beginning God made human kind to His image

and likeness. He did more: He divided this type and
created man and woman. Then He blessed the parents
of our race, saying “Increase and multiply.” This was

not a commandment requiring all to marry, but a bene-

diction rendering the human race fruitful and showing

the end for which marriage was instituted; for He said
the same to the birds and fishes which, being irrational,

were incapable of receiving any precept.

1



2 RACE-SUICIDE

It is in consequence of this blessing on living creatures

'that w-e witness the profusion of being that is revealed

by modtvn science as extending so far into the realms of

life that numbers fail to picture to the imagination the

species and the individuals. Animalcula so small that

millions may exist in a drop of water, are not as was

once Supposed, mere living specks of organized matter,

but beings endowed with perfect form, possessing, like

the higher animals, organs of sight, muscles, nerves,

teeth, a physical structure as wonderful as that of a huge

elephant which swallows them by millions of millions in

a single mouthful of water. The soil supporting our

forests, the quarries out of which our edifices are built

are in many instances vast cemeteries made up of micro-

scopic remains of little beings, millions of which would

fill but a cubic inch of space.

Now, if God wishes this multiplication of beings, ex-

pressing so imperfectly His life and perfections, how can

He be indifferent to the propagation of beings created
to His image and likeness? It is because He is not in-
different that He desired the human race to increase and
multiply and fill the earth. In response to His blessing

they have gone on increasing till their numbers escape

all accurate calculation, till we can judge only approxi-

mately the number of human beings on the face of the

earth, and are content to say that it is about fifteen hun-

dred millions. He wishes this multiplication among
pagans and infidels and savages, because even they pre-

serve some relic of their grand origin and noble destiny,

because they still reflect the Divine image
;
that is enough,

God wills it. Can He be indifferent to the propagation
of Christian families which, by Baptism, have a second

time received the image of their Maker?

At three different epochs in human history, the Creator

made known His will. Just as to the first man. He said:
‘Tncrease and multiply,’’ so a thousand years later to the

second father of humanity, to Noe, and to his sons. He
spoke a pregnant word, and it bore the same burden,

“Increase and multiply and fill the earth”; for so we

read in Genesis. Still another thousand years rolled on



RACE-SUICIDE 3

and the same blessing was repeated, for the word of the

Lord came to Abraham: ‘'Fear not; I am thy protector

and thy reward exceeding great/' The patriarch an-

swered: “What wilt Thou give me; behold, I have no

child." Then God brought him forth out of the tent,

saying: “Look up to the heavens and number the stars,

if thou canst; so shall thy seed be." The reward of

Abraham's faith is paternity.

And after that, from Abraham to the last of the

prophets, text on text and example after example, confirm

the doctrine that children are the blessing, of marriage,

no matter what the new gospel of selfishness may pro-

claim. In the Old Testament curse alternates with bless-

ing: “He who is blessed shall be a father, the cursed

shall stand alone." If it is said to the just, “Thy wife

shall be like a fruitful vine," (Ps. 127) ; to the wicked

man and the sinner comes the sentence: “In a single

generation his name will be blotted out" (Ps. 198).

The New Law introduces no change into the character
of the blessing on marriage. “She shall be saved through

child-bearing," says St. Paul (1 Tim. ii. 15), “if she con-

tinue in love and faith and sanctification." And of
-widows, he says in the same Epistle (v. 14) : “I will

therefore, that the younger should marry, bear children,

be mistresses of families, give no occasion to the adver-

sary to speak evil." The Church renews and promulgates

this doctrine, when at the nuptial ceremony she prays that

the bride “May be amiable to her husband like Rachel,
wise like Rebecca, long-lived and faithful like Sara, may
she be fruitful in offspring, and may they both see their
children's children to the third and fourth generation

. .
." Beyond a doubt, fecundity is to be considered

a precious gift and inheritance for the married.

God said : “Increase and multiply"
;
man says : “Let

us fear to increase and multiply; the earth might become

too narrow; the fewer there are to share the good things

of life the more there will be for each." So spoke the

sages in the little world of Greece and the great world of

Rome, when man lived for the State and never thought
of his eternal destiny. They considered yearly wars and



4 RACE-SUICIDE

frequent epidemics the precious correctives of an exag-

gerated multiplication of the human species. Being at a

loss to rid themselves of the surplus population, they did

not hesitate to throttle the ill-formed infant in the name

of Lycurgus, if, indeed, they consented to allow it to open

its eyes at all to the light of day.

But a time came when alarming symptoms revealed

themselves and a profound evil manifested itself to the

world. They had been afraid that they might become too

numerous, and now, behold! they dare not count their

numbers, through fear of finding out how few they were.

It became necessary to retrace their steps, to affirm the

contrary of what they had hitherto proclaimed as the

law of progress, to acknowledge that the misuse of mar-

riage can have no blessing even among a pagan people,

that nations inevitably witness the decay of their wealth,

their strength and their prosperity, when a decadent

family spirit is allowed to undermine the legitimate growth

of population. But the new exhortations of the sages

did not enjoy the same credit as the old, and laws had

to be passed to sustain and make them efficacious. We
read with surprise the laws of Augustus intended to dis-

courage abstinence from marriage and to promote the

fruitfulness of matrimony. The unmarried were rele-

gated to. the last place in the theaters, the circuses and

the plays : no inconsiderable penalty when we reflect how

much the shows absorbed of the Roman’s day and life.

In the deliberations of the senate the unmarried gave

their^pinions last. Everywhere the first place was given

to the married man, and he that had most children ranked

above the pthers. By a still more stringent law the celi-

bate could inherit only from his father and mother; he

could not receive a legacy or inheritance by will. The law

took from him what was his by right of succession and

handed it over to his married relative, because it had

become fashionable to be burdened with few children in

the state of wedlock or out of it. That was the final

outcome of pagan morality, and it must ever be the same

when only the selfish instincts of mankind are heeded.

This is always the way when the law established by the



RACE-SUICIDE 5

Creator is abandoned for the law of selfishness, when

human providence supplants the Divine.

When Christianity at length became mistress of the

world she overturned these false ideas of morality and

national progress. But after the lapse of centuries a

new paganism undertook to assert itself in the name of

reason, and the same wicked principles once more revived.

They were followed, however, by the same condign pun-

ishment as before, and men saw the necessity of retracing

their steps. All this happened within a little more than

a century past. ‘‘Excessive population must be prudently

checked’’ : this was the watchword of the world reform-

ers. England charged herself with the task of giving

this doctrine a scientific form. For fifty years there were

few books of any importance wherein this formula was

not found cited or incidentally recalled. Whether the

book treated of commerce, politics, industry, agriculture,

medicine, navigation, under some pretense or other, place

was found for this axiom: “The population of a State

must be prudently calculated and restricted.” This theory

was placed, too, on the high intellectual plane of national

and social well-being, and reasoned out according to the

principles of political economy, called by some the “dis-

mal science.” Malthus in his book entitled Principles

of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of

Society, gave the impetus to the movement. He held
that the population of the earth increases more rapidly

than the means of subsistence, because population ad-

vances almost in geometrical proportion, as two, four,

eight, sixteen, while the fertility of the land increases

approximately only in an arithmetical proportion, as one,

two, three, four, five and so on. Hence, the continually

increasing population must eventually exceed the capacity

of the earth to supply food. What is the conclusion?
The increase of human kind must be prudently checked.
The only preventive check recognized by Malthus him-

self was that no man should marry till he could support
a family; but others taking up his contention, that undue

growth of population is an inevitable and all but insur-

mountable cause of poverty and misery, drew inferences



6 RACE-SUICIDE

he would have repudiated. Unconsciously they abandoned

the field of political economy and set themselves up as

authoritative teachers of morality, which in their hands

assumed a pagan bias. Population must be held back, not

merely by restraint of the reproductive faculty, but by

means that do not fall short of actual murder. The theory

was worked out so as to convince the poor that squalid

abodes, low wages, inability to find employment, want and

wretchedness, were not the result of misgovernment, in-

temperance, absence of thrift and a hundred other remov-

able causes, but that all the ills of humanity were due to

the fact that there are too many people in the world.

Hence, decrease the number by fair means or foul, and

put a stop to that continual division of wealth, which is

ineffectual, because property is subject to influences as

inexorable as the law of gravitation. If the man born into

the world is unable to obtain subsistence from his parents,

and society has no need of his labor, he has no claim to

the smallest portion of food and he has no business in the

world. This theory practically addressed the masses thus

:

‘‘There are too many of you. There is no place for you

at the banquet of life; at nature’s mighty feast there is

no cover for you, and society has no need of your

children.”

This is the gospel of greed making man an offering on

the counter of selfishness. It must be very comforting

to the few who monopolize the good things of life, for it

says to them : “You are not to blame for the misery fester-

ing a block away from your mansions, or groaning in a

hovel in the alley behind your barn; it is the fault of

the poor; why do they increase?” And so Dives would

be justified in shutting out the vision of Lazarus lying at

his door.

But the facts are against the theory that the earth is

inadequate to support the growth of population. The

United States, even with the wasteful methods of farm-

ing now in vogue, could feed hundreds of millions. Under

different conditions even little Ireland would be capable

of supporting three times its present population. Brazil,

Peru, Mexico have room for teeming millions within their



RACE-SUICIDE 7

borders. Portions of the dark continent of Africa were

once densely peopled; so was Asia Minor; and they might

become garden spots of the earth once more. There is

still plenty of elbow room on the globe. . . .

God makes no mistakes, and for every soul He creates

and infuses into a mortal body, He furnishes what is

needful for its well-being. History may be reviewed in

vain for an instance of any considerable country wherein

poverty and want can be fairly traced to the increase of

the number of mouths beyond the power of the accom-

panying hands to fill them. In most cases they can, more

properly, be attributed to unjust laws, misgovernment,

destructive warfare, decadent commerce, a disregard of

the Divine law, vice and crime.

• • •
' • • • •

There is no escaping the fact that the future of our

Republic is in the hands of those who rear families, for

the child of today is the citizen, the law-giver and the

ruler of tomorrow. It is passing strange that the pru-

dential check originally invoked in behalf of the poor, and

recommended to those who have not the wherewith to

support a family, has latterly been applied chiefly in

favor of those who are in a position to rear sturdy sons

and daughters, who are best fitted to be the bulwark of

the nation. Can it be possible that wealth is the natural

enemy of infancy and childhood? And is the instinct of
reproduction weaker in the privileged classes, the spirit

of self-denial more pronounced? Is it not rather that

large families are looked upon with disdain as a plebeian

institution, entailing too much sacrifice, debarring the

mother from many pleasures she is unwilling to forego?
Is it not because every new birth requires the expense

account to be overhauled, several chapters of travel to

be blotted out, transfers to be made to the side of the

nurse and the governess, balls and parties and receptions

to be given up?

People sin today by excessive prudence. If families

are growing smaller, it is not because there is less natural

fruitfulness
;

if the births do not keep pace with the



8 RACE-SUICIDE

deaths, it is not because men and women are attracted

by a life of voluntary chastity or are deeply in love with

the Evangelical Counsels ; but because the designs of God

are frustrated by the prosperous classes; and that a period

of moral decay is begun. It is because the warm stream

of infant life is kept back. It is because instead of guard-

ian spirits parents become the exterminating angels of

their offspring. In rigorous simplicity of language, it must

be said that too many are engaged in a systematic and

deliberate opposition to God, in as far as they can thwart

His designs and impede His providential dispensations.

Practically, they say to Him: ‘‘Let us make a compact;

in the law You place before me are certain things which
I accept

;
but the consequences I decline

;
I will embrace

pleasure but reject duty; what agrees with my inclina-
tions and the ideas and decrees of contemporary society,

I will obey, but I will carry no cross, make no sacrifices.’’

But what can be gained by contending against Omnip-

otence ? The Almighty has infinite resources at His com-

mand to defeat those who rise up against Him. The pun-
ishment will come when least expected, and it will come

in such a way as to wring the very fibers of humanity.

It will come in the form of ruined health and undermined

constitutions, which will invoke in vain the skill of phy-

sicians and surgeons. It will come when the single child

permitted to enter into the world is snatched away like a

delicate flower whose fragrant life was all too short for

joy. It will come, when bereft in age, the husband and

wife sit lonely by the fireside, with no kindred lips to kiss

their faded cheeks and warm them at the fires of love.

It will come when they feel that they have wasted their

years and substance, that they have played no part in

the drama of life, which for them has been a failure,

that they have contributed nothing to the race and have

moved like ghosts in the energizing world of living men

and women.

These considerations do not apply to those Christian

spouses from whom, through no fault or wavering trust

on their part, God has withheld the ofifspring for which

they yearn and the answering love of childhood sprung



RACE-SUICIDE 9

from their own lives. For to them has been reserved an-

other ministry
;
the poor and the afflicted ; the widow and

the orphan, the disinherited of fortune are their family.

Mankind has been committed to their keeping and handed

over to their love. When will men learn that the infusion

of a soul belongs to God, that parents are but co-contribu-

tors to human life, and that if God did not will fruitful-

ness, they might plead in vain for offspring, or only win

it after long and earnest prayer, as did Anna, the mother

of Samuel the prophet.

According to Christian teaching, there is a two-fold

Providence in the institution of marriage, one is to per-

petuate the species on earth, the other to fill heaven with

the substitutes for the fallen Angels. The first is natural,

the second supernatural Providence. In the light of that

two-fold Providence what a grand mission opens out

before the parent
!

Just as of old the Spirit of God moved

over the face of the deep, and made a splendid creation

leap forth from dark and barren chaos; just as He separ-
ated light from darkness and planted in the firmament the

illuminating stars, so the parents soar over the being

sprung from themselves and destined for so noble an

end. Under their fostering hands darkness is dissipated,

harmonies of good rise out of chaos, grand ideas, the

stars of the soul, mount up to the firmament of thought,

and man is created because his soul lives. Thus are re-

newed the marvels of the first days of creation, when God

wrought His mysteries of power. Will no account be

asked if this sacred deposit of duty be squandered, if

the treasures of God’s house and love have been wasted,

if the jewels of God’s crown have been lost? ....

Throughout the whole land, among all ranks and con-

ditions of fortune, the dread of an increase in the family

looms up like a presage of evil. This manner of thinking

is not only common but in certain circles all but universal.
And this view of duty is abetted by the physician, who
gives the advice he knows will be acceptable, when he tells

the halting wife that another child would spell death for

her
;
by the doting mother who instructs her newly wedded

daughter how to avoid the sorrows and trials of mater-



10 RACE-SUICIDE

nity
;

by the itinerant vender of immoral literature

which 'teaches the young more evil than their parents ever

knew.

Divorce, also, enters as an abettor of race-suicide. I

have never been able to understand why so much outcry

has been raised against polygamy by the same persons

who regard divorce as permissible. Polygamy exists only

in a single remote territory, yet all eyes are turned upon

that evil, while comparatively little attention is paid to

a still more crying evil spread over the whole land and

weakening the marriage-bond even to the snapping point.

Is there any difference between the two, but that one is

simultaneous and the other successive polygamy? Both

must be condemned, because God has forbidden them

;

but I do not hesitate to affirm that of the two polygamy

is less opposed to the natural law than divorce, for instead

of frustrating, it promotes the primary end of marriage,

which is the continuation of human life on earth. I must

be pardoned if, in this matter, I fall back on Christian

principles, for I cannot see how one who rejects them can

logically oppose polygamy. Deny God and assert un-

limited liberty, and where is the wrong of polygamy?

Why should not a man have all the wives he wishes, if
there is no God and no moral law to forbid it? That

plague spot on the body politic can never be removed by

infidel principles, and it is only to Christian sentiment and

tradition that the unbeliever appeals for its destruction,

when he comes between men and women to limit the ex-

tent of selection.

It is frequently said to Catholics : ‘‘Don’t you see that

your doctrine on divorce is too hard and rigorous, that

you do not take into account the weakness and incon-

stancy of human nature? You require sacrifices above

the strength of man
;

it is cruel to subject the most tender

affections to the rigor of a principle, to rivet together

two lives when there is no longer mutual love. When you
answer these two beings, longing for separation, with an

eternal never, you forget all the rules of prudence and

provoke despair.” And thus divorce has its votaries and
apologists and courtiers in the pulpit, the press, the legal



RACE-SUICIDE 11

and medical professions, like troubadours of love chanting

the praises of a new divinity.

Now observe the process by which public opinion is
formed in favor of the severance of family ties. Here are

the ingredients: brutal and besotted husband; faithful,

beautiful and intellectual wife; jealousy, cruelty, neglect,

incompatibility. Collect a half-dozen harrowing cases,

true or false, represent circumstances absolutely excep-

tional as habitual and inevitable; studiously keep in the

background the corrigible faults, such as diabolical tem-

per, of which one or both parties may be guilty. Throw

in a few stereotyped expressions about the irresistible law

of love, the crime of doing violence to affection, sacred

impulses before which all must bow; speak of obeying

the organization given by nature : insist on the legitimate

maladies of the soul: mix all these well, with a dash of

sentimentality about womanhood, blasted lives, some little

inquisition, rack, thumbscrews, a few piteous appeals to

feeling, the tyranny of riveting chains on humanity—and
presto fides here is your argument for absolute divorce

fresh and ready from the hands of the magician! Yet a

mere separation fills all the requirements in every case

and is precisely the course needed today, when divorces

uniformly have in view a new marriage. ‘‘Very well,’’

you will say, “the parties are freed from the punishment

of living together; but if you foiibid them to contract a

new alliance, you prevent them from gratifying another

passion that their hearts concealed and which may have

been the cause of the disgust, unhappiness and discord

experienced in the first union. Why not let the parties
free, and permit them to follow the feelings of their

hearts ?”

Here is where the Church shows her deep knowledge

of human nature and wins her most signal triumph, while

enforcing the law of God. There is a passion in the heart

of man exerting a powerful influence on the destinies of
his life, often forging chains of misfortune and anguish.

This passion has for its abject the preservation of the

race, and it is found in some form in every living being.

In brutes it is an instinct
;
in man it is a passion, incon-



12 RACE-SUICIDE

stant and capricious, because enlivened by the imagination

and prone to follow the tortuous path of the free will.

It may be the restlessness of fever, the frenzy of mad-

ness, the tenderness of love.

There are two ways of dealing with this, as with all

other passions, compliance and resistance. According to

the first, the passion is yielded to as it advances; an in-

vincible obstacle is never opposed to it; it is never left

without hope; a barrier is erected, but with the under-

standing that if you put your foot upon it, the limit will

recede; everything proceeds on the assumption that pas-

sion is weakened by indulgence. In the system of re-

sistance, the line is fixed and immovable, on every side

there is a wall of brass, nowhere a shadow of hope;

the principle that opposes will never change or compro-

mise.

The Church follows the second system. There is an

inexorable check to passion at the first step, no hope is

given of the dissolution of the marriage tie, a Divine seal

consecrates it absolutely and irrevocably, no exception is

possible. Passion rages for a while, but when it finds

the barrier insurmountable, it soon accommodates itself,

and like the angry waves of the sea, falls back at the

limit marked out by the Divine law; peace is secured to

family, protection to the children of holy wedlock. Once

the parties understand that they must live together, or at

least can never hope to marry while the life-partner is

living, they learn to soften by mutual accommodation the

yoke they cannot shake off, they become good husbands

and wives by the very necessity of remaining husbands

and wives.

It were folly to disguise the truth that the decay of

the family precedes and precipitates the decay of the na-

tion; two ruins salute each other, two deaths are linked

together. The same pens that have given so dark a pic-

ture of pagan society, have also traced the unspeakable

degradation of the family. The nation that has Christian

families to fall back upon need have no fear of the future,

for in the hour of trial and danger she has stalwart sons

to defend her. When she needs souls to sustain her and



RACE-SUICIDE 13

make sacrifices for her, they come trooping forth from

the Christian home.

Yet, when we have said all that we can say, and mar-

shaled arguments that are invincible, we have not accom-

plished much, unless men and women take to heart the

lesson taught them by history and religion as well as by

experience. It is not argument that is needed
;

it is self-

sacrifice and a sense of duty. We must get back to
Christian principles and mold Christian lives, till the

humblest sees that life is not all for pleasure, self-ease

and enjoyment, that duty and conscience must play a

great part and march in the vanguard of true progress.



CONSCIOUS
BIRTH-RESTRICTION

By Paul L. Blakely, SJ.

Are we brutes, or have we fallen to the level belowthe hrute, for which there is no name but perver-
sion ? A brute may be held in some respects a noble crea-
tion, swift of foot it may be, glossy of coat, a delight to

the eye. Even your hog with ringed nose tip-tilted above

the swell of the mire, is as God made him. He has no
rational soul; but he is absolutely true to his instincts.

Within his lowly sphere, he fulfils, by the compulsion of

nature, it is true, FalstafTs resolution to live cleanly as a

gentleman should. For he is no pervert. He has no
desire to limit or end his kind. In comparison with the

beast which the harpies of modern social progress would

make us, he is a ministering angel, kindly, gracious and

lovable.

In the pages of certain American newspapers and

magazines, this social progress is ‘'gabbling like a thing

most brutish.’’ We are regaled with details hitherto con-
fined to the pages of text-'books on veterinary science.

Whether or not the methods of birth-restriction therein

recommended are fit and profitable may be left to the

decision of the expert stock raiser. They are intended

for brutes, and they may be suited for brutes, but man

is not a brute. He has a rational soul. Independently
of Divine revelation, he knows the difference between

right and wrong, and he cannot free himself from the

responsibility attaching to acts freely posited. He differs,
therefore, and essentially, from the beast of the field. To

apply the methods of stock raising to the human race is a

thing more vile and stupid than any plot cooked in the

befuddled brain of drunken Caliban, at home in his mud.

For Caliban, be it remembered, very like a hog in many

respects, like a hog was no perverter of the law of his

nature.

According to Section 1142 of the New York Penal

14



CONSCIOUS BIRTH-RESTRICTION 15

Code, to give information leading to race-suicide is a mis-

demeanor. ‘‘This law,'' says an apostle of modern prog-

ress, “is a disgrace and a scandal." “The most progressive

men and women," warns another, “can see the danger

to the race in this and similar archaic legislation." “It

is a matter of common supposition," adds a third, “that

contraceptives are used by the well-to-do and better-edu-

cated classes. It is fairly evident that such methods are

- not being used by the poorest and most ignorant people.

Thus the rate of increase is coming fastest from those

who, by their physical and mental status and their environ-

ment, are least able to bring into the world healthy chil-

dren, and raise them to be efficient men and women."

“Any person with a scientific education," argues a lady,

who recently sued for wages due her for advocating, as

a disinterested witness for “the uplift," certain moving

pictures banned by the New York police, “must believe
that this law should be repealed. The knowledge of birth-

control should be given to all classes." This is the noisome

argument of the “uplifters," most of them, to our shame

be it confessed, women, who are endeavoring to repeal or

amend Section 1142, the one poor, slender bar which pre-

vents those for whom statute law is the sole norm of
morality, from doing what they can to put an end to the

human race by frustrating the law of nature.

The ostensible purpose of these vampires of society is

to improve the human race. This they will do by popu-

larizing a practice which directly and primarily makes the

continuance of the human race impossible. Without re-

stricting marital rights, this practice will relieve the con-

tracting parties of the burden incidental to the rearing of

children until such time as husband and wife are able to

perform these duties satisfactorily. When this stage,
economic, physical or moral, has been reached, it is pro-

posed to allow the laws of nature to operate without

interference. It is also plain that a general knowledge of

elYective contraceptives will be of great value to persons

contemplating or sustaining illicit unions.

It may be remarked at the outset, that no proof is

offered, or can be offered, tending to show, first, that the



16 CONSCIOUS BIRTH-RESTRICTION

physical organs functioning in procreation, are made fit-

ter for their office by deliberate, habitual misuse; or,

secondly, that the moral and psychic changes induced by

this practice and affecting the domain of the will, strengthen

the individual to assume the necessary burdens of parent-

hood. But apart from these considerations, and granting for

the moment that, year by year, thousands of human beings

come into existence diseased and crippled, to fill our

foundling homes, or to pass from surroundings of poverty

and vice into hospitals, lunatic asylums and jails, let us

come to the fundamental point at issue: Can men and

women freely posit the act of which procreation is the

natural term, and licitly shirk parenthood?

To this question, a negative is the only possible answer.

No interference with the law of nature can be tolerated,
whether the act leading to procreation be promiscuous, or

sanctioned by the bond of marriage. If, in a given in-

stance, valid reasons make the natural result of the union

of the generative principles inadvisable, this end must be

attained, not by a perversion of the functions of nature,

but by abstinence.

This position, championed notably by the Catholic

Church, is founded neither upon the aiffiitrarily chosen

basis of man-made morality, nor upon the changing rea-

sons of expediency. It rests upon the natural law, the

rule of conduct found in the constitution of our being.

It was to this law that Cicero referred when he spoke

of that ordination ‘‘not written, but born within us
;
which

we have not learned or received by tradition, or read, but
which we have sucked in, imbibed, from nature itself.^^

St. Augustine, a master-mind of the ages, defines it “as

the reason or will of God, commanding the observance of

the natural order and forbidding its violation:’’ St.

Thomas, as “the rational creature’s participation in the

eternal law.” It is not given by supernatural revelation;

both in being and in point of time, it is prior to revela-

tion, strictly so called. It presupposes, as Kant admits,

that knowledge of God which is acquired, not through

revelation, but by reason
;
and its purpose is to guide all

contingent beings to their natural end.



CONSCIOUS BIRTH-RESTRICTION 17

A master of jurisprudence, Blackstone, offers the fol-
lowing very illuminating comments upon the natural law

:

‘‘As man depends absolutely upon his Maker in all things,

it is necessary that he should in all points conform to

the Maker’s will. . , . This will of his Maker is called

the law of nature. , . . When He created man and en-

dured him with free will to conduct himself in all parts

of life. He laid down certain immutable laws of human

nature. . . . He laid down only such laws as were founded
in those relations of justice that existed in the nature of

things antecedent to any positive precept. . . . These are

the eternal immutable laws of good and evil . . . which

He has enabled reason to discover, so far as they are
necessary for the conduct of human actions. . . . This

law of nature ... is binding all over the globe, in all

countries and at all times : no human laws are of any

validity if contrary to this.”

It is not necessary, then, to invoke supernatural revela-

tion to show that acts militating against the preservation

of the human species are in violation of the natural law,

for, as Blackstone points out, this law is made known to

man “by reason, so far as is necessary for the conduct oi

human nature.” Man has, by his nature, the propensity
and power to propagate his kind. This power, unless we

are to accept a philosophy of hedonism and anarchy de-

structive of all society, is not given primarily for the

good of the individual, but for the good of the species.

Man cannot attain the development suggested by nature
without society; society cannot exist if the generative

function be perverted. The preservation of the human

race, imperatively demanded by right reason and order,

can be secured only by the means provided by nature.

According to nature’s law, the effect of the union of the

generative principles is, de se, procreation. But the use

of contraceptives effectively prevents procreation. It is,

therefore, a violation of the natural law, and of its nature,

forbidden.

To this argument the following rebuttal has been of-
fered : It is not intended to advise a permanent use of

contraceptives. Like every human faculty, the generative



18 CONSCIOUS BIRTH-RESTRICTION

power is to be exercised only under a wise restraint and

with full understanding of its consequences to the indi-

vidual and to society. But the natural law is not defeated

by a single isolated act, or, indeed, by a series of such

acts, restricted to a given pair. On the contrary, the true
purpose of the law, the conservation of society, is best

served by producing through selective processes, a stock

which will evolve a more highly perfected race.

In reply, it must be said that the time-limits proposed

by the advocates of birth-restriction have no bearing on

the argument. Common-sense bears witness that the

essential morality of an act is determined by its agree-

ment or disagreement with a fixed norm
;
and this without

reference to past conduct or to resolutions for the future.

Lying is lying, whether I propose to give over lying after

a single isolated infraction of the truth, or whether I have

the unalterable determination of lying as long as I have

breath. An individual is rightly called a thief, despite
his intention to tread the ways of honesty after he has

acquired a competency by thieving. Furthermore, it is

nothing less than anarchy to sanction a violation of law

on the ground that a single infraction does not effectively

destroy the general purpose of the law.

Equally outside the question is the avowal of these

advocates, that their sole intention is to improve the hu-

man race. The end does not justify the means; and it

is with their methods, not with their intentions, that the

precise issue is raised. The order that is in the essence

of things postulates that a faculty attain the end to which

its nature impels it, and for which it is primarily and

essentially intended. Such interference, then, as effec-

tively prevents the faculty from attaining its end, violates

the nature of that faculty. To uphold the contrary of

this proposition involves a denial of the existence of the

natural law. Now, no argument can obscure the fact that

the primary end, intended by the very nature of the gen-

erative principles, is procreation; for these principles by

their very nature tend to this end and to no other. But

the use of a contraceptive directly and effectively pre-

vents the generative principles from attaining the end for



CONSCIOUS BIRTH-RESTRICTION 19

which they are primarily and essentially intended, and is,

therefore, an act specifically prohibited by the natural law.

Times have changed from the days when mother, wife,

child, were terms which bore about them a sweetness and

a sanctity almost supernal. We have thrown God out of
our literature, our philosophy, our politics, our schools,

our practical lives and now we are taught that it is holy

to eliminate Him completely from our very nature. Hence

we are brought face to face with that most horrible of

corruptions the unnatural rottenness
.

that is worked by

fleshly lust unchained. In the first chapter of Romans,

St. Paul bears witness to the fearful perversion of a once

hardy, virile people. What stands between us and like

ruin, if the counsels of these modern apostles of unut-

terable vileness, ‘‘whose very name is a shame to speak,’’

prevail ? The truth of the living God, the law expressed

in their nature, they made a lie
;

for this cause God gave

them over to shameful affections. It is inevitable. Blot

out God, and eternal night descends; and through the

reeking vapors, the harpies hasten to feast upon this de-

cadent mass that once was decency, high-mindedness, the

purity of womanhood and the honor of man.



BIRTH-CONTROL:
AN OPEN LETTER

To Clare Gruening Stillman,

Secretary Birth-Control League.

My Dear Madam :—A careful searching of memoryand an anxious examination of conscience have not
enabled me to discover any act or utterance of mine which

would justify you in expecting that I should consider fav-

orably your invitation, which I have received to become a

member of the Birth-Control League. I regard the prac-

tice which your organization desires to promote as im-

moral, degrading and stupid. The so-called contraceptive

devices are intrinsically immoral because they involve the

unnatural use, the perversion of a human faculty. One

of the most important human faculties is used in such a

way as to frustrate its natural end. Such conduct is quite

as immoral as self-mutilation, or the practice of solitary

vice. Any person who rejects this fundamental moral

principle concerning the wrongfulness of perverting a

faculty, must logically hold that there is no such thing as

.

intrinsic immorality, that moral badness is always identical

with individual disutility, and that anything is right which

any individual thinks is useful for him.

The practice in question is degrading because it per-

verts conjugal intercourse from cooperation (potential if

not actual) with the Creator into a mere means of sensual

gratification. It brings husbands and wives down to the

level of mutual instruments of indulgence. The disgust-

ing calculation and repulsive artifice which characterize

the various contraceptive devices, tend inevitably to di-

minish conjugal reverence, self-respect and mutual re-

spect. It is doubtful whether any normal man or woman
ever began such practices without suffering a severe moral

shock, or continued them without serious moral degenera-

tion. It is not surprising that men and women who thus
pervert one of the highest functions of life, and the most

20



BIRTH-CONTROL: AN OPEN LETTER 21

intimate relation of marriage, should grow obtuse in their

perceptions of the sacredness and exclusiveness of wed-

lock, and of the binding character of conjugal obligation.

It is not a mere coincidence that childless marriages should

form such a large proportion of the cases in which divorce

is sought on ‘'statutory grounds."’ Incidentally, I would

observe that, so far as I know, physicians are practically

unanimous in declaring that all the contraceptive practices

are in some degree injurious to health.

These practices are stupid because they are so evi-

dently subversive of the end which the Birth-Control

League professes to promote; namely, human welfare.

And the advocates thereof are short-sighted and super-

ficial. They have not learned the obvious lessons of hu-

man history, nor grasped the fundamental facts of human

psychology. They fail to realize the inevitable by-pro-

ducts of the practice. It is probably true that if the poorest

laborers could restrict the size of their families, they could

raise their standard of living, and increase to some degree

their material welfare. But this is only one of the con-

sequences. When we take a comprehensive view of the
situation, we find that any group, class or nation that once

becomes addicted to the use of contraceptives does not give

it up after the immediate material ends have been attained.

They are not content to take advantage of these devices

merely until they have reached a level of reasonable com-

fort. They continue them in the interest of ease and

luxury. This is what has happened and is happening in

those sections of the middle and upper classes that have

adopted the abominable vice, and there is no good reason

to hope that the poorer classes would fail to follow their

example.

Now, the restriction of the number of children to one,

two or three for the sake of ease and material satisfaction

inevitably produces a disinclination to endure hardship,

and inability to put forth painful effort, and a general

weakening of moral fiber. This means a decline in every

sort of efficiency
;
for the capacity to endure and the ability

to do without, will forever remain the essential condi-

tions of achievement. Talk as we will about “the joy of



22 BIRTH-CONTROL: AN OPEN LETTER

work/’ the sober fact is that every kind of labor involves

painful exertion if it is carried on continuously, effectively,

and up to the limit of one’s capacity. There are few if

any active persons who would not find it more pleasant to

diminish considerably the amount of time and effort that

they spend at their tasks. Now, a social practice, like the

use of contraceptives, which aims at a life of ease and a

shirking of unpleasant duties, reduces fatally the power

of endurance and the ability to carry on sustained and

effective labor. It affects the few children that are born

even more than the parents
;
for it deprives them of the

necessary training in endurance, and keeps before them

the bad example of their luxury-loving elders. They are

not only small in quantity but poor in quality; that is,

in moral quality, which is the supreme human quality.

The social group that has thus weakened its moral fiber

inevitably declines in social power and importance. Wit-

ness the decadence of the New England strain in our
own population; the condition of the French nation, as

described and deplored by such authorities as the great

economist, P. Leroy-Beaulieu
;
and the imminent degen-

eration that threatens certain sections of the English-

speaking peoples in more than one country, as set forth

in detail by Mr. Beale in his Racial Decay.

I have no intentions# of denying that large sections of

the laboring class have only too much opportunity to

cultivate their capacity for endurance. They would be

not only more comfortable but more efficient if this oppor-

tunity were considerably diminished. But the only safe

way to bring about this result is by bettering their condi-

tion economically.

The remedy advocated by the Birth-Control League is

futile and disastrous, inasmuch as, in the long run, and

sometimes in the ^‘short run,” it impels its votaries to

the other extreme, to the pursuit of ease and luxury, and

to the adoption of ideals and practices which inevitably

produce moral deterioration and a serious decline in

efficiency. Wherever the small family cult is practised, it is

both the effect and the cause of a conception of life which

regards an indefinite increase of material satisfaction and



BIRTH-CONTROL: AN OPEN LETTER 23

sensations as the highest good. It involves the most far-

reaching exemplification that the world has ever known

of what Carlyle called ''pig-philosophy.’’ Why should
we be in haste to fasten this curse upon the laboring

classes? Until such time as the poorest laborers are put

in possession of living wages, they have within their

power an entirely innocent means of keeping down the

number of their offspring, namely, conjugal abstinence.

Those parents who have sufficient moral strength to adopt

this means will be in no danger of character-degeneration

through the presence of a small instead of a large family.

Those who do not feel equal to this sacrifice cannot afford

to run the risk of the moral deterioration which follows

the use of contraceptives. They need that natural and

compulsory form of self-denial which a large family in-

volves. I am well aware that it is easy to find exceptions
to the dire consequences that I have attributed to the prac-

tices of the small-family cult; but my statements apply
to large social groups, and assume that the practice is

maintained through two or three generations. In these

conditions experience has shown, and continues to show,

that the thing is socially disastrous.

Were I a believer in the doctrine that "the end justi-

fies the means,” I should, as a Catholic, rejoice in every

extension of the nefarious practices advocated by the

Birth-Control League. For I should feel assured that

every such extension was hastening the day when Cath-

olics would become the predominant element in our popu-

lation. Already the tendency in this direction has been

considerably accelerated through the prevalence of the

small-family cult among non-Catholics. Unfortunately,

many Catholics have been, to some extent, contaminated
by the bad example set in this matter by their separated

brethren. Nevertheless, the extent to which Catholics

will become addicted to this vice will always remain rela-

tively insignificant. For the Church will ever oppose it

as something intrinsically and eternally immoral, and will

deprive those who persist in it of access to the Sacra-
ments. In the struggle for existence which the use of

contraceptives has created, the Catholic element in our



24 BIRTH-CONTROL: AN OPEN LETTER

population will survive because it is the fittest to survive;

that is, because the Catholic element will retain and sus-

tain those moral qualities that are the chief factor in fit-

ness for survival among human beings. The mass of

Catholics will continue to cultivate those qualities which

are the only safeguard against the development of rotten

hearts and flabby intellects. Catholics will have not only

the quantity, the numbers, but the quality as well
;
for in

the nurture of human beings quality cannot be maintained

without quantity. The clearest proof of this statement is

the fact that, as between, say, one hundred large families

of the poor and an equal number of middle-class families

who represent the second generation of votaries of the

small-family cult, a larger number of efficient and achiev-

ing persons will arise out of the former group than out

of the latter.

I am invited to send two*dollars for membership in the
Birth-Control League. I must respectfully decline, with

the observation that I had much rather give the money to

an organization for the training of prize fighters. It

would aid in the development of at least some manly and

human qualities.

Yours, ‘^more in sorrow than in anger,’’

St, Paul, John A. Ryan, D.D.



THE ABSURDITY OF LARGE
FAMILIES

By Paul L. Blakely, SJ.

ARGE families,’’ said the lecturer, ‘^are absurd.”
JLj And she glared at the audience. The incident re-

minded me of a story told by Sir David Hunter-Blair. ‘T

wouldn’t stuff an owl like that,” criticized a visitor. ‘‘Oh,

you wouldn’t?” parried the taxidermist, looking up from

his work. “Well, the Lord would. That owl’s alive.”

I have an idea, an old-fashioned one, I confess, that

if husbands and wives try to keep themselves brave and

true, they may safely leave the size of their families to

the dispositions of an infinitely wise Creator. Of course,

if they have no faith in God, they may try to improve upon

Omniscience, or do any other foolish thing whatever. But

to trust in God is at least as safe as to trust in some

harridan peddling birth-control “literature,” or in a lost

physician compounding nostrums in defiance of his pro-

fession as well as of the law. Fathers and mothers as-

suredly assume a grave responsibility when children come,

but the responsibility does not imply crime, as does the

responsibility of decreeing that they shall not come.

Stress is today laid by the advocates of birth-control

on the alleged truth that “few children mean better chil-

dren.” Although I am fairly familiar with books and

pamphlets dealing with birth-control, I have yet to see

a direct argument in proof, and I am inclined to believe
that the assertion is one of those broad generalizations for

which proof cannot be obtained. We are all familiar
with famous men who have had a small forest of brothers

and sisters, and with small families in which nearly every

child became anything but a social or civic asset. There

is no biological evidence whatever for the “fewer children,

better children” assertion. Physiologically the burden of

proof goes to show that every contraceptive practise or

device may easily, and usually does, become a serious

menace to health, and from the standpoint of psychology,

it is clear that the character-weakness or malice which

prompts the use of contraceptives unfits the individual for

25



26 ABSURDITY OF LARGE FAMILIES

the proper care of the one or two children he may have.

Rich or poor, wise parents will wisely provide for a dozen

children; and rich or poor, foolish or evil parents will

find the care of even one a task to which they are unequal.

However, I need not point out that so obvious a violation

of the natural law as the prevention of conception would

not be justified, even were it generally true that the chil-

dren of small families are superior in breeding and cul-

ture to the children of large families. In the Catholic

mind, as well as in the belief of many non-Catholics, arti-

ficial birth-control, like lying and solitary vice, which it

closely resembles, can be justified by no circumstance

whatever, since it is a thing evil in itself.

Yet as an offset against the ‘Tewer children, better

children’' theory, the accompanying table may prove in-

teresting. It lists fifty famous men and women, and I

may add that the names were not ‘‘handpicked,” but were

suggested by the volumes on the shelves of my very
modest book-case.

St. Aloysius 1-8

Beethoven 12-12

Monsignor Benson 6-6

Daniel Boone 6-9

St. Francis Borgia 1-7

Carlyle 1-9

Archbishop Carroll 4-7

St. Catherine of Siena ..25-25

S. T. Coleridge 10-10

Cure d'Ars 2-6

Jefferson Davis 10-10

Dickens 2-8

St. Vincent Ferrer 4-8

“The Little Flower^^ 9-9

Franklin 8-10

Cardinal Gibbons 4-6

Gladstone 1-6

Nathan Hale 6-12

Nancy Hanks . . . .| 8-8

Mother Hardey 4-9

Haydn 2-12

Washington Irving ...... 11-11

Thomas Jefferson 3-10

John Paul Jones 5-7

Immanuel Kant 4-9

St. Stanislaus Kostka .... 2-7

Longfellow 2-8

St. Ignatius Loyola 13-13

James Madison 1-12

Father Marquette 6-6

John Marshall 1-15

Father Matthew 6-12

Cardinal Mercier 5-7

William Morris 3-9

Napoleon 4-10

Lord Nelson 6-11

Cardinal Newman 1-6
Frederic Ozanam 4-14

General Pershing 1-11

Cardinal Pole 3-6

Israel Putnam 11-12

Sir Joshua Reynolds 7-11

St. Francis de Sales 1-13

Scott 4-12

Shakespeare 3-8

Tennyson 4-12

St. Teresa 1-7

Cardinal Vaughan ...... 1-13

Washington 1-6

St. Francis Xavier 6-6



ABSURDITY OF LARGE FAMILIES 27

I am sure that a student with a taste for statistics, if

set at work in a large library, could produce a far more

illuminating tabulation. The second figure gives the number

of children in the family, and the first the rank of the

distinguished child. A brief examination discloses the
following facts : Of these distinguished personages,

twenty-three, or forty-six per cent came fram families

of ten or more children, and forty-one, or eighty-two per

cent from families of seven or more children. The fifty

families average more than nine and one-half children

(9.6), and the fourth child or later (4.7) is the child of

grace. The cases are far too few to justify a generaliza-

tion, but it is interesting to observe that this finding is

sustained by Professor Meyrick in the Hibbert Journal

for October, 1914. He writes:
‘'Much information exists tending to show that heredity

strongly favors the third, fourth, fifth, and subsequent

children born to a given couple, rather than the first two,

who are apt to inherit some of the commonest physical

and mental defects (upon this important point the records

of the University of London should be consulted). A
population with a low birth-rate thus naturally tends to

degenerate.’’

According to the claims of some birth-controllers, a

large family was not a fit environment for the author of

the Declaration of Independence, or the Father of the

American Constitution. But Thomas Jefferson was the

third of ten children, and James Madison had eleven

brothers and sisters. Archbishop Carroll, eminent alike

as churchman and patriot, was the fourth of seven chil-

dren, and a famous successor in the see of Baltimore,

Cardinal Gibbons, was the fourth of six. Benjamin

Franklin was the eighth of ten children borne by the

second wife of the senior Franklin, and the same hos-

pitafble roof sheltered seven half-brothers and sisters.

Benjamin was the tenth son, and the fifteenth child in an

assorted flock of seventeen. It is well for the country

that his mother did not think she had done her duty by

giving the world only five children. Again Nancy Hanks,

the “sweet prairie flower” that blossomed only to give us



28 ABSURDITY OF LARGE FAMILIES

Lincoln, was the youngest of eight children. Mother

Hardey, the foundress of the Religious of the Sacred

Heart in this country, after the Venerable Mother

Duchesne, mother of many valiant daughters, and the

foster-mother of thousands of American girls, had eight

brothers and sisters, herself the fourth of the flock.

Nathan Hale, whose beautiful protestation of patriotism

is usually omitted in our propaganda school histories, was

the sixth child in a line of twelve. Washington Irving,

the first who replied to the sneer ‘'Who reads an Ameri-

can book?’’ was the last of eleven children, and Long-

fellow, the beloved poet, the second of eight. John Mar-

shall, who first clothed the Supreme Court with supreme

authority, had fourteen brothers and sisters, and General

Pershing, eleven. Old Israel Putnam did recognizable

service against the British, but he was weak in his spelling,

thus making him an object of pity to the Sterling-Towner-

ites, and labored under the further disadvantage of having

been born the eleventh of twelve children. Jefferson Davis

on whose tomb the Old South wrote “American statesman

and defender of the Constitution,” and whose integrity no

man today impeaches, was the last of ten children. Daniel

Boone, who opened the gateway to the great empire of

the West, and the fiery John Paul Jones, respectively the

sixth of nine, and the fifth of seven children, exhaust the

present list of Americans. But room must be found for

an earlier American, the last of six children, the sweet

and gentle yet indomitable Father Marquette, the dis-

coverer of the Mississippi. And in this medley of catalogu-
ing, the Father of his Country, the first of six children,

has almost been overlooked!

Of the thirty-three Europeans on the list, probably the

most striking is St. Catherine of Siena, one of the most

remarkable women of all time, and she was the last, or

last but one, of twenty-five children. With her may be

placed St. Ignatius, the knightly founder of the Company

of Jesus, the youngest of thirteen children, and, by way

of contrast, the simple little Carmelite nun, Therese of

Lisieux. Sister Therese is likewise a study in eugenics

from which we learn that to be of use in the world one



ABSURDITY OF LARGE FAMILIES 29

need not be always in the spotlight, or rejoice in the thews

of an ox, and the abiding health of a mule. Her mother

died of tuberculosis, and her father, always of a sickly

constitution, seems to have lost his mind some years before

he died. But these good people relied on Providence

rather than on pathology, and left the issue to God with

distinguished success. The Little Flower herself bloomed

for only a few years, and dying spread with singular per-

suasion throughout the world the lesson the world so

sorely needs, trust in God and in His loving Providence.

The ninth of nine useful children, she is a splendid ex-

ample of the absurdity of large families.



FOUR-FIFTHS OF A CHILD

By John Wiltbye

Any set of figures attracts my attention, and almostany set leaves me wondering what it is all about.'
Statistics, I am told, constitute a kind of science these

days, and how to read them is an art. It must be like the

art of animal-taming, I think, which can be acquired only

when one’s eye is young and cold and direct, compelling

the ones and the twos to perform according to the reader’s

wish.

It is this weakness of mine which impels me to ask

whether I have not misread the figures recently issued by

Smith College. Someone with a flair for tabulation has

been at work, hut just what he or she intended to show, is

not evident. It seems that this tamer of figures has been

addressing questionnaires to the graduates, 10,843 in all,

to find out how many are married and how many, poor

wretches, are still coifing St. Catherine’s tresses. The

compiler does not disclose, at least in the press reports,

whether he—or she—is displeased with the results, nor
is a key furnished to cause the figures to prove what the

reader wishes them to prove. Still, if I set out to estab-

lish from the Smith College data that most graduates from

our colleges for women marry and raise up a flock of little

hostages to fortune, I should be greatly disappointed.

For the figures show that of every two graduates from

Smith, one marries while the other continues in chosen

or unchosen single blessedness. I speak but roughly. Fifty

and one-tenth per cent marry, and forty-nine and nine-

tenths per cent do not.

‘‘Well?” you may inquire, with a rising and slightly

subacid intonation, “Well, what do you deduce?”

Being hopelessly mid-Victorian and all that, I deduce

only a sigh of regret. There are no nunneries to which

these poor heretics may get them, and as often as I note

30



FOUR-FIFTHS OF A CHILD 31

a new grey hair or a thinning spot on my venerable poll,

I strike a deeper depth in a conviction that if a woman

has no vocation for the consecrated life she ought to

marry. Never mind the faggots and the thumbscrew. I

should make a poor heretic, and I am far from forgetting

a certain decree of the Council of Trent which anathema-

tizes whoever ''saith . . . that it is not better and more

blessed to remain in virginity or in celibacy than to be

united in matrimony.’’ Amen does not stick in my throat
when I read that decree. But I am thinking, rather, of

those girls with a clear vocation for matrimony who lead

a life of celibacy not to please God but to please them-

selves. God certainly manifests His will by unmistakable

signs that some souls should sanctify themselves in the

unmarried state; but I do not think that He gives this
vocation to practically fifty per cent of our girls.

Sanctity and celibacy is one combination
;
celibacy and

selfishness is quite another. It is all very well to pursue

a life of the so-called single blessedness, with your inde-

pendent income, your self-chosen plans, and a resultant

sense of freedom. The world slides along very easily for

such, as long as they are young and buoyant. But there

can be nothing so dismal, it seems to me, as to sit at

another’s fireside at the age of forty, without chick or

child, or to exist in lodgings where there never was any-

thing so domestic as a fireside, and from which children

are barred by the terms of the lease. Better far is it to

marry, to live on odds and ends and love, to raise a

family and know all the sweetness and the burden of
caring for these young images of yourself—toi patch
Johnny’s stockings and cut down old clothes for little
Annie, to pinch and even to starve, but to keep on in

that struggle for the home and its ideals which is the surest
guarantee of stability for civilized society. Better far

these years of sacrifice than to go on through life with

no one to think of but yourself, and in the end—no one
to think of you. You are really alone when noibody cares
a straw if you come late to meals or go out in the rain
without your galoshes.

Now Smith College, to return to our statistics, is the



32 FOUR-FIFTHS OF A CHILD

Alma Mater of three college presidents, forty-one deans,

fifty-five school principals, 1,100 teachers, eighty poets,

seventy-five physicians, sixty artists, forty musicians

(surely the distinction is invidious), twenty-two lawyers,

two ministers, and a third secretary to the American

Embassy at Berne. Well and good; let us suppose that

to the best of their knowledge and belief these ladies are

where they ought to be. But I confess that I should

prefer to read of larger nurseries presided over by Smith

College graduates.

For the nurseries are absurdly small. They consist of

a child and a half.

That number seems insufficient to carry on the race.

The one and one-half children will not, even if attaining

to majority, replace the father and mother. But not every

one or the other one-half (these fractions are perplexing)

will attain maturity, in spite of the Sheppard-Towner

maternity act and the solicitude of the Children’s Bureau.

Hence if the human race follows the example of Smith

College, we are doomed to speedy extinction. When the
family counts three and one-half children it touches the

irreducible minimum and sheers close to the margin of

race-safety. Back in the middle of the eighteenth cen-

tury Franklin, I 'believe, estimated that the average colonial

family consisted of eleven persons, nine of them children.

Fathers and mothers who live in the fear of God can

leave the margin in His hands
;
but there is a margin, and

Smith falls below it.

The actual nurseries, it is conceded, consist of a child

and a half
;
three children to every two married couples.

But what of the nurseries that might have been, but are

not
;
the nurseries that the forty-nine and nine-tenths un-

married will never see? "Never” is an over-estimate;

probably some will marry later on. But should they marry

after the age of thirty, the potential size of the family

can be reduced by nearly one-half. In that case, the

nursery will be tenanted by about four-fifths of a child.

Figure the sequel for yourself. (I forgot to mention

that among her alumnae Smith College also counts one
real estate operator in Florida.)



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