The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1914-12-03

England is encouraging the marriage
of recruits soon to go on service, So
says a dispatch from London. Ger
many and Austria have already taken
steps to guard against a falling birth
rate" In some cases marriages have
! been performed en- masse
What do these euphemisms about
encouraging marriage" providing
against falling birth rate" and the
like mean? They mean Breed before
you diet"
That is the naked truth of 1t. That
is the demand the nations at war are
making.
They marry. The husband marches
away. The young woman remains to
drudge as usual. For months she Is
prey to suspense, anxiety and fear, She
may never hear from her husband
again. She may hear at any moment
the news that he is dead or wounded
on the field of battle.
When the young mother staggers
down the valley of the shadow of death
10 open the door that brings life into
the world, staggers along without the
encircling, comforting arm of her man,
alone in her hour Of greatest stress,
waiting for her child as she waits for
news from the battlefield, is there
consolation and comfort in the thought
that she is keeping up the birth
rate?"
What sort of offspring will she bring
forth under these circumstances? What
sort of offspring do women torn with
fear and anxiety during the most crit
; ical period tend to bring forth? The
child may be sound physically and
mentally. The chances are it won't
be. This is how the unborn generation
will pay the price of war madness and
the bill will be a heavy one,
The child comes. She is it's sole pro-
! tector 1t is the states child; but the
state surrenders to her the main bur-
} den of support. She must drudge in
) order to gain the pittance needed to
keep them both. In Europe life is hard
for the poor. 1t is more than hard fol-
young women with young babes.
. Do you know the slums of London
the sordid parts of Paris, the strick-
en- quarters of the cities, towns ant
countryside of Europe? 1t is annie
, such haunts of misery that many OF
these state encouraged children will
/ be reared To such environment viii
, the wise policy of the state devote
them in advance.
The strain may be too great for thu
young mother. She may not have thu
J, will to resist "the easier way" Sh
may go to swell the vast army o
women who are more sinned agains
than shining. She may walk tn
streets at night Sinking along in tn
j shadows Of a great city, terrible me
mento of the breed and die policy.
+ The child grows up. The state whic
l. provided such magnificent auspices fc
its creation has quite forgotten it.
may become a good citizen. If so,
e will overcome tremendous obstacle
= If it does not, if it, too, yields to II
Il sordid surroundings, then an all-wis
d and forgetful state will punish it.
Breed before you die!" To such
- cry has the war already brought II
D. warning nations At the beginning
- the strife, the cry was give us stror
n men for battle and the saving Of the
country, men who are not afraid
fight and die!" Now there comes I
a deeper cry, filled with the TRACED
IS OF national existence.
It is this cry of give us children
we persist" They may not be hapI
| children Many will never see the
fathers, or seeing them, loathe the
20 for crippled incubuses upon self or nj