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diff --git a/1689.txt b/1689.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..253e713 --- /dev/null +++ b/1689.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5788 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pivot of Civilization, by Margaret Sanger + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Pivot of Civilization + +Author: Margaret Sanger + +Release Date: November 8, 2008 [EBook #1689] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIVOT OF CIVILIZATION *** + + + + +Produced by Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteers + + + + + +THE PIVOT OF CIVILIZATION + + +By Margaret Sanger + + + + +To Alice Drysdale Vickery + +Whose prophetic vision of liberated womanhood has been an inspiration + + + +"I dream of a world in which the spirits of women are flames stronger +than fire, a world in which modesty has become courage and yet remains +modesty, a world in which women are as unlike men as ever they were +in the world I sought to destroy, a world in which women shine with +a loveliness of self-revelation as enchanting as ever the old legends +told, and yet a world which would immeasurably transcend the old world +in the self-sacrificing passion of human service. I have dreamed of that +world ever since I began to dream at all." + +--Havelock Ellis + + + + + CONTENTS + + Introduction By H. G. Wells + + Chapter + I A New Truth Emerges + II Conscripted Motherhood + III "Children Troop Down from Heaven" + IV The Fertility of the Feeble-Minded + V The Cruelty of Charity + VI Neglected Factors of the World Problem + VII Is Revolution the Remedy? + VIII Dangers of Cradle Competition + IX A Moral Necessity + X Science the Ally + XI Education and Expression + XII Woman and the Future + + Appendix: Principles and Aims of the American Birth Control League + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +Birth Control, Mrs. Sanger claims, and claims rightly, to be a question +of fundamental importance at the present time. I do not know how far +one is justified in calling it the pivot or the corner-stone of a +progressive civilization. These terms involve a criticism of metaphors +that may take us far away from the question in hand. Birth Control is no +new thing in human experience, and it has been practised in societies of +the most various types and fortunes. But there can be little doubt that +at the present time it is a test issue between two widely different +interpretations of the word civilization, and of what is good in life +and conduct. The way in which men and women range themselves in this +controversy is more simply and directly indicative of their general +intellectual quality than any other single indication. I do not wish to +imply by this that the people who oppose are more or less intellectual +than the people who advocate Birth Control, but only that they have +fundamentally contrasted general ideas,--that, mentally, they are +DIFFERENT. Very simple, very complex, very dull and very brilliant +persons may be found in either camp, but all those in either camp have +certain attitudes in common which they share with one another, and do +not share with those in the other camp. + +There have been many definitions of civilization. Civilization is a +complexity of countless aspects, and may be validly defined in a great +number of relationships. A reader of James Harvey Robinson's MIND IN THE +MAKING will find it very reasonable to define a civilization as a system +of society-making ideas at issue with reality. Just so far as the system +of ideas meets the needs and conditions of survival or is able to +adapt itself to the needs and conditions of survival of the society +it dominates, so far will that society continue and prosper. We are +beginning to realize that in the past and under different conditions +from our own, societies have existed with systems of ideas and with +methods of thought very widely contrasting with what we should consider +right and sane to-day. The extraordinary neolithic civilizations of the +American continent that flourished before the coming of the Europeans, +seem to have got along with concepts that involved pedantries and +cruelties and a kind of systematic unreason, which find their closest +parallels to-day in the art and writings of certain types of lunatic. +There are collections of drawings from English and American asylums +extraordinarily parallel in their spirit and quality with the Maya +inscriptions of Central America. Yet these neolithic American societies +got along for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, they respected +seed-time and harvest, they bred and they maintained a grotesque and +terrible order. And they produced quite beautiful works of art. Yet +their surplus of population was disposed of by an organization of +sacrificial slaughter unparalleled in the records of mankind. Many of +the institutions that seemed most normal and respectable to them, filled +the invading Europeans with perplexity and horror. + +When we realize clearly this possibility of civilizations being based +on very different sets of moral ideas and upon different intellectual +methods, we are better able to appreciate the profound significance of +the schism in our modern community, which gives us side by side, honest +and intelligent people who regard Birth Control as something essentially +sweet, sane, clean, desirable and necessary, and others equally honest +and with as good a claim to intelligence who regard it as not merely +unreasonable and unwholesome, but as intolerable and abominable. We are +living not in a simple and complete civilization, but in a conflict +of at least two civilizations, based on entirely different fundamental +ideas, pursuing different methods and with different aims and ends. + +I will call one of these civilizations our Traditional or Authoritative +Civilization. It rests upon the thing that is, and upon the thing that +has been. It insists upon respect for custom and usage; it discourages +criticism and enquiry. It is very ancient and conservative, or, going +beyond conservation, it is reactionary. The vehement hostility of many +Catholic priests and prelates towards new views of human origins, and +new views of moral questions, has led many careless thinkers to +identify this old traditional civilization with Christianity, but that +identification ignores the strongly revolutionary and initiatory +spirit that has always animated Christianity, and is untrue even to the +realities of orthodox Catholic teaching. The vituperation of individual +Catholics must not be confused with the deliberate doctrines of the +Church which have, on the whole, been conspicuously cautious and +balanced and sane in these matters. The ideas and practices of the Old +Civilization are older and more widespread than and not identifiable +with either Christian or Catholic culture, and it will be a great +misfortune if the issues between the Old Civilization and the New are +allowed to slip into the deep ruts of religious controversies that are +only accidentally and intermittently parallel. + +Contrasted with the ancient civilization, with the Traditional +disposition, which accepts institutions and moral values as though they +were a part of nature, we have what I may call--with an evident bias +in its favour--the civilization of enquiry, of experimental knowledge, +Creative and Progressive Civilization. The first great outbreak of the +spirit of this civilization was in republican Greece; the martyrdom of +Socrates, the fearless Utopianism of Plato, the ambitious encyclopaedism +of Aristotle, mark the dawn of a new courage and a new wilfulness in +human affairs. The fear of set limitations, of punitive and restrictive +laws imposed by Fate upon human life was visibly fading in human minds. +These names mark the first clear realization that to a large extent, and +possibly to an illimitable extent, man's moral and social life and his +general destiny could be seized upon and controlled by man. But--he +must have knowledge. Said the Ancient Civilization--and it says it still +through a multitude of vigorous voices and harsh repressive acts: +"Let man learn his duty and obey." Says the New Civilization, with +ever-increasing confidence: "Let man know, and trust him." + +For long ages, the Old Civilization kept the New subordinate, apologetic +and ineffective, but for the last two centuries, the New has fought its +way to a position of contentious equality. The two go on side by side, +jostling upon a thousand issues. The world changes, the conditions of +life change rapidly, through that development of organized science which +is the natural method of the New Civilization. The old tradition demands +that national loyalties and ancient belligerence should continue. The +new has produced means of communication that break down the pens and +separations of human life upon which nationalist emotion depends. The +old tradition insists upon its ancient blood-letting of war; the new +knowledge carries that war to undreamt of levels of destruction. The +ancient system needed an unrestricted breeding to meet the normal +waste of life through war, pestilence, and a multitude of hitherto +unpreventable diseases. The new knowledge sweeps away the venerable +checks of pestilence and disease, and confronts us with the congestions +and explosive dangers of an over-populated world. The old tradition +demands a special prolific class doomed to labor and subservience; the +new points to mechanism and to scientific organization as a means of +escape from this immemorial subjugation. Upon every main issue in life, +there is this quarrel between the method of submission and the method +of knowledge. More and more do men of science and intelligent people +generally realize the hopelessness of pouring new wine into old bottles. +More and more clearly do they grasp the significance of the Great +Teacher's parable. + +The New Civilization is saying to the Old now: "We cannot go on making +power for you to spend upon international conflict. You must stop waving +flags and bandying insults. You must organize the Peace of the World; +you must subdue yourselves to the Federation of all mankind. And we +cannot go on giving you health, freedom, enlargement, limitless wealth, +if all our gifts to you are to be swamped by an indiscriminate torrent +of progeny. We want fewer and better children who can be reared up to +their full possibilities in unencumbered homes, and we cannot make the +social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the +ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict upon +us." And there at the passionate and crucial question, this essential +and fundamental question, whether procreation is still to be a +superstitious and often disastrous mystery, undertaken in fear and +ignorance, reluctantly and under the sway of blind desires, or whether +it is to become a deliberate creative act, the two civilizations join +issue now. It is a conflict from which it is almost impossible to +abstain. Our acts, our way of living, our social tolerance, our very +silences will count in this crucial decision between the old and the +new. + +In a plain and lucid style without any emotional appeals, Mrs. Margaret +Sanger sets out the case of the new order against the old. There have +been several able books published recently upon the question of Birth +Control, from the point of view of a woman's personal life, and from the +point of view of married happiness, but I do not think there has been +any book as yet, popularly accessible, which presents this matter from +the point of view of the public good, and as a necessary step to the +further improvement of human life as a whole. I am inclined to think +that there has hitherto been rather too much personal emotion spent upon +this business and far too little attention given to its broader aspects. +Mrs. Sanger with her extraordinary breadth of outlook and the real +scientific quality of her mind, has now redressed the balance. She +has lifted this question from out of the warm atmosphere of troubled +domesticity in which it has hitherto been discussed, to its proper level +of a predominantly important human affair. + +H.G. Wells + +Easton Glebe, Dunmow, + +Essex., England + + + + +THE PIVOT OF CIVILIZATION + + + +CHAPTER I: A New Truth Emerges + + Be not ashamed, women, your privilege encloses the + rest, and is the exit of the rest, + You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of + the soul. + + --Walt Whitman + +This book aims to be neither the first word on the tangled problems of +human society to-day, nor the last. My aim has been to emphasize, by the +use of concrete and challenging examples and neglected facts, the +need of a new approach to individual and social problems. Its central +challenge is that civilization, in any true sense of the word, is based +upon the control and guidance of the great natural instinct of Sex. +Mastery of this force is possible only through the instrument of Birth +Control. + +It may be objected that in the following pages I have rushed in +where academic scholars have feared to tread, and that as an active +propagandist I am lacking in the scholarship and documentary preparation +to undertake such a stupendous task. My only defense is that, from my +point of view at least, too many are already studying and investigating +social problems from without, with a sort of Olympian detachment. And on +the other hand, too few of those who are engaged in this endless war for +human betterment have found the time to give to the world those truths +not always hidden but practically unquarried, which may be secured only +after years of active service. + +Of late, we have been treated to accounts written by well-meaning ladies +and gentlemen who have assumed clever disguises and have gone out to +work--for a week or a month--among the proletariat. But can we thus +learn anything new of the fundamental problems of working men, working +women, working children? Something, perhaps, but not those great central +problems of Hunger and Sex. We have been told that only those who +themselves have suffered the pangs of starvation can truly understand +Hunger. You might come into the closest contact with a starving man; +yet, if you were yourself well-fed, no amount of sympathy could give you +actual insight into the psychology of his suffering. This suggests an +objective and a subjective approach to all social problems. Whatever the +weakness of the subjective (or, if you prefer, the feminine) approach, +it has at least the virtue that its conclusions are tested by +experience. Observation of facts about you, intimate subjective +reaction to such facts, generate in your mind certain fundamental +convictions,--truths you can ignore no more than you can ignore such +truths as come as the fruit of bitter but valuable personal experience. + +Regarding myself, I may say that my experience in the course of the +past twelve or fifteen years has been of a type to force upon me certain +convictions that demand expression. For years I had believed that the +solution of all our troubles was to be found in well-defined programmes +of political and legislative action. At first, I concentrated my whole +attention upon these, only to discover that politicians and law-makers +are just as confused and as much at a loss in solving fundamental +problems as anyone else. And I am speaking here not so much of the +corrupt and ignorant politician as of those idealists and reformers who +think that by the ballot society may be led to an earthly paradise. They +may honestly desire and intend to do great things. They may positively +glow--before election--with enthusiasm at the prospect they imagine +political victory may open to them. Time after time, I was struck by the +change in their attitude after the briefest enjoyment of this illusory +power. Men are elected during some wave of reform, let us say, elected +to legislate into practical working existence some great ideal. They +want to do big things; but a short time in office is enough to show the +political idealist that he can accomplish nothing, that his reform +must be debased and dragged into the dust, so that even if it becomes +enacted, it may be not merely of no benefit, but a positive evil. It +is scarcely necessary to emphasize this point. It is an accepted +commonplace of American politics. So much of life, so large a part of +all our social problems, moreover, remains untouched by political and +legislative action. This is an old truth too often ignored by those who +plan political campaigns upon the most superficial knowledge of human +nature. + +My own eyes were opened to the limitations of political action when, as +an organizer for a political group in New York, I attended by chance +a meeting of women laundry-workers who were on strike. We believed +we could help these women with a legislative measure and asked their +support. "Oh! that stuff!" exclaimed one of these women. "Don't you know +that we women might be dead and buried if we waited for politicians and +lawmakers to right our wrongs?" This set me to thinking--not merely of +the immediate problem--but to asking myself how much any male politician +could understand of the wrongs inflicted upon poor working women. + +I threw the weight of my study and activity into the economic and +industrial struggle. Here I discovered men and women fired with the +glorious vision of a new world, of a proletarian world emancipated, a +Utopian world,--it glowed in romantic colours for the majority of those +with whom I came in closest contact. The next step, the immediate step, +was another matter, less romantic and too often less encouraging. In +their ardor, some of the labor leaders of that period almost convinced +us that the millennium was just around the corner. Those were the +pre-war days of dramatic strikes. But even when most under the spell +of the new vision, the sight of the overburdened wives of the strikers, +with their puny babies and their broods of under-fed children, made us +stop and think of a neglected factor in the march toward our earthly +paradise. It was well enough to ask the poor men workers to carry on the +battle against economic injustice. But what results could be expected +when they were forced in addition to carry the burden of their +ever-growing families? This question loomed large to those of us who +came into intimate contact with the women and children. We saw that in +the final analysis the real burden of economic and industrial warfare +was thrust upon the frail, all-too-frail shoulders of the children, +the very babies--the coming generation. In their wan faces, in their +undernourished bodies, would be indelibly written the bitter defeat of +their parents. + +The eloquence of those who led the underpaid and half-starved workers +could no longer, for me, at least, ring with conviction. Something +more than the purely economic interpretation was involved. The bitter +struggle for bread, for a home and material comfort, was but one phase +of the problem. There was another phase, perhaps even more fundamental, +that had been absolutely neglected by the adherents of the new dogmas. +That other phase was the driving power of instinct, a power uncontrolled +and unnoticed. The great fundamental instinct of sex was expressing +itself in these ever-growing broods, in the prosperity of the slum +midwife and her colleague the slum undertaker. In spite of all my +sympathy with the dream of liberated Labor, I was driven to ask whether +this urging power of sex, this deep instinct, was not at least partially +responsible, along with industrial injustice, for the widespread misery +of the world. + +To find an answer to this problem which at that point in my experience +I could not solve, I determined to study conditions in Europe. Perhaps +there I might discover a new approach, a great illumination. Just before +the outbreak of the war, I visited France, Spain, Germany and Great +Britain. Everywhere I found the same dogmas and prejudices among labor +leaders, the same intense but limited vision, the same insistence upon +the purely economic phases of human nature, the same belief that if the +problem of hunger were solved, the question of the women and children +would take care of itself. In this attitude I discovered, then, what +seemed to me to be purely masculine reasoning; and because it was purely +masculine, it could at best be but half true. Feminine insight must be +brought to bear on all questions; and here, it struck me, the fallacy +of the masculine, the all-too-masculine, was brutally exposed. I was +encouraged and strengthened in this attitude by the support of certain +leaders who had studied human nature and who had reached the same +conclusion: that civilization could not solve the problem of Hunger +until it recognized the titanic strength of the sexual instinct. In +Spain, I found that Lorenzo Portet, who was carrying on the work of the +martyred Francisco Ferrer, had reached this same conclusion. In Italy, +Enrico Malatesta, the valiant leader who was after the war to play +so dramatic a role, was likewise combating the current dogma of the +orthodox Socialists. In Berlin, Rudolph Rocker was engaged in the +thankless task of puncturing the articles of faith of the orthodox +Marxian religion. It is quite needless to add that these men who had +probed beneath the surface of the problem and had diagnosed so much more +completely the complex malady of contemporary society were intensely +disliked by the superficial theorists of the neo-Marxian School. + +The gospel of Marx had, however, been too long and too thoroughly +inculcated into the minds of millions of workers in Europe, to be +discarded. It is a flattering doctrine, since it teaches the laborer +that all the fault is with someone else, that he is the victim of +circumstances, and not even a partner in the creation of his own and his +child's misery. Not without significance was the additional discovery +that I made. I found that the Marxian influence tended to lead workers +to believe that, irrespective of the health of the poor mothers, the +earning capacity of the wage-earning fathers, or the upbringing of +the children, increase of the proletarian family was a benefit, not +a detriment to the revolutionary movement. The greater the number of +hungry mouths, the emptier the stomachs, the more quickly would the +"Class War" be precipitated. The greater the increase in population +among the proletariat, the greater the incentive to revolution. This +may not be sound Marxian theory; but it is the manner in which it is +popularly accepted. It is the popular belief, wherever the Marxian +influence is strong. This I found especially in England and Scotland. In +speaking to groups of dockworkers on strike in Glasgow, and before the +communist and co-operative guilds throughout England, I discovered +a prevailing opposition to the recognition of sex as a factor in the +perpetuation of poverty. The leaders and theorists were immovable in +their opposition. But when once I succeeded in breaking through the +surface opposition of the rank and file of the workers, I found that +they were willing to recognize the power of this neglected factor in +their lives. + +So central, so fundamental in the life of every man and woman is this +problem that they need be taught no elaborate or imposing theory to +explain their troubles. To approach their problems by the avenue of sex +and reproduction is to reveal at once their fundamental relations to the +whole economic and biological structure of society. Their interest is +immediately and completely awakened. But always, as I soon discovered, +the ideas and habits of thought of these submerged masses have been +formed through the Press, the Church, through political institutions, +all of which had built up a conspiracy of silence around a subject +that is of no less vital importance than that of Hunger. A great wall +separates the masses from those imperative truths that must be known +and flung wide if civilization is to be saved. As currently constituted, +Church, Press, Education seem to-day organized to exploit the ignorance +and the prejudices of the masses, rather than to light their way to +self-salvation. + +Such was the situation in 1914, when I returned to America, determined, +since the exclusively masculine point of view had dominated too long, +that the other half of the truth should be made known. The Birth +Control movement was launched because it was in this form that the +whole relation of woman and child--eternal emblem of the future of +society--could be more effectively dramatized. The amazing growth +of this movement dates from the moment when in my home a small group +organized the first Birth Control League. Since then we have been +criticized for our choice of the term "Birth Control" to express +the idea of modern scientific contraception. I have yet to hear +any criticism of this term that is not based upon some false and +hypocritical sense of modesty, or that does not arise out of a +semi-prurient misunderstanding of its aim. On the other hand: nothing +better expresses the idea of purposive, responsible, and self-directed +guidance of the reproductive powers. + +Those critics who condemn Birth Control as a negative, destructive +idea, concerned only with self-gratification, might profitably open +the nearest dictionary for a definition of "control." There they would +discover that the verb "control" means to exercise a directing, guiding, +or restraining influence;--to direct, to regulate, to counteract. +Control is guidance, direction, foresight. It implies intelligence, +forethought and responsibility. They will find in the Standard +Dictionary a quotation from Lecky to the effect that, "The greatest of +all evils in politics is power without control." In what phase of life +is not "power without control" an evil? Birth Control, therefore, means +not merely the limitation of births, but the application of intelligent +guidance over the reproductive power. It means the substitution of +reason and intelligence for the blind play of instinct. + +The term "Birth Control" had the immense practical advantage of +compressing into two short words the answer to the inarticulate demands +of millions of men and women in all countries. At the time this slogan +was formulated, I had not yet come to the complete realization of the +great truth that had been thus crystallized. It was the response to the +overwhelming, heart-breaking appeals that came by every mail for aid +and advice, which revealed a great truth that lay dormant, a truth that +seemed to spring into full vitality almost over night--that could never +again be crushed to earth! + +Nor could I then have realized the number and the power of the enemies +who were to be aroused into activity by this idea. So completely was I +dominated by this conviction of the efficacy of "control," that I could +not until later realize the extent of the sacrifices that were to be +exacted of me and of those who supported my campaign. The very idea +of Birth Control resurrected the spirit of the witch-hunters of Salem. +Could they have usurped the power, they would have burned us at the +stake. Lacking that power, they used the weapon of suppression, and +invoked medieval statutes to send us to jail. These tactics had an +effect the very opposite to that intended. They demonstrated the +vitality of the idea of Birth Control, and acted as counter-irritant on +the actively intelligent sections of the American community. Nor was the +interest aroused confined merely to America. The neo-Malthusian movement +in Great Britain with its history of undaunted bravery, came to our +support; and I had the comfort of knowing that the finest minds of +England did not hesitate a moment in the expression of their sympathy +and support. + +In America, on the other hand, I found from the beginning until very +recently that the so-called intellectuals exhibited a curious and almost +inexplicable reticence in supporting Birth Control. They even hesitated +to voice any public protest against the campaign to crush us which was +inaugurated and sustained by the most reactionary and sinister forces in +American life. It was not inertia or any lack of interest on the part +of the masses that stood in our way. It was the indifference of the +intellectual leaders. + +Writers, teachers, ministers, editors, who form a class dictating, if +not creating, public opinion, are, in this country, singularly inhibited +or unconscious of their true function in the community. One of their +first duties, it is certain, should be to champion the constitutional +right of free speech and free press, to welcome any idea that tends to +awaken the critical attention of the great American public. But those +who reveal themselves as fully cognizant of this public duty are in +the minority, and must possess more than average courage to survive the +enmity such an attitude provokes. + +One of the chief aims of the present volume is to stimulate American +intellectuals to abandon the mental habits which prevent them from +seeing human nature as a whole, instead of as something that can be +pigeonholed into various compartments or classes. Birth Control affords +an approach to the study of humanity because it cuts through +the limitations of current methods. It is economic, biological, +psychological and spiritual in its aspects. It awakens the vision of +mankind moving and changing, of humanity growing and developing, coming +to fruition, of a race creative, flowering into beautiful expression +through talent and genius. + +As a social programme, Birth Control is not merely concerned with +population questions. In this respect, it is a distinct step in advance +of earlier Malthusian doctrines, which concerned themselves chiefly with +economics and population. Birth Control concerns itself with the spirit +no less than the body. It looks for the liberation of the spirit of +woman and through woman of the child. To-day motherhood is wasted, +penalized, tortured. Children brought into the world by unwilling mothers +suffer an initial handicap that cannot be measured by cold statistics. +Their lives are blighted from the start. To substantiate this fact, I +have chosen to present the conclusions of reports on Child Labor and +records of defect and delinquency published by organizations with no +bias in favour of Birth Control. The evidence is before us. It crowds in +upon us from all sides. But prior to this new approach, no attempt had +been made to correlate the effects of the blind and irresponsible play +of the sexual instinct with its deep-rooted causes. + +The duty of the educator and the intellectual creator of public opinion +is, in this connection, of the greatest importance. For centuries +official moralists, priests, clergymen and teachers, statesmen and +politicians have preached the doctrine of glorious and divine fertility. +To-day, we are confronted with the world-wide spectacle of the +realization of this doctrine. It is not without significance that the +moron and the imbecile set the pace in living up to this teaching, +and that the intellectuals, the educators, the archbishops, bishops, +priests, who are most insistent on it, are the staunchest adherents in +their own lives of celibacy and non-fertility. It is time to point out +to the champions of unceasing and indiscriminate fertility the results +of their teaching. + +One of the greatest difficulties in giving to the public a book of this +type is the impossibility of keeping pace with the events and changes of +a movement that is now, throughout the world, striking root and growing. +The changed attitude of the American Press indicates that enlightened +public opinion no longer tolerates a policy of silence upon a question +of the most vital importance. Almost simultaneously in England and +America, two incidents have broken through the prejudice and the guarded +silence of centuries. At the church Congress in Birmingham, October 12, +1921, Lord Dawson, the king's physician, in criticizing the report of +the Lambeth Conference concerning Birth Control, delivered an address +defending this practice. Of such bravery and eloquence that it could +not be ignored, this address electrified the entire British public. It +aroused a storm of abuse, and yet succeeded, as no propaganda could, in +mobilizing the forces of progress and intelligence in the support of the +cause. + +Just one month later, the First American Birth Control Conference +culminated in a significant and dramatic incident. At the close of the +conference a mass meeting was scheduled in the Town Hall, New York City, +to discuss the morality of Birth Control. Mr. Harold Cox, editor of the +Edinburgh Review, who had come to New York to attend the conference, was +to lead the discussion. It seemed only natural for us to call +together scientists, educators, members of the medical profession, +and theologians of all denominations, to ask their opinion upon this +uncertain and important phase of the controversy. Letters were sent to +eminent men and women in different parts of the world. In this letter we +asked the following questions:-- + +1. Is over-population a menace to the peace of the world? + +2. Would the legal dissemination of scientific Birth Control +information, through the medium of clinics by the medical profession, be +the most logical method of checking the problem of over-population? + +3. Would knowledge of Birth Control change the moral attitude of men +and women toward the marriage bond, or lower the moral standards of the +youth of the country? + +4. Do you believe that knowledge which enables parents to limit their +families will make for human happiness, and raise the moral, social and +intellectual standards of population? + +We sent this questionnaire not only to those who we thought might agree +with us, but we sent it also to our known opponents. + +When I arrived at the Town Hall the entrance was guarded by policemen. +They told me there would be no meeting. Before my arrival our executives +had been greeted by Monsignor Dineen, secretary of Archbishop Hayes, of +the Roman Catholic archdiocese, who informed them that the meeting would +be prohibited on the ground that it was contrary to public morals. The +police had closed the doors. When they opened them to permit the exit +of the large audience which had gathered, Mr. Cox and I entered. I +attempted to exercise my constitutional right of free speech, but was +prohibited and arrested. Miss Mary Winsor, who protested against this +unwarranted arrest, was likewise dragged off to the police station. The +case was dismissed the following morning. The ecclesiastic instigators +of the affair were conspicuous by their absence from the police court. +But the incident was enough to expose the opponents of Birth Control and +the extreme methods they used to combat our progress. The case was too +flagrant, too gross an affront, to pass unnoticed by the newspapers. The +progress of our movement was indicated in the changed attitude of the +American Press, which had perceived the danger to the public of the +unlawful tactics used by the enemies of Birth Control in preventing open +discussion of a vital question. + +No social idea has inspired its advocates with more bravery, tenacity, +and courage than Birth Control. From the early days of Francis Place +and Richard Carlile, to those of the Drysdales and Edward Trulove, of +Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant, its advocates have faced imprisonment +and ostracism. In the whole history of the English movement, there has +been no more courageous figure than that of the venerable Alice Drysdale +Vickery, the undaunted torch-bearer who has bridged the silence of +forty-four years--since the Bradlaugh-Besant trial. She stands head and +shoulders above the professional feminists. Serenely has she withstood +jeers and jests. To-day, she continues to point out to the younger +generation which is devoted to newer palliatives the fundamental +relation between Sex and Hunger. + +The First American Birth Control Conference, held at the same time +as the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Armaments, marks a +turning-point in our approach to social problems. The Conference made +evident the fact that in every field of scientific and social endeavour +the most penetrating thinkers are now turning to the consideration of +our problem as a fundamental necessity to American civilization. They +are coming to see that a QUALITATIVE factor as opposed to a QUANTITATIVE +one is of primary importance in dealing with the great masses of +humanity. + +Certain fundamental convictions should be made clear here. The programme +for Birth Control is not a charity. It is not aiming to interfere in +the private lives of poor people, to tell them how many children +they should have, nor to sit in judgment upon their fitness to become +parents. It aims, rather, to awaken responsibility, to answer the demand +for a scientific means by which and through which each human life may +be self-directed and self-controlled. The exponent of Birth Control, in +short, is convinced that social regeneration, no less than individual +regeneration, must come from within. Every potential parent, and +especially every potential mother, must be brought to an acute +realization of the primary and individual responsibility of bringing +children into this world. Not until the parents of this world are given +control over their reproductive faculties will it be possible to improve +the quality of the generations of the future, or even to maintain +civilization at its present level. Only when given intelligent mastery +of the procreative powers can the great mass of humanity be aroused to +a realization of responsibility of parenthood. We have come to the +conclusion, based on widespread investigation and experience, that +education for parenthood must be based upon the needs and demands of +the people themselves. An idealistic code of sexual ethics, imposed from +above, a set of rules devised by high-minded theorists who fail to take +into account the living conditions and desires of the masses, can never +be of the slightest value in effecting change in the customs of the +people. Systems so imposed in the past have revealed their woeful +inability to prevent the sexual and racial chaos into which the world +has drifted. + +The universal demand for practical education in Birth Control is one +of the most hopeful signs that the masses themselves to-day possess +the divine spark of regeneration. It remains for the courageous and +the enlightened to answer this demand, to kindle the spark, to direct a +thorough education in sex hygiene based upon this intense interest. + +Birth Control is thus the entering wedge for the educator. In answering +the needs of these thousands upon thousands of submerged mothers, it +is possible to use their interest as the foundation for education in +prophylaxis, hygiene and infant welfare. The potential mother can +then be shown that maternity need not be slavery but may be the most +effective avenue to self-development and self-realization. Upon this +basis only may we improve the quality of the race. + +The lack of balance between the birth-rate of the "unfit" and the "fit," +admittedly the greatest present menace to the civilization, can never be +rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these +two classes. The example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the +feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should +not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit, and +therefore less fertile, parents of the educated and well-to-do classes. +On the contrary, the most urgent problem to-day is how to limit and +discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. +Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American +society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic +breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism. + +To effect the salvation of the generations of the future--nay, of the +generations of to-day--our greatest need, first of all, is the ability +to face the situation without flinching; to cooperate in the formation +of a code of sexual ethics based upon a thorough biological and +psychological understanding of human nature; and then to answer the +questions and the needs of the people with all the intelligence and +honesty at our command. If we can summon the bravery to do this, we +shall best be serving the pivotal interests of civilization. + +To conclude this introduction: my initiation, as I have confessed, was +primarily an emotional one. My interest in Birth Control was awakened +by experience. Research and investigation have followed. Our effort has +been to raise our program from the plane of the emotional to the plane +of the scientific. Any social progress, it is my belief, must purge +itself of sentimentalism and pass through the crucible of science. We +are willing to submit Birth Control to this test. It is part of the +purpose of this book to appeal to the scientist for aid, to arouse that +interest which will result in widespread research and investigation. I +believe that my personal experience with this idea must be that of +the race at large. We must temper our emotion and enthusiasm with +the impersonal determination of science. We must unite in the task of +creating an instrument of steel, strong but supple, if we are to triumph +finally in the war for human emancipation. + + + +CHAPTER II: Conscripted Motherhood + + "Their poor, old ravaged and stiffened faces, their poor, + old bodies dried up with ceaseless toil, their patient souls + made me weep. They are our conscripts. They are the venerable + ones whom we should reverence. All the mystery of womanhood + seems incarnated in their ugly being--the Mothers! the Mothers! + Ye are all one!" + + --From the Letters of William James + +Motherhood, which is not only the oldest but the most important +profession in the world, has received few of the benefits of +civilization. It is a curious fact that a civilization devoted to +mother-worship, that publicly professes a worship of mother and child, +should close its eyes to the appalling waste of human life and human +energy resulting from those dire consequences of leaving the whole +problem of child-bearing to chance and blind instinct. It would be +untrue to say that among the civilized nations of the world to-day, the +profession of motherhood remains in a barbarous state. The bitter truth +is that motherhood, among the larger part of our population, does not +rise to the level of the barbarous or the primitive. Conditions of life +among the primitive tribes were rude enough and severe enough to +prevent the unhealthy growth of sentimentality, and to discourage the +irresponsible production of defective children. Moreover, there is ample +evidence to indicate that even among the most primitive peoples +the function of maternity was recognized as of primary and central +importance to the community. + +If we define civilization as increased and increasing responsibility +based on vision and foresight, it becomes painfully evident that the +profession of motherhood as practised to-day is in no sense civilized. +Educated people derive their ideas of maternity for the most part, +either from the experience of their own set, or from visits to +impressive hospitals where women of the upper classes receive the +advantages of modern science and modern nursing. From these charming +pictures they derive their complacent views of the beauty of motherhood +and their confidence for the future of the race. The other side of the +picture is revealed only to the trained investigator, to the patient and +impartial observer who visits not merely one or two "homes of the poor," +but makes detailed studies of town after town, obtains the history of +each mother, and finally correlates and analyzes this evidence. Upon +such a basis are we able to draw conclusions concerning this strange +business of bringing children into the world. + +Every year I receive thousands of letters from women in all parts of +America, desperate appeals to aid them to extricate themselves from the +trap of compulsory maternity. Lest I be accused of bias and exaggeration +in drawing my conclusions from these painful human documents, I prefer +to present a number of typical cases recorded in the reports of the +United States Government, and in the evidence of trained and impartial +investigators of social agencies more generally opposed to the doctrine +of Birth Control than biased in favor of it. + +A perusal of the reports on infant mortality in widely varying +industrial centers of the United States, published during the past +decade by the Children's Bureau of the United States Department of +Labor, forces us to a realization of the immediate need of detailed +statistics concerning the practice and results of uncontrolled breeding. +Some such effort as this has been made by the Galton Laboratory of +National Eugenics in Great Britain. The Children's Bureau reports only +incidentally present this impressive evidence. They fail to coordinate +it. While there is always the danger of drawing giant conclusions from +pigmy premises, here is overwhelming evidence concerning irresponsible +parenthood that is ignored by governmental and social agencies. + +I have chosen a small number of typical cases from these reports. Though +drawn from widely varying sources, they all emphasize the greatest crime +of modern civilization--that of permitting motherhood to be left to +blind chance, and to be mainly a function of the most abysmally ignorant +and irresponsible classes of the community. + +Here is a fairly typical case from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. A woman +of thirty-eight years had undergone thirteen pregnancies in seventeen +years. Of eleven live births and two premature stillbirths, only two +children were alive at the time of the government agent's visit. The +second to eighth, the eleventh and the thirteenth had died of bowel +trouble, at ages ranging from three weeks to four months. The only cause +of these deaths the mother could give was that "food did not agree with +them." She confessed quite frankly that she believed in feeding babies, +and gave them everything anybody told her to give them. She began to +give them at the age of one month, bread, potatoes, egg, crackers, etc. +For the last baby that died, this mother had bought a goat and gave its +milk to the baby; the goat got sick, but the mother continued to give +her baby its milk until the goat went dry. Moreover, she directed the +feeding of her daughter's baby until it died at the age of three months. +"On account of the many children she had had, the neighbors consider her +an authority on baby care." + +Lest this case be considered too tragically ridiculous to be accepted +as typical, the reader may verify it with an almost interminable list of +similar cases.(1) Parental irresponsibility is significantly illustrated +in another case: + +A mother who had four live births and two stillbirths in twelve years +lost all of her babies during their first year. She was so anxious that +at least one child should live that she consulted a physician concerning +the care of the last one. "Upon his advice," to quote the government +report, "she gave up her twenty boarders immediately after the child's +birth, and devoted all her time to it. Thinks she did not stop her hard +work soon enough; says she has always worked too hard, keeping boarders +in this country, and cutting wood and carrying it and water on her back +in the old country. Also says the carrying of water and cases of beer +in this country is a great strain on her." But the illuminating point in +this case is that the father was furious because all the babies died. +To show his disrespect for the wife who could only give birth to babies +that died, he wore a red necktie to the funeral of the last. Yet this +woman, the government agent reports, would follow and profit by any +instruction that might be given her. + +It is true that the cases reported from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, do not +represent completely "Americanized" families. This lack does not prevent +them, however, by their unceasing fertility from producing the Americans +of to-morrow. Of the more immediate conditions surrounding child-birth, +we are presented with this evidence, given by one woman concerning the +birth of her last child: + +On five o'clock on Wednesday evening she went to her sister's house to +return a washboard, after finishing a day's washing. The baby was born +while she was there. Her sister was too young to aid her in any way. +She was not accustomed to a midwife, she confessed. She cut the cord +herself, washed the new-born baby at her sister's house, walked home, +cooked supper for her boarders, and went to bed by eight o'clock. The +next day she got up and ironed. This tired her out, she said, so she +stayed in bed for two whole days. She milked cows the day after the +birth of the baby and sold the milk as well. Later in the week, when +she became tired, she hired someone to do that portion of her work. This +woman, we are further informed, kept cows, chickens, and lodgers, and +earned additional money by doing laundry and charwork. At times her +husband deserted her. His earnings amounted to $1.70 a day, while a +fifteen-year-old son earned $1.10 in a coal mine. + +One searches in vain for some picture of sacred motherhood, as depicted +in popular plays and motion pictures, something more normal and +encouraging. Then one comes to the bitter realization that these, in +very truth, are the "normal" cases, not the exceptions. The exceptions +are apt to indicate, instead, the close relationship of this +irresponsible and chance parenthood to the great social problems of +feeble-mindedness, crime and syphilis. + +Nor is this type of motherhood confined to newly arrived immigrant +mothers, as a government report from Akron, Ohio, sufficiently +indicates. In this city, the government agents discovered that more than +five hundred mothers were ignorant of the accepted principles of +infant feeding, or, if familiar with them, did not practise them. "This +ignorance or indifference was not confined to foreign-born mothers.... A +native mother reported that she gave her two-weeks-old baby ice cream, +and that before his sixth month, he was sitting at the table `eating +everything."' This was in a town in which there were comparatively few +cases of extreme poverty. + +The degradation of motherhood, the damnation of the next generation +before it is born, is exposed in all its catastrophic misery, in the +reports of the National Consumers' League. In her report of living +conditions among night-working mothers in thirty-nine textile mills +in Rhode Island, based on exhaustive studies, Mrs. Florence Kelley +describes the "normal" life of these women: + +"When the worker, cruelly tired from ten hours' work, comes home in the +early morning, she usually scrambles together breakfast for the family. +Eating little or nothing herself, and that hastily, she tumbles into +bed--not the immaculate bed in an airy bed-room with dark shades, but +one still warm from its night occupants, in a stuffy little bed-room, +darkened imperfectly if at all. After sleeping exhaustedly for an hour +perhaps she bestirs herself to get the children off to school, or care +for insistent little ones, too young to appreciate that mother is tired +out and must sleep. Perhaps later in the forenoon, she again drops into +a fitful sleep, or she may have to wait until after dinner. There is +the midday meal to get, and, if her husband cannot come home, his +dinner-pail to pack with a hot lunch to be sent or carried to him. If +he is not at home, the lunch is rather a makeshift. The midday meal is +scarcely over before supper must be thought of. This has to be eaten +hurriedly before the family are ready, for the mother must be in the +mill at work, by 6, 6:30 or 7 P.M.... Many women in their inadequate +English, summed up their daily routine by, 'Oh, me all time tired. TOO +MUCH WORK, TOO MUCH BABY, TOO LITTLE SLEEP!'" + +"Only sixteen of the 166 married women were without children; thirty-two +had three or more; twenty had children one year old or under. There were +160 children under school-age, below six years, and 246 of school age." + +"A woman in ordinary circumstances," adds this impartial investigator, +"with a husband and three children, if she does her own work, feels that +her hands are full. How these mill-workers, many of them frail-looking, +and many with confessedly poor health, can ever do two jobs is a +mystery, when they are seen in their homes dragging about, pale, +hollow-eyed and listless, often needlessly sharp and impatient with the +children. These children are not only not mothered, never cherished, +they are nagged and buffeted. The mothers are not superwomen, and like +all human beings, they have a certain amount of strength and when that +breaks, their nerves suffer." + +We are presented with a vivid picture of one of these slave-mothers: a +woman of thirty-eight who looks at least fifty with her worn, furrowed +face. Asked why she had been working at night for the past two years, +she pointed to a six-months old baby she was carrying, to the five +small children swarming about her, and answered laconically, "Too much +children!" She volunteered the information that there had been two more +who had died. When asked why they had died, the poor mother shrugged her +shoulders listlessly, and replied, "Don't know." In addition to bearing +and rearing these children, her work would sap the vitality of any +ordinary person. "She got home soon after four in the morning, cooked +breakfast for the family and ate hastily herself. At 4.30 she was in +bed, staying there until eight. But part of that time was disturbed for +the children were noisy and the apartment was a tiny, dingy place in +a basement. At eight she started the three oldest boys to school, and +cleaned up the debris of breakfast and of supper the night before. At +twelve she carried a hot lunch to her husband and had dinner ready for +the three school children. In the afternoon, there were again dishes +and cooking, and caring for three babies aged five, three years, and +six months. At five, supper was ready for the family. The mother ate by +herself and was off to work at 5:45." + +Another of the night-working mothers was a frail looking Frenchwoman of +twenty-seven years, with a husband and five children ranging from eight +years to fourteen months. Three other children had died. When visited, +she was doing a huge washing. She was forced into night work to meet the +expenses of the family. She estimated that she succeeded in getting +five hours' sleep during the day. "I take my baby to bed with me, but he +cries, and my little four-year-old boy cries, too, and comes in to make +me get up, so you can't call that a very good sleep." + +The problem among unmarried women or those without family is not the +same, this investigator points out. "They sleep longer by day than they +normally would by night." We are also informed that pregnant women work +at night in the mills, sometimes up to the very hour of delivery. "It's +queer," exclaimed a woman supervisor of one of the Rhode Island mills, +"but some women, both on the day and the night shift, will stick to +their work right up to the last minute, and will use every means to +deceive you about their condition. I go around and talk to them, but +make little impression. We have had several narrow escapes.... A Polish +mother with five children had worked in a mill by day or by night, ever +since her marriage, stopping only to have her babies. One little girl +had died several years ago, and the youngest child, says Mrs. Kelley, +did not look promising. It had none of the charm of babyhood; its +body and clothing were filthy; and its lower lip and chin covered with +repulsive black sores." + +It should be remembered that the Consumers' League, which publishes +these reports on women in industry, is not advocating Birth Control +education, but is aiming "to awaken responsibility for conditions under +which goods are produced, and through investigation, education and +legislation, to mobilize public opinion in behalf of enlightened +standards for workers and honest products for all." Nevertheless, in +Miss Agnes de Lima's report of conditions in Passaic, New Jersey, we +find the same tale of penalized, prostrate motherhood, bearing the +crushing burden of economic injustice and cruelty; the same blind but +overpowering instincts of love and hunger driving young women into the +factories to work, night in and night out, to support their procession +of uncared for and undernourished babies. It is the married women with +young children who work on the inferno-like shifts. They are driven to +it by the low wages of their husbands. They choose night work in order +to be with their children in the daytime. They are afraid of the neglect +and ill-treatment the children might receive at the hands of paid +caretakers. Thus they condemn themselves to eighteen or twenty hours of +daily toil. Surely no mother with three, four, five or six children can +secure much rest by day. + +"Take almost any house"--we read in the report of conditions in New +Jersey--"knock at almost any door and you will find a weary, tousled +woman, half-dressed, doing her housework, or trying to snatch an hour or +two of sleep after her long night of work in the mill. ... The facts +are there for any one to see; the hopeless and exhausted woman, her +cluttered three or four rooms, the swarm of sickly and neglected +children." + +These women claimed that night work was unavoidable, as their husbands +received so little pay. This in spite of all our vaunted "high wages." +Only three women were found who went into the drudgery of night work +without being obliged to do so. Two had no children, and their husbands' +earnings were sufficient for their needs. One of these was saving for +a trip to Europe, and chose the night shift because she found it less +strenuous than the day. Only four of the hundred women reported upon +were unmarried, and ninety-two of the married women had children. Of the +four childless married women, one had lost two children, and another +was recovering from a recent miscarriage. There were five widows. The +average number of children was three in a family. Thirty-nine of the +mothers had four or more. Three of them had six children, and six of +them had seven children apiece. These women ranged between the ages of +twenty-five and forty, and more than half the children were less than +seven years of age. Most of them had babies of one, two and three years +of age. + +At the risk of repetition, we quote one of the typical cases reported +by Miss De Lima with features practically identical with the individual +cases reported from Rhode Island. It is of a mother who comes home from +work at 5:30 every morning, falls on the bed from exhaustion, arises +again at eight or nine o'clock to see that the older children are sent +off to school. A son of five, like the rest of the children, is on a +diet of coffee,--milk costs too much. After the children have left for +school, the overworked mother again tries to sleep, though the small son +bothers her a great deal. Besides, she must clean the house, wash, iron, +mend, sew and prepare the midday meal. She tries to snatch a little +sleep in the afternoon, but explains: "When you got big family, all time +work. Night-time in mill drag so long, so long; day-time in home go so +quick." By five, this mother must get the family's supper ready, and +dress for the night's work, which begins at seven. The investigator +further reports: "The next day was a holiday, and for a diversion, Mrs. +N. thought she would go up to the cemetery: `I got some children up +there,' she explained, `and same time I get some air. No, I don't go +nowheres, just to the mill and then home."' + +Here again, as in all reports on women in industry, we find the +prevalence of pregnant women working on night-shifts, often to the very +day of their delivery. "Oh, yes, plenty women, big bellies, work in the +night time," one of the toiling mothers volunteered. "Shame they go, but +what can do?" The abuse was general. Many mothers confessed that owing +to poverty they themselves worked up to the last week or even day before +the birth of their children. Births were even reported in one of +the mills during the night shift. A foreman told of permitting a +night-working woman to leave at 6.30 one morning, and of the birth of +her baby at 7.30. Several women told of leaving the day-shift because of +pregnancy and of securing places on the night-shift where their condition +was less conspicuous, and the bosses more tolerant. One mother defended +her right to stay at work, says the report, claiming that as long as she +could do her work, it was nobody's business. In a doorway sat a sickly +and bloodless woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Her first baby +had died of general debility. She had worked at night in the mill until +the very day of its birth. This time the boss had told her she could +stay if she wished, but reminded her of what had happened last time. So +she had stopped work, as the baby was expected any day. + +Again and again we read the same story, which varied only in detail: the +mother in the three black rooms; the sagging porch overflowing with pale +and sickly children; the over-worked mother of seven, still nursing +her youngest, who is two or three months old. Worn and haggard, with a +skeleton-like child pulling at her breast, the women tries to make the +investigator understand. The grandmother helps to interpret. "She never +sleeps," explains the old woman, "how can she with so many children?" +She works up to the last moment before her baby comes, and returns to +work as soon as they are four weeks old. + +Another apartment in the same house; another of those night-working +mothers, who had just stopped because she is pregnant. The boss had +kindly given her permission to stay on, but she found the reaching on +the heavy spinning machines too hard. Three children, ranging in age +from five to twelve years, are all sickly and forlorn and must be cared +for. There is a tubercular husband, who is unable to work steadily, and +is able to bring in only $12 a week. Two of the babies had died, one +because the mother had returned to work too soon after its birth and had +lost her milk. She had fed him tea and bread, "so he died." + +The most heartrending feature of it all--in these homes of the mothers +who work at night--is the expression in the faces of the children; +children of chance, dressed in rags, undernourished, underclothed, all +predisposed to the ravages of chronic and epidemic disease. + +The reports on infant mortality published under the direction of the +Children's Bureau substantiate for the United States of America the +findings of the Galton Laboratory for Great Britain, showing that an +abnormally high rate of fertility is usually associated with poverty, +filth, disease, feeblemindedness and a high infant mortality rate. It +is a commonplace truism that a high birth-rate is accompanied by a high +infant-mortality rate. No longer is it necessary to dissociate cause and +effect, to try to determine whether the high birth rate is the cause of +the high infant mortality rate. It is sufficient to know that they are +organically correlated along with other anti-social factors detrimental +to individual, national and racial welfare. The figures presented by +Hibbs (2) likewise reveal a much higher infant mortality rate for the +later born children of large families. + +The statistics which show that the greatest number of children are born +to parents whose earnings are the lowest,(3) that the direst poverty is +associated with uncontrolled fecundity emphasize the character of the +parenthood we are depending upon to create the race of the future. + +A distinguished American opponent of Birth Control some years ago spoke +of the "racial" value of this high infant mortality rate among the +"unfit." He forgot, however, that the survival-rate of the children +born of these overworked and fatigued mothers may nevertheless be large +enough, aided and abetted by philanthropies and charities, to form the +greater part of the population of to-morrow. As Dr. Karl Pearson has +stated: "Degenerate stocks under present social conditions are not +short-lived; they live to have more than the normal size of family." + +Reports of charitable organizations; the famous "one hundred neediest +cases" presented every year by the New York Times to arouse the +sentimental generosity of its readers; statistics of public and private +hospitals, charities and corrections; analyses of pauperism in town +and country--all tell the same tale of uncontrolled and irresponsible +fecundity. The facts, the figures, the appalling truth are there for all +to read. It is only in the remedy proposed, the effective solution, that +investigators and students of the problem disagree. + +Confronted with the "startling and disgraceful" conditions of affairs +indicated by the fact that a quarter of a million babies die every year +in the United States before they are one year old, and that no less +than 23,000 women die in childbirth, a large number of experts and +enthusiasts have placed their hopes in maternity-benefit measures. + +Such measures sharply illustrate the superficial and fragmentary manner +in which the whole problem of motherhood is studied to-day. It seeks a +LAISSER FAIRE policy of parenthood or marriage, with an indiscriminating +paternalism concerning maternity. It is as though the Government were +to say: "Increase and multiply; we shall assume the responsibility of +keeping your babies alive." Even granting that the administration of +these measures might be made effective and effectual, which is more +than doubtful, we see that they are based upon a complete ignorance +or disregard of the most important fact in the situation--that of +indiscriminate and irresponsible fecundity. They tacitly assume that +all parenthood is desirable, that all children should be born, and +that infant mortality can be controlled by external aid. In the great +world-problem of creating the men and women of to-morrow, it is not +merely a question of sustaining the lives of all children, irrespective +of their hereditary and physical qualities, to the point where they, +in turn, may reproduce their kind. Advocates of Birth Control offer and +accept no such superficial solution. This philosophy is based upon +a clearer vision and a more profound comprehension of human life. Of +immediate relief for the crushed and enslaved motherhood of the world +through State aid, no better criticism has been made than that of +Havelock Ellis: + +"To the theoretical philanthropist, eager to reform the world on paper, +nothing seems simpler than to cure the present evils of child-rearing +by setting up State nurseries which are at once to relieve mothers of +everything connected with the men of the future beyond the pleasure--if +such it happens to be--of conceiving them, and the trouble of bearing +them, and at the same time to rear them up independently of the home, in +a wholesome, economical and scientific manner. Nothing seems simpler, +but from the fundamental psychological point of view nothing is +falser.... A State which admits that the individuals composing it are +incompetent to perform their most sacred and intimate functions, and +takes it upon itself to perform them itself instead, attempts a task +that would be undesirable, even if it were possible of achievement.(4)" +It may be replied that maternity benefit measures aim merely to aid +mothers more adequately to fulfil their biological and social functions. +But from the point of view of Birth Control, that will never be possible +until the crushing exigencies of overcrowding are removed--overcrowding +of pregnancies as well as of homes. As long as the mother remains the +passive victim of blind instinct, instead of the conscious, responsible +instrument of the life-force, controlling and directing its expression, +there can be no solution to the intricate and complex problems that +confront the whole world to-day. This is, of course, impossible as long +as women are driven into the factories, on night as well as day shifts, +as long as children and girls and young women are driven into industries +to labor that is physically deteriorating as a preparation for the +supreme function of maternity. + +The philosophy of Birth Control insists that motherhood, no less +than any other human function, must undergo scientific study, must be +voluntarily directed and controlled with intelligence and foresight. As +long as we countenance what H. G. Wells has well termed "the monstrous +absurdity of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing +and rearing children, in their spare time, as it were, while they `earn +their living' by contributing some half-mechanical element to some +trivial industrial product" any attempt to furnish "maternal education" +is bound to fall on stony ground. Children brought into the world as the +chance consequences of the blind play of uncontrolled instinct, become +likewise the helpless victims of their environment. It is because +children are cheaply conceived that the infant mortality rate is high. +But the greatest evil, perhaps the greatest crime, of our so-called +civilization of to-day, is not to be gauged by the infant-mortality +rate. In truth, unfortunate babies who depart during their first twelve +months are more fortunate in many respects than those who survive to +undergo punishment for their parents' cruel ignorance and complacent +fecundity. If motherhood is wasted under the present regime of "glorious +fertility," childhood is not merely wasted, but actually destroyed. +Let us look at this matter from the point of view of the children who +survive. + + (1) U.S. Department of Labor: Children's Bureau. Infant + Mortality Series, + No. 3, pp. 81, 82, 83, 84. + + (2) Henry H. Hibbs, Jr. Infant Mortality: Its Relation to + Social and + Industrial Conditions, p. 39. Russell Sage Foundation, New + York, 1916. + + (3) Cf. U. S. Department of Labor. Children's Bureau: + Infant Mortality + Series, No. 11. p. 36. + + (4) Havelock Ellis, Sex in Relation to Society, p. 31. + + + +CHAPTER III: "Children Troop Down From Heaven...." + +Failure of emotional, sentimental and so-called idealistic efforts, +based on hysterical enthusiasm, to improve social conditions, is nowhere +better exemplified than in the undervaluation of child-life. A few years +ago, the scandal of children under fourteen working in cotton mills was +exposed. There was muckraking and agitation. A wave of moral indignation +swept over America. There arose a loud cry for immediate action. Then, +having more or less successfully settled this particular matter, the +American people heaved a sigh of relief, settled back, and complacently +congratulated itself that the problem of child labor had been settled +once and for all. + +Conditions are worse to-day than before. Not only is there child labor +in practically every State in the Union, but we are now forced to +realize the evils that result from child labor, of child laborers +now grown into manhood and womanhood. But we wish here to point out a +neglected aspect of this problem. Child labor shows us how cheaply we +value childhood. And moreover, it shows us that cheap childhood is the +inevitable result of chance parenthood. Child labor is organically bound +up with the problem of uncontrolled breeding and the large family. + +The selective draft of 1917--which was designed to choose for military +service only those fulfiling definite requirements of physical +and mental fitness--showed some of the results of child labor. It +established the fact that the majority of American children never got +beyond the sixth grade, because they were forced to leave school at that +time. Our over-advertised compulsory education does not compel--and does +not educate. The selective-draft, it is our duty to emphasize this fact, +revealed that 38 per cent. of the young men (more than a million) were +rejected because of physical ill-health and defects. And 25 per cent. +were illiterate. + +These young men were the children of yesterday. Authorities tell us that +75 per cent. of the school-children are defective. This means that +no less than fifteen million schoolchildren, out of 22,000,000 in the +United States, are physically or mentally below par. + +This is the soil in which all sorts of serious evils strike root. It is +a truism that children are the chief asset of a nation. Yet while the +United States government allotted 92.8 per cent. of its appropriations +for 1920 toward war expenses, three per cent. to public works, 3.2 per +cent. to "primary governmental functions," no more than one per cent. +is appropriated to education, research and development. Of this one +per cent., only a small proportion is devoted to public health. The +conservation of childhood is a minor consideration. While three cents +is spent for the more or less doubtful protection of women and +children, fifty cents is given to the Bureau of Animal Industry, for +the protection of domestic animals. In 1919, the State of Kansas +appropriated $25,000 to protect the health of pigs, and $4,000 to +protect the health of children. In four years our Federal Government +appropriated--roughly speaking--$81,000,000 for the improvement +of rivers; $13,000,000 for forest conservation; $8,000,000 for the +experimental plant industry; $7,000,000 for the experimental animal +industry; $4,000,000 to combat the foot and mouth disease; and less than +half a million for the protection of child life. + +Competent authorities tell us that no less than 75 per cent. of American +children leave school between the ages of fourteen and sixteen to go +to work. This number is increasing. According to the recently published +report on "The Administration of the First Child Labor Law," in five +states in which it was necessary for the Children's Bureau to handle +directly the working certificates of children, one-fifth of the 25,000 +children who applied for certificates left school when they were in the +fourth grade; nearly a tenth of them had never attended school at all or +had not gone beyond the first grade; and only one-twenty-fifth had gone +as far as the eighth grade. But their educational equipment was even +more limited than the grade they attended would indicate. Of the +children applying to go to work 1,803 had not advanced further than the +first grade even when they had gone to school at all; 3,379 could not +even sign their own names legibly, and nearly 2,000 of them could not +write at all. The report brings automatically into view the vicious +circle of child-labor, illiteracy, bodily and mental defect, poverty and +delinquency. And like all reports on child labor, the large family and +reckless breeding looms large in the background as one of the chief +factors in the problem. + +Despite all our boasting of the American public school, of the equal +opportunity afforded to every child in America, we have the shortest +school-term, and the shortest school-day of any of the civilized +countries. In the United States of America, there are 106 illiterates to +every thousand people. In England there are 58 per thousand, Sweden and +Norway have one per thousand. + +The United States is the most illiterate country in the world--that is, +of the so-called civilized countries. Of the 5,000,000 illiterates +in the United States, 58 per cent. are white and 28 per cent. native +whites. Illiteracy not only is the index of inequality of opportunity. +It speaks as well a lack of consideration for the children. It means +either that children have been forced out of school to go to work, or +that they are mentally and physically defective.(1) + +One is tempted to ask why a society, which has failed so lamentably to +protect the already existing child life upon which its very perpetuation +depends, takes upon itself the reckless encouragement of indiscriminate +procreation. The United States Government has recently inaugurated a +policy of restricting immigration from foreign countries. Until it is +able to protect childhood from criminal exploitation, until it has made +possible a reasonable hope of life, liberty and growth for American +children, it should likewise recognize the wisdom of voluntary +restriction in the production of children. + +Reports on child labor published by the National Child Labor Committee +only incidentally reveal the correlation of this evil with that of large +families. Yet this is evident throughout. The investigators are more +bent upon regarding child labor as a cause of illiteracy. + +But it is no less a consequence of irresponsibility in breeding. A +sinister aspect of this is revealed by Theresa Wolfson's study of +child-labor in the beet-fields of Michigan.(2) As one weeder put it: +"Poor man make no money, make plenty children--plenty children good for +sugar-beet business." Further illuminating details are given by Miss +Wolfson: + +"Why did they come to the beet-fields? Most frequently families with +large numbers of children said that they felt that the city was no place +to raise children--things too expensive and children ran wild--in the +country all the children could work." Living conditions are abominable +and unspeakably wretched. An old woodshed, a long-abandoned barn, and +occasionally a tottering, ramshackle farmer's house are the common +types. "One family of eleven, the youngest child two years, the oldest +sixteen years, lived in an old country store which had but one window; +the wind and rain came through the holes in the walls, the ceiling was +very low and the smoke from the stove filled the room. Here the family +ate, slept, cooked and washed." + +"In Tuscola County a family of six was found living in a one-room shack +with no windows. Light and ventilation was secured through the open +doors. Little Charles, eight years of age, was left at home to take +care of Dan, Annie and Pete, whose ages were five years, four years, and +three months, respectively. In addition, he cooked the noonday meal and +brought it to his parents in the field. The filth and choking odors of +the shack made it almost unbearable, yet the baby was sleeping in a heap +of rags piled up in a corner." + +Social philosophers of a certain school advocate the return to the +land--it is only in the overcrowded city, they claim, that the evils +resulting from the large family are possible. There is, according to +this philosophy, no overcrowding, no over-population in the country, +where in the open air and sunlight every child has an opportunity for +health and growth. This idyllic conception of American country life +does not correspond with the picture presented by this investigator, who +points out: + +"To promote the physical and mental development of the child, we forbid +his employment in factories, shops and stores. On the other hand, we are +prone to believe that the right kind of farm-work is healthful and the +best thing for children. But for a child to crawl along the ground, +weeding beets in the hot sun for fourteen hours a day--the average +workday--is far from being the best thing. The law of compensation is +bound to work in some way, and the immediate result of this agricultural +work is interference with school attendance." + +How closely related this form of child-slavery is to the over-large +family, is definitely illustrated: "In the one hundred and thirty-three +families visited, there were six hundred children. A conversation held +with a 'Rooshian-German' woman is indicative of the size of most of the +families:" + +"How many children have you?" inquired the investigator. + +"Eight--Julius, und Rose, und Martha, dey is mine; Gottlieb und Philip, +und Frieda, dey is my husband's;--und Otto und Charlie--dey are ours." + +Families with ten and twelve children were frequently found, while those +of six and eight children are the general rule. The advantage of a large +family in the beet fields is that it does the most work. In the one +hundred thirty-three families interviewed, there were one hundred +eighty-six children under the age of six years, ranging from eight weeks +up; thirty-six children between the ages of six and eight, approximately +twenty-five of whom had never been to school, and eleven over sixteen +years of age who had never been to school. One ten-year-old boy had +never been to school because he was a mental defective; one child of +nine was practically blinded by cataracts. This child was found groping +his way down the beet-rows pulling out weeds and feeling for the +beet-plants--in the glare of the sun he had lost all sense of light and +dark. Of the three hundred and forty children who were not going or had +never gone to school, only four had reached the point of graduation, and +only one had gone to high school. These large families migrated to the +beet-fields in early spring. Seventy-two per cent. of them are retarded. +When we realize that feeble-mindedness is arrested development and +retardation, we see that these "beet children" are artificially retarded +in their growth, and that the tendency is to reduce their intelligence +to the level of the congenital imbecile. + +Nor must it be concluded that these large "beet" families are always the +"ignorant foreigner" so despised by our respectable press. The following +case throws some light on this matter, reported in the same pamphlet: +"An American family, considered a prize by the agent because of the fact +that there were nine children, turned out to be a `flunk.' They could +not work in the beet-fields, they ran up a bill at the country-store, +and one day the father and the eldest son, a boy of nineteen, were seen +running through the railroad station to catch an out-going train. The +grocer thought they were `jumping' their bill. He telephoned ahead +to the sheriff of the next town. They were taken off the train by the +sheriff and given the option of going back to the farm or staying in +jail. They preferred to stay in jail, and remained there for two weeks. +Meanwhile, the mother and her eight children, ranging in ages form +seventeen years to nine months, had to manage the best way they could. +At the end of two weeks, father and son were set free.... During all of +this period the farmers of the community sent in provisions to keep +the wife and children from starving." Does this case not sum up in a +nutshell the typical American intelligence confronted with the +problem of the too-large family--industrial slavery tempered with +sentimentality! + +Let us turn to a young, possibly a more progressive state. Consider the +case of "California, the Golden" as it is named by Emma Duke, in her +study of child-labor in the Imperial Valley, "as fertile as the Valley +of the Nile."(3) Here, cotton is king, and rich ranchers, absentee +landlords and others exploit it. Less than ten years ago ranchers +would bring in hordes of laboring families, but refuse to assume any +responsibility in housing them, merely permitting them to sleep on +the grounds of the ranch. Conditions have been somewhat improved, but, +sometimes, we read, "a one roomed straw house with an area of fifteen +by twenty feet will serve as a home for an entire family, which not +only cooks but sleeps in the same room." Here, as in Michigan among the +beets, children are "thick as bees." All kinds of children pick, +Miss Duke reports, "even those as young as three years! Five-year-old +children pick steadily all day.... Many white American children are +among them--pure American stock, who have gradually moved from the +Carolinas, Tennessee, and other southern states to Arkansas, Texas, +Oklahoma, Arizona, and on into the Imperial Valley." Some of these +children, it seems, wanted to attend school, but their fathers did not +want to work; so the children were forced to become bread-winners. One +man whose children were working with him in the fields said, "Please, +lady, don't send them to school; let them pick a while longer. I ain't +got my new auto paid for yet." The native white American mother of +children working in the fields proudly remarked: "No; they ain't +never been to school, nor me nor their poppy, nor their granddads and +grandmoms. We've always been pickers!"--and she spat her tobacco over +the field in expert fashion. + +"In the Valley one hears from townspeople," writes the investigator, +"that pickers make ten dollars a day, working the whole family. With +that qualification, the statement is ambiguous. One Mexican in the +Imperial Valley was the father of thirty-three children--`about thirteen +or fourteen living,' he said. If they all worked at cotton-picking, they +would doubtless altogether make more than ten dollars a day." + +One of the child laborers revealed the economic advantage--to the +parents--in numerous progeny: "Us kids most always drag from forty to +fifty pounds of cotton before we take it to be weighed. Three of us +pick. I'm twelve years old and my bag is twelve feet long. I can drag +nearly a hundred pounds. My sister is ten years old, and her bag is +eight feet long. My little brother is seven and his bag is five feet +long." + +Evidence abounds in the publications of the National Child Labor +Committee of this type of fecund parenthood.(4) It is not merely a +question of the large family versus the small family. Even comparatively +small families among migratory workers of this sort have been large +families. The high infant mortality rate has carried off the weaker +children. Those who survive are merely those who have been strong enough +to survive the most unfavorable living conditions. No; it is a situation +not unique, nor even unusual in human history, of greed and stupidity +and cupidity encouraging the procreative instinct toward the manufacture +of slaves. We hear these days of the selfishness and the degradation +of healthy and well-educated women who refuse motherhood; but we hear +little of the more sinister selfishness of men and women who bring +babies into the world to become child-slaves of the kind described in +these reports of child labor. + +The history of child labor in the English factories in the nineteenth +century throws a suggestive light on this situation. These child-workers +were really called into being by the industrial situation. The +population grew, as Dean Inge has described it, like crops in a newly +irrigated desert. During the nineteenth century, the numbers were nearly +quadrupled. "Let those who think that the population of a country can +be increased at will, consider whether it is likely that any physical, +moral, or psychological change came over the nation co-incidentally with +the inventions of the spinning jenny and the steam engine. It is too +obvious for dispute that it was the possession of capital wanting +employment, and of natural advantages for using it, that called those +multitudes of human beings into existence, to eat the food which they +paid for by their labor."(5) + +But when child labor in the factories became such a scandal and such a +disgrace that child-labor was finally forbidden by laws that possessed +the advantage over our own that they were enforced, the proletariat +ceased to supply children. Almost by magic the birth rate among the +workers declined. Since children were no longer of economic value to +the factories, they were evidently a drug in the home. This movement, it +should not be forgotten however, was coincident with the agitation and +education in Birth Control stimulated by the Besant-Bradlaugh trial. + +Large families among migratory agricultural laborers in our own country +are likewise brought into existence in response to an industrial demand. +The enforcement of the child labor laws and the extension of their +restrictions are therefore an urgent necessity, not so much, as some of +our child-labor authorities believe, to enable these children to go to +school, as to prevent the recruiting of our next generation from the +least intelligent and most unskilled classes in the community. As long +as we officially encourage and countenance the production of large +families, the evils of child labor will confront us. On the other hand, +the prohibition of child labor may help, as in the case of English +factories, in the decline of the birth rate. + +UNCONTROLLED BREEDING AND CHILD LABOR GO HAND IN HAND. And to-day +when we are confronted with the evils of the latter, in the form of +widespread illiteracy and defect, we should seek causes more deeply +rooted than the enslavement of children. The cost to society is +incalculable, as the National Child Labor Committee points out. "It +is not only through the lowered power, the stunting and the moral +degeneration of its individual members, but in actual expense, through +the necessary provision for the human junk, created by premature +employment, in poor-houses, hospitals, police and courts, jails and by +charitable organizations." + +To-day we are paying for the folly of the over-production--and its +consequences in permanent injury to plastic childhood--of yesterday. +To-morrow, we shall be forced to pay for our ruthless disregard of our +surplus children of to-day. The child-laborer of one or two decades +ago has become the shifting laborer of to-day, stunted, underfed, +illiterate, unskilled, unorganized and unorganizable. "He is the last +person to be hired and the first to be fired." Boys and girls under +fourteen years of age are no longer permitted to work in factories, +mills, canneries and establishments whose products are to be shipped out +of the particular state, and children under sixteen can no longer work +in mines and quarries. But this affects only one quarter of our army of +child labor--work in local industries, stores, and farms, homework +in dark and unsanitary tenements is still permitted. Children work in +"homes" on artificial flowers, finishing shoddy garments, sewing their +very life's blood and that of the race into tawdry clothes and gewgaws +that are the most unanswerable comments upon our vaunted "civilization." +And to-day, we must not forget, the child-laborer of yesterday is +becoming the father or the mother of the child-laborer of to-morrow. + +"Any nation that works its women is damned," once wrote Woods +Hutchinson. The nation that works its children, one is tempted to add, +is committing suicide. Loud-mouthed defenders of American democracy pay +no attention to the strange fact that, although "the average education +among all American adults is only the sixth grade," every one of these +adults has an equal power at the polls. The American nation, with all +its worship of efficiency and thrift, complacently forgets that "every +child defective in body, education or character is a charge upon the +community," as Herbert Hoover declared in an address before the American +Child Hygiene Association (October, 1920): "The nation as a whole," he +added, "has the obligation of such measures toward its children... as +will yield to them an equal opportunity at their start in life. If we +could grapple with the whole child situation for one generation, our +public health, our economic efficiency, the moral character, sanity and +stability of our people would advance three generations in one." + +The great irrefutable fact that is ignored or neglected is that the +American nation officially places a low value upon the lives of +its children. The brutal truth is that CHILDREN ARE CHEAP. When +over-production in this field is curtailed by voluntary restriction, +when the birth rate among the working classes takes a sharp decline, the +value of children will rise. Then only will the infant mortality rate +decline, and child labor vanish. + +Investigations of child labor emphasize its evils by pointing out that +these children are kept out of school, and that they miss the advantages +of American public school education. They express the current confidence +in compulsory education and the magical benefits to be derived from +the public school. But we need to qualify our faith in education, and +particularly our faith in the American public school. Educators are just +beginning to wake up to the dangers inherent in the attempt to teach the +brightest child and the mentally defective child at the same time. They +are beginning to test the possibilities of a "vertical" classification +as well as a "horizontal" one. That is, each class must be divided into +what are termed Gifted, Bright, Average, Dull, Normal, and Defective. In +the past the helter-skelter crowding and over-crowding together of all +classes of children of approximately the same age, produced only a dull +leveling to mediocrity.(6) + +An investigation of forty schools in New York City, typical of hundreds +of others, reveals deplorable conditions of overcrowding and lack of +sanitation.(7) The worst conditions are to be found in locations the +most densely populated. Thus of Public School No. 51, located almost in +the center of the notorious "Hell's Kitchen" section, we read: "The play +space which is provided is a mockery of the worst kind. The basement +play-room is dark, damp, poorly lighted, poorly ventilated, foul +smelling, unclean, and wholly unfit for children for purposes of play. +The drainpipes from the roof have decayed to such a degree that in some +instances as little as a quarter of the pipe remains. On rainy days, +water enters the classrooms, hallways, corridors, and is thrown +against windows because the pipes have rotted away. The narrow stairways +and halls are similar to those of jails and dungeons of a century ago. +The classrooms are poorly lighted, inadequately equipped, and in some +cases so small that the desks of pupils and teachers occupy almost all +of the floor-space." + +Another school, located a short distance from Fifth Avenue, the +"wealthiest street in the world," is described as an "old shell of a +structure, erected decades ago as a modern school building. Nearly two +thousand children are crowded into class-rooms having a total seating +capacity of scarcely one thousand. Narrow doorways, intricate hallways +and antiquated stairways, dark and precipitous, keep ever alive the +danger of disaster from fire or panic. Only the eternal vigilance +of exceptional supervision has served to lessen the fear of such a +catastrophe. Artificial light is necessary, even on the brightest days, +in many of the class-rooms. In most of the classrooms, it is always +necessary when the sky is slightly overcast." There is no ventilating +system. + +In the crowded East Side section conditions are reported to be no +better. The Public Education Association's report on Public School No. +130 points out that the site at the corner of Hester and Baxter Streets +was purchased by the city years ago as a school site, but that there +has been so much "tweedledeeing and tweedleduming" that the new building +which is to replace the old, has not even yet been planned! Meanwhile, +year after year, thousands of children are compelled to study daily in +dark and dingy class-rooms. "Artificial light is continually necessary," +declares the report. "The ventilation is extremely poor. The fire hazard +is naturally great. There are no rest-rooms whatever for the teachers." +Other schools in the neighborhood reveal conditions even worse. In +two of them, for example; "In accordance with the requirements of +the syllabus in hygiene in the schools, the vision of the children is +regularly tested. In a recent test of this character, it was found in +Public School 108, the rate of defective vision in the various grades +ranged from 50 to 64 per cent.! In Public School 106, the rate ranged +from 43 to 94 per cent.!" + +The conditions, we are assured, are no exceptions to the rule of +public schools in New York, where the fatal effects of overcrowding +in education may be observed in their most sinister but significant +aspects. + +The forgotten fact in this case is that efforts for universal and +compulsory education cannot keep pace with the overproduction of +children. Even at the best, leaving out of consideration the public +school system as the inevitable prey and plundering-ground of the cheap +politician and job-hunter, present methods of wholesale and syndicated +"education" are not suited to compete with the unceasing, unthinking, +untiring procreative powers of our swarming, spawning populations. + +Into such schools as described in the recent reports of the Public +Education Association, no intelligent parent would dare send his child. +They are not merely fire-traps and culture-grounds of infection, but of +moral and intellectual contamination as well. More and more are public +schools in America becoming institutions for subjecting children to +a narrow and reactionary orthodoxy, aiming to crush out all signs +of individuality, and to turn out boys and girls compressed into a +standardized pattern, with ready-made ideas on politics, religion, +morality, and economics. True education cannot grow out of such +compulsory herding of children in filthy fire-traps. + +Character, ability, and reasoning power are not to be developed in +this fashion. Indeed, it is to be doubted whether even a completely +successful educational system could offset the evils of indiscriminate +breeding and compensate for the misfortune of being a superfluous child. +In recognizing the great need of education, we have failed to recognize +the greater need of inborn health and character. "If it were necessary +to choose between the task of getting children educated and getting them +well born and healthy," writes Havelock Ellis, "it would be better to +abandon education. There have been many great peoples who never dreamed +of national systems of education; there have been no great peoples +without the art of producing healthy and vigorous children. The matter +becomes of peculiar importance in great industrial states, like +England, the United States and Germany, because in such states, a tacit +conspiracy tends to grow up to subordinate national ends to individual +ends, and practically to work for the deterioration of the race."(8) + +Much less can education solve the great problem of child labor. Rather, +under the conditions prevailing in modern society, child labor and the +failure of the public schools to educate are both indices of a more +deeply rooted evil. Both bespeak THE UNDERVALUATION OF THE CHILD. This +undervaluation, this cheapening of child life, is to speak crudely but +frankly the direct result of overproduction. "Restriction of output" is +an immediate necessity if we wish to regain control of the real values, +so that unimpeded, unhindered, and without danger of inner corruption, +humanity may protect its own health and powers. + + (1) I am indebted to the National Child Labor Committee for + these statistics, as well as for many of the facts that + follow. + + (2) "People Who Go to Beets" Pamphlet No. 299, National + Child Labor Committee. + + (3) California the Golden, by Emma Duke. Reprinted from + The American Child, Vol. II, No. 3. November 1920. + + (4) Cf. Child Welfare in Oklahoma; Child Welfare in + Alabama; Child Welfare in North Carolina; Child Welfare in + Kentucky; Child Welfare in Tennessee. Also, Children in + Agriculture, by Ruth McIntire, and other studies. + + (5) W. R. Inge: Outspoken Essays: p. 92 + + (6) Cf. Tredgold: Inheritance and Educability. Eugenics + Review, Vol. Xiii, No. I, pp. 839 et seq. + + (7) Cf. New York Times, June 4, 1921. + + (8) "Studies in the Psychology of Sex," Vol. VI. p. 20. + + + + +CHAPTER IV: The Fertility of the Feeble-Minded + + What vesture have you woven for my year? + O Man and Woman who have fashioned it + Together, is it fine and clean and strong, + Made in such reverence of holy joy, + Of such unsullied substance, that your hearts + Leap with glad awe to see it clothing me, + The glory of whose nakedness you know? + + "The Song of the Unborn" + Amelia Josephine Burr + +There is but one practical and feasible program in handling the great +problem of the feeble-minded. That is, as the best authorities are +agreed, to prevent the birth of those who would transmit imbecility to +their descendants. Feeble-mindedness as investigations and statistics +from every country indicate, is invariably associated with an abnormally +high rate of fertility. Modern conditions of civilization, as we are +continually being reminded, furnish the most favorable breeding-ground +for the mental defective, the moron, the imbecile. "We protect the +members of a weak strain," says Davenport, "up to the period of +reproduction, and then let them free upon the community, and encourage +them to leave a large progeny of `feeble-minded': which in turn, +protected from mortality and carefully nurtured up to the reproductive +period, are again set free to reproduce, and so the stupid work goes on +of preserving and increasing our socially unfit strains." + +The philosophy of Birth Control points out that as long as civilized +communities encourage unrestrained fecundity in the "normal" members +of the population--always of course under the cloak of decency and +morality--and penalize every attempt to introduce the principle of +discrimination and responsibility in parenthood, they will be faced with +the ever-increasing problem of feeble-mindedness, that fertile parent +of degeneracy, crime, and pauperism. Small as the percentage of the +imbecile and half-witted may seem in comparison with the normal members +of the community, it should always be remembered that feeble-mindedness +is not an unrelated expression of modern civilization. Its roots strike +deep into the social fabric. Modern studies indicate that insanity, +epilepsy, criminality, prostitution, pauperism, and mental defect, are +all organically bound up together and that the least intelligent and the +thoroughly degenerate classes in every community are the most prolific. +Feeble-mindedness in one generation becomes pauperism or insanity in the +next. There is every indication that feeble-mindedness in its protean +forms is on the increase, that it has leaped the barriers, and that +there is truly, as some of the scientific eugenists have pointed out, a +feeble-minded peril to future generations--unless the feeble-minded are +prevented from reproducing their kind. To meet this emergency is the +immediate and peremptory duty of every State and of all communities. + +The curious situation has come about that while our statesmen are +busy upon their propaganda of "repopulation," and are encouraging the +production of large families, they are ignoring the exigent problem of +the elimination of the feeble-minded. In this, however, the politicians +are at one with the traditions of a civilization which, with its +charities and philanthropies, has propped up the defective and +degenerate and relieved them of the burdens borne by the healthy +sections of the community, thus enabling them more easily and more +numerously to propagate their kind. "With the very highest motives," +declares Dr. Walter E. Fernald, "modern philanthropic efforts often tend +to foster and increase the growth of defect in the community.... The only +feeble-minded persons who now receive any official consideration are +those who have already become dependent or delinquent, many of whom have +already become parents. We lock the barn-door after the horse is stolen. +We now have state commissions for controlling the gipsy-moth and +the boll weevil, the foot-and-mouth disease, and for protecting the +shell-fish and wild game, but we have no commission which even attempts +to modify or to control the vast moral and economic forces represented +by the feeble-minded persons at large in the community." + +How the feeble-minded and their always numerous progeny run the gamut +of police, alms-houses, courts, penal institutions, "charities and +corrections," tramp shelters, lying-in hospitals, and relief afforded by +privately endowed religious and social agencies, is shown in any +number of reports and studies of family histories. We find cases of +feeble-mindedness and mental defect in the reports on infant mortality +referred to in a previous chapter, as well as in other reports published +by the United States government. Here is a typical case showing the +astonishing ability to "increase and multiply," organically bound up +with delinquency and defect of various types: + +"The parents of a feeble-minded girl, twenty years of age, who was +committed to the Kansas State Industrial Farm on a vagrancy charge, +lived in a thickly populated Negro district which was reported by +the police to be the headquarters for the criminal element of the +surrounding State.... The mother married at fourteen, and her first +child was born at fifteen. In rapid succession she gave birth to sixteen +live-born children and had one miscarriage. The first child, a girl, +married but separated from her husband.... The fourth, fifth and sixth, +all girls, died in infancy or early childhood. The seventh, a girl, +remarried after the death of her husband, from whom she had been +separated. The eighth, a boy who early in life began to exhibit criminal +tendencies, was in prison for highway robbery and burglary. The ninth, a +girl, normal mentally, was in quarantine at the Kansas State Industrial +Farm at the time this study was made; she had lived with a man as +his common-law wife, and had also been arrested several times for +soliciting. The tenth, a boy, was involved in several delinquencies when +young and was sent to the detention-house but did not remain there +long. The eleventh, a boy... at the age of seventeen was sentenced to the +penitentiary for twenty years on a charge of first-degree robbery; after +serving a portion of his time, he was paroled, and later was shot and +killed in a fight. The twelfth, a boy, was at fifteen years of age +implicated in a murder and sent to the industrial school, but escaped +from there on a bicycle which he had stolen; at eighteen, he was shot +and killed by a woman. The thirteenth child, feeble-minded, is the girl +of the study. The fourteenth, a boy was considered by police to be the +best member of the family; his mother reported him to be much slower +mentally than his sister just mentioned; he had been arrested several +times. Once, he was held in the detention-home and once sent to the +State Industrial school; at other times, he was placed on probation. +The fifteenth, a girl sixteen years old, has for a long time had a bad +reputation. Subsequent to the commitment of her sister to the Kansas +State Industrial Farm, she was arrested on a charge of vagrancy, found +to be syphilitic, and quarantined in a state other than Kansas. At the +time of her arrest, she stated that prostitution was her occupation. +The last child was a boy of thirteen years whose history was not +secured...."(1) + +The notorious fecundity of feeble-minded women is emphasized in studies +and investigations of the problem, coming from all countries. "The +feeble-minded woman is twice as prolific as the normal one." Sir James +Crichton-Browne speaks of the great numbers of feeble-minded girls, +wholly unfit to become mothers, who return to the work-house year after +year to bear children, "many of whom happily die, but some of whom +survive to recruit our idiot establishments and to repeat their mothers' +performances." Tredgold points out that the number of children born to +the feeble-minded is abnormally high. Feeble-minded women "constitute +a permanent menace to the race and one which becomes serious at a time +when the decline of the birth-rate is... unmistakable." Dr. Tredgold +points out that "the average number of children born in a family is +four," whereas in these degenerate families, we find an average of 7.3 to +each. Out of this total only a little more than ONE-THIRD--456 out of +a total of 1,269 children--can be considered profitable members of the +community, and that, be it remembered, at the parents' valuation. + +Another significant point is the number of mentally defective children +who survive. "Out of the total number of 526 mentally affected persons +in the 150 families, there are 245 in the present generation--an +unusually large survival."(2) + +Speaking for Bradford, England, Dr. Helen U. Campbell touches another +significant and interesting point usually neglected by the advocates of +mothers' pensions, milk-stations, and maternity-education programs. + +"We are also confronted with the problem of the actually mentally +deficient, of the more or less feeble-minded, and the deranged, +epileptic... or otherwise mentally abnormal mother," writes this +authority. "The `bad mothering' of these cases is quite unimprovable +at an infant welfare center, and a very definite if not relatively very +large percentage of our infants are suffering severely as a result of +dependence upon such `mothering."'(3) + +Thus we are brought face to face with another problem of infant +mortality. Are we to check the infant mortality rate among the +feeble-minded and aid the unfortunate offspring to grow up, a menace to +the civilized community even when not actually certifiable as mentally +defective or not obviously imbecile? + +Other figures and studies indicate the close relationship between +feeble-mindedness and the spread of venereal scourges. We are informed +that in Michigan, 75 per cent. of the prostitute class is infected with +some form of venereal disease, and that 75 per cent. of the infected +are mentally defective,--morons, imbeciles, or "border-line" cases +most dangerous to the community at large. At least 25 per cent. of the +inmates of our prisons, according to Dr. Fernald, are mentally defective +and belong either to the feeble-minded or to the defective-delinquent +class. Nearly 50 per cent. of the girls sent to reformatories are +mental defectives. To-day, society treats feeble-minded or "defective +delinquent" men or women as "criminals," sentences them to prison or +reformatory for a "term," and then releases them at the expiration +of their sentences. They are usually at liberty just long enough to +reproduce their kind, and then they return again and again to prison. +The truth of this statement is evident from the extremely large +proportion in institutions of neglected and dependent children, who are +the feeble-minded offspring of such feeble-minded parents. + +Confronted with these shocking truths about the menace of +feeble-mindedness to the race, a menace acute because of the unceasing +and unrestrained fertility of such defectives, we are apt to become the +victims of a "wild panic for instant action." There is no occasion for +hysterical, ill-considered action, specialists tell us. They direct our +attention to another phase of the problem, that of the so-called "good +feeble-minded." We are informed that imbecility, in itself, is not +synonymous with badness. If it is fostered in a "suitable environment," +it may express itself in terms of good citizenship and useful +occupation. It may thus be transmuted into a docile, tractable, and +peaceable element of the community. The moron and the feeble-minded, +thus protected, so we are assured, may even marry some brighter member +of the community, and thus lessen the chances of procreating another +generation of imbeciles. We read further that some of our doctors +believe that "in our social scale, there is a place for the good +feeble-minded." + +In such a reckless and thoughtless differentiation between the "bad" +and the "good" feeble-minded, we find new evidence of the conventional +middle-class bias that also finds expression among some of the +eugenists. We do not object to feeble-mindedness simply because it +leads to immorality and criminality; nor can we approve of it when it +expresses itself in docility, submissiveness and obedience. We object +because both are burdens and dangers to the intelligence of the +community. As a matter of fact, there is sufficient evidence to lead us +to believe that the so-called "borderline cases" are a greater menace +than the out-and-out "defective delinquents" who can be supervised, +controlled and prevented from procreating their kind. The advent of the +Binet-Simon and similar psychological tests indicates that the mental +defective who is glib and plausible, bright looking and attractive, but +with a mental vision of seven, eight or nine years, may not merely lower +the whole level of intelligence in a school or in a society, but may +be encouraged by church and state to increase and multiply until he +dominates and gives the prevailing "color"--culturally speaking--to an +entire community. + +The presence in the public schools of the mentally defective children +of men and women who should never have been parents is a problem that +is becoming more and more difficult, and is one of the chief reasons for +lower educational standards. As one of the greatest living authorities +on the subject, Dr. A. Tredgold, has pointed out,(4) this has created +a destructive conflict of purpose. "In the case of children with a low +intellectual capacity, much of the education at present provided is +for all practical purposes a complete waste of time, money and +patience.... On the other hand, for children of high intellectual +capacity, our present system does not go far enough. I believe that +much innate potentiality remains undeveloped, even amongst the working +classes, owing to the absence of opportunity for higher education, to +the disadvantage of the nation. In consequence of these fundamental +differences, the catchword `equality of opportunity' is meaningless +and mere claptrap in the absence of any equality to respond to such +opportunity. What is wanted is not equality of opportunity, but +education adapted to individual potentiality; and if the time and money +now spent in the fruitless attempt to make silk-purses out of sows' +ears, were devoted to the higher education of children of good natural +capacity, it would contribute enormously to national efficiency." + +In a much more complex manner than has been recognized even by students +of this problem, the destiny and the progress of civilization and of +human expression has been hindered and held back by this burden of the +imbecile and the moron. While we may admire the patience and the deep +human sympathy with which the great specialists in feeble-mindedness +have expressed the hope of drying up the sources of this evil or of +rendering it harmless, we should not permit sympathy or sentimentality +to blind us to the fact that health and vitality and human growth +likewise need cultivation. "A LAISSER FAIRE policy," writes one +investigator, "simply allows the social sore to spread. And a quasi +LAISSER FAIRE policy wherein we allow the defective to commit crime +and then interfere and imprison him, wherein we grant the defective the +personal liberty to do as he pleases, until he pleases to descend to a +plane of living below the animal level, and try to care for a few of his +descendants who are so helpless that they can no longer exercise that +personal liberty to do as they please,"--such a policy increases and +multiplies the dangers of the over-fertile feeble-minded.(5) + +The Mental Survey of the State of Oregon recently published by the +United States Health Service, sets an excellent example and should be +followed by every state in the Union and every civilized country as +well. It is greatly to the credit of the Western State that it is one of +the first officially to recognize the primary importance of this problem +and to realize that facts, no matter how fatal to self-satisfaction, +must be faced. This survey, authorized by the state legislature, and +carried out by the University of Oregon, in collaboration with Dr. C. +L. Carlisle of the Public Health service, aided by a large number of +volunteers, shows that only a small percentage of mental defectives and +morons are in the care of institutions. The rest are widely scattered +and their condition unknown or neglected. They are docile and +submissive, they do not attract attention to themselves as do the +criminal delinquents and the insane. Nevertheless, it is estimated that +they number no less than 75,000 men, women, and children, out of a total +population of 783,000, or about ten per cent. Oregon, it is thought, is +no exception to other states. Yet under our present conditions, these +people are actually encouraged to increase and multiply and replenish +the earth. + +Concerning the importance of the Oregon survey, we may quote Surgeon +General H. C. Cumming: "the prevention and correction of mental +defectives is one of the great public health problems of to-day. It +enters into many phases of our work and its influence continually crops +up unexpectedly. For instance, work of the Public Health Service in +connection with juvenile courts shows that a marked proportion of +juvenile delinquency is traceable to some degree of mental deficiency +in the offender. For years Public Health officials have concerned +themselves only with the disorders of physical health; but now they are +realizing the significance of mental health also. The work in Oregon +constitutes the first state-wide survey which even begins to disclose +the enormous drain on a state, caused by mental defects. One of the +objects of the work was to obtain for the people of Oregon an idea +of the problem that confronted them and the heavy annual loss, both +economic and industrial, that it entailed. Another was to enable the +legislators to devise a program that would stop much of the loss, +restore to health and bring to lives of industrial usefulness, many of +those now down and out, and above all, to save hundreds of children from +growing up to lives of misery." + +It will be interesting to see how many of our State Legislatures have +the intelligence and the courage to follow in the footsteps of Oregon in +this respect. Nothing could more effectually stimulate discussion, and +awaken intelligence as to the extravagance and cost to the community of +our present codes of traditional morality. But we should make sure +in all such surveys, that mental defect is not concealed even in such +dignified bodies as state legislatures and among those leaders who are +urging men and women to reckless and irresponsible procreation. + +I have touched upon these various aspects of the complex problem of the +feeble-minded, and the menace of the moron to human society, not merely +for the purpose of reiterating that it is one of the greatest and most +difficult social problems of modern times, demanding an immediate, stern +and definite policy, but because it illustrates the actual harvest of +reliance upon traditional morality, upon the biblical injunction to +increase and multiply, a policy still taught by politician, priest +and militarist. Motherhood has been held universally sacred; yet, as +Bouchacourt pointed out, "to-day, the dregs of the human species, the +blind, the deaf-mute, the degenerate, the nervous, the vicious, the +idiotic, the imbecile, the cretins and the epileptics--are better +protected than pregnant women." The syphilitic, the irresponsible, the +feeble-minded are encouraged to breed unhindered, while all the powerful +forces of tradition, of custom, or prejudice, have bolstered up the +desperate effort to block the inevitable influence of true civilization +in spreading the principles of independence, self-reliance, +discrimination and foresight upon which the great practice of +intelligent parenthood is based. + +To-day we are confronted by the results of this official policy. There +is no escaping it; there is no explaining it away. Surely it is an +amazing and discouraging phenomenon that the very governments that have +seen fit to interfere in practically every phase of the normal citizen's +life, dare not attempt to restrain, either by force or persuasion, the +moron and the imbecile from producing his large family of feeble-minded +offspring. + +In my own experience, I recall vividly the case of a feeble-minded girl +who every year, for a long period, received the expert attention of a +great specialist in one of the best-known maternity hospitals of New +York City. The great obstetrician, for the benefit of interns and +medical students, performed each year a Caesarian operation upon this +unfortunate creature to bring into the world her defective, and, in +one case at least, her syphilitic, infant. "Nelly" was then sent to a +special room and placed under the care of a day nurse and a night nurse, +with extra and special nourishment provided. Each year she returned to +the hospital. Such cases are not exceptions; any experienced doctor or +nurse can recount similar stories. In the interest of medical science +this practice may be justified. I am not criticising it from that +point of view. I realize as well as the most conservative moralist that +humanity requires that healthy members of the race should make certain +sacrifices to preserve from death those unfortunates who are born with +hereditary taints. But there is a point at which philanthropy may become +positively dysgenic, when charity is converted into injustice to the +self-supporting citizen, into positive injury to the future of the race. +Such a point, it seems obvious, is reached when the incurably defective +are permitted to procreate and thus increase their numbers. + +The problem of the dependent, delinquent and defective elements in +modern society, we must repeat, cannot be minimized because of their +alleged small numerical proportion to the rest of the population. The +proportion seems small only because we accustom ourselves to the habit +of looking upon feeble-mindedness as a separate and distinct calamity to +the race, as a chance phenomenon unrelated to the sexual and biological +customs not only condoned but even encouraged by our so-called +civilization. The actual dangers can only be fully realized when we have +acquired definite information concerning the financial and cultural cost +of these classes to the community, when we become fully cognizant of the +burden of the imbecile upon the whole human race; when we see the funds +that should be available for human development, for scientific, artistic +and philosophic research, being diverted annually, by hundreds of +millions of dollars, to the care and segregation of men, women, and +children who never should have been born. The advocate of Birth Control +realizes as well as all intelligent thinkers the dangers of interfering +with personal liberty. Our whole philosophy is, in fact, based upon +the fundamental assumption that man is a self-conscious, self-governing +creature, that he should not be treated as a domestic animal; that he +must be left free, at least within certain wide limits, to follow his +own wishes in the matter of mating and in the procreation of children. +Nor do we believe that the community could or should send to the +lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and +unintelligent breeding. + +But modern society, which has respected the personal liberty of the +individual only in regard to the unrestricted and irresponsible bringing +into the world of filth and poverty an overcrowding procession of +infants foredoomed to death or hereditable disease, is now confronted +with the problem of protecting itself and its future generations +against the inevitable consequences of this long-practised policy of +LAISSER-FAIRE. + +The emergency problem of segregation and sterilization must be faced +immediately. Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary +type, especially of the moron class, should be segregated during the +reproductive period. Otherwise, she is almost certain to bear imbecile +children, who in turn are just as certain to breed other defectives. The +male defectives are no less dangerous. Segregation carried out for one +or two generations would give us only partial control of the problem. +Moreover, when we realize that each feeble-minded person is a potential +source of an endless progeny of defect, we prefer the policy of +immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely +prohibited to the feeble-minded. + +This, I say, is an emergency measure. But how are we to prevent the +repetition in the future of a new harvest of imbecility, the recurrence +of new generations of morons and defectives, as the logical and +inevitable consequence of the universal application of the traditional +and widely approved command to increase and multiply? + +At the present moment, we are offered three distinct and more or less +mutually exclusive policies by which civilization may hope to protect +itself and the generations of the future from the allied dangers of +imbecility, defect and delinquency. No one can understand the necessity +for Birth Control education without a complete comprehension of the +dangers, the inadequacies, or the limitations of the present attempts at +control, or the proposed programs for social reconstruction and racial +regeneration. It is, therefore, necessary to interpret and criticize +the three programs offered to meet our emergency. These may be briefly +summarized as follows: + +(1) Philanthropy and Charity: This is the present and traditional method +of meeting the problems of human defect and dependence, of poverty and +delinquency. It is emotional, altruistic, at best ameliorative, aiming +to meet the individual situation as it arises and presents itself. Its +effect in practise is seldom, if ever, truly preventive. Concerned +with symptoms, with the allaying of acute and catastrophic miseries, it +cannot, if it would, strike at the radical causes of social misery. At +its worst, it is sentimental and paternalistic. + +(2) Marxian Socialism: This may be considered typical of many widely +varying schemes of more or less revolutionary social reconstruction, +emphasizing the primary importance of environment, education, equal +opportunity, and health, in the elimination of the conditions (i. e. +capitalistic control of industry) which have resulted in biological +chaos and human waste. I shall attempt to show that the Marxian doctrine +is both too limited, too superficial and too fragmentary in its +basic analysis of human nature and in its program of revolutionary +reconstruction. + +(3) Eugenics: Eugenics seems to me to be valuable in its critical and +diagnostic aspects, in emphasizing the danger of irresponsible and +uncontrolled fertility of the "unfit" and the feeble-minded establishing +a progressive unbalance in human society and lowering the birth-rate +among the "fit." But in its so-called "constructive" aspect, in seeking +to reestablish the dominance of healthy strain over the unhealthy, by +urging an increased birth-rate among the fit, the Eugenists really offer +nothing more farsighted than a "cradle competition" between the fit +and the unfit. They suggest in very truth, that all intelligent and +respectable parents should take as their example in this grave matter of +child-bearing the most irresponsible elements in the community. + + (1) United States Public Health Service: Psychiatric + Studies of Delinquents. Reprint No. 598: pp. 64-65. + + (2) The Problem of the Feeble-Minded: An Abstract of the + Report of the Royal Commission on the Cure and Control of + the Feeble-Minded, London: P. S. King & Son. + + (3) Cf. Feeble-Minded in Ontario: Fourteenth Report for + the year ending October 31st, 1919. + + (4) Eugenics Review, Vol. XIII, p. 339 et seq. + + (5) Dwellers in the Vale of Siddem: A True Story of the + Social Aspect of Feeble-mindedness. By A. C. Rogers and + Maud A. Merrill; Boston (1919). + + + + +CHAPTER V: The Cruelty of Charity + + "Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the + good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing + up of miseries for future generations. There is no greater + curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing + population of imbeciles." + + Herbert Spencer + +The last century has witnessed the rise and development of philanthropy +and organized charity. Coincident with the all-conquering power of +machinery and capitalistic control, with the unprecedented growth +of great cities and industrial centers, and the creation of great +proletarian populations, modern civilization has been confronted, to a +degree hitherto unknown in human history, with the complex problem of +sustaining human life in surroundings and under conditions flagrantly +dysgenic. + +The program, as I believe all competent authorities in contemporary +philanthropy and organized charity would agree, has been altered in aim +and purpose. It was first the outgrowth of humanitarian and altruistic +idealism, perhaps not devoid of a strain of sentimentalism, of an +idealism that was aroused by a desperate picture of human misery +intensified by the industrial revolution. It has developed in later +years into a program not so much aiming to succor the unfortunate +victims of circumstances, as to effect what we may term social +sanitation. Primarily, it is a program of self-protection. Contemporary +philanthropy, I believe, recognizes that extreme poverty and overcrowded +slums are veritable breeding-grounds of epidemics, disease, delinquency +and dependency. Its aim, therefore, is to prevent the individual family +from sinking to that abject condition in which it will become a much +heavier burden upon society. + +There is no need here to criticize the obvious limitations of organized +charities in meeting the desperate problem of destitution. We are all +familiar with these criticisms: the common indictment of "inefficiency" +so often brought against public and privately endowed agencies. The +charges include the high cost of administration; the pauperization +of deserving poor, and the encouragement and fostering of the +"undeserving"; the progressive destruction of self-respect and +self-reliance by the paternalistic interference of social agencies; the +impossibility of keeping pace with the ever-increasing multiplication of +factors and influences responsible for the perpetuation of human misery; +the misdirection and misappropriation of endowments; the absence of +interorganization and coordination of the various agencies of church, +state, and privately endowed institutions; the "crimes of charity" +that are occasionally exposed in newspaper scandals. These and similar +strictures we may ignore as irrelevant to our present purpose, as +inevitable but not incurable faults that have been and are being +eliminated in the slow but certain growth of a beneficent power in +modern civilization. In reply to such criticisms, the protagonist of +modern philanthropy might justly point to the honest and sincere workers +and disinterested scientists it has mobilized, to the self-sacrificing +and hard-working executives who have awakened public attention to the +evils of poverty and the menace to the race engendered by misery and +filth. + +Even if we accept organized charity at its own valuation, and grant that +it does the best it can, it is exposed to a more profound criticism. +It reveals a fundamental and irremediable defect. Its very success, its +very efficiency, its very necessity to the social order, are themselves +the most unanswerable indictment. Organized charity itself is the +symptom of a malignant social disease. + +Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to +diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils +that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest +sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating +constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and +dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the "failure" of +philanthropy, but rather at its success. + +These dangers inherent in the very idea of humanitarianism and altruism, +dangers which have to-day produced their full harvest of human waste, of +inequality and inefficiency, were fully recognized in the last century +at the moment when such ideas were first put into practice. Readers of +Huxley's attack on the Salvation Army will recall his penetrating +and stimulating condemnation of the debauch of sentimentalism which +expressed itself in so uncontrolled a fashion in the Victorian era. One +of the most penetrating of American thinkers, Henry James, Sr., sixty or +seventy years ago wrote: "I have been so long accustomed to see the most +arrant deviltry transact itself in the name of benevolence, that the +moment I hear a profession of good will from almost any quarter, I +instinctively look around for a constable or place my hand within reach +of a bell-rope. My ideal of human intercourse would be a state of things +in which no man will ever stand in need of any other man's help, but +will derive all his satisfaction from the great social tides which +own no individual names. I am sure no man can be put in a position of +dependence upon another, without the other's very soon becoming--if he +accepts the duties of the relation--utterly degraded out of his just +human proportions. No man can play the Deity to his fellow man with +impunity--I mean, spiritual impunity, of course. For see: if I am at all +satisfied with that relation, if it contents me to be in a position of +generosity towards others, I must be remarkably indifferent at bottom to +the gross social inequality which permits that position, and, instead +of resenting the enforced humiliation of my fellow man to myself in the +interests of humanity, I acquiesce in it for the sake of the profit it +yields to my own self-complacency. I do hope the reign of benevolence +is over; until that event occurs, I am sure the reign of God will be +impossible." + +To-day, we may measure the evil effects of "benevolence" of this type, +not merely upon those who have indulged in it, but upon the community at +large. These effects have been reduced to statistics and we cannot, if +we would, escape their significance. Look, for instance (since they are +close at hand, and fairly representative of conditions elsewhere) at +the total annual expenditures of public and private "charities and +corrections" for the State of New York. For the year ending June 30, +1919, the expenditures of public institutions and agencies amounted to +$33, 936,205.88. The expenditures of privately supported and endowed +institutions for the same year, amount to $58,100,530.98. This makes +a total, for public and private charities and corrections of +$92,036,736.86. A conservative estimate of the increase for the +year (1920-1921) brings this figure approximately to one-hundred and +twenty-five millions. These figures take on an eloquent significance if +we compare them to the comparatively small amounts spent upon education, +conservation of health and other constructive efforts. Thus, while the +City of New York spent $7.35 per capita on public education in the year +1918, it spent on public charities no less than $2.66. Add to this last +figure an even larger amount dispensed by private agencies, and we may +derive some definite sense of the heavy burden of dependency, pauperism +and delinquency upon the normal and healthy sections of the community. + +Statistics now available also inform us that more than a million dollars +are spent annually to support the public and private institutions in +the state of New York for the segregation of the feeble-minded and +the epileptic. A million and a half is spent for the up-keep of state +prisons, those homes of the "defective delinquent." Insanity, which, we +should remember, is to a great extent hereditary, annually drains from +the state treasury no less than $11,985,695.55, and from private sources +and endowments another twenty millions. When we learn further that the +total number of inmates in public and private institutions in the State +of New York--in alms-houses, reformatories, schools for the blind, +deaf and mute, in insane asylums, in homes for the feeble-minded and +epileptic--amounts practically to less than sixty-five thousand, an +insignificant number compared to the total population, our eyes should +be opened to the terrific cost to the community of this dead weight of +human waste. + +The United States Public Health Survey of the State of Oregon, recently +published, shows that even a young community, rich in natural resources, +and unusually progressive in legislative measures, is no less subject to +this burden. Out of a total population of 783,000 it is estimated that +more than 75,000 men, women and children are dependents, feeble-minded, +or delinquents. Thus about 10 per cent. of the population is a constant +drain on the finances, health, and future of that community. These +figures represent a more definite and precise survey than the rough one +indicated by the statistics of charities and correction for the State +of New York. The figures yielded by this Oregon survey are also +considerably lower than the average shown by the draft examination, a +fact which indicates that they are not higher than might be obtained +from other States. + +Organized charity is thus confronted with the problem of +feeble-mindedness and mental defect. But just as the State has so far +neglected the problem of mental defect until this takes the form +of criminal delinquency, so the tendency of our philanthropic and +charitable agencies has been to pay no attention to the problem until +it has expressed itself in terms of pauperism and delinquency. Such +"benevolence" is not merely ineffectual; it is positively injurious to +the community and the future of the race. + +But there is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now widely +advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as worthy of +private endowment, which strikes me as being more insidiously injurious +than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function of +maternity, and aims to supply GRATIS medical and nursing facilities +to slum mothers. Such women are to be visited by nurses and to receive +instruction in the "hygiene of pregnancy"; to be guided in making +arrangements for confinements; to be invited to come to the doctor's +clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are informed, to +"receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, and for one +month afterward." Thus are mothers and babies to be saved. "Childbearing +is to be made safe." The work of the maternity centers in the various +American cities in which they have already been established and in which +they are supported by private contributions and endowment, it is hardly +necessary to point out, is carried on among the poor and more docile +sections of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and +ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful +maternity. Now, as the findings of Tredgold and Karl Pearson and the +British Eugenists so conclusively show, and as the infant mortality +reports so thoroughly substantiate, a high rate of fecundity is always +associated with the direst poverty, irresponsibility, mental defect, +feeble-mindedness, and other transmissible taints. The effect of +maternity endowments and maternity centers supported by private +philanthropy would have, perhaps already have had, exactly the most +dysgenic tendency. The new government program would facilitate the +function of maternity among the very classes in which the absolute +necessity is to discourage it. + +Such "benevolence" is not merely superficial and near-sighted. It +conceals a stupid cruelty, because it is not courageous enough to face +unpleasant facts. Aside from the question of the unfitness of many women +to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the +human stock that such programs would inevitably hasten, we may question +its value even to the normal though unfortunate mother. For it is never +the intention of such philanthropy to give the poor over-burdened and +often undernourished mother of the slum the opportunity to make the +choice herself, to decide whether she wishes time after to time to bring +children into the world. It merely says "Increase and multiply: We are +prepared to help you do this." Whereas the great majority of mothers +realize the grave responsibility they face in keeping alive and rearing +the children they have already brought into the world, the maternity +center would teach them how to have more. The poor woman is taught how +to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid +bringing into the world her eighth. + +Such philanthropy, as Dean Inge has so unanswerably pointed out, is kind +only to be cruel, and unwittingly promotes precisely the results most +deprecated. It encourages the healthier and more normal sections of the +world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity +of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, +a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to +eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race +and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant. + +On the other hand, the program is an indication of a suddenly awakened +public recognition of the shocking conditions surrounding pregnancy, +maternity, and infant welfare prevailing at the very heart of our +boasted civilization. So terrible, so unbelievable, are these conditions +of child-bearing, degraded far below the level of primitive and +barbarian tribes, nay, even below the plane of brutes, that many +high-minded people, confronted with such revolting and disgraceful +facts, lost that calmness of vision and impartiality of judgment so +necessary in any serious consideration of this vital problem. Their +"hearts" are touched; they become hysterical; they demand immediate +action; and enthusiastically and generously they support the first +superficial program that is advanced. Immediate action may sometimes be +worse than no action at all. The "warm heart" needs the balance of +the cool head. Much harm has been done in the world by those +too-good-hearted folk who have always demanded that "something be done +at once." + +They do not stop to consider that the very first thing to be done is to +subject the whole situation to the deepest and most rigorous thinking. +As the late Walter Bagehot wrote in a significant but too often +forgotten passage: + +"The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that on the whole +it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does more good or +harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does +great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, +it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, +that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the +world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy they can do +much by rapid action, and that they will most benefit the world when +they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen, +`something' ought to be done to stay and prevent it. One may incline to +hope that the balance of good over evil is in favor of benevolence; one +can hardly bear to think that it is not so; but anyhow it is certain +that there is a most heavy debt of evil, and that this burden might +almost all have been spared us if philanthropists as well as others +had not inherited from their barbarous forefathers a wild passion for +instant action." + +It is customary, I believe, to defend philanthropy and charity upon +the basis of the sanctity of human life. Yet recent events in the world +reveal a curious contradiction in this respect. Human life is held +sacred, as a general Christian principle, until war is declared, when +humanity indulges in a universal debauch of bloodshed and barbarism, +inventing poison gases and every type of diabolic suggestion to +facilitate killing and starvation. Blockades are enforced to weaken and +starve civilian populations--women and children. This accomplished, the +pendulum of mob passion swings back to the opposite extreme, and +the compensatory emotions express themselves in hysterical fashion. +Philanthropy and charity are then unleashed. We begin to hold human life +sacred again. We try to save the lives of the people we formerly +sought to weaken by devastation, disease and starvation. We indulge in +"drives," in campaigns of relief, in a general orgy of international +charity. + +We are thus witnessing to-day the inauguration of a vast system of +international charity. As in our more limited communities and cities, +where self-sustaining and self-reliant sections of the population are +forced to shoulder the burden of the reckless and irresponsible, so +in the great world community the more prosperous and incidentally less +populous nations are asked to relieve and succor those countries which +are either the victims of the wide-spread havoc of war, of militaristic +statesmanship, or of the age-long tradition of reckless propagation and +its consequent over-population. + +The people of the United States have recently been called upon to +exercise their traditional generosity not merely to aid the European +Relief Council in its efforts to keep alive three million, five hundred +thousand starving children in Central Europe, but in addition to +contribute to that enormous fund to save the thirty million Chinese +who find themselves at the verge of starvation, owing to one of those +recurrent famines which strike often at that densely populated and inert +country, where procreative recklessness is encouraged as a matter of +duty. The results of this international charity have not justified the +effort nor repaid the generosity to which it appealed. In the first +place, no effort was made to prevent the recurrence of the disaster; in +the second place, philanthropy of this type attempts to sweep back the +tide of miseries created by unrestricted propagation, with the feeble +broom of sentiment. As one of the most observant and impartial of +authorities on the Far East, J. O. P. Bland, has pointed out: "So long +as China maintains a birth-rate that is estimated at fifty-five per +thousand or more, the only possible alternative to these visitations +would be emigration and this would have to be on such a scale as would +speedily overrun and overfill the habitable globe. Neither humanitarian +schemes, international charities nor philanthropies can prevent +widespread disaster to a people which habitually breeds up to and +beyond the maximum limits of its food supply." Upon this point, it is +interesting to add, Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip has likewise pointed out the +inefficacy and misdirection of this type of international charity.(1) + +Mr. Bland further points out: "The problem presented is one with which +neither humanitarian nor religious zeal can ever cope, so long as we +fail to recognize and attack the fundamental cause of these calamities. +As a matter of sober fact, the benevolent activities of our missionary +societies to reduce the deathrate by the prevention of infanticide and +the checking of disease, actually serve in the end to aggravate the +pressure of population upon its food-supply and to increase the +severity of the inevitably resultant catastrophe. What is needed for +the prevention, or, at least, the mitigation of these scourges, is an +organized educational propaganda, directed first against polygamy +and the marriage of minors and the unfit, and, next, toward such a +limitation of the birth-rate as shall approximate the standard +of civilized countries. But so long as Bishops and well meaning +philanthropists in England and America continue to praise and encourage +`the glorious fertility of the East' there can be but little hope of +minimizing the penalties of the ruthless struggle for existence in +China, and Nature's law will therefore continue to work out its own +pitiless solution, weeding out every year millions of predestined +weaklings." + +This rapid survey is enough, I hope, to indicate the manifold +inadequacies inherent in present policies of philanthropy and charity. +The most serious charge that can be brought against modern "benevolence" +is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents +and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world +community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression. +Philanthropy is a gesture characteristic of modern business lavishing +upon the unfit the profits extorted from the community at large. Looked +at impartially, this compensatory generosity is in its final effect +probably more dangerous, more dysgenic, more blighting than the initial +practice of profiteering and the social injustice which makes some too +rich and others too poor. + + (1) Birth Control Review. Vol. V. No. 4. p. 7. + + + + +CHAPTER VI: Neglected Factors of the World Problem + +War has thrust upon us a new internationalism. To-day the world is +united by starvation, disease and misery. We are enjoying the ironic +internationalism of hatred. The victors are forced to shoulder the +burden of the vanquished. International philanthropies and charities are +organized. The great flux of immigration and emigration has recommenced. +Prosperity is a myth; and the rich are called upon to support huge +philanthropies, in the futile attempt to sweep back the tide of famine +and misery. In the face of this new internationalism, this tangled unity +of the world, all proposed political and economic programs reveal a +woeful common bankruptcy. They are fragmentary and superficial. None +of them go to the root of this unprecedented world problem. Politicians +offer political solutions,--like the League of Nations or the limitation +of navies. Militarists offer new schemes of competitive armament. +Marxians offer the Third Internationale and industrial revolution. +Sentimentalists offer charity and philanthropy. Coordination or +correlation is lacking. And matters go steadily from bad to worse. + +The first essential in the solution of any problem is the recognition +and statement of the factors involved. Now in this complex problem +which to-day confronts us, no attempt has been made to state the primary +facts. The statesman believes they are all political. Militarists +believe they are all military and naval. Economists, including under the +term the various schools for Socialists, believe they are industrial and +financial. Churchmen look upon them as religious and ethical. What is +lacking is the recognition of that fundamental factor which reflects and +coordinates these essential but incomplete phases of the problem,--the +factor of reproduction. For in all problems affecting the welfare of a +biological species, and particularly in all problems of human welfare, +two fundamental forces work against each other. There is hunger as +the driving force of all our economic, industrial and commercial +organizations; and there is the reproductive impulse in continual +conflict with our economic, political settlements, race adjustments and +the like. Official moralists, statesmen, politicians, philanthropists +and economists display an astounding disregard of this second +disorganizing factor. They treat the world of men as if it were purely +a hunger world instead of a hunger-sex world. Yet there is no phase of +human society, no question of politics, economics, or industry that is +not tied up in almost equal measure with the expression of both of +these primordial impulses. You cannot sweep back overpowering dynamic +instincts by catchwords. You can neglect and thwart sex only at your +peril. You cannot solve the problem of hunger and ignore the problem of +sex. They are bound up together. + +While the gravest attention is paid to the problem of hunger and food, +that of sex is neglected. Politicians and scientists are ready +and willing to speak of such things as a "high birth rate," infant +mortality, the dangers of immigration or over-population. But with few +exceptions they cannot bring themselves to speak of Birth Control. Until +they shall have broken through the traditional inhibitions concerning +the discussion of sexual matters, until they recognize the force of the +sexual instinct, and until they recognize Birth Control as the PIVOTAL +FACTOR in the problem confronting the world to-day, our statesmen must +continue to work in the dark. Political palliatives will be mocked +by actuality. Economic nostrums are blown willy-nilly in the unending +battle of human instincts. + +A brief survey of the past three or four centuries of Western +civilization suggests the urgent need of a new science to help humanity +in the struggle with the vast problem of to-day's disorder and danger. +That problem, as we envisage it, is fundamentally a sexual problem. +Ethical, political, and economic avenues of approach are insufficient. +We must create a new instrument, a new technique to make any adequate +solution possible. + +The history of the industrial revolution and the dominance of +all-conquering machinery in Western civilization show the inadequacy of +political and economic measures to meet the terrific rise in population. +The advent of the factory system, due especially to the development +of machinery at the beginning of the nineteenth century, upset all the +grandiloquent theories of the previous era. To meet the new situation +created by the industrial revolution arose the new science of "political +economy," or economics. Old political methods proved inadequate to keep +pace with the problem presented by the rapid rise of the new machine and +industrial power. The machine era very shortly and decisively exploded +the simple belief that "all men are born free and equal." Political +power was superseded by economic and industrial power. To sustain their +supremacy in the political field, governments and politicians allied +themselves to the new industrial oligarchy. Old political theories and +practices were totally inadequate to control the new situation or to +meet the complex problems that grew out of it. + +Just as the eighteenth century saw the rise and proliferation +of political theories, the nineteenth witnessed the creation and +development of the science of economics, which aimed to perfect an +instrument for the study and analysis of an industrial society, and +to offer a technique for the solution of the multifold problems it +presented. But at the present moment, as the outcome of the machine +era and competitive populations, the world has been thrown into a new +situation, the solution of which is impossible solely by political or +economic weapons. + +The industrial revolution and the development of machinery in Europe and +America called into being a new type of working-class. Machines were +at first termed "labor-saving devices." In reality, as we now know, +mechanical inventions and discoveries created unprecedented and +increasingly enormous demand for "labor." The omnipresent and still +existing scandal of child labor is ample evidence of this. Machine +production in its opening phases, demanded large, concentrated and +exploitable populations. Large production and the huge development of +international trade through improved methods of transport, made +possible the maintenance upon a low level of existence of these rapidly +increasing proletarian populations. With the rise and spread throughout +Europe and America of machine production, it is now possible to +correlate the expansion of the "proletariat." The working-classes bred +almost automatically to meet the demand for machine-serving "hands." + +The rise in population, the multiplication of proletarian populations as +a first result of mechanical industry, the appearance of great centers +of population, the so-called urban drift, and the evils of overcrowding +still remain insufficiently studied and stated. It is a significant +though neglected fact that when, after long agitation in Great Britain, +child labor was finally forbidden by law, the supply of children dropped +appreciably. No longer of economic value in the factory, children were +evidently a drug in the "home." Yet it is doubly significant that +from this moment British labor began the long unending task of +self-organization.(1) + +Nineteenth century economics had no method of studying the interrelation +of the biological factors with the industrial. Overcrowding, overwork, +the progressive destruction of responsibility by the machine discipline, +as is now perfectly obvious, had the most disastrous consequences upon +human character and human habits.(2) Paternalistic philanthropies and +sentimental charities, which sprang up like mushrooms, only tended to +increase the evils of indiscriminate breeding. From the physiological +and psychological point of view, the factory system has been nothing +less than catastrophic. + +Dr. Austin Freeman has recently pointed out (3) some of the +physiological, psychological, and racial effects of machinery upon the +proletariat, the breeders of the world. Speaking for Great Britain, Dr. +Freeman suggests that the omnipresence of machinery tends toward the +production of large but inferior populations. Evidences of biological +and racial degeneracy are apparent to this observer. "Compared with the +African negro," he writes, "the British sub-man is in several respects +markedly inferior. He tends to be dull; he is usually quite helpless +and unhandy; he has, as a rule, no skill or knowledge of handicraft, +or indeed knowledge of any kind.... Over-population is a phenomenon +connected with the survival of the unfit, and it is mechanism which +has created conditions favorable to the survival of the unfit and the +elimination of the fit." The whole indictment against machinery is +summarized by Dr. Freeman: "Mechanism by its reactions on man and his +environment is antagonistic to human welfare. It has destroyed industry +and replaced it by mere labor; it has degraded and vulgarized the +works of man; it has destroyed social unity and replaced it by social +disintegration and class antagonism to an extent which directly +threatens civilization; it has injuriously affected the structural +type of society by developing its organization at the expense of the +individual; it has endowed the inferior man with political power which +he employs to the common disadvantage by creating political institutions +of a socially destructive type; and finally by its reactions on the +activities of war it constitutes an agent for the wholesale physical +destruction of man and his works and the extinction of human culture." + +It is not necessary to be in absolute agreement with this diagnostician +to realize the menace of machinery, which tends to emphasize quantity +and mere number at the expense of quality and individuality. One thing +is certain. If machinery is detrimental to biological fitness, the +machine must be destroyed, as it was in Samuel Butler's "Erewhon." But +perhaps there is another way of mastering this problem. + +Altruism, humanitarianism and philanthropy have aided and abetted +machinery in the destruction of responsibility and self-reliance among +the least desirable elements of the proletariat. In contrast with +the previous epoch of discovery of the New World, of exploration +and colonization, when a centrifugal influence was at work upon the +populations of Europe, the advent of machinery has brought with it a +counteracting centripetal effect. The result has been the accumulation +of large urban populations, the increase of irresponsibility, and +ever-widening margin of biological waste. + +Just as eighteenth century politics and political theories were unable +to keep pace with the economic and capitalistic aggressions of the +nineteenth century, so also we find, if we look closely enough, that +nineteenth century economics is inadequate to lead the world out of the +catastrophic situation into which it has been thrown by the debacle +of the World War. Economists are coming to recognize that the purely +economic interpretation of contemporary events is insufficient. Too +long, as one of them has stated, orthodox economists have overlooked +the important fact that "human life is dynamic, that change, movement, +evolution, are its basic characteristics; that self-expression, and +therefore freedom of choice and movement, are prerequisites to a +satisfying human state".(4) + +Economists themselves are breaking with the old "dismal science" of the +Manchester school, with its sterile study of "supply and demand," +of prices and exchange, of wealth and labor. Like the Chicago Vice +Commission, nineteenth-century economists (many of whom still survive +into our own day) considered sex merely as something to be legislated +out of existence. They had the right idea that wealth consisted solely +of material things used to promote the welfare of certain human beings. +Their idea of capital was somewhat confused. They apparently decided +that capital was merely that part of capital used to produce profit. +Prices, exchanges, commercial statistics, and financial operations +comprised the subject matter of these older economists. It would have +been considered "unscientific" to take into account the human factors +involved. They might study the wear-and-tear and depreciation of +machinery: but the depreciation or destruction of the human race did +not concern them. Under "wealth" they never included the vast, wasted +treasury of human life and human expression. + +Economists to-day are awake to the imperative duty of dealing with the +whole of human nature, with the relation of men, women, and children to +their environment--physical and psychic as well as social; of dealing +with all those factors which contribute to human sustenance, happiness +and welfare. The economist, at length, investigates human motives. +Economics outgrows the outworn metaphysical preconceptions of nineteenth +century theory. To-day we witness the creation of a new "welfare" or +social economics, based on a fuller and more complete knowledge of the +human race, upon a recognition of sex as well as of hunger; in brief, of +physiological instincts and psychological demands. The newer economists +are beginning to recognize that their science heretofore failed to take +into account the most vital factors in modern industry--it failed +to foresee the inevitable consequences of compulsory motherhood; the +catastrophic effects of child labor upon racial health; the overwhelming +importance of national vitality and well-being; the international +ramifications of the population problem; the relation of indiscriminate +breeding to feeble-mindedness, and industrial inefficiency. It +speculated too little or not at all on human motives. Human nature riots +through the traditional economic structure, as Carlton Parker pointed +out, with ridicule and destruction; the old-fashioned economist looked +on helpless and aghast. + +Inevitably we are driven to the conclusion that the exhaustively +economic interpretation of contemporary history is inadequate to +meet the present situation. In his suggestive book, "The Acquisitive +Society," R. H. Tawney, arrives at the conclusion that "obsession +by economic issues is as local and transitory as it is repulsive and +disturbing. To future generations it will appear as pitiable as the +obsession of the seventeenth century by religious quarrels appears +to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object with which it is +concerned is less important. And it is a poison which inflames every +wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant ulcer. Society +will not solve the particular problems of industry until that poison is +expelled, and it has learned to see industry in its proper perspective. +IF IT IS TO DO THAT IT MUST REARRANGE THE SCALE OF VALUES. It must +regard economic interests as one element in life, not as the whole of +life...."(5) + +In neglecting or minimizing the great factor of sex in human society, +the Marxian doctrine reveals itself as no stronger than orthodox +economics in guiding our way to a sound civilization. It works within +the same intellectual limitations. Much as we are indebted to the +Marxians for pointing out the injustice of modern industrialism, we +should never close our eyes to the obvious limitations of their own +"economic interpretation of history." While we must recognize the great +historical value of Marx, it is now evident that his vision of the +"class struggle," of the bitter irreconcilable warfare between the +capitalist and working classes was based not upon historical analysis, +but upon on unconscious dramatization of a superficial aspect of +capitalistic regime. + +In emphasizing the conflict between the classes, Marx failed to +recognize the deeper unity of the proletariat and the capitalist. +Nineteenth century capitalism had in reality engendered and cultivated +the very type of working class best suited to its own purpose--an inert, +docile, irresponsible and submissive class, progressively incapable +of effective and aggressive organization. Like the economists of the +Manchester school, Marx failed to recognize the interplay of human +instincts in the world of industry. All the virtues were embodied in the +beloved proletariat; all the villainies in the capitalists. The greatest +asset of the capitalism of that age was, as a matter of fact, the +uncontrolled breeding among the laboring classes. The intelligent and +self-conscious section of the workers was forced to bear the burden of +the unemployed and the poverty-stricken. + +Marx was fully aware of the consequences of this condition of things, +but shut his eyes tightly to the cause. He pointed out that capitalistic +power was dependent upon "the reserve army of labor," surplus labor, +and a wide margin of unemployment. He practically admitted that +over-population was the inevitable soil of predatory capitalism. But he +disregarded the most obvious consequence of that admission. It was all +very dramatic and grandiloquent to tell the workingmen of the world to +unite, that they had "nothing but their chains to lose and the world +to gain." Cohesion of any sort, united and voluntary organization, as +events have proved, is impossible in populations bereft of intelligence, +self-discipline and even the material necessities of life, and cheated +by their desires and ignorance into unrestrained and uncontrolled +fertility. + +In pointing out the limitations and fallacies of the orthodox Marxian +opinion, my purpose is not to depreciate the efforts of the Socialists +aiming to create a new society, but rather to emphasize what seems to me +the greatest and most neglected truth of our day:--Unless sexual science +is incorporated as an integral part of world-statesmanship and the +pivotal importance of Birth Control is recognized in any program of +reconstruction, all efforts to create a new world and a new civilization +are foredoomed to failure. + +We can hope for no advance until we attain a new conception of sex, not +as a merely propagative act, not merely as a biological necessity for +the perpetuation of the race, but as a psychic and spiritual avenue of +expression. It is the limited, inhibited conception of sex that vitiates +so much of the thought and ideation of the Eugenists. + +Like most of our social idealists, statesmen, politicians and +economists, some of the Eugenists suffer intellectually from a +restricted and inhibited understanding of the function of sex. This +limited understanding, this narrowness of vision, which gives rise to +most of the misconceptions and condemnations of the doctrine of Birth +Control, is responsible or the failure of politicians and legislators to +enact practical statutes or to remove traditional obscenities from the +law books. The most encouraging sign at present is the recognition by +modern psychology of the central importance of the sexual instinct in +human society, and the rapid spread of this new concept among the more +enlightened sections of the civilized communities. The new conception +of sex has been well stated by one to whom the debt of contemporary +civilization is well-nigh immeasurable. "Sexual activity," Havelock +Ellis has written, "is not merely a baldly propagative act, nor, when +propagation is put aside, is it merely the relief of distended +vessels. It is something more even than the foundation of great social +institutions. It is the function by which all the finer activities of +the organism, physical and psychic, may be developed and satisfied."(6) + +No less than seventy years ago, a profound but neglected thinker, George +Drysdale, emphasized the necessity of a thorough understanding of man's +sexual nature in approaching economic, political and social problems. +"Before we can undertake the calm and impartial investigation of any +social problem, we must first of all free ourselves from all those +sexual prejudices which are so vehement and violent and which so +completely distort our vision of the external world. Society as a whole +has yet to fight its way through an almost impenetrable forest of sexual +taboos." Drysdale's words have lost none of their truth even to-day: +"There are few things from which humanity has suffered more than the +degraded and irreverent feelings of mystery and shame that have been +attached to the genital and excretory organs. The former have been +regarded, like their corresponding mental passions, as something of a +lower and baser nature, tending to degrade and carnalize man by their +physical appetites. But we cannot take a debasing view of any part of +our humanity without becoming degraded in our whole being."(7) + +Drysdale moreover clearly recognized the social crime of entrusting to +sexual barbarians the duty of legislating and enforcing laws detrimental +to the welfare of all future generations. "They trust blindly to +authority for the rules they blindly lay down," he wrote, "perfectly +unaware of the awful and complicated nature of the subject they are +dealing with so confidently and of the horrible evils their unconsidered +statements are attended with. They themselves break through the most +fundamentally important laws daily in utter unconsciousness of the +misery they are causing to their fellows...." + +Psychologists to-day courageously emphasize the integral relationship +of the expression of the sexual instinct with every phase of human +activity. Until we recognize this central fact, we cannot understand the +implications and the sinister significance of superficial attempts +to apply rosewater remedies to social evils,--by the enactment of +restrictive and superficial legislation, by wholesale philanthropies and +charities, by publicly burying our heads in the sands of sentimentality. +Self-appointed censors, grossly immoral "moralists," makeshift +legislators, all face a heavy responsibility for the miseries, diseases, +and social evils they perpetuate or intensify by enforcing the primitive +taboos of aboriginal customs, traditions, and outworn laws, which +at every step hinder the education of the people in the scientific +knowledge of their sexual nature. Puritanic and academic taboo of sex in +education and religion is as disastrous to human welfare as prostitution +or the venereal scourges. "We are compelled squarely to face the +distorting influences of biologically aborted reformers as well as the +wastefulness of seducers," Dr. Edward A. Kempf recently declared. "Man +arose from the ape and inherited his passions, which he can only refine +but dare not attempt to castrate unless he would destroy the fountains +of energy that maintain civilization and make life worth living and the +world worth beautifying.... We do not have a problem that is to be solved +by making repressive laws and executing them. Nothing will be more +disastrous. Society must make life worth the living and the refining for +the individual by conditioning him to love and to seek the love-object +in a manner that reflects a constructive effect upon his fellow-men +and by giving him suitable opportunities. The virility of the automatic +apparatus is destroyed by excessive gormandizing or hunger, by excessive +wealth or poverty, by excessive work or idleness, by sexual abuse or +intolerant prudishness. The noblest and most difficult art of all is the +raising of human thoroughbreds."(8) + + (1) It may be well to note, in this connection, that the + decline in the birth rate among the more intelligent classes + of British labor followed upon the famous Bradlaugh-Besant + trial of 1878, the outcome of the attempt of these two + courageous Birth Control pioneers to circulate among the + workers the work of an American physician, Dr. Knowlton's + "The Fruits of Philosophy," advocating Birth Control, and + the widespread publicity resulting from his trial. + + (2) Cf. The Creative Impulse in Industry, by Helen Marot. + The Instinct of Workmanship, by Thorstein Veblen. + + (3) Social Decay and Regeneration. By R. Austin Freeman. + London 1921. + + (4) Carlton H. Parker: The Casual Laborer and other + essays: p. 30. + + (5) R. H. Tawney. The Acquisitive Society, p. 184. + + (6) Medical Review of Reviews: Vol. XXVI, p. 116. + + (7) The Elements of Social Science: London, 1854. + + (8) Proceedings of the International Conference of Women + Physicians. Vol. IV, pp. 66-67. New York, 1920. + + + + +CHAPTER VII: Is Revolution the Remedy? + +Marxian Socialism, which seeks to solve the complex problem of human +misery by economic and proletarian revolution, has manifested a new +vitality. Every shade of Socialistic thought and philosophy acknowledges +its indebtedness to the vision of Karl Marx and his conception of the +class struggle. Yet the relation of Marxian Socialism to the philosophy +of Birth Control, especially in the minds of most Socialists, remains +hazy and confused. No thorough understanding of Birth Control, its aims +and purposes, is possible until this confusion has been cleared +away, and we come to a realization that Birth Control is not merely +independent of, but even antagonistic to the Marxian dogma. In recent +years many Socialists have embraced the doctrine of Birth Control, and +have generously promised us that "under Socialism" voluntary motherhood +will be adopted and popularized as part of a general educational system. +We might more logically reply that no Socialism will ever be possible +until the problem of responsible parenthood has been solved. + +Many Socialists to-day remain ignorant of the inherent conflict between +the idea of Birth Control and the philosophy of Marx. The earlier +Marxians, including Karl Marx himself, expressed the bitterest +antagonism to Malthusian and neo-Malthusian theories. A remarkable +feature of early Marxian propaganda has been the almost complete +unanimity with which the implications of the Malthusian doctrine have +been derided, denounced and repudiated. Any defense of the so-called +"law of population" was enough to stamp one, in the eyes of the orthodox +Marxians, as a "tool of the capitalistic class," seeking to dampen the +ardor of those who expressed the belief that men might create a better +world for themselves. Malthus, they claimed, was actuated by selfish +class motives. He was not merely a hidebound aristocrat, but a pessimist +who was trying to kill all hope of human progress. By Marx, Engels, +Bebel, Karl Kautsky, and all the celebrated leaders and interpreters +of Marx's great "Bible of the working class," down to the martyred Rosa +Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, Birth Control has been looked upon as a +subtle, Machiavellian sophistry created for the purpose of placing the +blame for human misery elsewhere than at the door of the capitalist +class. Upon this point the orthodox Marxian mind has been universally +and sternly uncompromising. + +Marxian vituperation of Malthus and his followers is illuminating. It +reveals not the weakness of the thinker attacked, but of the aggressor. +This is nowhere more evident than in Marx's "Capital" itself. In that +monumental effort, it is impossible to discover any adequate refutation +or even calm discussion of the dangers of irresponsible parenthood +and reckless breeding, any suspicion that this recklessness and +irresponsibility is even remotely related to the miseries of the +proletariat. Poor Malthus is there relegated to the humble level of +a footnote. "If the reader reminds me of Malthus, whose essay on +Population appeared in 1798," Marx remarks somewhat tartly, "I +remind him that this work in its first form is nothing more than +a schoolboyish, superficial plagiary of De Foe, Sir James Steuart, +Townsend, Franklin, Wallace, etc., and does not contain a single +sentence thought out by himself. The great sensation this pamphlet +caused was due solely to party interest. The French Revolution had +passionate defenders in the United Kingdom.... `The Principles of +Population' was quoted with jubilance by the English oligarchy as the +great destroyer of all hankerings after human development."(1) + +The only attempt that Marx makes here toward answering the theory of +Malthus is to declare that most of the population theory teachers were +merely Protestant parsons.--"Parson Wallace, Parson Townsend, Parson +Malthus and his pupil the Arch-Parson Thomas Chalmers, to say nothing +of the lesser reverend scribblers in this line." The great pioneer of +"scientific" Socialism then proceeds to berate parsons as philosophers +and economists, using this method of escape from the very pertinent +question of surplus population and surplus proletariat in its relation +to labor organization and unemployment. It is true that elsewhere (2) he +goes so far as to admit that "even Malthus recognized over-population +as a necessity of modern industry, though, after his narrow fashion, he +explains it by the absolute over-growth of the laboring population, not +by their becoming relatively supernumerary." A few pages later, however, +Marx comes back again to the question of over-population, failing +to realize that it is to the capitalists' advantage that the working +classes are unceasingly prolific. "The folly is now patent," writes the +unsuspecting Marx, "of the economic wisdom that preaches to the laborers +the accommodation of their numbers to the requirements of capital. The +mechanism of capitalist production and accumulation constantly affects +this adjustment. The first work of this adaptation is the creation of a +relatively surplus population or industrial reserve army. Its last work +is the misery of constantly extending strata of the army of labor, and +the dead weight of pauperism." A little later he ventures again in the +direction of Malthusianism so far as to admit that "the accumulation +of wealth at one pole is... at the same time the accumulation of misery, +agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality and mental degradation +at the opposite pole." Nevertheless, there is no indication that Marx +permitted himself to see that the proletariat accommodates its numbers +to the "requirements of capital" precisely by breeding a large, docile, +submissive and easily exploitable population. + +Had the purpose of Marx been impartial and scientific, this trifling +difference might easily have been overcome and the dangers of reckless +breeding insisted upon. But beneath all this wordy pretension and +economic jargon, we detect another aim. That is the unconscious +dramatization of human society into the "class conflict." Nothing was +overlooked that might sharpen and accentuate this "conflict." Marx +depicted a great melodramatic conflict, in which all the virtues were +embodied in the proletariat and all the villainies in the capitalist. +In the end, as always in such dramas, virtue was to be rewarded and +villainy punished. The working class was the temporary victim of a +subtle but thorough conspiracy of tyranny and repression. Capitalists, +intellectuals and the BOURGEOISIE were all "in on" this diabolic +conspiracy, all thoroughly familiar with the plot, which Marx was so +sure he had uncovered. In the last act was to occur that catastrophic +revolution, with the final transformation scene of the Socialist +millennium. Presented in "scientific" phraseology, with all the authority +of economic terms, "Capital" appeared at the psychological moment. +The heaven of the traditional theology had been shattered by Darwinian +science, and here, dressed up in all the authority of the new science, +appeared a new theology, the promise of a new heaven, an earthly +paradise, with an impressive scale of rewards for the faithful and +ignominious punishments for the capitalists. + +Critics have often been puzzled by the tremendous vitality of this work. +Its predictions have never, despite the claims of the faithful, been +fulfilled. Instead of diminishing, the spirit of nationalism has +been intensified tenfold. In nearly every respect Marx's predictions +concerning the evolution of historical and economic forces have been +contradicted by events, culminating in the great war. Most of his +followers, the "revolutionary" Socialists, were swept into the whirlpool +of nationalistic militarism. Nevertheless, this "Bible of the working +classes" still enjoys a tremendous authority as a scientific work. By +some it is regarded as an economic treatise; by others as a philosophy +of history; by others as a collection of sociological laws; and finally +by others as a moral and political book of reference. Criticized, +refuted, repudiated and demolished by specialists, it nevertheless +exerts its influences and retains its mysterious vitality. + +We must seek the explanation of this secret elsewhere. Modern psychology +has taught us that human nature has a tendency to place the cause of its +own deficiencies and weaknesses outside of itself, to attribute to some +external agency, to some enemy or group of enemies, the blame for +its own misery. In his great work Marx unconsciously strengthens +and encourages this tendency. The immediate effect of his teaching, +vulgarized and popularized in a hundred different forms, is to relieve +the proletariat of all responsibility for the effects of its reckless +breeding, and even to encourage it in the perpetuation of misery. + +The inherent truth in the Marxian teachings was, moreover, immediately +subordinated to their emotional and religious appeal. A book that could +so influence European thought could not be without merit. But in the +process of becoming the "Bible of the working classes," "Capital" +suffered the fate of all such "Bibles." The spirit of ecclesiastical +dogmatism was transfused into the religion of revolutionary Socialism. +This dogmatic religious quality has been noted by many of the most +observant critics of Socialism. Marx was too readily accepted as the +father of the church, and "Capital" as the sacred gospel of the social +revolution. All questions of tactics, of propaganda, of class warfare, +of political policy, were to be solved by apt quotations from the "good +book." New thoughts, new schemes, new programs, based upon tested fact +and experience, the outgrowth of newer discoveries concerning the nature +of men, upon the recognition of the mistakes of the master, could only +be approved or admitted according as they could or could not be tested +by some bit of text quoted from Marx. His followers assumed that Karl +Marx had completed the philosophy of Socialism, and that the duty of +the proletariat thenceforth was not to think for itself, but merely to +mobilize itself under competent Marxian leaders for the realization of +his ideas. + +From the day of this apotheosis of Marx until our own, the "orthodox" +Socialist of any shade is of the belief that the first essential for +social salvation lies in unquestioning belief in the dogmas of Marx. + +The curious and persistent antagonism to Birth Control that began with +Marx and continues to our own day can be explained only as the utter +refusal or inability to consider humanity in its physiological and +psychological aspects--these aspects, apparently, having no place in the +"economic interpretation of history." It has remained for George Bernard +Shaw, a Socialist with a keener spiritual insight than the +ordinary Marxist, to point out the disastrous consequences of rapid +multiplication which are obvious to the small cultivator, the peasant +proprietor, the lowest farmhand himself, but which seem to arouse the +orthodox, intellectual Marxian to inordinate fury. "But indeed the +more you degrade the workers," Shaw once wrote,(3) "robbing them of all +artistic enjoyment, and all chance of respect and admiration from their +fellows, the more you throw them back, reckless, upon the one pleasure +and the one human tie left to them--the gratification of their instinct +for producing fresh supplies of men. You will applaud this instinct +as divine until at last the excessive supply becomes a nuisance: there +comes a plague of men; and you suddenly discover that the instinct is +diabolic, and set up a cry of `over-population.' But your slaves are +beyond caring for your cries: they breed like rabbits: and their poverty +breeds filth, ugliness, dishonesty, disease, obscenity, drunkenness." + +Lack of insight into fundamental truths of human nature is evident +throughout the writings of the Marxians. The Marxian Socialists, +according to Kautsky, defended women in industry: it was right for woman +to work in factories in order to preserve her equality with man! Man +must not support woman, declared the great French Socialist Guesde, +because that would make her the PROLETAIRE of man! Bebel, the great +authority on woman, famous for his erudition, having critically studied +the problem of population, suggested as a remedy for too excessive +fecundity the consumption of a certain lard soup reputed to have an +"anti-generative" effect upon the agricultural population of Upper +Bavaria! Such are the results of the literal and uncritical acceptance +of Marx's static and mechanical conception of human society, a society +perfectly automatic; in which competition is always operating at maximum +efficiency; one vast and unending conspiracy against the blameless +proletariat. + +This lack of insight of the orthodox Marxians, long represented by +the German Social-Democrats, is nowhere better illustrated than in Dr. +Robinson's account of a mass meeting of the Social-Democrat party to +organize public opinion against the doctrine of Birth Control among +the poor.(4) "Another meeting had taken place the week before, at which +several eminent Socialist women, among them Rosa Luxemburg and Clara +Zetkin, spoke very strongly against limitation of offspring among the +poor--in fact the title of the discussion was GEGEN DEN GEBURTSTREIK! +`Against the birth strike!' The interest of the audience was intense. +One could see that with them it was not merely a dialectic question, +as it was with their leaders, but a matter of life and death. I came to +attend a meeting AGAINST the limitation of offspring; it soon proved to +be a meeting very decidedly FOR the limitation of offspring, for every +speaker who spoke in favor of the artificial prevention of conception +or undesired pregnancies, was greeted with vociferous, long-lasting +applause; while those who tried to persuade the people that a limited +number of children is not a proletarian weapon, and would not improve +their lot, were so hissed that they had difficulty going on. The +speakers who were against the... idea soon felt that their audience +was against them.... Why was there such small attendance at the regular +Socialistic meetings, while the meetings of this character were packed +to suffocation? It did not apparently penetrate the leaders' heads +that the reason was a simple one. Those meetings were evidently of +no interest to them, while those which dealt with the limitation of +offspring were of personal, vital, present interest.... What particularly +amused me--and pained me--in the anti-limitationists was the ease and +equanimity with which they advised the poor women to keep on bearing +children. The woman herself was not taken into consideration, as if she +was not a human being, but a machine. What are her sufferings, her labor +pains, her inability to read, to attend meetings, to have a taste of +life? What does she amount to? The proletariat needs fighters. Go on, +females, and breed like animals. Maybe of the thousands you bear a few +will become party members...." + +The militant organization of the Marxian Socialists suggests that their +campaign must assume the tactics of militarism of the familiar type. As +represented by militaristic governments, militarism like Socialism has +always encouraged the proletariat to increase and multiply. Imperial +Germany was the outstanding and awful example of this attitude. Before +the war the fall in the birth-rate was viewed by the Junker party +with the gravest misgivings. Bernhardi and the protagonists of +DEUTSCHLAND-UBER-ALLES condemned it in the strongest terms. The Marxians +unconsciously repeat the words of the government representative, Krohne, +who, in a debate on the subject in the Prussian Diet, February 1916, +asserted: "Unfortunately this view has gained followers amongst the +German women.... These women, in refusing to rear strong and able +children to continue the race, drag into the dust that which is the +highest end of women--motherhood. It is to be hoped that the willingness +to bear sacrifices will lead to a change for the better.... We need +an increase in human beings to guard against the attacks of envious +neighbors as well as to fulfil our cultural mission. Our whole economic +development depends on increase of our people." Today we are fully aware +of how imperial Germany fulfilled that cultural mission of hers; nor +can we overlook the fact that the countries with a smaller birth-rate +survived the ordeal. Even from the traditional militaristic standpoint, +strength does not reside in numbers, though the Caesars, the Napoleons +and the Kaisers of the world have always believed that large exploitable +populations were necessary for their own individual power. If Marxian +dictatorship means the dictatorship of a small minority wielding power +in the interest of the proletariat, a high-birth rate may be necessary, +though we may here recall the answer of the lamented Dr. Alfred Fried to +the German imperialists: "It is madness, the apotheosis of unreason, to +wish to breed and care for human beings in order that in the flower of +their youth they may be sent in millions to be slaughtered wholesale by +machinery. We need no wholesale production of men, have no need of the +`fruitful fertility of women,' no need of wholesale wares, fattened and +dressed for slaughter What we do need is careful maintenance of those +already born. If the bearing of children is a moral and religious duty, +then it is a much higher duty to secure the sacredness and security of +human life, so that children born and bred with trouble and sacrifice +may not be offered up in the bloom of youth to a political dogma at the +bidding of secret diplomacy." + +Marxism has developed a patriotism of its own, if indeed it has not yet +been completely crystallized into a religion. Like the "capitalistic" +governments it so vehemently attacks, it demands self-sacrifice and even +martyrdom from the faithful comrades. But since its strength depends +to so great a degree upon "conversion," upon docile acceptance of the +doctrines of the "Master" as interpreted by the popes and bishops of +this new church, it fails to arouse the irreligious proletariat. +The Marxian Socialist boasts of his understanding of "working class +psychology" and criticizes the lack of this understanding on the part +of all dissenters. But, as the Socialists' meetings against the +"birth strike" indicate, the working class is not interested in such +generalities as the Marxian "theory of value," the "iron law" of wages, +"the value of commodities" and the rest of the hazy articles of faith. +Marx inherited the rigid nationalistic psychology of the eighteenth +century, and his followers, for the most part, have accepted his +mechanical and superficial treatment of instinct.(5) Discontented +workers may rally to Marxism because it places the blame for their +misery outside of themselves and depicts their conditions as the result +of a capitalistic conspiracy, thereby satisfying that innate tendency +of every human being to shift the blame to some living person outside +himself, and because it strengthens his belief that his sufferings +and difficulties may be overcome by the immediate amelioration of his +economic environment. In this manner, psychologists tell us, neuroses +and inner compulsions are fostered. No true solution is possible, to +continue this analogy, until the worker is awakened to the realization +that the roots of his malady lie deep in his own nature, his own +organism, his own habits. To blame everything upon the capitalist and +the environment produced by capitalism is to focus attention upon merely +one of the elements of the problem. The Marxian too often forgets +that before there was a capitalist there was exercised the unlimited +reproductive activity of mankind, which produced the first overcrowding, +the first want. This goaded humanity into its industrial frenzy, into +warfare and theft and slavery. Capitalism has not created the lamentable +state of affairs in which the world now finds itself. It has grown +out of them, armed with the inevitable power to take advantage of our +swarming, spawning millions. As that valiant thinker Monsieur G. Hardy +has pointed out (6) the proletariat may be looked upon, not as the +antagonist of capitalism, but as its accomplice. Labor surplus, or +the "army of reserve" which as for decades and centuries furnished +the industrial background of human misery, which so invariably defeats +strikes and labor revolts, cannot honestly be blamed upon capitalism. +It is, as M. Hardy points out, of SEXUAL and proletarian origin. In +bringing too many children into the world, in adding to the total of +misery, in intensifying the evils of overcrowding, the proletariat +itself increases the burden of organized labor; even of the Socialist +and Syndicalist organizations themselves with a surplus of the docilely +inefficient, with those great uneducable and unorganizable masses. With +surprisingly few exceptions, Marxians of all countries have docilely +followed their master in rejecting, with bitterness and vindictiveness +that is difficult to explain, the principles and teachings of Birth +Control. + +Hunger alone is not responsible for the bitter struggle for existence we +witness to-day in our over-advertised civilization. Sex, uncontrolled, +misdirected, over-stimulated and misunderstood, has run riot at the +instigation of priest, militarist and exploiter. Uncontrolled sex has +rendered the proletariat prostrate, the capitalist powerful. In this +continuous, unceasing alliance of sexual instinct and hunger we find the +reason for the decline of all the finer sentiments. These instincts tear +asunder the thin veils of culture and hypocrisy and expose to our gaze +the dark sufferings of gaunt humanity. So have we become familiar with +the everyday spectacle of distorted bodies, of harsh and frightful +diseases stalking abroad in the light of day; of misshapen heads and +visages of moron and imbecile; of starving children in city streets +and schools. This is the true soil of unspeakable crimes. Defect and +delinquency join hands with disease, and accounts of inconceivable and +revolting vices are dished up in the daily press. When the majority +of men and women are driven by the grim lash of sex and hunger in the +unending struggle to feed themselves and to carry the dead-weight of +dead and dying progeny, when little children are forced into factories, +streets, and shops, education--including even education in the Marxian +dogmas--is quite impossible; and civilization is more completely +threatened than it ever could be by pestilence or war. + +But, it will be pointed out, the working class has advanced. Power has +been acquired by labor unions and syndicates. In the beginning power +was won by the principle of the restriction of numbers. The device of +refusing to admit more than a fixed number of new members to the unions +of the various trades has been justified as necessary for the upholding +of the standard of wages and of working conditions. This has been the +practice in precisely those unions which have been able through years +of growth and development to attain tangible strength and power. Such +a principle of restriction is necessary in the creation of a firmly and +deeply rooted trunk or central organization furnishing a local center +for more extended organization. It is upon this great principle of +restricted number that the labor unions have generated and developed +power. They have acquired this power without any religious emotionalism, +without subscribing to metaphysical or economic theology. For the +millenium and the earthly paradise to be enjoyed at some indefinitely +future date, the union member substitutes the very real politics +of organization with its resultant benefits. He increases his own +independence and comfort and that of his family. He is immune to +superstitious belief in and respect for the mysterious power of +political or economic nostrums to reconstruct human society according to +the Marxian formula. + +In rejecting the Marxian hypothesis as superficial and fragmentary, we +do so not because of its so-called revolutionary character, its threat +to the existing order of things, but rather because of its superficial, +emotional and religious character and its deleterious effect upon the +life of reason. Like other schemes advanced by the alarmed and the +indignant, it relies too much upon moral fervor and enthusiasm. To build +any social program upon the shifting sands of sentiment and feeling, of +indignation or enthusiasm, is a dangerous and foolish task. On the other +hand, we should not minimize the importance of the Socialist movement +in so valiantly and so courageously battling against the stagnating +complacency of our conservatives and reactionaries, under whose +benign imbecility the defective and diseased elements of humanity +are encouraged "full speed ahead" in their reckless and irresponsible +swarming and spawning. Nevertheless, as George Drysdale pointed out +nearly seventy years ago; + +"... If we ignore this and other sexual subjects, we may do whatever else +we like: we may bully, we may bluster, we may rage, We may foam at +the mouth; we may tear down Heaven with our prayers, we may exhaust +ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may narcotize +ourselves and others with the opiate of Christian resignation; we may +dissolve the realities of human woe in a delusive mirage of poetry and +ideal philosophy; we may lavish our substance in charity, and labor over +possible or impossible Poor Laws; we may form wild dreams of Socialism, +industrial regiments, universal brotherhood, red republics, or +unexampled revolutions; we may strangle and murder each other, we may +persecute and despise those whose sexual necessities force them to break +through our unnatural moral codes; we may burn alive if we please the +prostitutes and the adulterers; we may break our own and our neighbor's +hearts against the adamantine laws that surround us, but not one step, +not one shall we advance, till we acknowledge these laws, and adopt +the only possible mode in which they can be obeyed." These words were +written in 1854. Recent events have accentuated their stinging truth. + + (1) Marx: "Capital." Vol. I, p. 675. + + (2) Op. cit. pp, 695, 707, 709. + + (3) Fabian Essays in Socialism. p. 21. + + (4) Uncontrolled Breeding, By Adelyne More. p. 84. + + (5) For a sympathetic treatment of modern psychological + research as bearing on Communism, by two convinced + Communists see "Creative Revolution," by Eden and Cedar + Paul. + + (6) Neo-Malthusianisme et Socialisme, p. 22. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII: Dangers of Cradle Competition + +Eugenics has been defined as "the study of agencies under social control +that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, +either mentally or physically." While there is no inherent conflict +between Socialism and Eugenics, the latter is, broadly, the antithesis +of the former. In its propaganda, Socialism emphasizes the evil effects +of our industrial and economic system. It insists upon the necessity of +satisfying material needs, upon sanitation, hygiene, and education to +effect the transformation of society. The Socialist insists that healthy +humanity is impossible without a radical improvement of the social--and +therefore of the economic and industrial--environment. The Eugenist +points out that heredity is the great determining factor in the lives +of men and women. Eugenics is the attempt to solve the problem from the +biological and evolutionary point of view. You may bring all the changes +possible on "Nurture" or environment, the Eugenist may say to the +Socialist, but comparatively little can be effected until you control +biological and hereditary elements of the problem. Eugenics thus aims +to seek out the root of our trouble, to study humanity as a kinetic, +dynamic, evolutionary organism, shifting and changing with the +successive generations, rising and falling, cleansing itself of +inherent defects, or under adverse and dysgenic influences, sinking into +degeneration and deterioration. + +"Eugenics" was first defined by Sir Francis Galton in his "Human +Faculty" in 1884, and was subsequently developed into a science and into +an educational effort. Galton's ideal was the rational breeding of human +beings. The aim of Eugenics, as defined by its founder, is to bring +as many influences as can be reasonably employed, to cause the useful +classes of the community to contribute MORE than their proportion to the +next generation. Eugenics thus concerns itself with all influences that +improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop +them to the utmost advantage. It is, in short, the attempt to bring +reason and intelligence to bear upon HEREDITY. But Galton, in spite +of the immense value of this approach and his great stimulation to +criticism, was completely unable to formulate a definite and practical +working program. He hoped at length to introduce Eugenics "into the +national conscience like a new religion.... I see no impossibility in +Eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind, but its details must +first be worked out sedulously in the study. Over-zeal leading to hasty +action, would do harm by holding out expectations of a new golden +age, which will certainly be falsified and cause the science to +be discredited. The first and main point is to secure the general +intellectual acceptance of Eugenics as a hopeful and most important +study. Then, let its principles work into the heart of the nation, who +will gradually give practical effect to them in ways that we may not +wholly foresee."(1) + +Galton formulated a general law of inheritance which declared that an +individual receives one-half of his inheritance from his two +parents, one-fourth from his four grandparents, one-eighth from his +great-grandparents, one-sixteenth from his great-great grandparents, and +so on by diminishing fractions to his primordial ancestors, the sum +of all these fractions added together contributing to the whole of the +inherited make-up. The trouble with this generalization, from the modern +Mendelian point of view, is that it fails to define what "characters" +one would get in the one-half that came from one's parents, or the +one-fourth from one's grandparents. The whole of our inheritance is +not composed of these indefinitely made up fractional parts. We are +interested rather in those more specific traits or characters, mental +or physical, which, in the Mendelian view, are structural and functional +units, making up a mosaic rather than a blend. The laws of heredity are +concerned with the precise behavior, during a series of generations, of +these specific unit characters. This behavior, as the study of Genetics +shows, may be determined in lesser organisms by experiment. Once +determined, they are subject to prophecy. + +The problem of human heredity is now seen to be infinitely more complex +than imagined by Galton and his followers, and the optimistic hope of +elevating Eugenics to the level of a religion is a futile one. Most of +the Eugenists, including Professor Karl Pearson and his colleagues of +the Eugenics Laboratory of the University of London and of the biometric +laboratory in University College, have retained the age-old point +of view of "Nature vs. Nurture" and have attempted to show the +predominating influence of Heredity AS OPPOSED TO Environment. This +may be true; but demonstrated and repeated in investigation after +investigation, it nevertheless remains fruitless and unprofitable from +the practical point of view. + +We should not minimize the great outstanding service of Eugenics for +critical and diagnostic investigations. It demonstrates, not in terms of +glittering generalization but in statistical studies of investigations +reduced to measurement and number, that uncontrolled fertility is +universally correlated with disease, poverty, overcrowding and the +transmission of hereditable taints. Professor Pearson and his associates +show us that "if fertility be correlated with anti-social hereditary +characters, a population will inevitably degenerate." + +This degeneration has already begun. Eugenists demonstrate that +two-thirds of our manhood of military age are physically too unfit +to shoulder a rifle; that the feeble-minded, the syphilitic, the +irresponsible and the defective breed unhindered; that women are driven +into factories and shops on day-shift and night-shift; that children, +frail carriers of the torch of life, are put to work at an early +age; that society at large is breeding an ever-increasing army of +under-sized, stunted and dehumanized slaves; that the vicious circle of +mental and physical defect, delinquency and beggary is encouraged, +by the unseeing and unthinking sentimentality of our age, to populate +asylum, hospital and prison. + +All these things the Eugenists sees and points out with a courage +entirely admirable. But as a positive program of redemption, orthodox +Eugenics can offer nothing more "constructive" than a renewed "cradle +competition" between the "fit" and the "unfit." It sees that the +most responsible and most intelligent members of society are the less +fertile; that the feeble-minded are the more fertile. Herein lies the +unbalance, the great biological menace to the future of civilization. +Are we heading to biological destruction, toward the gradual but certain +attack upon the stocks of intelligence and racial health by the sinister +forces of the hordes of irresponsibility and imbecility? This is not +such a remote danger as the optimistic Eugenist might suppose. The +mating of the moron with a person of sound stock may, as Dr. Tredgold +points out, gradually disseminate this trait far and wide until it +undermines the vigor and efficiency of an entire nation and an entire +race. This is no idle fancy. We must take it into account if we wish to +escape the fate that has befallen so many civilizations in the past. + +"It is, indeed, more than likely that the presence of this impairment +in a mitigated form is responsible for no little of the defective +character, the diminution of mental and moral fiber at the present day," +states Dr. Tredgold.(2) Such populations, this distinguished authority +might have added, form the veritable "cultures" not only for contagious +physical diseases but for mental instability and irresponsibility also. +They are susceptible, exploitable, hysterical, non-resistant to external +suggestion. Devoid of stamina, such folk become mere units in a mob. +"The habit of crowd-making is daily becoming a more serious menace to +civilization," writes Everett Dean Martin. "Our society is becoming +a veritable babel of gibbering crowds."(3) It would be only the +incorrigible optimist who refused to see the integral relation between +this phenomenon and the indiscriminate breeding by which we recruit our +large populations. + +The danger of recruiting our numbers from the most "fertile stocks" is +further emphasized when we recall that in a democracy like that of the +United States every man and woman is permitted a vote in the government, +and that it is the representatives of this grade of intelligence who may +destroy our liberties, and who may thus be the most far-reaching peril +to the future of civilization. + +"It is a pathological worship of mere number," writes Alleyne Ireland, +"which has inspired all the efforts--the primary, the direct election +of Senators, the initiative, the recall and the referendum--to cure the +evils of mob rule by increasing the size of the mob and extending its +powers."(4) + +Equality of political power has thus been bestowed upon the lowest +elements of our population. We must not be surprised, therefore, at +the spectacle of political scandal and graft, of the notorious and +universally ridiculed low level of intelligence and flagrant stupidity +exhibited by our legislative bodies. The Congressional Record mirrors +our political imbecility. + +All of these dangers and menaces are acutely realized by the Eugenists; +it is to them that we are most indebted for the proof that reckless +spawning carries with it the seeds of destruction. But whereas the +Galtonians reveal themselves as unflinching in their investigation and +in their exhibition of fact and diagnoses of symptoms, they do not on +the other hand show much power in suggesting practical and feasible +remedies. + +On its scientific side, Eugenics suggests the reestabilishment of +the balance between the fertility of the "fit" and the "unfit." The +birth-rate among the normal and healthier and finer stocks of humanity, +is to be increased by awakening among the "fit" the realization of the +dangers of a lessened birth-rate in proportion to the reckless breeding +among the "unfit." By education, by persuasion, by appeals to racial +ethics and religious motives, the ardent Eugenist hopes to increase the +fertility of the "fit." Professor Pearson thinks that it is especially +necessary to awaken the hardiest stocks to this duty. These stocks, +he says, are to be found chiefly among the skilled artisan class, the +intelligent working class. Here is a fine combination of health and +hardy vigor, of sound body and sound mind. + +Professor Pearson and his school of biometrics here ignore or at least +fail to record one of those significant "correlations" which form the +basis of his method. The publications of the Eugenics Laboratory all +tend to show that a high rate of fertility is correlated with extreme +poverty, recklessness, deficiency and delinquency; similarly, that +among the more intelligent, this rate of fertility decreases. But the +scientific Eugenists fail to recognize that this restraint of fecundity +is due to a deliberate foresight and is a conscious effort to +elevate standards of living for the family and the children of the +responsible--and possibly more selfish--sections of the community. The +appeal to enter again into competitive child-bearing, for the benefit +of the nation or the race, or any other abstraction, will fall on deaf +ears. + +Pearson has done invaluable work in pointing out the fallacies and the +false conclusions of the ordinary statisticians. But when he attempts to +show by the methods of biometrics that not only the first child but +also the second, are especially liable to suffer from transmissible +pathological defects, such as insanity, criminality and tuberculosis, +he fails to recognize that this tendency is counterbalanced by the high +mortality rate among later children. If first and second children reveal +a greater percentage of heritable defect, it is because the later born +children are less liable to survive the conditions produced by a large +family. + +In passing, we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the +idea of "fit" and "unfit." Who is to decide this question? The grosser, +the more obvious, the undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only +be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. But among the +writings of the representative Eugenists one cannot ignore the distinct +middle-class bias that prevails. As that penetrating critic, F. W. +Stella Browne, has said in another connection, "The Eugenics Education +Society has among its numbers many most open-minded and truly +progressive individuals but the official policy it has pursued for years +has been inspired by class-bias and sex bias. The society laments with +increasing vehemence the multiplication of the less fortunate classes at +a more rapid rate than the possessors of leisure and opportunity. (I do +not think it relevant here to discuss whether the innate superiority of +endowment in the governing class really is so overwhelming as to justify +the Eugenics Education Society's peculiar use of the terms `fit' and +`unfit'!) Yet it has persistently refused to give any help toward +extending the knowledge of contraceptives to the exploited classes. +Similarly, though the Eugenics Review, the organ of the society, +frequently laments the `selfishness' of the refusal of maternity by +healthy and educated women of the professional classes, I have yet +to learn that it has made any official pronouncement on the English +illegitimacy laws or any organized effort toward defending the unmarried +mother." + +This peculiarly Victorian reticence may be inherited from the founder of +Eugenics. Galton declared that the "Bohemian" element in the Anglo-Saxon +race is destined to perish, and "the sooner it goes, the happier for +mankind." The trouble with any effort of trying to divide humanity +into the "fit" and the "unfit," is that we do not want, as H. G. Wells +recently pointed out,(5) to breed for uniformity but for variety. "We +want statesmen and poets and musicians and philosophers and strong +men and delicate men and brave men. The qualities of one would be the +weaknesses of the other." We want, most of all, genius. + +Proscription on Galtonian lines would tend to eliminate many of the +great geniuses of the world who were not only "Bohemian," but actually +and pathologically abnormal--men like Rousseau, Dostoevsky, Chopin, Poe, +Schumann, Nietzsche, Comte, Guy de Maupassant,--and how many others? +But such considerations should not lead us into error of concluding that +such men were geniuses merely because they were pathological specimens, +and that the only way to produce a genius is to breed disease and +defect. It only emphasizes the dangers of external standards of "fit" +and "unfit." + +These limitations are more strikingly shown in the types of so-called +"eugenic" legislation passed or proposed by certain enthusiasts. +Regulation, compulsion and prohibitions affected and enacted by +political bodies are the surest methods of driving the whole problem +under-ground. As Havelock Ellis has pointed out, the absurdity and even +hopelessness of effecting Eugenic improvement by placing on the statute +books prohibitions of legal matrimony to certain classes of people, +reveal the weakness of those Eugenists who minimize or undervalue the +importance of environment as a determining factor. They affirm that +heredity is everything and environment nothing, yet forget that it is +precisely those who are most universally subject to bad environment who +procreate most copiously, most recklessly and most disastrously. Such +marriage laws are based for the most part on the infantile assumption +that procreation is absolutely dependent upon the marriage ceremony, +an assumption usually coupled with the complementary one that the only +purpose in marriage is procreation. Yet it is a fact so obvious that it +is hardly worth stating that the most fertile classes who indulge in the +most dysgenic type of procreating--the feeble-minded--are almost totally +unaffected by marriage laws and marriage-ceremonies. + +As for the sterilization of habitual criminals, not merely must we +know more of heredity and genetics in general, but also acquire +more certainty of the justice of our laws and the honesty of their +administration before we can make rulings of fitness or unfitness merely +upon the basis of a respect for law. On this point the eminent William +Bateson writes:(6) "Criminals are often feeble-minded, but as regards +those that are not, the fact that a man is for the purposes of Society +classified as a criminal, tells me little as to his value, still less +as to the possible value of his offspring. It is a fault inherent in +criminal jurisprudence, based on non-biological data, that the law must +needs take the nature of the offenses rather than that of the offenders +as the basis of classification. A change in the right direction has +begun, but the problem is difficult and progress will be very slow.... We +all know of persons convicted, perhaps even habitually, whom the +world could ill spare. Therefore I hesitate to proscribe the criminal. +Proscription... is a weapon with a very nasty recoil. Might not some +with equal cogency proscribe army contractors and their accomplices, +the newspaper patriots? The crimes of the prison population are petty +offenses by comparison, and the significance we attach to them is a +survival of other days. Felonies may be great events, locally, but they +do not induce catastrophies. The proclivities of the war-makers are +infinitely more dangerous than those of the aberrant beings whom from +time to time the law may dub as criminal. Consistent and portentous +selfishness, combined with dullness of imagination is probably just as +transmissible as want of self-control, though destitute of the amiable +qualities not rarely associated with the genetic composition of persons +of unstable mind." + +In this connection, we should note another type of "respectable" +criminality noted by Havelock Ellis: "If those persons who raise the cry +of `race-suicide' in face of the decline of the birth-rate really had +the knowledge and the intelligence to realize the manifold evils which +they are invoking, they would deserve to be treated as criminals." + +Our debt to the science of Eugenics is great in that it directs our +attention to the biological nature of humanity. Yet there is too great +a tendency among the thinkers of this school, to restrict their ideas +of sex to its expression as a purely procreative function. Compulsory +legislation which would make the inevitably futile attempt to prohibit +one of the most beneficent and necessary of human expressions, or +regulate it into the channels of preconceived philosophies, would reduce +us to the unpleasant days predicted by William Blake, when + +"Priests in black gowns will be walking their rounds And binding with +briars our joys and desires." + +Eugenics is chiefly valuable in its negative aspects. It is "negative +Eugenics" that has studied the histories of such families as the Jukeses +and the Kallikaks, that has pointed out the network of imbecility and +feeble-mindedness that has been sedulously spread through all strata +of society. On its so-called positive or constructive side, it fails to +awaken any permanent interest. "Constructive" Eugenics aims to arouse +the enthusiasm or the interest of the people in the welfare of the world +fifteen or twenty generations in the future. On its negative side it +shows us that we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of +an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never +should have been born at all--that the wealth of individuals and of +states is being diverted from the development and the progress of human +expression and civilization. + +While it is necessary to point out the importance of "heredity" as +a determining factor in human life, it is fatal to elevate it to the +position of an absolute. As with environment, the concept of heredity +derives its value and its meaning only in so far as it is embodied +and made concrete in generations of living organisms. Environment and +heredity are not antagonistic. Our problem is not that of "Nature vs. +Nurture," but rather of Nature x Nurture, of heredity multiplied by +environment, if we may express it thus. The Eugenist who overlooks the +importance of environment as a determining factor in human life, is as +short-sighted as the Socialist who neglects the biological nature of +man. We cannot disentangle these two forces, except in theory. To the +child in the womb, said Samuel Butler, the mother is "environment." She +is, of course, likewise "heredity." The age-old discussion of "Nature +vs. Nurture" has been threshed out time after time, usually fruitlessly, +because of a failure to recognize the indivisibility of these biological +factors. The opposition or antagonism between them is an artificial and +academic one, having no basis in the living organism. + +The great principle of Birth Control offers the means whereby the +individual may adapt himself to and even control the forces of +environment and heredity. Entirely apart from its Malthusian aspect or +that of the population question, Birth Control must be recognized, as +the Neo-Malthusians pointed out long ago, not "merely as the key of the +social position," and the only possible and practical method of human +generation, but as the very pivot of civilization. Birth Control which +has been criticized as negative and destructive, is really the greatest +and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program +of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to +that science. As a matter of fact, Birth Control has been accepted by +the most clear thinking and far seeing of the Eugenists themselves as +the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health.(7) + + (1) Galton. Essays in Eugenics, p. 43. + + (2) Eugenics Review, Vol. XIII, p. 349. + + (3) Cf. Martin, The Behavior of Crowds, p. 6. + + (4) Cf. Democracy and the Human Equation. E. P. Dutton & + Co., 1921. + + (5) Cf. The Salvaging of Civilization. + + (6) Common Sense in Racial Problems. By W. Bateson, M. A. + A., F. R. S. + + (7) Among these are Dean W. R. Inge, Professor J. Arthur + Thomson, Dr. Havelock Ellis, Professor William Bateson, + Major Leonard Darwin and Miss Norah March. + + + + +CHAPTER IX: A Moral Necessity + + I went to the Garden of Love, + And saw what I never had seen; + A Chapel was built in the midst, + Where I used to play on the green. + + And the gates of this Chapel were shut, + And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door; + So I turned to the Garden of Love + That so many sweet flowers bore. + + And I saw it was filled with graves, + And tombstones where flowers should be; + And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, + And binding with briars my joys and desires. + + --William Blake + +Orthodox opposition to Birth Control is formulated in the official +protest of the National Council of Catholic Women against the resolution +passed by the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs which favored +the removal of all obstacles to the spread of information regarding +practical methods of Birth Control. The Catholic statement completely +embodies traditional opposition to Birth Control. It affords a striking +contrast by which we may clarify and justify the ethical necessity for +this new instrument of civilization as the most effective basis for +practical and scientific morality. "The authorities at Rome have again +and again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral +and forbidden," states the National Council of Catholic Women. "There +is no question of the lawfulness of birth restriction through abstinence +from the relations which result in conception. The immorality of Birth +Control as it is practised and commonly understood, consists in the +evils of the particular method employed. These are all contrary to the +moral law because they are unnatural, being a perversion of a natural +function. Human faculties are used in such a way as to frustrate the +natural end for which these faculties were created. This is always +intrinsically wrong--as wrong as lying and blasphemy. No supposed +beneficial consequence can make good a practice which is, in itself, +immoral.... + +"The evil results of the practice of Birth Control are numerous. +Attention will be called here to only three. The first is the +degradation of the marital relation itself, since the husband and wife +who indulge in any form of this practice come to have a lower idea of +married life. They cannot help coming to regard each other to a great +extent as mutual instruments of sensual gratification, rather than as +cooperators with the Creating in bringing children into the world. This +consideration may be subtle but it undoubtedly represents the facts. + +"In the second place, the deliberate restriction of the family through +these immoral practices deliberately weakens self-control and the +capacity for self-denial, and increases the love of ease and luxury. The +best indication of this is that the small family is much more prevalent +in the classes that are comfortable and well-to-do than among those +whose material advantages are moderate or small. The theory of the +advocates of Birth Control is that those parents who are comfortably +situated should have a large number of children (SIC!) while the poor +should restrict their offspring to a much smaller number. This theory +does not work, for the reason that each married couple have their own +idea of what constitutes unreasonable hardship in the matter of bearing +and rearing children. A large proportion of the parents who are addicted +to Birth Control practices are sufficiently provided with worldly goods +to be free from apprehension on the economic side; nevertheless, they +have small families because they are disinclined to undertake the other +burdens involved in bringing up a more numerous family. A practice which +tends to produce such exaggerated notions of what constitutes hardship, +which leads men and women to cherish such a degree of ease, makes +inevitably for inefficiency, a decline in the capacity to endure and to +achieve, and for a general social decadence. + +"Finally, Birth Control leads sooner or later to a decline in +population...." (The case of France is instanced.) But it is essentially +the moral question that alarms the Catholic women, for the statement +concludes: "The further effect of such proposed legislation will +inevitably be a lowering both of public and private morals. What the +fathers of this country termed indecent and forbade the mails to carry, +will, if such legislation is carried through, be legally decent. The +purveyors of sexual license and immorality will have the opportunity to +send almost anything they care to write through the mails on the plea +that it is sex information. Not only the married but also the unmarried +will be thus affected; the ideals of the young contaminated and lowered. +The morals of the entire nation will suffer. + +"The proper attitude of Catholics... is clear. They should watch and +oppose all attempts in state legislatures and in Congress to repeal +the laws which now prohibit the dissemination of information concerning +Birth Control. Such information will be spread only too rapidly despite +existing laws. To repeal these would greatly accelerate this deplorable +movement.(1)" + +The Catholic position has been stated in an even more extreme form +by Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes of the archdiocese of New York. In a +"Christmas Pastoral" this dignitary even went to the extent of declaring +that "even though some little angels in the flesh, through the physical +or mental deformities of their parents, may appear to human eyes +hideous, misshapen, a blot on civilized society, we must not lose +sight of this Christian thought that under and within such visible +malformation, lives an immortal soul to be saved and glorified for all +eternity among the blessed in heaven."(2) + +With the type of moral philosophy expressed in this utterance, we +need not argue. It is based upon traditional ideas that have had the +practical effect of making this world a vale of tears. Fortunately such +words carry no weight with those who can bring free and keen as well as +noble minds to the consideration of the matter. To them the idealism of +such an utterance appears crude and cruel. The menace to civilization of +such orthodoxy, if it be orthodoxy, lies in the fact that its powerful +exponents may be for a time successful not merely in influencing +the conduct of their adherents but in checking freedom of thought and +discussion. To this, with all the vehemence of emphasis at our command, +we object. From what Archbishop Hayes believes concerning the future +blessedness in Heaven of the souls of those who are born into this world +as hideous and misshapen beings he has a right to seek such consolation +as may be obtained; but we who are trying to better the conditions of +this world believe that a healthy, happy human race is more in keeping +with the laws of God, than disease, misery and poverty perpetuating +itself generation after generation. Furthermore, while conceding to +Catholic or other churchmen full freedom to preach their own doctrines, +whether of theology or morals, nevertheless when they attempt to carry +these ideas into legislative acts and force their opinions and codes +upon the non-Catholics, we consider such action an interference with the +principles of democracy and we have a right to protest. + +Religious propaganda against Birth Control is crammed with contradiction +and fallacy. It refutes itself. Yet it brings the opposing views into +vivid contrast. In stating these differences we should make clear +that advocates of Birth Control are not seeking to attack the Catholic +church. We quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume +authority over non-Catholics and to dub their behavior immoral because +they do not conform to the dictatorship of Rome. The question of bearing +and rearing children we hold is the concern of the mother and the +potential mother. If she delegates the responsibility, the ethical +education, to an external authority, that is her affair. We object, +however, to the State or the Church which appoints itself as arbiter +and dictator in this sphere and attempts to force unwilling women into +compulsory maternity. + +When Catholics declare that "The authorities at Rome have again and +again declared that all positive methods of this nature are immoral and +forbidden," they do so upon the assumption that morality consists in +conforming to laws laid down and enforced by external authority, in +submission to decrees and dicta imposed from without. In this case, they +decide in a wholesale manner the conduct of millions, demanding of +them not the intelligent exercise of their own individual judgment and +discrimination, but unquestioning submission and conformity to dogma. +The Church thus takes the place of all-powerful parents, and demands +of its children merely that they should obey. In my belief such a +philosophy hampers the development of individual intelligence. Morality +then becomes a more or less successful attempt to conform to a code, +instead of an attempt to bring reason and intelligence to bear upon the +solution of each individual human problem. + +But, we read on, Birth Control methods are not merely contrary to "moral +law," but forbidden because they are "unnatural," being "the perversion +of a natural function." This, of course, is the weakest link in the +whole chain. Yet "there is no question of the lawfulness of birth +restriction through abstinence"--as though abstinence itself were not +unnatural! For more than a thousand years the Church was occupied with +the problem of imposing abstinence on its priesthood, its most educated +and trained body of men, educated to look upon asceticism as the finest +ideal; it took one thousand years to convince the Catholic priesthood +that abstinence was "natural" or practicable.(3) Nevertheless, there is +still this talk of abstinence, self-control, and self-denial, almost in +the same breath with the condemnation of Birth Control as "unnatural." + +If it is our duty to act as "cooperators with the Creator" to bring +children into the world, it is difficult to say at what point our +behavior is "unnatural." If it is immoral and "unnatural" to prevent +an unwanted life from coming into existence, is it not immoral and +"unnatural" to remain unmarried from the age of puberty? Such casuistry +is unconvincing and feeble. We need only point out that rational +intelligence is also a "natural" function, and that it is as imperative +for us to use the faculties of judgment, criticism, discrimination of +choice, selection and control, all the faculties of the intelligence, +as it is to use those of reproduction. It is certainly dangerous "to +frustrate the natural ends for which these faculties were created." +This also, is always intrinsically wrong--as wrong as lying and +blasphemy--and infinitely more devastating. Intelligence is as natural +to us as any other faculty, and it is fatal to moral development and +growth to refuse to use it and to delegate to others the solution of +our individual problems. The evil will not be that one's conduct is +divergent from current and conventional moral codes. There may be every +outward evidence of conformity, but this agreement may be arrived at, by +the restriction and suppression of subjective desires, and the more +or less successful attempt at mere conformity. Such "morality" would +conceal an inner conflict. The fruits of this conflict would be neurosis +and hysteria on the one hand; or concealed gratification of suppressed +desires on the other, with a resultant hypocrisy and cant. True morality +cannot be based on conformity. There must be no conflict between +subjective desire and outward behavior. + +To object to these traditional and churchly ideas does not by any means +imply that the doctrine of Birth Control is anti-Christian. On the +contrary, it may be profoundly in accordance with the Sermon on the +Mount. One of the greatest living theologians and most penetrating +students of the problems of civilization is of this opinion. In an +address delivered before the Eugenics Education Society of London,(4) +William Ralph Inge, the Very Reverend Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, +London, pointed out that the doctrine of Birth Control was to be +interpreted as of the very essence of Christianity. + +"We should be ready to give up all our theories," he asserted, "if +science proved that we were on the wrong lines. And we can understand, +though we profoundly disagree with, those who oppose us on the grounds +of authority.... We know where we are with a man who says, `Birth Control +is forbidden by God; we prefer poverty, unemployment, war, the physical, +intellectual and moral degeneration of the people, and a high death rate, +to any interference with the universal command to be fruitful and +multiply'; but we have no patience with those who say that we can have +unrestricted and unregulated propagation without those consequences. +It is a great part of our work to press home to the public mind the +alternative that lies before us. Either rational selection must take the +place of the natural selection which the modern State will not allow to +act, or we must go on deteriorating. When we can convince the public of +this, the opposition of organized religion will soon collapse or become +ineffective." Dean Inge effectively answers those who have objected +to the methods of Birth Control as "immoral" and in contradiction and +inimical to the teachings of Christ. Incidentally he claims that those +who are not blinded by prejudices recognize that "Christianity aims at +saving the soul--the personality, the nature, of man, not his body or +his environment. According to Christianity, a man is saved, not by +what he has, or knows, or does, but by what he is. It treats all the +apparatus of life with a disdain as great as that of the biologist; so +long as a man is inwardly healthy, it cares very little whether he +is rich or poor, learned or simple, and even whether he is happy, or +unhappy. It attaches no importance to quantitative measurements of any +kind. The Christian does not gloat over favorable trade-statistics, nor +congratulate himself on the disparity between the number of births and +deaths. For him... the test of the welfare of a country is the quality +of human beings whom it produces. Quality is everything, quantity is +nothing. And besides this, the Christian conception of a kingdom of God +upon the earth teaches us to turn our eyes to the future, and to think +of the welfare of posterity as a thing which concerns us as much as that +of our own generation. This welfare, as conceived by Christianity, is +of course something different from external prosperity; it is to be the +victory of intrinsic worth and healthiness over all the false ideals and +deep-seated diseases which at present spoil civilization." + +"It is not political religion with which I am concerned," Dean Inge +explained, "but the convictions of really religious persons; and I do +not think that we need despair of converting them to our views." + +Dean Inge believes Birth Control is an essential part of Eugenics, and +an essential part of Christian morality. On this point he asserts: "We +do wish to remind our orthodox and conservative friends that the Sermon +on the Mount contains some admirably clear and unmistakable eugenic +precepts. `Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? A +corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither can a good tree +bring forth evil fruit. Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit +is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' We wish to apply these words not +only to the actions of individuals, which spring from their characters, +but to the character of individuals, which spring from their inherited +qualities. This extension of the scope of the maxim seems to me quite +legitimate. Men do not gather grapes of thorns. As our proverb says, you +cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If we believe this, and do +not act upon it by trying to move public opinion towards giving social +reform, education and religion a better material to work upon, we +are sinning against the light, and not doing our best to bring in the +Kingdom of God upon earth." + +As long as sexual activity is regarded in a dualistic and contradictory +light,--in which it is revealed either as the instrument by which men +and women "cooperate with the Creator" to bring children into the +world, on the one hand; and on the other, as the sinful instrument of +self-gratification, lust and sensuality, there is bound to be an endless +conflict in human conduct, producing ever increasing misery, pain and +injustice. In crystallizing and codifying this contradiction, the Church +not only solidified its own power over men but reduced women to the most +abject and prostrate slavery. It was essentially a morality that would +not "work." The sex instinct in the human race is too strong to be bound +by the dictates of any church. The church's failure, its century after +century of failure, is now evident on every side: for, having convinced +men and women that only in its baldly propagative phase is sexual +expression legitimate, the teachings of the Church have driven sex +under-ground, into secret channels, strengthened the conspiracy of +silence, concentrated men's thoughts upon the "lusts of the body," have +sown, cultivated and reaped a crop of bodily and mental diseases, and +developed a society congenitally and almost hopelessly unbalanced. How +is any progress to be made, how is any human expression or education +possible when women and men are taught to combat and resist their +natural impulses and to despise their bodily functions? + +Humanity, we are glad to realize, is rapidly freeing itself from this +"morality" imposed upon it by its self-appointed and self-perpetuating +masters. From a hundred different points the imposing edifice of this +"morality" has been and is being attacked. Sincere and thoughtful +defenders and exponents of the teachings of Christ now acknowledge the +falsity of the traditional codes and their malignant influence upon the +moral and physical well-being of humanity. + +Ecclesiastical opposition to Birth Control on the part of certain +representatives of the Protestant churches, based usually on quotations +from the Bible, is equally invalid, and for the same reason. The +attitude of the more intelligent and enlightened clergy has been well +and succinctly expressed by Dean Inge, who, referring to the ethics of +Birth Control, writes: "THIS IS EMPHATICALLY A MATTER IN WHICH EVERY +MAN AND WOMAN MUST JUDGE FOR THEMSELVES, AND MUST REFRAIN FROM JUDGING +OTHERS." We must not neglect the important fact that it is not merely +in the practical results of such a decision, not in the small number of +children, not even in the healthier and better cared for children, not +in the possibility of elevating the living conditions of the individual +family, that the ethical value of Birth Control alone lies. Precisely +because the practice of Birth Control does demand the exercise of +decision, the making of choice, the use of the reasoning powers, is +it an instrument of moral education as well as of hygienic and racial +advance. It awakens the attention of parents to their potential +children. It forces upon the individual consciousness the question of +the standards of living. In a profound manner it protects and reasserts +the inalienable rights of the child-to-be. + +Psychology and the outlook of modern life are stressing the growth +of independent responsibility and discrimination as the true basis of +ethics. The old traditional morality, with its train of vice, disease, +promiscuity and prostitution, is in reality dying out, killing itself +off because it is too irresponsible and too dangerous to individual +and social well-being. The transition from the old to the new, like +all fundamental changes, is fraught with many dangers. But it is a +revolution that cannot be stopped. + +The smaller family, with its lower infant mortality rate, is, in more +definite and concrete manner than many actions outwardly deemed "moral," +the expression of moral judgment and responsibility. It is the assertion +of a standard of living, inspired by the wish to obtain a fuller and +more expressive life for the children than the parents have enjoyed. If +the morality or immorality of any course of conduct is to be determined +by the motives which inspire it, there is evidently at the present day +no higher morality than the intelligent practice of Birth Control. + +The immorality of many who practise Birth Control lies in not daring to +preach what they practise. What is the secret of the hypocrisy of the +well-to-do, who are willing to contribute generously to charities +and philanthropies, who spend thousands annually in the upkeep and +sustenance of the delinquent, the defective and the dependent; and yet +join the conspiracy of silence that prevents the poorer classes from +learning how to improve their conditions, and elevate their standards +of living? It is as though they were to cry: "We'll give you anything +except the thing you ask for--the means whereby you may become +responsible and self-reliant in your own lives." + +The brunt of this injustice falls on women, because the old traditional +morality is the invention of men. "No religion, no physical or moral +code," wrote the clear-sighted George Drysdale, "proposed by one sex +for the other, can be really suitable. Each must work out its laws for +itself in every department of life." In the moral code developed by the +Church, women have been so degraded that they have been habituated to +look upon themselves through the eyes of men. Very imperfectly have +women developed their own self-consciousness, the realization of their +tremendous and supreme position in civilization. Women can develop +this power only in one way; by the exercise of responsibility, by the +exercise of judgment, reason or discrimination. They need ask for +no "rights." They need only assert power. Only by the exercise of +self-guidance and intelligent self-direction can that inalienable, +supreme, pivotal power be expressed. More than ever in history +women need to realize that nothing can ever come to us from another. +Everything we attain we must owe to ourselves. Our own spirit must +vitalize it. Our own heart must feel it. For we are not passive +machines. We are not to be lectured, guided and molded this way or that. +We are alive and intelligent, we women, no less than men, and we must +awaken to the essential realization that we are living beings, endowed +with will, choice, comprehension, and that every step in life must be +taken at our own initiative. + +Moral and sexual balance in civilization will only be established by the +assertion and expression of power on the part of women. This power will +not be found in any futile seeking for economic independence or in the +aping of men in industrial and business pursuits, nor by joining battle +for the so-called "single standard." Woman's power can only be expressed +and make itself felt when she refuses the task of bringing unwanted +children into the world to be exploited in industry and slaughtered in +wars. When we refuse to produce battalions of babies to be exploited; +when we declare to the nation; "Show us that the best possible chance in +life is given to every child now brought into the world, before you cry +for more! At present our children are a glut on the market. You hold +infant life cheap. Help us to make the world a fit place for children. +When you have done this, we will bear you children,--then we shall be +true women." The new morality will express this power and responsibility +on the part of women. + +"With the realization of the moral responsibility of women," writes +Havelock Ellis, "the natural relations of life spring back to their due +biological adjustment. Motherhood is restored to its natural sacredness. +It becomes the concern of the woman herself, and not of society nor any +individual, to determine the conditions under which the child shall be +conceived...." + +Moreover, woman shall further assert her power by refusing to remain +the passive instrument of sensual self-gratification on the part of +men. Birth Control, in philosophy and practice, is the destroyer of +that dualism of the old sexual code. It denies that the sole purpose +of sexual activity is procreation; it also denies that sex should +be reduced to the level of sensual lust, or that woman should permit +herself to be the instrument of its satisfaction. In increasing and +differentiating her love demands, woman must elevate sex into another +sphere, whereby it may subserve and enhance the possibility of +individual and human expression. Man will gain in this no less than +woman; for in the age-old enslavement of woman he has enslaved himself; +and in the liberation of womankind, all of humanity will experience the +joys of a new and fuller freedom. + +On this great fundamental and pivotal point new light has been thrown +by Lord Bertrand Dawson, the physician of the King of England. In the +remarkable and epoch-making address at the Birmingham Church Congress +(referred to in my introduction), he spoke of the supreme morality of +the mutual and reciprocal joy in the most intimate relation between man +and woman. Without this reciprocity there can be no civilization worthy +of the name. Lord Dawson suggested that there should be added to the +clauses of marriage in the Prayer Book "the complete realization of the +love of this man and this woman one for another," and in support of his +contention declared that sex love between husband and wife--apart from +parenthood--was something to prize and cherish for its own sake. The +Lambeth Conference, he remarked, "envisaged a love invertebrate and +joyless," whereas, in his view, natural passion in wedlock was not a +thing to be ashamed of or unduly repressed. The pronouncement of +the Church of England, as set forth in Resolution 68 of the Lambeth +Conference seems to imply condemnation of sex love as such, and to imply +sanction of sex love only as a means to an end,--namely, procreation. +The Lambeth Resolution stated: + +"In opposition to the teaching which under the name of science and +religion encourages married people in the deliberate cultivation of +sexual union as an end in itself, we steadfastly uphold what must always +be regarded as the governing considerations of Christian marriage. +One is the primary purpose for which marriage exists--namely, the +continuation of the race through the gift and heritage of children; +the other is the paramount importance in married life of deliberate and +thoughtful self-control." + +In answer to this point of view Lord Dawson asserted: + +"Sex love has, apart from parenthood, a purport of its own. It is +something to prize and to cherish for its own sake. It is an essential +part of health and happiness in marriage. And now, if you will allow me, +I will carry this argument a step further. If sexual union is a gift of +God it is worth learning how to use it. Within its own sphere it should +be cultivated so as to bring physical satisfaction to both, not merely +to one.... The real problems before us are those of sex love and child +love; and by sex love I mean that love which involves intercourse or the +desire for such. It is necessary to my argument to emphasize that sex +love is one of the dominating forces of the world. Not only does history +show the destinies of nations and dynasties determined by its sway--but +here in our every-day life we see its influence, direct or indirect, +forceful and ubiquitous beyond aught else. Any statesmanlike view, +therefore, will recognize that here we have an instinct so fundamental, +so imperious, that its influence is a fact which has to be accepted; +suppress it you cannot. You may guide it into healthy channels, but +an outlet it will have, and if that outlet is inadequate and unduly +obstructed irregular channels will be forced.... + +"The attainment of mutual and reciprocal joy in their relations +constitutes a firm bond between two people, and makes for durability of +the marriage tie. Reciprocity in sex love is the physical counterpart of +sympathy. More marriages fail from inadequate and clumsy sex love than +from too much sex love. The lack of proper understanding is in no small +measure responsible for the unfulfillment of connubial happiness, and +every degree of discontent and unhappiness may, from this cause, occur, +leading to rupture of the marriage bond itself. How often do medical +men have to deal with these difficulties, and how fortunate if such +difficulties are disclosed early enough in married life to be rectified. +Otherwise how tragic may be their consequences, and many a case in the +Divorce Court has thus had its origin. To the foregoing contentions, +it might be objected, you are encouraging passion. My reply would be, +passion is a worthy possession--most men, who are any good, are +capable of passion. You all enjoy ardent and passionate love in art and +literature. Why not give it a place in real life? Why some people look +askance at passion is because they are confusing it with sensuality. Sex +love without passion is a poor, lifeless thing. Sensuality, on the other +hand, is on a level with gluttony--a physical excess--detached from +sentiment, chivalry, or tenderness. It is just as important to give sex +love its place as to avoid its over-emphasis. Its real and effective +restraints are those imposed by a loving and sympathetic companionship, +by the privileges of parenthood, the exacting claims of career and +that civic sense which prompts men to do social service. Now that the +revision of the Prayer Book is receiving consideration, I should like to +suggest with great respect an addition made to the objects of marriage +in the Marriage Service, in these terms, 'The complete realization of +the love of this man and this woman, the one for the other.'" + +Turning to the specific problem of Birth Control, Lord Dawson declared, +"that Birth Control is here to stay. It is an established fact, and for +good or evil has to be accepted. Although the extent of its application +can be and is being modified, no denunciations will abolish it. Despite +the influence and condemnations of the Church, it has been practised +in France for well over half a century, and in Belgium and other Roman +Catholic countries is extending. And if the Roman Catholic Church, with +its compact organization, its power of authority, and its disciplines, +cannot check this procedure, it is not likely that Protestant Churches +will be able to do so, for Protestant religions depend for their +strength on the conviction and esteem they establish in the heads and +hearts of their people. The reasons which lead parents to limit their +offspring are sometimes selfish, but more often honorable and cogent." + +A report of the Fabian Society (5) on the morality of Birth Control, +based upon a census conducted under the chairmanship of Sidney Webb, +concludes: "These facts--which we are bound to face whether we like them +or not--will appear in different lights to different people. In +some quarters it seems to be sufficient to dismiss them with moral +indignation, real or simulated. Such a judgment appears both irrelevant +and futile.... If a course of conduct is habitually and deliberately +pursued by vast multitudes of otherwise well-conducted people, forming +probably a majority of the whole educated class of the nation, we must +assume that it does not conflict with their actual code of morality. +They may be intellectually mistaken, but they are not doing what they +feel to be wrong." + +The moral justification and ethical necessity of Birth Control need not +be empirically based upon the mere approval of experience and custom. +Its morality is more profound. Birth Control is an ethical necessity +for humanity to-day because it places in our hands a new instrument of +self-expression and self-realization. It gives us control over one of +the primordial forces of nature, to which in the past the majority +of mankind have been enslaved, and by which it has been cheapened and +debased. It arouses us to the possibility of newer and greater freedom. +It develops the power, the responsibility and intelligence to use this +freedom in living a liberated and abundant life. It permits us to enjoy +this liberty without danger of infringing upon the similar liberty of +our fellow men, or of injuring and curtailing the freedom of the next +generation. It shows us that we need not seek in the amassing of worldly +wealth, not in the illusion of some extra-terrestrial Heaven or earthly +Utopia of a remote future the road to human development. The Kingdom of +Heaven is in a very definite sense within us. Not by leaving our body +and our fundamental humanity behind us, not by aiming to be anything but +what we are, shall we become ennobled or immortal. By knowing ourselves, +by expressing ourselves, by realizing ourselves more completely than +has ever before been possible, not only shall we attain the kingdom +ourselves but we shall hand on the torch of life undimmed to our +children and the children of our children. + + (1) Quoted in the National Catholic Welfare Council + Bulletin: Vol. II, No. 5, p. 21 (January, 1921). + + (2) Quoted in daily press, December 19, 1921. + + (3) H. C. Lea: History of Sacerdotal Celibacy + (Philadelphia, 1967). + + (4) Eugenics Review, January 1921. + + (5) Fabian Tract No. 131. + + + + + +CHAPTER X: Science the Ally + + "There is but one hope. Ignorance, poverty, and vice + must stop populating the world. This cannot be done by + moral suasion. This cannot be done by talk or example. + This cannot be done by religion or by law, by priest + or by hangman. This cannot be done by force, physical + or moral. To accomplish this there is but one way. + Science must make woman the owner, the mistress of herself. + Science, the only possible savior of mankind, must put it + in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will + or will not become a mother." + + Robert G. Ingersoll + +"Science is the great instrument of social change," wrote A. J. +Balfour in 1908; "all the greater because its object is not change but +knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid +the din of religious and political strife, is the most vital of all +revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilization." +The Birth Control movement has allied itself with science, and no small +part of its present propaganda is to awaken the interest of scientists +to the pivotal importance to civilization of this instrument. Only with +the aid of science is it possible to perfect a practical method that +may be universally taught. As Dean Inge recently admitted: "We should be +ready to give up all our theories if science proved that we were on the +wrong lines." + +One of the principal aims of the American Birth Control League has been +to awaken the interest of scientific investigators and to point out +the rich field for original research opened up by this problem. The +correlation of reckless breeding with defective and delinquent strains, +has not, strangely enough, been subjected to close scientific scrutiny, +nor has the present biological unbalance been traced to its root. This +is a crying necessity of our day, and it cannot be accomplished without +the aid of science. + +Secondary only to the response of women themselves is the awakened +interest of scientists, statisticians, and research workers in every +field. If the clergy and the defenders of traditional morality have +opposed the movement for Birth Control, the response of enlightened +scientists and physicians has been one of the most encouraging aids in +our battle. + +Recent developments in the realm of science,--in psychology, in +physiology, in chemistry and physics--all tend to emphasize the +immediate necessity for human control over the great forces of nature. +The new ideas published by contemporary science are of the utmost +fascination and illumination even to the layman. They perform the +invaluable task of making us look at life in a new light, of searching +close at hand for the solution to heretofore closed mysteries of life. +In this brief chapter, I can touch these ideas only as they have proved +valuable to me. Professor Soddy's "Science and Life" is one of the most +inspiring of recent publications in this field; for this great authority +shows us how closely bound up is science with the whole of Society, how +science must help to solve the great and disastrous unbalance in human +society. + +As an example: a whole literature has sprung into being around the +glands, the most striking being "The Sex Complex" by Blair Bell. This +author advances the idea of the glandular system as an integral whole, +the glands forming a unity which might be termed the generative system. +Thus is reasserted the radical importance of sexual health to every +individual. The whole tendency of modern physiology and psychology, in a +word, seems gradually coming to the truth that seemed intuitively to be +revealed to that great woman, Olive Schreiner, who, in "Woman and Labor" +wrote: "... Noble is the function of physical reproduction of humanity by +the union of man and woman. Rightly viewed, that union has in it latent, +other and even higher forms of creative energy and life-dispensing +power, and... its history on earth has only begun; as the first wild rose +when it hung from its stem with its center of stamens and pistils and +its single whorl of pale petals had only begun its course, and was +destined, as the ages passed, to develop stamen upon stamen and petal +upon petal, till it assumed a hundred forms of joy and beauty. + +"And it would indeed almost seem, that, on the path toward the higher +development of sexual life on earth, as man has so often had to lead +in other paths, that here it is perhaps woman, by reason of those very +sexual conditions which in the past have crushed and trammeled her, who +is bound to lead the way and man to follow. So that it may be at last +that sexual love--that tired angel who through the ages has presided +over the march of humanity, with distraught eyes, and feather-shafts +broken and wings drabbled in the mires of lust and greed, and golden +locks caked over with the dust of injustice and oppression--till those +looking at him have sometimes cried in terror, `He is the Evil and +not the Good of life': and have sought if it were not possible, to +exterminate him--shall yet, at last, bathed from the mire and dust of +ages in the streams of friendship and freedom, leap upwards, with white +wings spread, resplendent in the sunshine of a distant future--the +essentially Good and Beautiful of human existence." + +To-day science is verifying the truth of this inspiring vision. Certain +fundamental truths concerning the basic facts of Nature and humanity +especially impress us. A rapid survey may indicate the main features of +this mysterious identity and antagonism. + +Mankind has gone forward by the capture and control of the forces of +Nature. This upward struggle began with the kindling of the first fire. +The domestication of animal life marked another great step in the long +ascent. The capture of the great physical forces, the discovery of coal +and mineral oil, of gas, steam and electricity, and their adaptation to +the everyday uses of mankind, wrought the greatest changes in the course +of civilization. With the discovery of radium and radioactivity, with +the recognition of the vast stores of physical energy concealed in the +atom, humanity is now on the eve of a new conquest. But, on the other +side, humanity has been compelled to combat continuously those great +forces of Nature which have opposed it at every moment of this long +indomitable march out of barbarism. Humanity has had to wage war against +insects, germs, bacteria, which have spread disease and epidemics and +devastation. Humanity has had to adapt itself to those natural forces +it could not conquer but could only adroitly turn to its own ends. +Nevertheless, all along the line, in colonization, in agriculture, in +medicine and in industry, mankind has triumphed over Nature. + +But lest the recognition of this victory lead us to self-satisfaction +and complacency, we should never forget that this mastery consists to +a great extent in a recognition of the power of those blind forces, and +our adroit control over them. It has been truly said that we attain +no power over Nature until we learn natural laws and conform and adapt +ourselves to them. + +The strength of the human race has been its ability not merely to +subjugate the forces of Nature, but to adapt itself to those it could +not conquer. And even this subjugation, science tells us, has not +resulted from any attempt to suppress, prohibit, or eradicate these +forces, but rather to transform blind and undirected energies to our own +purposes. + +These great natural forces, science now asserts, are not all external. +They are surely concealed within the complex organism of the human being +no less than outside of it. These inner forces are no less imperative, +no less driving and compelling than the external forces of Nature. As +the old conception of the antagonism between body and soul is broken +down, as psychology becomes an ally of physiology and biology, and +biology joins hands with physics and chemistry, we are taught to see +that there is a mysterious unity between these inner and outer forces. +They express themselves in accordance with the same structural, physical +and chemical laws. The development of civilization in the subjective +world, in the sphere of behavior, conduct and morality, has been +precisely the gradual accumulation and popularization of methods which +teach people how to direct, transform and transmute the driving power of +the great natural forces. + +Psychology is now recognizing the forces concealed in the human +organism. In the long process of adaptation to social life, men have +had to harness the wishes and desires born of these inner energies, +the greatest and most imperative of which are Sex and Hunger. From +the beginning of time, men have been driven by Hunger into a thousand +activities. It is Hunger that has created "the struggle for existence." +Hunger has spurred men to the discovery and invention of methods and +ways of avoiding starvation, of storing and exchanging foods. It has +developed primitive barter into our contemporary Wall Streets. It has +developed thrift and economy,--expedients whereby humanity avoids the +lash of King Hunger. The true "economic interpretation of history" might +be termed the History of Hunger. + +But no less fundamental, no less imperative, no less ceaseless in its +dynamic energy, has been the great force of Sex. We do not yet know the +intricate but certainly organic relationship between these two forces. +It is obvious that they oppose yet reinforce each other,--driving, +lashing, spurring mankind on to new conquests or to certain ruin. +Perhaps Hunger and Sex are merely opposite poles of a single great +life force. In the past we have made the mistake of separating them +and attempting to study one of them without the other. Birth Control +emphasizes the need of re-investigation and of knowledge of their +integral relationship, and aims at the solution of the great problem of +Hunger and Sex at one and the same time. + +In the more recent past the effort has been made to control, civilize, +and sublimate the great primordial natural force of sex, mainly by +futile efforts at prohibition, suppression, restraint, and extirpation. +Its revenge, as the psychoanalysts are showing us every day, has been +great. Insanity, hysteria, neuroses, morbid fears and compulsions, +weaken and render useless and unhappy thousands of humans who are +unconscious victims of the attempt to pit individual powers against this +great natural force. In the solution of the problem of sex, we should +bear in mind what the successful method of humanity has been in its +conquest, or rather its control of the great physical and chemical +forces of the external world. Like all other energy, that of sex is +indestructible. By adaptation, control and conscious direction, we may +transmute and sublimate it. Without irreparable injury to ourselves we +cannot attempt to eradicate it or extirpate it. + +The study of atomic energy, the discovery of radioactivity, and the +recognition of potential and latent energies stored in inanimate matter, +throw a brilliant illumination upon the whole problem of sex and +the inner energies of mankind. Speaking of the discovery of radium, +Professor Soddy writes: "Tracked to earth the clew to a great secret +for which a thousand telescopes might have swept the sky forever and +in vain, lay in a scrap of matter, dowered with something of the same +inexhaustible radiance that hitherto has been the sole prerogative of +the distant stars and sun." Radium, this distinguished authority tells +us, has clothed with its own dignity the whole empire of common matter. + +Much as the atomic theory, with its revelations of the vast treasure +house of radiant energy that lies all about us, offers new hope in the +material world, so the new psychology throws a new light upon human +energies and possibilities of individual expression. Social reformers, +like those scientists of a bygone era who were sweeping the skies +with their telescopes, have likewise been seeking far and wide for +the solution of our social problems in remote and wholesale panaceas, +whereas the true solution is close at hand,--in the human individual. +Buried within each human being lies concealed a vast store of energy, +which awaits release, expression and sublimation. The individual may +profitably be considered as the "atom" of society. And the solution of +the problems of society and of civilization will be brought about when +we release the energies now latent and undeveloped in the individual. +Professor Edwin Grant Conklin expresses the problem in another form; +though his analogy, it seems to me, is open to serious criticism. "The +freedom of the individual man," he writes,(1) "is to that of society as +the freedom of the single cell is to that of the human being. It is this +large freedom of society, rather than the freedom of the individual, +which democracy offers to the world, free societies, free states, free +nations rather than absolutely free individuals. In all organisms and in +all social organizations, the freedom of the minor units must be limited +in order that the larger unit may achieve a new and greater freedom, and +in social evolution the freedom of individuals must be merged more and +more into the larger freedom of society." + +This analogy does not bear analysis. Restraint and constraint of +individual expression, suppression of individual freedom "for the good +of society" has been practised from time immemorial; and its failure +is all too evident. There is no antagonism between the good of the +individual and the good of society. The moment civilization is wise +enough to remove the constraints and prohibitions which now hinder the +release of inner energies, most of the larger evils of society will +perish of inanition and malnutrition. Remove the moral taboos that now +bind the human body and spirit, free the individual from the slavery +of tradition, remove the chains of fear from men and women, above all +answer their unceasing cries for knowledge that would make possible +their self-direction and salvation, and in so doing, you best serve +the interests of society at large. Free, rational and self-ruling +personality would then take the place of self-made slaves, who are +the victims both of external constraints and the playthings of the +uncontrolled forces of their own instincts. + +Science likewise illuminates the whole problem of genius. Hidden in +the common stuff of humanity lies buried this power of self-expression. +Modern science is teaching us that genius is not some mysterious gift of +the gods, some treasure conferred upon individuals chosen by chance. Nor +is it, as Lombroso believed, the result of a pathological and degenerate +condition, allied to criminality and madness. Rather is it due to the +removal of physiological and psychological inhibitions and constraints +which makes possible the release and the channeling of the primordial +inner energies of man into full and divine expression. The removal of +these inhibitions, so scientists assure us, makes possible more rapid +and profound perceptions,--so rapid indeed that they seem to the +ordinary human being, practically instantaneous, or intuitive. The +qualities of genius are not, therefore, qualities lacking in the common +reservoir of humanity, but rather the unimpeded release and direction +of powers latent in all of us. This process of course is not necessarily +conscious. + +This view is substantiated by the opposite problem of feeble-mindedness. +Recent researches throw a new light on this problem and the contrasting +one of human genius. Mental defect and feeble-mindedness are conceived +essentially as retardation, arrest of development, differing in degree +so that the victim is either an idiot, an imbecile, feeble-minded or +a moron, according to the relative period at which mental development +ceases. + +Scientific research into the functioning of the ductless glands and +their secretions throws a new light on this problem. Not long ago these +glands were a complete enigma, owing to the fact that they are not +provided with excretory ducts. It has just recently been shown that +these organs, such as the thyroid, the pituitary, the suprarenal, +the parathyroid and the reproductive glands, exercise an all-powerful +influence upon the course of individual development or deficiency. Gley, +to whom we owe much of our knowledge of glandular action, has asserted +that "the genesis and exercise of the higher faculties of men are +conditioned by the purely chemical action of the product of these +secretions. Let psychologists consider these facts." + +These internal secretions or endocrines pass directly into the blood +stream, and exercise a dominating power over health and personality. +Deficiency in the thyroid secretion, especially during the years +of infancy and early childhood, creates disorders of nutrition and +inactivity of the nervous system. The particular form of idiocy known as +cretinism is the result of this deficiency, which produces an arrest +of the development of the brain cells. The other glands and their +secretions likewise exercise the most profound influence upon +development, growth and assimilation. Most of these glands are of +very small size, none of them larger than a walnut, and some--the +parathyroids--almost microscopic. Nevertheless, they are essential to +the proper maintenance of life in the body, and no less organically +related to mental and psychic development as well. + +The reproductive glands, it should not be forgotten, belong to this +group, and besides their ordinary products, the germ and sperm cells +(ova and spermatozoa) form HORMONES which circulate in the blood and +effect changes in the cells of distant parts of the body. Through these +HORMONES the secondary sexual characters are produced, including the +many differences in the form and structure of the body which are +the characteristics of the sexes. Only in recent years has science +discovered that these secondary sexual characters are brought about by +the agency of these internal secretions or hormones, passed from +the reproductive glands into the circulating blood. These so-called +secondary characters which are the sign of full and healthy development, +are dependent, science tells us, upon the state of development of the +reproductive organs. + +For a clear and illuminating account of the creative and dynamic power +of the endocrine glands, the layman is referred to a recently published +book by Dr. Louis Berman.(2) This authority reveals anew how body and +soul are bound up together in a complex unity. Our spiritual and psychic +difficulties cannot be solved until we have mastered the knowledge of +the wellsprings of our being. "The chemistry of the soul! Magnificent +phrase!" exclaims Dr. Berman. "It's a long, long way to that goal. The +exact formula is as yet far beyond our reach. But we have started upon +the long journey, and we shall get there. + +"The internal secretions constitute and determine much of the inherited +powers of the individual and their development. They control physical +and mental growth, and all the metabolic processes of fundamental +importance. They dominate all the vital functions of man during the +three cycles of life. They cooperate in an intimate relationship which +may be compared to an interlocking directorate. A derangement of +their functions, causing an insufficiency of them, an excess, or +an abnormality, upsets the entire equilibrium of the body, with +transforming effects upon the mind and the organs. In short, they +control human nature, and whoever controls them, controls human +nature.... + +"Blood chemistry of our time is a marvel, undreamed of a generation ago. +Also, these achievements are a perfect example of the accomplished fact +contradicting a prior prediction and criticism. For it was one of the +accepted dogmas of the nineteenth century that the phenomena of living +could never be subjected to accurate quantitative analysis." But the +ethical dogmas of the past, no less than the scientific, may block the +way to true civilization. + +Physiologically as well as psychologically the development of the human +being, the sane mind in the sound body, is absolutely dependent upon the +functioning and exercise of all the organs in the body. The "moralists" +who preach abstinence, self-denial, and suppression are relegated by +these findings of impartial and disinterested science to the class of +those educators of the past who taught that it was improper for young +ladies to indulge in sports and athletics and who produced generations +of feeble, undeveloped invalids, bound up by stays and addicted to +swooning and hysterics. One need only go out on the street of any +American city to-day to be confronted with the victims of the cruel +morality of self-denial and "sin." This fiendish "morality" is stamped +upon those emaciated bodies, indelibly written in those emasculated, +underdeveloped, undernourished figures of men and women, in the nervous +tension and unrelaxed muscles denoting the ceaseless vigilance in +restraining and suppressing the expression of natural impulses. + +Birth Control is no negative philosophy concerned solely with the number +of children brought into this world. It is not merely a question of +population. Primarily it is the instrument of liberation and of human +development. + +It points the way to a morality in which sexual expression and human +development will not be in conflict with the interest and well-being of +the race nor of contemporary society at large. Not only is it the most +effective, in fact the only lever by which the value of the child can be +raised to a civilized point; but it is likewise the only method by which +the life of the individual can be deepened and strengthened, by which +an inner peace and security and beauty may be substituted for the +inner conflict that is at present so fatal to self-expression and +self-realization. + +Sublimation of the sexual instinct cannot take place by denying it +expression, nor by reducing it to the plane of the purely physiological. +Sexual experience, to be of contributory value, must be integrated and +assimilated. Asceticism defeats its own purpose because it develops the +obsession of licentious and obscene thoughts, the victim alternating +between temporary victory over "sin" and the remorse of defeat. But +the seeker of purely physical pleasure, the libertine or the average +sensualist, is no less a pathological case, living as one-sided and +unbalanced a life as the ascetic, for his conduct is likewise based on +ignorance and lack of understanding. In seeking pleasure without the +exercise of responsibility, in trying to get something for nothing, he +is not merely cheating others but himself as well. + +In still another field science and scientific method now emphasize the +pivotal importance of Birth Control. The Binet-Simon intelligence tests +which have been developed, expanded, and applied to large groups of +children and adults present positive statistical data concerning the +mental equipment of the type of children brought into the world under +the influence of indiscriminate fecundity and of those fortunate +children who have been brought into the world because they are wanted, +the children of conscious, voluntary procreation, well nourished, +properly clothed, the recipients of all that proper care and love can +accomplish. + +In considering the data furnished by these intelligence tests we should +remember several factors that should be taken into consideration. +Irrespective of other considerations, children who are underfed, +undernourished, crowded into badly ventilated and unsanitary homes and +chronically hungry cannot be expected to attain the mental development +of children upon whom every advantage of intelligent and scientific +care is bestowed. Furthermore, public school methods of dealing with +children, the course of studies prescribed, may quite completely fail to +awaken and develop the intelligence. + +The statistics indicate at any rate a surprisingly low rate of +intelligence among the classes in which large families and uncontrolled +procreation predominate. Those of the lowest grade in intelligence +are born of unskilled laborers (with the highest birth rate in the +community); the next high among the skilled laborers, and so on to the +families of professional people, among whom it is now admitted that the +birth rate is voluntarily controlled.(3) + +But scientific investigations of this type cannot be complete +until statistics are accurately obtained concerning the relation of +unrestrained fecundity and the quality, mental and physical, of the +children produced. The philosophy of Birth Control therefore seeks and +asks the cooperation of science and scientists, not to strengthen its +own "case," but because this sexual factor in the determination of +human history has so long been ignored by historians and scientists. +If science in recent years has contributed enormously to strengthen +the conviction of all intelligent people of the necessity and wisdom +of Birth Control, this philosophy in its turn opens to science in its +various fields a suggestive avenue of approach to many of those problems +of humanity and society which at present seem to enigmatical and +insoluble. + + (1) Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution, pp. 125, + 126. + + (2) The Glands Regulating Personality: A study of the + glands of internal secretion in relation to the types of + human nature. By Louis Berman, M. D., Associate in + Biological Chemistry, Columbia University; Physician to the + Special Health Clinic. Lenox Hill Hospital. New York: + 1921. + + (3) Cf Terman: Intelligence of School Children. New York + 1919. p. 56. Also, "Is America Safe for Democracy?" Six + lectures given at the Lowell Institute of Boston, by William + McDougall, Professor of Psychology in Harvard College. New + York, 1921. + + + + +CHAPTER XI: Education and Expression + + "Civilization is bound up with the success of that movement. + The man who rejoices in it and strives to further it is alive; + the man who shudders and raises impotent hands against it is + merely dead, even though the grave yet yawns for him in vain. + He may make dead laws and preach dead sermons and his sermons + may be great and his laws may be rigid. But as the wisest of + men saw twenty-five centuries ago, the things that are great + and strong and rigid are the things that stay below in the grave. + It is the things that are delicate and tender and supple that + stay above. At no point is life so tender and delicate and + supple as at the point of sex. There is the triumph of life." + + Havelock Ellis + +Our approach opens to us a fresh scale of values, a new and effective +method of testing the merits and demerits of current policies +and programs. It redirects our attention to the great source and +fountainhead of human life. It offers us the most strategic point +of view from which to observe and study the unending drama of +humanity,--how the past, the present and the future of the human race +are all organically bound up together. It coordinates heredity and +environment. Most important of all, it frees the mind of sexual +prejudice and taboo, by demanding the frankest and most unflinching +reexamination of sex in its relation to human nature and the bases of +human society. In aiding to establish this mental liberation, +quite apart from any of the tangible results that might please the +statistically-minded, the study of Birth Control is performing an +invaluable task. Without complete mental freedom, it is impossible +to approach any fundamental human problem. Failure to face the great +central facts of sex in an impartial and scientific spirit lies at the +root of the blind opposition to Birth Control. + +Our bitterest opponents must agree that the problem of Birth Control +is one of the most important that humanity to-day has to face. The +interests of the entire world, of humanity, of the future of mankind +itself are more at stake in this than wars, political institutions, or +industrial reorganization. All other projects of reform, of revolution +or reconstruction, are of secondary importance, even trivial, when we +compare them to the wholesale regeneration--or disintegration--that is +bound up with the control, the direction and the release of one of the +greatest forces in nature. The great danger at present does not lie with +the bitter opponents of the idea of Birth Control, nor with those who +are attempting to suppress our program of enlightenment and education. +Such opposition is always stimulating. It wins new adherents. It reveals +its own weakness and lack of insight. The greater danger is to be found +in the flaccid, undiscriminating interest of "sympathizers" who are "for +it"--as an accessory to their own particular panacea. "It even seems, +sometimes," wrote the late William Graham Sumner, "as if the primitive +people were working along better lines of effort in this direction than +we are... when our public organs of instruction taboo all that pertains +to reproduction as improper; and when public authority, ready enough to +interfere with personal liberty everywhere else, feels bound to act as +if there were no societal interest at stake in the begetting of the next +generation."(1) + +Slowly but surely we are breaking down the taboos that surround sex; but +we are breaking them down out of sheer necessity. The codes that have +surrounded sexual behavior in the so-called Christian communities, the +teachings of the churches concerning chastity and sexual purity, the +prohibitions of the laws, and the hypocritical conventions of society, +have all demonstrated their failure as safeguards against the chaos +produced and the havoc wrought by the failure to recognize sex as a +driving force in human nature,--as great as, if indeed not greater than, +hunger. Its dynamic energy is indestructible. It may be transmuted, +refined, directed, even sublimated, but to ignore, to neglect, to refuse +to recognize this great elemental force is nothing less than foolhardy. + +Out of the unchallenged policies of continence, abstinence, "chastity" +and "purity," we have reaped the harvests of prostitution, venereal +scourges and innumerable other evils. Traditional moralists have failed +to recognize that chastity and purity must be the outward symptoms of +awakened intelligence, of satisfied desires, and fulfilled love. They +cannot be taught by "sex education." They cannot be imposed from +without by a denial of the might and the right of sexual expression. +Nevertheless, even in the contemporary teaching of sex hygiene and +social prophylaxis, nothing constructive is offered to young men and +young women who seek aid through the trying period of adolescence. + +At the Lambeth Conference of 1920, the Bishops of the Church of England +stated in their report on their considerations of sexual morality: +"Men should regard all women as they do their mothers, sisters, and +daughters; and women should dress only in such a manner as to command +respect from every man. All right-minded persons should unite in the +suppression of pernicious literature, plays and films...." Could lack +of psychological insight and understanding be more completely indicated? +Yet, like these bishops, most of those who are undertaking the education +of the young are as ignorant themselves of psychology and physiology. +Indeed, those who are speaking belatedly of the need of "sexual hygiene" +seem to be unaware that they themselves are most in need of it. "We must +give up the futile attempt to keep young people in the dark," cries Rev. +James Marchant in "Birth-Rate and Empire," "and the assumption that they +are ignorant of notorious facts. We cannot, if we would, stop the spread +of sexual knowledge; and if we could do so, we would only make matters +infinitely worse. This is the second decade of the twentieth century, +not the early Victorian period.... It is no longer a question of knowing +or not knowing. We have to disabuse our middle-aged minds of that fond +delusion. Our young people know more than we did when we began our +married lives, and sometimes as much as we know, ourselves, even now. So +that we need not continue to shake our few remaining hairs in simulating +feelings of surprise or horror. It might have been better for us if we +had been more enlightened. And if our discussion of this problem is to +be of any real use, we must at the outset reconcile ourselves to the +fact that the birth-rate is voluntarily controlled.... Certain persons +who instruct us in these matters hold up their pious hands and whiten +their frightened faces as they cry out in the public squares against +`this vice,' but they can only make themselves ridiculous." + +Taught upon the basis of conventional and traditional morality and +middle-class respectability, based on current dogma, and handed down to +the populace with benign condescension, sex education is a waste of time +and effort. Such education cannot in any true sense set up as a standard +the ideal morality and behavior of the respectable middle-class and then +make the effort to induce all other members of society, especially the +working classes, to conform to their taboos. Such a method is not only +confusing, but, in the creation of strain and hysteria and an unhealthy +concentration upon moral conduct, results in positive injury. To preach +a negative and colorless ideal of chastity to young men and women is +to neglect the primary duty of awakening their intelligence, their +responsibility, their self-reliance and independence. Once this is +accomplished, the matter of chastity will take care of itself. The +teaching of "etiquette" must be superseded by the teaching of hygiene. +Hygienic habits are built up upon a sound knowledge of bodily needs +and functions. It is only in the sphere of sex that there remains an +unfounded fear of presenting without the gratuitous introduction of +non-essential taboos and prejudice, unbiased and unvarnished facts. + +As an instrument of education, the doctrine of Birth Control approaches +the whole problem in another manner. Instead of laying down hard and +fast laws of sexual conduct, instead of attempting to inculcate rules +and regulations, of pointing out the rewards of virtue and the penalties +of "sin" (as is usually attempted in relation to the venereal diseases), +the teacher of Birth Control seeks to meet the needs of the people. +Upon the basis of their interests, their demands, their problems, Birth +Control education attempts to develop their intelligence and show them +how they may help themselves; how to guide and control this deep-rooted +instinct. + +The objection has been raised that Birth Control only reaches the +already enlightened, the men and women who have already attained a +degree of self-respect and self-reliance. Such an objection could not be +based on fact. Even in the most unenlightened sections of the community, +among mothers crushed by poverty and economic enslavement, there is +the realization of the evils of the too-large family, of the rapid +succession of pregnancy after pregnancy, of the hopelessness of bringing +too many children into the world. Not merely in the evidence presented +in an earlier chapter but in other ways, is this crying need expressed. +The investigators of the Children's Bureau who collected the data of the +infant mortality reports, noted the willingness and the eagerness with +which these down-trodden mothers told the truth about themselves. +So great is their hope of relief from that meaningless and deadening +submission to unproductive reproduction, that only a society pruriently +devoted to hypocrisy could refuse to listen to the voices of these +mothers. Respectfully we lend our ears to dithyrambs about the +sacredness of motherhood and the value of "better babies"--but we shut +our eyes and our ears to the unpleasant reality and the cries of pain +that come from women who are to-day dying by the thousands because this +power is withheld from them. + +This situation is rendered more bitterly ironic because the +self-righteous opponents of Birth Control practise themselves the +doctrine they condemn. The birth-rate among conservative opponents +indicates that they restrict the numbers of their own children by the +methods of Birth Control, or are of such feeble procreative energy as to +be thereby unfitted to dictate moral laws for other people. They prefer +that we should think their small number of children is accidental, +rather than publicly admit the successful practice of intelligent +foresight. Or else they hold themselves up as paragons of virtue and +self-control, and would have us believe that they have brought their +children into the world solely from a high, stern sense of public +duty--an attitude which is about as convincing as it would be to declare +that they found them under gooseberry bushes. How else can we explain +the widespread tolerance and smug approval of the clerical idea of +sex, now reenforced by floods of crude and vulgar sentiment, which is +promulgated by the press, motion-pictures and popular plays? + +Like all other education, that of sex can be rendered effective and +valuable only as it meets and satisfies the interests and demands of +the pupil himself. It cannot be imposed from without, handed down from +above, superimposed upon the intelligence of the person taught. It +must find a response within him, give him the power and the instrument +wherewith he may exercise his own growing intelligence, bring into +action his own judgment and discrimination and thus contribute to the +growth of his intelligence. The civilized world is coming to see +that education cannot consist merely in the assimilation of external +information and knowledge, but rather in the awakening and development +of innate powers of discrimination and judgment. The great disaster of +"sex education" lies in the fact that it fails to direct the awakened +interests of the pupils into the proper channels of exercise and +development. Instead, it blunts them, restricts them, hinders them, and +even attempts to eradicate them. + +This has been the great defect of sex education as it has been practised +in recent years. Based on a superficial and shameful view of the sexual +instinct, it has sought the inculcation of negative virtues by pointing +out the sinister penalties of promiscuity, and by advocating strict +adherence to virtue and morality, not on the basis of intelligence or +the outcome of experience, not even for the attainment of rewards, but +merely to avoid punishment in the form of painful and malignant +disease. Education so conceived carries with it its own refutation. True +education cannot tolerate the inculcation of fear. Fear is the soil in +which are implanted inhibitions and morbid compulsions. Fear restrains, +restricts, hinders human expression. It strikes at the very roots of joy +and happiness. It should therefore be the aim of sex education to avoid +above all the implanting of fear in the mind of the pupil. + +Restriction means placing in the hands of external authority the power +over behavior. Birth Control, on the contrary, implies voluntary action, +the decision for one's self how many children one shall or shall not +bring into the world. Birth Control is educational in the real sense +of the word, in that it asserts this power of decision, reinstates this +power in the people themselves. + +We are not seeking to introduce new restrictions but greater freedom. As +far as sex is concerned, the impulse has been more thoroughly subject to +restriction than any other human instinct. "Thou shalt not!" meets us at +every turn. Some of these restrictions are justified; some of them are +not. We may have but one wife or one husband at a time; we must attain a +certain age before we may marry. Children born out of wedlock are deemed +"illegitimate"--even healthy children. The newspapers every day are +filled with the scandals of those who have leaped over the restrictions +or limitations society has written in her sexual code. Yet the voluntary +control of the procreative powers, the rational regulation of the number +of children we bring into the world--this is the one type of restriction +frowned upon and prohibited by law! + +In a more definite, a much more realistic and concrete manner, Birth +Control reveals itself as the most effective weapon in the spread of +hygienic and prophylactic knowledge among women of the less fortunate +classes. It carries with it a thorough training in bodily cleanliness +and physiology, a definite knowledge of the physiology and function +of sex. In refusing to teach both sides of the subject, in failing to +respond to the universal demand among women for such instruction and +information, maternity centers limit their own efforts and fail to +fulfil what should be their true mission. They are concerned merely with +pregnancy, maternity, child-bearing, the problem of keeping the baby +alive. But any effective work in this field must go further back. We +have gradually come to see, as Havelock Ellis has pointed out, that +comparatively little can be done by improving merely the living +conditions of adults; that improving conditions for children and babies +is not enough. To combat the evils of infant mortality, natal and +pre-natal care is not sufficient. Even to improve the conditions for the +pregnant woman, is insufficient. Necessarily and inevitably, we are led +further and further back, to the point of procreation; beyond that, into +the regulation of sexual selection. The problem becomes a circle. We +cannot solve one part of it without a consideration of the entirety. But +it is especially at the point of creation where all the various +forces are concentrated. Conception must be controlled by reason, by +intelligence, by science, or we lose control of all its consequences. + +Birth Control is essentially an education for women. It is women who, +directly and by their very nature, bear the burden of that blindness, +ignorance and lack of foresight concerning sex which is now enforced +by law and custom. Birth Control places in the hands of women the +only effective instrument whereby they may reestablish the balance in +society, and assert, not only theoretically but practically as well, the +primary importance of the woman and the child in civilization. + +Birth Control is thus the stimulus to education. Its exercise awakens +and develops the sense of self-reliance and responsibility, and +illuminates the relation of the individual to society and to the race in +a manner that otherwise remains vague and academic. It reveals sex not +merely as an untamed and insatiable natural force to which men and women +must submit hopelessly and inertly, as it sweeps through them, and then +accept with abject humility the hopeless and heavy consequences. +Instead, it places in their hands the power to control this great force; +to use it, to direct it into channels in which it becomes the +energy enhancing their lives and increasing self-expression and +self-development. It awakens in women the consciousness of new glories +and new possibilities in motherhood. No longer the prostrate victim of +the blind play of instinct but the self-reliant mistress of her body and +her own will, the new mother finds in her child the fulfilment of her +own desires. In free instead of compulsory motherhood she finds the +avenue of her own development and expression. No longer bound by an +unending series of pregnancies, at liberty to safeguard the development +of her own children, she may now extend her beneficent influence beyond +her own home. In becoming thus intensified, motherhood may also broaden +and become more extensive as well. The mother sees that the welfare of +her own children is bound up with the welfare of all others. Not upon +the basis of sentimental charity or gratuitous "welfare-work" but upon +that of enlightened self-interest, such a mother may exert her influence +among the less fortunate and less enlightened. + +Unless based upon this central knowledge of and power over her own body +and her own instincts, education for woman is valueless. As long as she +remains the plaything of strong, uncontrolled natural forces, as long as +she must docilely and humbly submit to the decisions of others, how +can woman ever lay the foundations of self-respect, self-reliance +and independence? How can she make her own choice, exercise her own +discrimination, her own foresight? + +In the exercise of these powers, in the building up and integration of +her own experience, in mastering her own environment the true education +of woman must be sought. And in the sphere of sex, the great source and +root of all human experience, it is upon the basis of Birth Control--the +voluntary direction of her own sexual expression--that woman must take +her first step in the assertion of freedom and self-respect. + + (1) Folkways, p. 492. + + + + +CHAPTER XII: Woman and the Future + + I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamed Life stood + before her, and held in each hand a gift--in the one Love, in + the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, "Choose!" + + And the woman waited long: and she said, "Freedom!" + + And Life said, "Thou has well chosen. If thou hadst said, + `Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and + I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. + Now, the day will come when I shall return. In that day I + shall bear both gifts in one hand." + + I heard the woman laugh in her sleep. + + Olive Schreiner + +By no means is it necessary to look forward to some vague and distant +date of the future to test the benefits which the human race derives +from the program I have suggested in the preceding pages. The results to +the individual woman, to the family, and to the State, particularly in +the case of Holland, have already been investigated and recorded. Our +philosophy is no doctrine of escape from the immediate and pressing +realities of life, on the contrary, we say to men and women, and +particularly to the latter: face the realities of your own soul and +body; know thyself! And in this last admonition, we mean that this +knowledge should not consist of some vague shopworn generalities about +the nature of woman--woman as created in the minds of men, nor woman +putting herself on a romantic pedestal above the harsh facts of this +workaday world. Women can attain freedom only by concrete, definite +knowledge of themselves, a knowledge based on biology, physiology and +psychology. + +Nevertheless it would be wrong to shut our eyes to the vision of a +world of free men and women, a world which would more closely resemble +a garden than the present jungle of chaotic conflicts and fears. One of +the greatest dangers of social idealists, to all of us who hope to make +a better world, is to seek refuge in highly colored fantasies of the +future rather than to face and combat the bitter and evil realities +which to-day on all sides confront us. I believe that the reader of +my preceding chapters will not accuse me of shirking these realities; +indeed, he may think that I have overemphasized the great biological +problems of defect, delinquency and bad breeding. It is in the hope that +others too may glimpse my vision of a world regenerated that I submit +the following suggestions. They are based on the belief that we must +seek individual and racial health not by great political or social +reconstruction, but, turning to a recognition of our own inherent powers +and development, by the release of our inner energies. It is thus that +all of us can best aid in making of this world, instead of a vale of +tears, a garden. + +Let us first of all consider merely from the viewpoint of business and +"efficiency" the biological or racial problems which confront us. +As Americans, we have of late made much of "efficiency" and business +organization. Yet would any corporation for one moment conduct its +affairs as we conduct the infinitely more important affairs of our +civilization? Would any modern stockbreeder permit the deterioration +of his livestock as we not only permit but positively encourage the +destruction and deterioration of the most precious, the most essential +elements in our world community--the mothers and children. With the +mothers and children thus cheapened, the next generation of men and +women is inevitably below par. The tendency of the human elements, under +present conditions, is constantly downward. + +Turn to Robert M. Yerkes's "Psychological Examining in the United States +Army"(1) in which we are informed that the psychological examination +of the drafted men indicated that nearly half--47.3 per cent.--of the +population had the mentality of twelve-year-old children or less--in +other words that they are morons. Professor Conklin, in his recently +published volume "The Direction of Human Evolution"(2) is led, on the +findings of Mr. Yerkes's report, to assert: "Assuming that these +drafted men are a fair sample of the entire population of approximately +100,000,000, this means that 45,000,000 or nearly one-half the entire +population, will never develop mental capacity beyond the stage +represented by a normal twelve-year-old child, and that only 13,500,000 +will ever show superior intelligence." + +Making all due allowances for the errors and discrepancies of the +psychological examination, we are nevertheless face to face with a +serious and destructive practice. Our "overhead" expense in segregating +the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, in prisons, asylums and +permanent homes, our failure to segregate morons who are increasing +and multiplying--I have sufficiently indicated, though in truth I have +merely scratched the surface of this international menace--demonstrate +our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism. No industrial corporation +could maintain its existence upon such a foundation. Yet hardheaded +"captains of industry," financiers who pride themselves upon their +cool-headed and keen-sighted business ability are dropping millions +into rosewater philanthropies and charities that are silly at best and +vicious at worst. In our dealings with such elements there is a +bland maladministration and misuse of huge sums that should in all +righteousness be used for the development and education of the healthy +elements of the community. + +At the present time, civilized nations are penalizing talent and genius, +the bearers of the torch of civilization, to coddle and perpetuate +the choking human undergrowth, which, as all authorities tell us, is +escaping control and threatens to overrun the whole garden of humanity. +Yet men continue to drug themselves with the opiate of optimism, or +sink back upon the cushions of Christian resignation, their intellectual +powers anaesthetized by cheerful platitudes. Or else, even those, who +are fully cognizant of the chaos and conflict, seek an escape in those +pretentious but fundamentally fallacious social philosophies which place +the blame for contemporary world misery upon anybody or anything except +the indomitable but uncontrolled instincts of living organisms. These +men fight with shadows and forget the realities of existence. Too many +centuries have we sought to hide from the inevitable, which confronts us +at every step throughout life. + +Let us conceive for the moment at least, a world not burdened by the +weight of dependent and delinquent classes, a total population of +mature, intelligent, critical and expressive men and women. Instead +of the inert, exploitable, mentally passive class which now forms the +barren substratum of our civilization, try to imagine a population +active, resistant, passing individual and social lives of the most +contented and healthy sort. Would such men and women, liberated from +our endless, unceasing struggle against mass prejudice and inertia, be +deprived in any way of the stimulating zest of life? Would they sink +into a slough of complacency and fatuity? + +No! Life for them would be enriched, intensified and ennobled in a +fashion it is difficult for us in our spiritual and physical squalor +even to imagine. There would be a new renaissance of the arts and +sciences. Awakened at last to the proximity of the treasures of life +lying all about them, the children of that age would be inspired by a +spirit of adventure and romance that would indeed produce a terrestrial +paradise. + +Let us look forward to this great release of creative and constructive +energy, not as an idle, vacuous mirage, but as a promise which we, as +the whole human race, have it in our power, in the very conduct of our +lives from day to day, to transmute into a glorious reality. Let us +look forward to that era, perhaps not so distant as we believe, when the +great adventures in the enchanted realm of the arts and sciences may no +longer be the privilege of a gifted few, but the rightful heritage of +a race of genius. In such a world men and women would no longer seek +escape from themselves by the fantastic and the faraway. They would be +awakened to the realization that the source of life, of happiness, is to +be found not outside themselves, but within, in the healthful exercise +of their God-given functions. The treasures of life are not hidden; they +are close at hand, so close that we overlook them. We cheat ourselves +with a pitiful fear of ourselves. Men and women of the future will not +seek happiness; they will have gone beyond it. Mere happiness would +produce monotony. And their lives shall be lives of change and variety +with the thrills produced by experiment and research. + +Fear will have been abolished: first of all, the fear of outside things +and other people; finally the fear of oneself. And with these fears +must disappear forever all those poisons of hatreds, individual and +international. For the realization would come that there would be no +reason for, no value in encroaching upon, the freedom of one another. +To-day we are living in a world which is like a forest of trees too +thickly planted. Hence the ferocious, unending struggle for existence. +Like innumerable ages past, the present age is one of mutual +destruction. Our aim is to substitute cooperation, equity, and amity for +antagonism and conflict. If the aim of our country or our civilization +is to attain a hollow, meaningless superiority over others in aggregate +wealth and population, it may be sound policy to shut our eyes to +the sacrifice of human life,--unregarded life and suffering--and to +stimulate rapid procreation. But even so, such a policy is bound in +the long run to defeat itself, as the decline and fall of great +civilizations of the past emphatically indicate. Even the bitterest +opponent of our ideals would refuse to subscribe to a philosophy of mere +quantity, of wealth and population lacking in spiritual direction or +significance. All of us hope for and look forward to the fine flowering +of human genius--of genius not expending and dissipating its energy +in the bitter struggle for mere existence, but developing to a fine +maturity, sustained and nourished by the soil of active appreciation, +criticism, and recognition. + +Not by denying the central and basic biological facts of our nature, not +by subscribing to the glittering but false values of any philosophy or +program of escape, not by wild Utopian dreams of the brotherhood of men, +not by any sanctimonious debauch of sentimentality or religiosity, may +we accomplish the first feeble step toward liberation. On the contrary, +only by firmly planting our feet on the solid ground of scientific fact +may we even stand erect--may we even rise from the servile stooping +posture of the slave, borne down by the weight of age-old oppression. + +In looking forward to this radiant release of the inner energies of +a regenerated humanity, I am not thinking merely of inventions and +discoveries and the application of these to the perfecting of the +external and mechanical details of social life. This external and +scientific perfecting of the mechanism of external life is a phenomenon +we are to a great extent witnessing today. But in a deeper sense this +tendency can be of no true or lasting value if it cannot be made to +subserve the biological and spiritual development of the human organism, +individual and collective. Our great problem is not merely to perfect +machinery, to produce superb ships, motor cars or great buildings, but +to remodel the race so that it may equal the amazing progress we see +now making in the externals of life. We must first free our bodies from +disease and predisposition to disease. We must perfect these bodies and +make them fine instruments of the mind and the spirit. Only thus, when +the body becomes an aid instead of a hindrance to human expression may +we attain any civilization worthy of the name. Only thus may we create +our bodies a fitting temple for the soul, which is nothing but a vague +unreality except insofar as it is able to manifest itself in the beauty +of the concrete. + +Once we have accomplished the first tentative steps toward the creation +of a real civilization, the task of freeing the spirit of mankind from +the bondage of ignorance, prejudice and mental passivity which is more +fettering now than ever in the history of humanity, will be facilitated +a thousand-fold. The great central problem, and one which must be taken +first is the abolition of the shame and fear of sex. We must teach +men the overwhelming power of this radiant force. We must make them +understand that uncontrolled, it is a cruel tyrant, but that controlled +and directed, it may be used to transmute and sublimate the everyday +world into a realm of beauty and joy. Through sex, mankind may attain +the great spiritual illumination which will transform the world, +which will light up the only path to an earthly paradise. So must we +necessarily and inevitably conceive of sex-expression. The instinct is +here. None of us can avoid it. It is in our power to make it a thing +of beauty and a joy forever: or to deny it, as have the ascetics of the +past, to revile this expression and then to pay the penalty, the bitter +penalty that Society to-day is paying in innumerable ways. + +If I am criticized for the seeming "selfishness" of this conception it +will be through a misunderstanding. The individual is fulfiling his duty +to society as a whole by not self-sacrifice but by self-development. He +does his best for the world not by dying for it, not by increasing the +sum total of misery, disease and unhappiness, but by increasing his +own stature, by releasing a greater energy, by being active instead +of passive, creative instead of destructive. This is fundamentally the +greatest truth to be discovered by womankind at large. And until +women are awakened to their pivotal function in the creation of a new +civilization, that new era will remain an impossible and fantastic +dream. The new civilization can become a glorious reality only with the +awakening of woman's now dormant qualities of strength, courage, and +vigor. As a great thinker of the last century pointed out, not only +to her own health and happiness is the physical degeneracy of woman +destructive, but to our whole race. The physical and psychic power of +woman is more indispensable to the well-being and power of the human +race than that even of man, for the strength and happiness of the child +is more organically united with that of the mother. + +Parallel with the awakening of woman's interest in her own fundamental +nature, in her realization that her greatest duty to society lies +in self-realization, will come a greater and deeper love for all of +humanity. For in attaining a true individuality of her own she will +understand that we are all individuals, that each human being is +essentially implicated in every question or problem which involves the +well-being of the humblest of us. So to-day we are not to meet the +great problems of defect and delinquency in any merely sentimental or +superficial manner, but with the firmest and most unflinching attitude +toward the true interest of our fellow beings. It is from no mere +feeling of brotherly love or sentimental philanthropy that we women must +insist upon enhancing the value of child life. It is because we know +that, if our children are to develop to their full capabilities, all +children must be assured a similar opportunity. Every single case of +inherited defect, every malformed child, every congenitally tainted +human being brought into this world is of infinite importance to that +poor individual; but it is of scarcely less importance to the rest of us +and to all of our children who must pay in one way or another for these +biological and racial mistakes. We look forward in our vision of the +future to children brought into the world because they are desired, +called from the unknown by a fearless and conscious passion, because +women and men need children to complete the symmetry of their own +development, no less than to perpetuate the race. They shall be called +into a world enhanced and made beautiful by the spirit of freedom and +romance--into a world wherein the creatures of our new day, unhampered +and unbound by the sinister forces of prejudice and immovable habit, may +work out their own destinies. Perhaps we may catch fragmentary glimpses +of this new life in certain societies of the past, in Greece perhaps; +but in all of these past civilizations these happy groups formed but a +small exclusive section of the population. To-day our task is greater; +for we realize that no section of humanity can be reclaimed without the +regeneration of the whole. + +I look, therefore, into a Future when men and women will not dissipate +their energy in the vain and fruitless search for content outside of +themselves, in far-away places or people. Perfect masters of their own +inherent powers, controlled with a fine understanding of the art of life +and of love, adapting themselves with pliancy and intelligence to the +milieu in which they find themselves, they will unafraid enjoy life to +the utmost. Women will for the first time in the unhappy history of +this globe establish a true equilibrium and "balance of power" in the +relation of the sexes. The old antagonism will have disappeared, the old +ill-concealed warfare between men and women. For the men themselves will +comprehend that in this cultivation of the human garden they will be +rewarded a thousand times. Interest in the vague sentimental fantasies +of extra-mundane existence, in pathological or hysterical flights from +the realities of our earthliness, will have through atrophy disappeared, +for in that dawn men and women will have come to the realization, +already suggested, that here close at hand is our paradise, our +everlasting abode, our Heaven and our eternity. Not by leaving it and +our essential humanity behind us, nor by sighing to be anything but what +we are, shall we ever become ennobled or immortal. Not for woman only, +but for all of humanity is this the field where we must seek the secret +of eternal life. + + + (1) Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. Volume + XV. + + (2) Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution. "When it is + remembered that mental capacity is inherited, that parents + of low intelligence generally produce children of low + intelligence, and that on the average they have more + children than persons of high intelligence, and furthermore, + when we consider that the intellectual capacity or `mental + age' can be changed very little by education, we are in a + position to appreciate the very serious condition which + confronts us as a nation." p. 108. + + + + +APPENDIX + + + + +PRINCIPLES AND AIMS OF THE AMERICAN BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE + + +PRINCIPLES: + +The complex problems now confronting America as the result of the +practice of reckless procreation are fast threatening to grow beyond +human control. + +Everywhere we see poverty and large families going hand in hand. Those +least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly. People who +cannot support their own offspring are encouraged by Church and State to +produce large families. Many of the children thus begotten are diseased +or feeble-minded; many become criminals. The burden of supporting these +unwanted types has to be bourne by the healthy elements of the nation. +Funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are +diverted to the maintenance of those who should never have been born. + +In addition to this grave evil we witness the appalling waste of women's +health and women's lives by too frequent pregnancies. These unwanted +pregnancies often provoke the crime of abortion, or alternatively +multiply the number of child-workers and lower the standard of living. + +To create a race of well born children it is essential that the function +of motherhood should be elevated to a position of dignity, and this is +impossible as long as conception remains a matter of chance. + +We hold that children should be + +1. Conceived in love; + +2. Born of the mother's conscious desire; + +3. And only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage +of health. + +Therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom to +prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied. + +Every mother must realize her basic position in human society. She must +be conscious of her responsibility to the race in bringing children into +the world. + +Instead of being a blind and haphazard consequence of uncontrolled +instinct, motherhood must be made the responsible and self-directed +means of human expression and regeneration. + +These purposes, which are of fundamental importance to the whole of our +nation and to the future of mankind, can only be attained if women first +receive practical scientific education in the means of Birth Control. +That, therefore, is the first object to which the efforts of this League +will be directed. + + +AIMS: + +The American Birth Control League aims to enlighten and educate all +sections of the American public in the various aspects of the dangers of +uncontrolled procreation and the imperative necessity of a world program +of Birth Control. + +The League aims to correlate the findings of scientists, statisticians, +investigators, and social agencies in all fields. To make this possible, +it is necessary to organize various departments: + +RESEARCH: To collect the findings of scientists, concerning the relation +of reckless breeding to the evils of delinquency, defect and dependence. + +INVESTIGATION: To derive from these scientifically ascertained facts and +figures, conclusions which may aid all public health and social agencies +in the study of problems of maternal and infant mortality, child-labor, +mental and physical defects and delinquence in relation to the practice +of reckless parentage. + +HYGIENIC AND PHYSIOLOGICAL instruction by the Medical profession to +mothers and potential mothers in harmless and reliable methods of Birth +Control in answer to their requests for such knowledge. + +STERILIZATION of the insane and feebleminded and the encouragement of +this operation upon those afflicted with inherited or transmissible +diseases, with the understanding that sterilization does not deprive +the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him +incapable of producing children. + +EDUCATIONAL: The program of education includes: The enlightenment of the +public at large, mainly through the education of leaders of thought +and opinion--teachers, ministers, editors and writers--to the moral +and scientific soundness of the principles of Birth Control and the +imperative necessity of its adoption as the basis of national and racial +progress. + +POLITICAL AND LEGISLATIVE: To enlist the support and cooperation of +legal advisers, statesmen and legislators in effecting the removal of +state and federal statutes which encourage dysgenic breeding, +increase the sum total of disease, misery and poverty and prevent the +establishment of a policy of national health and strength. + +ORGANIZATION: To send into the various States of the Union field workers +to enlist the support and arouse the interest of the masses, to +the importance of Birth Control so that laws may be changed and the +establishment of clinics made possible in every State. + +INTERNATIONAL: This department aims to cooperate with similar +organizations in other countries to study Birth Control in its relations +to the world population problem, food supplies, national and racial +conflicts, and to urge upon all international bodies organized to +promote world peace, the consideration of these aspects of international +amity. + +THE AMERICAN BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE proposes to publish in its +official organ "The Birth Control Review," reports and studies on the +relationship of controlled and uncontrolled populations to national and +world problems. + +The American Birth Control League also proposes to hold an annual +Conference to bring together the workers of the various departments so +that each worker may realize the inter-relationship of all the various +phases of the problem to the end that National education will tend to +encourage and develop the powers of self-direction, self-reliance, and +independence in the individuals of the community instead of dependence +for relief upon public or private charities. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pivot of Civilization, by Margaret Sanger + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIVOT OF CIVILIZATION *** + +***** This file should be named 1689.txt or 1689.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/1689/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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