New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-03

unlike reason and humanity, Is perhaps
strong enough 10 overcome mems objections
20 scientific treatment Of the birth rate"
Havelock Ellis suggests the extension d
birth control to the lowest elements in The
population, so that the ignorant and dis
eased and feeble-minded will not breed os.
Of proportion to the rest Of the community.
But birth control, alone, even when uniysr-
sally applied inside a nation instead of being
applied, as now, only TO the intelligent and
wholesome elements, does not meet the in
ternational situation, which is one where
the miltaristic and autocratic nations like
Japan, go on multiplying and so altering the
balance Of power. Two wars have revealed
that a stable population, like the French, no
matter what its national wellbeing and is
courage, is not in itself powerful enough TO
resist the invasion of a military nation SUI
perior in numbers. universally applied
birth control inside Western democracy
does not meet the actual situation Of ever
expanding miitaristic races, with the yellow
races in the near background and the early
future in world arrangements. We cannot
rely on an eternal world peace to permit US
20 reduce the populations Of the dsnocraeies
The Extinction of Old America
If England becomes nation Of permanent
balanced static civilization Of 4O0OO00O per-
sons, that gives the future to prolific races
and the liberal democratic experiment is
doomed. In America We are going this way
blndly. Our old stock is practising birth re-
striction and is passing out Of existence
We have hidden from ourselves the perils
and ultimate disaster of this process by I'M
porting fresh hordes of vital peasants from
Southern and Southeastern Europe. But the
process is working TO the extinction OF the
old America, and it is substituting different
races, of alien blood and belief, controI
of our life is being exercised by other races,
and in a few generations we shall have an
America as distinct from Puritan New Eng
land the Cavalier South as Dublin is dif-
ferent from Manchester. immigration is the
easy and fatal solution for lessening stock
in America But il is no answer for Eng
land. Englishmen will never let themselves
be drowned out by tides Of Sicilans, So
yaks and Russian Jews. The future OF Eng
ers and whether those mothers and their
children are well provided for All other
problems of reconstruction are deriyatNe
rs compared with the creation Of life and the
establishment of healthy and numerous
child population. Lowering the death rae
by good milk and sanitation and housing
and medical care is only partial cure Tor a
falling birth rate. And saying LET women
work in the factories and professions and DC
mothers a. the same time does not meet
the fact that the factory and the home are
separate places.
More and better children" Is obviously
the only solution for a Western democracy
in a world where neighboring nations are
not under democratic control. 50 We are
forced back TO some such answer as that o.
the feminist movement, led by the Na'
Office and the Admiralty. Do not penahte
by poverty the woman who gives sons ana
daughters 20 the state. Endow motherhood'
Population is a community and state concern
\ nationalized motherhood rs OF more I'M
portancc than nationalizcd railways. Inc
military authorities have blazed the way N
n reckless disregard Of laisscz fare ana
conventional morality. They have lad down
the principle Of state guardianship Tor the
profession o. motherhood. II now rests WIN
the common sense OF England common
sense reinforced by the instinct Of seh-pFe'
crvation-to refuse TO permit the grea'
,crimcnt of the War Office and the Aa"''
rolty to die away.