UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
CfnrttEll Hnineraitg Sitbtarg 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GFFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arV13405 
 Uncontrolled breeding 
 
 3 1924 031 232 592 
 olin.anx 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031232592 
 
UNCONTROLLED 
 BREEDING 
 
 OR 
 
 FECUNDITY versus CIVILIZATION 
 
 A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF 
 OVEErPOPULATION AS THE CAUSE OF 
 WAR AND THE CHIEF OBSTACLE TO 
 THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN 
 
 BY 
 
 ADELYNE MORE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 AND A PREFACE AND NOTES BY 
 
 DR. WILLIAM J. ROBINSON 
 
 \ 
 
 1917 
 
 
 CRITIC AND GUIDE COMPANY 
 
 12 MT. MORRIS PARK, WEST 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 OOiM^i 
 
 
 
T ET the district physicians and district 
 nurses who visit the poor be not 
 only permitted, but instructed to teach 
 the poor mothers how to avoid having 
 more children than they can properly 
 support and care for. W. J. R. 
 
 A LOW birth rate is, in general, not 
 a sign of a low morality, but of 
 a high morahty, a high intelligence, a 
 high sense of responsibility. W. J. R. 
 
 COPTBIOHT, 1917, BT 
 
 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface by William J. Robinson, M.D 7 
 
 Intbodtjction by Arnold Bennett 11 
 
 Fecundity vehstis Civilization 17 
 
 I. The Early Stages 24 
 
 II. The Conflict op Opinion 32 
 
 III. Mai/thus and Modern Economics .... 36 
 
 IV. Progress in the United States 48 
 
 V. Official Alarm in Germany 56 
 
 VI. Militarism and the Birth-Rate 64 
 
 VII. The Social-Democrats 72 
 
 VIII. The Birth Strike 81 
 
 IX. The Influences at Work 96 
 
 X. The Future 104 
 
PREFACE 
 
 WAR AND OUR DUTY TO PREACH BIRTH- 
 CONTROL TO BACKWARD NATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 DR. WILLIAM J. ROBINSON. 
 
 War is the greatest of all crimes. Of all the anti- 
 racial, anti-social and anti-individual phenomena war is 
 the very worst. It is the most dysgenic of all dysgenic 
 factors. It is evil through and through, evil without any 
 good in it. To independent thinkers this question re- 
 quires no arguments. Only those perverted by a vicious 
 system of education, the morally defective, those utterly 
 devoid of imagination, those with a strong sadistic strain 
 in them, and finally those who profit financially by inter- 
 national murder, can speak of the "beneficent effects of 
 war. ' ' Revolutions are sometimes good, sometimes bad ; 
 war is always bad. Some wars are unavoidable, but 
 there is no such thing as a good war ; at best war is an 
 unavoidable evil, or the lesser of two evils, and a lesser 
 evil is merely a lesser evil, but an evil still. 
 
 7 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 We have been treated ad nauseam to the twaddle of 
 the weakminded — and of the munitions makers — about 
 the ennobling and sobering effect that war has upon a 
 nation. If we must become periodically blood-mad, if 
 every few years we must disembowel a few miUion of 
 our physically fittest men, if we must crush, maim and 
 mangle our fellow-men who are just as good as we are, 
 if we must ravish, burn and devastate, if we must 
 destroy cities, villages, cattle, crops and oil wells, if we 
 must subject millions and millions of women and chil- 
 dren to indescribable horrors and the awful pangs of 
 hunger, hunger that emaciates, sickens and finally kills — 
 a more horrible death than that of the battlefield — if we 
 must do all these things periodically in order to ennoble 
 and sober up humanity, then it would be better if hu- 
 manity perished at once from the face of the earth, 
 perished wholly without leaving a single representative. 
 
 Fortunately, it is not necessary. We must not indulge 
 in periodic blood-mad murder. The beneficence and 
 necessity of war is the most damnable of all lies. War is 
 no more necessary than the bubonic plague is necessary ; 
 war is no more beneficent than earthquakes are benefi- 
 cent. War is brought about by well-known human fac- 
 tors, every one of which can be eliminated. Uncon- 
 trolled, unrestricted breeding which leads to over-popu- 
 lation is one of the chronic causes of war. Birth-eonti'ol 
 besides its marvelously beneficent effect on the indi- 
 vidual and the family, besides its eugenic influence, 
 
PREFACE 9 
 
 would if accepted by all nations become the most effi- 
 cient weapon against war. And all those who hate war, 
 all those who hate militarism as incorporating all that 
 is worst in human nature, should become the staunchest 
 supporters of birth-control. 
 
 And here is an important point we must bear in mind. 
 It is our duty to preach birth-control in our own coun- 
 tries, in countries which we are pleased to call civilized. 
 But we have an equal, if not a superior, duty in spread- 
 ing the principles and practice of birth-control among 
 the backward nations, nations with a high birth-rate. It 
 is of the utmost importance for the future of mankind 
 that the birth-control gospel be persistently and in- 
 cessantly preached among the peoples of Kussia, China, 
 Japan, India, Mexico, etc. Birth-control once introduced 
 to a nation spreads rapidly — Germany is an excellent ex- 
 ample of this — and even the poorest of the proletarian 
 men and women are glad to make use of it, when they 
 are properly instructed. 
 
 It will not do for civilized nations to reduce their 
 birth-rate to the desirable minimum and permit the back- 
 ward races to breed unrestrictedly. Trouble would be 
 sure to ensue in years to come. It therefore behooves 
 us to communicate with congenial spirits in the various 
 countries and to urge them to become apostles of the re- 
 ligion of birth-control. If we cannot get native apostles 
 we must send our own. Earnest men and women sent 
 to various semi-civilized and primitive countries to 
 
10 PREFACE 
 
 preach birth-control and instruct in its practice would 
 be of more benefit to humaJiity than all Christian mis- 
 sionaries have been; their preaching would certainly 
 bring more practical, more tangible results. 
 
 Yes, I advocate the sending of birth-control mission- 
 aries to all countries that need them; and to the re- 
 motest corners of the earth, if necessary. I am sure that 
 there will be no lack of volunteers. And our birth-con- 
 trol pamphlets and books should be translated into as 
 many languages as the Bible has been. Only the prac- 
 tice of birth-control by all nations — not its adoption by 
 a few — ^will bring about the end of war. Our duty is 
 clear. It is our duty to point out the connection be- 
 tween unrestricted breeding and war. Adeline More's 
 book points out this connection, and I am therefore glad 
 to present it to the American reader and to bespeak for 
 it a large reading public. 
 
 WmiilAM J. EOBINSON. 
 
 January 15, 1917. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT. 
 
 There are four principal arguments against birth-con- 
 trol, that is to say, against the use of contraceptives: 
 the hygienic, the religious, the political, and the indus- 
 trial. As regards the first argument, it is denied by 
 competent authorities, and contradicted by general ex- 
 perience, that the use of the best modem contraceptives 
 is detrimental to the body of either man or woman; 
 while it is not and cannot be denied by anybody in pos- 
 session of his wits that the limitation of births must have 
 an immensely beneficial effect upon public health. As 
 regards the second argument, I confess that I have never 
 been sufficiently interested to study it, for like most 
 ecclesiastical manifestations totiching earthly welfare it 
 is obviously not unconnected with politics. By what 
 process of logic the Catholic Church forbids contracep- 
 tives I am unaware. I admit that I have known Catholic 
 
 11 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 parents of the moneyed class who went on having chil- 
 dren in obedience to the injunction of their priests 
 against contraceptives. On the other hand I have 
 known Catholic parents of the moneyed class who strictly 
 Umited the number of their children and yet remained 
 on the best terms with priest and church and conscience. 
 I do not explain the riddle. As family limitation is very 
 widely practiced among the most respected piUars of the 
 Church of England and of aU Protestant sects, I assume 
 that outside the Catholic Church the religious argument 
 is not very seriously maintained. As regards the third 
 argument, the political, it simply is that birth-control 
 will diminish armies. Few propositions are less certain 
 than that birth-control will diminish armies, and few 
 propositions are more certain than that if it does it wiU. 
 diminish them equally and therefore lighten the burden 
 of war without prejudice to any one nation. But I am 
 ready to pass the counterargument on one side, and to 
 condemn the argument itself on its mere baseness. As 
 regards the fourth argument, it is even baser than the 
 third. It is a class argument, seldom or never avowed, 
 but still powerful in the minds of the moneyed. It 
 amounts to this: that if the moneyed class (which uses 
 contraceptives) encourages or approves the use of con- 
 traceptives by the remainder of the nation the moneyed 
 class wiU soon be inconvenienced by a shortage of labor. 
 The arguments against the use of contraceptives no 
 longer count. In the polemics of the last few years they 
 
INTRODUCTION 18 
 
 have been damaged beyond hope of repair. They can- 
 not possibly survive. On the other hand the arguments 
 in favor of the use of contraceptives grow daily in force 
 and persuasiveness. The proof of these two statements is 
 plain in the ever-increasing vogue of contraceptives 
 among all classes, but chiefly among the classes which 
 are best educated and which in moral sense and in the 
 sense of the responsibilities of citizenship are, to put it 
 with moderation, certainly not behind the rest of the 
 community. The most striking testimony to the essen- 
 tial vigor of the doctrine of birth-control may be seen 
 in the recent surprising Report of the National Birth- 
 Rate Commission. The Commission included a strong 
 ecclesiastical and reactionary element, but it practically 
 admits the entire doctrine, and nowhere does it actually 
 condemn either the doctrine or the propaganda of the 
 doctrine. This Report should be read. It marks a defi- 
 nite and very satisfactory stage in the history of the 
 campaign for birth-control. 
 
 In my opinion the main present obstacle to the com- 
 plete success of the movement in Britain is not the argu- 
 ments against it nor the reactionary irrational opposition 
 which confronts every beneficent and simple plan for the 
 amelioration of mankind. It is the notorious false shame 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race. We do not like to talk seri- 
 ously about the use of contraceptives. Indeed we are so 
 constituted that we cannot do so without feeling uncom- 
 fortable. The whole range of subjects turning upon sex- 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ual intercourse is barred to our ridiculous modesty — ^un- 
 less of course we treat them lightly and salaciously. "We 
 can sit laughing and at ease with our wives on one hand 
 and our young daughters on the other, in front of the 
 spectacle of musical comedies whose chief attraction is 
 the approving presentment of strumpets and tipplers; 
 but we jib at the serious and profitable discussion of 
 venereal disease. Some months ago the newspapers 
 startled the public, apropos of the Royal Commission on 
 Venereal Disease, by employing the word "venereal" in 
 their headlines. It was a wonderful and reassuring ex- 
 hibition of British courage ; but unfortunately some pa- 
 pers, especially one which prides itself on special divorce 
 reports, could not maintain the pace, and after a few 
 weeks one noticed that "venereal disease" had been soft- 
 ened into "the social disease." And, by the way, the 
 author of the following excellent pamphlet furnishes a 
 first-rate example of our national timidity in the singu- 
 lar behavior of that very Royal Commission on Venereal 
 Disease, which, although it was perfectly aware of the 
 value of contraceptives in checking the spread of syphilis 
 and gonorrhea, has kept absolute silence about contra- 
 ceptives. It dared not even mention them. 
 
 And scarcely any writer in the press dares to mention 
 them either. It is probable that nineteen editors and 
 newspaper proprietors out of every twenty are convinced 
 of the righteousness of the doctrine of birth-control, and 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 of its popular acceptance; but not one in a thousand of 
 them would venture to back his own views by printing 
 a candid article on the subject. Nearly all the work of 
 press propaganda is left to The Malthusian, the ofBcial 
 organ of the Malthusian League. This preposterous 
 state of affairs can only be altered by rendering public 
 opinion articulate, that is to say, by talking openly, and 
 writing plainly to the newspapers, and putting plain 
 questions to parliamentary and ii3.unicipal candidates, 
 about a matter which in modern social politics transcends 
 nearly every other in importance — the matter of birth- 
 control and the physical methods of birth-control. Pub- 
 lie opinion exists, and it is the right sort of public opin- 
 ion, but it needs to be cured of its dumbness. The sub- 
 sequent necessary organization and advertisement would 
 follow almost automatically. Faint-hearted upholders of 
 the doctrine of birth-control are recommended to study 
 the details of the journey of Mrs. Sanger across the 
 United States not long since. Mrs. Sanger had stood in 
 grave danger of losing her liberty for the offense of cir- 
 culating information about the methods of birth-control. 
 She was acquitted. She then, as a declared champion 
 and expounder of birth-control, publicly visited jBfteen 
 of the principal cities of America. The journey from 
 New York to the Pacific Coast was a triumphal progress. 
 She rendered American public opinion articulate, and 
 prejudice and ignorance got a notable blow. 
 
 Aenold Bennett. 
 
UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 OK 
 FECUNDITY VERSUS CIVILIZATION 
 
 "The Population Question is of vital importwnce. I 
 wish we did not shirk it so much." — Loed Moelet. 
 
 "The Population Question is the real riddle of the 
 Sphinx. ' ' — Huxley. 
 
 "// Government knew how, I should like to see it 
 check, not multiply, the population." — Emeeson. 
 
 "Compare the poorer parts of Paris with the growing 
 wilderness of East London, and you will see one of the 
 gains of the limitation of families." — The Eight Hon. 
 
 J. M. KOBEETSON, M. P. 
 
 "Europe with a stationary population will be im, a 
 much happier condition; and problems of social reform 
 can then be tackled with some hope of success." — The 
 Veet Reveeend Dean Inge. 
 
 For a hundred years Europe has been slowly piling 
 up a vast debt to hand down to future generations — the 
 
 17 
 
18 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 social costs which have been omitted from the expenses 
 of the industrial development that made our increase in 
 numbers possible. The terrible housing conditions which 
 must be swept away, the physical deterioration which 
 has been allowed to take place, the deficient education 
 which has been tolerated, the economic subjection of 
 women — for all these things the day of reckoning in the 
 form of capital expenditure on a lai^e scale was im- 
 minent, when the war supervened with all the incal- 
 culable additions to poverty that it must entail. And 
 all this at a time when the prosperity due to the opening 
 out of new countries had long passed its maximum. The 
 opportunities of continued expansion are strictly limited 
 by the areas which might be but are not at present cul- 
 tivated. The possibilities that were opened up a century 
 ago are now well-nigh exhausted. Our accumulated debt 
 remains unpaid, science promises us no startling develop- 
 ments in transport or production for the immediate 
 future, the war has dislocated and destroyed the work 
 of generations — and yet our standard of population re- 
 mains almost unchanged. Not till low birth-rates are 
 regarded with universal approval can a way be found 
 whereby our threatened difiBculty through serious over- 
 population may be overcome. 
 
 And, happily, the movement for the control of the 
 birth-rate promises us advantages in other directions. 
 
 1. It is the one and only way whereby wonien, apart 
 from those placed in peculiarly fortunate circumstances, 
 
FECUNDITY VS. CIVILIZATION 19 
 
 can attain that degree of independence and self -develop- 
 ment which is essential to the progress of humanity as a 
 whole. 
 
 2. It is the chief method by which the appalling rate 
 of infant mortality can be diminished. A comparison of 
 the infant mortality amongst the richer and poorer 
 classes shows conclusively that where the intervals be- 
 tween the appearance of children are sufficient to allow 
 a mother time properly to attend to her family the wast- 
 age can almost cease. 
 
 3. It is the only way by which parents can attain a 
 sufficient degree of security to free them from the cease- 
 less struggle for a bare existence which a constantly in- 
 creasing family brings in its train. Thereby a proper 
 education of the younger generation would be rendered 
 possible, the numbers of those living on the verge of star- 
 vation with its temptation to crime and prostitution 
 would be diminished, and the depression of wages to the 
 level of bare subsistence, by the competition for employ- 
 ment of unorganized workers, would be minimized. 
 
 4. The modern regulation of the birth-rate involves a 
 very important part of the prophylarisi against venereal 
 disease. It is astonishing that the recent Eoyal Com- 
 mission on Venereal Diseases carefuUy avoided this most 
 vital aspect of the subject, except for two rather veiled 
 references. As The Hospital remarked a propos of 
 germicidal prophylaxis (see Ediniurgh Review, April, 
 1916) : "It is noteworthy that absolute silence is main- 
 
20 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 tained concerning those modem metkods of prophylaxis 
 which have proved to be of such high eflSciency in the 
 American Navy and elsewhere abroad. It almost seems 
 as if the Commission, which cannot be ignorant of these 
 important additions to scientific knowledge, had 'funked' 
 the whole subject; at any rate the omission is both seri- 
 ous and regrettable." 
 
 [This is a point on which great stress should be laid in 
 our propaganda. And those who are genuinely dis- 
 tressed about the wide prevalence of venereal disease in 
 and outside of marriage should be strong supporters of 
 birth-control. For many of the modem measures of 
 birth-control are at the same time excellent venereal 
 prophylactics. 
 
 The effect of the use of modern contraceptives in di- 
 minishing venereal disease as well as abortion can be 
 noticed not only in prostitutes, but in respectable mar- 
 ried women as well. The prostitute of former years 
 had frequently to subject herself to abortions and was 
 generally venereally diseased. She has now become an 
 expert in the use of contraceptive measures and she 
 avoids both. And in married women who are using con- 
 traceptives venereal disease is practically unknown. As 
 I stated in another place, our granting or not granting 
 permission to a couple to marry, when one or both part- 
 ners had been sufferers from venereal disease, greatly 
 depends upon whether they are anxious to have children 
 at once, or are willing to use contraceptives for a certain 
 
FECUNDITY VS. CIVILIZATION 21 
 
 period. In the first case we are often obliged to refuse 
 our permission. In tlie second we generally grant it, 
 and we have never yet known a case where venereal in- 
 fection took place. Those who claim to be interested in 
 the diminution of venereal disease and are opponents of 
 the spread of contraceptive knowledge are either incon- 
 sistent or hypocrites. — ^W. J. R.] 
 
 5. Regulation of population is the most efEective way 
 of ensuring the cessation of war. An undue fecundity 
 promotes international pugnacity of precisely the kind 
 which was operative in bringing about the present war. 
 
 (a) The feeling of expansion when brought up 
 against geographical barriers acts blindly in the 
 direction of conflict, whether in colonial rivalry or 
 territorial "swarming." 
 
 (b) The lowering of social conditions due to over- 
 population makes people long for a change of any 
 kind, and at any price. They may not consciously 
 desire war, but their resistance to the powerful in- 
 terests which flourish on war is weakened in a dan- 
 gerous degree. 
 
 And to all the advantages which would accrue to any 
 given nation, only one argument worth considering is 
 ever opposed, namely, that the maintenance of a high 
 birth-rate is a military necessity since other nations will 
 not adopt the same policy. In every belligerent nation 
 to-day, whatever its alliances or position, this objection 
 
22 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 is urged by the reactionaries within that nation. In 
 England all attention is concentrated on Germany with 
 the assumption that Germany is unaffected by a similar 
 movement. Hence a careful examination of the condi- 
 tion of public opinion in Germany is one of the most 
 vital needs of the present situation. 
 
 Such a study is all the more necessary at the present 
 time, because public interest has been aroused by the 
 appearance of the report of the so-called "National Com- 
 mission" of Inquiry into the Declining Birth-rate — The 
 Declining Birth-Rate, its Causes and Effects (Chapman 
 & Hall, 10/6 net) — ^which, though it claims to be ex- 
 haustive, is lamentably deficient in three important re- 
 spects. Not only was no evidence taken with regard to 
 the attitude of Germany on which the European situa- 
 tion so largely depends, but in a question whose social 
 bearing is chiefly on problems of economics and the posi- 
 tion of women, not one single recognized economist or 
 one single feminist was either placed on the Commission 
 or asked to give evidence ! In spite of this the Commis- 
 sion, which contained no less than ten clerics out of an 
 active membership of about twenty, has claimed that its 
 Inquiry is "exhaustive" and "authoritative," and the 
 public is only too likely to accept its findings on this val- 
 uation. While, therefore, acknowledging the interest of 
 the material the Commission has collected, the present 
 writer offers no excuse for emphasizing the importance 
 of the somewhat different conclusions reached in the fol- 
 
FECUNDITY VS. CIVILIZATION 23 
 
 lowing pages, where an endeavor is made to fill the blanks 
 left by the Commission as regards 
 
 (i.) The standpoint of women, 
 (ii.) The economic argument, with special refer- 
 ence to Malthus, 
 (iii.) The position of Germany. 
 
 In order to avoid covering ground already familiar to 
 English readers, it has seemed best to present data de- 
 rived as far as possible from the Central Empires on 
 the significance of whose attitude to this question for the 
 future of international relation we have already dwelt. 
 
I. 
 
 THE EARLY STAGES. 
 
 In the Dark and Middle Ages Germany, like the rest of 
 Europe, had to rely largely on iaf ant mortality ^ to keep 
 its population within bounds ; 12, 15, or even 20 children 
 were quite in order even in the upper classes, but only 
 one or two in a dozen survived to maturity! K. v. 
 Jnama-Stemegg proves that in the 8th and 9th century 
 only 2.5 children per family came safely through the 
 ordeal of childhood ; and Biicher showed that of 53 chil- 
 dren ia 9 branches of a prominent Frankfort family, 35 
 died before their father. In the lower classes the mor- 
 tality was even more appalling, and in spite of the tre- 
 mendously high birth-rate, in Niirnberg, for example, 
 less than 2 children per burgher was the rule in 1449.' 
 Priozing gives evidence to show that about 75% of all 
 
 * Deliberate infanticide was, of course, the method adopted in 
 earlier centuries. 
 
 "Hanauer, J. Article on Social Hygiene in the Middle Ages in 
 the Eandwbrterbuch der sosialen Hygiene, Leipzig, 1912. 
 
 24 
 
THE EARLY STAGES 25 
 
 children born in these stirring times failed to reach 
 maturity. Incessant warfare, typhoid and so forth, as 
 Malthus has established, did the rest ; and only in quite 
 modern days have rational methods prevailed against 
 those of nature. Of the early writers who discussed the 
 population problem as formulated by Malthus, the pio- 
 neer studies of Hegenroch, Suden and Eau were fol- 
 lowed in the thirties by Eobert Mohl (Polizeiwissen' 
 schaft) and in the fifties by Karl Marlow (Organisation 
 der Arbeit) , Professor at Marburg. Then came the gen- 
 eration of prominent publicists, Roscher, Schaffle, Wag- 
 ner and Riimelin, who agreed with John Stuart MiU in 
 supporting the views of Malthus and emphasizing their 
 importance. In 1866 von Kirchmann, Vice-President of 
 the Oberlandesgericht at Ratisbon, was deprived of his 
 office for advising the working men of Berlin not to have 
 more than two children.^ In December, 1872, Mr. Mon- 
 tague Crackanthorpe, K. C, wrote his "explanatory let- 
 ter" to the Fortnightly Review; and the advice which 
 he gave, though inadequate, was shortly afterwards 
 countenanced even by prominent Roman Catholics in 
 Germany.* In 1881 Mensinga published his Facultative 
 Sterilitat under the pseudonym C. Hasse, and the 
 popularization of the knowledge associated with his name 
 gave fresh impetus to the spread of the propaganda. 
 
 'Stille, Bevolkerungsfrage, Berlin, 1889. 
 
 * OapeUmann, Fakultative Sterilitat, Aaehen, 14th thousand, 
 1897. 
 
26 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 Soon afterwards a number of distingnislied pathol(^ts 
 
 and physiologists ° finally established the fact that the 
 
 supposed harmfulness of the modem methods was a 
 
 fable. 
 
 "v. Kjafft-Ebing, Nervositat und neurasthenische Zustande, in 
 Nothagels Pathologie, 1895. See Grotjahn Geburten-Miickgang, 
 1914, p. 102 — where the medical evidence is clearly stated. On 
 the Continent the able writings of Professor Porel have long 
 familiarized the public with the facts of the case, and the exten- 
 sive experience of the Dutch physicians. Dr. Aletta Jacobs, of 
 Amsterdam, and Dr. J. Eutgers, of the Hague, has fully con- 
 firmed these conclusions. In England and America confusion 
 and ignorance are still curiously prevalent, even in educated circles, 
 as is shown by the recently published evidence of the Birth-Eate 
 Commission. It is regrettable that this body allowed so many 
 conservative and religious witnesses to confuse the issue, or to 
 make entirely unsupported general assertions almost unchallenged 
 (pp. 221, 281, 391, 442), even the evidence of Dr. Eouth and Dr. 
 SoharUeb being presented in a most unsatisfactory state, full of 
 uncriticized prejudices, uncertainties and contradictions. No- 
 where are the alleged remote psychical effects of prevention under 
 certain conditions properly contrasted with the normal practice 
 of control, or with the terrible evils of constant childbearing, so 
 well indicated in Maternity, Letters from Worlcing Women (Bell, 
 1915). Fortunately, however, the valuable evidence of the distin- 
 guished gynecologist, Sir Francis Champneys, is presented fully 
 and clearly, and his unambiguous verdict should go far to settle 
 the doubts of the inquiring reader. On p. 139 (see also pp. 253-4) 
 he says: "I do not think it is true to say that in the majority 
 of cases prevention does affect health directly in a deleterious 
 manner" [entirely too vague and circumlocutional — ^W. J. E.], 
 and, again, "I have never seen any physical harm done by mod- 
 erating the number of children," by preventive methods. He 
 carefully states the conditions imder which disadvantages might 
 perhaps result, and emphatically pronounces several of the most 
 commonly adopted methods to be as harmless as those authorita- 
 tively recommended (p. 226, line 36, and p. 254, line 36). 
 
THE EARLY STAGES 27 
 
 [For many years I have challenged our medical op- 
 
 r 
 
 ponents of birth-control to demonstrate privately or be- 
 fore a medical society a single well-authenticated case of 
 injury from the use of modern contraceptive measures ; 
 but nobody has answered the challenge. Cases of seri- 
 ous injury from coitus interruptus or coitus reservatus 
 can be shown by the thousands ; every civilized country 
 is full of them; but that is just the method which we 
 ourselves have been condemning for many years with 
 all the influence at our command. Yes, the supposed 
 harmfulness of modern contraceptive measures is a 
 fable ; it is worse than a fable ; it is, in many instances, 
 a deliberate falsehood. — ^W. J. R.] 
 
 The Bradlaugh episode in England in 1876 was the 
 cause of public attention all over Europe being directed 
 to the question of birth restriction. In Germany the in- 
 terest thus aroused led to the foundation in 1882 of the 
 Sozialharmonische Verein in Stuttgart, which for the 
 past thirty years has undertaken the work performed 
 by the Malthusian League in England, under the direc- 
 tion of Herr Max Hausmeister. It was supported by 
 copious literature, and in 1889 Ferdy published in Ber- 
 lin his Bie Mittel zur Yerhiitung der Eonzeption, which 
 has passed through many editions, and done for Ger- 
 many something of what the Knowlton pamphlet 
 achieved in this country in the days before the Brad- 
 laugh trial. In 1907 the book was in its 8th edition. 
 
 The new century opened with the reprinting from 
 
28 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 the Deutsche Medizimsche Wochenschnft of an essay by 
 Meierhof, giving publicity to the abundant evidence of 
 the rapid spread of prudential knowledge. He refers, 
 for example, to the pamphlet by a cleric of the name of 
 Gebhart, who states that the Thuringian peasantry are 
 so careful as to the size of their families that before long 
 only paupers and wastrels will have large families. And 
 during the past decade the attention of able social re- 
 formers has been frequently concentrated on the inter- 
 esting field thus opened for inquiry. In particular C. 
 Hamburger has made an exhaustive analysis of the fer- 
 tility of the women of Berlin. While in the richer classes 
 two children is the average, he proved that the num- 
 ber of births in the poorer families averaged five, of 
 whom less than 50% survived to their teens! He 
 based his investigations on over a thousand records of 
 women who had been married more than ten years : and 
 since it is chiefly amongst the younger women that the 
 new knowledge has spread, it is probable that Berlin 
 can now claim to rival Paris even in the success with 
 which it has tackled this most vital problem of a great 
 city.* 
 
 We may, however, more profitably return to the dis- 
 cussion of such current developments when we come to 
 consider the outlook for the future. But we may note 
 in advance that nearly all the leading exponents of 
 
 'Telix A. Theilhaber, Das sterile Berlin, Berlin, 1913, p. 163, 
 puts the relevant data in an accessible form. 
 
THE EARLY STAGES 
 
 29 
 
 Political Economy in Germany have now felt constrained 
 to express their views on the population question and 
 the overwhelming majority have declared themselves on 
 the side of Malthus. In a word the Decline of the Birth- 
 rate was the question of the hour. Everywhere it was 
 being discussed in print and on the platform with a 
 freedom and in a spirit decidedly disconcerting to the 
 military party. Another few years of peace and . •. . 
 
 Perhaps the best way to give an idea of the public in- 
 terest which the question had created immediately 
 previous to the war is to set down the following selection 
 of studies devoted wholly to Birth-control during four 
 months only of the year 1914 : — 
 
 Alexander, C, Der Kampf gegen den Geburtenriiokgang. 
 
 M. Kl. 1914. Nr. 9. S. 397. 
 
 Berta, Luigi, Beitrage zum Problem des Neomalthu- 
 
 sianismus. Al:eh. f. Sozialwiss. u. So- 
 zialpolitik 38. H. 2. S. 425-439. 
 
 Blaschko, A., Geburtenriickgang und Gesehleehtakrank- 
 
 heiten. Leipzig, 1914. Job. Ambr. 
 Barth. 8°. 42 S. 80 Pf. 
 
 Curtius, Die Abnahme der Geburtenziffem im 
 
 Eegierungsbezirk Magdeburg. V. f. 
 gerichtl. Med. 47. 1914. H. 1. 
 
 Fernau, H., Zur BevSlkerungsfrage. Eth. Kultur 1914. 
 
 Nr. 8. S. 59-61. . 
 
 Fischer, Alfons, Geburtenriiekgang und Volksgesundheit. 
 
 Der Diisseldorfer Monistentag. Leip- 
 zig, 1914. Verlag Unesma. S. 51-61. 
 DiskusBion. S. 61-67. 
 
30 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 Forberger, J., Geburtenriickgang und Konfession. Ber- 
 
 lin, 1914. Saemann-Verlag. 8°- 72 
 S. 1 Mk. 
 
 Gottberg, Margarethe v., Beriifliche Einfliisse auf die Fnichbarkeit 
 der fortpflanzungsf ahigen Bevolkenmg. 
 Jb. f. National Okonomie u. Statistik. 
 herausgeg. v. J. Conrad. 102. 3. Folge 
 47. Man, 1914. S. 327-336. 
 
 GraBBl, Der Geburtenriickgang in Deutschland, 
 
 seine Ursachen und seine Bedeutung. 
 Kempten 1914. J. Kosel. 8°. 166 S. 
 1 Mk. 
 " Der Erfolg alter und neuer ehelieher 
 
 Geschlechtssitten in Bayem. Arch. f. 
 Eassen- u. Gesellschaftsbiologie 10. 
 1914. H. 5. S. 595-627. 
 
 Grotjahn, A., Die Eugenik als Hygiene der Fortpflan- 
 
 zung. Arch. f. Prauenkrkh. 1. 1914. 
 S. 15-18. 
 
 Hirsch, M., Fruchtabtreibung und Praventiwerkehr 
 
 im Zusammenhang mit dem Geburten- 
 riickgang. Wiirzburg, 1914. Kabitzscb. 
 VII. 267 S. 8° 6 Mk. 
 
 Klob, Der Kampf gegen den Geburtenriickgang. 
 
 Zsehr. f. KriminalpsychoL u. Straf- 
 rechtsref orm von AsschafEenburg. Hei- 
 delberg, 1914. Jg. 10. H. 11-12. S. 
 715-716. 
 
 Kranold, H., Der Geburtenriickgang und die Arbeiter- 
 
 klasse. Neue Generation, 1914. H. 3. 
 S. 126-133. 
 
 Langstein, Geburtenriickgajig und Sauglingsschutz. 
 
 Zschr. f. Sauglingsschutz, 1914. S. 14- 
 23. 
 
THE EARLY STAGES 
 
 31 
 
 Linke, Joh., 
 Libmann, P., 
 
 V. Olshausen, 
 
 Stiicker, H., 
 
 Wolf, Julius, 
 
 Zum Geburtenrlickgange. Arztliehes Ver- 
 eins-Bl. 43. Nr. 954. 1914. S. 40-41. 
 
 Geburtenriickgang und mannliche sexueUe 
 Impotenz. Wiirzburg, 1914. C. Ka- 
 bitzseh. 8°- 37 S. 1 Mk. 50 Pf. 
 
 AntikonzeptioneUe Mittel und Gesetzge- 
 bung. M. Kl. 1914. Nr. 10. S. 439- 
 440. 
 
 Staatlicher Gebarzwang Oder Eassen- 
 hygiene? Neue Generation. 1914. H. 
 3. S. 134-149. 
 
 Geburtenriickgang und Monismus. Der 
 Diisseldorfer Monistentag. 7 Haupt- 
 vers. des D. Monistenbundes. Leipzig, 
 1914. Verlag Unesma. S. 40-51. 
 
 Religion und Geburtenriickgang. Arch, 
 f. Eassen- u. Gesellsehaftsbiologie, 10. 
 1914. H. 5. S. 586-594. 
 
II. 
 
 THE CONFLICT OF OPINION. 
 
 As a result of all this interest in the general position 
 of Malthus there is a vigorous economic controversy at 
 present in progress in which the protagonists are Op- 
 penheimer, Wolf, Dietzel, Pohle, Bernstein, and Budge 
 (Arehiv f. S. u. S. 1912, p. 528). This has arisen out 
 of Oppenheimer's challenge Das Bevolkerungsgesets 
 1901, in which the author claimed, in opposition to the 
 great majority of German economists who have expressed 
 their acceptance of the Malthusian position, to have slain 
 and buried not only Malthus but also his disciples, past, 
 present and future. Oppenheimer sneers at Malthus, 
 whose book, he contends, is as full of contradictions as 
 the Bible, contains no original thought, and is unworthy 
 of scientific consideration. Malthus himself was a weak 
 thinker, a muddle-headed unintelligent plagiarist, lack- 
 ing all deductive capacity, utterly illogical, and so forth ! 
 Coming from an economist of no small repute amongst 
 the younger generation Oppenheimer's remarks natu- 
 rally attracted considerable attention. 
 
 32 
 
THE CONFLICT OF OPINION 33 
 
 He distinguished three Malthusiau theories of popu- 
 lation — The theory of Malthus referring to past, present 
 and future (which he interprets in a maimer that can 
 by no means be accepted as accurately representing the 
 reverend gentleman's views) ; the theory of those Mal- 
 thusian statisticians who fear that over-population is 
 unavoidable and imminent in the near future; and the 
 theory of those Malthusians who fear that in the near 
 future the productive possibilities of industry will be 
 limited by our deficient social organization. Most of his 
 general objections to and interpretations of these the- 
 ories have been disposed of in a very able book by Dr. 
 Siegfried Budge, Das Malthus' soke Bevolkerungsgesete 
 — an examination of the Malthusian theory as it is 
 treated in the economic literature of the first decade of 
 this century. But more recently Oppenheimer has re- 
 turned to the fray on two specific points, and since (un- 
 like other opponents) he has not yet been satisfactorily 
 answered in Germany it is worth while to dispose of this 
 last surviving critic in the next four paragraphs which 
 readers who are pressed for time may omit ! 
 
 Dr. Budge showed that food products have only 
 slightly increased in proportion to the population. But 
 why, asks Oppenheimer, should farmers strive to pro- 
 duce more food than is used? If, he says, foodstuffs 
 per head have not increased more than is actually the 
 case the cause is not that agriculture could not provide 
 more but would not, because prices were not high enough 
 
34 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 to make it seem profitable. And prices were not high 
 enough for the very reason that no more was used than 
 then. 
 
 It is clear that Oppenheimer has not had the advan- 
 tage of perusing the works of Dr. Marshall, or he could 
 not have fallen into this error, so frequently found in 
 German economies, whereby he overlooks the fact that 
 the amount demanded or used is not rigid, but depends 
 on the price of the supply, and that the lower the price 
 the greater the demand. Therefore if a large output of 
 foodstuffs is really so easy to produce, farmers, by lower- 
 ing the price slightly, might recoup themselves over and 
 oyer again by their increased number of sales. The 
 question of what could or could not be done is, in eco- 
 nomic activity, purely a question of expenses balanced 
 against returns. If farmers could produce more it would 
 be to their interest to do so, especially as there is so little 
 trust or monopoly influence in agriculture. The truth 
 of the matter is that little can be done in agricultural 
 industry to cheapen the methods of production by large 
 scale production and the consequent division of labor. 
 Even in the wheat-growing districts of America the aver- 
 age farm is decreasing in area. Hence Oppenheimer 's 
 objection is entirely invalid. 
 
 Secondly, he contends, in answer to Bernstein and 
 Pohle, ' ' If, as Malthus stated, the inability of the means 
 of subsistence to keep pace with the tendency of popula- 
 tion to increase is really a fact, that is to say if the law 
 
THE CONFLICT OF OPINION 35 
 
 of production on land were not compensated for and 
 more than compensated by the increase in cooperation 
 of a denser population — ^then the proportion of town- 
 dwellers should fall in all growing civilizations and the 
 proportion of agriculturists should be rising." Increas- 
 ing difficulty in raising agricultural produce would be 
 calling for a larger agricultural labor force. But this 
 has not been the case as comparative statistics of urban 
 and rural popidations show. Hence the Malthusian con- 
 tention is disproved. 
 
 In this criticism Oppenheimer calmly dismisses or 
 overlooks most of the following facts, some of which his 
 opponents have already brought to his notice. To dwell 
 in the country does not imply an agricultural occupa- 
 tion. A hundred years ago it was the country folk who 
 transported their food products, carried on industries 
 such as weaving, and made their own agricultural ma- 
 chinery. To-day railway transportation and mechanical 
 industry have concentrated their occupations in the 
 towns. Moreover in England to-day, which Dr. Oppen- 
 heimer takes as an illustration, one-third of our food is 
 imported, and hence we must add the foreign exportiag 
 farmers to our agricultural producers. A third im- 
 portant difference is that the fuel needed for power pro- 
 duction used to be the wood produced in the country, 
 now it is the coal mined mainly by town dwellers. These 
 changes having taken place, all statistical comparisons 
 of town and country populations are the reverse of 
 illuminating. 
 
III. 
 
 MALTHUS AND MODERN ECONOMICS. 
 
 The strange thing is that Oppenheimer, owing to an 
 erroneous imputation to Malthus of the law of dimin- 
 ishing returns, fails to discover the one point in which 
 Malthus is undoubtedly open to criticism! The point 
 is of no little interest for all discussion of the popula- 
 tion problem, and it is worth while to consider it in de- 
 tail since its bearing has so often been misunderstood 
 by those not familiar with the controversy in question. 
 
 The true criticism should be stated thus : — Malthus did 
 not realize the significance of the law of diminishing 
 returns, viz., that a continued increase in the applica- 
 tion of capital and labor to land must ultimately result 
 in a diminution of the extra produce which can be ob- 
 tained by a giv§n extra amount of capital and labor.^ 
 In stating that population may multiply in geometrical 
 
 'Cf. Smart, Economic Annals of the 19th Century, p. 457. It 
 is particularly regrettable that even the brief and apologetic refer- 
 ences accorded to economic matters hj the Birth-Eate Commission 
 
 36 
 
MALTHUS AND ECONOMICS 37 
 
 ratio whilst the food supply cannot increase in more 
 than arithmetical ratio, he was curiously careless in neg- 
 lecting to consider the productive value of the increased 
 population which the food supply was to maiutain. He 
 always regards a hypothetical increase in the produc- 
 tivity of land as due to scientific improvements, fertili- 
 zation, etc. He always, in fact, refers to "melioration" 
 of land. He never fairly considers the labor power of 
 the hypothetical "hands" for whose "mouths" this in- 
 creased productivity would cater. It is clear that had 
 he considered this added labor power he could not have 
 implied, in setting forth the ratios of increase. 
 
 Population, 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 
 Food, 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 
 
 that an increment of 128 workers in a fifth generation 
 would necessarily have a total productive value equal 
 only to that of an increment of two workers five genera- 
 tions previously. In fact, he does not himself advance 
 any proof that the increased number of mouths would 
 not imply a swjJicienUy increased number of hands to 
 assist a food supply, advancing by improvements and 
 developments in arithmetical progression, to become ca- 
 
 are marred by an obvious neglect of the fact of diminishing re- 
 turns. The same neglect as his critics have pointed out unfor- 
 tunately also characterizes much of the suggestive economic writ- 
 ings of Mr. J. A. Hobson, whose conclusions the Report itself 
 embodies, in spite of the fact that, particularly as regards Malthus 
 (Report, p. 40), they are in conflict with the masterly exposition 
 by Pierson {Principles of Economics, Vol. II, p. 140). 
 
38 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 pable of providing subsistence for an indefinite increase 
 of population. 
 
 This is the objection so fully substantiated by Pro- 
 fessor Cannan in his Theories of Production and Distri- 
 bution. And the proof required can only be furnished 
 by a recognition of the Law of Diminishing Returns. 
 About this law Malthus has nothing to say in his Essay, 
 though he makes sundry isolated references to the fact 
 of diminishing returns (which was clearly explained by 
 Sir Edward West in 1814) in his subsequent writings.'' 
 
 'It is very important in discussing the law of Diminishing 
 Eetums to recognize that It is not a statement of an historical 
 event. For this reason economists often introduce the law by the 
 words "at any given time." The decrease in produce is not a 
 decrease over a series of years, but one in relation to the increase 
 in the doses of capital and labor. The fact on which Mr. Hobson 
 and others lay stress, that the wealth per head in England has 
 increased during the past half century, is no confutation of the 
 law of Diminishing Betums, nor incidentally does it show that 
 we are not " overpopulated, " if the prevalence of a low standard 
 of existence be the test. Secondly, care must be taken to specify 
 to which factor the diminishing return ensues, capital or labor; 
 moreover, we cannot talk of even labor as one factor — there are 
 classes of labor, casual, unskilled, and professional, any of which 
 may be overpopulated. Thus, when Professor Cannan (Wealth, 
 p. 69) says that population may be increased, so long as addition 
 yields a more than "proportionate return," he has not made it 
 clear to what factor increasing returns accrue. He seems to be 
 thinking subconsciously of the return to the manufacturer's capi- 
 tal. When population is increasing the returns to capital certainly 
 may increase, but only on the condition that the additional laborers 
 available are paid at the same rate as before or a lower rate ; and 
 this wage will not necessarily be sufScient to ensure an adequate 
 subsistence. 
 
MALTHUS AND ECONOMICS 39 
 
 There is, in fact, nothing to prevent the productivity 
 of land increasing in a comparatively low geometrical 
 progression, as, indeed, it frequently has done. More- 
 over, it is not true to say that Malthus himself laid no 
 stress on his ratios. He was a mathematician of the first 
 rank, and was 9th Wrangler in 1788, in spite of his out- 
 side interests ; and not at all the sort of man to use such 
 a conception for popular illustration only. 
 
 On the other hand it is equally untrue to assert that 
 tjie admission of this error makes any difference to the 
 essentials of the position that Malthus was the first to 
 establish through his insistence on the effect in com- 
 bination of rates of iacrease of population and sub- 
 sistence respectively, viz., the fundamental social im- 
 portance of the Population problem in all ages. It was 
 he who first clearly realized the fact that there is a con- 
 stant tendency for population to press upon the means 
 of subsistence, and the necessity for constant checks on 
 population, whether "positive" or "preventive" in the 
 senses carefully distinguished in the later edition of the 
 Essay^. /^fj 
 
 The recognition of this tendency is one of the essen- 
 tials of modern economics, and it is to be reestablished 
 as Mr. Sargant Florence and Mr. Henderson have fully 
 proved {Cambridge Magazine, January 15 and March 
 4, 1916), by substituting an exposition of the law of 
 Diminishing Eeturns for the mistaken hypothesis of an 
 arithmetical ratio which Malthus adopted. 
 
40 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 With this reetification the Malthusian Theory, so far 
 from having been refuted, is established more firmly 
 than in the days when it was first accepted as a truism 
 in economics. Rightly understood, indeed, its signifi- 
 cance has never been lost sight of by writers who have 
 read beyond the first chapter in which this modification 
 is necessary, though the public, the politicians, and the 
 press are still ignorant of its vital importance for to-day. 
 
 The essential features of the population question as it 
 appears to modern economists are therefore briefly as 
 follows : — 
 
 (1) Every species of plant and animal has the power to mul- 
 tiply faster than its njeans of subsistence will permit. 
 
 (2) The physiological power of human increase is also so great 
 that if it should operate without restraints of any kind, it would 
 carry population to such limits that vice or misery, or both, would 
 begin to thin out the people, and thus operate as a check upon 
 further increase. 
 
 (3) Owing to the law of diminishing returns, a larger number 
 of people cannot, in any given state of civilization and the indus- 
 trial arts, be so well provided for as a smaller number. • 
 
 (4) There is a strong natural instinct which inclines the mem- 
 bers of our species to the multiplication of numbers, and unless 
 this is counteracted by other motives, it will lead to an increase of 
 population beyond the limits where comfortable subsistence is 
 possible. 
 
 (5) This natural instinct is, however, opposed and held in check 
 by several contrary motives, not the least important of which is 
 the desire for the customary goods to consume, coupled with the 
 perception on the part of each head, or would-be head, of a family 
 
MALTHUS AND ECONOMICS 41 
 
 that a larger number of children means a smaller share of the 
 necessaiies, comforts, and luxuries of life for each one. 
 
 (6) How rigidly the increase of numbers is held in check by 
 this motive depends upon the ideas of the people as to what is 
 essential, in the way of incomes, to their happiness, — in other 
 words, upon their standard of living. 
 
 This in fact is actually the law of population which 
 Professor T. N. Carver in his hrilliant study, The Distri- 
 iution of Wealth, describes (p. 168) as "first sys- 
 tematically worked out by Malthus and never success- 
 fully refuted." 
 
 Dr. Alfred Marshall's agreement with the funda- 
 mentals of the doctrine of Malthus is too well known to 
 require citation, and Dr. Marshall's distinguished pupil, 
 Professor Flux {Principles, Chapter I.) treats the Law 
 of Population as an axiom of Economics. 
 
 The late Prime Minister of Holland, Dr. N. G. Pierson, 
 in his Principles of EconomAcs (1912), Vol. II., pp. 100- 
 170, is unrivaled as an exponent of the Malthusian doc- 
 trine of population, and deals severely with the misun- 
 derstandings of its leading critics in modern times. 
 
 "It is clear," writes Professor Taussig, of Harvard, 
 "that restraint on the increase of numbers is one essen- 
 tial condition of improvement. Stated in this way the 
 Malthusian position is impregnable." 
 
 The latest investigation, Population, a Study in Mal- 
 thusianism, by Dr. Warren Thompson, of the University 
 of Michigan (Columbia University Press, 1915), makes 
 
42 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 this striking statement: — "The conditions which made 
 possible the unprecedented expansion of the European 
 peoples in the last fifty years are passing away" — and 
 as regards the resources of the New World which are so 
 often dangled before the eyes of the Old, he adds, "Fer- 
 tile land is no longer to be had for the asking in the 
 United States, and will soon be taken up in the other 
 places where Europeans can thrive (p. 130)." Malthus, 
 he concludes (p. 162), was essentially correct in his 
 statement of the law of population, and "was also cor- 
 rect when he said that much misery and suffering were 
 due to the overcrowding of the population, and that con- 
 sequently a large number of people were always in 
 want." 
 
 And finally, most striking of all, we have the verdict 
 of Professor Cannan himself, which will come as a shock 
 to those who have assumed on the strength of the passage 
 referred to above that this very able critic is in disagree 
 ment with the conclusions of Malthus. Commenting on 
 the views of Dr. Warren Thompson, which we have 
 quoted, he says (Economic Journal, June, 1916, p. 219), 
 and let us italicize his words : — 
 
 "I should like to suggest that the next Bishop who 
 proposes to recommend unreasoning multiplication as a 
 universal rule of human conduct should take this passage 
 from Dr. Thompson's book as his text. . . . This little 
 planet is getting fiUed up; if we go on increasing our 
 numbers imdefinitely we must eventuaily make it too full, 
 
MALTHUS AND ECONOMICS 43 
 
 in spite of that steady progress in material equipment 
 and knowledge which tends to set the limits of desirable 
 density farther on." 
 
 It only remains to add that Malthus wrote in an age 
 which knew of no "preventive," as opposed to "posi- 
 tive" checks — to adopt his own terminology — ^to the in- 
 crease of population, except either late marriage or the 
 use of abortifacients. The latter Malthus rightly con- 
 demned in toto (Book IV., Chapter ii., where he refers 
 to "improper arts") ; and since it is only in quite recent 
 times that it has become possible to escape from an 
 alternative that led him to a somewhat pessimistic view 
 of social progress, he cannot be fairly reproached for an 
 omission which, of course, in no way invalidates his 
 economic theory. 
 
 In addition to the criticisms of reputable economists 
 who have gone astray, it is desirable also to dispose effec- 
 tively of the more popular opponents of the doctrine 
 whose arguments go down in political circles and are 
 periodically reproduced in the press. In England, where 
 Dr. Drysdale and others have consistently met each such 
 fallacy as it was promulgated, we have witnessed the 
 astonishing vogue of the misguided eloquence of Henry 
 George, who went out of his way to mar a very con- 
 vincing appeal for the taxation of land values by what he 
 conceived to be a refutation of the law of population. 
 A typical repetition of Henry George's superficialities 
 in this connection appears in Land Venues, August, 1916, 
 
44 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 p. 56. And in Grermany, too, there has been not a little 
 unintelligent opposition on somewhat similar lines to the 
 statement of Malthus that there is a tende;icy for the 
 growth of population to outrun the increase in the means 
 of subsistence from writers of hardly less influence than 
 Oppenheimer. This opposition arises first from a mis- 
 understanding of the meaning of the verb tend, and sec- 
 ondly from a strange lack of imagination in picturing 
 over-population. Eudolf Goldscheid, for instance (who 
 represents an important movement in revisionist social- 
 ism, and whose books Hoherentwicklung und Menschen- 
 okonomie, Zur Ethik des Gesandmllens, Grundlinien zu 
 einer Eritik der Willenskraft, Entwicklungswerttheorie, 
 etc., have won him a justly high position in the eyes of 
 a large and thoughtful public), in his onslaught on 
 "Malthusianismus" seems to take tendency in every 
 possible sense except the. dictionary one. He seems un- 
 aware that the words "There is a tendency" do not 
 mean "It is a fact that" or "It will be a fact that." 
 What tendency does mean may be illustrated from the 
 study of cross-channel navigation. There is a tendency 
 for the Dover-Calais steam packet to take 70 minutes. 
 This need not mean that on the average the said steam 
 packet does take 70 minutes, nor yet that it wiU ever 
 take exactly 70 minutes. What it does mean is that 
 certain conditions of tide and weather being given, the 
 horse-power of the engines pitted against the ordiQaxy 
 resistance of the water will result in a speed of so many 
 
MALTHUS AND ECONOMICS 45 
 
 knots per hour and consequently a transit of so many 
 minutes. The horse-power exerted and the resistance 
 of water are constcmt factors, wind and waves in- 
 constant; and a tendency is the result of certain 
 constant factors when we neglect the inconstant for the 
 moment. 
 
 Over-population to the man in the street no doubt 
 suggests a world as narrow and crowded as the street 
 he is usually in; and though this conception may be 
 repudiated by publicists, the notion they generally adopt 
 in its place is no less crude. Rudolf Goldscheid looks 
 for men dying suddenly of a sort of Malthusian disease ; 
 tiU then he refuses to see over-population. Yet on the 
 very same page he writes of social evils; the very evils 
 that are the way that over-population takes effect, the 
 "modus operandi" of over-population. A doctor might 
 just as well pronounce that a man's lungs were in splen- 
 did condition but that he was suffering terribly and un- 
 accountably from phthisis. Over-population is a rela- 
 tion between the number of men and amount of wealth. 
 It is the existence of such a number of men in the world 
 or within any country or class that their total wealth 
 is insufiScient to maintain them at any given standard 
 of living. Therefore the class and standard must be 
 given. Thus we must say, e. g., the English working- 
 class is over-populated for a standard of a family in- 
 come' of £2 a week. Hence over-population is not going 
 to appear melodramatically, with a flourish of trumpets, 
 
46 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 but judged by any ordinary criterion is taking place here 
 and now in slum and village. 
 
 Summing up their case the popular opposition to 
 Malthus is expressed thus: "We see no over-population 
 now, and there is no more likelihood of over-population 
 in the future." Writers like Goldscheid appeal to 
 natural science, and show that food being like man, 
 mainly organic, should increase at exactly the same rate 
 as man. This is perfectly true — ^but it proves precisely 
 the opposite of what Goldscheid desires. For plants and 
 animals allowed to breed without human regulation tend 
 no less than man to outrun their means of subsistence 
 and to die or live half -starved. The only difference be- 
 tween the two species of organic life is that man is con- 
 scious of some misfit, and of his misery, and reasons, 
 unfortunately often quite inadequettely, about its causes. 
 One may summarize this side of the matter as follows : — 
 
 A. 1. There is a constant tendency in nniTnals and 
 plants to increase in geometrical proportion, e.g., 
 as 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. 
 
 2. There is no corresponding tendency toward an 
 increase of the ground that favors the growth of 
 animals and plants. 
 
 3. Some animals and plants are therefore con- 
 stantly dying or half -starved. 
 
 B. 1. There is a constant tendency for man to in- 
 crease in geometrical proportion. 
 
MALTHUS AND ECONOMICS 47 
 
 2. There is no corresponding actual increase in 
 the plants and animals that serve him for food (see 
 A3). 
 
 3. Actually, therefore, men cannot increase in 
 geometrical ratio; some of them are constantly 
 dying or else half-starved, diseased and living in 
 poverty. 
 
IV. 
 
 PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Those who regard over-population as something static, 
 and look for some Malthusian disease which will not 
 show itself till folk stand so thick on the surface of the 
 globe that there is no breathing space for another baby, 
 will probably be surprised to learn that it is precisely 
 in the New World, with its alleged limitless resources, 
 that advocacy of family limitation is now making the 
 greatest headway. As the New Republic, one of the 
 most influential of American weeklies, said recently, 
 "The time is at hand when men and women must de- 
 nounce it as a conspiracy by the superstitious against 
 the race, when public opinion must compel the amend- 
 ment of laws which make it a criminal offense to teach 
 people how to control their fertility. Harmless methods 
 of preventing conception are known. The declining 
 birth-rate shows that they are in use by the upper classes 
 of all countries, including the United States. They are 
 widely distributed in Europe and Australia. In Hol- 
 land the society which instructs the poorer classes 
 
 48 
 
PROGRESS IN UNITED STATES 49 
 
 through the agency of medical men and midwives has 
 had the approval of ministers of state, and has since 
 1895 been recognized by royal decree as a society of 
 public utility. Yet Holland has not been going to the 
 dogs. The death-rate and infantile mortality have been 
 falling rapidly, the excess of births over deaths is in- 
 creasing, and according to the recent Eugenics congress, 
 the stature of the Dutch people has improved more rap- 
 idly than that of any other country." The article con- 
 tinued as follows: — 
 
 But what so many of the well-to-do and the educated practice 
 the poor are prevented from learning. The law in effect insists 
 that where conditions are worst, breeding shaU be most unregu- 
 lated, that those who can care for children least shall stagger 
 under a succession of pregnancies, that the race shall be replen- 
 ished by ignorance and accident, that the diseased, the weak- 
 minded, the incompetent, shall by law be compelled to fill the 
 world with horror. Men and women pay for it. They pay for 
 it by a high infant mortality, that monument of tragic waste. 
 They pay for it by the multiplication of the unfit, the production 
 of a horde of unwanted souls. They pay for it in the health of 
 women, the neglect of children, and the fierce burden of destitution. 
 They pay for it in late marriages, and their complement of pros- 
 titution and disease, in the wide-spread practice of abortion, in 
 illegitimate births, in desertions and adulteries. There is no one 
 of these miseries which cannot be largely reduced by the extension 
 to all classes of inventions already the property of the educated. 
 
 What are the objections to the use of a knowledge which is 
 defended by so few and practiced by so many? The root of them 
 is the tendency to shudder at anything which seems to interfere 
 
50 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 with God's plan. Added to it is the theory that sex is sin, that 
 whatever reduces its terror increases its joy. In this scheme of 
 things the child is a threat against unchastity, a punishment, as 
 they say, for "getting caught." It is the view of life which 
 makes men fight prophylaxis as an inducement to inunorality, which 
 terrorizes the unmarried mother, and insists the wages of sin shaU 
 be expiated in the death of infants, in thwarted childhood, in 
 hospitals. Insane asylums, and prisons. 
 
 But the clean good sense of mankind is through with that black 
 inversion, and wherever intelligent people meet, the doctrine is 
 accepted that the child shall not be considered the punishment of 
 sin but the vessel of the future. All decency to-day insists that 
 no one shall be born until there is a home anxious to receive him, 
 that nothing is to be gained by the bearing of undesired and 
 unforeseen children. . . . 
 
 Among reasoning people the argument from superstition is no 
 longer heard, and the supposed injury to health is urged less and 
 less. The ground of the discussion to-day is moral. It is said 
 that if sexual intercourse is severed from child-bearing, a great 
 increase of promiscuity will result. Eeduced to accurate terms, it 
 is believed that more unmarried women will have sexual relations. 
 On this ground the existing law is defended. But what is the 
 actual situation? The fact that contraceptives are not widely 
 known is the greatest cause of late marriages, because it is the 
 cost of children which makes men postpone their marriages. This 
 leaves an increasing population of unmarried men and women. 
 The great majority of men live an illicit sexual life with the 
 minority of women who are prostitutes. The other women remain 
 abstinent or they take a lover and either bear an illegitimate child 
 or undergo an abortion. The use of contraceptives would undoubt- 
 edly diminish the real evils of illegitimacy and abortion. . . . 
 After all, ignorance can be enforced only upon those wives of the 
 poor who suffer from it most. The young woman of the middle 
 
PROGRESS IN UNITED STATES 51 
 
 class who really wishes to know can find out," but it is the poor 
 and the illiterate who need to know and cannot find out. It is 
 the business of society to enlighten them, to allow physicians and 
 district nurses and mothers' clubs to spread the needed informa- 
 tion. It should not be necessary for brave women Uke Mrs. Sanger 
 to risk their liberty. The knowledge need not be published in the 
 newspapers. It should be circulated quietly and effectively. What 
 society cannot afford to do is to enforce the ignorance because 
 of a timidity about the potentially unchaste. A mature community 
 would trust its unmarried women, knowing that the evil of un- 
 chastity is greatly exaggerated. Our society does not seem to 
 have attained such self-confidence; it still seems to regard vir- 
 ginity and not child-life as the great pre-occupation of the State. 
 It has been claimed that the knowledge of how to limit births 
 is the most immediate practical step that can be taken to increase 
 human happiness. The relief which it would bring to the poor is 
 literally incalculable. The assistance it would lend aU effort to 
 end destitution and fight poverty is enormous. And to the mind of 
 man it would mean a release from terror, and the adoption openly 
 and frankly of the civilized creed that man must make himself the 
 master of his fate, instead of natural selection and accident, 
 human selection and reason; instead of a morality which is fear 
 of punishment, a morality which is the making of a finer race. 
 Fewer children and better ones is the only policy a modern state 
 can afford. If there are fewer children there will be better ones. 
 A nation must care for its young if they are precious. It cannot 
 waste them in peace or war with that insane prodigality which is 
 characteristic of the great spawning and dying nations where the 
 birth-rate and the death-rate are both exorbitant, where men breed 
 to perish. 
 
 " This statement is certainly far from true of England, quite 
 apart from ignorance that there is anything to know. Lady doc- 
 tors and even medical men are often amazingly ignorant of the 
 facts. 
 
52 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 To this statement of the ease, which was supported 
 with no less ability in the columns of The Masses, there 
 could be no answer. It came at a moment when Amer- 
 ica was faced by the issue which in England was settled 
 once and for all by the Bradlaugh trial. The prosecu- 
 tion of Margaret Sanger here referred to threatened to 
 repeat in the New "World what this country experienced 
 in the seventies. But English experience had not been 
 in vain and largely owing to the efforts of Dr. Marie C. 
 Stopes the following letter was addressed to President 
 Wilson bearing her signature together with those of Miss 
 Lena Ashwell, Dr. Percy Ames, Mr. William Archer, 
 Mr. Arnold Bennett, Mr. Edward Carpenter, Mr. Ayl- 
 mer Maude, Professor Gilbert Murray and Mr. H. G. 
 Wells : 
 
 "We understand that Mrs. Margaret Sanger is in danger of 
 criminal prosecution for circulating a pamphlet on birth problems. 
 We therefore beg to draw your attention to the fact that such 
 work as that of Mrs. Sanger receives appreciation and circulation 
 in every civilized country except the United States of America, 
 where it is still counted as a criminal offense. 
 
 "We in England passed, a generation ago, through the phase 
 of prohibiting the expressions of serious and disinterested opinion, 
 on a subject of such grave importance to humanity, and in our 
 view to suppress any such treatment of vital subjects is detrimental 
 to human progress. 
 
 ' ' Hence, not only for the benefit of Mrs. Sanger, but of human- 
 ity, we respectfully beg you to exert your powerful influence in 
 the interests of free speech and the betterment of the race. ' ' 
 
PROGRESS IN UNITED STATES 53 
 
 This letter was widely reproduced in the American 
 press, and the authorities shortly afterwards dropped 
 all action against Mrs. Sanger. Subsequent attempts at 
 repression have indeed been made, e. g., in New York 
 during the summer of 1916, but as a result of this episode 
 there will soon be no one in the U. S. A. who is not in 
 possession of the information objected to. Mrs. Sanger 
 has herself sent out over 100,000 fresh copies of her 
 suppressed pamphlet, and in every great city in U. S. A. 
 it has been reprinted and further circulated. Three New 
 York reprints alone accounted for 30,000 additional cop- 
 ies, and a mass meeting on the subject in the Carnegie 
 Hall was packed from floor to ceiling. The victory has 
 been won, and in a few weeks America has achieved 
 what England after forty years of slow up-hill labor 
 has not yet accomplished. 
 
 [For the sake of historical accuracy a few remarks 
 may not be out of place. For at least ten years before 
 Mrs. Sanger began her beneficent activity, the ground 
 was thoroughly prepared for birth-control ideas, and 
 tens of thousands of leaflets giving specific information 
 were sent out annually. 
 
 Mass meetings do not mean victory. It is easy to pack 
 a hall for almost any cause, just as it is easy to get an 
 audience in Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon. The 
 authorities are but little disturbed. Distance lends 
 charm and we are always apt to imagine that things 
 are better in countries far away, where we are not. The 
 
54 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 author says: "In a few weeks America has achieved 
 what England after forty years of slow up-hill labor 
 has not yet accomplished." I wish it were so. Alas, it 
 is not. Quite the contrary is the case. In England one 
 can send by mail specific information about the pre- 
 vention of conception to married people and those about 
 to get married. We cannot do it in this country. A 
 penalty of five years at hard labor and $5,000 fine still 
 threatens the offender as it did ten or twenty years ago. 
 And the imparting of birth-control information is still 
 considered an act of obscenity, and is still put on ex- 
 actly the same plane as abortion. It is true that the 
 Federal Government would, at the present time, prob- 
 ably be easy with one caught in the heinous crime of 
 sending contraceptive information by mail; but that is 
 due chiefly to the fact that for the first time since Lin- 
 coln we have in the White House a man truly broad- 
 minded, liberal and in touch with the people. There 
 can be little doubt that under the regime of a man of 
 the type of Koosevelt or Hughes — whose election at the 
 present time would have been a great calamity and for 
 whose defeat all true liberals are genuinely grateful — 
 the aggressive advocates of birth-control, particularly 
 the disseminators of practical information, would fare 
 very badly. 
 
 The imparting of information orally or by hand-to- 
 hand circulars is outside of Federal jurisdiction. They 
 constitute State offenses, and in such cases we are at 
 
PROGRESS IN UNITED STATES 55 
 
 the mercy of |tiie good-will or intelligence of our local 
 judges. A liberal judge will dismiss the case, or impose 
 a nominal fine ; a cruel medieval judge will sentence the 
 offender to several years in prison, as was recently done 
 by a judge in Boston. 
 
 And as I write these lines, word comes from Cleve- 
 land, 0., that Dr. Ben Eeitman, Emma Goldman's co- 
 worker, after being tried by a jury, was found guilty 
 and sentenced by an ignorant judge to six months in 
 prison and a fine of one thousand dollars — the maximum 
 penalty in Ohio. Dr. Eeitman 's crime consisted in dis- 
 tributing some leaflets containing practical information 
 on the prevention of conception. I might add here that 
 Emma Goldman and her group have been doing very 
 efficient work ia spreading birth-control information, 
 both theoretical and practical. 
 
 And to-day, February 6th, as this book goes to press, 
 Mrs. Sanger herself is being transported to Blackwell's 
 Island to serve a sentence, imposed upon her yester- 
 day, of thirty days in the workhouse; while her sister, 
 Mrs. Ethel Byrne, is at home sick, recovering from the 
 effects of an eleven-days hunger strike. She had also 
 been sentenced to thirty days in the workhouse, but her 
 dangerous physical condition and the interference of 
 influential friends forced the Governor to pardon her. 
 
 No, the victory has not been won yet, but we are 
 marching towards it. — W. J. R.] 
 
V. 
 
 OFFICIAL ALARM IN GERMANY. 
 
 Such being the experience even of the New World it 
 is not surprising that the country which more than all 
 others in the Old has peopled the United States with 
 its superfluous citizens should itself have had recourse 
 to this very same remedy for the evils of over-popula- 
 tion. During February, 1916, there was a full debate 
 in the Prussian Diet on the reduction of the birth-rate. 
 The Minister of the Interior, von Loebell, declared that 
 the matter was one of vital importance, and that the 
 war had made it of even greater importance for the 
 future. "Measures for raising the number of births 
 must be earnestly considered, war against sexual disease, 
 the care of infants, etc. And in general there must be 
 an earnest appeal to all classes, especially the upper 
 classes of the nation." Interesting statistics were 
 quoted. "Our birth-rate reached its highest level in 
 1876, viz., 40.9 to every 1,000 inhabitants. By 1912 it 
 had sunk to 28.2." In 1910 the rate was 30.7 for Ger- 
 
 56 S 
 
ALARM IN GERMANY 57 
 
 many, compared with 19.6 for France and 25 for Eng- 
 land. In the same year the excess of births over deaths 
 was 13.6 for Germany compared with 7.6 for France and 
 11.6 for England. "In this war," he declared, "the 
 decline in births will not injure us ; and before the next, 
 which I pray may be far from us, we shall have over- 
 come the present danger," — the danger involved in a 
 decline of population. 
 
 Most of the speakers laid the chief blame on the un- 
 willingness of women, especially in the upper classes, to 
 bear so many children as before. One deputy said "the 
 fact that it is precisely since 1900 that the birth-rate 
 has fallen so much shows that industrial conditions can- 
 not be the cause ; 1900 and the years that followed were 
 years of industrial expansion. We are in grave risk of 
 approaching the English and French condition, and must 
 be careful not to let ourselves sink to the 'level' of those 
 two states." 
 
 The most instructive speech of the debate was, how- 
 ever, that of the Government representative, Krohne, 
 whieh the Vienna Arbeit er Zeitung of February 27 
 rightly singles out for reproduction in extenso. 
 
 ' ' The decreasing birth-rate has caused us serious anxiety already 
 before the war. Since the war it has come to the fore still more. 
 In the middle of the last century the number of births (excluding 
 still-born) varied between 40-35 per 1,000 inhabitants. Since the 
 beginning of this century there was a considerable decline of the 
 birth-rate, which brought it in 12 years from 35 to 27 per 1,000 
 
58 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 inhabitants. The circumstances aceompanyiug this decline are 
 especially distressing. Since the beginning of this century the fall 
 was three times as quick as in the previous 25 years. No civilized 
 people has experienced up till now such a rapid fall of the birth- 
 rate in such a short time. For a similar decline, France, which 
 has a lower standard, took seventy, we only twelve years. We 
 have to-day 560,000 less births than we ought to have, had the 
 1900 birth-rate been kept. This means that we might have had 
 two and a half million more inhabitants than we have; i.e., nearly 
 71 million instead of 68 millions. This would be an inestimable 
 benefit to us considering the terrible sacrifices of this war. It 
 has been said that we need not be anxious as we have a very 
 favorable death-rate; and it is certainly true that, owing to the 
 economic progress and generally favorable conditions of life, as 
 well as hygienic measures on a vast scale, the death-rate has fallen 
 considerably. The death-rate was 26 per 1,000 inhabitants 30 
 years ago; it is 14 per 1,000 to-day; i.e., 700,000 less deaths in 
 Germany than if we still had the 1886 death-rate. But this only 
 means a postponement, not an abolition of the threatening danger. 
 Opinions as to the cause of this undesirable state of afEairs vary. 
 A deterioration of the race has been held responsible for it in the 
 first instance. In spite of some indications of weakness, this 
 opinion is not tenable. [The speaker then enumerated and dis- 
 missed the other absurdities which figure in public discussions and 
 in the press as causes of the decline in the birth-rate. He pro- 
 ceeded to the real reason.] But the true reason for tlje declining 
 birth-rate is that a certain view of life is gaining ground, which 
 considers marriage and children from a different standpoint, sees 
 in children a burden with all kinds of unpleasant responsibilities. 
 Unfortunately, this view has gained followers amongst the German 
 women, of whom many wish to have few or no children at all. 
 These women, in refusing to rear strong and able children, to con- 
 tinue the race, drag into the dust that which is the highest end 
 
ALARM IN GERMANY 59 
 
 of women — motherhood. It is to be hoped that the willingness 
 to bring sacrifices will lead to a change for the better. The sale 
 of means to prevent conception has become a pubUc scandal. The 
 most remote corners are visited by travelers for the manufacturers 
 of these articles — even female travelers. Though, of course, statis- 
 tical data for the destruction of germinating life [sioY are not 
 available, it is a question of great numbers. 
 
 Already Tacitus speaks of the restriction of children amongst the 
 ancient Germans as a serious mistake. The phenomenon of an 
 increase in the birth-rate after war, as has been noticed in former 
 wars, must not be counted upon to counter-balance the terrible 
 losses of this world war, unique in history. Many thousands of 
 young men are eliminated for some years. But we will make 
 good this loss, if we recognize the danger. We need an increase 
 in human beings to guard against attacks of envious neighbors as 
 well as to fulfill our cultural mission. Our whole economic develop- 
 ment depends on increase of our people. ..." 
 
 The middle-class newspapers proceeded to take up the 
 cry thus raised, "Central Europe needs children, chil- 
 dren!" Naumann's watchword in his famous hook is 
 quoted with enthusiasm,^ ' ' That is the indispensable con- 
 dition both for military and industrial success." 
 
 OfScial figures are quoted' for Prussia in 1914 — 
 1,202,528 births and 802,776 deaths, an excess of 399,752 
 
 •All over the world opponents of the preventives mentioned 
 endeavor to create the impression that destruction of life is in- 
 volved in their use. The suggestion is, of course, the result of 
 gross ignorance of the very rudiments of physiology; but here the 
 speaker could make the defense that he had passed on to the con- 
 sideration of abortion. 
 
 'Berliner Tagehlatt, March 9. 
 
 'Ihid., March 11. 
 
60 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 births, as against an excess of 492,474 in 1911. The 
 highest birth-rate known for Prussia was in 1821: "an 
 excess of births at the rate of 19.1 per thousand. . . . 
 This sank towards the middle of last century, then rose 
 again, and in 1898 reached a second climax, 16.7; but 
 from that time forward a decline has set in. ' ' 
 
 At first sight, in fact, the casual reader might imagine 
 that no one either in Germany or Austria considers the 
 lessening birth-rate as anything but a misfortune. At 
 a largely attended meeting in Austria* it was agreed 
 that "the necessity of guarding against a falling birth- 
 rate was recognized in every quarter by the representa- 
 tives of every class of opinion." Under the leadership 
 of Geheimer Regierungs-Rat Professor Dr. Julius Wolf, 
 a "Deutsche GeseUschaft fiir Bevolkerungs politik" has 
 recently been founded, and met in Berlin on the 18th 
 of November, 1915.^ Prof. Wolf pointed out to a huge . 
 audience that the increase in the Russian population was 
 yearly between 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 ; that of Germany 
 scarcely 800,000. The future was painted in dark col- 
 ors, for Wolf further drew attention to the fact that 
 the vast numbers of men kiUed and disabled in the war 
 must be subtracted from the present list of effectives, 
 while the entry of women into trades would certainly 
 
 ■" Neue Freie Fresse, March 13. 
 
 ° The writer is indebted to the courtesy of the Librarian of the 
 Lister Institute, Chelsea, for the opportunity of consulting the 
 periodicals on whose reports the summary of this important meet- 
 ing is based. 
 
ALARM IN GERMANY 61 
 
 not assist to reestablish tlie old rate. The Professor's 
 own remedy was "earlier marriages!" [The average 
 age of men at marriage in Prussia is 29, of women 
 25-26.] Girls, he thought, must receive domestic train- 
 ing in school. Motherhood must be endowed. 
 
 Of the speakers who followed this vigorous lead. Gen- 
 eral von Blume emphasized the military point of view, 
 Geheimrat Stoter the need for assistance from doctors. 
 A religious lady, Frl. Anna Miiller, thought women 
 would cooperate. Freiherr von Zedlitz believed that the 
 appeal must have a patriotic basis. Then came Nau- 
 mann, the author of Mittel-Europa. He regretted that 
 in the civil service where there is most economic security 
 for the parents the birth-ra'te is lowest of all. He wisely 
 pointed out that the actual means for preventing concep- 
 tion are the greatest safeguard against venereal dis- 
 eases ^ and, like Professor Wolf, found the remedy for 
 the decline not in repressive measures, but along positive 
 lines — viz., Taxation according to size of family. Hart- 
 mann, on behalf of the Trade Unions, emphasized the 
 need for social reform if the workers were to be induced 
 to help. Basserman (leader of the National Liberals) 
 objected to the sale of contraceptives in spite of the 
 point made by Naumann, to which Geheimrat Neisser 
 again returned; and, finally, came two speakers who 
 
 "Cf. the able analysis of the dangers of legal repression by Dr. 
 Max Hirseh, Fruchtabtreiburg und Fraventimerhehr (1914), p. 
 130 ff. 
 
62 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 thought that the best method of procedure was to make 
 the most of the children actually produced — Herr Hof- 
 meier (Wurzburg) pointing out that 30% of all illegiti- 
 mate children fail to survive, and Kabinettsrat Dr. von 
 Behr-Pinnow emphasizing the fact that 8,000,000 chil- 
 dren had been lost in their first year since the founda- 
 tion of the German Empire. 
 
 Such is the latest effort of the semi-official busybodies ; 
 and it is also worth noting that on February 27, 1915, 
 was founded a ' ' Bund zur Brhaltung und Mehrung der 
 deutschen Volkskraft" under the leadership of Prof. 
 Dr. Emil Abderhalden, which, to judge by a leaflet by 
 V. Haeekers, might easily lend itself to much the same 
 sort of propaganda. 
 
 Of Professor "Wolf's activities Dr. Alfred Fried has 
 written : "At the first meeting, strong military support 
 was given to the new society. It is madness, the apothe- 
 osis of unreason, to wish to breed and care for hu- 
 man beings in order that in the flower of their youth 
 they may be sent in millions to be slaughtered wholesale 
 by machinery. We need no wholesale production of 
 men, have no need of what Goldscheid aptly calls 'the 
 unfruitful fertility' of woman, no need of wholesale 
 wares fattened and dressed for slaughter. What we do 
 need is the careful maintenance of those already born. 
 If the bearing of children is, as the Conservative Deputy, 
 Dr. Heydebrand, says, a moral and religious duty, then 
 it is a much higher duty to guarantee the sacredness and 
 
ALARM IN GERMANY 63 
 
 security of human life, so that children born and bred 
 with trouble and sacrifice may not be offered up in the 
 bloom of youth to a political dogma at the bidding of 
 secret diplomacy. A sensible population policy can only 
 he carried out through a vigorous anti-war policy. The 
 current references to the increase of the birth-rate in 
 enemy countries are ridiculous. In future the only ene- 
 mies are those who refuse to believe in the elimination 
 of warj-aU. others are allies. A population policy based 
 on war and carried on in support of war is a crime 
 against humanity. ' ' 
 
VI. 
 
 MILITARISM AND THE BIRTH-RATE. 
 
 "And Lot also which went with Abrcum had flocks and 
 herds and tents. And the land was not able to hear 
 them, that they might dwell together. And there was a 
 strife hetween the herdmsn of Abra/m's cattle and the 
 herdmen of Lot's cattle." — Holy Weit. 
 
 "What do you think is at the present moment the 
 greatest of fhe social problems with which we have to 
 deal? The greatest and most difficult is the lack of em- 
 ployment. What is the reason? The reason is to he 
 found — the principal reason — in the continuous and 
 enormous growth of our population." — Joseph Cham- 
 
 BEELAIN. 
 
 "Remember this, that between 300,000 and 400,000 
 souls are added to our community yearly. Do you im- 
 agine that the means of supplying them increases with 
 equal rapidity? There is no ground for believing that 
 it does so. . . . What you want is a good hearty emigra- 
 tion." — LoED Salisbury. 
 " 64 
 
MILITARISM AND BIRTH-RATE 65 
 
 "We have in this country an overflowing population, 
 and we are hound to find for their industrial energy ever 
 fresh and fresh fields and outlets." — Sik Henbt Camp- 
 bell-Bannerman. 
 
 "Can a great and rapidly growing nation like Ger- 
 many always renounce all claims to further develop- 
 m,ent or to the expatision of its political power? The 
 final settlement with France and England, the expan- 
 sion of our colonial possessions, in order to create new 
 German homes for the overflow of our population, . . . 
 these are the problems which must he faced in the near 
 future."— "B^RhiwER Post," 1913. 
 
 "Mr. Walter Long {President of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board) agreed that they must do everything in 
 their power to recover the hirth-rate, as it was never 
 more essential that our great race should expand and 
 cover the glohe." — "Ma.nchester Guardian," June 
 29th, 1916. 
 
 "The pressure of population in any country hrings as 
 a chief historic consequence overflows and migrations not 
 only for peaceful settlement hut for conquest axnd for 
 the subjugation and exploitation of weaker peoples. 
 This always remains a chief cause of international dis- 
 putes." — The Declining Birth-Rate (National Com- 
 mission's Report), p. 43. 
 
 Since the days of Abram and Lot the relations of war 
 and over-population have provided a fruitful theme for 
 
66 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 discussion. Since the time of Malthus the statement that 
 "War has been one of nature's chief devices for keeping 
 population within limits, has become a truism. The 
 corollary that over-population has been one of the chief 
 inducements to war has not been so frequently devel- 
 oped. ' ' Historians, ' ' wrote Huxley, ' ' point to the greed 
 and ambition of rulers, the reckless turbulence of the 
 ruled, to the debasing effects of wealth and luxury, and 
 to the devastating wars which have formed a great part 
 of the occupation of mankind, as the causes of the de- 
 cay of States and the foundering of old civilizations, and 
 thereby point their story with a moral. But beneath all 
 this superficial turmoil lay the deep-seated impulse given 
 by unlimited multiplication."^ At last the great 
 "swarming" periods of European races seemed to have 
 come to an end, but ever and anon the expansion of the 
 population of Germany since the Franco-Prussian war 
 has been regarded in the English press as a new menace. 
 The matter has usually been considered as a fatality 
 by those who referred to it, though as regards the facts 
 there is less agreement. Said Mr. Blatchford in his Daily 
 Mail articles four years before the war — "Why should 
 Germany attack Britain? The population of Germany 
 is rapidly increasing. Germany needs colonies; Britain 
 
 ^Similaxly Dr. C. E. Woodruff, an enterprising but uncritical 
 militarist, remarks in his Expansion of Saces (New York, 1909), 
 p. 127, ' ' Curiously enough, the real basis of war — over-population 
 — has not been mentioned by any writers who have ever touched 
 the topic." 
 
MILITARISM AND BIRTH-RATE 67 
 
 has taken all the colonies worth having. Britain holds 
 India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Egypt, and the 
 most desirable parts of Africa. Germany is hungry for 
 trade and for influence in distant seas; Britain holds 
 fortresses and coaling stations all over the earth." 
 
 Almost at the same time a writer ia the Nineteenth 
 Century (January, 1910) was asking: "Is Germany 
 keenly desirous of annexing new lands? Of course she 
 is. How could she be otherwise with a population of 70 
 millions, which in time to come will be nigh on 100 mil- 
 lions, confined within narrow limits? . . . Germany 
 must find an outlet for her people. ' ' 
 
 And since the war came the same view has not infre- 
 quently appeared in the English press. Listen to this 
 little sermon in the Daily Mirror just four months after 
 
 the invasion of Belgium: 
 
 \ 
 
 ' ' A year or two ago, in one of his oratorical reviews of the eon- 
 dition-of -Germany question, the Kaiser is reported to have summed 
 up the situation by remarking that by 1950 Germany would possess 
 a population of a truly hideous figure — say, two hundred millions 
 or near it. 
 
 ' ' And therefore ? — Well, therefore you would suppose it would be, 
 from that moment, the solemn duty of Germany to imitate the in- 
 stance of thrifty France, and to bring her birth-rate into line with 
 those of less state-ridden races, so as to spare humanity the misery 
 and disgrace of an ill-considered multiplication that assimilates it 
 to rabbits or flies. . . . Not in the least ! The Kaiser 's conclusion 
 was, not that the Germans should remember, in this birth-rate 
 business, the common duty of all civilized mortals, but that they 
 
68 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 siould, by hook or by crook, by bayonet or battleship, possess 
 themselves of such other lands in' Europe, or overseas, as might be 
 needed for their natural expansion! ... It may not be exactly 
 true that Germany was in need of territorial expansion; leave that, 
 for the moment, to experts. It was substantially true, we think, 
 that an impression prevailed there that Germany was 'overpopu- 
 lated. ' ... A letter in our correspondence column yesterday 
 rightfully put the root fact of an uncontrolled birth-rate, upsetting 
 the European equilibrium, as the one that has led, through what- 
 ever subsidiary incidents, to the tragedy from which it will take 
 generations for Europe to recover. Let all birth-rate maniacs think 
 this over before peace is made. ' ' 
 
 ^ On week days it is the Kaiser's doing. On Sundays 
 democratic sentiments prevail. Said the Sunday Chron- 
 icle on August 15, 1915 : "It is a struggle for existence, 
 and in this struggle people of one nation naturally unite 
 against people of another. . . . Germany had become 
 crowded. . . . The German workman wants for his sons 
 the heritage of the French workman ; the German farmer 
 wants for his sons the heritage of the Russian farmer; 
 and the German merchant wants for his sons the heritage 
 of the British merchant." 
 
 Now four months earlier when an innocent pubUe was 
 expecting a flood of War Babies, the Sunday Chronicle 
 had published an article "From Our Special Commis- 
 sioner. ' ' Our Special Commissioner describes the views 
 of his friends. "Her rapidly increasing population," 
 says the club member, "is Germany's justification for 
 expansion. If we want to smash the Germans and re- 
 
MILITARISM AND BIRTH-RATE 69 
 
 move the Teutonic peril out of our path for ever we 
 must start a new Kultur in Germany. "We must spread 
 the gospel according to the Neo-Malthusians. We have 
 enough practitioners thereof to spare a few for propa- 
 ganda purposes among the Germans as soon as peace is 
 made." 
 
 "He was a plausible club member," continues the 
 article, "and I have no doubt that round the fire few 
 were left unconvinced that there was something in what 
 he said. Yet the facts are against him, as I discovered 
 when, my interest piqued by his statements, I set out to 
 check them. As a matter of cold fact, the German peo- 
 ple, if decadence is to be measured by the decline of 
 birth-rates, are three times more decadent than we are, 
 for, although the birth-rate is higher than ours by 
 roughly 3 per 1,000 of the population, the decline, which 
 set in considerably later there than here, has been far 
 more rapid." 
 
 Such was the strange mixture of journalism and com- 
 mon sense presented to the plain man in these stray 
 signs of grace — and last of all comes the economist, 
 tentatively illuminating as befits his position of dignity. 
 Speaking in Cambridge on May 25, 1916, Dr. J. H. Clap- 
 ham, of King's College, remarked that suddenly in the 
 early years of the present century German wealth in 
 children began to decline very rapidly. The level was 
 still growing a very little more rapidly than that of the 
 United Kingdom, but the German thinkers began to see 
 
70 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 a time when their importance would dwindle simply for 
 lack of men. He had no right to say that diplomacy was 
 influenced by the desire to come in on the top of the 
 wave, but . . . 
 
 Here, then, is the suggestion we have to examine. The 
 outstanding feature of the European situation was the 
 startling decline of the German birth-rate contrary to 
 the desire of the bureaucracy. The disgruntled mili- 
 tarists plunged accordingly. And let no one think the 
 charge too harsh. Another economist less careful in 
 choosing his words to expose the callous indifference to 
 social suffering of those who favor unlimited multiplica- 
 tion in these days. Professor T. N. Carver, of Harvard 
 University, is justly respected in this country for his 
 brilliant writings on economic theory. "Foxes," he said 
 recently, "think large families among the rabbits highly 
 commendable. Employers who want large supplies of 
 cheap labor, priests who want large numbers of parish- 
 ioners, military leaders who want plenty of cheap food 
 for gunpowder, and politicians who want plenty of 
 voters, all agree in com mending large families and rapid 
 multiplication among the poorer classes." 
 
 The Very Rev. Dr. Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, and late 
 Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University 
 of Cambridge, is equally emphatic in singling out the 
 prime movers in this pernicious propaganda to promote 
 "the aggregation of multitudes in large towns, the pro- 
 gressive defacement of our beautiful country, the pres- 
 
MILITARISM AND BIRTH-RATE 71 
 
 sure of a permanent surplus of laborers who cannot ob- 
 tain work, and the fierce competition which is a neces- 
 sary concomitant of a dense population." Three classes 
 only, he says, are interested in raising the ridiculous cry 
 of "depopulation" — ridiculous because the births in this 
 country exceed the deaths by about five to three, and 
 even in France the numbers are increasing. "These 
 classes are : Firstly, the militarists, who look upon men 
 as food for powder. Secondly, the capitalists, who de- 
 sire an unlimited quantity of cheap labor, with a margin 
 which will give them a favorable position in bidding for 
 it. Thirdly, the advocates of cut-throat competition as 
 the means of producing the maximum of industrial effi- 
 ciency. Our society cannot have the slightest sympathy 
 with any of these ideas. ' ' ^ 
 "The Eugenics Review, October, 1913. 
 
vn. 
 
 THE SOCIAL-DEMOCKATS. 
 
 It might have been supposed that counsels such as 
 these would have found their most vigorous adherents 
 in the ranks of the Social-Democratic party. Many 
 prominent members of this party have, it is true, con- 
 stantly advocated a restriction of the birth-rate, but 
 since the days of Bebel there has been continuous opposi- 
 tion to such restriction on orthodox Marxian principles.^ 
 It would have as a result the apparent acquittal of the 
 existing state of society as the source of all misfortune: 
 and further, it is felt that if things are going well with 
 the worker (also an indirect admission that the worker 
 is better off when he has fewer children) he no longer 
 has any interest in the movement. It is forgotten that 
 many of those who are the worst off are too miserable 
 to take an interest in the movement as it is: otherwise 
 
 'Marx, Vas Kapital, voL I, p. 590 ff. Exploded by Soetbeer 
 (1886) ; and Pieraon (^Principles, II, 141) ; also by Budge, op. dt., 
 p. 135 ff. 
 
 72 
 
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 73 
 
 Social-Democracy would long ago have come into its own. 
 In 1892 Bebel made the following statement ia reply 
 to the argument of a Deputy who, in the Reichstag de- 
 bate on unemployment, thought it would be to the ad- 
 vantage of agriculture if the superfluous workers of the 
 towns could return to the land: "What would be the 
 consequence? The miserable wages which are now being 
 paid ia the country would drop still further and the 
 general position of the workers would become worse than 
 it is already." Hereby he admitted the advantage of 
 restricted numbers. Yet in the same year Vollmer wrote 
 (Die Neue Zdt, No. 7) : "The party, which like the 
 rising tide overflows all barriers, which pours itself over 
 country and town, even into the most reactionary dis- 
 tricts, this party stands to-day at the point where it can 
 fix the time with almost arithmetical certainty when 
 it wiU dominate." And Bebel himself at the sitting of 
 the Reichstag already referred to, ventured on the fol- 
 lowing prophecy: "The realization of our aims is so 
 near that there are few in this hall who will not live to 
 see the time, for our party mil take possession of the 
 State towards the year 1898." It is now 25 years since 
 these words were uttered by important leaders. And 
 what about to-day? Moreover the advantage of a re- 
 striction of numbers has always been a fundamental 
 tenet of trade-unionism — ^in Germany no less than else- 
 where, as Gaechter ^ has pointed out. "Is it," he asks, 
 'H. Gaechter, Ende der Armat, p. 31. 
 
74 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 "more advantageous for trades-unions to possess mem- 
 bers in fair circumstances or members hard pressed? 
 Think of wages disputes and strikes. Would not the 
 resistance of the individual be greater, would not a so- 
 ciety be in a better position to give financial support 
 where it has not so many mouths to feed?" Gaechter 
 goes on to consider the attitude of the trades-union press, 
 which advises parents whose boys are about to enter cer- 
 tain trades not to let their sons become locksmiths, car- 
 penters, bakers, etc., owing to the bad conditions of the 
 workers in the professions in question. The disadvan- 
 tages of bad trades are so ably exposed that many a 
 father hardly knows what he can safely let his son leam ! 
 The same complaints are made in the civil service about 
 the ever-growing pressure, though they have much less 
 to put up with than the industrial workers. The trades- 
 unions, too, recognize the danger of this pressure, and 
 try to counter it by stricter regulations as regards ap- 
 prenticeship. Tet the official leaders of the Pajty elect 
 to throw over the fundamentals of restriction on which 
 the whole economic policy of the workers is based. The 
 Social-Democrats have always opposed war, but their 
 leaders have failed to take the advice of the Belgian 
 General Briabnont, who, a few years ago, on the occa- 
 sion of a University address, explained that there was 
 no other means of obviating wars than the artificial limi- 
 tation of progeny, and the guarantee of a good income 
 
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 75 
 
 for each individual citizen which would thereby be ren- 
 dered possible. 
 
 So much for the officials and the theorists of the party 
 with their appeal to the economic theories of Marx and 
 to the needs of the Social-Democratic army in its battle 
 against capitalism. It is these leaders who are so fre- 
 quently quoted when population questions are discussed 
 in England, by writers who have never studied the mat- 
 ter at first hand, but have gladly availed themselves of 
 the English translation of Bebel's Woman, and gen- 
 eralize accordingly. But happily there is little connec- 
 tion between socialist theory and socialist practice. All 
 over Germany the official view is openly scouted, both at 
 meetings and in the press. All observers are agreed that 
 the reduction of the birth-rate is very largely a social- 
 democratic affair. Borntraeger in his important semi- 
 official inquiry into the population problem proves be- 
 yond doubt that the decline has been most pronounced 
 in socialistic towns such as Berlin, Crefeld, Solingen; 
 and provinces such as Brandenburg, "West Prussia, 
 Posen.^ And Wolf {Oeiurtenriickgang, p. 101) rightly 
 connects this fact with the emancipation of Social 
 Democracy from religion. 
 
 Though the Miinchner Neueste (July 9, 1912) at- 
 tempted to prove, and the Tagliche Rundschau a few 
 days later to disprove, that Catholic and Protestant 
 countries were the same in respect to variations in the 
 ' Of. Julius Wolf, VoTkswirtschaft, p. 297. 
 
76 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 birth-rate, the evidence of many inquiries * does not al- 
 low us to say more than that orthodox Catholicism cer- 
 tainly regards facultative sterility the deadliest vice.° 
 Moreover, as Professor Cannan {Economic Jouriwl, I.e.) 
 puts it, "the local coincidence of high natality and faith- 
 fulness to the Church does not prove that Christianity, 
 whether Roman, or Greek, or Protestant, is powerful, but 
 only that the conditions ia so-called backward districts 
 are more favorable at once to high natality and faith- 
 fulness to the Church than more 'modern' conditions." 
 But wherever, as ia modern France, the power of eeclesi- 
 astieism has been shattered by the rising democracy (P. 
 Leroy-BeauUeu in Journal des Debats, 20th August, 
 1890, etc.; Arsene Dumont, Natalite et Democratie) , a 
 tendency definitely favorable to limitation is clearly dis- 
 cernible. It cannot be too strongly emphasized how dis- 
 astrous has been the influence of the churches in all coun- 
 tries in the matter of population, in spite of a few indi- 
 vidual exceptions. The general antagonism of Church 
 and Reform culminated in France in complete disestab- 
 lishment. Germany has been much influenced by the 
 experience of France in this respect, and a few words 
 may profltably be devoted here to one of the most im- 
 portant features of that experience. 
 
 'See e.g., Pyszka, Bergarbeiterbevdlkerung, 1911; Berger, Zeit- 
 Bdh/rift fur MediaincUbeamte, 1911, 23; Theilhaber, Das Sterile 
 Berlin, 1913, p. 102, etc. 
 
 "P. Kroae, Einfiuss der Konfession auf die SittlicKkeit, p. 14. 
 Cf. P. V. Hammerstein, Konfession und SittlidMceit, p. 13. 
 
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 77 
 
 It is no longer tlie fashion in England to sneer at the 
 so-called decadence of France, and many Englishmen 
 have learnt to realize the true spirit of our Ally for the 
 first time since the outbreak of the war. Indeed many 
 who had been misled by the ignorant references in the 
 English press to the birth-rate during the past quarter 
 of a century (always embellished by the copious lamenta- 
 tions of certain reactionaries in Paris) must have won- 
 dered whence came this astonishing vitality, this cheer- 
 ful invincibility in the face of overwhelming misfortune. 
 The true progress of France, that social progress and 
 independence which resulted from the mitigation of the 
 blind struggle for bread, is only to be explained in one 
 way, and had the evils of the military tradition inherited 
 from Napoleonic times been overcome, France would 
 have been even more clearly the undisputed leader of 
 European civilization. 
 
 Consider the following verdict of one of the most pene- 
 trating of modern sociological writers: — 
 
 " 'A French gentleman, well acquainted with the constitution of 
 his country, told me above eight years since that France increased 
 so rapidly in peace that they must necessarily have a war every 
 twelve or fourteen years to carry off the refuse of the people. ' So 
 Thicknesse wrote in 1776, and he seems to have accepted the state- 
 ment as unimpeachable. Indeed, he lived long enough to see the 
 beginning of the deadliest wars in which France ever engaged. The 
 French were then the most military people in Europe. Now they 
 are the leaders in the great modern civilizing movement of anti- 
 militarism. To what predominant influence are we to attribute 
 
78 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 that movement? To Christiamty? Moat certainly not. To Hu- 
 manitarianismf There is not the slightest reason to believe it. The 
 ultimate and fundamental ground on which the most civilized na- 
 tions of to-day are becoming anti-militant, and why France is at 
 the head of them, is — there can be no reasonable doubt — the De- 
 cline in the Birth-rate. Men are no longer cheap enough to be used 
 as food for cannon. . . . The people of the nations are growing 
 resolved that they will no longer be treated as ' Eef use. ' The real 
 refuse, they are beginning to believe, already ripe for destruction, 
 are those Obscurantists who set their backs to civilization and 
 humanity, and clamor for a return of that ill-fated recklessness 
 in pro-creation from which the world suffered so long, the ancient 
 motto, 'Increase and multiply,' — ^never meant for use in our mod- 
 ern world, — stUl clinging so firmly to the dry walls of their ancient- 
 skulls that nothing will ever scrape it off.''" 
 
 Or again, let us take the even more emphatic pro- 
 nouncement of Mr. W. L. George,'' whose intimate 
 knowledge of France is shared by few in this country. 
 "Small population," he tells us, "makes for personal 
 comfort. The struggle for life is not too intense in 
 Prance and allows the people to enjoy the good things 
 of this world that more imperial States deny to their 
 citizens; this makes for the solidarity and stability of 
 families and ensures the child the maximum of care, edu- 
 cation, and capital that its parents can give. It is in 
 great part owing to her low birth-rate that France is 
 probably one of the most prosperous countries in the 
 world, and that her gold reserves per head exceed the 
 
 ° Havelock Ellis, Impressions and Comments, 1914, p. 160. 
 ' France in the XXth Century, p. 259. 
 
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 79 
 
 known averages of other European nations. The grind- 
 ing poverty of our industrial population is unknown in 
 France; other factors, such as temperance and thrift, 
 come into the question, but the smaU size of the popula- 
 tion makes for fair wages and fair rents. In this con- 
 nection it should be noted that the terrible housing diffi- 
 culties of British cities are practically unknown in 
 France." 
 
 The French woman's problems, says Mr. George (p. 
 315), "are simplified by the low birth-rate, the calls on 
 the household funds are obviously less, and, above aU, 
 the French woman can find time to be a wife as weU as 
 mother, and to create for her husband a home where he 
 is not looked upon as an interloper, entitled solely to 
 toleration as the father of the children." 
 
 The outstanding feature of the French mother is her 
 extreme devotion to her children: "Maternal love is a 
 ferocious thing, ready at a pinch to devour the mother 
 herself ; in France it is carried to sublime lengths of de- 
 votion, to sublime lengths of folly. Owing, perhaps, to 
 tHe fact that families are small, that they so often num- 
 ber but one child, the mother's love concentrates itself 
 round but few objects; it gains in intensity that which 
 it loses in extent. The child is everything ; its weU-being, 
 its training, its education, are the mother's perpetual 
 care ; French households do not know the nursery where 
 the child is given over to hirelings ; it hardly knows the 
 kindergarten where it is estranged from its mother, the 
 
80 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 boarding school at an early age where the gentle boy is 
 coarsened and brutalized. Not only does the French 
 mother usually nurse her own baby, but in later years 
 she will attend to its feeding and clothing herself; she 
 will herself give it its first lessons, make it her playmate 
 as well as her toy. In these respects she does not differ 
 from the best British mothers, but the average type 
 seems superior to that known in these isles." 
 
 Where the most striking contrast appears, however, 
 is in the matter of education. Even among the working 
 classes home education is a feature, particularly as re- 
 gards the girls. France does not in this direction suffer 
 under the handicap that afflicts Great Britain, where 
 evil social conditions have driven women into the labor 
 market, ignorant and unorganized. 
 
 The constant interchange of ideas between French and 
 German socialists has allowed a realization of the cause 
 of French prosperity to reach the German proletariat. 
 In this and in other ways the rank and file have been 
 influenced in a direction contrary to that in which their 
 generals have striven to lead them. But there is an even 
 more active and significant movement which we must 
 now consider. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE BIRTH STRIKE. 
 
 "/ think, dearest Uncle, you cannot eeallt ^vish me 
 to be the 'Mamma d'une nombreuse fwmille,' for I think 
 you will see the great inconvenience a labge family 
 would he to us all, and particularly to the country, inde- 
 pendent of the hardship and inconvenience to myself. 
 Men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task 
 it is for us women to go through this veet often." 
 
 Queen Victoria in a letter to the 
 King of the Belgians, January 15, 1841. 
 
 "Overjoyed at the news that his wife had given birth 
 to another baby, which increased his family to fifteen, a 
 laborer at Hale, Surrey, picked up his bicycle and at- 
 tempted to swing it over a hedge. In the effort he fell 
 backwards with the machine on top of him, and received 
 injuries to his head and ribs which necessitated his re- 
 moval to the Farnhcm. Infirmary." — "Daily Mail." 
 
 81 
 
82 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 "At the Henley Rural District Tribunal the answer 
 to the question to applicants as to how many children 
 they had has invariably been 'One.' . . . Yesterday, 
 however, am applicant stated that he had 15 children, 
 and the Board of Agriculture representative remarked 
 that the man deserved not only exemption, but high com^ 
 mendation. The military representative agreed, and the 
 Tribunal granted the mxin absolute exem.ption." — 
 "Daily News." 
 
 "Woman is given to us that she may bear children. 
 Woman is our property, we are not hers, because she 
 produces children for us — we do not yield any to her. 
 She is, therefore, our possession as the fruit tree is that 
 of the gardener." — ^Napoleon. 
 
 From time to time in England we hear talk of the 
 possibility of a so-called sex war ; from time to time emo- 
 tional writers have referred vaguely to sueh a war as the 
 possible outcome of the refusal of man to grant the fran- 
 chise to women. Often, quite as vaguely, a conflict be- 
 tween the interests of male and female labor in Trade 
 Union matters has been suggested by the term. Occa- 
 sionally some earnest writer has written in bitterness 
 of definite organized action on the part of women. Thus 
 Madame Sarah Grand in the Daily Chrotiicle of Au- 
 gust 30th, 1909. She refers to the evil that flourishes 
 in a world, and the apathy of men, who will do nothing 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 83 
 
 to check poverty, nothing to avert fresh wars: "Has 
 the Boer War taught them anything? That country 
 laid waste, the homes wrecked, those women and chil- 
 dren doomed to death amid the horrors of the concen- 
 tration camps, and all those lives of strong young men 
 sacrificed to settle a difference that might have been 
 amicably adjusted by a few right-minded men in easy 
 conversation after dinner. It has taught us women 
 something. . . . Year by year in this country alone be- 
 tween four and five thousand mothers have hitherto laid 
 down their lives without a murmur in the attempt to 
 bring living children into the world. And to what end ? 
 To suffer. Suffering is the only certainty in store for 
 us in life, men say — and it is just about the only thing 
 they do say that is perfectly true. Man makes his own 
 misery, and the misery of those about him, and of those 
 who come after him, and there is only one way — so 
 women are saying — in which women, excluded as they 
 are from aU practical participation in the direction of 
 affairs, can prevent the awful needless suffering which 
 men accept ia the abstract as a matter of course. . . . ' If 
 children must be born to misery, it is obviously wrong 
 that they should be bom at all.' So say the women at 
 the clubs. And what the women are saying amongst 
 themselves at their clubs to-day wiU be the talk of the 
 fashionable dinner-tables to-morrow, and the common 
 places of the country a few years hence." 
 A few yes,rs passed, and women stiU refused to fulfill 
 
84 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 the prophecy — save only the working women of Berlin. 
 They refused to listen to the exhortations of the patriots 
 who desired them to provide ever fresh food for cannon 
 in a war which they saw might only too easily be an 
 aggressive war. Equally they refused to listen to their 
 own leaders adjuring them to provide fighters in the 
 endless class-war whose end had been so long delayed! 
 The present writer happened to be passing through 
 Berlin at the time of the meetings, and was able 
 to note the disconcerting effect to this bold action on 
 the conservative and reactionary public. Let an Amer- 
 ican observer describe the situation in relation to the 
 not less instructive discomfiture of the party leaders. 
 Here is the account given in the Critic a/nd Guide, Octo- 
 ber, 1913, by Dr. William J. Robinson, President of the 
 American Society of Medical Sociology, etc., and Editor 
 of the American Journal of Urology and Sexology. 
 
 "I had read in Vorwdrts that on that evening a mass meeting, 
 under the auspices of the Social Democratic Party, would take 
 place, at which the subject of the limitation of offspring would 
 be discussed. This was to be the second meeting dealing with this 
 subject. Another meeting had taken place the week before, August 
 22nd, at which several eminent Socialist women, among them Bosa 
 Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin, spoke very strongly against the limi- 
 tation of offspring among the poor. In fact the title of the dis- 
 cussion was 'Gegen den GeburtstreikI ' — 'Against the birth strike. 
 . . .' The enthusiasm, or rather the interest, of the audience was 
 intense. One could see that with them it was not merely a dialectic 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 85 
 
 question, as it was with tlieir leaders, but a matter of life and 
 death. 
 
 "I came to attend a meeting agai/nst the limitation of offspring; 
 it soon proved to be a meeting very decidedly for the limitation of 
 offspring, for every speaker who spoke in favor of the artificial 
 prevention of conception, or undesired pregnancies, was greeted 
 with vociferous, long-lasting applause; while those who tried to 
 persuade the people that a smaU number of children is no pro- 
 letarian weapon, and would not improve their lot, were so hissed 
 that they had difficulty in going on. The speakers who were 
 against the limitation of offspring idea soon felt that their audi- 
 ence was against them. . . . Why was there such small attendance 
 at the regular Socialistic meetings, while the meetings of this 
 character were packed to suffocation? It did not apparently pene- 
 trate the leaders' heads that the reason was a simple one. Those 
 meetings were evidently of no interest to them, while those which 
 dealt with the limitation of offspring were of personal, vital, 
 present interest. . . . 
 
 "What particularly amused me — and pained me — in the anti- 
 limitationists was the ease and equanimity with which they advised 
 the poor women to keep on bearing children. The woman herself 
 was not taken into consideration, as if she was not a human 
 being, but a machine. What are her sufferings, her labor pains, 
 her sleepless nights, her inability to read, to attend meetings, to 
 have a taste of life? What does she amount to? The proletariat 
 needs fighters. Go on, females, and breed like animals. Maybe 
 of the thousands you bear a few will become party members. . . . 
 Two points the speakers emphasized repeatedly: that not only 
 absolutely, but proportionately, the largest number of prostitutes 
 (as well as of strike-breakers) comes from the large families; and 
 that the women who are the mothers of many children can but 
 rarely, and with greatest difficulty, be got to interest themselves 
 
86 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 in the 'cause,' or even in ordinary culture or literature. They 
 have neither the time nor the inclination. 
 
 "When the meeting was over, at 11.30, the matter seemed to 
 stand as follows: — Whether the limitation of offspring is to be 
 considered a revolutionary weapon against militarism and capi- 
 talism is questionable; but that it is a wonderful measure in 
 improving the condition of individual families, in guarding the 
 health of the woman, and in generally strengthening the working 
 classes in their political and economic battles, about this there 
 could be no question. And the feeling was that though the Clara 
 Zetkins and Rosa Luxemburgs, and all other literal and figurative 
 old maids, could talk and scold until doomsday, the diminishing 
 birth-rate will go on diminishing still further until such a time 
 when the people will feel that by bringing a child into the world 
 they are not increasing the sum total of human misery, ill-health 
 and wretchedness. ' ' 
 
 And in this determined attitude the working-women of 
 Berlin have heen decidedly influenced by the leaders of 
 the feminist movement, which has lately made great 
 headway amongst the educated classes. Here, for in- 
 stance, are some sentences from the preface which Frau 
 Marie Stritt, President of the "Woman Suffrage Union 
 of Germany, wrote to the German translation of Dr. 
 Rutgers' book, Eassenverhesserung, Malthusianismus 
 und Neo-malthusicmismus. Frau Stritt occupies a posi- 
 tion in the German suffrage movement similar to that 
 held by Mrs. Fawcett in England, and it is interesting 
 to note that a few years ago Mrs. Fawcett went so far 
 as to say, "Nothing will permanently affect pauperism 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 87 
 
 while the present reckless increase of population con- 
 tinues. ' ' 
 
 "One would think," wrote Frau Stritt, "that voluntary regu- 
 lation of the number of children by the mother would be the 
 fundamental, self-evident demand of those who assert on women's 
 behalf all the subjective and objective rights of personality. One 
 would think that the bare suggestion that her most intimate con- 
 cern should be stripped of free will and personal responsibility 
 and left to blind chance and sex-slavery alone would outrage all 
 the advocates of the woman movement. However, this has not 
 hitherto been the case. There are still few in our ranks who dare 
 to draw the same conclusion for all, and openly to confess their 
 allegiance. . . . The question of family limitation in Germany is 
 still handled in a purely academic way; people sit around the 
 discussion table and exchange opinions, without reckoning at all 
 with the most important factor in their discussion, the mothers 
 immediately concerned. . . . The idea is emphatically rejected for 
 the great masses of the people, though practical Malthusianism is 
 winning ground from day to day in educated circles, that is, with 
 the people around the discussion table. . . . Women still accept in 
 the questions of population the standpoint of men as the only 
 correct one; and try to reconcile themselves to the deepest distress 
 of their own sex with the weak concession that family limitation 
 may be desirable for the individual woman in the individual case 
 but would be harmful to society for certain economic reasons. . . . 
 All her other achievements in the economic, social and intellectual 
 fields, and together with them, all her general cultural achieve- 
 ments, remain illusory, or at best limited to a comparatively small 
 group, so long as women do not have the responsibility of their 
 lives as mothers — so long as, in this most fundamental point of 
 the woman's sphere, they leave the dominion in the hands of 
 blindly-swaying natural forces which civilized man masters in 
 
88 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 all other spheres and yokes in the service of his own will and 
 purposes. Thus this question involves for all those who have 
 learned to think things to their conclusion the real innermost core 
 of the woman question. Thus in a certain sense the population 
 question is to be regarded as the woman question. 'Henceforth 
 the woman will not sigh beneath her fertility as beneath the curse 
 of the lost paradise; through physiological knowledge she has again 
 come to be the mistress of her own body and of her own fate.' 
 These brave words of Dr. Eutgers are already partly true for the 
 educated and possessing classes, thanks to the means of medical 
 science in the last three decades and the practical Malthusianism 
 founded thereupon which has been growing more and more at home 
 in our own country. In view of this fact, however, it is a press- 
 ing, an indeniable duty of the middle class woman movement which 
 embraces all these circles, to share its blessings, primarily by 
 means of a general educational propaganda, with those who need 
 them even more, for whom they are a life-and-death question — 
 the weary and heavy-laden mothers of the working people." 
 
 Later, in 1910, Frau Stritt once more appealed to the 
 leaders of the suffrage movement, amongst whom she 
 occupies so honored a position, to face this great ques- 
 tion. Again she emphasized the fact that the population 
 question was first developed by educated and uneducated 
 inen, principally from the point of view of a masculine 
 state and masculine authority. Women have thus either 
 been treated entirely as a negligible quantity, or as a 
 certainly indispensable but unquestioning yoke-bearer 
 for the provision of the greatest possible amount of food 
 for powder ; at best as an irresponsible means of minis- 
 tering to their pleasure. From the standpoint of a 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 89 
 
 patriarchal society and of a military State this is only 
 logical and consistent. But even among those who pre- 
 fer a better quality instead of this brutal and most de- 
 ceptive call for quantity, there are extremely few to 
 whom it is clear that the principal person in this con- 
 nection is the woman, and that the principal factor in 
 the solution of the whole question is the modern wom- 
 aii's emancipation movement. This arises partially from 
 the fact that the old supremacy of man — even among 
 the fairest and clearest thinkers — is still too deeply im- 
 planted in the blood, for him to realize the idea of leav- 
 ing the decision to women in the most important of all 
 social questions. She proceeded to point out the ex- 
 traordinary lack of insight 6r courage on the part of 
 feminists who have failed to proclaim the intimate con- 
 nection of their movement with the movement of free- 
 dom in women's most personal domain. It is hardly 
 comprehensible that they do not indignantly point out 
 the clear meaning of unwilling, enforced, or accidental 
 motherhood ; hardly comprehensible that they lend them- 
 selves to the deception of ever being able to realize the 
 elevation of woman to complete citizenship through re- 
 forms of an eeonpmie, social; ethical, legal or political 
 nature, while she is not freed as a mother from her sex 
 liabilities. With the old feminine shame at calling 
 things by their right names; with a certain ignorance 
 of the world and the false impressions which the nu- 
 merous unmarried women in the emancipation move^" 
 
90 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 ment have of the physiological and psychological aspects 
 of motherhood; with the idea of the military state; — 
 she endeavored to explain to some extent these phe- 
 nomena, although in no way excusing them. She briefly 
 pointed out the unspeakable misery which was the in- 
 evitable consequence of uncontrolled reproduction and 
 the merciless sexual subjection of the women in our over- 
 populated civilized countries, with results disastrous to 
 the whole race. 
 
 The further implications of the issue thus raised have 
 been more fully developed iu the present writer's Mili- 
 tarism versus Feminism, issued in 1915, uniform with 
 this study. It is unnecessary therefore to enter into the 
 matter in detail, and the following extract from Chapter 
 IV., to which the present pages are of the nature of a 
 sequel, wiU serve to indicate the historical background 
 there outlined. 
 
 ' ' In every country this dread of being left behind in the cease- 
 less and unconsidered production of babies, with its persistent 
 degradation of so many women to the position of beasts of burden, 
 leads militarist governments to oppose every effort to reduce the 
 birth-rate. It is in vain that eugenists and social reformers alike 
 have deplored this blind worship of numbers, regardless of quality, 
 regardless of the social squalor which large families entail. Even 
 in twentieth century Europe this first requirement of woman's 
 freedom, the claim to be something more than a domestic animal, 
 is vigorously denied by every state that is organized for war. The 
 right to a share in controlling her own married life is still largely 
 a privilege which has to be won. 'To stunt one's brain in order 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 91 
 
 that one may bear a sou does not seem to me a process essentially 
 sacred or noble in itself,' says Miss Cicely Hamilton, in a book 
 which is slowly creating a revolution of thought on the subject 
 in England, 'yet millions of mothers have instructed their daugh- 
 ters in foolishness so that they, in their turn, might please, marry 
 and beget children." As Miss Hamilton rightly urges, 'such 
 improvement as has already been effected in the status of the 
 wife and mother is to a great extent the work of the formerly 
 condemned spinster.' And she might, had she realized it, have 
 pointed out that the modern spinster is a product of peace in a 
 double sense — of the peace which allowed the industrial revolution 
 to establish both itself and the possibility of economic inde- 
 pendence; of the peace which so far obscured the implications of 
 war that an unmarried woman might claim her place in respect- 
 able society." 
 
 To-day, however, the new knowledge makes it unneces- 
 sary to regard marriage and the right to an independent 
 personality as mutually exclusive; though for women 
 who prefer the position of domestic animals the privi- 
 lege of unrestricted child-bearing will still remain ! 
 
 It is clear from what has preceded that this appeal to 
 women as women has not been without effect. And when 
 once women have realized the facts of the situation, it 
 is never long in any country before the example of 
 France and Holland is followed. The outcry of the 
 Prussian militarists will be of no avail unless the ene- 
 mies of Germany unwillingly play into their hands. » In 
 order more fully to understand the true influence of such 
 
 ^Marriage as a Trade, p. 47. 
 
92 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 reactionary doctrines as those which we have already 
 quoted, let us consider in greater detail some of the out- 
 standing facts of the present century. First of all let 
 us consider the rapid and continuous fall of the German 
 birth-rate. In no country in the world has such a de- 
 cline taken place. Between 1900 and 1912 England 
 shows a drop per 1,000 inhabitants from 28 to 25, France 
 from 21 to 19, Germany from 35 to 29. Already before 
 the war the German rate was approximately the same as 
 that in England in 1904-5, in spite of the fact that the 
 English movement had nearly twenty years' start. The 
 German figures speak for themselves : 
 
 Births per 1,000 inhabitants : 
 
 1860 
 
 37.9 
 
 1905 
 
 34.0 
 
 1876 
 
 42.6 
 
 1906 
 
 34.1 
 
 1890 
 
 37.0 
 
 1907 
 
 33.2 
 
 1895 
 
 37.3 
 
 1908 
 
 33.0 
 
 1900 
 
 36.8 
 
 1909 
 
 32.0 
 
 1902 
 
 36.2 
 
 1910 
 
 30.7 
 
 1903 
 
 34.9 
 
 1911 
 
 29.5 
 
 1904 
 
 35.2 
 
 1912 
 
 29.1 
 
 The average for the years 1913-1916 is probably be- 
 tween 26 and 27. 
 
 In other words, if the percentage of 1906 had pre- 
 vailed ia 1912, there would have been over 300,000 more 
 German children born in 1912 than there actually were. 
 In 1900 there were 2,060,657 children bom, and in 1910 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 93 
 
 only 1,982,836, at a time when the number of marriages 
 remained constant, and the total population was increas- 
 ing by over 800,000 per annum. Hence Borntraeger^ 
 concludes that the accelerated decrease in the death-rate 
 was chiefly responsible for the fact that the total popu- 
 lation is increasing. And as regards effective man 
 power, just before the war an observer who was studying 
 population questions in that country "noticed that of 
 over a hundred chemists' shops there was only one in 
 which preventive devices were not the most prominent 
 feature in the center of the shop window." The fall of 
 the birth-rate in the principal provincial towns has been 
 most remarkable. In the ten years, from 1902 to 1912, 
 the birth-rate of Leipzig fell from 31.5 to 22.1, of Dres- 
 den from 31.5 to 20.3, of Munich from 35.1 to 21.9, and 
 of Hanover from 27 to 20.3. Neukolln, a working-class 
 suburb of Berlin, actually experienced a fall from 25.9 
 to 23.7 between 1911 and 1912. Frankfort from 22.1 
 to 20.9, and Sehonberg from 15.3 to 13.7. More recently 
 one may note particularly that the number of boys bom 
 alive in Germany sank from 1,043,206 in 1901 to 1,028,- 
 000 in 1907,* whereas previously it had been rising. 
 
 And the figures for special centers tell an even more 
 significant tale. Half of the marriages in Berlin are 
 blessed with no more than two children, a quarter with 
 only one child. The number of yearly births per 1,000 
 
 ' Geburtenruckgang, p. 4. 
 
 ' O. V. Sehjering, Sanitdtsstatistische Betracktungen, 1910, No. 9. 
 
94 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 married women has sunk from 238 in 1875 to 90 in 1912. 
 This may he set heside the fact that of 11 million French 
 families two million are childless and three million con- 
 tain only one chUd. 
 
 Since the outbreak of war, moreover, the birth-rate of 
 Berlia has beaten all previous records. In the year 
 1876 it was over 45 per 1,000. By 1912 it had fallen 
 to 20.4, and by 1914 to about 18 per 1,000. In May, 
 1915, the births were only 2,669, as against 3,506 in 
 May, 1914, a drop of about 25%. 
 
 Nor is the position very different in other parts of the 
 Central Empires. According to a report made by Prau 
 Rosika Sehwimmer in 1911, family limitation has been 
 known among the peasant proprietors of Hungary, and 
 practiced since the entry of Napoleon and the French 
 early in last century. To such an extent has this been 
 the case that a one-child system has prevailed among 
 them. More recently lectures have been delivered in 
 the towns by Mme. NeUy Roussel and Dr. Aletta Jacobs, 
 and Prof. Forel has recommended family limitation 
 among the poor. The Hungarian Government is domi- 
 nated by the small, but very powerful Agrarian interest, 
 who desire plenty of cheap labor on their lands, and 
 strongly oppose this open propaganda, demanding a 
 measure for the restriction of the sale of contraceptive 
 goods. The Government, thinking to obtain medical 
 support to such a measure, referred the question to a 
 Medical Council presided over by Prof. Tauffer and the 
 
THE BIRTH STRIKE 95 
 
 principal medical men of Hungary. What was their sur- 
 prise to find that the Medical Council, after carefully 
 considering the matter in all its aspects, presented a 
 report strongly condemning any such attempt at repres- 
 sion, and stating that family restriction by contraceptive 
 methods was absolutely necessary on medical and on 
 economic grounds, both in the individual and public in- 
 terest. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE INFLUENCES AT WORK. 
 
 We have already emmierated some of the forces at 
 work before the close of the last century to stem the 
 devastating torrent of children. In 1897 Dr. Bilfinger, 
 Medical Officer of Health, delivered a number of lec- 
 tures throughout North Germany on the desirability of 
 family limitation. In Leipag, for instance, he had an 
 audience of 1,500 women, and even Catholic parents 
 were influenced by the advice he thus publicly gave. 
 The support of medical men is nowhere better illustrated 
 than in the case of Professor Grotjahn, of Berlin Uni- 
 versity, who in his Geburten-Buckgang und Gehurten- 
 RegeVwng has set forth the medical arguments in favor 
 of birth-control with unexampled force and lucidity. It 
 is clear he urges that the movement is very far from 
 having reached its maximum, and though he himself 
 advocates a Dreikinder-Minimal system (p. 289),^ only 
 
 ' It cannot be too strongly emphasized that childless or one-child 
 families are very far from having the approval of the majority of 
 
 96 
 
INFLUENCES AT .WORK 97 
 
 one objection is raised to the continuation of the decline 
 in numbers — the patriotic demands of national defense. 
 The author concludes, however, and it is to be hoped 
 that the repopulators mentioned above will take note of 
 the fact, that there is clearly no danger from France in 
 this respect, while Russia is so sparsely populated and 
 has such an unlimited field for expansion in North Asia 
 that there is no prospect of her pressing on the West 
 within a measurable future. On the other hand the 
 Polish people are regarded as uncommonly fertile.^ 
 
 The reality of the popular influences determining the 
 decline can no longer be in doubt. Various vn"iters 
 
 advocates of birth-control, and one may remark here that an 
 average of three children per family is necessary to maintain a 
 stationary population in any country. Grotjahn incidentally urges 
 that limitation increases the proportion of first-borns to the total 
 population, and on very scanty evidence seems to accept this 
 alleged inferiority. [The "evidence" of the inferiority to first- 
 born is scanty indeed, and has been shown to be worthless by 
 those who have given the subject a careful study. — ^W. J. E.] 
 He also lays stress on the fact that under the present system — 
 whereby the knowledge of the six most effective and entirely 
 harmless modern methods of regulating the number of children is 
 largely confined to the educated classes — the unfit and less efficient 
 stocks are tending to multiply with disproportionate rapidity. He 
 does not, however, introduce into the discussion any of the class 
 prejudice which has done so much to discredit the official Eugenie 
 movement in England. His inference is the correct one — that the 
 knowledge of rational control should be universal, and not (as 
 our conservative propagandists maintain) that the worthies whose 
 names are immortalized in Who's Who should be goaded into 
 greater fecundity. 
 
 *Cf. A. Dix in Jahrbiicher fiir Nationalolconomie, 1898. 
 
98 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 (Koeffe, Hoffa) have recorded that parents with large 
 families are laughed at by their neighbors, and in 1910 
 Hoffa referred in the Zeitschrift fur Sauglingsschutz to 
 the fact that contraceptives were openly sent to newly 
 married couples. A booklet by the Berlin doctor, Alfred 
 Bernstein, with the title "How Can "We Ensure a De- 
 cline in the Birth-rate: an Appeal to the Working 
 Classes," has recently had a tremendous success, over 
 10,000 copies being sold in three weeks. 
 
 Nor have the utterances of economists, with the ex- 
 ceptions already noted, been less conducive to the spread 
 of the movement than those of the medical profession. 
 The well-known Berlin professor, von Schmoller, agrees 
 entirely with John Stuart Mill that it is better in every 
 way to produce fewer children and devote proper atten- 
 tion to their education, than to think as people now do 
 only of quantity. Reinhold {Die bewegende Krdfte der 
 Volkswirtschaft) says the same thing in even stronger 
 terms. Mombert of Freiburg regards the decline of the 
 birth-rate as a normal civili^iag influence: while 
 SzoUosny also regards it as the main factor which will 
 advance movements for freedom and emancipation. No 
 less fanatical a nationalist than Sombart has welcomed 
 the decline in the birth-rate, and declared that the de- 
 cline must inevitably continue.^ 
 
 Strange to say the civil service has for the most part 
 = Werner Sombart, Documents dv, progrds, 1907, p. 58. 
 
INFLUENCES AT WORK 99 
 
 directly discouraged early marriages,* especially in the 
 postal service. All postal employees in Bavaria (Post- 
 zeitung, 1896, p. 332) must fulfill four conditions in or- 
 der to obtain the sanction of the authorities to marriage. 
 They must be (a) 26 years old, (b) in sound financial 
 circumstances, (c) possessed of a good service record, 
 (d) able to satisfy the officials that their work will not 
 suffer. Equally stringent are the demands of the postal 
 authorities in Diisseldorf, where the economic position of 
 the young lady is also enquired into! {Pos. Neuest, 
 Nachr. 5X1910). 
 
 Then again a growing understanding of the conditions 
 under which the poor live has brought many to a realiza- 
 tion that schemes for social reform will for ever be con- 
 fronted with the desolating flood of babies, until the one 
 obvious remedy has been adopted. Such books as Otto 
 Riihle's Das proletarische Kind, revealing a gray and 
 gruesome picture similar to that in Alexander Patter- 
 son's Across the Bridges, have worked in the same direc- 
 tion. A lady health-inspector, Auguste Lange,^ recently 
 declared with emphasis: "the discussions of the birth- 
 rate in the press, their complaints and fears, make any- 
 thing but the desired impression on those who are 
 brought into daily contact with the terrible conditions 
 of overcrowding in prolific families." 
 
 Hence it is not surprising to find that in a lecture 
 
 *0. Kresse, Der Geburtenruckgang in DeutscMand, Berlin, 1912. 
 "Elster, " Geburtenzahl und Geburtenwert, " Univerawm, 1913. 
 
100 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 delivered on the 7th of December, 1915, to the Verein 
 fiir "Wissenschaftliehe Heilkunde in Konigsberg, Dr. 
 Riehter declared that no repressive measures could avail 
 to cope with the present situation. Birth-control could 
 not be opposed. Measures of social reform, and es- 
 pecially housing reform, alone could raise the birth- 
 rate.° And Marcuse, the author of an able volume en- 
 
 °Soine surprising misunderstandings are prevalent with regard 
 to the effect of measures of social reform on the birth-rate. Pro- 
 fessor Pigou, whose only other excursion into the theory of popu- 
 lation (Wealth and Welfare, p. 94) is in the highest degree repre- 
 hensible, has ably marshaled the evidence for the conclusion that 
 prosperity often involves limitation. But like Brentano (Economic 
 Journal, 1910, pp. 371-393), and even Sidney Webb, he confines 
 himself chiefly to generalities about character and ideals, com- 
 pletely neglecting the fact that it is precisely increased prosperity 
 which enables the working man successfully to take advantage of 
 those methods of prevention by which a given standard of living 
 may be maintained. A second physiological consideration of which 
 most male publicists are ignorant would be to the effect that 
 whether owing to a more sensitive nervous organization, or, per- 
 haps, to some increase in the size of the embryo (especially the 
 head), educated women nowadays are often not only unwilling but 
 unable to stand the sti-ain of bearing more than two or three chil- 
 dren. But though a physiological motive for voluntary restriction 
 here comes into play, it is very necessary to point out that this by 
 no means implies that natural adaptation of fertility to circum- 
 stances which is assumed by Henry George (ef. the conclusions of 
 Parmelee, Poverty and Social Progress, 1916, pp. 185-6) ; and those 
 who stiU anticipate a solution of the population question along the 
 lines of ' ' moral restraint ' ' are not likely to find an escape from the 
 pessimism of earlier followers of Malthus other than artificial re- 
 striction — unless, indeed, they see fit to advocate the even more 
 "artificial" diminution of desire on the part of the male, now 
 being discussed in certain quarters. 
 
INFLUENCES AT WORK 101 
 
 titled Die Beschrdnkung der Geburtenzahl, 1913, who 
 addressed a large meeting on the subject in Munich at 
 the end of 1915, has set forth in detail {D. M. 
 Wochenschrift, 1916, p. 257) the reasons for this con- 
 clusion and pointed out that one of the chief methods of 
 avoiding conception is not amenable to law, and admit- 
 tedly more injurious to health than those chiefly con- 
 sidered, while another is the main safeguard against 
 disease. Dr. Scholtz (ibid., p. 273) points out that since 
 8% of all marriages are sterile, since gonorrhea causes 
 the loss of 200,000 children yearly, and since 10% of 
 men are syphilitic, the most profitable policy is to com- 
 bat these diseases; and Dr. G. Winter (Zhl. f. Gyn., 5) 
 prefers to urge proper attention for women during con- 
 finement. 
 
 Indeed one of the greatest influences which have de- 
 terred ignorant authorities from suppressing the new 
 knowledge has been the activity of the Society for the 
 Combating of Venereal Diseases, whose strongly-worded 
 resolution at the Dresden meeting in 1911 had a great 
 effect. In the Report of the British Royal Commission 
 on Venereal Diseases (Cd. 8189 — Minutes of Evidence, 
 cd. 7475, 8190) recently presented to both Houses of 
 Parliament by command of His Majesty, it is stated that 
 the Commissioners invited Professor Blaschko to come 
 over to London to give an account of the progress at- 
 tained in combating venereal disease in Germany. At 
 p. 185 of the final report, Professor Blaschko explains 
 
102 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 why competent authorities oppose the view that pre- 
 ventive measures will remove the safeguards of morality. 
 He says : — 
 
 "Considering that in spite of all commandments of morality 
 and religion so many thousands expose themselves and other per- 
 sons to venereal infection, we think it necessary to give young 
 ignorant people the possibility of protecting themselves. German 
 laws do not forbid the selling of these articles, but forbid public 
 advertising even in a decent manner. Preventives are considered 
 as articles ' destined for immoral purposes. ' Accordingly, although 
 these means are ofBciaUy recommended and used in the army and 
 navy, the slightest recommendation to the public, even to the 
 medical public, is punished. The German Society has vainly tried 
 to change this state of things. ' ' 
 
 Professor Blaschko added: — 
 
 "A further improvement in our work of enlightenment was the 
 organizing of a representation of Brieux's drama, Les Avaries 
 (Damaged Goods in the English translation). Most of our local 
 branches as well as the head society supported the representations. 
 In BerUn alone the piece was played over one hundred times at 
 seven theaters. In many large and small German towns traveling 
 theatrical companies played this piece. The work of the German 
 Society has thoroughly changed the public opinion on venereal 
 diseases. The press, especially the press of the great towns, is 
 no longer afraid of using the words ' syphilis ' and ' venereal dis- 
 eases '; they give full accounts of our annual meetings and the 
 local papers give reports of the meetings of the branches. In fact 
 the whole press — and not only the press, but also tlie public — is 
 in sympathy with and supports our movement." 
 
INFLUENCES AT .WORK 103 
 
 It need hardly be pointed out that the publicity here 
 referred to has been very important in assisting the 
 propaganda we are dealing with. Moreover, in this re- 
 spect the Army and Navy have shown themselves in 
 Germany not less enlightened ia the matter than the 
 American Navy. As a naval representative said in 1908 
 {Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Bekamp- 
 fung der Geschlechtskrankheit&n, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1909) : 
 The military and naval authorities have the merit of not 
 entering on theoretical discussion sondern diejenigen 
 Mittel (die Verireitung der Kondome) aufgegriffen zu 
 haben welche die Wissenschaft zur Verhutung der 
 Geschlechtskrmikheiten hietet. Unfortunately in 1912 
 the Army regulations were altered in favor of a much 
 less satisfactory system of prophylaxis. 
 
X. 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 "For all those among us who ha/ve faith in civiUzation 
 and humanity it must ie a daily prayer that the fail of 
 the birth-rate may ie hastened." — Havelock Et.t.ts, 
 September 25th, 1915. 
 
 Against such a powerful and widespread movement 
 repressive measures must inevitably fail, even if repres- 
 sion were not condemned by so many authorities. As 
 Vorwdrts said briefly on October 16, 1915: — "The de- 
 eliue ia the birth-rate is attributed to deliberate limita- 
 tion, due to economic considerations. The war will in- 
 crease this tendency, for it wiU leave many cripples, 
 who will not be able to earn a good wage ; it has extended 
 the employment of women, which is unfavorable to bear- 
 ing children, and it will have increased the pressure of 
 poverty generally. It is idle to fight against the failing 
 Mrth-rate." 
 
 Even more conclusive is the following, which appeared 
 shortly before the war in the Strasburg Fme Presse: — 
 
 104 
 
THE FUTURE 106 
 
 "One of the most important laws of experience in politics is 
 as follows: a movement which finds its origin in the general eco- 
 nomic and social conditions cannot be checked by legislative pro- 
 hibition, but will only be brought by it to more rapid fruition. 
 The people, when they choose their representatives, should ask each 
 candidate if he recognizes the truth of this law. If he does not, 
 he should be sent to the rightabout as a fraud of the worst kind. 
 In our reactionarily-ruled Germany the superstitious belief in the 
 omnipotence of the law is especially strong. There are people who 
 believe that the wind must cease blowing and the sun cease shining . 
 if only a law is made against them. These people have now come 
 to the conclusion that, in order to check the fall of the birth-rate, 
 the sale of contraceptive devices should be forbidden. The first 
 consequence that they have produced with their agitation is that 
 they have compelled people to deal openly with matters on which 
 one would rather not speak; since, when it is a question of repel- 
 ling a brutal attack upon personal liberty, all other considerations 
 must be thrown on one side. The service which the promoter of 
 the biU in the Eeiohstag has rendered is to have made the bed- 
 chamber the subject of public discussion! What the bill would 
 attain — we say it openly — is a disgrace. It wiU force every poor 
 couple who groan under the burden of a numerous progeny into 
 still greater reproduction. It will compel parents who have under- 
 taken to give their few children a decent upbringing to bring more 
 children into the world than they can possibly bring up and feed. 
 . . . The existing law punishes abortion with heavy penalties; yet 
 all the world knows that if all those who are guilty of this offense, 
 either directly or as helpers, were really punished, the builders 
 would all have their hands full in building new prisons. If now 
 it were possible to remove all contraceptive devices from circula- 
 tion, abortion would become even more common, and no one could 
 prevent it. It would only be possible to make an example by 
 throwing some unfortunate woman into prison. The propagan- 
 
106 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 dist effect of the bill will be enormous, and the supporters of the 
 so-called birth-strike — although combated by the Social-Demo- 
 cratic Party — can shout hurrah. If this worst outbreak of legis- 
 lative imbecility does not vanish speedily into that darkness from 
 which it should never have emerged, then — no matter whether the 
 bill becomes law or not — the adoption of the two-child system in 
 Germany is assured."- 
 
 It is statements such as these which are significant for 
 the future — rather than the vaiu lamentations of the offi- 
 cial classes which are so frequently reproduced in this 
 country. Nevertheless the militarists will make an ap- 
 peal on the one ground which is still left to them — 
 patriotism. They will continue to point to the unde- 
 niable increase in Russia, to the still expanding popula- 
 tion of the Anglo-Saxons. This appeal, as in other coun- 
 tries, is the one remaining source of danger — the prime 
 and eontiauous basis of war iu the past. 
 
 We are thus led to the somewhat paradoxical con- 
 clusion that the chief influence which wUl determine the 
 attitude of Germany towards her birth-rate in the future, 
 wUl be the behavior of her neighbors. The problem is in 
 a special sense international : — 
 
 "We are brought face to face with an inexorable contradiction. 
 If the citizens of a country, by voluntary effort, by devotion to 
 country, engender without restraint, the community will acquire 
 considerable military power; but all social progress is prevented. 
 It must say farewell to reforms. All its efforts must tend to the 
 conservation of existence. In order to maintain life, citizens must 
 deprive themselves of those things which give Ufe its charm. 
 
THE FUTURE 107 
 
 "If, on the other hand, the individuals who compose the nation 
 wish to progress, to develop, to live; if, in order to attain this 
 truly human ideal, they depart from the instinctive habits of the 
 non-human animal; if they limit their offspring in order to raise 
 themselves in dignity, in wealth, in intellectual power; to overcome 
 the perils in which organic nature abounds, and to investigate the 
 secrets of nature — then their country will be vanquished, invaded, 
 spoiled of its wealth, and their children ruined and reduced to 
 partial slavery. ' ' ' 
 
 The need for a proper understanding of the situation 
 is urgent, since only on international lines can the diffi- 
 culty be solved. Even now there are those who would 
 not scruple to set the White race against the Yellow, 
 rather than help the downtrodden women of the East 
 to the knowledge that the women of Europe now pos- 
 sess! As our enquiry has suggested, we are confronted 
 by what is essentially a woman's question, the one great 
 question, in fact, which women are now called upon to 
 face; and upon their response the future must depend. 
 
 Here, perhaps, may be discovered the most fruitful 
 field for the activities of the Women's International 
 League, whose foundation was one of the outstanding 
 social developments of the first year of the war. The 
 task of such a body should clearly be to concentrate on 
 those fundamental problems of the situation which, while 
 vital to the future of the women's movement as a whole, 
 cannot be adequately grappled with by the national so- 
 
 ' Alfred Naquet, L'Humanite et la Science, Paris, 1901. 
 
108 UNCONTROLLED BREEDING 
 
 cieties already in existence. It is clearly the duty of 
 feminist leaders not to allow their energies to be diverted 
 into channels suggested by the immediate needs and diffi- 
 culties of a changing political situation. To many, such 
 a policy might seem to deprive the organization of prac- 
 tical value. But this is an entirely superficial view. 
 The Population question, like the question of AliUtarism, 
 is one of the root problems which should now more and 
 more occupy the thoughts of far-sighted reformers. The 
 great need is for a body that shall undertake the task of 
 educating and directing our efforts, so apt to be at the 
 mercy of transient agitations, towards these two essen- 
 tials, without which the forces of violence and repres- 
 sion must continue to hold sway. At present it is possible 
 for powerful interests to play one nation against an- 
 other, so that none will take the first step. If, after the 
 war, the same mad fertility race is to continue, no set- 
 tlement, no form of international organization within 
 measurable distance of realization will avail to prevent 
 a recurrence of the catastrophe ; and no measure of social 
 reform is likely to do more than temporarily alleviate 
 the evils which an unrestricted birth-rate brings in its 
 train. 
 
 THE END. 
 
THIERE will come a time — and it is 
 not far off — when the prevention 
 of imdesired pregnancy will be as 
 proper, as respectable and as much the 
 function of the medical practitioner as 
 is now the prevention of typhoid, diph- 
 theria or tuberculosis. W. J. R. 
 
 THERE is no single measure that 
 would so positively, so immedi- 
 ately contribute toward the happiness 
 and progress of the human race as 
 teaching the people the proper means 
 of prevention of conception. W. J. R. 
 
BIRTH CONTROL 
 
 = OR 
 
 The Limitation of Offspring by 
 the Prevention of Conception 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
 
 With on IttfroducUon by 
 
 A. JACOBI, M.D., LL.D. 
 Bs-PresiienI of The American liledical Association 
 
 All the arguments "for and against the voluntary 
 limitation of offspring or birth control concentrated in 
 one book of 250 pages. 
 
 The Limitation of Offspring is now the burning 
 question of the day. It has been made so by Dr. William 
 J. Robinson, who was a pioneer in this country to demand 
 that people be permitted to obtain the knowledge how to 
 limit the number of their children, how to prevent con- 
 ception when necessary. For many years he fought 
 practically alone; his propaganda has made himdreds of 
 thousands of converts — ^now the ground is prepared and 
 the people are ready to listen. 
 
 Written in plain popular language. A book which 
 everybody interested in his own welfare and the welfare 
 of the race should read. 
 
 PRICE ONE DOLLAR 
 
 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 
 
 12 MT. MORRIS PARK W., NEW YORK 
 
WOMAN: HER SEX 
 AND LOVE LIFE 
 
 FOR MEN AND WOMEN 
 
 By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 This is one of the most important, most useful 
 books that we have ever brought out. It is not de- 
 voted to abstruse discussions or doubtful theories: it 
 is full of practical information of vital importance to 
 every woman and through her to every man, to every 
 wife and through her to every husband. 
 
 The simple practical points contained in its pag^ 
 would render millions of homes happier abodes than 
 they are now; they would prevent the disruption of 
 many a family; they show how to hold the love of a 
 man, how to preserve sexual attraction, how to re- 
 main young beyond the usually allotted age. This 
 book destroys many injurious errors and superstitions 
 and teaches truths that have never been presented in 
 any other book before. In short, this book not only 
 imparts interesting facts; it gives practical pointe 
 which will make thousands of women, and thousands 
 of men happier, healthier, and more satisfied with life. 
 Certain single chapters or even paragraphs are alone 
 worth the price of the book. 
 
 You may safely order the book without delay. But 
 if you wish, a complete synopsis of contents will be 
 sent you. 
 
 Cloth bound. Price $3.00 
 
 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 
 
 12 MT. MORRIS PARK W., NEW YORK 
 
SEXUAL PROBLEMS 
 OF TODAY 
 
 By WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Robinson's work deals with many phases of 
 the sex question, both in their individual and social as- 
 pects. In this book the scientific knowledge of a 
 physician, eminent as a specialist in everything per- 
 taining to the physiological and medical side of these 
 topics, is combined with the vigorous social views 
 of a thinker who has radical ideas and is not afraid 
 to give them outspoken expression. 
 
 A few of the subjects which the author discusses 
 in trenchant fashion are: 
 
 The Relations Between the Sexes and Man's Inhumanity 
 to Woman. — • The Influence of Abstinence on Man's Sexual 
 Health and Sexual Power. — The Double Standard of Morality 
 and thelEffect of Continence on Each Sex. — The Limitation of 
 Offspring: the Most Important Immediate Step for the Better- 
 ment of the Human Race, from an Economic and Eugenic 
 Standpoint. — What To Do With the Prostitute and How To 
 Abolish Venereal Disease. — The Question of Abortion Considered 
 In Its Ethical and Social Aspects. — Torturing the Wife When 
 the Husband Is At Fault. — Influence of the Prostate on Man's 
 Mental Condition. — The Most Efficient Venereal Prophylactics, 
 etc. etc. 
 
 "SEXUAL PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY" will give 
 most of its readers information they never possessed 
 before and ideas they never had before — or if they 
 had, never heard them publicly expressed before. 
 
 Cloth-bound, 320 Pages, $2 Postpaid 
 
 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 
 
 12 MT- MORRIS PARK W. NEW YORK 
 
A UNIQUE JOURNAL 
 THE 
 
 CRITIC AND GUIDE 
 
 Dr. R.ODinson s Famous Little Montnly 
 
 It is the most original journal in the country. It is the only 
 one of its kind, and is interesting from cover to cover. There is no 
 routine, dead matter in it. It is one of the very few journals 
 that is opened with anticipation just as soon as it is received and 
 of which every line is read with real interest. 
 
 Not only are the special problems of the medical profession itself 
 dealt with in a vigorous and progressive spirit, but the larger, social 
 aspects of medicine and physiology are discussed in a fearless and 
 radical manner. 
 
 Many problems imtouched by other publications, such as the sex 
 question in all its varied phases, the economic causes of disease and 
 other problems in medical sociology, are treated boldly and freely 
 from the standpoint of modem science. In discussing questions 
 which are considered taboo by the hyper-conservative, the editor 
 says what he wants to say very plainly without regard for Mrs. 
 Grundy. 
 
 The Critic and Guide was a pioneer in the propaganda for 
 birth control, venereal prophylaxis, sex education of the young, and 
 free discussion of sexual problems in general. It contains more 
 interesting and outspoken matter on these subjects than any other 
 journal. 
 
 While of great value to the practitioner for therapeutic sugges- 
 tions of a practical, up-to-date and definite character, its editorials 
 and special articles are what make The Critic and Guidb unique 
 among ioumals, read eagerly aUke by the medical profession and 
 the intdligent laity. 
 
 PUBLISHED MONTHLY 
 ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
 
 THE CRITIC AND GUIDE COMPANY 
 
 12 MT. MORRIS PARK W. :: :: NEW YORK CITY