The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1903-02-21
The Sterility Among the Colonial Stock
is Shown by Statistics of
Different Wards.
In Fall River Where the Foreigners are
In the Majority the Birth
Rate is Highest


dressed the public on subject of
grave Importance. DR.. Eliot, the head
of the greatest university in America,
calls attention in his annual report to
the small size Of the family among
college graduates. Returns from six
Harvard classes, those from 1872 to
1877, inclusive, show that the SS1 men
who graduated in those years have
only 1902, surviving children. Twenty
eight per cent. of the remainder have
failed to reproduce themselves by the
same percentage. DR.. Eliot's conf
ment is pertinent one. "The table,"
he observes, suggests further that the
highly educated part of the American
people does not increase the population
at ALL"
This inference is implied also in Il
letter written by the Chief Magistrate
of the nation to the author of book
on '"The Woman Who Toils.'' Mrs.
Van Worst, the author in question, has
lamented the disinclination of the
American-born woman to accept the
burdens Of motherhood, and President
Roosevelt applauds her criticism in
these ringing words: "To me there is
melancholy side to it when you touch
upon what is, fundamentally, infinite
ly more important than any other
question in this country, that is, the
question of race suicide.''
1t is, perhaps, characteristic of the
two men that, whereas President
Eliot sees in this decline mere argu.
ment for abbreviating the college
course (he attributes it, Gin part, to the
late postponement Of marriage on the
part Of the educated young men'')
President Roosevelt dwells upon the
human side of the matter. He has
pity for those, who, through no fault
of their own, go through life ''denied
those highest Of all joys which spring
only from home life, from the having
and bringing up of many healthy chill
dren.' For such he feels "deep ant
respectful sympathy" But the maj
or woman, on the other hand, "wht
deliberately avoids marriage" from
selfish motives, "is in effect crimina
against the race and should be an OBJ
ject of contemptuous adherence OF
the part Of all healthy people"
President Roosevelt is right in thu
main, though the trouble is not alto
gether in failure to marry, says tn
Boston Republic. The marriage rat,
in America is high enough. The birth
rate is low. 1t is low, as Fresiden
Eliot says, "among the highly-educat
ed part Of the American people," /
is low among "American- born women
in general, that is, among natives o.
the United States. 1t is low also il
English-spealsing Canada. In word
sterility is universal symptom anon:
that part of our population which ma!
be called the Colonial stock. Ant
it is unQuestionahly, by all historical
precedents, a symptom of decay. Rome
and France, with their futile reward.
for fecundity, point moral to Americ.
out Of the ruined past and the de
clining present.
The Republic has more than one
called attention to these facts, as ex
hibited in the birth rates of differen
wards in Boston. Ward eleven, fo
example, inhabited by the educate
and well-to-do class, exhibits birth
rate of only twelve in a thousand
barely half that Of France, at whicl
the complacent Saxon OCCASIONAL,
points finger of scorn. Ward SIX
on the other hand, where the peopl
are poor, uneducated, and to a grea
extent, foreigners exhibits a birth-rat, t,
Of 45 in thousand, which is highe
than that of any state in Europe.
We do not hold q brief for colleg
graduates. nor are we apologists fo
the Americans of Colonial stock. Th
Republic frankly urges these figure
US claim for consideration on the par
of the lowly, the unlettered and th
foreign element among us. This class