The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1920-01-23
Drop in Birth
Rate Causes a Scare

safe. A prominent medical mar has
are witnessing is the death Of the mid
die class" Upon the coffin of that
class will be inscribed the epitaph "A
class that died because it could not
live" Not because it would not, but
because it could not. Are we going to
see Europe given over TO the working
class? And then?
The once great middle class, in its
last struggle for survival, will be
forced into one of two things; either
to sell out and go owe bodily TO or
ganized labor, or to form a European
middle class trade union, both for Of
tense and defense. 1t will say to
Europe: IF you want doctors, law
yers, ~clergymen, you must pay for it,
or we won't serve you"
But Europe, alas! is beginning to
do without the clergyman. The state
lawyer is beginning to supplant the
private practitioner. Only the doctor
Is left, and he, poor devil, is being
lillAollullLCb w hdlIOlldI lltUllll ISS
ulatiOns.
Here in England the middle class
family Of four or five has become
two or three. Medical men, without
exception, are united in their opinion
that during the past ten years the
birth rate Of that class has been going
headlong TO perdiIion.
Now come the figures of the mar
riage age, published q few days ago.
Between 1911-14 80 per cent Of all
bachelors married; IN 1917 only 37.6
per cent. In 18S6-90 so per cent mar
ried. The proportion of bachelors who
marry at over ttirty-ive has been
steadily rising, with a swift upward
climb In 1916 and 1917. Only 54.S
per cent Of spinsters marrying during
1917 were under twenty-five years of
age.
Among the middle classes the age is
rising at an alarming pace. 1t looks
as though within a comparatively
short time here in Englandsthe mid
die class will, with the increased age
Of marriage, give to the race only
those stunted specimens Of child life
which are so often, though not always,
the fruit Of late unions.
1t Is significant that no single per-
son has come forward to contest the
above. 1t cannot be contested. We
are looking on the passing Of a class.
Members Of parliament are begin
ming to sit up and take note.
Babies Fewer in Germany, Even.
Even Germany, the nursery Of Eu-
rope, which produced It's million babies
at the bidding of the war lord as
food for his %cannons, is fast depopu-
lating. The war has done this. The
Germans of the cities refuse to have
children. "We cannot feed them
they say. "We cannot ever feed our
selves"
During the war the German profess
sors sOlemnly debated polygamy as q
remedy. Some of them approved 1t
But Germany is no Utah and Berlin
no Salt Lake City. Today's Father
land Is strictly homogeneous. Econ
omy is the father of morality. The
modern German finds it hard enough
TO keep one wife. He does not want
half a dozen.
For ten years before the var Eng
land, like the rest Of Europe, had be
gun to yield herself to the pleasure
craze. With the war and that frantic
desire to forget which became a cult
that craze passed into frenzy. Today
over IL months after the war, the
music halls and picture palaces are
crowded to the doors. / have made
the experiment Of listening to the con
versation Of II couples of bushes.
girls in the early trans and buses. o,
this number no fewer than II used tn,
expression: "Where are you going to
nights" but what has all this TO dt
with the birth rate?
Everything. Pleasure to the English
man, as to the European, has becom,
a narcotic as essential as tobacco O,
alcohol. Pleasure costs money. Pleas
ure excessful means selfishness. Pleas
ure means effort and effort absorb,
vitality. Pleasure means the breaku,
of the home. The modern European
has to choose between pleasure an,
children. He chooses pleasure.
The Unborn Suffers.
Then comes the cost of living, IT,,
Europeans nightmare. The war H..