The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1906-12-14
RACE DECADENCE A
DANGER.
HIGHEST BIRTH RATE IN LOWEST
SOCIAL CLASS.

iSSC VI hNS E~EoOISHl-0uppoit
From the Rural Population Rapidly
Being Weakened.
Widespread attention has been at
tracted by the alarmist opinions ex-
I pressed on certain vital social prob
/ lens by Sir James Crichton- Browne
in his presidential address to the SAM
tary inspectors congress, writes the
/ London correspondent for the New
York Sun. He discussed race suicide
not from the point of view Of a falling
birth rate, bur in regard to the close
relationship existing between undesir-
able social conditions and a high birth
rate.
lie quoted startling statistics which
proved that in districts where there
was overcrowding, where there was
superabundance Of the lowest type
OF labor, where infant mortality was
greatest, where there was the most
general pauperism, where signs Of bad
environment, like phthisls, were most
abundant, and where paupar lunatics
productive ages had the most children.
Where there was more culture and
education, as shown by a higher pro-
portion of professionals men, where
there was more comfort and leisure,
as shown by higher percentage Of
domestic servants, there the birth
rate was lowest Wives in districts
OF the least prosperity and culture had
the largest families and the morally
and socially lower classes of the com
munity were reproducing themselves
with the greatest rapidity
We had. he said. to deal with a re-
duced fertility in the more intellectual,
the more prosperous, the more thrifty
and Clearly classes Of the community
which could not be accounted for by
a variation in the mean age of possibly
productive wives. We were confront
ed by diminished fertility, lessened
exercise of fertility or deliberate re-
straint of fertility among the elite Of
our people. Bearing in mind that %
percent of the married population pro-
duced so percent of the next genera
ton and that mental and moral traits
were not less hereditary than corporal
appearances, it was impossible to eX-
aggerate their Importance of the prob
lens that were raised by the figures
he had adduced
If we were recruiting our population
from the poor and mentally and physi-
cally feebler stock of the community
at greater rate than from the better
and more capable stocks, then the
gradual deterioration of the race was
inevitable. Weeds would accumulate
and good grain grow scarce, and il the
relationship between inferior social
status and high birth rate in towns
had practically doubled during the last
fifty years the outlook was gloomy.
Some hope might be founded on the
fact that the operative causes of the !
low birth rate had not yet affected the
rural population, from which we might
hope to draw invigorating elements.
The relative fertility of women living
in the country was from to II per
towns, but urbanizati0n was going on
at a rate that must rapidly reduce and |
before long cut off the supplies from
this source Of sound. progressive hu-
man material
The complex problem is connected /
with racial, industrial, economical and |
religious as well as social conditions,
but in the main the decline must be /
ascribed either to physical degenera-
tion affecting the reproductive power
and diminishing fecundity or to wilful /
and systematic prevention of child /
birth The deterioration Of the moral |
standard which the practice of race /
suicide implied was itself an indica-
ton Of debility and decay. If race /
failure was being manifested more |
rapidly in the superior than in the in
ferior varieties Of the race, if the re- /
duction in size of families had begun .
at the wrong end Of the social scale,
then national decadence and disaster |
must be anticipated.
We must not wrap ourselves up in /
racial self-conceit ne said. We must
not forget Greece and Rome and the
Byzantine Empire The racial strug-
gle for existence is not over and finally /
decided in our favor The strategy /
of the struggle and the weapons en-
ployed in it are changing daily, but
it is going on, and if the second Hague
conference were to succeed tomorrow
in abolishing war and securing univel-
sal disarmament it would only mask
the conflict and perhaps hasten the
catastrophe, and declining birth
rate, especially a declining birth rate
among the best breeds, means a dim