The rights of motherhood.—Let us instill into every heart a desire for pure, perfect parenthood. Let the wife who must bear and rear the children decide when she can perform this sacred duty perfectly. Let every child be well born and “race suicide” will become a thing of the past.
What shall be done?—What shall we do with the dependent classes? This is one of the great problems to be solved. Taxpayers, philanthropists, lawmakers, doctors and Christian workers are all deeply interested in a wise adjustment of this problem because of their interest in these classes and also because we have found our present methods inadequate. Paupers, idiots, imbeciles, the insane and criminals appeal to our pity, charity and love. A practical demonstration of this is found in the millions of dollars annually appropriated from our taxes and the gifts of charity, and from thousands of healthy, normal people whose lives are devoted to ministering to the needs of these social unfortunates.
Many degenerates are diseased.—The degenerate criminals, imbeciles and insane are now understood to be diseased. A very large per cent. have inherited this condition. Some were even foredoomed to their fate. Perhaps twenty per cent. of the inmates of our penal institutions are serving their second, third and fourth terms. Son, father and grandfather are to be found side by side in our prisons. The daily mail received by the inmates of the asylums, reform schools and penitentiaries, coming so largely from relatives in similar institutions, proves that these conditions run in families. There are nearly 350,000 imbeciles, insane and epileptic people in the United States. Our asylums are overflowing with inmates. Many states have doubled the capacity of these institutions in the last ten years and still they are unable to accommodate all the worthy applicants.
Two causes of degeneracy.—There are two chief agencies of degeneracy, strong drink and the violation of the laws of sex. In one state penitentiary I found seventy-two per cent. of the inmates had a drunken father, mother, or both. It was found in a certain reformatory for women that seventy-five per cent. had a drunken father, mother, or both. In one penitentiary I found that more than three out of four had venereal disease requiring medical attention when they were admitted. Limited investigation indicates that twenty-two per cent. of the inmates of the asylums were conceived during a drunken debauch. Many of the inmates had the Hotchinson notched teeth, crowfoot tracks in the palate and throat, conclusive proof of a syphilitic ancestor.
Spitzka the great neurologist of New York, says, “The birth-rate of the high grade and low grade imbecile is double that of the normal population.” Not only do these classes contribute more than double their proportion to the annual birth-rate, but they are a source of moral corruption to society, as many of their offspring become paupers, insane and criminals.
The solution.—With crime, imbecility and insanity increasing at the rate of 200 to 300 per cent. every twenty years, thinking people are beginning to see that the only reasonable solution to the problem that confronts us is to stop the production among all undesirable classes. This can be done by the application of laws of heredity, the enactment of adequate laws regulating the marriage of certain classes and depriving the hereditary degenerates of the creative function.
Protected, inspected, neglected.—Our government is not slow in the enactment of suitable laws favorable to the protection of the forests and the inspection of the hog, cow and horse, and in making splendid appropriations for the improvement of different breeds, but it has made no law to prevent the
