Oct 1924 - Life Dynamics

CTOBER, 1924
Twenty Cents
BIRTH CONTROL
REVIEW
BIRTH CONTROL ORGANIZATIONS
T H E AMERICAN B I R T H CONTROL LEAGUE, INC
Headquarters 104 FIFTHAVENUE, NEW YORKCITY
ANUS K m n m ~ 8ensiur#
,
Feblrcn B Acmmmanx, Trsamwer
J NOAH H S u , SO, Arrutant Trea~urer
M w a n a r S u o r a , Prendsnt
Jmn Blnedn Rm
Mas Lawm L D n u m w
1
Vics-Prsrdsntr
Diractorr
L a r a m p Smnolao, PHD
M a A x w G PoMna Gnoaoa H DAY, S e
Mna D u m a Buooax
JOHU C VAUOHAU,
M.D
B a a ~ u r u tI Tmmx. M D
C C L m , D Sc
Mas RKCX~PD
BILLIXOI
-
Mr. Ernest R Ad% N Y
M n O a k a Amo M a n
~)rm
~ h m w
. ~ m o l P.
,
0s-h L Baer M D Ill
Roben P w k m Bau N R
Ma, 1 Bagelow M D Cal
Alme Stonr Blackwell Mass
M r George Blumenthsl N Y
M n ohn W m t m Bnnnan N Y
bxeA
Brmtano N Y
A l m Butler M D 0
Mr and M n Thoma, L Chadbourne. N
W t l h m Hnmlmn Chdds N Y
M n Stcphco Clark N Y
M n Frank I Cobb N Y
Rabbn Rudolph I C a I k Ph D. G I
k o n J Cole. D Sc Wts
Herbcn Croly N Y
Mrs b i l e de R w n n N 1
Theodore ~ r r a w r0 1
-
Mas F Rommox-Joxas
Xra TIIOXM N H a ~ a m n
--
riatlnm.4
w-.
n
. --.
-.
.-. O.
.n l
MnCCRo-NY
LamLluhfidd M D. Pa
hm Fwd1 M D Ill
nllnrm J F ~ d d ~Nw Y
Owen R b v m r
N Y
M n H o w , St Gaodew N K
IX ~ l v . b . t h%as N Y
MI ~ ~ M %vet.
b a III
M~ smm. ford N Y
Ro Wtllum H. Garth N Y
M n S u n l MrGrmrrk N Y
M." Sh.r N Y
Reynold A Spneth, Pb D
. Md
Pmf-i
McDouiall Mas.
M n K.1. Cnna G s r u C.1
M n W~lIardStrrmht. N Y
b b h S d n n E Goldstus N Y
M n Wm A Mffiraw mch
Mr. Roben B G m o 1U
h b b t Lovu L M a n s Ill
Kenneth Taylor M D, N Y
M n C h d n Tt6.o~ N Y
Dr and M n Ernest
Gmenms N Y I)r H c o q 0 M a w Mass
A l w Hamnhon M D Mans
MI J a m a H M a u m Pa
M n Shellq Tolhurst, C d
Florence Guema Tuttle. N Y
A d d M q n M D Md
M n Lurned Hand d Y
REV S l u m L T y w s N I
Fredrnrt C H d c l M D N Y
Abraham Mrcnon. M D
. Man
ohn B Watson, N Y
.ma G N d h a m . Ph D N Y
F l o r r m 8. rrd Hdlcr IW
n Norman dc R Whadmem N Y
D o d d R Amk- M D M.wL.nd
Wm F W u r s N Y
Pmf Walter F W~IICOX,N Y
D r R a w d l H Johnwls Pa
&,mood P u r l Ph D Md
Mn Orto H K a h s N Y
Pmfeuor W d t o B P & s N Y
Wu M a q Winsar Pa
Pmfasor A B W o l k Ohm
S Adolphus K n d M D N Y
Horatm M P o l l d Ph D, N Y
M n A n h w L Lawrmcs N Y
Mn E-b R.0 P.
M n Pop Y u - s
P.
MI and M n Ss.rlaa Lnm, N Y
Aamm J
M D C.1
P m f m w E C Ld-s
N C
Judse Bern Lmdm 6 1
MIDDLE WESTERN STATES COMMITTEE
t
t,,
d
3
Y
hcua
k
hod
Lmom B a u r c ~ g
VUS-Prsrident
Mrs G Oakley, Philadelphia
ALLIWH~NI
h ~
PA
,
READINO
PreMbnt, Rev L Griswold Williams, Reading. P a
OHIO--Cutcuram
Prsa&nt, D r Ralph Reed, Indianapolis
IXDUNA
P r e ~ u i s n tD r Amelia R Kellar, Indianapolis
Wama C o n m
Preaulsnt, Mra W F Spangler, Richmond. Ind
MKCHIOA~
Prsmfsat, Mra William A MeGraw, Detmlt
M~=*cnrmTampmav Cha*rmm,
W 8
Cambride
Co~xamcm
Preadent, Mrs George H Day, Sr, Hartford
Cowebw
Bscrrtarg, Ruth V1n-b
Denver,
B n m o l ~Cormreu
Prswisnt, Mr A M Stephen. Vanmuver
Dr John F a 4 Chrcsgo, Ill
Mrr Walter L Benwn. Wmetka, Ill.
NEWY o a ~S m n , L w o l u m Comarrmss
NEW Y O ~ Cmy
K
Chasman Mrs R l d a r d Blllrngs
srprcoa.
Chawrnan Mrs 0 H Cobb
s
~
~Ckatmmn, .Rev Phdip~ Friek
R ~ ~ ~ - Chairman Mra Thomas J Swanton
B-.,~
Chotrman Mrs S Merr~llClement, J r
KEWG ~ n n ~ n s Chatrman, Mrs J B~shopVandever
gammax
Chawman Mrs Frank M Leavitt
CenaanChasrmon, Mrs John Srott Rmwnlne J r
F~~~~~
Chasrman, Mrs Fcnley Hunter
Char).rrrm
seem tar^
BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW
OCTOBER.1924
VOL VIII
CONTENTS
i
Daedalus o r I-,
by Malcolm H Busell
The momenrow que.fmn lor c~vdoutmn The rwht a n s m can
only come thmugb Btnh Control
The World C r u u of Popuhhon, bn Edward Akmorth
B~TH
C~NTIWL
A N D P-c
lard M D
u I c ~
HEALTH,by C K ~ ~ Md-
The concludma p m of IX Mdlrrd s stnknw r n d c of l u t momth
The Pssslng of a Hero, by alargaret Sanger
Hartma Cf Kramerr
Coney Island, by Kslty Manon
I
No 10
Boox Rnvrsws
Is Bmrn C o n n w ~A P m s m a OF C x m W E L P A ~by,
Hornell Hart Hevlewrng 'Problems of Chdd
Welfare, by George B Mangold
B z n ~ v nAND Bamsa, by W E Hettland-Nalcolm
H Burell
Ax I N T ~ ~ N A ~ OYN
am
AL
Boon OF C H C- ~ AND
Paoramox, by Edmard Fuller-Anw
G Porntt
T HE SOCUL Mrmox OF C H ~ bg, Wdbam J
Kerby
PBlomula
Boons R a c ~ m
by
289
290
Monthlv on the first of each month
Entered os Becond 0-8
Matter, March 11 1918 a t the pmt 0-
New York--Cal!forn a-Texas-Utah-C3nnda
England
Austrra--Ge-many
Comlng Events
293
294
295
295
296
297
298
299
SM)
Subscr~pt~on
pnce, $2 00 a bear
at New York N Y under the Act of Y a r ~ hS 1873
~
6he BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF T H E AMERICAN BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE
Fom Steps to Om Coal
- Apltahon, Edacahn, Oganuabq Legukon
MARGARET SANGER, Edstor
VOL.V I I I
OCTOBER, 1924
D r Rutgers 1s dead Only those who
have been m close touch mth the Blrth Control movement In Europe, and who have
come mto contact mth the wonderful personahty of the veteran leader. can realm the
loss to the world, and espec~allyto women,
when D r Rutgers passed from the scene
About twenty years ago, D r Rutgers gave
up hls general med~calwork and devoted
h~mselfent~relyto Blrth Control-both to
spreadmg the Idea and to carrymg out practical work For fifteen years, he labored
among the poor, and especially among the
poorer mothers, brlngmg hope and rehef
lnto thousands of homes A t the same tune
he cont~nuedenthus~astlcallyh ~ ssc~entlfic
researches, the results of whlch he pubhshed
m success~vebooks As age crept on hm, he
found h~mselfunequal to the double work,
and mthdrew from adwe semce, but contlnued to pour lnto his books the wealth of
hls knowledge and the hght of IS ~deahsm
H e was mdeed a pioneer m the great and
heneficent revolution m sex deals of whlch
Havelock E h s IS one of the duef prophets
If women could realm what D r Rutgers'
work has meant for thew hberahon and happmess, every woman m the world would desire to lay a flower on IS grave
s
ANNIE G PORRZTT, Manopng Edstor
OUND common-sense character~zedmany of
the statements concernmg populat~onmade by
Professor Henry Pratt F a p h ~ l dm the paper he
read on August 15, and m h s contr~buhonto the
Round Table d~scusslon,at the Inst~tuteof Pohtm
at W~lllarnstown HISattltude of facmg the problem squarely, and suggestmg remedles came as a
ray of hope after the outspoken p e s s m m of RearAdrmral W L Rod-rs, who could see no future
for the natlons, but-the- cycle of ever-mcreasulg
No 10
populat~on,followed by aggressive wars m wh~ch
the stronger nahons would so far extermmate the
weaker ones as to make room for thew own swarmmg hordes Professor Falrch~ld, hke Admlral
Rodgers, saw the danger of mcreasmg populat~on,
but he faced the problem from ~ t two
s aspects-that
of ~mrmgrahonand that of natural mcrease-and
urged the bnngmg of populahon mcrease under
the control of the reason and the m11 Unless thls
~sdone, and only a small be-g
has as yet been
made, he quest~onedwhether man would be able to
escape dsaster m the near future But, mstead of
aggressive war by the strong natlons, Professor
Famchlld urged "a moral doctrme for the world"
by whlch all nat~onsshould undertake to solve them
own problems of over-populat~onand ~mmrgratlon
by ratlonal measures of control, Instead of by
aggression on the nghts of other peoples " "One
thmg 1s unquest~onablytrue," he added. "that the
old Idea of movement as an escape from the ev~ls
of over-population must be d e h t e l y el~mnated
from natlonal ~deas It must be defimtely understood among all the nat~onsof the world, not only
that forclble acquls~honof external terr~torycan
no longer be tolerated, but that the trans-sh~pment of populahon mto other ternitones, against
the mll of the rec~p~ent
people, IS a vlolat~onof mternahonal ethm "
I[ N
Professor Fawchlld's opmlon, ~mrmgratlon
mto the Umted States does not greatly mcrease populat~on What ~t does 1s ch~eflyto slow
down natural mcrease among Amer~canswho have
reached a much h~gherstandard of comfort and mtelhgence than the ~ncomlng lmmgrants The
competlt~onof these ahens, w ~ t hlower standards
of h m g , he charactermd as "cruel, bltter and unfaun to Amencan labor It had resulted, In the
decades before the war, m the slow but sure dechne
of the general level of comfort among the unskilled workers, and ~t was mevltable that the
Amencan people, who checked thelr own lncrease
~norder not to be com~elledto sacrifice thelr stand-
ing agalnst the veiy beg~nn~ngs
of llfe h ~ been
s
so
clear and unmistakable that lt looks hke dellberate
n~Ace rather than abvsmal ignorance that the two
should be still ident~fied Yet when D r John C
Coyle, of New York C ~ t yspoke
,
on the subject at
a jomt sesslon of the Central Soc~etyand the Woman's National Cathol~c Unlon in Allentown,
P e n n , on August 26, he repeated thls unpardonable ins~nuation H e urged that when once God
perm~ts"the formation and growth of a human
bemg, his will must not meet wlth human oppos~tion The ch~ldunborn, as well as born must
have its chance " H e then went on to speak of the
killlng of unwanted ch~ldren by savages and
pagans, evidently w ~ t hthe Intention of lead~ngh ~ s
hearers to class the advocates of B ~ r t hControl with
the slayers of children, and added that it was "as
wrong to prevent an innocent hfe from commg into
being as to destroy an ~nnocenthfe m bemg " This
last sentence is surely a terrible condemnation of
h ~ sown conduct and of all the priests, monks and
nuns
of the R C Church, for what are they doing
C L I P P I h T G which was sent to us by a f ~ l e n d but cont~nuatlypreventmg thousands of Innocent
on the Pac~ficCoast suggests a method of hves from coming into being' If ~tis true that ~t
helplng the cause of Blrth Control wh~chwe should IS wrong to prevent an innocent 11fe from comlng
be glad to see generallk adopted Thls chpplng is Into belng, it makes no difference whether this prefrom one of the great San Franc~scodally news- vention is by cehbacy, abstmence or anv other
papers It bears the headline "Exammer Wms means of prevent~on It is the fact that a hfe has
P r a ~ s efor News Section " Then follows a short been prevented that D I Coyle condemned as a
letter pralslng the improvement and d~splayof one sln What then about himself'
of the local News Sect~onsof the paper "Also,"
s
in
H E N Judge Crane rendered h ~ dec~slon
the letter wmds up, "as an individual, long mterthe Brownsv~lle Clln~ccase, appealed by
ested In the work of the American Birth Control
League, permlt me to express my apprec~at~on
for Margaret Sanger, he opened a door to much useful
the ungarbled accounts vou have prmted from t ~ m e work for Bxth Control The case was decided in
to time, of the mot11es of t h ~ sorffilnizatlon " The 1918, and In pronouncinq the opinlon Judge Crane
whole of the letter is "boxed," and is well d~splayed gave a rendering of Sect~on1145 that br~ngsboth
n respons~bil~ty
to the medlcal profesa t the head of the column People are always ready l ~ b e r a t ~ oand
slon
The
importance
of
the
dec~sionhes in the Into find fault with the dally press, but it is rare for
them to express their pleasure and grat~tudewhen terpretatlon of Sect~on1145,exemptma physicians
these are due Editors and newspaper men are from the proh~bitionsof Sect~on1142 when the prohuman, and that they appreciate recognition of h~bltedart~clesor mstruments were used "for the
them efforts to serve the public IS shown by the cure or prevent~onof dlsease " The exception, s a ~ d
treatment accorded this little letter I n general, Judge Crane, is broad enough to protect the phythe press has dealt not only f a ~ r l ybut generously sman who in good f a ~ t hgives such help or advice to
w ~ t hthe Birth Control movement and has glven ~t a marrled woman to cure or prevent disease H e
pubhc~tywhlch was essential to the spread of the then gave a defin~tionof disease from Webster's
y
covers pain, s~ckness,~llness,dismovement I f our readers would watch for oppor- d ~ c t ~ o n a rwhich
order
I
t
IS
under
this opmon that a Bureau of
tun~tlesto express them recognition of fan- and
C
h
n
d
Research,
under
a capable and fully qualopen-m~ndedreporting of Birth Control meetmgs
and a c t ~ v ~ t ~the
e s ,result would be more and better ~fieddoctor, was o ~ e n e dJanuary 1, 1923 m connection w ~ t hour H e a d ~ u a r t e r sa t 104 Fifth Avep u b l ~ c ~for
t y the movement
nue, New York T h ~ Bureau
s
has now become the
almost all the attacks on Blrth Control made Mecca of sick and suffennq mothers, who are exby Roman Catholic speakers, abortlon IS con- amlned and a v e n scientidr lnstruct~onin Birth
founded wlth the prevent~onof conception The Control The many cases wh~chdo not come under
d~fferencebetween the k~fhngof human be~ngs Judge Crane's decis~onare st111 compelled to wait
after they have come into ex~stenceand the guard- for an amendment to the law
nlds, should iesent A declease in comfort for the
sake of a d d ~ n ga certam number of fore~gnersto
the populntlon "A soc~etywhlch has an mtellgent
Interest In the well-being of ~ t people,"
s
he stated,
"would conceln ~tselfnot with the increase of numbers of those not yet conceived, but with the provision of guaranty for thetr well-be~ng,as well as
for that of the present generat~on" "After a soc ~ e t yhas reached a certam point In its development," he added, "lt has to choose whethei the products of ~ t mdustries
s
ale to be devoted to inamtainmg a larger populat~onon the same or lower
standard of I i t ~ n gor
, to prov~dmga higher standard of llv~ngfor a populat~onof the same s ~ z e I t
cannot do both " That Buth Control was the remedy to wh~chhe looked for a check on the dlsastrous growth of popul.ttlon he made qulte clear
"No one d l quest~on,"he added, "the obligat~on
which a society owes to people who have been born,
but to those who hare nex er been concewed, ~towes
no obhgat~onthat thev should be born "
A
IN
October, 1924
Daedalus or Icarus :
I S S C I E N C E T O BE MAN'S S E R V A N T OR HIS M A S T E R ?
By Mar coLar H BISSELL
Talnng u p the Challenge
R O P H E T S are said to be without honor ID
their own country, but anyone who glves us a
The effect of M r Haldane's challenge was not
picture of the future can always be sure of atten- long in m a k ~ n g~tselffelt M r Bertrand Russell
tion a t least This in some measure accounts for soon appeared w ~ t ha companion volume enhiled
the popularity of M r Wells' recent books and for Icarus, or the Future of Sczence * Thls 1s q u ~ t ea
the numerous attempts on the part of other wr~ters d~fferentkind of book, written from another poult
t o tell us the kmd of world our descendants will of vlew, but almost equally thought-provok,ng
live in One man's guess may be as good as These two httle volumes-each of them can he rc :d
another's when ~tcomes to describmg the civlliza- in half an hour or s e f u r m s h about the most \tlmtion of a hundred or a thousand years hence, yet ulating mental food In small compass that h ~ .s~ p too often the wish IS father to the thought, and the peared m recent years
enthus~ast~c
believer in t h ~ sor that panacea r ~ d e s The books must be read to be appreu i ~ c d N c
his hobby to h ~ heart's
s
content, without much re- renew of them can give an adequate 1de4tof thcii
gard t o actual probabllltles or t o the fundamental qualit~es While a t first reading there appeals to
facts of human nature It IS therefore part~cularly be a marked contrast In the two pomts of \leu pres~gmficantto encounter a book in which a judicial sented, t h ~ sis more apparent than real If M r
point of view IS mamtained throughout, in s p ~ t eof Haldane is more hopeful than M r Russell t l ~ a t
the startling and almost unbelievable suggestions man will eventually become a rational being, he has
which it contains
that the change w ~ l be
l a deliberate and
no ~llus~ons
Such a book is Daedalus, or Sczence and thc voluntary one But a discuss~onof the vlews of the
Future, by J B S Haldane of Cambridge Unl- two authors would lead us too far afield, M r Halversity * It contam less than one hundred pages, dane's volume alone touches almost every phase of
but no book of recent t ~ m e sIS more l~kelyto arouse human ~nterest,from mathematics, chem~strvand
the reader to vlgorous reaction Whether one economics to ph~losophy,art, spiritualism and rel ~ g ~ o nW e shall therefore be obhged to confine
agrees or disagrees w ~ t hthe author's conclusionsand few are likely to agree w ~ t hthem in t o t e h e ourselves to a brief summary of the conclusions
is sure to recewe a thorough mental shaking-up be- presented, w t h specla1 reference to those relating
fore he has read many pages The conservative to blrth control
M r Haldane holds that the biolog~st IS the
and the adherent of trad~tionwill be st~rredto fury
by the ruthlessness with wh~chtheir cherished deals most romantic figure in modern life, and he goes
s
are handled, even the radical will find himself al- far toward justifymg the cla~m While h ~ predicmost gasplng a t the boldness of the picture M r t ~ o n sare startling, he is careful t o state that they
Haldane has drawn One can imagine the scorn- are in every case based on a o r k that has already
ful wrath wlth wh~chM r Chesterton wodld revlew been accompl~shed H e feels that on the whole
the book But whatever one's react~ons,he w ~ l l our descendants will be much better off than we
be st~rredto thought ~fhe is capable of ~t And he are, although to many readers h ~ picture
s
may not
w ~ lalso
l
be entertamed, for the book sparkles w ~ t h be altogether alluring H e looks forward to the
w t t y sallles a t the complacency of the tradit~on- complete tr~umphof rat~onahsmover superstit~on
al~stsand makes numerous agile side-thrusts at and trad~tion,and to the regulat~onof human aff a ~ r by
s a klnd of vast scientific world-organ17atlon
the stup~dityof present-day-civ~lization
The
food
problem will be solved by the chemical
The author has assuredly ach~evedhis purpose
manufacture
of a "completely sat~sfactorvd~et,"
I n h ~ brief
s
mtroduct~onhe states that he experts
the
general
nature
of which is outlmed, and shown
d h ~ "undue
s
and unpleasant emto be c n t ~ c ~ z efor
phas~son certam toplcs " But, he contmues "tl11s to be amazingly near accompl~shmentalreadv A s
a result, aqr~culturewill become a luxury and manIS necessary if people are to be mduced to t h ~ n k
l completely urbanized Cheap and uniabout them, and ~t is the whole business of a 11111 kind w ~ lbe
versally
available
power mll be obtained by usmg
vers~tyteacher to ~nducepeople to thmk " There,
w
~
n
d
energy
to
generate
electricity, part of wh~ch
m a word, IS the keynote of the book
w
~
l
l
decompose
water
Into
oxygen and hydrogen
to he recombined and agaln supply power in times
'Publ~shed b j E P Dutton & C o , hew York
P
Barth Control Rernezo
of calm Industry w ~ l thus
l
be decentrahzed, and nant groups, rather than to make men happy " H e
smoke and ashes w ~ lbe
l thmgs of the past D~sease pomts out that the chief effect of sclence has been
will be ent~relyellmlnated and death will cease to to mcrease organuat~on Indlvldual freedom is
be regarded w ~ t hhorror, but wdl be welcomed as constantly becormng less, and the m a j o r ~ t yof manwe welcome sleep
kind IS tendmg toward a c o n d ~ t ~ oofn complete subBut it IS In the apphcatlon of b~ologyto human ject~onto the w~shesand ideas of those who conl ~ f ethat the most starthng changes are to occur trol industry The ~ n d n ~ d uisa lhelpless In the face
Reproduct~onwlll be completely separated from of orgamzat~on O r g a m d groups, such as labor
sexual love Children wdl be born ectogenetlcally uruons and pohhcal part~es,keep h m from exer-that IS, the e n t ~ r eprocess of fertll~zat~on
of the clslng free cholce, and by means of the press, the
ovum and development of the embryo wdl take schools and even the movles, he is constantly subplace outs~dethe body of the mother, thus permt- jected to organued propaganda
t ~ n gthe carrylng out of eugenic prlnc~plesto a deInternuttonal Cooperatzon Needed
gree prev~ously~mposs~blePass~onsand emot~ons
will be controlled by stlnlulatmg or retard~ngthe
All t h ~ sm itself m ~ g h tnot be a serlous matter
secret~onsof the ductless glands, whose influence were ~tnot for the extreme n a t ~ o n a l ~ scharacter
t~c
on human character and behanor we already know of these organ~zedforces "The harm that IS bemg
to be very great
I n thls manner we shall be able done by sclence and ~ndustr~allsm
is almost wholly
to deal w ~ t hperverted ~ n s t ~ n c tby
s "phys~ology due to the fact that wh~lethey have proved strong
rather than pr~son"and to regulate passions "by enough to produce a nat~onalorganization, they
some mole direct method than fastmg and flagel- have not proved strong enough to produce a n mlat~on"
ternational organlzat~on" T h ~ ~s
s unfortunate beA few quotat~onsWIU illustrate the stlmulat~ng cause lt leads to mternat~onalcompet~tionmstead
nature of M r Haldane's book Many others of cooperat~on Rlvalry, rather than love of gam,
IS the real drimg force behmd the compethon of
equally arlestmg rmght be glven
nat~ons,
as IS proved by the fact that although rlval
"Emstem showed that experlence cannot be mtrusts would benefit by combmng, they prefer the
terpreted in terms of the tune and space "
to mcreased wealth Interzest of compet~t~on
" W ~ t h ~the
n next century sugar and starch wdl national cooperat~on, therefore, can never be
be about as cheap as sawdust "
g
is controlled by
brought about "whde b ~ busmess
"There IS no great ~nvent~on,
from fire to flymg, men who are so r ~ c has to have grown mdlfferent to
whlch has not been ha~ledas an msult to some god " money "
"If reproduct~onIS once completely separated
M r Russell's cynlclsm 1s much m ev~dence,
from sexual love, mankmd wdl be free In an alto- especially m all matters involving pol~tlcalor govgether new sense "
ernmental actlvlty H e has l ~ t t l efalth m the m"We must learn not to take tradhonal morals telhgence or unselfishness of the average c~tlzen,
and stdl less In pol~tlclansand office-holders "Adtoo ser~ously"
" We can foretell l ~ t t l eof the future save that mn~stratorsm the future wlll be presumably no
the t h ~ n gthat has not been IS the thmg that shall less s t u p ~ dand no less prejud~cedthan they are a t
are present " It must be adm~ttedthat there IS reason
be, that no behefs, no values, no mst~tut~ons,
s
I n t h ~ sconnect~onhe calls atfor h ~ scepticism
safe "
tent~on
to
a
very
common
fallacy, namely the as" In the late war the most r a b ~ dnat~onal~sts
were
surnpt~on
that
a
reform
measure
by men
to be found well behmd the front h e I n the next of sclence would, ~f adopted, beadvocated
adrmn~stered
by
war no one w ~ l be
l behmd the front h e It wlll be
men
slmllar
In
outlook
to
those
who
advocated
~t
brought home to all whom ~tmay concern that war
Thls,
of
course,
IS a delus~on,for a reform, once
1s a very dlrty busmess "
ach~eved,IS handed over to the average cit~zen
"The tendency of applied sclence 1s to magnlfy Here M r Russell selzes a fine opportun~tyfor
ev~lsu n t ~ they
l
become too mtolerable to be borne, satwe at the expense of "Prlme Mln~sters,Blshops,
and the average man whom all the prophets and and othcrs whom the Statc cons~dersdesirable "
poets could not move, turns a t last and extlnEven b~ologywdl, M r Russell fears, be used to
gushes the evll a t ~ t source
s
"
I f we knew enough about
oppress mankmd
M r Russell is far less confident that sclence wd1 heredity to produce the kmd of people we des~red,
prove a boon to manklnd A long experlence mt11 the knowledge would be used by those In power
statesmen and golernments has made hun sceptl- to breed a subsement populat~on S~mllarly,~fwe
cal "I am conipelled to fear," he says, "that ever learn how to control emot~onsand dispos~tlons
sclence wd1 be used to promote the power of doml- bv regulatmg the secret~onsof the ductless glands,
-
October, 1924
the r u h g classes wdl see to ~tthat thelr own chddren are given the dlsposltion to command, whlle
the masses are molded to obedience, so that "agalnst
the lnject~onsof the State physic~ansthe most eloquent Soclahst oratory would be powerless " W e
suspect that M r Russell is not m his most serious
mood here, but the plcture, even ~f overdrawn, is
enough to give us pause
IS a deluslon It has been most effectweb d~sposcd
of by Professor East m h s "Manlund nt the Crossroads," where ~tIS clearly shown that the only danger menacmg the wh~terace is ~ t own
s
stupditv
m refusmg to r e c o p z e the menace of overpopulat ~ o n Even ~f t h s brdhant and careful nnslvsls
were not avadable, a httle reflection should hate
convmced M r Russell that h s fears were unfounded I n the first place, the mversal adopt~on
The Value of Bzrth Control
of birth control by the whte nations would greatly
Both M r Haldane and M r Russell see In some reduce the mcentwes to war among them, and hence
form of world o r g a m a t ~ o nthe only prospect of the need for employmg colored mercenaries agalnst
salvaging civ~lizat~on M r Haldane thinks such each other Secondly, ~f the white race as a whole
organization mentable as the result of the appli- were to attam a statlonary populat~on,its poslt~on
cations of sclence, M r Russell IS less confident, al- would be enormously strengthened as a result of
though he adrmts a tendency m that direchon But the mcreased effic~encyof ~ t sciv~hzat~on The
he 1s not qulte sure that civ~hzationIS worth salvag- ellmmatlon of the great amount of waste of both
ing, anyway M r Haldane's argument seem\ human and other resources wh~ch1s mev~tablem
more convmcmng, but all well-mformed readers w ~ l l any orgamc group m t h a high b~rth-rate,would
agree that a soc~etywh~chthrough prejud~ceand make the whte race impregnable to the attacks of
d
Intebgence and control of reblgotry refuses to look facts m the face, and brings less c m ~ h races
s
dlssolutlon by a fallure to recopwe sources are far more ~mportantm the modern world
about ~ t own
than mere numbers Only the mconceivable eventhe need of blrth control, rlchly deserves ~ t fate
s
It IS scarcely necessary to state that M r IIal- tuahty of an ahance of all the other races of the
dane appreclntes the 1 slue and desirability of blrth world agalnst the w h ~ t e race could seriously
control, the new liberation of humamty through the threaten wh~tec~vlluation,and by the t ~ m ethe cols
be posseparation of sexual love and reproduct~on,whch ored races reach the stage where t h ~ would
he so vigorously emphas~zes1s exactly what blrth slble, they mll long slnce have been forced to adopt
control seeks to establish H e does not even con- birth control themselves If, on the other hand,
sider ~trequisite to argue the point, he goes so far another race, such as the yellow, should develop an
so superlor to those
beyond mere blrth control In h ~ spredlctlon of intelligence and a clv~l~zat~on
ectogenesls" that few of us, perhaps, mll be w~ll- of the whites, as to enable it to supersede the latter,
ing to follow him Yet ~f we are honest we cannot who could regard t h s as a calamity?
but admit that there IS nothing illogxal or immoral
W a r No Check on Populatzon
or impossible in such a farther step m man's conquest of nature
M r Russell has fallen mto another common erM r Russell also frankly recognizes the ~mport- ror 1s assurmng that war 1s a check on overpopulaance of blrth control H e pays hls r e s p t ~ t sto its tion The utter fallacy of thls ~ d e ahas been demopponents m varlous terse and satiric phmses, of onstrated by Harold W r ~ g h m
t hls book on "Popwhlch the following 1s a n example ' Government ulatlon " W a r actually accentuates overpopulaopposlt~onto blrth control propagand,b gwes a 1110- tlon by exhaustmg resources and disturbmg ecologlcal advantage to stupidity, slnce ~t 1s chiefly nomlc hfe to a much greater relatwe degree than
stupld people whom governments sucreccl In keep- ~treduces human numbers
mg in ignorance " But In spite of his bellef In the
On the whole, both M r Haldane and M r Rusnecessltv of blrth control to prevent overpopula- sell have produced telhng arguments in favor of
tlon, he foresees certain dangers H e fears that blrth control, although ne~therof them had this
population wlll not merely become stationary, but purpose primar~lym view M r Haldane has, we
may d~mlnish The white races w11 pract~cevol- thmk, mnimized the difficult~esm the wav of prountary restriction of their numbers wh~le"unc~v~l-duclng art~ficialfood on a commercial scale, b u i the
zed" races remaln prolific, w t h the ultunate result mere suaaest~onof such a p o s s ~ b ~ l ~makes
tv
the
of the exterrnlnatlon of white clvilizat~on by a need fo;%e establishment of blrth control all the
"rlslng tide of color "
more ~mpernt~veW e shudder to think of llfe In
Thls 1s a Eem~l~ar
bogey, but we are surprised an age wlth an unbounded food supply and withthat as critlcnl a scholar as M r Russell should al- out blrth control1 Starvation would perhaps be
low ~tto disturb hlm H e has evidently corrle un- preferable to an existence m a world mthout prider the spell of Lothrop Stoddard But Stod- vacy, solltude or natural beauty
dard's arguments are unsound and hls whole thesis
(Contmued on page 502)
6'
Rzrth Control Revzew
Birth Control and Medical Practice
B
IRTH Control is a branch of hygiene and hy- mform her of the danger of a pregnancy making
glene is a branch of medicine, therefore doctors should be the leadmg authorities on Birth
Control For us, as doctors, it has two aspects
( 1 ) the hygienic-therapeutic, and ( 2 ) the hygiemcprophylactic
It IS generally recognized that women with
heart dlsease are seriously endangered by pregnancy, they may suffer serious aggravation of the
malady thereby, and may even die Nearly all
text-books on obstetrics emphasize thls, and there
are many references to ~t in medlcal works I n
some bad cases artific~almiscarriage has to be resorted to, and the majority of doctors approve
Surely from a humanitarian point of view, prevention of conception is more justifiable than abortlon
That serlous disease of the lungs, especially advanced tuberculosis, demands that doctors should
recommend Birth Control, IS, in my opmion obvlous It is st111a much discussed questlon whether
or not tuberculous glrls should become pregnant
When Kirchner declared that the marriage of consumptives should certalnlj be forbidden, he was
speaklng praiseworthily from his hygienic standpoint But hls recommendation is quite impracticable I n view of the great prevalence of tuberculosis, Blrth Control is the only way out of the
difficulty Blrth Control is more important here
than in all the other d~seasesput together Consumption IS not an indlcatlon for Blrth Controlit is the lndlcatlon for it T o allow consumptwe
women to waste away through pregnancy is Inhuman and utterly unworthy of the medlcal professlon The recommendation by doctors of sexual
abstinence to marrlcd couples is unpardonable, for
they must know that it wlll not long be kept up by
any marrled couple Happlly our ldeas are gainmg ground Kammer in "Dzsease and Marriage"
says "We must regard it as one of the prmcipal
dutles of the physician to prevent conception m
tuberculous women, wlth all the preventwe means
known to science "
Dlabetes mellitus in ~ t more
s
severe forms is also
an indicat~onfor B~rtliCont~ol,for pregnancy has
always a most unfavorable influence in those forms
of the dlsease In which the sugar excretion reaches
a hlgh percentage If a marrled woman IS found
to be diabetic, even shghtly so, the doctor ought to
-
Snmlnnry of an address made In London at the F ~ f t h Inter
nntlonal B ~ r t hControl Conference )
her mlld case a serious one Diabetic gnls may
marry, but they should have no children
A hlgh degree of contracted pelvls IS an lndication for Blrth Control unless the woman is willmg to hale a cesarian section But In no case ought
one to go so far as to allow, as has been done, a
woman to undergo cesarian section repeatedly until
she collapses a t the sixth time On thls case, my
deceased colleague and fnend, D r Mensinga of
Flensburg (Geimany) the Inventor of the Dutch
pessary, remarked "H2s the doctor reallzed a t all
the helplessness and hopelessness of such an existence* I s it creditable to hm-this wanton torture
to the bitter end*"
Chronic kldney disease in women makes Blrth
Control advlce a medical duty on much the same
grounds as for heart dlsease
Venereal disease, and especially syphilis, makes
Blrth Control by the use of the condom obhgatory,
m order to prevent mfectlon of others, and m order
to prevent the mfected person from golng from
bad to worse, as most frequently happens with advice of sexual abstinence Sexual abstinence IS
here the best thing, but the disease may be long
lastrng and such abstinence a practicable Impossib~lity
THE HYGIENIC-PEOPHYI ACTIC ASPECT
Blrth Control has to be considered m the case of
serious mfections, such as tuberculosis and syphilis
The declded inheritability of the tendency to
tuberculosis and the grav~tyof such inheritance are
well known I f all doctors were to advise Birth
Control to consumptives, a great part of this soclal
problem would be solved
Certaln constitutional diseases call for Birth
Control on prophylactic grounds Diabetes IS one
A s Senator says "The progeny IS endangered In
a double manner by diabetes mellltus, because chlldren of dlabetic mothers are born In a weakly conditlon, and because of the hereditary nature of the
dlsease, whlch IS estimated at 20 per cent " Haemophllla 1s another constitutional disease which has a
strong ~nheritability, and Rlpke rightly says
"Bleeders ought not to reproduce "
That serious nervous diseases, epilepsy, hysteria, and mental dlseases should not be further
handed on IS adrmtted hy all doctors These, therefore, call for the consideration of Blrth Control
Indeed many doctors h a ~ ewritten m favor of
ster~llzatlonin these cases
(Conttnard on vngP 300)
The World Crisis of Pop1
ITHOU'I' bemg aware of ~ t clvlhzed
,
man- and fert~lelands In the temperate zone, cannot conkmd 1s In a most crltlcal s ~ t u a t ~ o Int s most tlnue much longer There are no more M~sslsslpp~
preclous contemporary acluevement-the diffusion Valleys, Austral~as,Canadas, and Argentmas to
of decency of hfe, and comfort throughout all brmg under the plow, so ~fmanklnd lns~stson conclasses m soc~ety-1s In danger of helng swept a w g tlnumg the present rate of propagation, hfe, withm
now llvlng, w l l beby a new deluge-th~s t~me,not of water but of the experience of lnd~v~duals
bab~es F o r a t present mankmd IS lncreaslng m come so 111-nounshed, harrassed, and d~fficultthat
l
rlse In s p ~ t eof the best
number as In no prerlous per~odfor whlch we have the death rate w ~ l qulckly
record The watchful lookouts who pace the walls that doctors and health officers can do
of Z ~ o n ,mstead of t a k ~ n gthelr ease In her courts
The Increase of Populat~on
g to human~ty's
and streets, see the a p p r o a ~ h ~ nper11
future so near and v ~ s ~ bthat
l e they vhould be parThe human family has doubled In number in
doned ~f they cry the alarm w ~ t hstr~dentvolces
s
rate of expanninety-two years, but at ~ t present
The number of inembers of the human famdy IS slon ~tw ~ l lhave doubled again wlthin sixty years,
supposed to be 1,700,000,000, wh~chIS tw~cewhat ~t that IS,by 1983 I n a hundred years, the same rate
was est~matedto be n~nety-twoyears ago Last would have expanded the populat~onof the world
year one of my students d ~ e dat the age of nlnety- to three and one-s~xteentht~mesthe present poputwo When she was born the world had but half l a t ~ o nand
,
t h ~ s1s all the human he~ngswhich, acas ~t has today Thmk what cording to the calculat~onsof food and agrlcultural
as many ~nhnb~tants
~tmeans, that w~thina smgle llfetune huinan~tyhas experts, could poss~blybe fed ~f every ava~lahle
gamed as many members as In all the prevlous acre on the globe were tllled and producing as much
thousands of centunesl
as ~t IS capable of contrlbutmg I n two hundred
The D n me command, "Be f r u ~ t f uand
l mult~ply years, there would be ten tlmes the present popuand replenish the earth," was uttered to e g h t lat~onof the globe, and then, even ~f mank~ndwere
people who were all that remamed of mankmd after fed by a fall of heavenly manna, they would he so
the Flood There are now 250,000,000 tunes as crowded and would polson one another so terr~hly
many people as there were then How much longer that hfe would hardly be worth l m n g
IS this emergency mandate to be considered as st111
The populat~onof England and Wales a t the
In force?
openlng of the nmeteenth century was about nlne
I n the five year period, 1906-1911-the growth mllhon, but by the openlng of the twent~ethcenof human numbers has been calculated to be one tury, ~thad Increased to 32,500,000, I e , multiplied
and one-s~xthper cent per year, wh~chmust be three-and-one-half tlmes In one hundred years
many t ~ m e sgreater than anythmg of the kmd " Had our forefathers smce the days of W ~ l h a mthe
whlch has occurred h~thertoIn the h~storyof our Conqueror," says M r Bland, "been In a posltlon
race H a d thls rate of expans~onprevailed steadlly to ach~evea birth-rate and a death-rate slm~larto
through prevlous centuries, all the human be~ngs those of England and Wales In the nineteenth cenon the globe could have been produced from a tury, the present populat~on of t h ~ stlght httle
s~nglepaw in selenteen hundred nmety-one years, island-without allowmg for any contribution from
I e , Adam and Eve could have set up housekeepmg Scotland-would he somewhere In the neighboras lately as the days of the Roman Emperor, Mar- hood of 150,000,000 I n hne ulth t h ~ sis
, the statecus Aurel~us If you take, not the contemporary ment made by Dean Inge before the Br~tlshBirthrate of Increase, but-the rate whlch prexmled be- rate Comm~ss~on" In the M~ddleAges
the
tween 1804 and 1914, about 2,400 years would hlrth-rate was about 45, and the death-rate about
suffice to produce the present populatlon of the the same W ~ t h ~the
n last centurv the death rate
globe from an Adam and Eve hvmg a t the t ~ m e has been reduced from the medli~valrate to 14, and,
of the Battle of Marathon
~f the b ~ r t hrate were malntamed a t anythmg hke
s
level, about 40, all over the world, the
One thmg IS beyond all dlspute, v u , that the ~ t natural
contemporary expansion of human~ty,wh~chIS due, populat~onof the globe, whlch IS now 1,700,000,000,
In part to the amazmg success of med~calsclence would in 120 years have reached 27,000,000,000,
and puhhc hyg~eneIn fightmg off dlsease, and In or about ten t ~ m e sas great a number as the earth
part to the r a p ~ dagrlcultural evplo~tatlonof new could probably support "
W
Llkemse there has been an extraordmary mExamples of Population Growth
crease
among mdependent peoples who have
Europe is supposed to have had 80,000,000 of
adopted
the white man's clvll~zatlonon ~ t materlal
s
inhabitants In 1700 I n one hundred years t h was
side
The
populatlon
of
Japan,
which
had
been
more than doubled and In the last fifty years
Europe's rate of mcrease has been unprecedented nearly statlonary for two hundred years, grew from
m hlstory Austm has calculated that from 1772 33,000,000 m 1871 to 54,000,000m 1914 Japan IS
to 1872 the mcrease was a t the rate of 16% for each mcreasmg a t the rate of threequarters of a d o n
20 year perlod Smce that tune ~thas been much annually, and a t her present rate, m another forty
more rapld, practically 20% m the penod 1872 to years she w d be attemptmg to mamtam a populatlon equal to the contmental Umted States
1892, and 26% m the perlod 1892 to 1912
Calculations made from the census s t a t ~ ~ h c s On the other hand, where European c~vhzabon
collected by the Regwtrar General of England has not yet been deeply felt, as m Chum or Central
show that, In 1916, Europe had 465,000,000 of Afnca, or Inner Arabla, or Persla, populabon has
people I n addlt~on,great streams of emgrants been stahonary or has even decreased
had flowed away from Europe smce 1800, and ~t
The Fall in the Buth Rate
has been computed that the descendants of these
The recent fall m the crude blrth-rate of the
m the Amer~cas,Afr~ca,and Australasla number
185,000,000 Thus ~tappears that Europe and ~ t s more advanced peoples has lnsplred a vast deal of
offspring outslde have more than trebled m number denunc~at~onand jeremiad Every thoughtful
person has heard of it, but few outslde stat~stlclans
smce 1816
Agam, there has been an enormous Increase m and publlc health officers have not~cedthe extrathe native population of the lands to whlch Euro- ordmary lowermg of the death rate whlch has been
peans have gone Although, havlng reached the brought about In the last forty rears Yet, m most
saturation point, the populatlon of North America, countries, ~tq u ~ t eneutralizes that shortage of the
Egypt and India was formerly a t a standstill, the baby crop which has lnspmed so many gloomy
arrlval of European clvlhzat~on and European prophec~es
governments mth them lrrlgatlon and pubhc health
Compare the fourteen European countries m t h
measures have caused population to start forward worth-while vltal statistics, In respect to them
at an amazlng rate The most outstandmg example records for the half-decade 1881-1885,and for the
of the stimulating effect of European contact upon last half-decade before the War, vlz, 1906-10
the Increase of the natlve populatlon 1s mtnessed penod, you mll find that in nme of them, the death
In the case of Java I n the words of Professor rate fell further than the birth rate, so that m 1910
Wlllcox "Thls Island increased ~ t populatlon,
s
the them natural Increase was oreater than ~thad been
great mass of whom have no trace of European a quarter of a centurv enrller, before forethought
s
among the
blood, from about 4,000,000 m 1800 to about had glven much evldence of ~ t presence
30,000000 m 1905 It 1s less than one-third as large masses I f only the publ~ccould be made to realm
as Callfornla, contains not one great city, and yet that In the last quarter-century for whlch we have
has nearly th~rteentlmes as many mhabltants as complete statlstlcs (1881-85 to 1906-10) the death
thls state, or about one-thlrd as many as the whole rate of Flnland, Norwav, Sweden, and Scotland
Unlted States Thls slngle case of Increase m the dechned about a fifth, that of Amtna, Bele~um,
aborlgmal population of Java, under the influence Denmark, Enqland and Wales, Hungary, Italy,
of Europe, 1s enough to outweigh all known de- Spaln, and Smt7erland. a fourth that of Austraha,
creases in all other parts of the world several tlmes Bulgaria and Holland, about a thzrd I n 1900 the
death rate In our "reglstrat~onarea" was 17 6 per
over "
thousand of the po~ulatlon I n 1921 the rate was
What U S Has Done to Help Po* RICO
11 7,a reduction of a third in twenty-one years
Save our lngenuitv In dev~slngcontrivances for
Or mark what has happened m Porto Rim I n
the twenty years following the Amencan occupa- blottme; out human hfe, nothmg m our tlme 1s so
tlon of Porto Rlco ~ t populatlon
s
has lncreased a sensational as our success m vanquishlnq certam
quarter of a milhon, or 36%, omng to the com- dlseases F o r example, a few years ago the deaths
merclal expanwon and mdustrial development per 100,000 populatlon from the fevers, lncludlng
follomng the Amerlcan occupation Governor typho~d, typhus, and malarla, were only one
Yaeger of Porto Rlco states that the greatly en- seventy-thlrd as common as the deaths from these
larged o p p o r t ~ i n ~ t ~for
e s emplovment, Instead of fevers m Indla There is no climatlc or georeason for their mevalence In India and
ralsmq the standard of llvlng and increasing wages, .praphlcal
.
resulted chiefly m lncreasmg the numbers of the these same diseases plaved havoc m thls country a
laborers
century ago Theyscourge us so httle today be-
Headed for Saturation
As ~tIS, we are headed stra~ghtfor a world saturabon whch wdl make toll, poverty, anx~ety,and
low expectation of hfe the portion of the masses
m all countries It was some job dunng the War
for the alhes to feed a port~onof the Belpans
Well as h g s now are, food for two new Belgums
must be found every year I n the words of Professor East, "The t~llersof the sod must prepare,
Saving the Babies
plant, cult~vateand harvest each year nearly forty
d o n acres more than they lsd the year before "
The progress of chdd s a w alone d c e s to The end of rap~dexpansion ~sm s~ght Wlthm a
offset a large part of the fall of the bwth-rate hfe tlme, we shall arnve at a nearly stabonary state
Peeps into the mfant mortahty of the less advanced of populabon Shall the eqwhbnum between buths
peoples suggest that, nght down through hitory, and deaths be struck by adjustmg the blrth-rate
from a thml to two-th~rdsof those born have to the death rate of ten per thousand per annum,
penshed m the cradle A decade ago, a quarter of wh~chwe may look for before very long, or shall
the bab~esborn m Hungary m Russ~afaded to hve ~tbe struck by allowmg the growth of mwdmg,
a year I n Chde, m 1913, I found the loss to be a overwork, and underfeedmg to raue the mortahty
th~rd,m some ches 47 per cent Before the War, to 24 per thousand per annum, wh~chIS the present
Moscow parents were losme; half them mfants buth-rate? The answer to t h ~ depends
s
on whether
m t h n a twelve-month I n 1910, m the innermost we shall stnke the statlonary state about the t ~ m e
provlnce of Chma, an Amencan m d c a l rmsslon- we have a populabon of 150,000,000 or about the
ary, mth twenty years of prachse, gave me h ~ s tune forty years later when we shall have
oplmon that from 75 to 85 per cent of the chldren 200,000,000
born In the hxi lsstnct dle before the end of the
I doubt very much ~f Amer~canspnerallv mll
second year
ever consent to endure the wretched hfe wh~chthe
On the other hand, thanks to modem hyg.lene Chmese masses have brought upon themselves by
and med~cmewe are savlnq mnfants mth a success overmult~phcabon Before descendme mto such a
that our forefathers would have attributed to m a w vale of wretchedness, c u r t a h e n t of the slze of the
Already there are more than a dozen peoples that famdy mll certainly become a general pradxe. but
lose less than a tenth of them chddren m the first shall such curts~lmentbe postponed untd the presyear of hfe Our country 1s not h g h up m t h ~ s sure of numbers shall have mped out much of the
class but, nevertheless, there are twenty-five Amen- ease and comfort wh~chthe explo~tabonof a vlrpn
can c~heswhlch save n~neteenbab~esout of twenty contment has spread among us, or shall ~t be
I n New Zealand there are good-sued c~besthat adopted In t ~ m eto prevent a dechne m the Amenlose In the first year only one mfant m twenty- can standard of hfef
seven
The arnval of fam~lvhmtat~onand the unof knowledge of the means
That human hfe should be preserved mth such checked d~ssemnat~on
success 1s an utterlv new th~ng;m the experience of of such linutat~onare as certam to come as anyhuman~ty I n all the hfe of our race, extendme; thmg m the world If eventually, why not now?
over a thousand centunes and more, the hke of t h s
AN APOLOGY
has never been known It behooves us to adapt our
behavlor to ~tas we adapt our behavlor to arbfic~al We msh pubhcly to express-what have already been
hght or power mach~neryor the automobile If pnvately a c c e p t e d ~ u rslncere apolopes for the lapse
peode are to d ~ only
e
a th~rdor a fourth as fast m the August Remew when we omltted to gwe credlt for
as they used to d ~ e~t
, a plam that ~t m11 never do our beautlful cover plcture to the Metropohtan Museum
for them to be born as fast as ever, so we have of Art We h~ghlyapprecmte the pnvllege of us~ng,on
of the s~ze the cover of our Renew, the reproductions of these
before us an endless vlsta of restr~ct~on
of f a d e s We must leave unused an mcreasmng beautlful plctures and statues, whlch are exhlb~tedfor the
porhon of that ferthty wh~chbecame estabhshed enjoyment and &ficatlon of the pubhc In the great art
m our specles lona ago, m order to meet a rate of galleries of the Museum, and we greatly regret the seemwastam whch no longer presents ~tselfm c~vlhzed mg dscourtesy of uslng one of them mthout due achfe The more advanced peoples reallv do not dare knowledgment
use more than half thew natural fert~lityand we
For hnn to whom sex t Smprc, there are no flowerr cn
shall soon see the t ~ m ewhere they wll not dare
natrre -THOEEAU
use more than a t h r d of ~t
cause pubhc authonty has apphed the hcovenes
d preventwe m d c m e
It IS this agency that has chased from us those
gnzzly semtors of Azrael, bubomc plague, cholera,
yellow fever and small-pox Moreover, another
four of IS reapers, VIZ, typho~d,dphthena and
croup, tuberculos~sand penumoma have had them
s~cklesdulled.
Bzrth Control Revzew
Birth Control and Public Health
By C KILLICK MILLARD, M D H
Contznued from the September essue
4 The Eugen~cPomt of V~ew
less elements In the populat~onto exerclse the conW e have also to look at t h ~ squestlon from the s~derablemeasure of forethought, c~rcumspectlon
pomt of vlew of Eugen~cs Thls IS clearly allled to and self-control whlch the successful pract~ceof
the pomt of vlew of P u b l ~ cHealth, mdeed Eugen- any method of B ~ r t hControl demands I frankly
~ c smay be regarded In one sense as the Publlc a d m t the difficulty and ~t 1s q u ~ t eposs~blethat we
Health of future generat~ons
shall neler be ent~relysuccessful, but t h ~ sis no
No one w ~ l deny
l
that the present posltlon, wlth reason why we should not set thls alternatme before
~ t sdlfferent~alblrth-rate between the upper and us as an deal to be almed at Much, I beheve, could
al
and
the lower strata of soaetv, IS most unsatisfactory be done by sympathetic p r a c t ~ ~ mstruct~on,
B ~ r t hControl 1s bemg largelv pract~sedby the by provldmg adequate fac~llt~esAlso we may
more desirable stocks, wh~lst~t 1s bemg neglected reasonably hope for ~mpi-01ement In methods now
by the less deslrable, and although thls IS compen- that the subject IS bemg ser~ouslystudled not only
countr~es What
sated to some extent by the reduced rnfant mor- In thls but In almost all crv~l~zed
t a l ~ t ywhlch usually accompanies a lower b ~ r t h - 1s needed IS a method wh~chIS at once srmple, safe,
rate, the fact remams that our populat~on1s bemg effectwe and lnexpens~ve The experience now
unduly recru~ted from those elements whlch, bemg gamed In the two Blrth Control chnrcs whlch
humanly speakmg, are the least fitted to make good are bemg carr~edon In London should help us In
dec~dmghow far the lowest strata of the population
parents
can
be taught Blrth Control The followmg is
It must be frankly adm~tted,therefore, that
from
a descrlpt~onof a vlslt to D r 34arle Stopes's
Blrth Control, as we see ~t today, 1s dlstlnctly dysgenlc In its operat~on How can thls be remedledt Chnlc wh~chappeared In the Dnzl7i News for June
I t would appear that there are only two alterna- 20, 1921, from the pen of h4r Herbert Ashley,
Secretary of the London Councd of Soclal Service
tlves
( I ) Induce the more des~rablestocks to abandon
A Vzszt to a Bzrth Control Clznzc
Blrth Control and have larger famhes, or
"To s o c d workers who are w ~ l l ~ nto
g sweep
( 2 ) Induce the less dewable stocks to adopt
a s ~ d efalse "modesty" and to thmk w ~ t hcourage,
Blrth Control and have smaller fam~lres
Does anyone seriously thlnk that the first alter- one fact IS apparent that the mother of the poorer
nat~veIS In the least degree practlcablet The edu- classes who bears a chdd unw~llrngly,rebelhously,
cated and "thmkmg" classes hale declded that re- b~tterly,and wlth anqu~sh,1s not she who best serves
strlct~onof the slze of the farn~lyIS deslrable The our race Such ch~ldrenare a loss to the State, an
clergy, doctors, schooln~asters,In short the ~ntelh- angulsh to therr mothers, and a mlsery to themW ~ t hsuch thoughts rn my mmd, I
gentzla of the nat~ontoday all have small fam~hes selves
called
a
t
D
r
Marie Stopes's Chnrc m Holloway
Who shall go forth and persuade them to act
d~fferentlylBlrth Control has been on rts trlal for I n a drab ne~ghborhood~tIS a beaut~fulplace
at least two generat~ons (rn reahty very much The whole atmosphere of the place IS one of conThe founders of the Clmlc,
whrch has fidence and purlty
longer) and I suggest that no clv~l~zatron
who
are
supported
by
many thmkers In many
once d~scoveredrt IS at all hkely to abandon ~t
W e may as well recognize frankly that B ~ r t hCon- different walks of Ilfe, have taken upon themselves
a work wh~chwlll save untold expense to the whole
trol has come to stay
communrtv, as well as untellable mlsery to InThe Logzcal Course
d ~ v ~ d u a"l s
I see no reason why a s ~ m r l adescr~ption
~
should
W e therefore have to fall back upon the other
alternative, v ~ ,z to Induce the less des~rablestocks not be appl~cableto all B ~ r t hControl Cllnlcs I
to follow the example of the more deslrable stocks would suggest that whatever our mews mav be on
and to practlse Blrth Control also T h ~ sIS surely t h ~ squestlon of Blrth Control, ~t IS u p to all of us
the more natural, the more logical and the more who are med~calofficers of health to watch the
progresswe course How far 1s ~t practicable? I t work of these chnlcs carefullv and sympathetrcallv
may be objected that we shall never succeed In perThe problem of the most degraded stocks, e
suad~npthe more reckless. thr~ftlessand thought- the feeble-mrnded, calls for speclal treatment No
>.
-
a,
doubt when public opinlon is ripe for it-and it is
certainly moving m that direction-measures will
be introduced for the permanent sterilization of
those unfortunates as an alternatwe to segregation
Already legislation wlth this end in view has been
passed In some countries
5 The Phys~ologlcalor Med~calAspect
Lastly we have to consider the physiological or
purely medical pomt of view What effectsphysiological, pathological or psychological-have
contraceptives on those mho habitually use them'
This is an aspect which, of course, specially concerns the medical profession It is much to be regretted, but none the less true, that we are not as a
profession, a t present, able to answer thls question
with any degree of certainty or unanimity I n an
anonymous letter whlch appeared in the July
number of Publzc Health over the nom de plume of
"X and Y," and headed "The Dangers of Birth
Control," the opinions of certain practitioners and
gynecologists were cited, expressing the belief that
the use of contraceptives was injurious to health
Elsewhere I have collected a number of opinions
on the other side, and I have also published (Report of Fifth International Birth Control Conference), the results of two special inquiries I instituted, by means of questionnaires, amongst medical
practitioners, men and women, including gynecologists Suffice it to say here that these inquiries satisfied me that the consensus of medical opinion today
was that no serious ill-effects need be apprehended
from the use of some a t least of the contraceptives
in common use My own feeling is that amongst
those who have been most emphatic in alleging that
serious 111-effects follow the use of contraceptives
there has been a great deal of unconscious exaggeration and of confusion between post hoe and
propter hoe, due to strong prejudice on supposed
ethical and patriotic grounds, and that this to a
large extent discounts their testimony I n this connection the medical evidence against the use of
contraceptives, given in a recent cause celebre, and
for which large fees were paid, makes interesting
reading, especially the answers ellcited under crossexamination
Conclus~on
L e t me conclude with an expression of my own
personal opinion I regard the ideal of responsible
parenthood, accompanied as a necessary corollary
by regulation of the size of the family, as a much
higher and more worthy ideal than the principle
of unrestricted breeding which prevailed prior to
the days of Birth Control It is all very well for
the opponents of Birth Control to say that responsible parenthood has always been held as an ideal
It 1s common knowledge that until Birth Control
came into vogue the orthodox teaching used to be
that chlldren were "sent" and that it was the duty
of married couples to take all that came
I regard the use of contraceptives as the only
practicable or desirable method of effecting regulation of the slze of the family In the case of normal
individuals, and I regard their use for this purpose
as perfectly legitimate and a necessary part of the
hygiene of marriage where restriction of the size
of the family is indicated Properly selected and
properly used, I do not believe that they have as a
general rule, any seriously deleterious effect upon
health, though I am quite prepared to believe that
their ignorant or improper use may in certain cases
have been productive of harm
I regard the suggestion that the use of contraceptives may cause permanent sterihty as a bogey,
quite unsupported by adequate evidence, but I
recognize that if young married couples begin
using contraceptives before they have had a child,
and if, later on, when they desire a child, they fail
to get one, it is very probable that they will reproach themselves and regard it as a "judgment "
I recogmze also that nowadays many young people
are apt to practise Birth Control where there is no
real need for it, and that they do not sufficiently
appreciate the immense and permanent value of
children in marriage, or the fact that after a certain
age in the woman the likelihood of conception
diminishes
F o r these reasons I think it better, as a general
rule and under normal conditions as regards housing, that young couples should always make sure
of at least one or two chddren before adopting
Birth Control and I disagree with those who teach
otherwise
OUR CONTRIBUTORS
Malcolm H Bzssell-Professor of Geology at
Bryn Mawr College Wrzter on Populatzon
Questzons
Hornell Hart-Soczologzst Dzrector Chzld Welfare Research Statzon, Des Moznes, Iowa
Marttna G Kramers Dutch wnter, actzve zn
Bzrth Control movement
Kztty Marzon, former mzlztant Suffragzst zn England Sells Bzrth Control Revzew on New York
streets
C Kzllzck Mzllard, Physzczan and Medzcal Oficer
of Health for Lezcester, England
Herman Rohleder, Emznent German Physzczan,
Lezpzzg
Edward A Ross, Professor of Soczology, Unzverszty of Wzsconszn, Madzson, Wzs
Btrth Control Rmero
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
Mothers Beg to be Saved From Bearang Duemed Babres
N o remomble man or zooman belceves that any chlld should be born m t h a hentage of
syphzlzs If there zs one thzng on whzch aU doctors are agreed, zt ur that syphdztzc parents
should not produce chzldren Clzmcs for the teachrng of Bzrth Control ought to form part
of every campazgn agaznat sonal dweme N o mother wwhes to bear a syphzlztzc chzld, and
the azn of bnngzng such chzldren tnto emtence lzes at the door of soczety that forhds the
preventzon of thew conceptzon W h o r o d d dare to say that such pleas aa these ought to be
dented
My Child Mtght be Born Bhnd
Pennsylvan~a
I am a young marr~edglrl of runeteen Last year I
gave b ~ r t hto an e~ght-monthsbaby, born dead My husband was troubled m t h syphlhs some years ago, and the
same doctor that treated h ~ mthen was our doctor when
the baby was born And he told my husband not to t r y
a n j t h n g hke that agaln untll he came m and took a
blood test He s a ~ dthat ~tmay have been the reason of
our baby being born dead But he d~dn'ttell us anythng
to keep from gettmg that way And three months ago,
I faded to get my monthly s~ckness My husband went
~n and asked the doctor to q v e me some me&cme, but ~t
&dn't do any good He went back agaln and the doctor
told h ~ mhe could not do anythmg more H e told hun t o
take me to a doctor ~n the c ~ t yafter I was two months
golng Then I took s ~ c kand was unable t o leave the
house for SIX weeks I don't know lf I could have ~tdone
or not, smce I am more than two months g o ~ n g Your
book says that ~t 1s very mjunous t o the health and that
chddren ought not to be born to parents troubled m t h
the &seases ment~onedIII thw letter If you know of any
way that I don't have to e v e b ~ r t hto another chld,
please wnte and tell me a t once, as my chlld m g h t be
born bhnd, or suffer from some other dlsease If you
can help me t h ~ stlme and tell me of Blrth Control, so
keep me from havlng bab~esfor a few years, untll I am
older and stronger and I thmk then my husband mll be
out of danger of our chlldren be~ngl n ~ u r e d
It Nearly Tore my Heart Out
Cahfoma
Smce readlng your book, "Woman and the New Race,"
I have regamed hope I t has made me feel that the tlme
1s comlng when all women m11 be able to stop havlng chddren, when they brought enough ~ n t othe world But
until then we have to contlnue to bear chlldren, because
we know of no other way
I have been marr~edfour years thls June When we
were first marrled I became pregnant ~nthe fourth month,
and in the second month of pregnancy, my body broke
out In purple spots Not havlng the least Idea what
could cause ~tI consulted a doctor ~mmed~atelyHe took
a blood test of both my husband and me When I went
back for my answer, ~t was "syphll~s" and of the worst
form It nearly tore my heart out, and my mother's a s
well, for I had always had such a horror of the very sound
of the world Then my husband told me he had got it
from hls first mfe So I had to be operated upon-~t
was not q u ~ t ethe same a s abortlon and yet a whole lot
worse
Then we started taklng blood treatments, three tunes
a week I could scarcely stand the moculatlons I had
to keep an Ice pack on ~tall rught In order to sleep, the
pam was SO dreadful My husband had no trouble
The doctor sald we could not nsk havlng ch~ldrenfor
they would be affl~cted F o r a year we took those treatments, and dunng that tlme I was operated on three
tunes I used every available preventive that other people
used, but I had no results from them The doctor s a ~ d
I could not stand another operat~on-that ~t would klll
me So ~tremalned for my husband to protect me After
much persuasion I got h m too use precautions, but ~t
was a constant naggmg, for he hated to do ~t Yet he
clalmed to love me dearly, and I told h m there was one
way of provlng it
We went t o Colorado The chmate was better there
and I felt better r ~ g h taway We had blood tests there
and both were negatlve Soon I was pregnant agam I
had the baby, and he was perfect so far as we could see
s
And I have had several
But the dlsease was ~n h ~ blood
symptoms smce, and there IS httle doubt that ~t1s draggmg me down-I am a nervous wreck The baby 1s 15
months old, and I am SIX months m t h another Because
we are poor, we cannot stand the operat~onso often, and
~t can only mean for me t o go on havmg one n g h t after
another I cannot nurse my bab~esfor my mllk 1s polson
And now my husband and I quarrel whenever I remmd
hlm that he could prevent ~t ~f he would My affect~on
for h ~ mIS wanlug, and he looks elsewhere for pleasure
It 1s no wonder I cannot hold h ~ m But ~f I &d not have
chlldren, I could make myself as attract~vea s any g r l ,
and then h ~ attention
s
would revert to me
There must surely be some means of prevention, and
October, 1924
no one would be more thankful t o hear of ~t than I It
1s not because I do not love ch~ldren I love my baby so
s
1s
much t h a t ~t dnves me crazy t o thmk t h a t h ~ blood
dlseased W e went t o a c l m c for awhde, and I saw other
bab~esthere t a k ~ n gtreatments It made my heart ache
t o see them jam those needles Into the tender l ~ t t l ebod~es
Poor httle helpless creatures, who are not t o blame, yet
they must suffer from others' folhes'
I was employed as asswtant post-master a t a small m m n g
town m Montana Soon after my marriage, I not~ced
t h a t my husband b-d t e r r ~ b l esores, wh~ch,even though
he doctored them 1 erslstently, refused t o heal I suggested t h a t he go t o a doctor and have h ~ blood
s
tested,
wh~chhe q u ~ t ercadlly dld T h e test was sent t o the S t a t e
Board of Health, and a report came back, 4-pluss y p h ~ l ~ sMy husband became enraged, and refused t o
take treatment, all the whde denyrng the same
A t t h ~ st ~ m eI was pregnant three months W h a t
A Drsgrace to Humanrty
could
I do but go through w ~ t h~tt o the end? When the
Pennsylvan~a
baby came, the doctor refused t o speak t o me about
I am not w n t ~ n gfor myself I am a marned woman m t h
s y p h ~ l ~and
s , we have had t o doctor the httle fellow ever
two healthy, b r ~ g h tch~ldren,and a n earnest advocate of
slnce I determ~nednot t o have another ch~ld,but three
Blrth Control, the same a s my husband But I have a
month' after my confinement, I was agam pregnant I
very dear f r ~ e n dwho was m a r r ~ e da t the age of e~ghteen
can't stoop t o abort~on,and must I go on brmglng these
t o a young man of very doubtful character, a g a ~ n s ther
httle deformed, defenceless creatures m t o the world?
parents' consent T h ~ man,
s
when marr~ed,was the vlct ~ mof a bad case of tuberculos~sand of the so-called
s o c ~ a ld~sease They have had three ch~ldren,not more Helpless from Birth
Cahf o r n ~ a
than 10 o r 11 months a p a r t T h e first 16 hv~ng,but 1s
I
am
today
the
mother
of
SIX
hvmg
ch~ldren,
and have
not r ~ g h tand very dehcate-a d ~ s g r a c et o humamty
The other two d ~ e da t a few days of age T h e woman 16 had two mlscarrlages My oldest son 1s now twelve pears
old, and he has been helpless from h ~ sb ~ r t h The rest
a physlcal wreck, a w a h n g death a s her eas~estrehef
H e r f a m ~ l yphysman refuses t o help her In her d e s ~ r et o of my ch~ldrenare very pale, and I have t o take them t o
have no more ch~ldren,t o be brought mto the world t o the doctor q u ~ t eoften One of my daughters has her left
suffer and dle I want t o do someth~ngfor my friend, a s eye b h n d
her plight 1s a great worry t o me W ~ t hthe facts narI have t n e d t o keep myself away from my husband
rated here can you not send me some mformat~ont o help smce my last baby was born, but ~t causes quarrels and
her Anythmg you send me w ~ lbe
l more than apprec~ated once he left me saymg I wasn't d o n g my duty a s a w ~ f e
Each tune n t h my b a b ~ e sI am slck for a long t ~ m e ,and
I have t o take chloroform
Praying for her Baby's Eyes
L o u ~ s ~ a n a My husband, I have learned lately, had s y p h h s before
I am a weak, run-down, s~cklywoman, been m a r r ~ e d we were marr~ed,and on account of t h a t loathsome d~sease
five years T h ~ tells
s
the story-a radlant b r ~ d ea t 20, he 1s never m good health I do work f o r other people,
a t 25 what? If you could see me you would not have t o bes~destakmg care of my famdy and the house I am m
no good condlt~ont o brmg another baby ~ n t othe world
guess
Please
help me ~f there 1s a way
My first chtld was st111 born I had an awful t ~ m e My
I
n
two
months
next was a mlscarnage a t SIX months
I was pregnant agam, and by staymg In bed for seven The Babies All
long months, I went full t ~ m e But my baby was almost
Mame
bhnd I spent three months praylng n ~ g h tand day for
I have gwen blrth t o three chddren They all dred I
my baby's s ~ g h t ,and God heard and answered my cnes, have also had several mlscarrlages I asked the doctor
for a t 22 months he has pretty blue eyes But I would why t h ~ swas so, also ~f he could glve me somethmg t o
rather dle than have another one, for my husband 1s a prevent c h ~ l d - b ~ r t hH e would not answer e ~ t h e quest~on
r
sufferer from gonorrhea I have begged h ~ mt o leave me
My husband 1s s ~ c kand IS not able t o g o t o work half
I would rather be separated than have any more Please the t ~ m e ,so naturally the burden falls on me A t t ~ m e s
help me I thmk the law 1s h~deous It ought t o be a ~t1s very hard for me, so I am w r ~ t ~ nt og you t o ask for
law agalnst h s e ~ s e dmen t o marry pure, clean g r l s , t o adv~ce
b n n g s~cklych~ldrenmto the world t o suffer, and oh'
I would rather have the chddren, ~f they would hve,
the suffering the poor wonien have t o endure
but I can't seem t o go full t ~ m eo, r t o have them ahve, and
yet 1 get pregnant agaln and agam Surely ~t 1s not
mtended t h a t a woman should go on hke t h ~ s Some one
@oping tn the Dark
I n d ~ a n a told me t h a t my b a b ~ e sd ~ ebecause my husband has a
I grope In the dark for the knowledge for wh~chI am d~sease,but I do not know about t h a t T h e doctor w ~ l l
searchmg I am a young woman, twenty-SIXt h ~ smonth, tell me n o t h ~ n g Surely you can help me I should be
and a high school graduate Before I marned In 1922 \cry glad t o hear from you
Dzed
Btrth Control Revzew
T h e Passi
~ t sstormy beg~nnlng,now someth~ng I n 1915 I went to hlm to learn all the pract~cal
F R Omore
M than one hundred years ago, that aspects of sclentlfic contraception I shall never
s
m
struggle fol human freedom and the battle to forget the long hours I spent under h ~ guldance
l~beratewoman from the cruel slalery of enforced those Dutch clmlcs, learnmg from t h ~ sq u ~ e thun
more than merely the practlcal
motherhood wh~chtoday IS known as the B ~ r t h m a n ~ t a r ~ amuch
Control movement, has produced a long l ~ s tof educatlon I had gone to acqulre from h m Fmt of
martyrs and heroes known and unknown-an hon- all he taught me, not so much by word as by pracor-l~stof brave men and courageous women who, tical demonstration, the paramount lmportance of
wlthout thought of recogn~t~on
or officd medals, the c h n ~ ca\ a means of educatmg women In the
unfllnchlngly have carr~edon the thankless battle hyglenlc and eugenlc aspects of B ~ r t hControl H e
agamst blmd prejudice Some of them, hke those taught me that real B ~ r t hControl could never be
dauntless pioneers, the D l ysdales, have won a place merely a matter of prmted and published ~nformIn the hlstory of human freedom that can never bc at~on,but of pract~caland sclentlfic hyg~ene And
wrested from them Others must remaln anon\ - so from D r Rutgers I came to see that the clln~c
mous, though t h e ~ rvalor has been scarcely les5 must be the true goal of all adequate and thorherolc Propagand~sts,publishers, booksellers, ac- ough educatlon In B ~ r t hControl As concewed m
twe agitators l ~ k those
e
men who first circulated the the m ~ n dof thls vallant worker and human~tanan,
"d~abol~cal
handb~ll"at the very outset of the Neo- the c h c becomes the surest mstrument toward mMalthus~an movement-all hale carr~ed on the dmdual llberty and the regenerat~onof the raceprofoundly eugenlcal and an ~nstltutlonof real
torch and kept our deal ahve
11) glenlc educatlon
T H E R S have worked d~rectlyIn the heart of
HILE to Doctor Aletta Jacobs must he
the poor, In the m ~ d sof
t condlt~onsand In the
awarded the hlgh honor of belng the first
face of obstacles that would have dmouraged men
less loyal to the physlc~anIn Holland to offer pract~caladv~ceto
less staunch In t h e r conv~ct~ons,
deal of a hberated and regenerated humanlty One poor mothers, ~t was Dr Rutgers' great achieveof the noblest heroes In t h ~ slatter field has been ment to organlze the c h c s , to educate nurses and
Doctor J Rutgers of The Hague the news of m~dwlvesIn t h ~ sdehcate work and to effect the
s
whose recent death has just come to us from Hol- establ~shmentof c l ~ n ~ cIns the lesser c ~ t ~ eand
land The seventy of t h ~ sblow to our cause IS al- towns of the Netherlands
I n the face of unforseen and almost msurlewated only by our real~zatlonof the profound mfluence exerted by t h ~ val~ant
s
worker In our move- mountable obstacles D r Rutgers carrled on thls
ment The work of a whole l~fetlmedevoted ulth great work to the pomt when the benefits of the
the hlghest ~deallsmto a love of hls fellow-men has cl~nlcscould be sclent~ficallycomputed and pracnot been In ram The mfluence of Doctor Rutgers t~callydemonstrated, to that pomt, m short, when
has been profound For he was one of the first to the work, organ~zedby the p~oneerm t h ~ field,
s
was
real~zethat t h ~ swhole problem of voluntary con- officially recogn~zedby the Dutch government as a
tracept~onIS not one merely of controversy and d ~ s - human~tar~an
effort of natlonal lmportance By
cusslon, of theory and polemlc, the moral r~ghtness h ~ sdevot~onand t~relessefforts, D r Rutgers had
of wh~chmay be dec~dedsolely by preachers or carned to fine frultlon a l~feworkthat a t the beteachers It IS a problem of practlcal sclence, to be glnnlng was almost bl~ghtedby neglect, mlsundertested by ~ntelhgentmen and women And so, standing, md~fference and the enm~ty of h ~ s
qu~etly,modestly, w~thoutany blarmg of trumpets, opponents
I am proud to reahze that through my efforts
actuated by the courage of h ~ sconv~ct~ons
and a
profound love of humanlty, D r Rutgers gale the educators and soc~alworkers of other countr~es
Neo-Malthus~anmovement, as ~t was known dur- have been taught the ~mportanceof the clmc as a
Ing the latter half of the nineteenth century, a new true mstrument of eugemc educat~on M y endlrect~onand a new llfe HISInstrument was the thus~asmfor D r Rutgers' chnlc has led others to
Birth Control c l ~ n ~ cT o h ~ mwe owe the estab- v~sltThe Hague and to lnvest~gatehls results for
themselves So that hls example In the near future
llshment of Blrth Control clln~csIn Holland
0
w
October, 1924
of a H e r o
may have widespread influence, not only in the
Occident but In the F a r East as well
How much the contemporary B ~ r t h Control
movement owes to the example of Holland, the
pioneer natlon In this field, we all realize How
much Holland owes to the fine and unfllnchlng
ldealism of D r Rutgers, ~t IS too early to say His
IS an mfluence the benefits of whlch cannot be determined In a slngle generation nor In two When
we point to Holland as an outstanding example of
what can be accomplished and what has been attamed in the quality of breedlng as opposed to the
bllnd and inidlscrlminate reproduction of mere
numbers, we should not forget that this pract~cal
natlonal demonstration of our conv~ctionIS the outcome of the tireless patience and Indefatigable
ldeallsm of a slngle man-Dr J Rutgers
L e t us honor hls memory as that of one of the
true heroes fighting for the liberation of humanity
through the Birth Control movement
0
among the leaders of the Soc~allststhere was a
great deal of misunderstanding as to Neo-Malthus~anismand the activities of the League But
D r Rutgers knew nelther deject~onnor slackening In the work, he stood up for the doctrme and
helped the women unt~ringly Meanwhile he extended the forelgn relations of our League, wh~ch
had always exlsted wlth the Drysdale family and
the British League, and was instrumental in establishlng the Internat~onalNeo-Malthusian League
or Lzgue de la Regeneratzon Humazne, of which
D r A l ~ c eDrysdale Vlckery became the president
U R cause has sustained a great loss by the
death of D r J Rutgers, the ch~efpromoter
of the movement for Birth Control in Holland
H e was not ~ t initiator-that
s
high merit belongs
to M r S von Houten, ex-Prime Minister, to D r
Aletta Jacobs, our first M D and her husbandbut Rutgers popularmed the movement by bringmg the Neo-Malthusian League mto touch with
the laborlng class, and maklng contraceptive adThe
vice and contracept~ve ~mplements cheap
d~mlnishlngof our birth-rate and mfantile deathrate durmg late years attest the efficiency of this
course I n h ~ medical
s
practice in Rotterdam 18791904 he came to see that, among all social reforms,
Birth Control was the most needed for the uphftIng of womahood and of the subjected class
equally A t first his doctrine was not always understood and it found no general sympathy, but that
posltion changed gradually Rutgers' preaching
was not so much by words as by deeds, and hls pat ~ e n t shonored and loved hlm H e did not begin
hls career in the medlcal profession, his father sent
him to the unlvers~tyto study theology, and in
1874, when he was 24 years old, he actually was
appointed as mlnlster in the vlllage church, but he
soon felt that this was not his vocation and he began a new university course, as a student of medlcine From his old theolog~calpursuits he always
retamed a well-founded hostlhty to the doctrines
of S t Augustme and S t Paul on ascetlclsm and
the duallsm of body and soul
w
H E N D r Rutgers became secretaly of the
Neo-Malthusian League In 1900, there was
still a strong current of public opinlon against it
H e warded off many attacks from officlal author~tles,both on the platform and in the press, and
had to refute many false accusations, e g the promotlng of lmmoral~ty and of abortlon Even
A FTER
when Rutgers left his med~cal
practice and went to live In The Hague, he
1904,
had more time for attending congresses and wntIng b~ologlcalworks HISmvestlgations in blology
led hlm to show that throughout nature's plan, m
all plant and animal hfe, sex-attraction and love
have a prominent part In race progress, and that ~t
IS cnmlnal to treat sex as an unclean or unmentlonable subject HISlast great work "Das Sexualleben zn sezner bzologzschen Bedeutung," whlch
was published by A Glesecke in 1922 In Dresden,
IS a compendium of his views In this respect
It IS
about to be brought out, in an English translation
by D r Norman Hame, by the same publisher
Apart from many contributions to periodicals and
reviews and pamphlets for the Neo-Malthusian
League, D r Rutgers also wrote a more detalled
work on Male Sex-L~fein Dutch and "Eugenlcs
and Blrth Control" (Gzesecke, Dresden 1922 )
By hls second wife, Marla Hoitsema, Rutgers
came into touch wlth the women's movement, and
soon became a great advocate of enfranchisement,
political and economical This was a matter of
course, since he always stood for independence and
self-government for women and free dlsposal of
( C o n t ~ n u r don pnqa 902)
Bwth Control Revrezc
Coney Island
C
spread it A man from Russia wlshed Mrs Sanger
would go over and ~nstructthe women there Two
people from different parts of Connecticut came
up at the same tlme I always d~scoverout-oftown people when I ask them to join the League
They seem under the impression that, not being
New Yorkers, they are disqualified Of course, I
disillusion them and tell them how necessary it is
for every Amencan to join the League and
, brmg pressure to bear upon the
strengthen ~ tto
legislatures One of a group of Greeks who could
not read E n g l ~ s hyet, asked about literature m
then native language, so I referred hlm to our
headquarters
English visitors who want to "know more about
it," I refer to the New Generat~onLeague in London A lady who had just received a letter from a
charity organizat~onasking for a contr~but~on
towards sending poor chddren to the country, and
also askmg her to suggest how best to allev~atepoverty, was gomg to reply "Jud~ciousB ~ r t hControl"
and to forward a copy of the Revzew W e agreed
that mothers who had to depend upon chanty for
thmgs for their chddren should be taught to prevent conceptlon, instead of bringmg more vlctims
of charity into the world No one can grow a
moral back-bone on chanty,
A Catholic woman told me how glad she was
community
that something was being done to save others from
People from other states and other countries are what she had suffered, having ten babies, two of
glad to see and buy the Revzew A man from which d ~ e d She looked poor so I offered her a RePhiladelphia wa\ very bitter a t having been born vzew, but she was "afrald to read ~t because the
one of seven, and reared In a slum H i s childhood priest would refuse her absolution " Poor soul,
had been miserable, but he was domg fairly well was there ever such mental and spiritual bondage?
now H e had one son and was not going to have
However, even the Catholic Church can't fool
any more Another man mshed his father had all of its flock all of the tune, judging the number
known of this, he had had twenty ch~ldrenby two of Cathol~cwomen who do buy and read the Rewives, and only two grew up St111 another man vzew I f they don't tell me they are Catholics, the
was one of nme and his wife one of ten children rosary in the pocketbook 1s suffic~entev~dence
They had one son and he was gomg to have all the
Qulte recently a prlest bought the Revzew I
educational and other advantages he and his w ~ f e would have been more surpr~sedthan I was, had
had m~ssed
there not been a not~ceableincrease m cler~calbuyOne man bought the Revzew saying, "I don't ers lately I asked him to get In touch m t h our
need it for myself I'm an old w~dower,but I want headquarters and joln the League, etc, but he
to help humanlty "
sm~linglyshook his head and w ~ t ha fore~gnaccent,
Ever so many war ~ e t e r a n haxe
s
bought it One s a d , "No, no, we Cdth~llcsale opposed to tills "
s
had had three bab~esin three years "That is because you do not know what ~tis," I retold me h ~ wife
and they dreaded any more coming
phed "Oh, yes we do," he s a ~ d"but it mterferes
A n Alderman, flashing h ~ sbadge, said he was with God's work " I ventured that nothing could
very interested as he bought the paper A woman mterfere with God's work that all work was God's
from Texas s a d Birth Control was badly needed work, m y work was God's work, or I could not pos
,
sure!^ God wanted perfect~onIn
where she lived, and she would do all she could to slbly do ~ t that
O N E Y Island in full swing on a Sunday or
holiday beggars description, at least my descript~on,even after selling the Bzrth Control Revzew there during two seasons
What crowds, what enormous endless motley
crowds! And what a field for Birth Control education!
Many thousands of people, includmg mothers,
living In the "backwoods" of New York City, who
never leave the v~cinityof them homes except to
take t h e ~ rch~ldrento Coney, see the Revzew for
the first time
Many hail it with glad suipnse, for they thought
"it was all stopped " They are under the impression that when the Brownsville cl~nicclosed nearly
eight years ago, and Jfrs Sanger sent to jad, the
Birth Control movement was ended Of course, I
enlighten them on the wonderful progress the
movement has made all oxer the world since then,
c,
woand tell them about our present c l ~ n ~where
men can be instructed by a doctor, to prevent or
cure dlsease And I ask them to tell all thelr
friends about it, and to jom the American Birth
Control League and help get the law amended, so
that cl~nicscan be open m all overcrowded, povertystrlcken districts, and poor mothers instructed how
to prevent the conceptlon of bab~esthat they don't
want, and who only become a useless burden to the
October, 1994
the human race, and that Blrth Control would help
to brmg that about But he could not see it m that
hght and said somethmg about God's way and punishment
I pointed out that wealthy Catholics
practiced Birth Control and God seemed to be
pretty good to them I told him he would change
his mind when he read the paper and he said "we
always read your paper, we read everything to
keep up to date," I n spite of being a n opponent
he was very charmng and hkeable
Soon after he had gone, a pale, thin, little
wreck of a woman with several small childrenregular doorsteps- stopped near me She had
some difficulty m keeping them together and the
two older ones broke away and ran after their
father I offered her a leaflet saymg she might be
mterested m it She took it and thanked me with
a pathetic smle I asked her if they were all her
chlldren They were-seven They wanted to go
home but all the cars were crowded, and her husband had gone to find a taxi "But there are taxis
right here a t the corner," I said "Yes," she answered, "but he wouldn't take one o' them, he's
so stubborn, he makes so much trouble for '-"and
for himself," she added after a slight pause "Of
course," I said, "whenever you make trouble for
others you make it for yourself, but it is high time
we women got together and stopped men making
trouble for us," to whlch she gave a smile and a nod
While talking to her I looked the five children over
and none struck me as being normal, two had very
large heads and dull faces They all went in pursuit of father and later passed m t h him still lookm g for a taxi H e was better dressed, fed and
cared for than hls wife and chlldren
1
Oh, yes, we'll have no more babies,
We'll have no more babies, oh yes,
We've morons and paupers, and drunkards and dope fiends
White slaves and procurers, too
We've bandits and slayers and madmen,
and victims of all sorts of badmen
A n d to stop the recruiting to their ranks,
We'll have no more babies, oh yes
After standing for several hours amid that
human flood surging up and down, in that babel of
tongues in which the English is conspicuous by its
scarcity, wlth vendors of all sorts of "delicacies"
crying their wares, myself chiming in with "The
Berth Control Revzerer, 20 cents a copy ," the taximen and bus men yelling for fares, the rattle of the
traffic, frequently pierced by the shrill police whistle, the too-near merry-go-round organ gnndinq
out "music" (I), I feel that Dante's Inferno would
be a nlce qulet little haven of rest and peace When
I feel weary and think "What's the use" an in-
si&cant
lookmg little man or woman m l l come
up and m broken Enghsh express his or her appreciation of what we are domg Their cry is always
"too much baby, too much poverty, too much nusery " Many say "God bless you, for your good
work "
Most of my buyers speak broken English, Japanese and Chmese among them Many foreigners
are well educated They speak correct Enghsh
with an accent Many colored men and women buy
the Revzew
It has struck me very forcibly a t Coney Island
that the physically and materially worst looking
people with the most children take the least notice
of the Revzew As a man, after buying it and
,
watching the people pass for a while, s a ~ d"they'd
all buy it, if they had the courage except those that
need it most " This Labor D a y a group of Italians to all appearance three mothers, tmy women,
and their children, all small, were trying to cross
Surf Avenue, without getting lost or run over
Such a to-do! I tried to count them but that was
impossible, they were squirming all over the place
I managed to slip a "Can you afford to have a
large family," leaflet to one of the mothers Some
of the onlookers, mterested in their progress said,
"they need that all right," pointing to the Revzew
They looked hke a troupe of rag dolls scurrying
across
Though some people give me scornful glances
and remarks and "look daggers," many give encouraging smiles and nods and call out "that's the
stuff," "that's the best on earth," "That's what we
need," "Birth control, I should say so, look a t 'em,"
"You've come to the right place," "Fine work, keep
it up," and so forth Some intimate that they have
seen me before by crying "Hello Macy's," or
"Hello World Bmlding " A soldier called out,
"I don't believe in it " I called back, "I do "
Coming closer he said "I believe m getting all you
can " "I don't believe in getting mstitutions full
of idiots," I replied "Oh, neither do I!" he exclaimed quite soberly, then added with a loud laugh
as he passed on, "but we got thousands of 'em m
the army," much to the amusement of all who had
heard our "crosstalk "
A man, well dressed and mportant lookmg,
somewhat the worst for "hootch" refused his
change, tore and threw the paper at me, saying
"You're a disgrace t o womanhood," after which he
crossed to the sidewalk and stood ogling and leermg
at "womanhood" as it passed, until a friend happened along and took him away, for which I felt
truly thankful A ragged man offered me a
nickel, saying "Is that to help some church or
something?" I replied, "No, this is to open clinics
(Conhnued on page 301)
Rartk Coat7 01 Revrew
Book Reviews
Is Birth Control a Problem of Child Welfare
By HORSEI
I HART
I
N the compet~t~on
of deas as well as In ammal
specles there is a surv~valof the fit When a
textbook passes into a rev~sededhon, ~tIS an md ~ c a t ~ othat
n ~t has performed a recogn~zedser? Ice
In the mtellectual world F o r ten years Mangold's
"Problems In C h ~ l dWelfaren* has been the standard work In ~ t field
s
Departing from the tradltional ph~losoph~cal
approach to the problems of
ch~ldhood,D r Mangold has endeavored, as far as
read~lyala~lablemater~alsperm~tted,to place his
d~scuss~on
upon a sc~ent~fic
foundat~onof stat~stical data It IS h~ghlys~gn~ficant,
In a text wh~ch
has been and will be so w~delyused as t h ~ s to
, note
the att~tudeof the author towards the problems of
eugenlcs, d~fferent~al
fecundity, and blrth control
"The C h ~ l dand Hered~ty"IS the t ~ t l eof the first
sect~onof the book On page two to four, the
author says
Thus defectne hered~ty1s respons~blefor a large
p r o p o r t ~ o nof the ch~ldren who are condemned t o
such 11fe-long abnormalit~es as ~ d ~ o c y~,m b e c h t y ,
bachnardncss, deaf-mutism, c n m ~ n a l ~ t and
y , certam
forms of c o n s t ~ t u t ~ o n disease
al
It 1s further an unfortunate fact t h a t some of these defect~xe
groups are much more prolrfic than the normal
,
classes
B y segregatmg ~ d ~ o t s~mbeclles,
~ n s t ~ n c tc ~
nm
~ ~c n a l s ,and othcr groups In ~ n s t ~ t u t ~ o n st h ~ s(prevent~onof reproduct~on)can be accompl~shed But custod~alcare must be permanent
t o make this plan successful So large a p r o p o r t ~ o n
of these classes are eventually released t h a t one
group of social norhers favors ster1117atlon as the
best preventwe measure
W ~ t h o u t doubt
the most senous cases of defect can be handled e ~ t h e r
through s t e r ~ h z a t ~ oonr custod~alcare From the
eugenlc pomt of wen, In fact, these offer fener d~fficult~esthan do thousands n h o suffer from slighter
defects
But these people wdl not refram
from ~ n t e r m a r r j m gw ~ t hothers who are s ~ m ~ l a r delv
fect~ve,wh~les t e r ~ h z a t ~ ocannot
n
elen be ment~oned
No generally accepted program of a c t ~ o nt o solve
t h ~ squest~onhas as j e t been deleloped
quotation from that and the succeedmg page Ind~cateh ~ pomt
s
of vlew
T h e voluntarb avo~danceof large f a m ~ l ~ e1ss probably the p r i n c ~ p a cause
l
for the dccl~neIn b ~ r t hrates
Natural and a r t ~ f i c ~ causes
al
a r e both cont r ~ b u t m gt o a decl~neIn our b ~ r t hrates, but In so f a r
a s they do not deplete our populat~on,they do not
offer a scrlous problem Opposhon t o a j u d ~ c ~ o u s
l ~ m ~ t a t ~ofo ns u e of f a m ~ l yIS reactlonary and unsoc~al
Further recogn~t~on
of certam aspects of the
pomt of vlew of b r t h control advocates appears on
page 25
F e c u n d ~ t y1s less Important than mtell~gentmotherhood, and the brutal b~rtlrrates of the p a s t have
not made soc~etymore effic~ent T h e mother of many
ch~ldren has only stood more often by the open
grave A reasonable b ~ r t hrate has dec~dedadvantages, because the mother, concentratmg her thought
upon a few healthy chddren 1s charged w ~ t hpower t o
promote t h e ~ future
r
welfare but ~f her energy IS dms ~ p a t e damong a company of short-hved and unnanted ch~ldren,the s o c ~ a lconsequences cannot be
hopeful
Object~onmay be ra~sedto the next following
sentence "A reasonable increase In populat~onIS
a goal of all thmkers on s o c d subjects, and the
small f a m ~ l ~ ethat
s threaten the extmct~onof the
race cannot be condoned "
Attent~onIS called by D r Mangold to the very
low b ~ r t hrate among college graduates and the
h~gherbxth rates among fore~gnthan nat~ve-born
stocks H e Ignores, howeter, the accumulations of
data wh~chshow the h~gherb ~ r t hrates among the
poor than the well-to-do classes and among the unsk~lledthan among the sk~lledand profess~onal
classes H e fails even to ment~onsuch stud~esas
those of the Jukes and Kall~kakf a m ~ l ~ e s
The dom~nantemphas~sIn the book, a s ~ d efrom
the sect~onsIn the mtroduct~onand the first chapter from wh~chauotat~onshave been *uresented
It w ~ l lbe noted that D r lllangold makes no above, is upon euthenlcs rather than eugenlcs, upon
mention of the applicab~l~ty
of b ~ r t hcontrol to t h ~ s ~mprovements In the env~ronments of ch~ldren
e s he d~scussesthe rather than upon endeavors to improve the quahty
problem The mdex ~ n d ~ c a t that
llmltat~onof b~rth-rateon page 33 The followmg of the stock from wh~chthe chddren are begotten
and bv wh~chthey are reared Apparentlv D r
Problems I" Chlld Welfare by George B Mangold, Ph D , Dlrec- Mang&d overloo&
the fsGAthat tGe extor M m o u r ~ School of Social Economv Revised E d ~ t ~ o nNew
~ o r k M c M ~ l l a n 1921 602 pages
cesslve birth rate amor,g the poor and ~gnorantnot
October, 1024
dices dealmg for the most p a r t wlth pol~tlcalsubject5
T h e last two, however, and the longest, are devoted t o a
dlscusslon of the race problem a s vlewed by Lothrop
Stoddard and Mad~sonGrant
T h e concluslon reached In the first essay seems t o be
t h a t the efficient government of states 1s a n almost hopelessly complex problem In whlch raclal and other nonp o h t ~ c a lfactors enter t o such an extent t h a t only qualOccasional wrlters say t h a t the c h ~ l dhas a r ~ g h t
died experts can deal wlth them, and t h a t "popular sovt o be well-born T h e author does not belleve t h a t
r a n t y expressed In ~ o t e s " 1s not adequate t o meet the
such a rlght has been estabhshed Publlc o p m o n
sltuatlon Thoughtful students w ~ l probably
l
agree wlth
favors the reduction of mfant mortality t o the lowest
tlns concluslon, but the author's argument would be
practicable polnt, ~t demands health ~mprovement,
the cl~mlnatlonof chlld labor and other o p p o r t u n ~ t ~ e s greatly strengthened by a more dlrect and conclae treatment, a s ~t IS, the reader feels t h a t much of the dlscuss~on
for chlldren, but ~tdoes not pos~twelydemand elen
does not lead anTahere In particular
such reasonable control of human lnherltance a s w ~ l l
T h e second essay also suffers from a lack of cohesion,
reduce the p r o p o r t ~ o n of mferlor human bemgs,
and at tlmes wanders f a r from ~ t announced
s
subject, the
e ~ t h e rfrom the standpomt of mental or p h y s ~ c a ldepopulatlon problem It contams a number of provocaficlency T h e r ~ g h tt o be well-born 1s a goal t h a t
t ~ v esuggestions, such a s the quest~onwhether the exploltsoclety must eventuall~ach~evefor ~ t children,
s
but
atlon of natural resources lniphes the exploltatlon of
pubhc scnt~menttoday does not accept thls p n n c ~ p l e
human bemgs The quest~on1s also ralsed a s t o whether
I n fact a large element of the populatlon stdl beheves
chlldren In large f a m ~ l ~ edevelop
s
thelr q u a h t ~ e sbetter
t h a t s o c ~ e t yhas no rlght t o Interfere wlth the matlng
than those in small ones
I n the case of well-to-do parmstlnct, even though the mevltable consequences In
ents, there a r e undoubtedly some advantages In large
many cases wlll be b ~ r t hof ~ n f e r ~ or
o r defectwe chllfamlhes, and thc only c h ~ l dIS, of course, almost always
drcn Evidences of thls fact are the reluctance of
states t o pass s t e n l ~ ~ a t ~laws,
o n the tendency of the
a t a d~sadvantage However, smce large famlhes a r e
courts t o declare such laws unconstltutlonal, the
usually found among poor people, the questlon In general
t a r d y enactment of laws prohlb~tlngthe marrlage of
can be answered most decidedly In the negatwe T h e
harrowmg letters n r ~ t t e nt o Mrs Sanger by members of
the soclally d~seasedand the non-enforcement of such
laws In most of the thlrteen states whlch have taken
large famihes are perhaps the most effectwe answer t o
t h ~ leg~slatwe
s
step A t best the so-called n g h t t o be
M r He~tland's query
well-born 1s merely a hope, but some day ~t may be
W e do not belleve t h a t the necessity of b ~ r t hrestrlcreahzed
tlon apphes only t o "undes~rables," as the author sugRecogmzing as he does the fundamental ~mport- gests Many humble famll~es,not falored by fortune,
ance of eugenlc reforms and feeling the unsym- cannot be classed as "undes~rables,"yet they a r e the ones
~
from 1nab111tyt o restnct t h e ~ r
pathetic attitude of the public toward such ineas- who usually suffer t h most
ures, lt is to be wished that D r Mangold might offsprmg t o the number they can properly care for Nor
have undertaken a more thorough study of the does ~t seem necessary t o adopt such a h e s ~ t a n tpos~tlor
available data in this field and a more vigorous en- a s M r H a t l a n d takes In hls c n t ~ c l s mof Hubbard's mew3
deavor to help to create the sentiment whose ab- regardmg the raclal dangers of famllj restrlctlon
sence he deplores It is to be hoped, however, that
T h e appendices, u h ~ c hmake u p the last s ~ x t ypages,
the reference he has made will help to direct public are perhaps the best p a r t of the book T h e author 1s
attention t o the need for greater emphas~supon here more d ~ r e c tand t o the p o d The dlscuss~onof
voluntary motherhood and upon the readjustment " L e g a l ~ t jand Clrcumstance" In r e l a t ~ o nt o the problem
of our present disastrously dlsgenic d~fferential of se~esslonand the Amencan Cwll W a r , 1s particularly
fecund~ty
lucld and ~nstructive,wlnlc the crltlclsm of Lothrop Stod
dard's alarmlst vlews 1s t ~ m e l yand on the whole sound,
A Revzew by Malcolm H Bzssell
thou g h perhaps not m e r e enough Thls statement apB E H I N D AND B E F O R E By W E Heltland T h e
phes stdl more t o the dlscusslon of Mad~son Grant's
Macm~llanCo , New York
"Passmg of the Great Rare," a book whlch has enjoyed a
0 quote from the publisher's announcement, " T h ~ s popularltv out of all p r o p o r t ~ o nt o ~ t m
s e r ~ t sas a serlous
booh contams two essays on the relatlon of h ~ s t o r y , sclent~ficstudv M r H e ~ t l a n dapparently accepts the
p o h t ~ c s ,and eugen~stwarmngs T h e first deals w ~ t hthe Nordlc dogma almost In e n t ~ r e t v ,but In hls conclus~ons
Importance of a knowledge of past hlstorv t o pollt~clans he evhlblts a much more open mmd than M r Grant, and
a n d actwe cltlzens, the second w ~ t hthe populatlon ques- h ~ sstatement t h a t "a race t h a t w ~ l lnot labor wlth ~ t s
t ~ o nas propounded t o statesmen by blologlsts" I n ad- hands 1s on a road t h a t does not lead t o surv~val" 1s
d l t ~ o nt o these two essays, there a r e twelve bnef appen- worthv of serlous thought
only mulutlplies defective germ plasm, but also
greatly increases the proportion of chlldren
brought u p in undes~rableenvironments H e seems
to feel that public sentiment 1s not ready for any
constructive action toward improvement of the
racial stock A s illustratmg thls attitude it m ~ g h t
be well to quote a paragraph from page I8
T
Bwth Control Rewm
294
AN I N T E R N A T I O N A L Y E A R BOOK O F C H I L D
CARE A N D PROTECTION Comp~ledfrom officlal
sources by Edward Fuller W ~ t ha n Introduction by
Percy Alden, M P Longmans, Green & Co , New York
and London
be glven In cases where the woman's health demanded t h a t
she should not have children "
Holland comes In for commendation for its low mfant
mortahty r a t e t h e lowest In all Europe, and espec~ally
for tts low rate of maternal mortahty-"2 4 per 1000 hve
N E W Year Book has made ~ t sappearance, and b ~ r t h s ,probably the lowest rate of maternal mortality in
while, a s M r Alden says In the preface, year books the world" It 1s also noted t h a t the illegitimate birthare as the sand on the sea-shore for multitude, t h ~ svol- r a t e In 1921 was only 0 5 per 1000 of the population
ume 1s one nhlch deserves a wide welcome, for ~t fills a Concernlng B ~ r t hControl, M r Fuller wntes
place hitherto vacant, and meets a need felt by workers
" Pnvate ~ n ~ t ~ a tIn~ vthe
e Netherlands was responslble for the first Bzrth Control c h n ~ cIn the
In the mde field of child welfare all over the world M r
world (1885,) and there are now s ~ m i l a rclin~csin
E d n a r d Fuller, the comp~lerof the book, describes i t a s
all the large towns T h e chnlcs are mamtamed by
"a record of State and voluntary effort for the welfare of
Neo-Malthus~anLeague (N~euw-Malthus~aanche
the
the chlld, lncludlng educat~on,the care of the delinquent
Bond,)
whlch has also engaged In the t r a ~ m n gof
and destitute ch~ld,and conditions of juven~leemploylarge numbers of nurses t o teach women the a r t of
ment throughout the world" The volume carrmes out
contraception, both a t the chnlcs and elsewhere
t h ~ spromise of the title page I t glves, In bnef, conclse
The cllnics are free t o the very poor, while others
and yet comprehens~vefoim, the facts concerning these
p a y according t o thew means The league was
aspects of child hfe throughout the world One may turn
granted a Roval Charter of Pubhc Ut111t.y in 1895
t o its pages t o know what the government has done for
Pars passu w ~ t ht h ~ sactivlty for the control of
children in the U n ~ t e dStates, in France, Russia o r Slam
the b~rth-rate,there has been not only a steady deA few pages have t o suffice for the largest and most CIVIL
chne in the latter, but a much greater declme m the
ized countnes, and the smallest t e r n t o r y o r group of
rate of infant~lem o r t a l ~ t yMoreover, there has been
islands IS accorded a t least a paragraph The book 1s
a correspondmg reduction in the proportion of mihan ep~tomeof what manklnd IS doing t o and for its
t a r y conscr~ptsof low physical grade, and a marked
increase In those of h ~ g hgrade Whereas, In 1884,
children
Nor does the t ~ t l epage descrtbe the full scope of the
the p r o p o r t ~ o nof conscr~pts,(aged 18) over t h e
volume M r Fuller has recogn~zedt h a t Child Welfare
h e ~ g h tof 5 f t 7 ~ncheswas only 32 95 per cent, ~t
had rlsen by regular stages t o 51 59 per cent In
b e a n s before b ~ r t h and
,
he lncludes In his pages informatzon concerning the marrlage and d~vorcelaws of each
1918 "
country, the lans affectmg ~llcgit~macy,
and also the laws
Self-styled "~nvestigators" endeavonng t o discredit
concerning B ~ r t hControl and the voluntary efforts made
Birth Control, have stated t h a t they f a ~ l e dt o find any
t o b n n g contracept~onw ~ t h ~reach
n
of the mothers
B ~ r t hControl cllnlcs o r any evidence of the usefulness of
I n thus introducing Blrth Control as a necessary fac- them work In Holland It 1s evldent t h a t no such d~ffit o r of Child Welfare, M r Fuller has taken a p o s ~ t ~ of anr culty was experienced i n the work of comp1hng this Year
in advance of the Child Welfare organ~zatlonsof t h ~ s Book
country One wonders whether the comp~lerwould have
One omlsslon we hope t o see remed~edwhen the Year
been a s open-mmded had he lmved ~n Amerlca ~ n s t e a dof Book reaches ~ t second
s
ed~tzon N o ment~on1s made of
In England, for ~t must be recalled that in England Birth the chnlcal research work in actual Birth Control pracControl is perfectly legal, wh~lehere it is hampered by t ~ c et h a t has been done In New York under the d ~ r e c t ~ o n
both Federal and S t a t e laws
of Margaret Sanger, nor of the efforts t o estabhsh B ~ r t h
According t o M r Fuller, the only countnes, besides Control cllnlcs in other cities T h e omlsslon IS probably
the United States, where there are laws agamst Birth due t o the fact t h a t much t ~ m ehas evidently been occup~ed
Control, are France and Belgium, in both of which the In the gathering together of the facts contamed zn this
laws are of post-war enactment and are due t o a fear of volume, and t o the ~ m p o s s i b ~ h tofy b r i n g n g the informdepopulat~onas a consequence of the war, and Sweden, a t ~ o nu p t o date in the first Issue of a year book covenng
where the sale o r d i s t r ~ b u t ~ oofn contraceptives 1s pro- an e n t ~ r e l ynew field W h ~ l ewe regret t h ~ sdefect, we
h ~ b ~ t e dThe custom of Blrth Control 1s noted as firmly welcome most gratefully the full recogn~tiont h a t M r
estabhshed in Hungary, and trlbute 1s pald t o the good Fuller has Rven t o the B ~ r t hControl movement, and we
effects of the movement in Holland The recent estab- hope t h a t hzs book w ~ l lform a new precedent for wnters
hshment of a R d h Cnntrnl c l ~ n ~Inc M e s ~ c ois noted and on Child Welfare problems
A G POBBITT
credit f o r this 1s given t o the Amencan Blrth Control
League An unb~asedaccount is g v e n of the careful T H E SOCIAL MISSION O F CHARITY, by Wllham J
Kerby T h e Macm~llanCompany, New York
work t h a t 1s belng done for the unfortunate chddren of
Russla, and ~t1s noted a t the Second Conference of RusBOOK carrvlng the N ~ h dObstat of the Roman Cathohc Church is not one t o wh~chthe advocates of Bwth
man Maternity and Chdd Welfare Assoc~ationsIn 1923,
it was "ma~ntamed t h a t advlce on Birth Control should Control would look w t h hopefulness Yet this volume
A
A
October, 1924
In the Soclal A c t ~ o nSertes, 1s one t o wh~chwe offer a
welcome, for ~t holds out a p o s s ~ b l l ~ tof
y advance by the
Church, and of a renslon of oplnlons t h a t a r e found t o
be wrong It contams a smcere confess~onof Ignorance
In regard t o soclal work and a n acknowledgement t h a t
the Roman C a t h o l ~ cChurch has not always kept t o the
h ~ g h e s standards
t
a s set by more sc~entlficS o c ~ aworkers
l
o u t s ~ d e ~ t smembersh~p "No beat~tude," w r ~ t e s M r
Kerby, "was pronounced In favor of those who serve a
noble cause In a faulty w a y " "The Church alms t o take
account of the results of thought and expenence a t all
t m e s She IS eager t o a p p r o p r ~ a t et o her p r a c t ~ c a lmsdom all of the results of human thought and expenence '
6‘ Sc~ence
proposes surglcal procedure wlth cr~mlnalsand
t h ~ smeans of s u b s ~ s t e n c e arelat~onwh~chholds good In
much more clv~hzedcountr~es
Lothrop Stoddard, In the S a t u r d a y Eventng Post f o ~
September 6 contr~butesanother a r t ~ c l eon ~ m m ~ g r a t ~ o n
and heredty, under the t ~ t l eof "The New Reahsm of
Sc~ence" I n these artlcles M r Stoddard emphasizes the
necess~tyfor the U n ~ t e dStates t o close the door agamst
the floods of ahen races ~f the country IS t o remaln u n ~ t e d
In pollt~cal deals and government
,
well-known author and
Jesse Lynch W ~ l l ~ a m sthe
w r ~ t e rof short stones, contr~butes a n a r t ~ c l et o the
Peorm (I11 ) Transcrzpt, f o r J u l y 30, on the present
attendmg ~ tespe,
status of marrlage and the d~fficult~es
c ~ a l l yw ~ t hregard t o the b r ~ n g ~ nugp of ch~ldren"Only
r
chance
one chdd In four," he wr~tes,"has a f a ~ physlcal
t o grow u p In t h ~ swould-be C h n s t ~ a nc ~ v l l ~ z a t ~ oAnd
n
t h ~ s1s what the New Generat~onregards as the New
S m B r ~ n g ~ nmto
g the world ch~ldrenyou are unable t o
s
1s vls~tedupon the chddren
support And ~ t pun~shment
and the chddren's chddren, even unto the Fourth Gene r a t ~ o n"
~ m b e c ~ l et os prevent the perpetuat~onof these anti-soc~al
types T h e Church refuses her approval, u n t ~ lshe can
galn t ~ m et o understand whether o r not such a procedure
1s a v ~ o l a t ~ oofn the natural rlght wh~chthe v ~ c t ~ mhave
s
not necessar~lyforfelted In t h e n c o n d ~ t ~ oonr by them be
h a v ~ o r " "The law of un~versalchange operates in our
c h a r ~ t ~ ea s ~t does In the rest of the world" Surely a
book In wh~chwe can find such statements does not shut
T h e September Pzctonal Revzew (New York) contams
the door entlrely on a poss~ble revlslon of the e d ~ c t s
agamst Blrth Control W e recommend the book t o the another of the vlgorous eugenlc a r t ~ c l e sfrom the pen of
careful study of the more b ~ g o t e dof our opponents In A E W ~ g g a m I t IS called "Ancestral Hand-MeDowns " I n these a r t d e s M r W ~ g g a m~n
, s~mplefamlllar
the Roman Cathohc Church
language, 1s teachmg the Amer~canpeople the prlnc~ples
PERIODICALS
of hered~ty,and the evlls of uncontrolled breedmg
I n the Fortncghtly Revrew (London,) W L George,
the novel~stand strong advocate of Blrth Control, IS publ ~ s h ~ nsenally,
g
"The S t o r y of Woman " H e traces sympathetically the slow process of h b e r a t ~ o nby wh~chwomen emerged from them sub-human c o n d ~ t ~ oans the possession and chattels of men, and came t o take them place
a s almost the equals of the long favored superlor sex
Professor H S J e n n ~ n g sof the Johns Hopkms Unlvers~ty,glves a n enhghtenmg dlscuss~onof the present
status of knowledge concerning H e r e d ~ t yand E n n r o n ment In the Polztwal Sctence Monthly (Lancaster, P a )
for September H e shows t h a t 1s 1s by no means a s ~ m p l e
matter t o d ~ s t ~ n g u ~how
s h f a r c h a r a c t e r ~ s t ~ c~n
s a n Indlndual are due t o env~ronmentand how f a r they are a
matter of ~nherltance
T h e New Generatton (London) for August, contams
a n artlcle by Mrs B I Drysdale d e s c r ~ b ~ nag n s ~ t o
France I n ~tMrs Drysdale pays a t r ~ b u t et o the t h r ~ f t
and good sense of the French In refusmg t o b r ~ n gmto the
world chddren f o r whom they could not poss~blyproperly
p r o v ~ d e Instead of a "rabb~t-hke brood," the French
couple 1s content w ~ t h"one o r two ch~ldren,carefully
educated at home and a t school-ready t o m a d a m themselves In t u r n a s thew parents h a t e done "
Physccal Cultwe, New York, IS carrylng an lnterestmg
serles of a r t ~ c l e son B ~ r t hControl W e espec~allycall
a t t e n t ~ o nt o those In the J u l y and August Issues
M r Frcnch Strothers publ~shesIn the Septernbcr Issue
of T h e World'a Work a popular presentat~onof the p n n c~plesof H e r e d ~ t y An e d ~ t o r l a lIn the same Issue attempts t o answer Professors E a s t and Ross, but w ~ t h o u t
s c ~ e n t ~ f ibackground
c
It sees no danger t o our CIVIL
~ z a t ~ oInn a yearly increase of two m ~ l l ~ o nt so the populat~on
I n a n ~nterestnnga r t ~ c l eIn the August number of the
Contemporary Revzew (London) J L y n g d~scusses"The
Problem of the Austrahan A b o r ~ g ~ n a"l s H e shows t h a t
when the Engllsh went t o Australla In the e~ghteenthcentury, they found the country over-populated from the
BOOKS R E C E I V E D
pomt of vlew of the nat~ves,_whohad not reached the agrlFrom the Macmdlan Co , New York THE SOCIAL MIScultural, nor even the pastoral stage "Out of cons~derSION OF C HARITY , by W ~ l l ~ aJm K e ~ b y
a t ~ o nfor the food supply" the natmes were In the h a b ~ t
From D Appleton & C o , New York, R ACE HYGIENE
of checkmg the growth of populat~onby kllhng some of
the new-born chddren Yet the Cont~nentof Australla A N D HEREDITY, by Hermann W S~emens,M D Transwas then m a ~ n t a ~ n ~onlv
n g one m h a b ~ t a n tt o every 20 lated and e d ~ t e dby Lewellys F Baker, M D
From the Pubhsher, Stockholm. B RANDS EXTRA-NUMsouare m~les ~ v e r u & u l a t l o n evldentlv d e ~ e n d e dnot on
the d e n s ~ t vof the ~ n h a b ~ t a n t sbut
, on the scantmess of UER MOT, PBEVENTIVLAOBN
..
<
Bzrth Coutt 01 Revzew
t111ougll Go\ CI nmcnt a c t ~ o n French f a m ~ l ~ cmay
s
In
some ~ a s c sbe too small, and ~t I S a ~ t h mtllc r ~ g h tof thc
French natlon t o cncourage a sentnncnt In f a l o r of larger
f a m ~ h e s But we ~ o u l drcm~nd31 d'Aub~gnet h a t the
Frcnch b ~ r t h r a t c1s a p p l o w n a t e l y equal t o that of G l e a t
B n t a ~ n ,but that, whereas, u ~ t h758,386 b ~ r t h s ,thcrc
naa a natural lncrease In England and Wales in 1923,
of 313,517, In France w ~ t h761,861 b ~ r t h s ,the lncreasc
a d s only 98,871 These figures sccm to ~ n d ~ c a t hea t the
blrtll ratc n is amply high cnough-~n England ~t seems
t o hale been too hgh-but
t h a t the French death rate
m ~ g h trcasonablv be reduced
E~rron
E d ~ t o r ,Htrtlb C o n t ~01 Neccens
A numbcl of J O U I Nmzew (Augu>t, 1923) I ~ a sace1
dcntnlll come ~ n t om j l~nnds, 111d I habe read n ~ t hIn
tcrest the a ~ t ~ c ent~tlcd
le
"Progrcs, of the B ~ r t hControl
Xfolcnrent" B u t you a111 not a o n d c ~at the fact t h a t
the laat n o ~ d shnlc made a pamful ~rnprcss~on
on nlc
T h e j s ~ m p hshow t h a t you o n h 6nou F ~ a n c cf ~ o mhealsaj
"Frunrc m ~ l ~ t a r ~ and
* t ~ cdcvrous of world conquest
I h a l c llved anlong t l l ~F ~ c n c hpcoplc for the last 35
years I hale a cousln In the Frcnch Scnatc, s c ~ c r a l
f r ~ e n d sIn the Chnmbrr of Ihput1c5, and I follou F r e n r l ~
I n Fauor of Steraltzatton
p o l ~ t ~ closclt
cs
Kon I can nssulc I O U that t h ~ s15 a hugc
Edzto?, BIRTHCO\TROLRLVIEW
m ~ s t l h c , and t h a t Plcsldcnt P o ~ n c a r e a n \ qulte right
I am deepl? 1ntcrc5tcd In B ~ r t hControl, but In a d~ffelnhcn he dcclarcd t h ~ "Frcncl~
t
n n p e r ~ a l ~ sIn\ ~I bogel
cnt
u a y from n h a t you ~ d \ o cl t c I am a German, came
t l i l t has been locked up for ~ n m y\cars next t o NIt o thls country In 1865, am now 78 J c a r s old Perhaps
poleon's tomb "
T h e French ha;c no r l s h t o s t a \ In the R u h ~ and
,
ulll \ o u t h ~ n b ,a h a t does such an old fool want t o do w ~ t h
lealc ~t s l ~ e nG e ~ m I n \bcg~nst o p a \ a h a t she oucs T h e B ~ r t hC o n t ~ o l ?I t I S t h ~ s\rat After I g o t a httlc s t a l t
rcason for u h ~ c hFrance 6ccpa u p her a ~ m yIS that In arth the E n g l ~ s h I, subscl~bcdt o the Sczentzfic Amerzcan
1914 she a a s \ e n n c n ~bcmg bcatcn b\ thc Germans ancl In ordci t o get more profic~cntIn E n g l ~ s lr ~e a d ~ n g T h a t
u a s In 1874, and a t t h a t t ~ m cthe Sczentzfic Amerzcan had
docs not feel safe
an
a r t ~ c l eabout c r ~ n ~ ~ nand
a l s t h c ~ rtreatment A t t h a t
T h e rcason f o ~n l l ~ c lthe
~ Go\clnmcnt docs not elltlmc
thcrc
a
c
r
e
66
~
n
m
a
t
e
s
In
the Massachusetts Penltencourage B ~ r t l lControl 1s b c c a u s ~u c JIHIC too much of ~t
tlarv, serllng tcrrns from 15 years t o hfe Now the
alrcadv T h e one o r t a o ch~ldrcnf ~ m ~ IlS \ q u ~ t egen
era1 among o u ~p c l s a n t r \ , the b u h b o n c of the countrv Scwnfrjic Amencan traced these c r ~ m ~ n a lt so one Icwd
I n thousands of cases tlic one chlld has been Idled In the woman I t s a d ~f t h a t uoman had been stcrhzed, there
s e here In M ~ s s o u n
u a r and nobod\ rcma~nst o take tllc placc of the father n ould not ha\ t been these c r ~ m ~ n a lW
on the farm T h e ~ c s u l ta111 be t h a t u ~ t h mless than 20 ha\e non about 3,300 conlicts In our p c n ~ t e n t ~ a r vThen
C Insane asylums In a h ~ c haltogether there a r c
years, Germany s ~ l ha\c
l
a populnt~ondouble of t h a t of a c I ~ T four
about
4,G10
Insane pelsons and about 73'3 employees t o
France If, as 1s t o be fcarctl, the I 1c1al and n n p e r ~ a l l s t ~ c
takc
calc
of
thcm
Then a c have two reform schools, one
tendency gets the oler-liand and dcclarcs war, the conses
onc for gn-19 Our penltent~aryIS now selfquences ma\ be very serlous t o Frdnce ~f shc docs not for b o ~ and
m s t a ~ n ~ n but
g , the lnsanc asjlurns cost about $5,000 a
take her proper precautions
month
each
T h e Sczentzfic. Arnerzcan proposed t o stcrllwe
The o u t s t a n d ~ np~a t r ~ o t ~dcu t ~In Francc today 1s t o
repeople the countrl, and t o encourage lurgc famil~cs I all cr~nnnals,and I, fol mv p a r t , t h d all ~ n s a n epersons
mean f a m ~ l ~of
e s more than two c h ~ l d ~ e espcc~ally
n,
anlong should be stelll~zcd,also those afflicted wlth s y p h h If
the farmers If l o u r populat~on In the U n ~ t e dStates all the outlaus and lnsane persons wcre stcrll17cd t h a t
had dccreascd b\ scvcrnl m ~ h o n sdurlng thc last ten aould bc suffic~entB ~ r t hControl, and would not cost the
\cars, and ~f j o u had thc J a p s , mstead of peaceful t a u p a j e r so much monev I t r ~ e dstcrlh71ng on tomcats
Canad~ans,on \ o u r northern border, I bcl~c\ct h a t j o u I t makes them so much nlccr I have one now H e 1s surc
a fine c a t Not long ago IIC brought home a r a b b ~ tand
u ould do the same
l a ~ d~t d o a n In front of mv u ~ f e She feeds Inm Now ~f
H ~ ~ F R L ED'ALBIG\E
I O U aould agltate the matter throu g h your paper, ~t
J I ~ n ~ s t of
c r the Reformed Church of F r ~ n c c
m g h t call the a t t e n t ~ o nof the publlc If the s t e r ~ l ~ r e d
crlm~nalswould behave so much better In proportion t o
We a r e glad t o p r ~ n tU d'Anbrgnc's p ~ o t c s t ,and u c the tomcatv, ~t uould be a grcat improvement
acknowledge t h a t there IS p ~ o b a b hsome t r u t h In h ~ con
s
GEOILGEBLTILIL,Eugcnc, Mo
\ ~ c t ~ othat,
n
~f the c~rcumstancesof the U n ~ t e dStates
resembled those of France, there aould be demands here
Our c o ~ ~ e s p o n d e n1st 11ght about the s a v ~ n gt h a t would
t h a t we should engage In a cradle c o m p e t ~ t ~ o n Never- accrue t o the commun~ty~f the flood of dtseased and detheless a e behele t h a t such a c o m p e t ~ t ~ owould
n
be unalse fectne Infants could be stopped a t ~ t source
s
T h e Amerand nrong, and we are u t t e r l ~out of svmpathv n ~ t han\ lcan B ~ r t hControl League stands for s t e r ~ h z a t ~ ounder
n
attempt, e ~ t h e rIn the U n ~ t e dStates o r In France, t o pre- proper safeguards
Tent people from l l n ~ ~ naccess
g
to sc~cnt~flc
~nfolmat~on
E m rolr
'"
October, 1924
News Notes
UNITED STATES
New York
B I R T H Control booth was one of the features
of the Women's Activities Exhibit at the Hotel
Commodore, September 22 to 27 The work was
under the chairmanship of Mrs George H
Day, S r , of Hartford, Conn Mrs Day was
assisted by Mrs J Bishop Vandever, Mrs H J
Tiedeman, Mrs J S Browning, Mrs Polly Randall, Mrs Fenley Hunter, Mrs Frances B Ackermann, Mrs Beverley Robinson, Mrs C W
Carter, Mrs A G Porritt and Miss P Daniels
A resolution which, harmless and well-lntentioned on the surface, is fraught with danger for
progressive movements and freedom of the press,
was passed by the Knights of Columbus just before the adjournment of the annual convention in
August They then adopted a recommendat~onto
"organize and finance a movement for fighting
the dissemination of immoral and harmful h e r ature " As the movement will be directed by the
Roman Catholic hierarchy, it is a dlstinct threat to
Birth Control
A
September 3 Mrs Kennedy was the guest of
the Gamut Club, a Los Angeles men's organization
September 5 A branch of the American Birth
Control League was formed a t Los Angeles, with
Miss Elizabeth McManus as temporary Secretary
The occasion was a luncheon a t the Hotel Clark,
with Mrs Henry Boesche presiding Mrs Anne
Kennedy made an address, and convinced those
present of the need of Birth Control
September 6 Mrs Kennedy spoke a t the Metaphysical Llbrary of San Diego She was exceedingly well received
Texas
A
T Houston, on September 11, the Workmen's
Council of the City was addressed by Mrs Anne
Kennedy, in their Hall The Chairman was M r J
L Keeper The interest aroused was manifested
in many intelhgent questions
Unanimous approval of the programme of the
Amerlcan Birth Control League, pro1 iding for the
establishment of Birth Control clinics, was given on
September 15, when Mrs Anne Kennedy addressed the Woman's Forum at Dallas The chairman was Mrs W S Bramlet, and Mrs Kennedy
was introduced by Mrs C E Zigenbein The
meeting was for women only, but the following day
Mrs Kennedy addressed an aud~enceof both men
U C H interest in Birth Control was aroused by and women
the visit of Mrs Anne Kennedy, Executive Secretary to San Francisco and Los Angeles E v e q - Utah
where she went she interviewed men and women of
T the meeting of the American Prison Assoprominence in pohtical, university and social life,
ciation
in Salt Lake City, in August, Judge
and met wlth much encouragement and stlmulus
Jacob
Kanzler
of Portland made an outspoken
Following are a few notes on her more important
plea
that
society
should stop the rabbit-like breedmeetings ing of the feeble-minded and the criminal Unless
August 15 At a meeting held a t the S t steps are taken to alter present conditions, he
Francis Hotel, San Francisco, a committee was urged, the asylums and other state institutions will
formed as a branch of the American Birth Control become an almost unbearable burden, and the whole
League, with Raymond H Arnold of Oakland as tendency wdl be, not towards better condltlons, but
chairman The committee is to work for an amend- towards more and more delinquency and crime
ment of the California law affecting Birth Control
San Jose, Palo Alto and Vallejo were represented
CANADA
a t the meeting, and it is expected that the organization will take m a large area around San FranHE omission of Blrth Control from the procisco It was through the efforts of Mrs Kennedy gramme of the all-Amencan Conference of Social
that this committee came into existence
Workers, which was held a t Toronto in July, was
August 16 Mrs Kennedy addressed L a Vero severely commented upon by the Canadran Forum
Foundation a t an evening meeting, at which M r After commentmg on the multiplicity and the subFred Rivers presided A spirited debate followed divisions of Social work agencies it continued Soclal servants will find, howeler, that them efforts
August 18 The Soroptom~stClub, the Busiwd1 be severely handicapped so long as they allow
ness Women's organization of Oakland entertained
the search for truth or the pursu~tof soclal welfare
Mrs Kenned y a t luncheon a t the Hotel Oakland,
to be hlndered by taboos, whether these are connected
and listened to an explanation of the aims of the
mth supposed polit~cal expediency or theological
American Birth Control League
M
A
T
Barth Control Revzero
BOOKS ON
BIRTH CONTROL
B y MARGARET SANGER
What Every Grl Should Know
$1 50
Revmed edtt~onof the beat book for Gtrl.
200
Woman and the New Race
Appeals to the Heart of every Mother
The Pwot of C~vlllzat~on
2 00
Appeal. to the Mmd of every Thmkcr
B y HAROLD
COX
The Problem of Popdahon
$2 50
The Clearest Presentatton of the
Greatest Problem* that faces
Manklnd
B y HUGH DE SELINCOURT
One L~ttleBoy
$2 00
Illummatmn for every Mother and
every Teacher of young boys
B y EDWARD
M EAST
Manhnd at the Crossroads
.
$3 50
Will the Human Race choose the rtght
road or the wrong one
Professor East
make* the c h o ~ c e clear
BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW
104 Fafth Averme
New York
concept~ons, o r merely w ~ t hs o c ~ a lcustoms wh~ch
were developed in more prlmitwe env~ronmcntsand
y
Thus, the prohave lost thew v a l ~ d ~ t today
g~amme of the present conference ~ncludedpapers
on the care of cluldren In foster homes, ~ l l e g ~ t ~ r n a c y ,
juven~le dehnquency, d~fficult~csof placement In
mdustry, and the hke (problems w h ~ c hwdl mdeed
p e r s ~ s t d e s p ~ t eour hcst efforts,) but one looked
In valn for any declarat~onof the fundamental truth
enunc~atedby Mathus, that, so long a s people cont ~ n u et o brmg mto the world more ch~ldrenthan they
can properly support, so long wlll \ice and m m r y be
the consequences A n excess~vely lugh h ~ r t hrate
l ~ e sa t the very root of many of our s o c ~ a problems
l
I t 1s startling t o find t h a t not only does the programme of t h ~ sconference contam no reference t o
the subject but even t h a t a small group of ~ g n o r a n t
busybod~es,s p e a b ~ n gIn the name of s o c ~ a lservlce,
have recently taken c r c d ~ t o themselves In p u b l ~ cfor
them success In preventing ~ t ds~ s c u s s ~ o nWorks on
the subject wh~chhave been publ~clyrecommended b j
no less a churchman than the Dean of S t Paul's
have been banned a s a danger t o r e l ~ g ~ oInn Canada
Such a p o l ~ c yof obscurantism w ~ l lnot succeed w ~ t h
the ~ntelligento r the well-to-do-~ts ch~efeffect bemg
t o ensure t h a t r e s t r ~ c t ~ oofn the b ~ r t hrate wdl be
confined t o those classes where ~t IS least desirable,
wh~lclarger famll~csWIN cont~nuet o be found among
those least able t o support them A t present we
combat ev~lsaffect~ngc h ~ l dMe on the one hand,
wh~leohstructmg efforts t o abolish a ch~efcause of
these e v ~ l son the other Sooner o r later ~t w ~ l lhe
recogn~zedt h a t t h ~ 1s
s stupld
ENGLAND
M
marstin press
P R I m R S TO 1111 BIRTH COlllllOL PET-
R WHEATLEY, the B r h s h Mmster of
Health, 1s not bemg perm~ttedto forget the B ~ r t h
Control quest~on Another women's deputat~onon
the subject 1s recorded m the Munchester &nrdzan
of August 15, t h ~ stune headed by Mrs Harrison
Bell and bearmg a resolut~onm favor of B ~ r t h
Control passed by the Standmg Jomt Commttee
of Industr~alWomen's O r g a n m t ~ o n s The deput a t ~ o nprotested agamst the order of the Health
M ~ n ~ s pt er o~h ~ b ~ t ~the
n g g v m g of B ~ r t hControl
mformat~ona t Health Centers, and stated that the
alternat~veproposed by M r Wheatley, of referrmg
women to pr~vatepract~t~oners
or hosp~talswas not
working successfully M r Wheatley, In reply~ng
stated that the quest~on of B ~ r t hControl was
h~ghlycontrovers~al,and that he feared that ~f ~t
were taught a t matern~tycenters "many women,
not only on account of rehg~ous,but on account of
other objections, too, would be deterred from attendmg these centers " H e promlsed to enquwe
lnto any cases In wh~chwomen were refused the Information at hosp~tals,and ~ n s ~ s t ethat
d Parl~a-
October, 1924
ment must act before he would give consent to the
mtroduction of B ~ r t h Control a t the Health
Centers
A deputation of women of the Labor Party
waited on M r Wheatley, on August 13th It was
headed by D r Marion Phillips, and this time the
specific demand was for an expert inquiry mto the
whole subject This M r Wheatley was not able to
refuse, and it is felt that the result will be such an
education of the Labor Cabinet as to make it inevitable that the Ministry of Health wdl change its
policy of obstruction
Birth Control had a prominent place m the programme of the Summer School of the Independent
Labor Party which opened on August lath, a t
Cloughton, Yorks An article by Mrs Bertrand
Russell was mcluded m the booklet prepared for
the use of the students I n this, Mrs Russell recounted the efforts that had been made to secure
permission from Minister of Health Wheatley for
the g v m g of Birth Control information a t Health
Centers, and gave facts and figures showmg the
need for such mstruction H e r researches had led
her to believe that the lack of Birth Control, rather
than its practice, was the menace to motherhood
and to a happy married hfe
The Annual Convention of the British Labor
Party mll be held in London durmg the week of
October 6th and it is announced that the Women's
branches are preparing to press for resolutions
favoring Birth Control It will be difficult for the
Cabmet to resist, if the party makes a strong stand
agalnst the repressive attitude of the Minister of
Health I f M r Wheatley finds it impossible consaentiously to mthdraw from his position, his
resignation will probably be the next demand of the
women
AUSTRIA
A DETAILED account of Birth Control work
m Austria was prmted in the July Remew The
article was by Johann Ferch who is the leader and
the mspiration of the movement there A letter
from M r Ferch dated August 20th, gives further
news of progress I n Austna, he wntes, the idea
of controlhg birth is making great strides ahead
Vienna has four and the Austrian provinces eight
c h c s Movlng pictures and lantern slides are
used as a help, and all the newspapers contmuously
print articles about Birth Control
CERMANY
HE Austnan Birth Control agtation is being
extended by M r Ferch mto Germany and the German parts of Czecho-Slovakia Societies have been
started which are working hard, holding meetings
T
OUR
OCTOBER
OFFER
WE HAVE SOMETHING VERY GOOD
FOR YOU THIS MONTH
IF YOU H A V E T H E S E BOOKS, BUY E X T R A
COPIES TO L E N D TO Y O U R FRIENDS
Birth ControlWHAT IT !%HOW
IT W O R K S W H A T IT WILL DO
(Former Price two dollars)
Thu hook contams at.tlcIes by nearly thtrty of the bemt
Amertcsn and European authorlt~es
Lttle Essays of Love and Vutue
$1 so
By HAVELOCK ELLIS
W~adornfor right ltv~ng and delightful read~ng
Woman, Morahty and Blrth Control
By MARGARET SANCER
lluplratron for the movement for responmble
Motherhood
-
All three poet-free for $2 00, or eend
$1 10 for the first of the three
SEND IN YOUR COUPON TODAY
I enclose $2 for your opeclal October offer
Name
Address
Toun
Statr
20
Blrth Control Revzem
300
mth lantern sl~delectures The work is not hampered by any prohibit~veleg~slat~on,
and the daily
newspapers are show~ngthemselves ready to take
up the cause M r Ferch looks forward to translatlng the pamphlets (mostly of h ~ sown wnting)
into all languages and pushmg them in Italy,
France, Scandinawa, Hungary, Poland, etc
COMING EVENTS
The 1925 Buth Control Conference
THE date for the Sixth International Birth Con-
trol and Neo-Malthusian Conference has now been
fixed I t will open a t the Hotel McAlpin, New
York. on Thursdav. March 26th and w~lllast until
the 31st There will be no sessions on Sunday,
March 29th, but it 1s intended to hold a public
meeting In the afternoon Varlous features for the
benefit of the delegates d l enhven the proceedmgs Delegates are already promised from England, Germany, Austria, Italy and Japan, as well
as from all parts of the U n ~ t e dStates, espec~ally
mcludmg the Pac~ficCoast, and from Canada
Legzslatzve Work for 1925
New Jersey and Connecticut are both plannmg
campaigns of legislative work for the comlng wmter I n Connect~cuta bill legahzmg B ~ r t hControl
was ~ntroducedin 1923, but was defeated in the
Lower House It is mtended to remtroduce the
bdl, w ~ t hsome mod~fications,to make ~tmore acceptable to the med~calprofession
M r Everett J Meves, who has already done
much for B ~ r t hControl both m New Jersey and
Pennsylvanm, IS plann~ngto conduct a campalgn
of publlc~tyIn favor of an amendment wh~chshall
put the medical profession on a safe bas~sm prescribmg B ~ r t hControl to all women who des~rethe
~nformat~onM r Meves is Secretary of the Birth
Control League m Camden, N J
FUNDAMENTAL
or the Beglnnlng of Things
An lnterestmg radlcal and s c ~ e n t ~ f i c
pamphlet by t h a t reallst~c wnter,
D r P A Kane, modern vlew on the
subject, twenty-five cents O r ~ g ~ n a l l y
pubhshed In THE CRUCIBLE, an
a g n o s t ~ cweekly, one dollar per year
Send 10 csntr for rampls eopwr
RAYMER'S OLD BOOK STORE
1330 Funt Avenue
- -
Seattle, Wash
The New Generation
Successor to the 3fallhustan founded 1876, 1s
THE BIRTH CONTROL MAGAZINE
OF GREAT BRITAIN
P u b l u h ~ dunder the auzpwoa of
The New Generat~onLeague
124 V ~ c t o r ~Street,
a
London, S W 1
I w r d monthly
Sub~cnpnonprlcc 7 c h ~ l l m e c
o r S E h D $2 TO O F F I C E O F BIRTII CONTROL REVIEW
104 F l f t h Avenue, New York
B I R T H CONTROL A N D MEDICAL
PRACTICE
(Conltnwd from page 280)
Chronic alcoholism and morphlnism affect the
offspring most ser~ously The curse of dipsoman~a
1s not suffic~entlyreallzed by us A t least 20 per
cent of all feeble-minded children are the offspring
of drunkards
Pauperism IS another afflict~onwh~chcalh mmt
~ns~stently
for the guest~on of Birth Control
Every pauper and everyone who is unable to nourish Ins already existing family has ccrtainly no
just~ficat~on
to brmg stdl more ch~ldreninto the
world The pauper should lose the right to reproduct~on Through ~ t doctors
s
the State must see
to the reduction of pauperism, the State for its
self-preservation, must see to ~tthat soc~alpovertS.
be not ~ncreasedby these people
0 many marrtcd couples yearn f e r chddren tbrt
thousands of coples of a new boot by D r H W d l
Elders a r c bemg dmnbuted wjthow cost to chddkss
women Any famlly ~ntercsted In overcommg condttronr
of nature that b ~ n d c rthe g ~ f tof ch~ldrenshould wrtte
for thls free book today It descr~bcaa simple home treat
mcnt based on the use of Sterlltone, a wonderful m e n
t ~ f i ct o n ~ cthat ha. bad marvelou. aucccsa all over the
country ~n rcllevrng const~tut~onalweakness
E % c n woman who wants to li*e a normal happy hfe
with l ~ t t l cones around her should conr~der'lt her fir71
duty to know what Stcrlltone IS and why 11 sheuld be %o
wonderful a n and to her Read t b ~ slrttle book whlch s
sent w~thootcharge or obllgat~on In a plam envelope It
unfolds facm that most women never h a r e had erplatned
to them S~mplysend name today to Dr H W d l Elders
ZOO1 Ballmger Bldg, St Joseph M o
11
I
I
1
October, 1924
CONEY ISLAND
(Conttnued from page 291)
where poor mothers can be ~nstructedhow not to
have the bab~esthey can't afford to clothe and
educate " "Here, take lt," he sald, thrustmg the
nlckel Into my hand, and hurr~edaway
A woman jeered "blrth control, I should thlnk
the good Lord takes care of that " " He does m t h
people who use the intelligence he gave them," I
rephed Flappers of both sexes buy the Revzew
Sometimes a group of them stand a l~ttleway off,
looklng over a t the paper, and glgghng I appear
perfectly unconscious of them and at last one of
them squares h ~ sor her shoulders and takes the
plunge, to the suppressed laughter of the others
I always Impress upon them that B ~ r t hControl IS
the most serlous and Important questlon on earth,
especially to the young people who have the power
of making the world a better place to llve m
Some people are quite concerned as to "where
would you have been lf your mother had pract~ced
that? A foreign born man, evidently t r y ~ n qto
convey that, very agitatedly called out "Vere
\auld ve be lf ve vouldn't be here?" Another s a d
"lf Roosevelt could see you he'd have a fit" and I
pomted out to h ~ m
that Roosevelt's w ~ f ed~dn'thave
a baby everv year, nor abort~onafter abortron,
that thelr chlldren had been well spaced and taken
care of, and that there was no need for people
who could not take care of chlldren to have larger
famll~esthan Roosevelt "That's true, too, lady,"
he admltted
Many apparently fairly well-to-do young
couples wlth one baby, somet~mestwo bables, say
they can't afford to have any more, they find bables
a great expense Many over-burdened fathers are
glad to "take ~t home to the wlfe," and j u d ~ ~ n g
from the accompanvlng "burdens" the mfe wdl he
glad to get ~t One worried-look~ngman w ~ t h
four had brought them out to glve mother and the
new arrival some peace and qulet Often a group
of husbands and wlves m t h a swarm of ch~ldren
w ~ l lhalt a 11tt;le way off and after cvldently debating the quest~oncome over, or a chlld wdl be
sent to get one Some will pass on, castlng longlng
or scornful glances back
A woman asked "Is that to do away w ~ t hthe
babies?" I sald "No, it's to prevent domg away wlth
them " Somet~mesa proud father wdl hold h ~ s
babv up h q h and call oGt, "Nothmg domg, look a t
thls" and I call back, "That's all rlght lf you can
feed and clothe and educate ~tproperly," a t whlch
those who have heard usually express approval
Mostly ludging from the baby's general appearance father's prlde 1s lustlfied, but occasionally he
ought to be prevented from repeatmg the offence
One sald, "I am golng to have as many as I want "
The American
Birth Control League
Has Its Buthday thu Month
Help Us to Celebrate
Do You Want to Send
a B~rthdayPresent?
A CONTRIBUTION O F ONE DOLLAR
WILL HELP US T O START THE NEW
YEAR
and
YOU CAN SECURE NEW MEMBERS
FOR THE LEAGUE
-
If Each of you w ~ l lsend one Enrollment, our Membersh~pwdl be doubled
Help to Increase our Numbers, our Influence, our Worklng Power
YOU BELIEVE
IN BIRTH CONTROL
Act on Your Behef and Make B~rth
Control Poss~ble
How Many Members Can You Secure
-F~ve--Ten-Twenty
?
Send to Headquurters for Enrollment
Slaps and Free Leaflets and H e l p us to
start our fourth year wzth enthuszasm
Enclosed ts my check for $
(or dollar bdl)
whlch I acnd to the Amencan B~rthControl League as
a Bsrthdey present
Also pleaae send me
leafleta
enrollment s h p and
free
Name
Address
Nahone.1 Headquarters, 104 Fifth Avenue, Naw York Ctty
Margaret Sanger,
Frances B Ackermann,
Prendent
T~earurer
Bzrth C o n t ~01 Revrew
--
-
AS A DOCTOR SEES IT
By Dr B Lber-40th $2 00
A new and unique book Powerful, lntemtlng IUustrated wlth 64 pencll sketches by the author 113
storm Recerred as a revelntlon by the p r a s everywhere Glances mto the rntimate hfe of all klnds of
deals with 8.w
people Part two, *'Pouoned Plsarurr:'
Lsfs and Bwth Control 208 p a p s
THE CHILD AND THE HOME
By Dr B L b d o t h $2 50, Paper $1 50
Second enlarged edltlon Most modern Ideas on the
brlnglng u p of chlldren Common Errors--Practical
Advice-Instances from Life-Sex, Health and Food
Problems 320 pages
RATIONAL LIVING
--&bscnpt~on $2 00
An illustrated monthly devoted to health conservation
and aposlng dishonesty in nll healing professrons
B Llber, M D , Dr P H , Editor
S u b s c r ~ p t ~ oton
R L and
copy
As A
of
Doctor
Sees It, $3 50
S u b s c r ~ p t ~ to
o n R L and c o p y of The Chdd
the H o m e . C l o t h $4 00, P a p e r $3 00
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and
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l h a Most Antbontatrro Anthon
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FREE LITERATURE
The Greatest Need m Amenca
Farat Hand storlea from Mother*
Can You Afford a Large F~amlly
The Inamtent Qucatton of the present day
One Hundred Years of Bvth Control
The record of ateady growth of the idea
Books Worth Readmg on B d Control
Answora the demand Where can 1 find out about
Btrth Control
Send for there laafletr to Headquarterr and dutnbutr
them to your fnends
BIRTH CONTROL REVIEW
104 Fafth Avenue
New York Cltp
"As many as you can decently look after?" I replied, wlth approval from hearers One couple
w ~ t ha baby about 18 months oid, lookmg the picture of health and happiness, looked thin and sickly
themselves, as lf they starved to feed the baby,
which 1s very laudable no doubt, but the woman
was pregnant and dld not look strong enough to
survlve the next ordeal
The same everung I notlced a poor-lookmg
couple w ~ t ha baby, gazrng very Intently a t the Remew from a short dlstrrnce I moved a httle towards them with the crowd and they came towards
me as d merely to pass, but m passing the man
looked anx~ousslya t me saylng "how much "
"Twenty cents," I sad, a t whlch he sadly shook
hls head and went on, but I gave hls wlfe who was
beh~ndhlm a leaflet and told her to come to the
clinlc There are so many such cases I n a11 the
merry-makmg of Coney Island they seem hke
skeletons a t the feast
DAEDALUS A N D ICARUS
(Contmnusd from paps 270)
Sclence may or may not prove a boon to mankind No doubt M r Russell 1s rlght m his content ~ o nthat ~t1s no substitute for virtue and that what
we need most of all is more kmdliness Yet we beheve M r Haldane is essentially correct m hls
clalm that sclence tends to force man mto greater
cooperation m t h h ~ fellows
s
However, we cannot
wait a few centur~esfor lnvent~onand research to
solve our present problems, and there IS little
chance for an Increase of kmdllness m a world
where unwanted chlldren bring bitterness and
hopelessness to overburdened mothers and d~scouraged fathers, where the derelicts and misfits of
humanity multiply apace, and the pressure of hunperlng milllons starts the rattle of the war-drums
Birth control, after all, 1s more than an economc
need, it is an ethic demand
THE P A S S I N G O F A HERO
(Codsnued from pags 289)
their faculties, their tlme, and no less their body
Quite In accordance wlth their ideas, D r and Mrs
Rutgers were opposed to the double moral standard, the traffic In women and state regulat~onof
vice When In 1911 the Government abohshed the
houses of prostitution, they were both promment
among the reformers, although, m pollt~cs,they
held opposlte vlews to those of the Government
Rutgers was always strong and great enough to
try to understand hls adversary's Ideas and enter
mto h ~ smews H e never lost an opportunity of
finding pomts of sympathy wlth every hvmg
creature H e was most klnd and serviceable H e
was an ideal social reformer, and the world 1s the
s
poorer for h ~ death
D o you know that you can make an excellent
Pollsh Mop out of an ordmary mop and a llttle
3 m-One, It's easy t o do and costs very llttle
Just cut off the strands of any mop about
elght inches from handle and molsten dlghtly wrth
Allow a short trme for the or1 to permeate the
strands thoroughly before usrng
Wrth thrs home made, economical Polloh Mop, ~ t s
so easy to clean hard to reach corners, under beds,
behrnd r a d ~ a t o r s Out comes the dust and lrnt, chng
m g to the mop a s ~f to a magnet
Shake off the drrt out doors and your Mop 1s ready
to go after another load Floors and orlcloth always
shlne after a vrslt of your 3 In One Polrsh Mop
Cleans and pohshes s~multaneously
3 rn One Duatless Dust Cloths a r e just as easy to
m a t e aa Pollah Mops, and they plck up dust just as
well Use any soft cloth, permeated wlth 3 In One
Thrs great or1 wmpound has 79 uses In the home
alone--lubrrcatlng
all lrght mechanrurns--elcaning
and polrshrng woodwork and metal-preventrog
rust
and tarnrsh All these uses, and many others, a r e
explamed In a Drctlonary of Uses which 1s wrapped
around every bottle and sent with every sample
FREE- Generous sample and De Luxc edmnn
Published by the American Birth Control League
Edlted by MARGARET
SANGER
The Birth Control Review
Glves the News of the Movement all over the World,
Contains articles embodying the latest Sclentlfic Thought,
Revlews all Books and notes all Artlcles bearing on Blrth Control,
Gives all the Reasons for Blrth Control,
Answers all Objections
Y o u Can Help Birth Control
by
Placmg the Rev~ewIn your Public Library
Donatlng Subscrlptlons to your pastor, your doctor, your school
principal
Securmg New Subscribers among your Friends
Subscnphons-for one year
Two New subscrlptlons
Three New subscriptions
Bound Volumes
1920-1921
1922-1923
,
Subscnpt~onsfor one year, w t h one bound volume
With Both Bound Volumes
I enc1o.e check for $
$6 50
$1 l 50
for whteh please enter the f o l l o m ~ gname* as subacnbers to tho Blrth Control Rsw-
Name
address
Name
Address
Name
Address
In sddttaon please .end mc Bound Volume for 1920 192 1
1922 1923