"Those who are convinced that the voluntary prevention of conception is a most important weapon in the modern fight with poverty, disease and racial deterioration, will find their position only strengthened by survey of their opponents" objections. These objections are mainly of three kinds--and might be cla.s.sed as the pseudo-religious, the pseudo-moral and the pseudo-scientific, because all are based on conceptions which our present state of knowledge and social development have enabled us to outgrow....
"Prevention of conception is already an accepted principle among the educated cla.s.ses of every civilized country. According as the opposition of the law and public opinion are more or less stringent, it is practised with more or less secrecy; but secret or open, the practice is here to stay, and it is spreading. The fear of most of its opponents is, therefore, not nearly so much that the human race will become extinct as that its best elements will gradually be replaced by the worst. At first this may seem plausible. Granting our opponents" premise temporarily, the conclusion is logically unavoidable that in order to restore a normal relation between the so-called more and less intelligent or desirable cla.s.ses of society, we must put into the hands of all the methods of restricting their increase, now utilized only by the few."
On June 1, 1913, "Woman"s Sphere" of "The Call" contained a four-column article on race suicide, ent.i.tled, "Musings of a Socialist Woman." The author, Antoinette F. Konikow, who was a delegate to the Socialist National Conventions of 1908 and 1912, thus expresses her views:
"I consider the question of the prevention of conception to be of greater value to women than even the knowledge of s.e.xual diseases....
"After meeting hundreds of women and girls in heart to heart talks, I came to the sincere conviction that lectures on s.e.x hygiene which do not give a thorough understanding of conception in its definite bearings on practical life and also of its possibilities of prevention--that such lectures miss their main aim in bringing help to distressed humanity....
"Instead of meeting every need and demand of the worker, we are so hampered by the fear of getting a bad reputation among our enemies that we express our support to a new tendency only after it has acquired a certain respectability in society....
"Do the daring words of Comrade Clara G. Stillman or Dr...."s article not hurt the feelings of some of our Comrades? No doubt some readers felt dissatisfied but not more so than others who had to read the conservative statement of Comrade Carey in "The Leader," that he considers Bebel"s conception of the family un-Socialistic and anti-Socialistic....
"Do our morals stand on a higher plane, thanks to the careful guardianship of our laws?...
"It is high time then to serve notice upon all our benevolent censors and upholders of such laws, and declare ourselves fit to get along without their superior guidance. It is time to open a crusade against this hypocritical suppression of knowledge, which leads to endless and needless suffering. It is time to emphatically declare the right of the mother to control the functions of her own body for her own good and the welfare of her offspring."
The disastrous consequences of such a crusade to further the cause of race suicide are very forcibly brought home to us by an article which appeared in "The Call," May 10, 1914, on "The Conscious Limitation of Offspring in Holland":
"Our headquarters at The Hague and our subdivisions in all our greater towns are spreading theoretical leaflets and pamphlets; but the special pamphlet giving practical information in the prevention of conception, is only given to married people when asked. We are lecturing everywhere. But the essential missionary work is done privately and modestly, often unconsciously by showing the happy results in their own families, by the nearly 5,000 members of our league spread over the whole country, among whom are physicians, clergymen and teachers, etc. Every day information is asked by letters and still more by our printed postcards; all information is given cost-free and post-free. Almost all younger doctors and midwives are giving information, and are helping mothers in the cases when it is wanted on account of pathological indications.
Moreover special nurses are instructed in helping poor women.
Harmless preventive means are more and more taking the place of dangerous abortion. So, merely by our freedom of giving information, we have reached the desirable results proved most brilliantly by the statistical figures of our country."
On May 21, 1914, "Woman"s Sphere" of "The Call" devoted two more of its columns to the race suicide propaganda in the form of an article by Sonia Ureles under the caption, "Hats Off, Gentlemen, The Law!" Since many parts of the production are too foul to permit our quoting them, we shall give but a few short pa.s.sages:
"But the doctors only scowled, and the nurse told her gently that the law did not permit poor people to regulate the birth of their offspring....
"To the thought of a private pract.i.tioner she gave no heed; it was to her a luxury undreamed of....
"The nurse, a well-meaning honest creature, writhed uncomfortably under her gaze. "It"s--it"s against the law to give out such information," she stammered.
""I don"t care about the law," came the stubborn reply. "You promised. Now tell me." Nevertheless she left the hospital without the information....
"She applied to the women of her neighborhood for information. They told her things they thought they knew, and things they thought they ought to know. And her health was the price she paid....
"They who knew, but would not tell, left her one alternative. She chose it. And so,
""Hats off, gentlemen--the law!""
In this same issue of "The Call," May 24, 1914, there is an editorial comment that promised the base devotees of race suicide an abundance of filthy reading matter for the future:
"If unwelcome motherhood is not in accordance with a constructive eugenic program, then the free imparting of information concerning the prevention of involuntary motherhood must be. But as has been pointed out in these columns again and again, to make this part of a constructive eugenic program is to run up against vicious and barbarous state and federal laws which make the giving of necessary information a crime, punishable by imprisonment.
"In connection with this entire subject we call the attention of our readers to the grim sketch by Sonia Ureles, appearing elsewhere on this page today.
"This is the first of a series of stories on the same subject which Miss Ureles is writing for "Woman"s Sphere." All who know the vivid reality of this writer"s work will look forward to them with keen antic.i.p.ation."
Let it not be thought for a moment that "The Call" has yet given up its propaganda of race suicide. As recently as May 25, 1919, there appeared in the magazine section of that vile Socialist daily of New York City an article on the subject ent.i.tled, "Birth Control and the War," the article being no less than twelve columns long. Several quotations are hereby given:
"Everywhere the feudal-minded ones act upon substantially the same impulse. Everywhere they impel and, to a large extent, though by indirection, they compel, prolific breeding among the less intelligent persons. These latter are also the victims of the prevailing religious, political, economic and industrial systems and superst.i.tions. The feudalistic ones proclaim fecundity as a religious duty to G.o.d and a moral duty to the state. By psychologic tricks a vanity of the unfortunate cla.s.ses is encouraged so as to make even the fools believe, or, at least, feel that they, too, have a place in the sun....
"By the uniform activities and lingering dominance of the feudal mind we have remained in a state of development in which we compete, like the stock-raiser, for an international and intercredal supremacy in and through breeding....
"As yet we have had no very urgent need for territorial expansion.
Our turn is coming and is coming soon, if only we will heed our own feudal-minded ones, and will breed fast enough. But, without being aggressors in this sense, we are yet unavoidably drawn into the vortex of a world war inaugurated by the feudal-minded of other nations and unconsciously promoted to a small degree by our own feudal-minded ones by education for feudal-mindedness and for prolific breeding in our people....
"The next world war may possibly be one in which the disadvantaged of all nations will fight the feudal-minded of all nations.
Something quite near to such an invitation already has come from Russia. Shall we hasten such a conflict by continuing to preach the sacredness of fecundity and of war? Or shall intelligent restraint of the feudalistic compulsion help us toward a more perfect and peaceful adjustment with the processes that make for the democratization of welfare, with and by intelligent family limitation as one means?"
"The Call" is one of the official papers recognized by the Socialists of America. In 1914, while the race suicide propaganda was being carried on in its columns, lectures to be delivered for its benefit by Eugene V.
Debs in many of the cities of New Jersey were advertised in its columns.
It is most likely, therefore, that such a splendidly informed leader of the Revolutionists as Debs, like many thousands of members of the rank and file of the party, read some of the articles favoring race suicide.
As we have never yet heard of Debs or a single Socialist complaining against the race suicide propaganda so long carried on in the columns of "The Call," we shall, unless the Marxians repudiate this form of immorality of their paper, be forced to conclude that their leader as well as a very large number of his followers intend legalizing this vice if they ever gain control of our country.
In April, 1919, a vile, crimson pamphlet was on sale in the radical book-stores of the middle west. We shall not give the t.i.tle, for it is too foul and indecent. On page 4 it warns its readers "not to forget this fact, celibacy, absolute continence from want of desire congenial or acquired, monkish asceticism are pathological states, diseased states of mind or body." Further on, we read, on page 10:
"Do not be a suffering Jesus. Do not take him as an example. Do not whine or snuffle, but get ahead in the world while you can. Get lands, property and independence somehow....
"The teachings of Christianity were designed for the castration of the human soul. Christ would make you, not a free man, a hero, and a warrior, but a hireling, a submissive beast of burden, a helot, a n.o.body. Christianity is cowardice inst.i.tutionalized and peace-on-earth is the philosophy of the tax gatherer, the usurer, and the international exploiter." On the inner side of the back cover of the foul pamphlet a book is advertised by the "International Socialist Control a.s.sociation of Chicago," which seems also to publish the crimson pamphlet from which the above quotation was taken. The advertis.e.m.e.nt of the book is hereby given in part:
"MOTHERS AND FATHERS, ATTENTION.
"The welfare of the world depends upon the bringing up of children.
"Everything depends upon the right start, hence it is your highest duty to see that your children are started right.
"Foremost men say and statistics show the stupendous peril of our political, religious, and educational system. The root of education is not merely knowing how to read and write, but knowing men a.n.a.lytically and scientifically.
"Anything is possible to the man who knows how and why. We develop and plan out your life according to your adaptions and inclinations--no guess work but cold, hard, mathematical facts. We show you how to control, manage, and handle humanity and make it your business to shape men"s minds as easily as clay.
"Misery, superst.i.tion and poverty must go."
On the back cover sheet of the pamphlet it is stated that the International Socialist Control a.s.sociation of Chicago is "An organization that teaches the suppressed and downtrodden truth, long controlled by the political and religious machine. The only organization that places health, happiness and marriage upon solid, scientific principles."
In the summer of 1919, "The Call" of New York City, Morris Hillquit"s vile publication, became more bold than ever in favoring race suicide.
On June 29, 1919, for instance, there appeared a three-column article in the magazine section of the paper, ent.i.tled, "The ... League." Parts of the article are hereby quoted:
"Many readers of "Woman"s Sphere" have expressed themselves as eager to know the raison d"etre of The ... League, which is the latest development in the birth control movement.
"The answer is that this new league is started to speed up the birth control movement. Its first aim is to take the question straight to Congress and repeal the Federal statute which prohibits the circulation of contraceptive knowledge. All the restrictive state laws are modeled on this Federal obscenity statute. If that is repealed, the state laws can easily be made to follow suit....
"The repeal of this obnoxious out-of-date legislation is the longest single step toward that end.
"The next step is to get the subject taught in the medical schools, and to have the best possible scientific information wisely and well distributed. Every health agency in the country should have it for the benefit of all who are in need. It should be available at hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, maternity centers, charity organizations and, most of all, through the Federal Health Service and the National Children"s Bureau....
"Most Socialists are already convinced of the rightness of birth regulation, but not all of them see the need for working now to free the information. Some say, "Oh, just work to achieve Socialism and when we have that, things like birth control will come without effort." ...
"Birth control is a necessary tool for the struggle after social justice. Therefore, Socialists should insist upon it right now, and not be content to wait for the Co-operative Commonwealth to bring it to them, also they should not hesitate to co-operate with non-Socialists to get it. Birth control is a blessing to humanity as a whole. Everybody needs it."