Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1905-10-12
RACE SUICIDE
MAY BE RATHER
For Race Salvation by Per.
hitting More Care.
full Rearing
OF THE VERY BEST SPECIMENS

John Burns in Chicago Tribune.)
There is a shameless spirit of pes
simism about everything just now.
The Jeremiahs have been on the ram
page; the dismal and the doleful would
be experts have all been regarding
other people as melancholy and things
as decadent as themselves. With
them everything is wrong. from lati-
tude and longitude, to the government.
Not content with their universal wall
ing at the decay of home life, of mere
man, and all %conquering woman, they
have started a crusade against the
babies, actual, potential, and to come.
Now, babies are what their mothers
make them. A mans reformation
must begin with his grandmother.
The current standards of Judgment
OF men-territory and birth rates-are
wrong. Megalomania is a disease.
Now size is everything; numbers the
supreme test. This is nonsense. Big
ness is not greatness; numbers are
no quality, mere ~avoirdupois no
strength-look at Russia. If so, the
Japanese, the Yoarkhas, and other
small blu virile people, are doomed,
and In the megalomaniac's balance are
tried and found wanting.
Personally, | am not, under all cir
cumstances. for a desolating flood of
babies. The number of a family is 10
me less than their quality. What is
more, some regard should be paid to
the mother, who too often paws need
lessly for the price of excessive ma,
ternity, either by her e~nfeeblement or
by her death. On the other hand,
every healthy. manageable woman
ought to marry. Better a baby in her
arms than a dog in her lap, bottles in
her boudoir and vain regrets in her
lonely, childless life. Every married
woman ought to have some children.
but ] disagree entirely that she ought
TO rear Unfortunately and without
regard to fitness, means. home and
environment, all the children that.
apart from choice. disposition and sus-
tainable capacity, she is capable of be-.
ing materially responsible for.
But we must be careful in general
Ing about the birth rate. We cannot
dogmatize about the number there
should be in the family-that Is gov
erned by the individual case of mother
And we cannot determine the humber
OF children a woman should rear
that is governed by many things, most
ly impersonal. The cheerful thing IN
note is that the marriage rate is either
steady or slightly rising. And where
IL occasionally falls il is often due TO
economic and commercial. rather than
social or personal reasons The lie.
climate births show a substantial de-
cline. and there is a serious increase
OF births over deaths; and the fact
Is, a falling birth rate often indicates
a rising increase of population.
IL Is not an accident, nor due TO per.
sonal regulation, that a wealthy Ion,
dor district should have an infantile
mortality of 80 to 100 per cent and its
poor districts ranging from PA to 40C
per 1000 per annum; and that a sim
lar difference in the same districts al
the end OF life at the same ages should
prevail between rich and poor.
believe that as the poor in tina.
district socially improve and approx
innate toward their wealthy fellows, fiji
lntantile mortality viii decrease. iii
age mortality lengthen; but its birtl
rate viii correspondingly diminish.
and | believe the three conditions @,
hand In hand and are good.
Inc reduction in the birth rate cor
Germs me less than the salvation O
h babies that arrive. The regret
table and criminal infant mortality al
yer u lowering birth rate has beer
achieved must be stopped. Il is /,
cruel Wastetul and deplorable condi
llon mat is responsible for poor PEG
PIE marrying more than the rich rear
ing up 10 a certain age double tn,
~CnllaTen' and then, after the risk an,
burden OF maternity has been INQUIRE,
having 10 lose from two to four time,