The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-09-15
COUNTESS WARWICK ON. LARGE
FAMILIES.

Should the poor have large families
Are the parents of eight or ten or even
a dozen children to be classed among
the improvident or hailed as patriots
The question is constantly raised.
"Improvident creatures" said an ac-
quaintance of mine as we passed her
gardeners cottage and saw a number
of small children. HE earns "a shil-
lings a week, he has eight children
and his wife is expecting another. He
is a good gardener, but he can hardly
make both ends meet. What are you
to do with such cases?"
L only see two remedies" re-
piled. Il should give him larger cot
tage and a little more money every
week.
She stared at me and was silent for
a few minutes. 81 never looked at it
in that light she said at last.
To begin with, the doctrines of Nal
thus are false. He fOresaw popula-
ton increasing SO rapidly that the
earth could not produce a sufficiency
of food; today we know that the earth
could keep twice its present popula-
tion in comfort if all our resources
were but directed to preservation in
stead of destruction, and if there were
only a reasonably fair division of the
fruits of labor. In the second place
it is the first place in reality-we are
bound to place sufficient faith in Prov
idence that placed us on this plane to
believe that our coming here is not
merely fortuitous.
BE fruitful and multiply and re-
plenish the earth and subdue it, was
admonition addressed solely to the
Jews 1t applies with equal force to
all the pioneers of civilization, and
today the white men of the western
hemisphere bear the worlds burdens.
The wealthy classes of Europe and
America, who lack the smallest excuse
for restricted families, would appear
deliberately to have shirked their duty.
If the poor were to follow the exam
pie of the rich it is safe to say that in
the course of a single generation the
white mans burden would crush him.
The rich woman is afraid or unwilling
to suffer pains and discomfort; the
poor woman treats motherhood in
quite a different way. Her looks, her
health and her strength may pay the
price, but she has pride in her chill
dren and will sacrifice herself for
them. We women who live in easy
circumstances have never done justice
to our poorer sisters for the devotion
to duty that alone allows the worlds
work to be carried on.
So much, then, for one aspect of the
case. There is a larger one. with which
l would like to fea1.t SssF =
1t is not to be expected that the dis
NAL conditions of so much labor are
more than temporary. We all believe
in a better world of our own making,
in a steady reduction of the anomalies
that, for example, distribute nine
tenths of the natural wealth among
about one-tenth of the population.
Such a condition cannot endure.
Discomfort is the motive power of
progress. 1t has in the past made
free men of slaves and serfs. 1t has
abolished the worst phases of child
labor, it has cleared away slums, it
has raised wages and forced holidays
and widened on all sides the narrow
boundaries of freedom. One has
heard of divine discomfort, and the
adjective pleases me nightly, for
there is nothing so dangerous to the
future of worker as content with the
conditions that don't give them what
they have rightly earned. Content is
very much like apathy; it marks the
end of progress. If the wives of work
ing men were to refuse to do their
duty-that is to say-if they were no
better than their richer sisters-there
would soon be an end to discomfort
and, consequently, to progress.
San Francisco Examiner.