and country--all tell the same tale of uncontrolled and irresponsible
fecundity. The facts, the figures, the appalling truth are there for all
to read. It is only in the remedy proposed, the effective solution, that
investigators and students of the problem disagree.

Confronted with the "startling and disgraceful" conditions of affairs
indicated by the fact that a quarter of a million babies die every year
in the United States before they are one year old, and that no less
than 23,000 women die in childbirth, a large number of experts and
enthusiasts have placed their hopes in maternity-benefit measures.

Such measures sharply illustrate the superficial and fragmentary manner
in which the whole problem of motherhood is studied to-day. It seeks a
LAISSER FAIRE policy of parenthood or marriage, with an indiscriminating
paternalism concerning maternity. It is as though the Government were
to say: "Increase and multiply; we shall assume the responsibility of
keeping your babies alive." Even granting that the administration of
these measures might be made effective and effectual, which is more
than doubtful, we see that they are based upon a complete ignorance
or disregard of the most important fact in the situation--that of
indiscriminate and irresponsible fecundity. They tacitly assume that
all parenthood is desirable, that all children should be born, and
that infant mortality can be controlled by external aid. In the great
world-problem of creating the men and women of to-morrow, it is not
merely a question of sustaining the lives of all children, irrespective
of their hereditary and physical qualities, to the point where they,
in turn, may reproduce their kind. Advocates of Birth Control offer and
accept no such superficial solution. This philosophy is based upon
a clearer vision and a more profound comprehension of human life. Of
immediate relief for the crushed and enslaved motherhood of the world