In 1905, of 36,766 native-born married women 26,329 (71.6%) were mothers, and 10,477 (28.4%) childless. Of 32,960 foreign-born married women 27,207 (82.5%) were mothers, and 5,753 (17.5%) childless. Contrasting these percentages, the fact requires only to be stated to emphasize its profound and far-reaching social as well as political significance.
Considered with reference to religious belief, 72.7% of Protestant and 80.3% of Roman Catholic married women were mothers. Of married women of Jewish faith 88.0% were mothers.
At ages 25-34, the proportion of native-born mothers having only one child was 35.1%, against 22.6% for the foreign-born; the proportion of mothers having from six to ten children was 6.8% for the native-born, against 12.9% for the foreign-born. At all ages a similar disproportion is apparent.
Vastly more important than the multitude of general social and economic facts are these statistics of what, for want of a better term, may be called human production, and which disclose what must be considered the most alarming tendency in American life. Granting that excessively large families are not desirable, at least from an economic point of view, it cannot be questioned that the diminution in the average size of the family, and the increase in the proportion of childless families among the native-born stock is evidence of physical deterioration, and must have a lasting and injurious effect on national life and character.
Section IV.
Medicine and Eugenics.
[THE PROPHYLAXIS OF HEREDITARY SYPHILIS AND ITS EUGENIC EFFECT.]