Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1906-04-06
RACE SUICIDE A DOGGY.
DR.. Reed Has No Fear of American
Stock Dyinu Out,

Stock Dying Out.
At last a prophet has appeared in
Israel who entertains no fear as to
the ultimate extinction of the race
through race suicide. On the con-
trary, he finds that the greatest hope
for the future of the Anglo-Saxon race
in America lies in precisely that fea-
ture of life which has given rise to
so much gloomy foreboding.
we see in a declining birth rate,
says DR.. Charles A. L. Reed, professor
OF clinical gynecology in the University
of Cincinnati, in an address, just pub
lished, on 'The American Family"
only natural and evolutional adjust
ment of race to environment-an adj
justment that insures rather than
menaces the perpetuation of our kind
under favoring conditions"
"The Discrimination of American
mothers to bear more children than
they can properly educate and sup
port" continues DR.. Reed, lis based
upon an intelligent and conscientious
regard the rights and necessities
of unc we'd offspring rather than
upon an aversion to the sacred Office
of motherhood. If reduced to its last
analysis, it does not indicate a loss,
but rather development, if not an
actual exaltation, of the maternal
function American women recognize,
sub-consciously possibly, certainly not
in definite terms, but they neverthe-
less recognize, the force of the law
enunciated by Mr.. Spencer that what
ever conduces to the highest welfare
of offspring must more and more es-
tablish itself, since children of in
ferior parents reared in inferior ways
will ever be replaced by children of.
better parents reared in better ways.
"They do not interpret the COM
mand to multiply 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 well replenished. They do,
however, act upon the principle that
by furnishing a less numerous but
better endowed, better conditioned,
better equipped-in short, filter
progeny, they best furnish leaders for
a society that from its very nature is
most in need of leadership. 1t is these
considerations that force us to the
conclusion that possibly the lessened
birth rate may work the salvation
rather than the destruction of the dis.
tinctly American element in our popu-
lation and of the dinstinctly Anglo
Saxon feature of our civilization"
much greater damage to American
society and the American family than
that Of race suicide, according to DR..
Reed, is the danger of over-popula-
ton.
1.-The over-peopling of our land" he
says, lis destined to be very practi-
cal, indeed very perplexing, problem
in the not remote future. The rate OF
increase in the destiny 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 100 percent. In
the United States for the same period
it was $50 percent, and for the sue
ceeding fifteen years the rate OF in
crease 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 people, and it re-
quires no vivid Imagination, no pro-
phetic vision, to foresee the time not
many generations hence when the
family institution here will be sub
jected to the disintegrating~ socialistic
influences that are today assalling 1t
under pressure of overcrowding IN the
countries of Europe"
DR.. Reed does, however, discover
some influences inimical to the Ameri-
can family Among these he classes
everything that tends to the early
and wide dispersion of its members
such as s'the development Of residen-
tial schools, the rapid extension OF
far-reaching transportation facilities,
the diversification Of industries, the
industrial employment of women, the
formation of distinct industrial groups,
the character of political parties, the
capitalization Of hotels and apart
ments for residential purposes, and,
finally, the development of clubv 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 threaten
ing the life of the American common
wealth, and he thinks that the annals
of it's divorce courts might reveal ex-
amples of conjugal infidelity almost
parallel to the case cited by st. Jer-
ONE of a woman married to her TWEEN
ty-third husband, she being his TWEEN
ty-first wife.