The daily progressive-miner., 1915-12-14
HELEN KELLER
 GIVES REASONS
FOR CONTROLLING BIRTH OF DEFECTIVE BABIES WHICH
 SHE FRANKLY APPROVES


 tant question that has taken hold of mothers minds and doctors since defective child was not helped to live, but rather allowed to die soon after birth, gives splendid reasons for encouraging the work, with which we may not all accept as correct according to our views, yet We must admit that her argument is replete with facts that can rot be denied, therefore, well worth considering. The article follows:
 When Dr. II. J. Haiselden per mitted the Bollinger baby to die in a
 Chicago hospital, he performed q
 service to society as we'll as to the hopeless being he spared from a life of misery.
 No one cares about that pitiful useless lump of flesh, but that baby has lived not in vain because US uedIH ulOuSht us ldCC to loSe with the many questions of eugenics and control of the birth rate = questions we have been side-step- ring because we are afraid of them.
 The hue and cry raised about the murder of this poor, mindless. crippled, half-dead little creature. indicates a deep-rooted error In American thinking.
 It shows that we do not under stand the meaning of life or its laws or it's great beautiful purposes joy beauty and achievement. Our .runy sentimentalism has caused us to forget that a HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED ONLY WHEN TT MAY BE OF SOME USE TO ITSELF AND TO THE WORLD.
 We have refused to listen to the Dr, Haiseldens when they have tried to rub into us the fact that the world is already flooded with un- happy, unhealthy, mentally unsound persons that should never have been born.
 Their declaration that we can prevent the birth of more such un- fortunate persons, and must pre- vent it, has angered unwilling hear CTS to whom such wisdom is blas- rhemy.
 The sentimentalist's ire has smo1- dered long while thoughtful men discussed whether the insane and defective class should be per vented from propagating them selves. And now the life and death Of this baby is the match that has set fire to all this combustible ma terial.
 Forms Birth Control League
 The case of William Sanger, whose wife formed the birth con- trol league, should open the eyes of sll intelligent persons to the forces at work against the spread of this new idea. A short time ago Sam ger was sent to prison in New York fer giving away phamplet, "Fam- fly Limitation" that his wife had written It was her answer to many appeals for information from men and women who could not support tho. families, and who could enot pay a competent physician for the information they wanted. Its pur- pose was to help distressed parents to limit the number of their off, spring and give better chance of health and happiness to the chil- dren they did have.
 Now, most of those who have large families are working people. Why should not the idea of hav- ing fewer children be fostered a. mong them?
 The imprisonment of Sanger re- veals the fact that there are per- sons who do not want this idea to be disseminated among the work CTS. These persons, for the sake of profits alone, deliberately encour- age the workers to have large fam flies, that their little ones may be driven to labor-that the factories shall have them-to the end that there shall be no dearth of hands and therefore plenty of people to take such wages as is offered them.
 New Knowledge Odious to Them
 Incredible as it seems, employers of others brains and bodies may, and do, claim a right over the lives, the frail limbs and tender souls of others progeny-for profit. To such persons the new knowledge about birth control is odious.
 The limiting of families is mat ter of the gravest necessity to tie workers. In spite of our boasts of national prosperity, poverty is steadily increasing. The cost of liv ing mounts higher and higher, and wages do not advance in proportion, If the families of the workers are left to the uncontrolled caprice of nature, we shall have larger per