New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1906-02-03
RACE SUICIDE II BOGEY.
DR. Reed Has No Fear of american
Stock Dying Ont.

q
ertertains no fears as to the ultimate extinction
90 .tn -aca tbrourh race suicide On the con-
trarv. he finds that the greatest hope for the
future Of the Anglo-Saxon race In America lies
in precisely that feature of life which mas given
rise to so much gloomy foreboding.
1--WE see In declining birth rate says III
Charles A. L. Reed. professor OF clihlc8i gym
cology I'm the University of Cincinnati IN an au-
dress, just published. on THE American UNI
iiy," only a natural and evolutional adjustment
of race TO environment-an adjustment that IN
sures rather than menaces the perpetuatloh VI
our kind under favorinC conditions.
1.-THE dsinclination of American mothefs 10
bear more children than they can properly eau-
cate and support" continues Dr. Reed. rs baseo
unon an intelligent and conscientious regard OF
the rights and necessities oe unconcelVed or
spring rather than upon an aversion TO lhe
sacred office of motherhood. If reduced 10 us
last analysis It does not indicate a loss' ou'
rather a development If not an actual eAaA'"
tion of the maternal function. American women
recognize sub-consciously possibly. certainty not
in definite terms, but they nevertheless recos
nfze the force Of the law Enumerated py MI
Spencer that whatever conduces to the hshes'
welfare of offspring must more and more estao-
ush itself since children Of inferior parents
reared in Inferior ways will ever be replaced oy
children of better parents reared In better ways
rThey do not interpret the command to multi
pIv and replenish the earth as an injunction to
abandon themselves to an existence OF unre-
strained fecundity, particularly in view OF the
fact that the earth is already REASONABLY Wen re-
plenished They do. however. act upon the pllh-
ciple that by furnishing a less numerous Out
better endowed. better conditioned better
e1uipped-in short. ftter-progeny' they pest
furnish leaders for a society that nom us very
nature is most in need Of leadership 1T IS these
considerations that force to the conclusion
that possibly the lessened birth rate may Work
the salvation rather than the destruction or the
distinctly American element in our population
and of the distinctly Anglo-Saxon feature of our
civilization"
A much greater danger to American society
and the American family than that OF race SUI
eide according to DR.. Reed, is the danger OF
overpopulation.
1.-The overpeopIing of our land" he says. "is
destined to be a very practical, indeed e very
perpIexing problem in the not remote ruture'
The rate of increase in the density OF the popula-
ton in Great Britain for the seventy years from
1920 to 1890 was $50 per cent. and in France
Belgium and Italy it was less than 1oo per cent
In the United States for the same period it was
$50 per cent and for the succeeding fifteen years
the rate Of increase in this country has greatly
accelerated. Take these IN association with the
additional fact that much Of our great area
cannot contribute to the sustentation of the peo-
pie, and it requires no vivid imagination, no
prophetic vision, to foresee the time not many
generations hence when the family institution
here viii be subjected to the dislntegraung
soctalistic influences that to-day assatling
it under pressure of overcrowding in the coun-
tries of Europe"
Dr. Reed does. however, discover some In
fluences inimical to the American family
Among these he classes everything that tends
TO the early and wide dispersion OF its members,
such as the development of residential schools,
the rapid extension Of far-reaching Transports
ton facilities, the Investigation Of industries,
the industrial employment OF women, the forma-
ton Of distinct industrial groups. the character
of political parties the populariZation of hotels
and apartments for residential purposes. and
finally the development of clubs for both men
and women at the expense Of the home"
In the looseness OF the marriage tie he also
finds elements Of danger. Tendencies which
worked the ruin Of Greece and Rome he finds
threatening the life OF the American common
wealth. and he thinks that the annals of It's
divorce courts might reveal examples of con-
1ugal infdelity almost parallel to the case cited
by St Jerome of woman married to her
twenty-third husband she being his twenty
first wife.