Omaha daily bee., 1916-06-13
War and the
Birth Rate
- W Wv --F
By WOODS HUTCHINSON, M. D

a clever prognosticator to have more
than half his predictions come true
When the war first broke out, eugen.
lists and paciists, and biologists, his
torians and hysterians united in pro
claiming with a loud voice that th'
deadliest and most serious damage
of the war would fall not upon the
present generation, terrible as its
losses would be, but upon the genera
tion yet unborn, and the future STAN
ina and makeup OF the race.
Whatever else might happen, who
ever might win, whatever changes
might be made in the long suffering
map of Europe, the one sure and in
evitable result would be tremendou
falling off in the birth rate and fear
full increase in the already excessive
surplus of females There coulc
hardly have been more digniheo
and substantially supported predic-
tion than this-grave scientists. emf.
nent eugenic authorities, statisticians.
political economists. all subscribed to
the prophecy. Indeed, the result
seemed to be as unnecessary and self
evident as that the juxtaposition and
superposition of two and two will in
evitably achieve the quadrate triumph
of fourness. A large proportion of
married men, particularly of the
younger ages, when families arc in
:reasing at the most rapid rate, would
be taken from their homes and kept
away for months or even years; and
an even larger percentage of young,
unmarried men, at the very age when
they were most likly to marry, would
also be taken out of the country en-
tirely and prevented from marrying
to say nothing of the percentage of
both groups killed in battle. What
else could possibly happen but large
decrease in the number of children
born to the nation? =
This it was clearly and indisputably
pointed out would occur in highest
degree and most striking fashion in
those nations whose armies were
filled by conscription and universal
military service, and least noticeably
in those which depended upon volun-
tary enlistment and had much small
Ter proportion of their young adult
males on the firing line. ot
At the end Of a year of war the Of
fetal records of vital statistics were
consulted with fear and trembling,
but showed considerably smaller de-
clinein births than had been predicted
This. it was explained, was due to the
fact that many of the men, particu-
larly in England and France, had
been kept for the first three to SIX
months in training camps, from which
they could easily revisit their homes,
and had not yet been sent to the front
or out Of the country.
But nine months more have now
passed and this explanation will no
longer hold, for the fighting has been
so general and so bloody that fully
three-fourths of all the men called
to the colors have been sent to the
front and many Of the regiments deci-
mated by actual service, while those
who are now in the training camps
are mostly young boys Of 18 or 19,
not yet factor in the birth rate.
There has been frightful slaugh-
ter of fathers and potential fathers in
the European war, so that the full
and unmitigated effect Of war on the
birth rate has now had time to dis
play itself, with the astonishing and
agreeably disappointing result that
the figure show falling off only of
10 to Is per cent after more than a
year and a half Of the bloodiest war
in all history Only a little greater
than has been recorded in the years
following any severe industrial crisis
or period of hard times. What makes
it still more surprising and appar-
emily detached from war influences
as such is that the fall of the death
rate has been almost as great in vol
unteer England, with only about 20
per cent Of her adult males on the
firing line, as in conscription Ger
many, with over 40 per cent of its
male population in the army.
Not only so, but in several districts
| in England, which have become ex-
remely prosperous from the huge
boom in manufacturing ammunition
and army supplies and the high wages
paid, there is actually slight in
crease in the birth rate and distinct
increase in that even more delicate
barometer of financial conditions, the
marriage rate per l,000l And some.
what similar result is actually re-
ported from similar industrial COM
munities in Germany. The very lat.
est report from the English health
authorities shows that the marriage
rate for London is the highest in
forty years (since 1870, due to the
number of women earning good
wages in munition and other factories
who are marrying disabled and blind.
ed and crippled heroes in fervor oi
patriotism and devotion.
So curiously and mercifully feeblG,.
appears to be the influence of th'.
war god upon the ebb and flow OF
the great tides of human life; Witt
all the deadly completeness of uni
yersal military service, it still takes
and will always take at least three
men at home on the farms, in mun,l-
ton plants and on the railroads
(Lloyd-George says three meen and
four women at work) to keep one
man at the frontA While the strange
and dreadful stresses and geographi-
cal permanence of trench warfare
render regular and frequent furloughs
home, not merely possible, but neces-
sary for the fighters.
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