The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-03-23
PROF. GDDINGS, 81
FEARS RACE SUICIDE
WILL GET US.

DR.. Franklin Henry Giddings, of
Columbia University, who is consider
ed the leading sociological authority
of America, is to-day celebrating his
fifty-seventh birthday by sounding a
clarion call to his countrymen. Prof.
Giddings doesn't ask us to fight, nor
even vote. but to indulge in the lux
ury of larger families. Otherwise
the race suicide bugaboo will get us,
the barbarianS will overrun US, and Il
cline and Falf' dealing with the great
American republic. Thus does a
plank of the Rooseveltian platform
find scientific justification.
Prof. Giddings apparently never eX-
poets to run for the Presidency, for
lowing, to wit: 1.-The people who are
maintaining the human race to-day
are the barbarianS, the half-civilized
and the ignorant and brutaliZed peo-
pie, not the people that have inner
tied the wealth, the morals, the knowl-
edge and the advantages of civiliza-
ton
Some people," continues Prof. Gid
dings, "have an idea that if every
family has two children, that will
maintain the race 1t won't, he as
sures u.s. and proves it by statistics.
Every family must have an average
of four plus two, because you must
allow for the children that die in in
fancy. as we'll as for people who do
not marry, and for childless mar
ried couples"
Dr. Giddings says his investigations
in New York City disclose the fact
that >only the newest immigrants, and
principally those from Italy, Poland
and Russia, are doing their full du-
ty towards posterity. Well-to-do
residents of the metropolis have an
average of two children.
no fhn Loo nrr IF
men in the United States the Profess
sor has found "have come from fam
lilies having six or more children, and
large proportion of successful men
have been the youngest child. The
history of the United Stats shows
that the man who has achieved dis
tinction has been the sixth or seventh
child in a remarkable number of in
Stances
why are we all working so desper-
ate y hard 20 make something of this
great country?" Prof. Giddings in
quires. Because of our grandchil-
dren? Well, we won't have any, as
things are going now. The future
of the United States will be in the
hands of the children of the races we
now despise."
The reason t;1e increasing ten,
Prof. Giddin5 eli you that, too.
We are st:G 100 hard for
wealth, for CO. "a. for leisure, for
education, for tr,vel, for enjoyment,
for social standing---for the things
in short. that we have come to be-
lieve make life worth living, and we
prefer 'em to lot of crying babies
That's not the Professors exact lam
guage, but it is the gist of it, We
are becoming cynical, and we want 10
know what Posterity, the capitalized
God of the New Sociology, has ever
dore for us.
And now, having presented the So
Geological side Of the argument, we
will close with a selection from Mr..
Benjamin De Cassero's protest against
Posterity:
I'VE who are living, palpitating in
the flesh and blood present, have no
rights; the ego is not sufficient unto
itself; we are only .straws to show
which way the sociological winds are
blowing; we are only bricks and NOR
tar that shall go into the building
of that marvellous fantastic, phantas-
NAL edifice to house that coming holy
family-Posterity. Our deeds have
no value unless they feed the bullying
belly of incalculable non existent to-
m OTrowS.
One suspects that Mr.. De Casseres
has written sarcastic