The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-06-17
THE BIRTH RATE AND ssYVOMAN,S
EMANCIP ALTON, >,

III. y. .. BllllngS, as meulcal StatlStl-
clan and sanitary authority, stands in
the front rank. He has by his paper in
the Forum on 1.-THE Diminishing Birth
Rate in the United States'' enlarged his
sphere of usefulness as an inquirer.
Admitting that the figures of neither
the census of 1880 nor 1890 were accurate,
and conceding that nowhere have we a
complete system of registration of births,
nevertheless he shows that there is a puz-
cling and very serious falling off in the
birth rate in the United States, for in 1850
the rate was per thousand of population
30.95, while in 1890 it was 1858, or a
diminution of a little over four in the
thousand.
Or. Billings does not consider this
alarming, nor in itself an evil, since such
a state of things has occurred before in
the worlds history in certain regions, as,
for instance, in South and West Eu-
rope during the decline of the Roman
Empire-hOwever, conditions then and
now are not fairly comparable. But as one
of the signs of forces at work to modify
existing conditions of society, and ''some
of which appear to be of evil tendency"
he thinks, the falling off matter worthy
of most serious consideration.
So it is, as the REcoRD-UNGoN has sew
eral times asserted in the debate of the
question of the drift of women into bust
ness. As to the causes, DR.. Billings does
not think the diminution of the birth
rate indicates diminution in fertility or
capacity in either sex; it is not charge
able to use of alcohol or tobacco, he
affirms; but it may be to changes in the
mode of life Of the people, the increase of
wealth and luxury, and to the so-called
emancipation of women" His concIu-
sion is that il is due mainly to deliberate
and voluntary avoidance or prevention of
collaborating, and these are due in turn,
he thinks, to diffusion of information
with regard to the subject of generation,
this diffusion beginning between thirty
and forty years ago.
The doctor gives as a second cause
decline of the belief that it is sinful to
avoid motherhood; third, increase of the
use Of things once held to be luxuries
now deemed necessities for maintenance
of social position. And here the distin-
guished statistician and inquirer bears
witness for the position of the RECORD
ha
especial attention to his words:
young women are gradually being
imbued with the idea that marriage and
motherhood are not to be their chief OBJ
iects in life. or the sole methods of OBJ
tanning subsistence; that they should aim
at being independent of possible or actual
husbands. and should fit themselves to
earn their own living in some one of the
many ways in which females are begin
ming to find increasing sources of remu-
neratlve employment; that housekeeping
is u sort of domestic slavery, and that it
is best to remain unmarried until some
one offers who has the means to crafty
their educated tastes, etc."
DR.. Billings, with the caution of the
sociologist, turns the current of this ar
raignment somewhat by pointing out that
Professor Tucker, in 1913. prophesied the
diminution of the birth rate, and that it
would follow the increasing tendency to
dwell in cities, and the growth of the
wealthy classes. DR.. Billings adds that
the birth rate viii continue low in the
United States, and fall lower still com
pared with former years; that so long as
people crowd into cities, as they will do
until the coal supply begins to shrink
pereeptibly, the death rate is likely to
increase, and therefore the rate of in
crease in population due to excess of
births over deaths will diminish.
But for all this speculation the fact re-
mains that the drift of women into bust
ness is leading cause for the serious re-
duction in the birth rate-that is to say,