Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-19
OVER POPULATION.

! A lecture to men on the question of "Ovtr
Population was delivered at the Metropo-
Titan Theater last night by j. J. Owen, edi-
tor of the San Jose Mercury. Tie audience
was large one and manifested its approval
OF many of the points of the lecture by
hearty applause. Mr.. Owen is rapid and
earnest speaker and interests his hearers by
the pointedness and force of his manner and
the vigor with which he treats his subject.
He said he believed we had entered epon a
new era in the history of civilization, and
are brought face to face with new OBJ
stacles to our further Advancement, in the
the shape of vastly increasing popula-
latioD, much of which appears to be born
into the world without :. purpose, and to be
an incumbrance upon the earth. The social
philosophers Of the last century did not
cream that there would be more people upon
this continent than could find employment.
The advance of laborsaving machinery and
invention has made the labor of one man
equal that of twenty few years ago.
Millions a few years back lived by agTl-
tural pursuits, and were treated as members
Of the farmers family who are now by agri-
cultural machinery driven from that employ
ment, with no means OF support given IN
compensation. Employers take less interest
in employees than formerly, and yet We COM
plain that labOTers are less reliable than
formerly, and wonder at it. He followed out
this line Of argument TO the conclusion that
population must be diminished, or the advance
of invention be checked To point to the
millions of acres in our land where the poor
man may still make home, is as vain for
most of them as to tell them of acres iii Ju-
piter or Mercury. We are told our land can
maintain many millions more, but the ques-
ton is, Does the country want the increased
population? lis said that all that is needed
is to give men more room, but there comes the
rub-who will do it? He then passed to a
consideration of physical conditions, elabo-
rating upon these points: Thousands are
weekly born into the world who are unwel-
come, and whose birth is the result of passion
or ignorance of the laws Of health and life.
This ignorance is the mother of inharmony in
the marriage relation, of disease, suffering
and death, and its product is a race great
majority OF which is not born right. Pre-
natal education, under proper surroundings
and conditions, for a few months, is worth
twenty years of pious training after birth.
TO prevent sin in the world Is to cease the
creation of sinners. In the vegetable
and animal world the survival of the
tittest is the rule, and if Nature had
her own way it would be SO with
man; but on the contrary, with us, the
survival of the most unfit seems to prevail.
God must help the unwelcome child for man
does all he can to make his life one of woe
and misery. If man may improve upon vege-
table and animal life, and bring it to it's high
est approach to perfection, why should not
he do it with his own race, which is the lofti-
est work of nature? Should the production
of the species be left to ignorance, accident
or lust? He demanded of science that it
should bend its energies to prevent maternity
being q martyrdom; to make the coming
generations of men improvements upon their
predecessors to give such light that there
shall be no ignorance concerning the highest
attribute of manhood and womanhood. It
should not bend its energies solely to the i'm
provement of animals and vegetables, while
to mans birth, the GROWING work of ma
ture, there is given less attention than
to the cultivating of the turnip or the devel-
opment of the oyster. He claimed that
nearly half of all the children born die be-
fore they reach the age of five years, and
that of the remainder the majority come to
the embrace of suffering, disease and want.
He held that while war lessons the popula-
ton, it begins at the wrong end, and sweeps
off the choice ones, leaving the unfit to prop
agate their errors. Population doubles in
twenty-five years, and he declared that it is
an increase in excess of the pl oduction of
food to feed the race, and it is not the result
of natural laws, but of the abuse of natural
laws. He declared that the time had come
for tearing this subject from the lumber-room
of intelligence, where false sense of modesty
had placed il. His lecture from this point
ont was addressed more personally and prac.
ticallv to his auditors. and was concluded
after an hour and twenty minutes duration.
A collection was taken to defray the expenses
fnr the rent of the theater