The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-07
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
ON RACE SUICIDE

President Roosevelt is an emphatic
believer in the Biblical precept In
crease and multiply Himself the
father of six children, he looks with
alarm upon the tendency among
American men and women to shirk
the duties of marriage, and especially
of parenthood. He has issued an ear
nest protest against this tendency. 1t
takes the form of a letter to Mrs. John
Van Worst, joint author with Miss
Marie Van Worst of The Woman Who
Tolls
The paragraph which especially at
tracted the presidents attention was
one in which Mrs. Van Worst deplored
the voluntary sterility of the Amerl-
can-born women of this country. She
declared that the fecundity among
them is less than in any other ma
ton in the world, unless it be France,
whose anxiety regarding her depopu-
lation we would share in full measure
were it not for the foreign immigra-
ton to the United States.
Immediately upon reading it Presl-
dent Roosevelt wrote the following let
ter to the author: 20"
white House, Washington, Oct. is.
1902:
My Dear Mrs. Van Vorst-I must
write you line to say how much
have appreciated your article The
Woman Who Tolls But to me there
is a. most melancholy side to it, when
YOU touch upon what is fundamentally
infinitely more important than any
other question in this country, that is
the question of race suicide, complete
or partial.
AN easy, good-natured kindness
and a desire to be independent'-that
is, to live ones own life according
to ones own desires-are in no sense
substitutes for the fundamental viz
lures for the practice of the strong
racial qualities without which there
can be no strong races-the qualities
of courage and resolution in both men
and women, of scorn of what is mean,
base and selfish, of eager desire to
work or fight or suffer, as the case
may be, provided the end to be at
tanned is great enough, and the con-
temptuous putting aside of mere ease,
mere vapid pleasure, mere avoidance
of toll and worry.
81 do not know whether | most pity
or most despise the foolish and selfish
man or woman who does not under
stand that the only things really worth
having in life are those the acquire
ment of which normally means cost
and effort. If a man or woman through
no fault of his or hers, goes through
out life denied those highest of all joys
which spring only from home life,
from the having and bringing up of
many healthy children, feel for them
deep and respectful sympathy-the
sympathy one extends to the gallant
fellow killed at the beginning of
campaign, or the man who tolls hard
and is brought to ruin by the fault of
others. But the man or woman who
deliberately avoids marriage, and mas
heart so cold as to know no passion
and a brain so shallow and selfish as
to dislike having children, is in eff
feet a criminal against the race, and
should be an object of contemptuous
adherence by all healthy people.
"Of course, no one quality makes
good citizen, and no one quality will
save a nation. But there are certain
great qualities for the lack of which
no amount of intellectual brilliancy or
of material prosperity or of easiness
of life can atone, and which show deca-
dence and corruption in the nation
just as much as if they are produced
by selfishness among comparatively
poor people as if they are produced
by vicious or frivolous luxury in the
rich. If the men of the nation are
not anxious to work in many different
ways. with AL their might and
strength, and ready and able to fight
at need, and anxious TO be fathers
of families, and if the women do not
recognize that the greatest thing for
any woman is to be good wife and
mother-why, that nation has cause to
be alarmed about its future.
There is no physical trouble among
us Americans The trouble with the
situation you set forth is one of char
acter, and therefore we can conquer it
if we only will Very sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT"