Dr...., to whom reference was made in the above editorial comment, is also the author of another work advertised as follows in "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call," March 24, 1912:
"The three most important measures for the improvement of the human race from a eugenic standpoint. What are they? I suppose everybody who has given the subject any thought has his remedies. I have studied the subject for years and my answer is:
"1. Teaching the people the proper means of the prevention of conception so that the people may have only as many children as they can afford to have, and to have them when they want to have them.
"2.....
"Of the three measures the first one is the most important and still it will be the last one to come, because our prudes think it would lead to immorality. And nevertheless I will repeat what I said several times before, that there is no single measure that would so positively, so immediately contribute toward the happiness and progress of the human race as teaching the people the proper means of regulating reproduction. This has been my sincerest and deepest conviction since I have learned to think rationally. It is the conviction of thousands of others, but they are too careful of their standing to express it in public. I am happy, however, to be able to state that my teachings have converted thousands; many of our readers who were at first shocked by our plain talk on this important subject are now expressing their full agreement with our ideas. And Congress may pass draconian laws, the discussion of this subject cannot, must not, be stopped."
On April 13, 1913, another article on the subject of race suicide, by Clara G. Stillman, appeared in "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call" under the caption, "The Right to Prevent Conception." Only part of the foul composition is here given:
"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 classed 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 classes 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 classes 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, entitled, "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 sexual diseases....
"After meeting hundreds of women and girls in heart to heart talks, I came to the sincere conviction that lectures on sex 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 passages:
"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 practitioner 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!'"