The writer above quoted from says of this second period: "In France the birth-rate fell slowly, in Italy more rapidly, and in England and Prussia still more rapidly. As, however, the fall began earliest in France, the birth-rate was lower there than in the other countries named. For the same reason it was lower in England than in Prussia, although England stands in this respect at almost exactly the same distance from Prussia today (1917) as thirty years ago, the fall having occurred at the same rate in both countries. It is quite possible that in the future it may become more rapid in Prussia than in England, for the birth-rate of Berlin is lower than the birth-rate of London, and urbanization is proceeding at a more rapid rate in Germany than in England."
It is not difficult to arrive at the psychological reason underlying this great change in public opinion, as manifested in this second stage.
In the first place, the wonderful era of world-expansion was arrested, by natural causes well understood by students of sociology. The ambitious dreams of world-empires were rudely interrupted. Moreover, public opinion was being affected by a quiet education along the lines of sociology and economics.
The working cla.s.ses began to perceive, on the one hand, the tendency of overpopulation to hold down, or even decrease, the scale of wages. The evils of over-production, and of under-consumption were dimly perceived.
And, on the other hand, the capitalists began to perceive that another factor was at work--one which they had failed to include in their optimistic calculations. Instead of the cheaper wage rate which they had expected by reason of the over-abundance of human material, they found that the growth of popular education in the democratic countries had caused the working cla.s.ses to demand greater comforts of life, and to oppose the cheapening of human labor. And at the same time, the ma.s.ses began to revolt against the idea of raising children to become "cannon fodder" for ambitious autocratic rulers. The ma.s.ses began to protest against selling their labor and their lives so cheaply.
These changed viewpoints of the working cla.s.ses began to result in attempts on their part to form a.s.sociations to resist the tendency on the part of capitalists to force down the scale of wages to fit the increased population. Trade unions flourished and became powerful, and the same impulse carried many into the ranks of socialism, and still beyond into the fold of anarchism and syndicalism. And, here note this significant fact, with these new perceptions and these new movements among the ma.s.ses, THE BIRTH-RATE BEGAN TO FALL RAPIDLY.
The writer above quoted from says of this period: "The pessimists were faced by horrors on both sides. On the one hand, they saw that the ever-increasing rate of human production which seemed to them the essential condition of national, social, even moral progress, had not only stopped but was steadily diminishing. On the other hand, they saw that, even so far as it was maintained, it involved, under modern conditions, nothing but social commotion and economic disturbance. There are still many pessimists of this cla.s.s alive among us even today, alike in England and Germany, but a new generation is growing up, and this question is now entering another phase."
It would seem that the race is now well started in the third period, phase, or stage of this conception of the birth-rate. Even the Great War is not likely to seriously interrupt its ultimate progress, though conditions in all civilized countries will unquestionably be disturbed by the unusual conditions now prevailing and caused by the great conflict. The spirit of this third stage seems to be that the Truth is to be found between the two extremes, viz.: (1) the extreme of pa.s.sive optimism of the first stage; and (2) the extreme of pa.s.sive pessimism of the second stage. It realizes that there is excellent ground for hope in better things; but it equally realizes that hope alone is vain, and will accomplish nothing unless it is accompanied with and directed by a clear intellectual vision manifested in individual and social action based on that clear intellectual vision.
The writer above quoted from says of this developing period: "It is today beginning to be seen that the old notion of progress by means of reckless multiplication is vain. It can only be effected at a ruinous cost of death, disease, poverty, and misery. We see this in the past history of Western Europe, as we still see it in the history of Russia.
Any progress effected along that line--if "progress" it can be called--is now barred, for it is utterly opposed to those democratic conceptions which are ever gaining greater influence among us. Moreover, we are now better able to a.n.a.lyze demographic phenomena, and are no longer satisfied with any crude statements regarding the birth-rate. We realize that they need interpretation. They have to be considered in relation to the s.e.x-const.i.tution and the age-const.i.tution of the population, and ABOVE ALL, THEY MUST BE VIEWED IN RELATION TO THE INFANT MORTALITY RATE.
"The bad aspect of the French birth-rate is not so much its lowness as that it is accompanied by a high infantile mortality. The fact that the German birth-rate is higher than the English ceases to be a matter of satisfaction when it is realized that German infantile mortality is vastly greater than English. A HIGH BIRTH-RATE IS NO SIGN OF A HIGH CIVILIZATION. BUT WE ARE BEGINNING TO FEEL THAT A HIGH INFANTILE DEATH-RATE IS A SIGN OF A VERY INFERIOR CIVILIZATION. A LOW BIRTH-RATE WITH A LOW INFANT DEATH-RATE NOT ONLY PRODUCES THE SAME INCREASE IN POPULATION AS A HIGH BIRTH-RATE WITH A HIGH DEATH-RATE, WHICH ALWAYS ACCOMPANIES IT (FOR THERE ARE NO EXAMPLES OF A HIGH BIRTH-RATE WITH A LOW DEATH-RATE), BUT IT PRODUCES IT IN A WAY WHICH IS FAR MORE WORTHY OF OUR ADMIRATION IN THIS MATTER THAN THE WAY OF RUSSIA AND CHINA WHERE OPPOSITE CONDITIONS PREVAIL."
The evolutionary process which all students of sociology clearly perceive to have been underway in the matter of the att.i.tude of public opinion toward the birth-rate, and which is now underway with increased impetus, is perceived to be a natural process. It is a natural process which has been underway from the beginning of the living world. For a long time it operated and manifested along unconscious and instinctive lines of activity, but now it has emerged into the light of human consciousness and manifests along the lines of conscious, voluntary, and deliberate human action.
In its present state of evolutionary progress human thought along these lines has found expression in what is generally known as "Birth Control." The process which has been working slowly through the ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is henceforth destined to be carried out voluntarily, in the light of human reason, foresight, and self-restraint. The rise of Birth Control may be said to correspond with the rise of social and sanitary science in the first half of the nineteenth century, and to be indeed an essential part of that movement.
The new doctrine of Birth Control is now firmly established in all the most progressive and enlightened countries of Europe, notably in France and England; in Germany, where formerly the birth-rate was very high, Birth Control has developed with extraordinary rapidity during the present century. In Holland its principles and practice are freely taught by physicians and nurses to the mothers of the people, with the result that there is in Holland no longer any necessity for unwanted babies, and this small country possesses the proud privilege of the lowest death-rate in Europe.
In the free and enlightened Democratic communities on the other side of the globe, in Australia and New Zealand, the same principles and practice are generally accepted, with the same beneficent results. On the other hand, in the more backward and ignorant countries of Europe, Birth Control is still little known, and death and disease flourish.
This is the case in those eight European countries which come at the bottom of the list of the Birth Control scale, and in which the birth-rate is the highest and the death-rate the heaviest--the two rates maintaining such a constant correspondence as to lead to the inevitable conclusion that they are a.s.sociated as cause and effect.
But even in the more progressive countries Birth Control has not been established without a struggle, which has frequently ended in a hypocritical compromise, its principles being publicly ignored or denied and its practice privately accepted. For, at the great and vitally important point in human progress which Birth-Control represents, we see really the conflict of two moralities. The morality of the ancient world is here confronted by the morality of the new world.
The old morality, knowing nothing of science and the process of Nature as worked out in the evolution of life, contented itself with a.s.suming as a basis the early chapters of Genesis in which the children of Noah are represented as entering an empty earth which it is their business to populate diligently. So it came about that for this morality, still innocent of eugenics, recklessness was almost a virtue. Children were held to be given by G.o.d; if they died or were afflicted by congenital disease, it was the dispensation of G.o.d, and, whatever imprudence the parents might commit, the pathetic faith still ruled that "G.o.d will provide."
But in the new morality it is realized that in these matters Divine action can only be made manifest in human action, that is to say through the operation of our own enlightened reason and resolved will. Prudence, foresight, self-restraint--virtues which old morality looked down upon with benevolent contempt--a.s.sume a position of first importance. In the eyes of the new morality the ideal woman is no longer the meek drudge condemned to endless and often ineffectual child-bearing, but the free and instructed woman, able to look before and after, trained in a sense of responsibility alike to herself and to the race, and determined to have no children but the best.
Such were the two moralities which came into conflict during the nineteenth century. They are irreconcilable and each firmly rooted, one in ancient religion and tradition, the other in progressive science and reason. Nothing was possible in such a clash of opposing ideas but a feeble and confused compromise such as we find still prevailing in various countries of Old Europe. This is not a satisfactory solution, however inevitable, and is especially unsatisfactory by the consequent obscurantism which placed difficulties in the way of spreading a knowledge of the methods of Birth Control among the ma.s.ses of the population. For the result has been that while the more enlightened and educated have exercised a control over the size of their families, the poorer and more ignorant--those who should have been offered every facility and encouragement to follow in the same path--have been left, through a conspiracy of silence, to carry on helplessly the bad customs of their forefathers. This social neglect has had the result that the superior family stocks have been tampered by the recklessness of the inferior stocks.
In America, we find the two moralities in active conflict today. Until recently America has meekly accepted at the hand of Old Europe the traditional prescription. On the surface, the ancient morality had been complacently, almost unquestionably, accepted in America, even to the extent of tacitly permitting the existence of a vast extension of abortion, under the surface of society--a criminal practice which ever flourishes where Birth Control is neglected.
But today, a new movement is perceptible in America. It would seem that, almost in a flash, America has awakened to the true significance of the issue. With that direct vision of hers, that swift practicality of action, and above all, that sense of the democratic nature of all social progress, we see her resolutely beginning to face this great problem. In her vigorous tongue she is demanding "What is all this secrecy about, anyway? Let us turn on the Light!" And the best authorities agree that America"s answer to the demand will be of the greatest importance, and of immense significance to the whole world.
In concluding this portion of our discussion, I ask my readers to consider the following quotations from writers who have touched upon the question of the stimulation of the birth-rate by the State, for the purpose of military policy. These quotations speak for themselves, and need but little comment.
The first authority, a German, whose name has escaped me for the moment, laments the falling birth-rate in his country, and urges his own nation to stimulate it by offering bounties; he says: "Woe to us if we follow the example of the wicked and degenerate people of other nations. Our nation needs men. We have to populate the earth, and to carry the blessings of our Kultur all over the world. In executing that high mission we cannot have too much human material in defending ourselves against the aggression of other nations who are jealous of us and our achievements and progress. Let us promote parentage by law; let us repress by law every influence which may encourage a falling birth-rate; otherwise there is nothing left us but speedy national disaster, complete and irremediable."
Havelock Ellis, an Englishman, says: "In Germany for years past it has been difficult to take up a serious periodical without finding some anxiously statistical article about the falling birth-rate, and some wild recommendations for its arrest. For it is the militaristic German who of all Europeans is most worried by this fall; indeed Germans often even refuse to recognize it. Thus today we find Professor Gruber declaring that if the population of the German Empire continues to grow at the rate of the first five years of the present century, it will have reached 250,000,000 at the end of the century. By such a vast increase in population, the Professor complacently concludes, "Germany will be rendered invulnerable." But Gruber"s estimate is entirely fallacious.
German births have fallen, roughly speaking, about 1 per 1,000 of the population, every year since the beginning of the century, and it would be equally reasonable to estimate that if they continue to fall at the present rate (which we cannot, of course, antic.i.p.ate) births will altogether have ceased in Germany before the end of the century. The German birth-rate reached its climax forty years ago (1871-1880) with 40.7 per 1,000; in 1906 it was 34 per 1,000; in 1909 it was 31 per 1,000; in 1912 it was 28 per 1,000; in an almost measurable period of time, in all probability before the end of the century, it will have reached the same low level as that of France, when there will be but little difference between the "invulnerability" of France and of Germany, a consummation which, for the world"s sake, is far more devoutly to be wished than that antic.i.p.ated by Gruber."
Writers of Teutonic sympathies have a.s.serted that the aggressive att.i.tude of Germany at the beginning of the Great War was to be legitimately explained and apologized for on the ground that the War was the inevitable expansive outcome of the abnormally high birth-rate of Germany in recent times. Dr. Dernburg, the German statesman, said not very long ago: "The expansion of the German nation has been so extraordinary during the past twenty-five years that the conditions existing before the war had become insupportable." Another writer has said: "Of later years there has arisen a movement among German women for bringing abortion into honor and repute, so that it may be carried out openly and with the aid of the best physicians. This movement has been supported by lawyers and social reformers of high position."
Thus, it would seem that a birth-rate stimulated by unusual circ.u.mstances or by deliberate State encouragement, seemingly draws upon it the operation of natural laws which tend to increase its death-rate by War, as well as by an increased number of abortions, and an increased death-rate. It would seem as natural laws operate to bring down the population to normal by war if the other factors do not operate sufficiently rapidly and efficiently.
Havelock Ellis makes the following interesting statement: "If we survey the belligerent nations in the war we may say that those who took the initiative in drawing it on, or at all events were most prepared to welcome it, were Germany, Austria, Serbia, and Russia--all nations with a high birth-rate, and in which the fall of the birth-rate has not yet had time to permeate. On the other hand, of the belligerent peoples of today, all indications point to the French as the people most intolerant, silently but deeply, of the war they are so ably and heroically waging. Yet the France of the present, with the lowest birth-rate, was a century ago the France of a birth-rate higher than that of Germany today, and at that time the most militarist and aggressive of nations, a perpetual menace to Europe."
Finally, let us quote Havelock Ellis once more; he says: "When we realize these facts we are also enabled to realize how futile, how misplaced and how mischievous it is to raise the cry of "Race Suicide."
It is futile because no outcry can affect a world-wide movement of civilization. It is misplaced because the rise and fall of the population is not a matter of birth-rate alone, but of the birth-rate combined with the death-rate, and while we cannot expect to touch the former we can influence the latter. It is mischievous because by fighting against a tendency which is not only inevitable but altogether beneficial, we blind ourselves to the advance of civilization and risk the misdirection of our energies. How far this blindness may be carried we see in the false patriotism of those who in the decline of the birth-rate, fancy they see the ruin of their own particular country, oblivious of the fact that we are concerned with a phenomenon of world-wide extension. The whole tendency of civilization is to reduce the birth-rate. We may go further, and a.s.sert with the distinguished German economist, Roscher, that the chief cause of the superiority of a highly civilized state over lower stages of civilization is precisely a greater degree of forethought and self-control in marriage and child-bearing. Instead of talking about Race Suicide, we should do well to observe at what an appalling rate, even yet, the population is increasing; and we should note that it is everywhere the poorest and most primitive countries, and in every country (as in Germany) the poorest regions, which show the highest birth-rate."
The same authority says: "One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social cla.s.ses unequally. It is initiated, not by the degenerate and unfit, with whom we could well dispense, but by the very best cla.s.ses in the community, the well-to-do and the educated. One is inclined to remark, at once, that a social change initiated by its best social cla.s.s is scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among the most educated cla.s.ses, is any process of amelioration to be initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline of the birth-rate, but it is already well marked among the working cla.s.ses, and has only failed to touch the lowest stratum of all, too weak-minded and too reckless to be amenable to ordinary social motives. The rational method of meeting this situation is not a propaganda in favor of procreation--a truly imbecile propaganda, since it is only carried out and only likely to be carried out, by the very cla.s.s which we wish to sterilize--but rather by a wise policy of regulative eugenics. We have to create the motives, and it is not an impossible task, which will act even upon the weak-minded and reckless lowest social stratum."
LESSON XII
THE ARGUMENT FOR BIRTH CONTROL
Let us now consider the general and special arguments advanced in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control, as stated by the advocates thereof.
GENERAL ARGUMENT. The general argument in favor of Birth Control may well be begun by the statement that rational and scientific Birth Control is not the fixing upon the race of a new and unfamiliar practice or policy, but is rather the scientific correction of a practice and policy which is now followed by the majority of married persons in civilized countries, though in a bungling, unscientific, and frequently a harmful manner. The modern advocates of scientific methods of Birth Control seek to replace these bungling, unscientific, and frequently harmful methods by sane, scientific, harmless methods, approved of by capable physicians and other experienced and capable authorities, and under the sanction of the law rather than contrary to it.
The advocates of Birth Control seek to place upon a scientific basis, under cover and protection of the law, a subject which heretofore has been but imperfectly known, and more imperfectly practiced in some form by the majority of married couples, and which has heretofore been under condemnation of the law so far as concerned the actual dissemination of information concerning methods of contraception. They hold that it is the veriest hypocrisy to pretend ignorance of the fact that the great majority of married couples in civilized communities know and practice to some extent contraceptive methods--usually imperfectly and bunglingly, it must be added.
One has but to consider the families of married couples, and to count their children, to become aware that at least some form of contraception has been known and practiced in many cases. This is particularly true of the more intelligent and cultured members of civilized society, among whom we find large families of children to be the exception, and small families to be the general rule. Among the less intelligent and uncultured cla.s.ses the reverse of this condition is found.
It is hypocritical folly to a.s.sert that these small families to be found among the more intelligent cla.s.ses of society are due to the fact that the husbands and wives are physically incapable of procreating off-spring--the mere suggestion produces an incredulous smile from the reader. No one who is acquainted with the habits and customs of married people would in good faith offer such an explanation. Rather is it tacitly acknowledged by all thinking persons that such married couples practice some form of Birth Control, or else commit the crime of abortion. All physicians, particularly those who practice in the large cities, are fully informed as to the appalling facts concerning the prevalence of abortion among the women of the "respectable" cla.s.ses, and are likewise fully informed as to the terrible consequences so frequently arising from this criminal course.
The question, then, to many intelligent persons is not so much that of "Should contraception be employed in order to avoid excessively large families?" as that of "Should not contraception be employed to obviate the crime of abortion with its terrible train of consequences?" And the Birth Control propaganda which is so vigorously underway in all civilized countries may be stated to be designed for the following purposes: (1) to replace abortion, and other harmful methods of restricting the size of families, with rational and scientific methods of contraception; and (2) to supply to married persons the best scientific knowledge concerning the regulation of the size of families, and the methods of producing the best kind of children, under the best conditions, and at the times best adapted for their proper care and well-being. These advocates of the Betterment of the Race face the facts of human nature and married life fearlessly, instead of trying to cover them over with pretty words and sentimental generalities. They take "things as they are," and not as certain persons insist that "they should be"--they live in a world of facts and try to better things as they find them, instead of trying to live in a fool"s paradise and contenting themselves with denying the existence of the facts which they consider "ugly."
Dr. William J. Robinson, one of the leading American workers in the field of Birth Control, ably presents the main contention of the Birth Control advocates as follows:
"We believe that under any conditions, and particularly under our present economic conditions, human beings should be able to control the number of our offspring. THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DECIDE HOW MANY CHILDREN THEY WANT TO HAVE, AND WHEN THEY WANT TO HAVE THEM. And to accomplish this result we demand that the knowledge of controlling the number of offspring, in other and plainer words, the knowledge of preventing undesirable conception, should not be considered criminal knowledge, that its dissemination should not be considered a criminal offense punishable by hard labor in Federal prisons, but that it should be considered knowledge useful and necessary to the welfare of the race and of the individual; and that its dissemination should be permissible and as respectable as is the dissemination of any hygienic, sanitary or eugenic knowledge.
"There is no element of force in our teachings; that is, we would not force any family to limit the number of children against their will, though we would endeavor to create a public opinion which would consider it a disgrace for any family to have more children than they can bring up and educate properly. We would consider it a disgrace, an anti-social act, for any family to bring children into the world which they must send out at an early age into the mills, shops, and streets to earn a living, or must fall back upon public charity to save them from starvation.
"Public opinion is stronger than any laws, and in time people would be as much ashamed of having children whom they could not bring up properly in every sense of the word, as they are now ashamed of having their children turn out criminals. Now, no disgrace can attach to any poor family, no matter how many children they have, because they have not got the knowledge, because society prevents them from having the knowledge of how to limit the number of children. But if that knowledge became easily accessible, and people still refused to avail themselves of it, then they would properly be considered as anti-social, as criminal members of society. As far as couples are concerned who are well-to-do, who love children, and who are well capable of taking care of a large number, we, that is, we American limitationists, would put no limit. On the contrary, we would say: "G.o.d bless you, have as many children as you want to; there is plenty of room yet for all of you.""
Another writer, a celebrated English thinker along these lines, has said of the general argument in favor of Birth Control:
"It used to be thought that small families were immoral. We now begin to see that it was the large families of old which were immoral. The excessive birth-rate of the early industrial period was directly stimulated by selfishness. There were no laws against child-labor; children were produced that they might be sent out, when little more than babies, to the factories and the mines to increase their parents"
incomes. The diminished birth-rate has accomplished higher moral transformation. It has introduced a finer economy into life, diminished death, disease, and misery. It is indirectly, and even directly, improving the quality of the race. The very fact that children are born at longer intervals is not only beneficial to the mother"s health, and therefore to the children"s general welfare, but it has been proved to have a marked and prolonged influence on the physical development of children.
"Social progress, and a higher civilization, we thus see, involve A REDUCED BIRTH-RATE AND A REDUCED DEATH-RATE. The fewer the children born, the fewer the risks of death, disease, and misery to the children that are born. The fact that civilization involves small families is clearly shown by the tendency of the educated and upper social cla.s.ses to have small families. As the proletariat cla.s.s becomes educated and elevated, disciplined to refinement and to foresight--as it were aristocratised--it also has small families. Civilizational progress is here on a line with biological progress. The lower organisms sp.a.w.n their progeny in thousands, the higher mammals produce but one or two at a time. The higher the race, the fewer the offspring.
"Thus diminution in quant.i.ty is throughout a.s.sociated with augmentation in quality. Quality rather than quant.i.ty is the racial ideal now set before us, and it is an ideal which, as we are beginning to learn, it is possible to cultivate, both individually and socially. That is why the new science of eugenics or racial hygiene is acquiring so immense an importance. In the past, racial selection has been carried out crudely by the destructive, wasteful, and expensive method of elimination, through death. In the future, it will be carried out far more effectively by conscious and deliberate selection, exercised not merely before birth, but before conception and even before mating. Galton, who recognized the futility of mere legislation to elevate the race, believed that the hope of the future lay in eugenics becoming a part of religion. The good of the race lies, not in the production of a super-man, but of a super-humanity. This can only be attained through personal individual development, the increase of knowledge, the sense of responsibility toward the race, enabling men to act in accordance with responsibility. THE LEADERSHIP IN CIVILIZATION BELONGS NOT TO THE NATION WITH THE HIGHEST BIRTH-RATE, BUT TO THE NATION WHICH HAS THUS LEARNT TO PRODUCE THE FINEST MEN AND WOMEN."
Let us now proceed to a consideration of the special arguments in favor of rational and scientific Birth Control as advanced by its leading advocates.
The advocates of rational and scientific Birth Control have presented the strongest points of their case in their replies to those opposing the general idea, and without positively taking the stand that the burden of the proof in the argument concerning Birth Control rested upon those opposing the idea, have practically a.s.sumed that position. They claim that the right to Birth Control is so self-evident, and its application so generally recognized (though usually sought to be smothered with silence) that the case in favor of Birth Control is really quite apparent to anyone seriously considering the same without prejudice. The opposing side of the question is held by them to be represented princ.i.p.ally by statements based on prejudice and disingenuous statements, which are capable of being turned against those advancing them.