RACE SUICIDE MAY PROVE A BLESSING.
Welfare of the Offspring Is Much More
Important Than Their Number, Says
This Cincinnati Professor.
Dr. Charles A.L. Reed, of the University of Cincinnati, has published an address on "The American Family," in which he makes this strong statement: "We see in a declining birth-rate only a natural and evolutional adjustment of race to environment—an adjustment that insures rather than menaces the perpetuation of our kind under favoring conditions." Thus he argues that "race suicide" may prove a blessing, since, as a matter of fact, it implies an intelligent regard for the rights and necessities of children rather than an aversion to motherhood:
If reduced to its last analysis, it does not indicate a loss, but rather a development, if not an actual exaltation of the maternal function. American women recognize, subconsciously, possibly, certainly not in definite terms, but they nevertheless recognize, the force of the law enunciated by Mr. Spencer that whatever conduces to the highest welfare of offspring must more and more establish itself, since children of inferior parents reared in inferior ways will ever be replaced by children of better parents reared in better ways.
A much greater danger, according to Dr. Reed, is overpopulation. As influences inimical to the American family he classes "everything that tends to the early and wide dispersion of its members," such as—
The development of residential schools, the extension of far-reaching transportation facilities, the diversification of industries, the industrial employment of women, the popularization of hotels and apartments for residential purposes, and, finally, the development of clubs for both men and women at the expense of the home.