LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
ROBINSON Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the 
highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of 
the time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts 
from an impersonal point of view. Let him duly realize 
the fact that opinion is the agency thru which charac- 
ter adapts external arrangements to itself — that his 
opinion rightly forms part of this agency—is a unit of 
force, constituting, with other such units, the general 
power which works out social changes; and he will per- 
ceive that he may properly give full utterance to his 
innermost conviction: leaving it to produce what effect 
it may. It is not for nothing that he has in him these 
sympathies with some principles and repugnance to 
others. He, with all his capacities, and aspirations, and 
beliefs, is not an accident, but a product of the time. 
He must remember that while he is a descendant of the 
past, he is a parent of the future; and that his thoughts 
are as children born to him, which he may not care- 
lessly let die. ... Not as adventitious therefore 
will the wise man regard the faith which is in him. The 
highest truth he sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing 
that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his 
right part in the world — knowing that if he can effect 
the change he aims at, well: if not — well also; tho not 
so well.—Herbert Spencer. FEWER AND BETTER 
BABIES 
OR ) 
THE LIMITATION OF 
OFFSPRING 
BY THE 
PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION 
THE ENORMOUS BENEFITS OF THE PRACTICE TO 
THE INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY AND THE RACE 
POINTED OUT AND ALL OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
BY 
WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
Chief of the Department Genito-Urinary Diseases and Dermatol- 
ogy, Bronx Hospital and Dispensary; Fellow of the American 
Medical Association and of the New York Academy of 
Medicine; Member of American Urological Association, 
American Medical Editors’ Association, etc.; Editor of 
The Critic and Guide, and of The American Journal 
of Urology, Venereal and Sexual Diseases; Author 
of “Never Told Tales,” “Sexual Problems of 
To-day,” “Practical Eugenics,” “Sexual Im- 
potence and Other Sexual Disorders in 
Men and Women,” etc. 
With an Introduction by 
A. JACOBI, M.D., LL.D. 
Ex-President of the American Medical Association 
THIRD EDITION 
1915 
THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO 
12 MT. MORRIS PARK W. 
NEW YORK CITY SOME OF 
DR. W. J. ROBINSON’S BOOKS 
AND JOURNALS 
A Practical Treatise on the Causes, 
Symptoms and Treatment of Sex- 
ual Impotence and other Sexual 
Disorders in Men and Women... .$3.00 
Sexual Problems of To-day 2.00 
Never Told Tales 1.00 
Stories of Love and Life 1.00 
Sex Morality—Past, Present and Fu- 
ture 1.00 
Practical Eugenics: Four Means of 
Improving the Human Race 50c. 
The Critic and Guide - 
Monthly: $1.00 a year; Single Copies, 20c. 
The American Journal of Urology, 
Venereal and Sexual Diseases. Monthly. $3.00 
a year; Single Copies, 30c. 
Copyright 1915, by 
Critic and Guidb Co. To 
A. JACOBI, M.D., LL.D. 
The beloved Nestor of American Medicine, 
Ex-President of the American Medical Association 
and of the New York Academy of Medicine, 
one of the very few members of high stand- 
ing in the medical profession who are not 
afraid to hold and express unorthodox 
opinions on vital questions, 
A staunch friend whose quiet moral sup- 
port has helped me to persevere in the un- 
grateful task of fighting prudery, narrow- 
mindedness and bigotry, and of tearing 
away the scales of ignorance from eyes 
that were unwilling to see and ears that 
were unwilling to hear. 
This little volume is affectionately dedicated. 
W. J. R. PREFACE 
For over twenty years, namely since 
the very beginning of my medical prac- 
tice, I have been convinced of the very 
great importance, I might say of the life- 
and-death importance, of the knowledge 
of preventing conception, of avoiding un- 
desired pregnancy. A large portion of 
the work of the general practitioner con- 
sists of confinements, and it did not take 
me very long to observe that what is sup- 
posed to be a blessing, and is still hypo- 
critically spoken of as such, was often 
considered a curse, or at least a very un- 
desirable event. And this not only 
among the poor, but also among those 
who were fairly well off. During the ten 
years that I was in general practice the 
conviction, based upon experience, upon 8 
PREFACE 
what I saw with my own eyes, grew 
stronger and stronger with each year. I 
saw that in many cases an unexpected 
pregnancy, an undesired child was consid- 
ered the most terrible calamity that could 
befall the family. I saw, as a result of it, 
the deepest anguish, the most acute suf- 
fering; I saw physical, mental and eco- 
nomic ruin; and I saw death—death by 
infection and death by suicide. 
And I determined to do all I could to 
change this state of affairs. I determined 
to devote my feeble pen and my leisure 
time to these things: First, to advocat- 
ing the propriety of preventing concep- 
tion, of limiting the number of one’s chil- 
dren according to one’s economic means 
and other circumstances; second, to a 
study of the best, safest and most harm- 
less means of preventing conception; and 
third, to a dissemination of this knowl- 
edge among the medical profession, and 
thru it, among the laity. In the begin- PREFACE 
9 
ning my efforts could be but feeble and 
sporadic, and the results correspondingly 
slight. But during the past ten years, as 
leisure and financial ease increased, as my 
standing and influence in the profession 
grew stronger, I have been hammering at 
the subject incessantly. At every pos- 
sible opportunity, by the aid of lectures, 
pamphlets, letters to editors, articles in 
medical journals and in newspapers and 
books, I have endeavored to bring the 
subject to the attention of the medical 
profession and of the laity. And I am 
glad to say, that the propaganda has been 
bearing fruit. The laity listened eagerly 
from the first; but it was a Sysiphus’ 
work indeed to move the medical profes- 
sion. What its mental state was on the 
subject (as well as on some other sub- 
jects) when I started the advocacy of my 
ideas, I would rather not say; the lan- 
guage might be slightly unparliamentary; 
and its attitude towards me was anything 10 
PREFACE 
but brotherly: I was a crank, an extrem- 
ist (this was the mildest judgment), my 
ideas were pernicious and criminal; I 
should be forced to shut up, and some 
even generously suggested that I ought 
to be deprived of my membership in the 
various national and local medical soci- 
eties. But when I am convinced of the 
truth of a thing, then the opposition and 
threats of enemies, as well as the well- 
meant warnings of friends, act on me 
only as a stimulant to greater endeavors. 
And I have always been convinced that 
truth, presented persistently, convincingly 
and from different angles, cannot fail to 
make its impress, except on crania that are 
utterly impenetrable to reason, to proof, 
to argument. And my conviction has 
proved its correctness. Not only have I 
made tens of thousands of converts 
among people who had no fixed ideas on 
the subject or who were on the border- 
land, but thousands of those who sneered PREFACE 
11 
and stupidly shrugged their shoulders, 
are now acknowledging that I am doing- 
work of the utmost humanitarian im- 
portance, and feel flattered by my recog- 
nition of them and honored by my friend- 
ship. So goes the world. 
I thought it would be a good thing to 
incorporate in one book all the arguments 
in favor of the volitional control of the 
birth rate, all arguments in favor of 
spreading the knowledge of the preven- 
tion of conception among the people, and 
to answer all arguments and so-called 
arguments of those who object to the pre- 
vention of conception propaganda. This 
attempt is presented in this book. I 
intend it to present the last word on the 
subject, and to present the subject from 
every point of view. I expect this little 
volume to become the manual of all those 
who believe with the author that there is 
no other measure that would so posi- 
tively, so immediately, contribute toward 12 
PREFACE 
the happiness and progress of the human 
race as would teaching the people the 
proper means of prevention of conception. 
Note. Some might doubt the timeli- 
ness of getting out such as book at the 
present moment, when millions of crazed 
people are crushing each other’s lives out, 
and when the weakened and decimated 
nations will try to make up their dimin- 
ished populations by an increased birth 
rate. On the contrary: considering, as 
we do, overpopulation as one of the causes 
of war, this book becomes doubly timely. 
And, then, fortunately we in this country 
are not engaged in the horrible carnage, 
and we are not running any risks of sud- 
den decimation. 
W. J. R. 
April 3d, 1915. INTRODUCTION 
The author of this new book was good 
enough to remind me of a few passages 
contained in my Presidential address de- 
livered before the American Medical As- 
sociation at its meeting in Atlantic City, 
in 1912. I asked the question whether 
there was no way to prevent those who 
were bom into this world from becoming 
incompetent both physically and mentally. 
That seemed almost impossible as long as 
the riches provided by nature and indus- 
try were accessible to a part of the nation 
only. That was why it became an irre- 
sistible suggestion that only a certain 
number of infants should be born. In- 
deed as long as even the well to do limit 
the number of their offspring, the advice 
13 14 
INTRODUCTION 
given the poor, or those to whom the rais- 
ing of a large family is a task of difficulty 
or impossibility, to limit the number of 
their children—even the healthy ones— 
is more than merely excusable. 
The case is worse when unhealthy, sick, 
sickly or infected and contagious children 
are born. Such an occurrence is a mis- 
fortune to the newcomer, to his parents 
and to society. The least that must be 
demanded is a clean bill of health. That 
is why I have often praised clergymen for 
good citizenship who refuse to marry 
couples without such a clean bill of health; 
and the health departments should see to 
it that contagious sexual diseases should 
be reported, watched and cured. Nor is 
this all. Hereditary influences propa- 
gate epilepsy, idiocy, feeblemindedness 
and criminality. Persons thus affected 
must not be permitted to propagate their 
ailments. This should be manifestly self- 
evident. The contrary should be declared INTRODUCTION 
15 
detrimental to the welfare of the common- 
wealth and punishable. 
But this book treats of the subject from 
many more points of view. The conges- 
tion of the population has proved danger- 
ous even when the nation consists of 
normally average individuals, originally 
healthy and competent. Hunger, neg- 
lect, poverty and chronic ailment have 
caused and will continue to cause the ap- 
pearance of malthusians and neomalthu- 
sians, and the question whether a family 
may be large or ought to be small, will 
always be asked again and again. There 
is only one country in which that question 
is regarded with hypocritical sneers, that 
country is ours; there is only one country 
in which a man and woman must not 
think of framing their own future, and 
constructing their fate and that of their 
born or unborn children—that is the land 
of the “free.” 
It is my opinion that the individual and 16 
INTRODUCTION 
collective habits in this regard should not 
be guided by other than voluntary self- 
determination. Indeed as long as the 
state is founded on the family, the man 
and the woman must not and cannot be 
interfered with by anything but their own 
will. Parental responsibility alone must 
control the numerical strength of a fam- 
ily; the prevention of excessive offspring 
is a central problem of both individual and 
social hygiene. This problem is of such 
magnitude that it cannot be solved by 
partial or hurried study, by denying its 
existence or by sneers and ridicule. Med- 
icine, political economy, and far-seeing 
statesmanship should combine to solve it 
and help accomplish the ends of mankind. 
The reduction of the number of children 
in the family is becoming a universal ex- 
perience in all civilized countries. There 
is no cultured country at present in which 
the fact has not been noticed and studied. 
Since Octavianus and Napoleon the in- INTRODUCTION 
17 
crease in the number of the non-married 
and the decrease of human war-material 
have been observed with misgivings; and 
to-day’s several war-lords pray for more 
millions of slayable men. But before this 
year of wholesale annihilation of the vig- 
orous and young, white and yellow and 
black, the statisticians, sociologists and 
physicians have created a literature in 
newspapers, magazines and books of all 
languages dealing intelligently with the 
subject under discussion. Like sensible 
people, not like our own fanatics, they 
have not only established the facts of the 
decrease of births and of the general pop- 
ulation, but have studied the methods of 
birth-regulation, which could be used in 
an orderly and harmless manner. 
While I am anxious to leave the ques- 
tions involved to the author of this book, 
whose profound study and moderation I 
have had many opportunities to admire, 
I urge the readers not to pass by other 18 
INTRODUCTION 
literature on the subject. Within the 
last few months Prof. A. Grotjahn has 
enriched it by his lucid and comprehensive 
work, Geburten-Ruckgang und Gebur- 
ten-Regelung (Berlin, 1914). Doctors 
and nurses and other intellectual people 
will learn from it, and from this new book 
of Dr. Robinson’s, and from their own 
analytical thinking, that both our Fed- 
eral and state laws on the subject of pre- 
vention are grievously wrong and unjust. 
It is important that these laws be re- 
pealed at the earliest possible moment; it 
is important that useful teaching be not 
crippled, that personal freedom be not in- 
terfered with, that the independence of 
married couples be protected, that fam- 
ilies he safeguarded in regard to health 
and comfort, and that the future children 
of the nation be prepared for competent 
and comfortable citizenship. 
A. Jacobi. CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Preface 7 
Introduction ,, .... 13 
CHAPTER 
I What We—the Writer and His Fol- 
lowers—Stand for 23 
II The Specter of Too Many Children . 30 
III The Orthodox Remedies 36 
IV The Race Suicide Bugbear . ... 40 
V It Will Lead to Immorality .... 62 
VI It Is Injurious 67 
VII It Produces Sterility 70 
VIII It Is not Absolutely Safe 72 
IX Would Lead to Excess in Married Life 74 
X It Is Against Religion 76 
XI It Is Immoral 78 
XII It Leads to Divorce 80 
XIII The One Child Argument .... 83 
XIV Preventing Birth of Geniuses ... 84 
XV Children Support Parents in Their Old 
Age 85 
XVI Would Small Families Tend to Dimin- 
ish Wages? 88 CHAPTER PAGE 
XVII The Moral Standard of Those Who 
Make Use of or Advocate the Use of 
Preventives 94 
XVIII What Life Means at Present to the 
Millions 99 
XIX Would Encourage Early Marriage . . 109 
XX Would Diminish Venereal Disease 
Among the Married Ill 
XXI Exhausts the Woman’s Body . . . .113 
XXII Kills the Woman’s Spirit 117 
XXIII Neurasthenia in Men and Women 
from Improper Methods 119 
XXIV Largely Responsible for the Abortion 
Evil 120 
XXV Would Diminish Prostitution in Mar- 
ried Life 122 
XXVI The Enormous Benefits of Prevention 
of Conception from the Eugenic 
Standpoint . . . 124 
XXVII Prevention of Conception and Abortion. 131 
XXVIII The Best, Safest and Most Harmless 
Means for the Prevention of Con- 
ception ..... 136 
XXIX Means for Prevention of Conception 
Which Are Disagreeable, Uncertain 
or Injurious 139 
XXX The Law on the Subject 142 
XXXI How to Abolish the Law Against the 
Prevention of Conception .... 148 
XXXII Some Quotations . . 152 
CONTENTS CONTENTS 
ARTICLES FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
PAGE 
The Came and Guide and Its Peopaganda . . . 175 
A Country in Which the Prevention of Concep- 
tion Is Officially Sanctioned. By Dr. J. Rut- 
gers, The Hague, Holland 177 
The Prevention oe Conception. By Clara G. Still- 
man 184 
Prevention of Conception as a Duty. By James 
F. Morton, Jr 195 
Prevention a Necessity to Married Life. By Ed- 
win C. Walker 205 
Infanticide, Abortion and Prevention of Concep- 
tion. By L. Jacobi, M.D 210 
Let Me Be Created in Love. By James P. War- 
basse, M.D 244 THE LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
BY THE 
PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION 
Chapter I 
WHAT WE THE WRITER AND HIS FOL- 
A 
LOWERS—STAND FOR 
The subject which we are about to dis- 
cuss is one of transcendent importance. 
I know of no single question that is of 
such far-reaching, vital importance to the 
human race. Directly or indirectly it 
touches every man, woman and child—nay 
more, it touches not only the living child, 
it touches the child not yet born. If I 
have devoted so much time to a discussion 
of this subject by pen and by word of 
mouth, it is because I sincerely believe 
that upon the proper solution of this ques- 
23 24 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
tion depends, to a great extent, the wel- 
fare of the human race, the welfare of 
those living and of those to come after 
us. 
But before we can discuss any question 
intelligently we must know just what the 
subject under discussion is. It is easy to 
approve or to condemn, but before you 
have a right to either approve or condemn, 
before you can do so honestly and consci- 
entiously, you must know what it is that 
we advocate, what it is that we preach and 
demand. 
Briefly it is this. We believe that un- 
der any conditions and particularly under 
our present economic conditions, human 
beings should be able to control the num- 
ber of their offspring. They should be 
able to decide, how many children they 
want to have and when they want to have 
them. And to accomplish this result we 
demand that the knowledge of controlling 
the number of offspring, in other and WHAT WE STAND FOR 
25 
plainer words, the knowledge of prevent- 
ing undesirable conception, should not be 
considered criminal knowledge, that its 
dissemination should not be considered a 
criminal offense punishable by hard labor 
in Federal prisons, but that it should be 
considered knowledge useful and neces- 
sary to the welfare of the race and of the 
individual; and that its dissemination 
should be as permissible and as respect- 
able as is the dissemination of any hygi- 
enic, sanitary or eugenic knowledge. 
There is no element of force in our 
teachings; that is, we would not force any 
family to limit the number of their chil- 
dren against their will, tho we would en- 
deavor to create a public opinion which 
would consider it a disgrace for any fam- 
ily to have more children than they can 
bring up and educate properly. We 
would consider it a disgrace, an anti-social 
act for any family to bring children into 
the world whom they must send out at an 26 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
early age into the mills, shops and streets 
to earn a living, or must fall back upon 
public charity to save them from starva- 
tion. Public opinion is stronger than any 
laws, and in time people would be as much 
ashamed of having children whom they 
could not bring up properly in every sense 
of the word, as they are now ashamed of 
having their children turn out criminals. 
Now, no disgrace can attach to any poor 
family, no matter how many children they 
have, because they have not got the knowl- 
edge, because society prevents them from 
having the knowledge of how to limit the 
number of children. But if that knowl- 
edge became easily accessible and people 
still refused to avail themselves of it, then 
they would properly be considered as anti- 
social, as criminal members of the com- 
munity. 
As far as couples are concerned who 
are well-to-do, who love children, and 
who are well capable of taking care of a WHAT WE STAND FOR 
27 
large number, we, that is, we American 
limitationists, would put no limit. On 
the contrary, we would say: “God bless 
you, have as many children as you want 
to; there is plenty of room yet for all of 
you.” 
And I might as well state here that in 
this respect we differ from our neo-mal- 
thusian friends in European countries 
wTith whom we are otherwise in perfect 
accord. Our European neo-malthusian 
friends would put a limit to the number of 
children even of the well-to-do and rich. 
They claim that the means of subsistence 
are but limited, that Europe, that is West- 
ern Europe, is about as thickly popu- 
lated as it can be. And they are afraid 
that the birth of a large number of people, 
even among rich and well-to-do, means the 
taking out of the bread from the mouths 
of somebody, from the mouths of the poor. 
We are not afraid of it. We know that 
America can support in perfect comfort 28 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
millions and millions more of people. 
This shows how geography and economic 
conditions influence our opinions. 
Our neo-malthusian friends across the 
sea are actuated in their propaganda more 
by the fear of a famine that will even- 
tually stare the race in the face if the 
proper check is not put upon the birth 
rate. Their propaganda is more racial, 
national. 
I, on the other hand, was drawn into 
the limitation of offspring propaganda by 
the individual sufferings and misery re- 
sulting from too many children which I 
witnessed among my friends and acquaint- 
ances and, as stated in the preface, 
among my patients in the early years of 
my practice. Not that I do not recognize 
that, eventually, in the future, the race 
will, in self-preservation, have to put a 
strong check upon its birth rate, but I am 
dealing, I always prefer to deal, with the 
present, with the living people of to-day. WHAT WE STAND FOR 
29 
Somehow or other I have always been of 
the opinion that if we deal intelligently 
with the present we can safely let the fu- 
ture take care of itself. I even recognize 
that some countries of Europe are even 
now so overpopulated that a check has be- 
come necessary, but I am dealing with the 
United States and not with Europe; one 
country at a time is enough. Let our 
European friends deal with the problems 
which confront them. They can do so 
more intelligently, more efficiently, than 
we. Chapter II 
THE SPECTER OF TOO MANY CHILDREN 
The effects of the limitation of off- 
spring might be discussed under two sep- 
arate heads: the effects upon the indi- 
vidual family, and the effects upon the 
race as a whole. But this subdivision 
would really be an artificial one. You 
cannot injure or benefit the individual 
without injuring or benefiting the race, 
and you cannot injure or benefit the race 
without injuring or benefiting the indi- 
vidual. The race is not something ab- 
stract, separate, apart from the individuals 
composing it, any more than the body is 
something different and apart from the 
cells and organs composing it. The body 
is healthy just in proportion to the health 
and harmonious working of its individual 
30 SPECTER OF MANY CHILDREN 
31 
cells. If in a nation of one million people 
one person is unhappy and inefficient, that 
nation is one-millionth unhappy and in- 
efficient. If five hundred thousand indi- 
viduals of that nation are unhappy and 
inefficient, then that race is one-half un- 
happy and inefficient. And if every in- 
dividual in that race is unhappy and in- 
efficient the entire race is unhappy and 
inefficient. It is, therefore, the individual 
and the individual family that we have to 
look out for, and if each individual is 
brought to the highest standard of happi- 
ness and efficiency we need not worry 
about the race; the entire race will be 
happy and efficient.* 
* In this connection, that is the relative value of the 
mass and of the individual, I am inclined to agree with 
old Rosegger who says: “It is constantly taught that 
the hope of humanity is in the absorption of the indi- 
vidual in the mass. It seems to me that such hope lies 
in the preservation of personality. The nation, as a 
nation, is of no worth; such value as it has is because 
of the many personalities it embraces, and whose projects 
are to be protected by it. As to the doctrine of * the 
individual for the state, and not the state for the indi- 32 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
That under our present economic con- 
ditions the fear of too many children is a 
most frightful specter which terrorizes the 
ordinary workman and the middle class 
and professional man, is something which 
requires no discussion. Anybody who 
has eyes to see, sees it on every side. 
There would not be this frenzied search 
and demand for contraceptive knowledge 
if this were not so. That an unlimited 
number of children is a curse to the poor, 
requires almost no argument. There is 
not a physician who has not had cases in 
his practice of families which started life 
in a respectable manner but which became 
quickly demoralized, financially and phy- 
sically, by children coming in rapid suc- 
cession. Every physician will tell you the 
gradual change in feelings on the part of 
vidual,’ it may, in times of great peril, happen that for 
a brief period it shall prevail, so that of a thousand indi- 
viduals a strong body is created, as in war, or under 
tyrannic oppression. When this danger is past, the mass, 
of necessity, disintegrates.” SPECTER OF MANY CHILDREN 
33 
the parents with the appearance of each 
successive child. While the first child and 
perhaps the second are generally received 
with genuine joy, unless they come too 
soon after marriage, the third and fourth 
are met with indifference, while the fifth 
and succeeding ones are considered catas- 
trophes, and many a father and mother 
hope for a miscarriage or pray that it be 
still-born or be carried off soon after birth. 
And many a physician will tell you of 
cases in which their endeavors to bring to 
life a still-born child were not at all con- 
sidered by the parents, by the father par- 
ticularly, with favor. More than one 
physician told me that when practicing ar- 
tificial respiration on a new-born babe he 
was told by the father to leave the child 
alone, that it was not worth while bother- 
ing about. 
That a family of three or four can live 
better, more comfortably, on a certain sum 
per week, say twenty-five dollars, than 34 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
can a family of six or seven, goes without 
saying. Only the obtusest mind will deny 
that, and still it is being denied day after 
day. But we will deal with this point 
later on. 
A workingman should not have more 
than two children. Every child after the 
second, and particularly after the third, is 
individually and racially a calamity. It 
means that the mother’s health is being 
exhausted, it means that she cannot attend 
as properly as she should to her first chil- 
dren, it means that the succeeding chil- 
dren are taking away a part of the indis- 
pensable food and clothing from the first 
children, it means that the first children 
will not be able to get the necessary bring- 
ing up and education that they otherwise 
would, it means that they will be sent to 
work earlier than they otherwise would, it 
means glutting the labor market with 
wage-slaves. In short, in my opinion, too 
many children in other than well-to-do SPECTER OF MANY CHILDREN 
35 
families is a crime. It is a crime against 
every member of the individual family, a 
crime against the father, a crime against 
the mother, a crime against the first chil- 
dren, a crime against the succeeding chil- 
dren, and a crime against society. Chapter III 
THE ORTHODOX REMEDIES 
This being so, what is the remedy? 
Two remedies are proposed by our reac- 
tionary philosophers and sociologists. 
One is that the poor should not marry 
until they are able to support a family, or 
they should marry late in life. This ad- 
vice is as stupid as it is vicious. If the 
poor, embracing in this term not only the 
workingmen but many professional men, 
writers, small business men, etc., were to 
wait until they could support a family 
properly, they would not be able to marry 
while alive. They would have to wait un- 
til they went to heaven, or until they were 
in their second incarnation. But if the 
advice to marry late were universally fol- 
lowed, it would prove an irreparable in- 
36 THE ORTHODOX REMEDIES 
37 
jury to the human race. It would mean 
an indescribable increase in prostitution, 
in sexual perversions, in sexual weakness, 
and in venereal disease. The fathers 
would come to their nuptial beds sapped 
of all vitality, debilitated, infected. And 
as late marriages among men mean nec- 
essarily also late marriages among women, 
the mothers would be neurotic or psychotic 
old maids, and what children such unions 
would give rise to can readily be imagined. 
The second advice is to abstain—that 
married people should abstain from sexual 
relations. To give advice which we know 
is impossible of being followed is the acme 
of fatuity. But where married people 
were foolish enough to attempt to follow 
this advice the effects were pernicious. 
For married people to attempt to abstain 
for any length of time means to lay 
the foundation for irritability, weakness, 
nervousness, or even genuine neuroses, 
and a cooling or even destruction of the 38 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
affections. It means more, it very often 
means driving the husband into the arms 
of prostitutes, with the possible risks of 
venereal disease. 
Considered from every point of view 
these two pieces of advice, to marry late 
or to abstain when married, are useless, 
because impracticable and pernicious, be- 
cause if they could be followed they would 
result in pitiful injury to the individuals 
concerned and consequently to the race. 
But a remedy must be had. We have 
found remedies for most ills that afflict 
the human organism, and it is only a mat- 
ter of time when we will find remedies 
even for those ills that are still baffling us. 
The chief thing that distinguishes the hu- 
man being from other animals is his in- 
tellect. It is by the aid of the intellect 
alone that we have been fighting and con- 
quering Nature, wresting from her and 
unraveling her secrets, balking her at 
every step when it becomes necessary for THE ORTHODOX REMEDIES 
39 
our welfare. The human intellect has 
given us remedies which, while permitting 
men and women to marry at the proper 
age and to live a normal sexual life as Na- 
ture intended, still help them to control 
the number of their children. And try 
as I may, I cannot see what there is wrong 
in people who cannot afford to have many 
children using means which will prevent 
them from having many, which will help 
them to have just as many as they wish to 
have and can afford to have, and just at 
such times as they wish to have them. 
Before we proceed further, it will be 
best to consider the objections which the 
opponents of the rational limitation of off- 
spring have to offer. The objections are 
many in number, but the unbiased reader 
will admit that none of them have a solid 
foundation, that none of them are unan- 
swerable. Chapter IV 
THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
The first objection we are apt to hear, 
when we advocate that the knowledge of 
the use of preventives be easily accessible, 
is that such knowledge would have dire ef- 
fects, that it would decrease the popula- 
tion to such a degree that it would soon 
come to a standstill, then it would begin 
gradually to diminish and finally to die 
out—in other words, that the human race 
would commit suicide. That this objec- 
tion is worthless we can prove by a con- 
sideration of individual families as well as 
by a consideration of entire nations. Are 
families who possess a knowledge of ef- 
ficient and harmless preventives perfectly 
childless? Of course not. There are 
hundreds of thousands of families now 
40 THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
41 
thruout the world who employ artifi- 
cial preventives regularly, but very few 
of them are altogether childless. They 
have one, two or three or even four chil- 
dren. They regulate the time when they 
want to have the children and their num- 
ber, but very few indeed decide to remain 
barren altogether. 
That there is a small percentage of men 
and women who are so devoid of the pa- 
rental impulse that they would utilize the 
preventives so as never to have any chil- 
dren I will admit. But I ask you in all 
seriousness: Is it not better for the race 
that people who are so utterly devoid of 
that something that we call the parental 
instinct that they do not want to have any 
children at all, should not have any? Is 
a child conceived, born and brought up 
against the will of the parents a spectacle 
to be enthusiastic over? On the contrary. 
In my opinion this fact is rather in favor 
of the use of artificial preventives, in that 42 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
the race can speedily eliminate those men 
and women who under no circumstances 
wish to become fathers and mothers. 
When I see to what interminable trou- 
ble and expense some men and women 
go in order to have children; when I see 
what tortures and risks, endangering her 
very life—I am speaking of numerous 
Cesarean sections—a prospective mother 
will undergo in order to have a living 
child, I have no fear that the use of pre- 
ventives will result in the dying out of 
the human race. 
What I say is not based upon hearsay, 
upon theory, but upon actual knowledge, 
mostly upon personal experience with 
friends and patients. Just as I have seen 
the bride and bridegroom beg for a con- 
traceptive because they wanted to get 
married and could not just yet afford to 
have children, just as I have seen the 
mothers with five or six children weeping 
bitter tears and almost going down on THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
43 
their knees praying to give them some- 
thing to avoid the horror of another child, 
just so have I had the wife and husband 
married for some time but still childless, 
begging me with anguish and anxiety to 
do something for them so that they could 
have one or several children. As a mat- 
ter of fact, treatment for sterility of either 
the husband or wife or both constitutes a 
very substantial part of the author’s prac- 
tice. And I know of no greater joy than 
that of the married woman who had been 
childless for several years and has finally 
become a mother. 
It is, one must admit, the height of 
folly to argue that because people object 
to six or a dozen children, they would ob- 
ject to two or three. No, there is no dan- 
ger of the parental instinct dying out. I 
even deny that this instinct is now weaker 
or more attenuated than it was fifty or a 
hundred years ago. True, our ancestors 
had a larger progeny than we have, but 44 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
the reasons for this can be found else- 
where than in a strong parental instinct. 
Those reasons, for a large progeny, may 
be stated as follows: First, they could 
not help themselves. At that time means 
for the prevention of conception were 
practically unknown, and no matter how 
anxious a father or a mother (particularly 
the latter) might have been to put a check 
to further procreation, they knew of no 
method except abstinence, a method which 
was never very popular. And this brings 
us to the second reason. Our ancestors 
were generally more intemperate in rebus 
sexualibus, the same as in food and drink, 
than we are. This is true, all opinions to 
the contrary notwithstanding. Their life 
was coarse, dull, monotonous, and this 
was their only pleasure, as it still is of 
those who belong to the lowest strata of 
society. And third, our ancestors lacked 
the sense of responsibility that we possess. 
They might have loved their children as THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
45 
much as we do, but our love is a finer love, 
more intelligent, more sublime, more 
anxious for the future. In other words, 
the love of our ancestors for their children 
wras more a selfish love, as is the love of the 
low and ignorant of the present day. 
Our love is a noble, altruistic one, which 
forces us occasionally to deprive ourselves 
of the pleasure of children for the chil- 
dren’s own sake. Again I say, there is 
no danger of the parental instinct dying 
out. 
But we have better proofs—proofs un- 
answerable and undeniable. Here we 
have a whole country, Holland, in which 
the prevention of conception is legally 
sanctioned, in which the use of preventives 
is practically universal—and is the coun- 
try dying out? On the contrary, it is in- 
creasing even somewhat more rapidly than 
before, because we have this remarkable 
and gratifying phenomenon to bear in 
mind, that wherever the birth rate goes 46 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
down the death rate goes down pari passu, 
or even to a still greater degree. This 
can be proven by statistics from almost 
every country in the world. For in- 
stance, in 1910 the birth rate in Holland 
was 32 and the mortality 18, in 1912 the 
birth rate fell to 28 but then the mortality 
rate fell still lower, namely to 12, so we 
see that there is an actual gain even in 
population, instead of a loss. And the 
physical constitution of the people has 
been improving. The proportion of re- 
cruits for instance over 5 ft. 7 in. in height 
was increased from 24 to 47 per cent., 
while that of those under 5 ft. 2% in. has 
fallen from 25 to 8 per cent. (Drysdale). 
And in New Zealand, where the sale of 
contraceptives is practically free, the birth 
rate is now 20 and the mortality rate is 10. 
Does that look like race suicide? On the 
contrary, there is a steady increase at the 
rate of ten per cent., while sickness and 
death of children, with their attendant THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
47 
economic and emotional waste, are re- 
duced to a minimum. 
DECREASED BIRTH-RATE MEANS DECREASED 
INFANTILE DEATH RATE 
This decrease of the death rate is very- 
easy to understand, because the fewer chil- 
dren a mother has the better care she can 
take of those she does have. The eco- 
nomic condition of families with fewer 
children is better than of families with 
many children, speaking, of course, of the 
same strata of society. And the mother’s 
health not being exhausted by too fre- 
quent child-bearing, nursing and bringing 
up of children, her health is better and she 
gives birth to healthier and more resistant 
children. 
An interesting study on this point was 
made by Dr. Alice Hamilton (Bulletin of 
the American Academy of Medicine for 
May, 1910). Sixteen hundred families 
of wage earners were investigated, and the 48 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
results are contained in the following 
table: 
Deaths per 1000 Births in 
Families of 4 children and less, 118 
Families of 6 children, 267 
Families of 7 children, 280 
Families of 8 children, 291 
Families of 9 children and more, 303 
Dr. Hamilton sums up her results as 
follows: Our study of 1600 families of 
the poorer working class shows that child 
mortality increases proportionately as the 
number of children per family increases, 
until we have a death-rate in families of 
8 children and over, which is two and a 
half times as great as that in families of 
4 children and under. 
In short, in families that have few chil- 
dren a much larger proportion remain 
alive, so that the balance is kept up fairly 
well. 
I admit that when the knowledge of the THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
49 
use of preventives becomes really uni- 
versal the rate of increase of the human 
race will become very much slower. But 
there is certainly a great difference be- 
tween a slow increase and suicide. Why 
is it necessary that the human race should 
increase in numbers rapidly? I permit 
myself here to quote a paragraph from an- 
other paper of mine on the same subject: 
Is an increase in numbers so very desir- 
able? In fact is it at all desirable? Ask 
yourself that question, if it never occurred 
to you before. Is there any greatness or 
any happiness in numbers alone ? Is China 
with its more than four hundred millions 
any happier than we, who can boast of 
only ninety millions? And does China 
from any and every point of view amount 
to as much as does the United States, 
which has only about one-fifth of its popu- 
lation? And would not any one of you 
prefer to be a citizen of Italy, or Norway, 
or Sweden, or the little republic of Swit- 50 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
zerland, which has fewer inhabitants than 
has New York City, than to be a subject 
of the brutal, murderous Russian Czar 
who reigns over one hundred and forty 
millions? No, there is no honor, and 
there should be no pride, in numbers 
merely. 
I prefer a commonwealth of five million 
people, all of them healthy and con- 
tented, all doing congenial work, all 
having work to do, all materially com- 
fortable, all educated and cultured, all 
free to think and free to express their 
thoughts, with high ideas of a greater fu- 
ture and a higher humanity, to an em- 
pire or a republic of a hundred millions, 
all fighting, all struggling, all cutting each 
other’s throats, all in fear of starvation, 
with senseless luxury on one hand and 
shameful poverty on the other, with kill- 
ing idleness on one hand and killing over- 
work on the other, with bursting over-sati- THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
51 
ation on the one hand and exhausting star- 
vation on the other; with millions tramp- 
ing the streets and highways naked and 
hungry, with millions of human beings il- 
literate, held in the clutches of supersti- 
tion, selfishness and brutishness; with 
thousands and thousands of imbeciles, 
criminals, perverts, grafters, prostitutes— 
female prostitutes who sell their bodies 
and male prostitutes who sell their minds, 
their ideas and convictions—I prefer, I 
say, the above-described small to the 
above-described larger commonwealth. 
No, numbers alone, I repeat, do not 
count. With Spencer, I despise that vul- 
gar conception which considers a large 
population, large territory, and big com- 
merce as its highest ideal, its noblest aim. 
With Spencer, I would say that, instead 
of an immense amount of life of low type, 
I would far sooner see half the amount of 
life of a high type. 52 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
There is one point, however, that should 
give all true friends of humanity cause for 
alarm. While the birth rate has de- 
creased markedly in every civilized coun- 
try in the world, in those countries in 
which the discussion of the use of preven- 
tives is prohibited, and in which the obtain- 
ing of preventive means is most difficult, 
the decrease in the birth rate has been most 
marked in the higher and in the well-to-do 
middle and professional classes. In other 
words, in countries like England and the 
United States, the most marked diminu- 
tion of the birth rate has been among the 
aristocracy, among the cultured classes, 
among artists, lawyers, physicians, clergy- 
men, merchants, etc., while it has been but 
slightly diminished among the workmen 
and among the poor and very poor. In 
fact, you can take it as an axiom that the 
number of children is in inverse ratio to 
THE CAUSE FOR ALARM LIES ELSEWHERE THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
53 
the social standing, culture and earning 
capacity of the parents. In still other 
words, it means that those best fit to breed 
children, those most likely to transmit a 
desirable heredity, and those most able to 
bring up children, are breeding less and 
less, while those least able to and least 
capable of bringing up children and giv- 
ing them a decent education and a decent 
start in life, and those most tainted with 
disease, with alcoholism, mental instabil- 
ity, epilepsy, insanity, moronism, etc., 
keep on breeding unrestrainedly. What 
that means for the future of a nation the 
most sluggish thinker can easily perceive. 
It means that, if no check be put to this 
state of affairs, eventually the mental and 
physical standard of the race will be low- 
ered, that the race will begin to degen- 
erate. 
This is something which no true friend 
of humanity can contemplate with equa- 
nimity. But what is the remedy? To 54 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
exhort, beg or command the better classes 
to become more prolific is, as you all know, 
practically useless. Nobody whose eco- 
nomic means or inclinations are against 
having many children will sacrifice him- 
self or herself and have six or eight chil- 
dren instead of two or three, just in order 
to save the race. Nobody who has ac- 
quired the knowledge of limiting his off- 
spring will throw that knowledge away, 
for altruism has not reached and will 
hardly ever reach this stage, and besides 
every man and woman will think: Oh, 
our two or three children will not make 
any difference. In other words, the bet- 
ter classes, or if you prefer the so-called 
better classes, will continue to have a very 
limited number of children—so the only 
remedy we have at command is to instruct 
the lower classes to make use of the same 
means so that they may not by their un- 
restricted breeding overwhelm the better THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
55 
elements, pollute the race-stock and add 
to human misery. 
And this is what I would demand. I 
would demand that it be not only the right 
but the duty of the Departments of 
Health, of private practitioners and visit- 
ing district nurses to instruct the poor in 
simple and cheap methods of preventing 
undesirable pregnancies. This idea may 
be shocking to you by its novelty. But 
it is not so very novel at all. I have been 
advocating it for many years. And the 
time will come, is bound to come, when it 
will be seen to be the simplest kind of com- 
mon sense and will be acted upon by all 
intelligent communities. 
FRANCE 
I cannot leave the subject of race sui- 
cide or depopulation without devoting a 
special paragraph to France. You 
know that France has always been the 56 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
bete noire of the anti-limitationists. It is 
always held up to us as a horrible specter. 
“See what your propaganda is apt to lead 
to. Look at France. Depraved, mor- 
ally and physically degenerate, decadent, 
dying. A few decades more and there 
will be no France. She will be swallowed 
up by her stronger neighbors.*’ Plau- 
sible as this indictment may be on a super- 
ficial examination, it has one fault: it is 
not true. But to show that it is not true, 
I can do no better than to present the 
answer to this indictment as given by Dr. 
C. V. Drysdale of London, who is doing 
such valiant work in putting the subject 
of the rational limitation of offspring on 
a solid, scientific, irrefutable basis. He 
has collected the vital statistics for France 
over the whole period of her declining 
birth rate, i.e., from before the Revolu- 
tion. (The Empire and the Birth-Rate. 
By C. V. Drysdale, D.Sc. A paper 
read before The Royal Colonial Institute, THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
57 
March 24, 1914.) And what do these 
statistics show? They show: 
“1. France is not becoming depopu- 
lated. Her population has been slowly 
but steadily rising ever since the Franco- 
German war, both actually and by excess 
of births over deaths, although in some 
years the deaths have exceeded the births. 
“2. The excess of births over deaths in 
the last decade, 1901-10, though small, is 
double that of the previous decade, not- 
withstanding that the birth-rate fell from 
22.2 to 20.6. It averaged about 48,000 
per annum. 
“3. In 1781-84, before the decline of 
the birth-rate set in, the birth-rate had the 
high value of 38.9 per thousand. But in- 
stead of this giving a high natural increase 
of population, the death-rate was no less 
than 37 per thousand, giving an excess of 
births over deaths of only 1.9 per thou- 
sand—little more than that (1.2) of the 
last decade. 58 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
“4. The enormous fall of the birth-rate 
from 38.9 to 20.6 per thousand, has been 
accompanied by a fall in the death-rate 
from 37 to 19.4 per thousand. Thus a 
fall of 18.3 in the birth-rate has been ac- 
companied by a fall of 17.6 in the death- 
rate, and only a drop of .7 per thousand 
in the rate of increase. 
“5. The present low rate of natural in- 
crease in France is not necessarily due to 
its low birthrrate, as Ontario in Canada, 
with a similar birth-rate, had a death-rate 
of 10 per thousand, or a natural increase 
of 9 per thousand—nearly as great as our 
own. The low increase of France is 
therefore due to its high death-rate, not to 
its low birth-rate, and an explanation or 
remedy should be found for the former 
before objection is made to the latter. 
“6. Possibly as a result of the present 
agitation in France in favor of larger 
families, the births in the first half of last 
year increased by 8,000 over those of the THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
59 
corresponding period of 1912. Instead 
of producing a greater increase of popu- 
lation, the deaths increased by 12,000, so 
that the survivals actually diminished.” 
These facts, besides showing that 
France is not dying out, show also inci- 
dentally, what we have referred to many 
times before, that an increase in the birth 
rate does not even necessarily mean an in- 
crease in the population; because it can 
he, and often is, balanced or overbalanced 
by an increased death rate. 
That there is less poverty, less wretched- 
ness in France than in countries where the 
poor have not yet learned the secret of 
limiting their offspring, everybody will 
testify who has lived in France and in 
Italy or Spain, for instance. The differ- 
ence is not so noticeable in the slums of 
large cities—they are wretched every- 
where—but it is unmistakable in the 
smaller cities and in the villages. 
As to the decadence of France, its 60 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
moral and physical degeneracy, I believe 
that her dignified manly behavior during 
this war, her efficient stubborn resistance, 
her unity and readiness for the most ex- 
treme self-sacrifice will silence her worst 
detractors and it seems likely that when 
the war is over, no matter what its issue 
may be, this accusation against France 
will be relegated to the limbo of obsolete 
and forgotten slanders. 
One thing however I am willing to 
admit and even to insist upon. It will 
not do for one country to preach and prac- 
tice extreme limitation of offspring, when 
other countries breed unrestrainedly. 
Just as it would be foolish to demand dis- 
armament of one country, when that coun- 
try’s neighbors refuse to disarm. But 
what is the remedy? The remedy is not 
to give up preaching limitation of off- 
spring, but preaching it in all countries. 
Fortunately, the rational control of off- 
spring is something that appeals to all THE RACE SUICIDE BUGBEAR 
61 
people, all classes, all nations (except 
those of the lowest moral and intellectual 
standing), and it is only necessary to in- 
troduce it into a country to find for it a 
ready and welcome acceptance, and 
this is the duty of all true, broad-minded 
humanitarians. I would say patriots, 
only this word has acquired a sinister 
meaning, often being used by chauvinists 
and jingoists as a cloak for their narrow 
and selfish designs. 
Just as disarmament must be preached 
to all the world, so the limitation of off- 
spring idea must be introduced to all na- 
tions at one and the same time. Chapter V 
IT WILL LEAD TO IMMORALITY 
This objection seems to be the strongest 
one in the opinion of some even otherwise 
very rational thinkers. I have heard 
it from freethinkers, from socialists, 
and from some very sincere, cultured and 
educated men. People who have got- 
ten over the “race suicide” bugaboo 
still consider this a serious objection 
to the popular spread of the knowledge 
of contraceptives. They are deeply 
afraid that if this knowledge became 
universal, immorality, by which they 
mean female unchastity, would become 
universal. They are convinced that what 
keeps our girls and other husbandless 
women chaste is the fear of pregnancy 
and nothing else. In other words, they 
62 IT WILL LEAD TO IMMORALITY 
63 
openly acknowledge that our entire adult 
womanhood is mentally unchaste and what 
keeps a large proportion of them from 
physical unchastity is not morality but 
the fear of consequences. 
To this argument, which next to the 
race suicide argument, seems to be the 
most formidable, and to a good many the 
most unanswerable, leaving out the an- 
swer that virtue which is such by fear is 
no virtue at all, and that virtue that needs 
continuous guarding is scarcely worth the 
sentinel, my answer is that the fear of 
pregnancy is not the chief deterrent. 
What keeps most of our unmarried 
women chaste is the general bringing up, 
the general and religious education, the 
custom of the country, hereditary influ- 
ence, and the general monogamous tend- 
ency of the female. 
On a certain percentage of the female 
population all these factors exert no in- 
fluence now, and the only result the knowl- 64 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
edge we advocate would have is that 
illicit relations would be entered upon 
with less terror, perhaps, with less anxiety 
than they are now, but far from increas- 
ing immorality it would diminish it. I 
will explain what I mean. The fear of 
pregnancy does act as a deterrent in a 
large number of cases to the performance 
of coitus in the natural, normal way, but 
instead of that it leads to numerous per- 
versions of the sexual act, which are as a 
rule extremely injurious to the health of 
both partners. I know whereof I am 
speaking. I see daily the results of these 
sexual perversions in married couples, in 
engaged people and men and women who 
just keep company, and in men and 
women who are just acquainted; and I 
can assure you that while the fear of preg- 
nancy, as I said, does act as a deterrent in 
many cases, say even in a large number of 
cases, it does not act as a check against 
sexual immorality. On the contrary, it IT WILL LEAD TO IMMORALITY 
65 
increases it, because I consider sexual per- 
versions entered into out of fear of preg- 
nancy more immoral than natural rela- 
tions. 
And I tell you there are thousands of 
women who are physically virgins, whose 
hymen is intact, but who are so expert in 
various sexual perversions that they could 
learn nothing new from Krafft-Ebing’s 
Psychopathia Sexualis, and such women, 
such demi-vierges, are in my opinion much 
more unchaste than the woman who enters 
upon normal, tho illicit sexual relations, 
with the man she loves. 
And if some women are bound to have 
illicit relations, is it not better that they 
should know the use of a harmless pre- 
ventive than that they should become 
pregnant, disgracing and ostracizing 
themselves, and their families, or that they 
should subject themselves to the degrada- 
tion and risks of an abortion, or failing 
this take carbolic acid or bichloride, jump 66 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
into the river or throw themselves under 
the wheels of a running train? I may be 
wrong, my views may be strabismic, but 
I cannot help believing that I am kinder 
and humaner than those cruel bigots who 
demand that any woman who has indulged 
in illicit relations should expiate her 
“crime” by death or by all the humilia- 
tion, ostracism and suffering which are 
now imposed upon the mother of an ille- 
gitimate child. 
No, I am quite sure that the knowledge 
of the use of preventives will not increase 
immorality, using that term as a synonym 
of female unchastity. It will merely 
change perversions and injurious prac- 
tices into natural relations, which every 
humane and sane thinker must consider a 
gain and not a loss. IT IS INJURIOUS 
67 
Chapter VI 
it is INJURIOUS 
This objection we still meet quite fre- 
quently, and we hear it not only from the 
laity, who are not supposed to know any 
better, but from physicians who are sup- 
posed to know better. A whole catalogue 
of ills are given which are likely to result 
from the use of preventives of conception: 
congestion, inflammation, cancer, nerv- 
ousness, etc. This statement is unquali- 
fiedly false. Physicians who make such 
statements do it either because they are 
ignorant or because they know only of 
some methods that are injurious, or con- 
fuse prevention of conception with abor- 
tion, or they do so deliberately to mislead 
the people, to prevent them from engag- 
ing in what they call an immoral, ungodly 
and demoralizing practice. 
In a book entitled “Racial Decay,” 68 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
written with a zeal and earnestness wor- 
thy of a better cause, the author devotes 
pages and pages to the alleged pathologic 
consequences of prevention. But thru- 
out the book he shows not only complete 
ignorance of the subject, which might he 
pardonable in a layman, but he shows a 
muddleheadedness which is inexcusable in 
anybody who ventures to discuss the im- 
portant subject of the limitation of off- 
spring. For all thru the book he speaks 
of prevention and abortion as if they were 
one and the same thing, and he dilates 
upon the injurious effects of coitus in- 
terrupts, a method which we ourselves, 
as well as every student of sexual pathol- 
ogy, condemn most emphatically, most 
unequivocally! Some vague cases taken 
from antiquated medical books are of ab- 
solutely no value, because the modem 
methods of prevention were unknown at 
that time, and because there is the same 
stupid confusion of prevention of concep- IT IS INJURIOUS 
69 
tion with abortion, and the reports of in- 
juries to the nervous condition of the 
woman all refer to coitus interruptus or 
conjugal onanism. 
I emphasize: There is absolutely noth- 
ing injurious in the proper modem meth- 
ods of prevention. On the contrary, 
more than once has it been noticed that 
women who suffered with congestion, 
leucorrhea, catarrh of the cervix and va- 
gina, were improved by the use of modern 
contraceptives. Of course there is no 
doubt that there are injurious methods of 
prevention, that certain mechanical de- 
vices and poisonous solutions are in use 
which may in time produce injury to the 
parts. But are you going to condemn 
harmless methods because there are meth- 
ods which are not harmless? Because 
decomposed food is injurious are you 
going to condemn all food? Because an 
alkaline soap is irritating are you going 
to condemn the use of all soap? It is 70 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
absurd, and still this is the kind of argu- 
ment the opponents of the limitation of 
offspring have recourse to. And I chal- 
lenge any physician, any gynecologist to 
bring forth a single authenticated case in 
which disease or injury resulted from the 
use of the modern methods of prevention. 
I know they cannot do it. 
Chapter VII 
IT PRODUCES STERILITY 
This is another one of the fallacies 
which are heard frequently from clerical 
and medical opponents of the limitation 
of offspring. It could have only orig- 
inated from the confusion of prevention 
of conception with abortion, or again per- 
haps from the fact that those opponents 
have only known of methods which were 
particularly brutal and atrocious. 
We know that the proper methods of IT PRODUCES STERILITY 
71 
prevention have absolutely no effect what- 
ever in causing sterility. As long as the 
woman uses the preventive she is safe, as 
soon as she gives up the use of the pre- 
ventive she becomes impregnated. Some- 
times a single omission of the use of the 
preventive measure causes impregnation, 
as many women have found out to their 
sorrow. 
But the sterility bugaboo is firmly 
rooted. A couple came to me who wanted 
to have children. The woman wanted 
treatment. They had used preventives 
for three years and then, their circum- 
stances having improved, they decided to 
have a child, but altho they had discon- 
tinued the use of preventives for over a 
year, no offspring had resulted. They 
were firmly convinced that the wife was 
sterile owing to the use of the contracep- 
tives. As a matter of fact, repeated ex- 
aminations showed that the husband was 
suffering from complete azoospermia and 72 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
never could have any children, with or 
without contraceptives. But it was 
plainly to be seen that these patients were 
skeptical and clung to their belief that the 
lack of offspring was due to the means of 
preventing them which they had used in 
the past. 
Chapter VIII 
IT IS NOT ABSOLUTELY SURE 
Our opponents claim that there is no 
absolutely sure means of the prevention 
of conception, that the best of them fail 
once in a while. This is true and isn’t 
true. It is true in the sense that there is 
not one single method that is suitable for 
everybody, but it is not true that a certain 
means will not prove absolutely efficient 
in a certain given case, or practically so. 
And this uncertainty is due to the fact 
that the whole thing is done secretly, IT IS NOT ABSOLUTELY SURE 
73 
clandestinely, as if a crime were being 
committed. If the whole thing were free 
and legal, if the matter could be discussed 
freely in the journals, the best methods 
would be learned quickly enough, and 
each one would have no difficulty in find- 
ing the means most appropriate to her- 
self. 
But even as it is now, the methods are 
infallible in 98 or 99 per cent, of cases, and 
while this may be no consolation to the 
hundredth case that happens to be caught, 
we do consider that both for the individual 
family and for the race as a whole it is 
even now a means of the most wonderful 
potency for good. 
One little instance: In Berlin the 
birth rate was, in 1876, 240 per annum per 
each thousand married women; in 1912 
the birth rate had fallen to 90! Doesn’t 
this show the great efficacy of contracep- 
tive measures? 74 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Chapter IX 
WOULD LEAD TO EXCESS IN MARRIED LIFE 
A minor objection that is hardly 
worth considering, but which I will take 
up nevertheless, because I heard it often 
in the discussions following my lectures is 
that, with such knowledge, married people 
will indulge to excess, thus ruining their 
constitutions. Here is again the same 
idea: that we abstain from moral crimes 
and physical sins only thru fear of the 
consequences. 
I stamp this mediaeval idea as false. 
Some people will commit sins, crimes and 
bestialities in spite of consequences; others 
will lead a healthy, moral, rational life 
just for its own sake, because they can’t 
help being decent, because they have been 
brought up to be decent. And I am sure 
that when the study of sexual hygiene 
has become universal, when men know WOULD LEAD TO EXCESS 
75 
that excessive indulgence is injurious, they 
will abstain from it, the same as they ab- 
stain from excessive alcoholic indulgence 
or excessive eating. It is true, as Shaw 
says, that married life offers the maximum 
of temptation with the maximum of op- 
portunity, but as the variety is lacking, 
things equalize themselves and the vast 
majority of married couples settle down 
after the first few months to a temperate 
existence, sexually speaking. 
And then we must not forget that there 
is no short royal road to prevention. 
Every efficient method demands a little 
care, a little trouble, a little expense. 
And this alone will act as a check. 
The times when husbands indulge most 
unrestrainedly because the fear of im- 
pregnation is absent, is during their 
wives’ pregnancies; and as pregnancies 
will be fewer and farther between, there 
will be less indulgence. So that we have 
a right to claim, that far from increasing 76 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
indulgence in marital relations, a knowl- 
edge of the means of prevention will act 
as a check, and excesses will give place to 
moderation. 
Chapter X 
IT IS AGAINST RELIGION 
I am not dealing here with pious hypo- 
crites, but some very earnest and sincere 
people have brought up this objection, 
that the prevention of conception is repre- 
hensible because it is against religion. I 
know of no place in the Bible where the 
prevention of conception or limitation of 
offspring is prohibited. I do not claim to 
be a great student of the Bible, but when 
I spoke recently at St. Mark’s Church this 
point was brought up and the minister 
said distinctly that he did not know, at 
least he could not think at the time of 
any place in either the Old or the New IT IS AGAINST RELIGION 
77 
Testament which contained anything con- 
demning the use of preventives. 
But assuming that it did contain an ex- 
plicit injunction against their use, I would 
simply ask those whose conduct is guided 
by the Bible to refrain from using those 
means, but not to attempt to force their 
morals and their conduct upon people who 
are guided by different standards of 
morality. 
And, besides, when a man brings in re- 
ligion as an argument then no further dis- 
cussion is possible. I do not sneer at 
religion, I can even sincerely respect a 
sincerely religious person, for I know that 
many of them are both earnest in their 
convictions and humanitarian in their en- 
deavors, but I simply say that this is a 
question which we cannot discuss. Re- 
ligion is a matter of faith and not reason; 
you believe so and so and that is all there 
is to it. Another man believes differ- 
ently. Let him get his salvation in his 78 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
own way as long as he does not injure 
you. 
Chapter XI 
IT IS IMMORAL 
This argument is in the same class as 
the religious argument. It all depends 
on what you call immoral. Why the use 
of a harmless mechanical or chemical 
agent before or after coitus is more im- 
moral than the use of the same or similar 
thing by a woman suffering with leucor- 
rhea, I cannot for the life of me see. No 
inanimate thing, no act can be moral or 
immoral per se. It is the circumstances 
under which an act is performed, the uses 
to which a thing is put that make it moral 
or immoral. Immoral is something that 
is injurious to the community, to another 
individual, or to the person himself. As 
I am showing in this paper by the use of 
irrefutable arguments and figures, the use IT IS IMMORAL 
79 
of such contraceptives is not injurious to 
the persons who are using them, they are 
certainly not injurious to one’s neighbors, 
and far from being injurious to the com- 
munity they are helpful to it by raising 
the hygienic, eugenic and economic stand- 
ards. So wherein does the immorality 
consist? 
I am afraid that those who bring up the 
immorality argument have created a fetish 
which they would find great difficulty in 
maintaining on its pedestal if forced to 
present real arguments. But, again, as 
I said in discussing the religious argu- 
ment, some people have peculiar ideas as 
to what is moral and immoral, and if one 
has made up his mind that a certain action 
is immoral it is no use discussing matters. 
Such people are generally impervious to 
argument. As to those men who go 
even further and say that wives who use 
preventives are nothing hut monoga- 
mous prostitutes, and I have heard that 80 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
argument from apparently sane people, 
one of them even calling himself a social- 
ist, I can only say that with such people it 
is useless to argue. We can only give 
them tit for tat by calling them imbeciles. 
Chapter XII 
IT LEADS TO DIVORCE 
We are told that childlessness is one of 
the causes of divorce, and statistics seem 
to show that there is more divorce among 
childless couples than among those who 
have children. Let us examine this ques- 
tion in detail. 
First comes the general question: Is 
divorce in itself an unmitigated evil? Is 
it better that people who no longer care to 
live with each other, or who have found it 
impossible to live with each other, who per- 
haps hate and loathe each other, should be 
forced to live together by extraneous cir- IT LEADS TO DIVORCE 
81 
cumstances and obstacles, or is it better 
that such people should be free to go their 
way and perhaps find new, more congenial 
partners? Upon the answer to this ques- 
tion will depend the attitude of the person 
who believes that childlessness is one of 
the causes of divorce, for we must admit 
that in many cases the presence of chil- 
dren, the fact that they have to be brought 
up and cared for itself acts as a restraint, 
as a barrier to divorce. 
But those who bring this argument for- 
get one very important point. Most cases 
of divorce in which childlessness is the 
causative factor are due not to the fact 
that the parents used preventive measures, 
but to the fact that one of the partners, 
either the husband or the wife, was sterile. 
In other words, the divorce is not caused 
by the desire of the parents not to have 
any children, hut by the desire to have 
them, a desire which is frustrated by the 
inability of either one or both partners. 82 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
In all cases of divorce of which I know in 
which the partners were childless, the 
divorce was demanded by one of the part- 
ners just because he or she was extremely 
anxious to have children, and they hoped 
that by remarrying their ardent desire 
would be realized. No, prevention of 
conception plays but an insignificant part 
in the increase of divorce. 
To summarize: divorce in itself cannot 
be considered an unmitigated evil—in 
many cases it is an unmitigated blessing, 
freeing two people from a yoke that has 
become hateful to one or both; and volun- 
tary childlessness plays a very small role 
in the divorce problem; it is involuntary 
childlessness or sterility that does play an 
important part, and for this the preven- 
tion of conception propaganda is certainly 
not responsible. THE ONE CHILD ARGUMENT 
83 
Chapter XIII 
THE ONE CHILD ARGUMENT 
We are told that it is bad to have one 
child only, for the child’s own sake; that 
an only child is generally petted and cod- 
dled too much, too much anxiety is shown 
for his slightest ailment, and the result is 
that an only child usually grows up sickly, 
egotistic, disagreeable, handicapped in 
many ways, and incapable of taking his 
proper part in the world’s battle. And 
here are our answers to this criticism. 
First, I fully believe that rational par- 
ents, who know something about educa- 
tion and about the physiology and psychol- 
ogy of a child, can bring up even an only 
child into a normal human being. We 
have sickly and egotistical children in 
large families, and on the other hand we 
have finely brought up children where 
there are only two or three of them. It is 84 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
not so much a matter of the number of 
children as of the quality of the parents. 
And second, we have never advocated 
the one child system. We have always 
stated that in our opinion the proper num- 
ber is two or three. But we must give the 
parents the right to decide upon the num- 
ber and upon the time of the appearance 
of the children. 
Chapter XIV 
PREVENTING BIRTH OF GENIUSES 
Another objection is that by preventing 
conception we may prevent the birth of 
some very great genius, of some wonder- 
ful thinker, philosopher, writer or artist. 
Yes, we may—everything is possible. 
But just as we may prevent the birth of a 
great man, that very same prevention may 
prevent the birth of some monster, of some 
wretched murderer, of some malicious 
criminal, of some anti-social beast. CHILDREN SUPPORT PARENTS 
85 
And again, if this is to be taken as an 
argument, then every act of abstinence is 
a crime, for how can we know that but for 
the abstinence at a certain given time some 
wonderful man might not have been born 
nine months later? 
No, among the millions that are bom 
geniuses and saviors are very few and far 
between, and we certainly have a right to 
believe that by preventing conception we 
prevent many more undesirable than de- 
sirable human beings. 
Chapter XV 
CHILDREN SUPPORT PARENTS IN THEIR 
OLD AGE 
Another argument is that children often 
prove a blessing and support to the par- 
ents when the latter get old. I do not 
deny that. But must we have half a 
dozen for that purpose? Are not two or 86 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
three sufficient? And while it is true that 
some children do prove a blessing and sup- 
port to their parents, many others prove a 
curse and a burden as long as they live. 
And there are certainly many more par- 
ents who wear themselves out and become 
prematurely aged in the struggle for ex- 
istence, a struggle which is the more in- 
tense the more children there are at home, 
than are afterwards supported by their 
children. 
And besides it is a pretty, pretty sad 
state of affairs that parents who have 
worked all their lives should in their old 
age be so poor as to need the support of 
their children. A society that permits 
that is rotten, and such conditions will not 
be permitted to last long. 
I do not deny the force of this argu- 
ment. I myself know people who were 
intensely poor, who struggled fearfully to 
bring up and educate their children, and 
now the latter have attained lucrative posi- CHILDREN SUPPORT PARENTS 
87 
tions and have made the lot of their par- 
ents very much easier. But these are ex- 
ceptional cases. And, besides, the argu- 
ment is a very selfish one. To bring chil- 
dren into the world, to have them suffer 
the first twenty or twenty-five years of 
their lives, merely in order afterwards to 
be supported by them! Does that argu- 
ment appeal to you? It does not appeal 
to me. Chapter XVI 
WOULD SMALL FAMILIES TEND TO 
DIMINISH WAGES? 
Whether or not the universal knowledge 
of the limitation of offspring would tend 
to bring about the cooperative common- 
wealth is a question open to discussion. 
Some may believe it would, others not. I 
personally believe it would. By diminish- 
ing the number of the unemployed, by im- 
proving the material condition of the 
working people and thus giving them more 
time for study, for leisure and reading, 
etc., it would be greatly helpful in creat- 
ing an intelligent class-conscious working 
class. But as I stated before this is a 
question open to discussion, but it is not 
open to discussion that a man getting fif- 
teen dollars or twenty dollars or twenty- 
88 SMALL FAMILIES AND WAGES 
89 
five dollars a week can live much more 
comfortably, much more healthfully, 
much more happily with two children than 
with six, and it requires a peculiarly ob- 
tuse mind to attempt to controvert this 
proposition. 
And whether or not the conscious limi- 
tation of offspring will prove an effective 
revolutionary weapon and will serve to 
bring about the millennium, worries me 
very little. As I have said many times 
before, I am not dealing with future con- 
tingencies and with future generations. 
I am dealing with the present and with 
the people of to-day. If we will take care 
of the present the future will take care of 
itself. And when a poor woman, ex- 
hausted with several labors and with the 
bringing up of six or eight children, comes 
in to me or to you and with bitter tears 
begs to be saved from another pregnancy, 
it is the acme of cruelty and bigoted idiocy 
to tell her that the prevention of concep- 90 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
tion is not a panacea against wage slavery, 
that it will not improve the condition of 
the working class as a whole, that capital- 
ism will find some means of keeping her 
and her children in subjection and in mis- 
ery all the same, that by the operation of 
the “iron law of wages” her husband’s 
wages will be diminished as soon as the 
capitalists find that they require less to 
live on, etc. 
Every thinking man of the present day 
knows that the so-called “iron law of 
wages” is a myth, that the minimum neces- 
sary to support life is not the factor that 
determines the size of the wages. Wages 
are determined by a number of other fac- 
tors, such as the supply and demand in the 
labor market, the standard of living in a 
given period in a given country, and very 
important, the efficiency and class-con- 
sciousness of the labor organizations. 
And if the law of supply and demand 
holds good in the labor market as it holds SMALL FAMILIES AND WAGES 
91 
good elsewhere, then it stands to reason 
that the fewer wage-slaves we have, the 
less glutted the labor market is, the higher 
the wages are apt to be. 
It may seem incredible but it is a fact 
the truth of which can be incontrovertibly 
proven that there are still Socialists who 
fear a gradual improvement in the mate- 
rial conditions of the working people. 
They fear that if their condition becomes 
more comfortable they will lose the revo- 
lutionary spirit and sink into the mire of 
self-content. They verily believe that the 
worse the condition of the workingman 
the better it is for the “revolution.” This 
attitude was very well demonstrated at the 
meetings held under the auspices of the 
Socialist Party in Berlin on August 22 
and August 29, 1913. Some of the 
speakers violently objected to the propa- 
ganda for the prevention of conception, 
not because they believed it would not im- 
prove the condition of the workingman but 92 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
because they believed it would, and they 
plainly and loudly protested against such 
a possibility. They said that if the condi- 
tion of the workingman should become im- 
proved by having few children he would 
become verburgerlicht, bourgeois-like, and 
he would lose his revolutionary spirit 
(which as events have shown he did not 
possess at all). This was the cry repeated 
over and over again. [A report of that 
meeting appears in the third edition of the 
author’s “Sexual Problems of To-day.”] 
It should not be necessary at this day 
to point out the shallowness of this objec- 
tion. It is not the most wretched work- 
ingman that makes or gives promise of 
making the best revolutionist. The 
wretcheder the people are the wretcheder 
they remain. It is not the workingmen 
in Russia and in Spain from whom we can 
expect the most. On the contrary, a 
wretched proletariat is often a “bum” 
proletariat that can be used very readily SMALL FAMILIES AND WAGES 
93 
for strikebreaking, for crushing the revo- 
lution, and for every dastardly kind of 
work, as is well known from the brutal 
behavior of the Black Hundreds in Russia. 
It is just the other way, the better the 
condition of the workingman the more 
hope of his complete awakening, because 
it is only the better kind of workingman 
who has time to read, to study, to attend 
meetings, to discuss things. He who is 
continuously overworked and underfed 
makes poor revolutionary timber. 
Fortunately during the last few years, 
a decided change has been taking place in 
the attitude of Socialists and other radicals 
towards our prevention of conception 
propaganda and it is from them that we 
now get our most earnest supporters, our 
most zealous friends and workers. 
For instance, The Woman’s Page of 
The New York Call, edited by Anita C. 
Block, has been a staunch, outspoken and 
consistent supporter of our propaganda. Chapter XVII 
THE MORAL STANDARD OF THOSE WHO 
MAKE USE OF OR ADVOCATE THE USE OF 
PREVENTIVES 
Philippics have been delivered and 
pamphlets and books have been written 
against those who make use of preventives 
and against those who advocate the ra- 
tional limitation of the number of off- 
spring. They have been called immoral, 
decadent, degenerate, egotists, low crea- 
tures devoid of responsibility. 
It would he easy to answer by slinging 
epithets back at our critics and calling 
them fools and imbeciles incapable of 
logical reasoning, unwilling to be con- 
vinced and crawling into a corner when 
they are presented with arguments which 
they are unable to answer, when they are 
94 OUR MORAL STANDARD 
95 
shown proofs which they are unable to 
refute. But calling names, while a great 
personal satisfaction occasionally and an 
excellent safety valve once in a while, is 
no argument. 
I will admit that among the upper 
classes, and among a certain percentage 
of the middle classes, the decision to limit 
the number of children or to avoid having 
any at all, does not flow from very high 
motives, that this decision is even selfish, 
egotistic in the common sense of the term, 
that it flows from a desire on the part of 
the parents not to have their comfort or 
personal pleasures interfered with, that 
they do not want to have to go thru the 
trouble of bringing up children. But 
this accusation is distinctly untrue when 
applied to the vast majority of the middle, 
professional and working classes. Far 
from being due to a lower morality, it is 
due to higher morality. Far from being 
due to a lack of responsibility, it is due 96 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
to a heightened sense of responsibility. 
The animals, and the people nearest to 
them, have no such responsibility; they 
breed unrestrictedly, leaving nature or 
God to take care of their offspring or to 
kill it off as they may see fit. Thinking 
parents, however, are so imbued with the 
sense of responsibility in bringing a human 
being into the world under our present 
social and economic conditions, that we 
cannot blame them, but we must praise 
them for refusing to bring into being too 
large a number. As a matter of fact, it 
is just the other way around, and it is we 
who would have a perfect right, if we 
were so inclined, to accuse the oppo- 
nents of the rational limitation of off- 
spring among the poor of moral strabis- 
mus, of disingenuousness, of hypocrisy. 
For those opponents of the artificial 
limitation of offspring are generally not 
even sincere, and cry out against the em- 
ployment of it by others, while making use OUR MORAL STANDARD 
97 
of it themselves. You will find that the 
doctors, statesmen, clergymen who weep 
such bitter tears over the diminished birth 
rate are themselves the greatest offenders 
in this respect, generally having few or no 
children. I had this experience more 
than once: In a discussion following one 
of my lectures, the man who would at- 
tack my ideas most severely would at the 
close of the meeting come up and ask me 
to have the kindness to tell him what I 
considered the best method of prevention. 
When I would ask him smilingly what he, 
being such an opponent of prevention, 
wanted it for, the answer would usually 
be: “Oh, well, I might as well know. 
There are occasions when such knowledge 
might be very useful.” Yes, it is re- 
markable how many people who condemn 
prevention of conception on general prin- 
ciples are willing to utilize this knowledge 
for themselves, their immediate families 
and relatives. 98 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Old Bacon said something to the effect 
that the wolf never cared how many the 
sheep may be and Prof. Thomas Nixon 
Carver of Harvard expressed the same 
thought very neatly as follows: 
He said: “Foxes think large families 
among the rabbits highly commendable. 
Employers who want large supplies of 
cheap labor, priests who want large num- 
bers of parishioners, military leaders who 
want plenty of cheap food for gunpowder, 
and politicians who want plenty of voters, 
all agree in commending large families 
and rapid multiplication among the poorer 
classes.” Chapter XVIII 
WHAT LIFE MEANS AT PRESENT TO THE 
MILLIONS 
I am not an extremist, I do not take 
one stratum of society, namely the lowest, 
and try to make believe that all humanity 
is as wretched as that lowest stratum. I 
always pride myself on my sane and well- 
balanced radicalism, and I am certainly 
not a pessimist. To me personally Fate 
has not been particularly cruel, in fact 
many think that it has been particularly 
kind. I am distinctly an optimist. I be- 
lieve that this world is going to be the 
most glorious world to live in and there 
will not be an unhappy creature in it, but 
to assert that this is the best of all possible 
worlds at the present time, is to make a 
statement which is stupidly, palpably 
99 100 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
false. Its falseness can be proven in five 
minutes by going outside into the street 
and just looking about us. 
I know that there is plenty of joy, 
plenty of happiness, plenty of pleasure 
in this world, but isn’t it true that the pain 
overbalances the pleasure in this world 
many thousand fold? Is it not true that 
we have many millions of working people 
in our country who have really nothing 
to live for, working from morning to night 
merely for their material necessities, 
merely to keep body and soul together, 
but without any refining influences, with- 
out any artistic or intellectual pleasures? 
Is it really reprehensible for a working 
family that earns eighteen or twenty dol- 
lars a week to refuse to have more than two 
children, because they know that if they 
have more than two the first two will have 
to be neglected to a certain extent, and to a 
certain extent will have to be deprived of 
food and clothes which they need? Could WHAT LIFE MEANS TO MILLIONS 
101 
you blame them even if they refused to 
have any children, because having no 
pleasures whatever in life, disgusted at the 
continual, monotonous drudgery of their 
work, they refuse to bring other creatures 
into the world that would have to live the 
same cheerless, hopeless life? 
What inducement is there for the in- 
telligent class-conscious workman, hold- 
ing a twelve or twenty dollar job, or hav- 
ing to hunt for a job half of the time, to 
bring more wage-slaves into the world? 
And talk to the really intelligent middle 
class or professional man, the man who 
has learned to look at the world with clear 
eyes. You will find that he complains as 
bitterly, some of them even more bitterly, 
than does the workman. Until twenty- 
five or twenty-eight he has to prepare for 
a career. With our increased educational 
requirements the age at which professional 
men graduate and begin to earn a living 
is advancing further and further from 102 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
year to year. For ten or fifteen years it 
is a bitter, hard, sixteen- or eighteen-hour 
a day struggle to build up a practice, to 
get a clientele, or to build up an independ- 
ent business. And in this desperate 
struggle nine-tenths fail, and lead to the 
end of their days the lives of drudges, just 
merely making a living. About ten per 
cent, come out victorious, get to the top; 
but when they have reached the top they 
find by looking at the family Bible that 
they are already forty-five or fifty years 
old, that they are already on the decline, 
or will approach it within very few years, 
and that the material independence, posi- 
tion, fame, etc., do not give them the same 
pleasure and satisfaction that they ex- 
pected to enjoy when they were strug- 
gling for them so ceaselessly and perhaps 
so relentlessly. 
That there are a few people who seem 
to have been born with silver spoons in 
their mouths, for whom everything is pre- WHAT LIFE MEANS TO MILLIONS 
103 
pared, who have nothing to struggle for, 
and to whom life seems to be an inex- 
haustible source of fun and pleasure, I 
admit. But their number is so small as 
to be entirely negligible, and is much more, 
is a thousand times, overbalanced by the 
men and women on the other end of the 
scale to whom life is a continuous source 
of suffering, pain, nay agony and torture, 
from the very day they are born until 
they are put away in a cheap pine coffin 
in the bosom of dear mother earth. 
I believe that to become convinced that 
this is not the best possible of worlds, and 
that for many millions of people this life 
is nothing but a round of monotonous, 
senseless drudgery even if devoid of actual 
pain and suffering, it is only necessary to 
take a trip, not to the slums, but just in 
the subway, during rush hours. I thank 
my fates that it is but very seldom that 
I have to ride in the subway, but when I 
do, particularly if in the rush hours, the 104 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
spectacle fills me with inexpressible sad- 
ness. 
Just look at the faces—not a happy, 
contented face in the ten cars of the ex- 
press train. Just analyze them. Tense, 
gloomy, dissatisfied, grouchy, distinctly 
unhappy, cruel, stupid or vapid, such are 
the expressions of practically all the faces 
you see there. And what are they all do- 
ing there? For what reason are they 
jostling or being jostled, crushing or be- 
ing crushed, trampled or being trampled 
upon, twice a day, morning and night of 
every week-day? For what reason? To 
go down into factories or shops or offices 
to do useless and disagreeable, or useful 
but uncongenial, or in general injurious 
work for eight or ten or twelve hours a 
day. And what for? Merely to make 
eight or ten or twenty dollars a week, just 
to support the body sufficiently to be able 
to work again. It is work to have what 
to eat and drink, anjd eat and drink to be WHAT LIFE MEANS TO MILLIONS 
105 
able to work. And this grind goes on day 
after day, week after week, year after 
year, without any prospect of change for 
millions of people. 
It is to me one of the great tragedies 
of our present system that people have to 
spend almost, if not the entire day, merely 
to earn enough to make a living. The 
work necessary to make a living should 
be the incidental work, and it certainly 
should not take away more than four 
hours a day from any man or woman. 
Of course, if a man loves his work that is 
another matter. Then he may work 
eighteen hours a day until his eyes close 
in sleep from sheer exhaustion. 
And as we look across the Atlantic, 
as we contemplate the horrible carnage 
there is going on in Europe, as we con- 
sider the cruel insanity into which millions 
of people have been plunged, as we think 
of the hundreds of thousands of peaceful, 
healthy men departing for the front 106 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
never to return or to return maimed and 
diseased, as we cast our physical and men- 
tal eyes over the fields and trenches filled 
with corpses of what but recently was the 
best—physically at least—of manhood— 
when we see and ponder these things, how 
can one dare to urge intelligent men and 
women to breed unrestrainedly, to bring 
forth children, to rear them, to educate 
them only to become food for shell and 
shrapnel, to become fertilizer for the 
ground at the age of twenty or thirty? 
No, this is not a pleasant world to live 
in at the present time, and it is a sign of 
a putrid morality and a petrified men- 
tality to curse and to throw stones at those 
members of the middle and working classes 
who believe that it is their duty to them- 
selves, to their children, to humanity at 
large, to limit the number of their off- 
spring within narrow bounds. Far from 
BEING A SIGN OF LOW MORALITY THE CON- 
SCIOUS CONTROL OF THE NUMBER OF CHIL- WHAT LIFE MEANS TO MILLIONS 
107 
DREN IS A SIGN OF HIGH MORALITY. And I 
will repeat what I said before, that far 
from being a sign of a lack of responsibil- 
ity it is a sign of a high sense of responsi- 
bility, of foresight, of love, of the true feel- 
ing of humanitarianism. THE EVILS OF IGNORANCE AND THE 
BENEFITS OF KNOWLEDGE OF 
HARMLESS PREVENTIVES 
Having answered all objections, all 
that I found in books or that I ever heard 
in discussions following my lectures on 
the subject, I will now present the posi- 
tive side, the case for prevention. 
I will summarize briefly what evils ig- 
norance of the means of prevention and 
excessive childbearing is responsible for, 
and what benefits would accrue to human- 
ity if the knowledge of prevention became 
universal, or at least universally accessible. Chapter XIX 
WOULD ENCOURAGE EARLY MARRIAGE 
The reason many men marry now at 
such a late age is because they are afraid 
they would not be able to support a wife 
with many children. If the men knew 
that by safe and harmless means they 
could limit their children to the number 
they can afford to have and to a time most 
convenient, they would marry much 
earlier and more of them would marry; 
and this would necessarily have a great 
effect in diminishing the number of bach- 
elors and old maids. This would in its 
turn have a great effect in diminishing 
prostitution with its terrible concomitant 
evil, venereal disease. 
I am not so optimistic as to believe that 
early marriages and the knowledge of pre- 
109 110 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
vention of conception will do away alto- 
gether with prostitution. People who 
have studied the subject know that among 
the patrons of prostitutes married men— 
and happily married men, too—constitute 
quite a large contingent. Patronage of 
prostitutes or seeking after illicit relations 
emanates from a different source than a 
mere desire for sexual gratification. But 
none the less it cannot be denied that if 
early marriage became a common thing, 
and if the fear of impregnating one’s wife 
were eliminated, the greatest part of the 
demand for prostitution would be cut off. 
And with the diminution of prostitution 
goes pari passu a diminution in venereal 
disease. 
Early marriage would have other bene- 
ficial effects; it would diminish masturba- 
tion, and would tend to diminish the evils 
of abstinence, neurasthenia and various 
other neuroses. But these points can 
only be alluded to in this book. PREVENTION AND DISEASE 
111 
Chapter XX 
WOULD DIMINISH VENEREAL DISEASE 
AMONG THE MARRIED 
There is one point that I believe has 
never been brought out before, not even in 
my own writings, and that is the remark- 
ably beneficent influence which the use of 
contraceptives has and will have on the 
diminution of venereal disease among 
married people. As is well known, there 
are thousands and tens of thousands of 
men who have had gonorrhea some time in 
their lives and who because they have no 
discharge or shreds in the urine errone- 
ously consider themselves cured. Some 
hasty or incompetent physician may even 
have told them that they are cured. 
Those people get married and sooner or 
later they infect their wives because some- 
where in their genital system a gonococcal 
focus was dormant. The use of contra- 112 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
ceptive measures entirely abolishes or re- 
duces to a minimum the danger of infec- 
tion in such cases. For it so happens that 
most of the measures that have a contra- 
ceptive effect are at the same time pro- 
phylactics against gonorrheal and syphil- 
itic infection. 
This is a point that should be carefully 
considered. In my practice I often base 
my decision as to whether I will permit or 
not permit a man to marry upon the fact 
whether or not he is going to use contra- 
ceptive measures for the first year or years 
of his married life. If the man tells me 
that they want to have children at once I 
am much more strict in my verdict than 
otherwise, for there are cases which are on 
the borderline, and in which in spite of the 
most careful tests it is impossible to say 
with scientific definiteness whether a man 
is absolutely free from any gonococcal 
focus or not. And if such a man tells me 
that contraceptives are going to be used EXHAUSTS THE WOMAN’S BODY 
113 
for the first year or so, I have no hesitation 
in giving him permission to marry. I 
simply tell him to come around in six 
months or a year for another examination. 
But where the couple objects to the use 
of contraceptives, as not infrequently hap- 
pens, then I insist upon more treatment 
and more examinations until I can be mor- 
ally certain that there is no danger of in- 
fection. 
Chapter XXI 
EXHAUSTS THE WOMAN’S BODY 
Every physician knows that too fre- 
quent childbirth, too frequent nursing, 
and the sleepless nights that are required 
in bringing up a child, exhaust the vitality 
of thousands of mothers, make them pre- 
maturely old or turn them into chronic 
invalids. The knowledge of prevention 
would do away with this evil. 
I know that we are often told by our 114. 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
opponents of their mothers and grand- 
mothers who had eight or twelve or fifteen 
children and were nevertheless healthy and 
pretty pictures to look upon. That there 
are good healthy breeding machines I do 
not deny. But they are the exception. In 
the vast majority of cases frequent preg- 
nancies exhaust the vitality of the mother, 
lead to early decay, to Bright’s disease, 
and shorten life. Women who lead a 
normal sexual life, but have few children, 
maintain their health and youthfulness 
much longer. 
In discussing this question man is “at 
his best” in showing his unlimited mascu- 
line egotism. One would think that the 
whole process of childbirth is so strictly 
physiologic, such a trifling matter, as to 
be utterly devoid of any pains and risks. 
The poor man utterly forgets the misery 
frequently associated with gestation, the 
nausea, the vomiting, the edema, the ag- 
gravation of all other diseases which the EXHAUSTS THE WOMAN’S BODY 
115 
woman may happen to be suffering with. 
He forgets the horrible agony of the 
process of childbirth (which in spite of 
twilight sleep we will still have with us for 
quite some time to come). He forgets 
the dangers of hemorrhage, of lacerations, 
infections, puerperal convulsions. He 
overlooks the troubles connected with the 
nursing of the child, with the involution 
of the uterus, etc., etc. 
Let us remind our dear masculine 
friends that in spite of the tremendous 
progress we have made in science, in spite 
of the great improvements in obstetrics 
and gynecology, the whole process of 
childbirth is still something which many 
women look at quite justly with some 
dread. Not only have the processes of 
gestation, labor, the puerperium and lacta- 
tion quite some morbidity but they have a 
quite respectable or even sinister mortal- 
ity. Tho the joke is not a particularly 
brilliant one, still it will bear repetition; 116 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
it is to the effect, that if nature had made 
it so that the man should have the first 
child and the woman the second, and thus 
further in alternation, there would never 
be a third child. If man had to go thru 
what women do, if men were not only the 
begetters but also the bearers of children, 
the laws against the prevention of concep- 
tion on our statute books would never have 
been put on, or if they had been put on 
they would have been very quickly taken 
off. 
Often in the discussions following my 
lectures a man would get up and would at- 
tempt to refute my argument by the state- 
ment that he has had six or eight or ten 
children and that his wife was perfectly 
healthy, and that they had no trouble, and 
that the children all grew up well and are 
a joy and pleasure to them. But on in- 
vestigating it has proved invariably that 
the objector was a very well-to-do or rich 
man, and that his wife could afford all KILLS THE WOMAN’S SPIRIT 
117 
possible comforts, that each child had a 
nurse, the girls had governesses, etc. 
The attempted refutation, it is clearly 
seen, will hold no water. I have never 
urged the rich and well-to-do to limit the 
number of their children. Under our 
present conditions let them have as many 
as they wish, but what is easy, feasible 
and even pleasurable for a rich couple may 
be extremely depressing and painful for 
the poor or the middle class business or 
professional man, and it is for them that 
I am pleading. 
Chapter XXII 
KILLS THE woman’s SPIRIT 
Besides the deleterious effect that fre- 
quent childbearing has upon the health of 
the woman, often making her prematurely 
aged and often hastening her death, there 
is another point to be considered. It 118 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
cripples or kills the spirit of many a 
woman. Who has not known of high 
spirited, high-strung girls with talent for 
music, painting, singing, acting or writ- 
ing, who in a few years after marriage 
have become spiritless drudges without 
any hope and without any ambition? 
Of course a husband alone may be the 
cause of such a condition; an uncongenial 
or unsympathetic husband may without 
any outside “aid” succeed in a very short 
time in completely crushing and maiming 
the best woman’s spirit and aspirations. 
But in the vast majority of cases it will he 
found that the real cause of this metamor- 
phosis is the children or pregnancies fol- 
lowing closely upon each other. How can 
a woman who has four or five children 
within the first ten years of her married 
life ever think of following up her studies 
and living up to her ideals and aspirations ? 
This argument will not appeal to many 
men, who think th$,t that is all a woman is KILLS THE WOMAN’S SPIRIT 
119 
for—to breed children, that once she has 
entered into the holy bonds of matrimony 
she must like those entering Dante’s in- 
ferno leave everything behind and devote 
herself exclusively to the business of being 
a mother. I, however, do not agree with 
the notions of those estimable members of 
my sex. I believe that a woman is, 
can be and should be a human being be- 
sides being a mother, and if she is to take 
a place in and get some enjoyment out of 
her individual and social life, she must not 
be forced to be a breeding machine merely. 
Chapter XXIII 
NEURASTHENIA IN MEN AND WOMEN 
FROM IMPROPER METHODS 
On account of our vicious laws, which 
prevent a free discussion of preventives 
and which make the imparting of knowl- 
edge on the subject so difficult, many 120 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
women use improper and injurious meth- 
ods of prevention and thereby injure their 
health or risk their very lives. Were a 
free discussion of the subject permissible 
this evil would be done away with. 
Similarly there are numberless thou- 
sands of men who have become pitiable 
weaklings, pitiable sexual neurasthenics, 
from coitus interruptus, or from other in- 
jurious methods which they practice thru 
ignorance of better and harmless methods 
of prevention. Universal knowledge of 
the proper means of contraception would 
save these men from a deplorable fate, 
would do away with an evil which is 
greatly on the increase. 
Chapter XXIV 
LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 
ABORTION EVIL 
This is one of the most important points 
in our discussion. The evil of abortion is RESPONSIBLE FOR ABORTION 
121 
one of the most terrible evils in our soci- 
ety. It kills thousands of unmarried and 
tens of thousands of married women. 
If it does not kill, it often infects, maims 
and weakens for life. The public will 
never know just exactly how many vic- 
tims are sacrificed yearly to the ter- 
rible Moloch. For, to the honor of the 
medical profession, be it said, that the 
physician who is called in to treat a girl 
or woman dying from a criminal abortion, 
very often at great risk to himself, pro- 
tects the good name of the poor woman, 
and does not give on the death certificate 
the true cause of death. And whenever 
I hear of a case of a woman dying from 
an abortion, as I do not infrequently, I 
blame not the woman—on the contrary, 
my heart goes out in pity to the poor vic- 
tim of our brutal laws—but my blood 
boils with indignation at society or the 
State, which mercilessly and pitilessly 
sacrifices every year so many of its 122 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
mothers. The knowledge of the preven- 
tion of conception would do away entirely 
with the evil of abortion, or would reduce 
it at least to a minimum. Every investi- 
gator has found that wherever means of 
prevention of conception are most difficult 
to obtain, there abortions are at their high- 
est. Where preventives are easy to ob- 
tain, where their sale is permitted by law, 
there both abortion and illegitimacy are 
reduced to a minimum. 
Chapter XXV 
WOULD DIMINISH PROSTITUTION IN 
MARRIED LIFE 
We know that a good many married 
men who patronize prostitution do so not 
on account of wickedness merely, but to 
a great extent they are driven to it by the 
fear of impregnating their wives. And 
what is more—and this is an illuminating PROSTITUTION IN MARRIAGE 
123 
commentary on our pitiful social condi- 
tions—many wives know it and not only 
say nothing, but actually encourage their 
husbands to visit prostitutes, only to leave 
them alone, such is their terror of another 
and another and another pregnancy. 
Only recently I read in a German publi- 
cation that it is not an infrequent occur- 
rence among the lower classes in Germany 
for the wife who earns her own money to 
give a part of it to the husband in order 
that he may go to other women and leave 
her alone. What this means in increased 
risks of venereal disease needs no detailed 
discussion. A knowledge of the means of 
prevention would obviate this terrible evil. 
Not only our sanitarians but our moralists 
who care more for a man’s soul than for 
his body, should from this point of view 
alone be in favor of prevention. 124 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Chapter XXVI 
THE ENORMOUS BENEFITS OF PREVENTION 
OF CONCEPTION FROM THE EUGENIC 
STANDPOINT 
We now come to another extremely im- 
portant point. The word eugenics is on 
the lips of every one, people who know 
what it means and people who have the 
most fantastic notions as to the purport 
of eugenics and what the eugenists stand 
for. We know perfectly well that there 
are people whom it is a crime to permit to 
bring children into the world. About the 
unquestionably insane, imbeciles, morons, 
and perverts, we need not worry in this 
respect. Society will have to take care of 
them by sterilizing them or segregating 
them. But there are people who can very 
well get married, provided they do not 
bring children into the world. Among 
such we may mention people suffering PREVENTION AND EUGENICS 
125 
with tuberculosis, epilepsy, perhaps can- 
cer and certain mental abnormalities. 
We have no right to deprive those people 
of any affection in their lives. And be- 
sides, it would be worse than useless to do 
so. If you raise the barriers for entering 
matrimony too high, if you make your re- 
quirements for a marriage certificate too 
rigid, those people will be sure to enter 
into illicit unions, and this means an 
enormous increase in prostitution and ille- 
gitimacy, two undoubted evils. But 
teach those people the proper means of 
prevention of conception and the problem 
is solved. For of one thing we may be 
sure: Leaving out of consideration the 
imbeciles, morons and degenerates who 
could not be taught to use any precau- 
tionary measures, and whom, as I said be- 
fore, society will have to protect itself 
against in a different way, there are 
no parents who would deliberately bring 
children into the world whom they had 126 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
reason to fear would be tainted with hered- 
itary disease. No sane parents wish to 
bring into the world handicapped, maimed 
and deformed children. 
What I said just now also applies to 
thousands of syphilitics. There are thou- 
sands of syphilitic men and women who 
are perfectly safe as far as their partner 
is concerned, but are not safe enough to 
become parents. They cannot infect but 
they must not give birth to children for 
fear that the children may have the taint 
in them. The use of preventives settles 
this problem and saves the world from 
thousands of pitiable hereditary syphili- 
tics. 
Or is it better to permit tainted parents 
to bring syphilitic, epileptic and insane 
children into the world than to use preven- 
tives? One reverend gentleman who 
criticised my teachings said that it was. 
He said it was much better to have the 
streets full of syphilitic, maimed and de- PREVENTION AND EUGENICS 
127 
fective children than to accept the doc- 
trines of Dr. Robinson. 
And in speaking of the subject of hered- 
itary syphilis I cannot refrain from men- 
tioning a case that I saw but a few days 
ago. It was the young mother’s fifth 
child. The first two children were born 
dead, the third and fourth died very soon 
after birth, and at last the distressed and 
unsophisticated mother was overjoyed at 
giving birth to a child that lived. The 
child is a year and a half old now. It 
would have been better for it and for soci- 
ety if it had been born dead or died soon 
after birth—much better, of course, if it 
had never been conceived. For it was one 
of the most pitiable, one of the most sick- 
ening objects that we are called to look 
upon in our practice. I know of no more 
pitiable spectacle than a baby suffering 
with hereditary syphilis. This child was 
full of sores and ulcers, the lip was eaten 
away, it had the characteristic syphilitic 128 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
snuffles, breathing loudly and with great 
difficulty, in short it was a pitiable sight. 
The cause of all this misery is the brutal 
father. The mother has, of course, also 
become syphilitic. 
Now what are you going to do with that 
couple? Tell them to abstain? Just try 
to make such a brute abstain. He would 
simply go to another woman, infecting 
right and left. The only way you could 
make him abstain is by locking him up in 
jail. If you cannot do that, then in the 
name of decency and common sense teach 
such couples, of which there are thousands 
in our broad land, at least not to bring any 
more wretched, diseased creatures into 
the world. 
Then again there are thousands of 
women who suffer from diseases which are 
not hereditary, which are not dangerous 
in themselves, but become dangerous only 
when pregnancy occurs. Such are cases PREVENTION AND EUGENICS 
129 
of advanced heart or kidney disease, cases 
of very narrow or deformed pelvis, cases 
of tendencies to eclampsia or puerperal 
convulsions. As long as these women do 
not become pregnant they get along very 
well. To impregnate them means to ag- 
gravate their disease, to hasten their end 
or actually to drive them into the grave. 
As I have to tell many a time to some 
men, to impregnate their wives would be 
equivalent to murder. The knowledge of 
the prevention of conception would obvi- 
ate these potential murders. 
Many more arguments could be ad- 
duced, but I believe even with the points 
I have presented so far, the case for pre- 
vention is impossible to refute or demolish. 
I therefore feel perfectly justified in re- 
peating and concluding with my well- 
known motto, namely that: There is no 
single measure that would so positively, 130 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
so immediately, contribute toward the 
happiness and progress of the human race 
as teaching the people the proper means 
of prevention of conception. Chapter XXVII 
PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION AND 
ABORTION 
To this point to which I alluded before 
I must devote a separate chapter; for the 
greatest obstacle we meet in our preven- 
tion of conception propaganda is the con- 
fusion, both on the part of physicians and 
on the part of the laity, of prevention of 
conception with abortion. 
Just as the statute books speak of the 
two in the same sentence, meting out the 
same severe punishment for both, so the 
physician and the layman often speak 
of the two as if they were one and the 
same thing practically, as if the one were 
as objectionable or as criminal as the other, 
and as if believing in the one necessarily 
meant accepting the other. 
131 132 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
This almost universally prevalent con- 
fusion is, as I said, one of the greatest 
obstacles in the spread of the prevention 
of conception propaganda, and it is im- 
portant to clarify this confusion and to 
shed some light on the subject. Not only 
do contraception and abortion not belong 
in the same category, but I can truthfully 
say that one of the principal reasons, one 
of the strongest motives that makes us 
advocate contraception so persistently and 
so assiduously is because we want to do 
away with the evil of abortion as far as 
we can; for we do consider abortion a ter- 
rible evil. 
Not being engaged in the lucrative 
practice of the abortionist, I am free to 
speak of the subject calmly and frankly 
and am not under obligation to become 
hysterical in condemning it publicly as 
are many of those who are practicing it 
secretly. I say frankly and boldly that 
there are cases, many cases, in which not PREVENTION VERSUS ABORTION 
133 
to induce an abortion is much more cow- 
ardly, much more cruel, much more dis- 
honest, than it would be to induce one. 
The peace of mind, the honor, the very 
life itself, and not only of one person but 
of several persons, very often depend 
upon the artificial emptying of the uterus. 
And under our present social and eco- 
nomic conditions the professional abor- 
tionist, much as we may despise or con- 
demn him, has more than once proved a 
real benefactor, in saving the sanity, the 
health and the life of a frantic young 
woman and her frantic family. 
But admitting all that, I still consider 
abortion a real, a serious evil. It is de- 
grading and humiliating to the woman. 
It is always accompanied with some risk, 
if not to the life at least to the health of 
the person (tho the dangers of the opera- 
tion when performed under proper condi- 
tions have been greatly diminished, they 
have not yet been entirely eliminated and 134 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
it is a question if they ever will be) and 
it is apt to lead to abuses. For this and 
various other reasons all true humanitari- 
ans are endeavoring to do everything pos- 
sible to diminish the evil of abortion, which 
is constantly on the increase. And one of 
the most effective remedies to diminish 
the evil is the universal knowledge of the 
proper means of prevention of concep- 
tion. 
And just as it is disgraceful for our 
statute books to speak of prevention and 
abortion in the same sentence, meting out 
the same punishment to both, so it is dis- 
graceful for any physician to get up and 
talk of the two in the same breath as if 
they belonged to the same category. 
Doesn’t any person with any sense see 
that the two are entirely different, not 
only in degree but in kind? In inducing 
abortion we destroy something already 
formed; we destroy a fetus or an embryo, 
a fertilized ovum, a potential human be- PREVENTION VERSUS ABORTION 
135 
ing. In prevention, however, we merely 
prevent chemically or mechanically the 
spermatozoa from coming in contact with 
the ovum. There is no greater crime or 
sin in this than there is in simple absti- 
nence, in refraining from sexual inter- 
course. 
And while everybody is, of course, en- 
titled to his opinions and anybody may 
entertain any opinions on the subject of 
prevention that he chooses, nobody has a 
right to confuse the issues and speak of 
prevention and abortion as if they were 
the same or similar things. And I trust 
that in the future our esteemed opponents 
will bear this point in mind, will endeavor 
to be more honest and will not, either ig- 
norantly or maliciously, confuse the issues. Chapter XXVIII 
THE BEST, SAFEST AND MOST HARMLESS 
MEANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF CON- 
CEPTION 
The means for the prevention of con- 
ception may be considered under two prin- 
cipal heads: mechanical and chemical.* 
*The further discussion of this subject has been com- 
pletely eliminated by our censorship, wliieh tho a post 
factum censorship is nevertheless as real and as ter- 
rifying as any that ever existed in darkest Russia. In 
fact in this respect the Russian censorship is more 
liberal than ours. Our censorship hangs like a 
Damocles’ sword over the head of every honest radical 
Writer. As soon as the brutal laws have been re- 
moved from our statute books, as soon as the censor- 
ship of scientific discussion of matters of vital im- 
portance to the race has been abolished, this chapter, 
which is all ready, will be published, either in the body 
of the book or as a separate supplement. 
136 THE BEST AND SAFEST MEANS 
137 138 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING Chapter XXIX 
MEANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF CONCEP- 
TION WHICH ARE DISAGREEABLE, UN- 
CERTAIN OR INJURIOUS* 
This chapter must also be eliminated. Not only are 
we not permitted to mention the safe and harmless 
means, we cannot even discuss the unsafe and injurious 
means and methods. And this we call Freedom of the 
Press! 
139 140 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING UNCERTAIN, INJURIOUS MEANS 
141 Chapter XXX 
THE LAW ON THE SUBJECT 
Some people are quite unaware of the 
existence of any laws against the dissemi- 
nation of information regarding the pre- 
vention of conception. They are the most 
surprised people in the world when they 
learn that the giving of such information 
is a criminal offense, punishable by fine 
and imprisonment. The prevention of 
undesirable pregnancy seems to them such 
a fundamental personal right, that they 
cannot understand how the State was ever 
permitted to interfere with it. Others 
have very vague ideas on the subject, and 
I have met even eminent lawyers who 
were in ignorance as to exact penalties 
prescribed by our Federal and State laws. 
We frequently get requests to give the 
142 THE LAW ON THE SUBJECT 
143 
exact wording of the law. I therefore 
publish here verbatim the United States 
or Federal statute, and also the statute of 
the State of New York. 
UNITED STATES CRIMINAL CODE, SECTION 211 
(Act of March 4, 1909, Chapter 321, Sec- 
tion 211, United States Statutes at Large, vol. 
35, part 1, page 1088 et seq.) provides as 
follows: 
“Every obscene, lewd or lascivious and every 
filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, 
writing, print, or other publication of an in- 
decent character, and every article or thing 
designated, adapted or intended for preventing 
conception or procuring abortion, or for any 
indecent or immoral use; and every article, in- 
strument, substance, drugs, medicine, or thing 
which is advertised or described in a manner 
calculated to lead another to use or apply it 
for preventing conception or producing abor- 
tion, or for any indecent or immoral purpose; 
and every written or printed card, letter, cir- 
cular, book, pamphlet, advertisement or notice 
of any kind giving information, directly, or 144 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
indirectly, where or how, or from whom or by 
what means any of the hereinbefore mentioned 
matters, articles or things may be obtained or 
made, or where or by whom any act or opera- 
tion of any kind for the procuring or produc- 
ing of abortion will be done or performed, or 
how or by what means conception may be pre- 
vented or abortion produced, whether sealed 
or unsealed; and every letter, packet or pack- 
age or other mail matter containing any filthy, 
vile or indecent thing, device or substance; and 
every paper, writing, advertisement or repre- 
sentation that any article, instrument, sub- 
stance, drug, medicine or thing may, or can be 
used or applied for preventing conception or 
producing abortion, or for any indecent or im- 
moral purpose; and every description calcu- 
lated to induce or incite a person to so use or 
apply any such article, instrument, substance, 
drug, medicine or thing, is hereby declared to 
be non-mailable matter, and shall not be con- 
veyed in the mails or delivered from any post- 
office or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall 
knowingly deposit, or cause to be deposited for 
mailing or delivery, anything declared by this 
section to be non-mailable, or shall knowingly THE LAW ON THE SUBJECT 
145 
take, or cause the same to be taken, from the 
mails for the purpose of circulating or dispos- 
ing thereof, or of aiding in the circulation or 
disposition of the same, shall be fined not more 
than $5,000, or imprisoned not more than five 
years, or both.” 
Note the devilish ingenuity with which 
this law is worded. No loophole, no hope 
of escape. And note the criminal asininity 
of putting preventing conception and pro- 
curing abortion in exactly the same cate- 
gory, meting out the same punishment for 
one as for the other. But the Federal 
law deals only with the penalties for im- 
parting the information by mail. The 
Federal law cannot interfere with any in- 
formation sent by express within the terri- 
tory of a State, or imparted orally. But 
the laws of the various States have looked 
out for that. Here for instance is the 
law of the State of New York. Other 
States have similar laws, some more dras- 
tic, some milder. 146 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Here for instance is the New York 
statute. It constitutes Section 1142 of 
the Penal Law and reads as follows: 
“A person who sells, lends, gives away, or in 
any manner exhibits or offers to sell, lend or 
give away, or has in his possession with intent 
to sell, lend or give away, or advertises, or 
offers for sale, loan or distribution, any in- 
strument or article, or any recipe, drug or medi- 
cine for the prevention of conception, or for 
causing unlawful abortion, or purporting to be 
for the prevention of conception, or for caus- 
ing unlawful abortion, or advertises, or holds 
out representations that it can be so used or 
applied, or any such description as will be calcu- 
lated to lead another to so use or apply any such 
article, recipe, drug, medicine or instrument, 
or who writes or prints, or causes to be written 
or printed, a card, circular, pamphlet, adver- 
tisement or notice of any kind, or gives infor- 
mation orally, stating when, where, how, of 
whom, or by what means such an instrument, 
article, recipe, drug or medicine can be pur- 
chased or obtained, or who manufactures any 
such instrument, article, recipe, drug or medi- THE LAW ON THE SUBJECT 
147 
cine, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall he 
liable to the same penalties as provided in sec- 
tion eleven hundred and forty-one of this chap- 
ter.” 
The punishment so provided for is a 
sentence of not less than ten days nor more 
than one year imprisonment or a fine not 
less than fifty dollars nor more than one 
thousand dollars or both fine and im- 
prisonment for each offense. 
Note again the asininity of confusing 
prevention of conception with abortion, of 
putting them in the same category and 
inflicting the same punishment for both, 
as if the two were one and the same thing. 
Is it any wonder that intelligent humane 
men and women have the deepest con- 
tempt for these laws, are working for their 
abrogation, and in the meantime, have no 
compunction about breaking them when- 
ever they can safely do so? Chapter XXXI 
HOW TO ABOLISH THE LAW AGAINST THE 
PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION 
I am not in sympathy with those impa- 
tient people who object to any propa- 
ganda of ideas as “mere words, words,” 
and demand action. As a rule those are 
very foolish people, because words 
whether spoken or written are also action 
and prepare the ground for effective and 
permanent change, while action, direct ac- 
tion, undertaken at a time when the condi- 
tions are not ripe, when the people are not 
ready, simply gets the perpetrator of the 
action into trouble and does not accom- 
plish anything at all. 
But I do agree that we have been propa- 
gandizing sufficiently, that public opinion 
seems to he more favorable towards our 
148 HOW TO ABOLISH THE LAW 
149 
humane ideas about limiting offspring 
among the poor, and we believe that the 
time is ripe for a fight and for a test. It 
is time to test our strength and see if we 
cannot abolish altogether the brutal laws 
on the statute books against the preven- 
tion of conception propaganda. If we 
cannot abolish them, let us at least try to 
make them ridiculous and ineffective. 
What would he the best means of direct 
action? For a poor and obscure man or 
woman, for an extreme radical, to defy the 
law and to distribute circulars about pre- 
vention of conception would be very fool- 
ish, tho at the same time heroic and pa- 
thetic. But it would not accomplish any- 
thing. The man or woman would get a 
few months in prison and the law would 
still remain on our statute books to harass 
the physician and the layman alike, and to 
make an efficient propaganda among the 
poor—those who most need it—impos- 150 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
sible. But there are now not a few well- 
to-do, well-known and influential men 
and women who thoroly believe that teach- 
ing the poor the means of limiting their 
offspring is one of the most important 
means of bettering their condition and of 
raising the racial standard. And if a few 
such men and women, particularly women, 
were willing to risk martyrdom (they 
would probably not have to suffer it, 
merely risk it) the law would quickly fall 
into disrepute. 
I am sure that if a dozen of our rich or 
not rich hut respected and influential 
women, who are thoroly in sympathy with 
the limitation of offspring propaganda, 
would undertake to distribute informa- 
tion, either by word of mouth or by printed 
circular, Ajnthony Comstock would not 
dare to arrest them. And if he were 
goaded into arresting them, such a howl 
would be raised, that the law, if not abol- HOW TO ABOLISH THE LAW 
151 
ished, would surely fall into disrepute. 
And the educational value of such a trial 
would be enormous. 
Won’t a hundred, or fifty, or at least a 
dozen women who are deeply in sympathy 
with our work risk a little inconvenience 
for the sake of a great cause? Chapter XXXII 
SOME QUOTATIONS 
I am not a great believer in quotations 
from authorities. And very few of them 
will be found in any of my writings. For 
I believe that an argument should be 
strong enough to stand on its own bottom 
without props from authorities. If a 
thing is true, if the arguments on which it 
is based are logical and unanswerable, then 
corroborative opinions from a dozen or a 
hundred other men do not make it more 
true. And if an argument is weak, if by 
a little analysis its falsity, complete or 
partial, can be shown, then the fact that a 
thousand or a million people hold the same 
belief does not make it less false, less un- 
tenable. 
If what I have said up to this point has 
152 QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
153 
not convinced my readers that the voli- 
tional, rational control of offspring is a 
measure of the utmost importance for the 
welfare of the individual and of the race, 
then the mere opinions of some great and 
prominent men, who believed and believe 
as I do, should not have any better success. 
And still I cannot refrain from pre- 
senting a few quotations. Why? Be- 
cause so many people belong mentally in 
the kindergarten class, and those people 
are influenced more by opinions of emi- 
nent authorities than by logical, well- 
sustained, unanswerable arguments. One 
might say that the opinions of mental 
kindergartners do not amount to much 
and are not worth influencing. This 
is not so. We have a right to use 
all honorable methods to convert people 
to our point of view, and especially 
so in a republic, where the vote of a 
mental infant counts for just as much as 154 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
the vote of a great thinker. And if we 
wish to have our laws against the preven- 
tion of conception propaganda abolished 
or made a dead letter, we must convert as 
many people as possible. In voting, un- 
fortunately, quantity is even more impor- 
tant than quality. And then, on our leg- 
islators opinions of great men have an 
undoubted influence. Hence it is worth 
while to see what some of the world’s good 
and great men think of the subject of the 
rational limitation of offspring. 
And first of all it gives me pleasure to 
quote from my good and esteemed friend 
Dr. A. Jacobi, who in his presidential ad- 
dress before the American Medical Asso- 
ciation, the largest and most influential, 
and also most conservative, organized 
body of physicians in the world, had the 
courage to put in a word for our limitation 
of offspring propaganda. 
Here is what he said: QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
155 
Is there no way to prevent those who are 
born into this world from becoming sickly 
both physically and mentally? It seems 
almost impossible as long as the riches pro- 
vided by this world are accessible to a part 
of the living only. The resources for pre- 
vention or cure are inaccessible to many— 
sometimes even to a majority. That is 
why it has become an indispensable sug- 
gestion that only a certain number of 
babies should be born into the world. As 
long as not infrequently even the well- 
to-do limit the number of their offspring, 
the advice to the poor—or those to whom 
the raising of a large family is worse than 
merely difficult—to limit the number of 
children, even the healthy ones, is perhaps 
more than merely excusable. I often hear 
that an American family has had ten chil- 
dren, but only three or four survived. 
Before the former succumbed they were 
a source of expense, poverty, and morbid- 
ity to the few survivors. For the interest 156 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
of the latter and the health of the com- 
munity at large, they had better not have 
been born. 
And here is what another president, the 
President of the British Medical Associa- 
tion, said in his presidential address at 
Liverpool on July 23, 1912: 
We have successfully interfered with 
the selective death-rate which Nature em- 
ployed in eliminating the unfit, but, on the 
other hand, we have made no serious at- 
tempt to establish a selective birthrate so 
as to prevent the race being carried on 
by the least worthy citizens. The same 
maudlin sentimentality which often per- 
vades the public not infrequently infects 
the medical profession. We have often 
joined forces with self-constituted moral- 
ists in denouncing the falling birth-rate, 
and have called out for quantity regardless 
of quality. ... We readily forget that 
utility, as long ago pointed out by John QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
157 
Stuart Mill, lies at the basis of all moral- 
ity. We are also apt to forget that a high 
birth-rate is practically always associated 
with a high death-rate, and a low birth- 
rate with a low death-rate; the former is 
Nature’s method, a method which has al- 
ways produced a fine race, tho very slow 
in doing so; but, with the advance of civili- 
zation, Nature’s method is too cruel and 
barbarous, and, as Man rises superior to 
Nature and obtains more and more control 
over her laws, such barbarities are replaced 
by more humane methods. 
I know that in the expression of these 
views I am coming into direct conflict with 
at least some of the Churches, of which 
there are almost as many varieties as there 
are of human beings. The maj ority preach 
in favor of quantity rather than quality; 
they advocate a high birth-rate regardless 
of the consequences, and boldly tell you 
that it is better to be born an imbecile than 
not to have been born at all. They forget 158 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
the saying of Jesus of Nazareth that it 
would have been well for this man if he had 
never been born. With the man-made 
morality of the Church I can have neither 
art nor part. There must be a high racial 
morality based on utility and the greatest 
happiness not merely of the individual but 
of the race. Medical men, when they are 
consulted, as they often are, on questions 
of matrimony and reproduction incur a 
very serious responsibility when they en- 
courage the mating of mental and physical 
weaklings. It is their duty not to pander 
to the selfish gratification of the individ- 
ual, but to point out to every one his posi- 
tive and negative duties to the race. 
One of the world’s greatest thinKers and 
philosophers, John Stuart Mill, was a very 
ardent believer in the principle of the arti- 
ficial limitation of offspring. Here is 
what he says in his “Principles of Politi- 
cal Economy” (Book II, Chapter xii) : QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
159 
Every one has a right to live. We will 
suppose this granted. But no one has a 
right to bring creatures into life to be sup- 
ported by other people. Whoever means 
to stand upon the first of these rights must 
renounce all pretensions to the last. If a 
man cannot support even himself unless 
others help him, those others are entitled 
to say that they do not also undertake the 
support of any offspring which it is physic- 
ally possible for him to summon into the 
world. Yet there are abundance of writ- 
ers and public speakers, including many 
of the most ostentatious pretentions to 
high feeling, whose views of life are so 
truly brutish that they see hardship in 
preventing paupers from breeding hered- 
itary paupers in the workhouse itself. 
Posterity will one day ask with astonish- 
ment, what sort of people it could be 
among whom such preachers could find 
proselytes. 160 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
It would be possible for the State to 
guarantee employment, at ample wages, 
to all who are born. But if it does this, 
it is bound in self-protection and for the 
sake of every, purpose for which govern- 
ment exists, to provide that no person shall 
he born without its consent. If the or- 
dinary and spontaneous motives to self- 
restraint are removed others must be sub- 
stituted. Restrictions on marriage, at 
least equivalent to those existing in some 
of the German States, or severe penalties 
on those who have children when unable 
to support them, would then be indispen- 
sable. Society can feed the necessitous, if 
it takes their multiplication under its con- 
trol; or (if destitute of all moral feeling 
for the wretched offspring) it can leave 
the last to their discretion, abandoning the 
first to their own care. But it cannot 
with impunity take the feeding upon it- 
self, and leave the multiplying free. QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
161 
Prof. Huxley, than whom no keener 
thinker ever lived, stated it as his opinion 
that: 
So long as unlimited multiplication 
goes on, no social organization which has 
ever been devised, no fiddle-faddling with 
the distribution of wealth, will deliver 
society from the tendency to be destroyed 
by the reproduction within itself, in its in- 
tensest form, of that struggle for exist- 
ence, the limitation of which is the object 
of society. 
The Population Question is the real 
riddle of the Sphinx. In view of the rav- 
ages of the terrible monster Over-Multi- 
plication, all other riddles sink into insig- 
nificance. 
I will conclude with the remarks of a 
man whom I consider one of the sanest 
and clearest thinkers in the English speak- 
ing world. I refer to H. G. Wells. I 
consider him the ideal type of radical. 162 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
While not afraid to go to the very root of 
every question, while no subject is too 
sacred to him for free and frank discus- 
sion, he does not slop over, he does not cut 
himself off from the rest of mankind, re- 
fusing to do anything because he cannot 
do everything; he knows that half a loaf 
is better than no bread, and he recognizes 
the important fact that if we want to ac- 
complish anything we must take humanity 
as it is and not as we should like it to be. 
He is less brilliant and less scintillating 
than George Bernard Shaw, but the brain 
of the latter is a complete muddle on many 
subjects, he will often sacrifice the truth 
to a bon mot or an epigram, and his flip- 
pancy and clownishness are sometimes— 
especially in times that stir men’s souls— 
repellant. But H. G. Wells can always 
he relied upon to say what he has to say in 
a trenchant, logical manner. He is a true 
humanitarian and, I repeat, the ideal type 
of radical, tho of course it does not mean QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
163 
that I agree with all of his ideas and con- 
clusions. And here is what Wells has to 
say on the subject of this book in his “An- 
ticipations” : 
For a multitude of contemptible and 
silly creatures, fear-driven and helpless 
and useless, unhappy or hatefully happy 
in the midst of squalid dishonor, feeble, 
ugly, inefficient, horn of unrestrained 
lusts, and increasing and multiplying 
thru sheer incontinence and stupidity, the 
men of the New Republic will have little 
pity and less benevolence. To make life 
convenient for the breeding of such people 
will seem to them not the most virtuous 
and amiable thing in the world, as it is 
held to be now, but an exceedingly abom- 
inable proceeding. Procreation is an 
avoidable thing for sane persons of even 
the most furious passions, and the men of 
the New Republic will hold that the pro- 
creation of children who, by the circum- 
stances of their parentage, must be dis- 164 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
eased bodily and mentally—I do not think 
it will be difficult for the medical science 
of the coming time to define such circum- 
stances—is absolutely the most loathsome 
of all conceivable sins. They will hold, I 
anticipate, that a certain portion of the 
population—the small minority, for ex- 
ample, afflicted with indisputably trans- 
missible diseases, with transmissible men- 
tal disorders, with such hideous incurable 
habits of mind as the craving for intoxi- 
cation—exists only on sufferance, out of 
pity and patience, and on the understand- 
ing that they do not propagate; . . . 
St. Paul tells us that it is better to 
marry than to burn, but to beget children 
on that account will appear, I imagine, to 
these coming men as an absolutely loath- 
some proceeding. They will stifle no 
spread of knowledge that will diminish 
their swarming misery of childhood in the 
slums, they will regard the disinclination 
of the artless “Society” woman to become QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
165 
a mother as a most amiable trait in her 
folly. . . . Most of the human types, that 
by civilized standards are undesirable, are 
quite willing to die out thru such suppres- 
sions if the world will only encourage 
them a little. They multiply in sheer 
ignorance, but they do not desire multi- 
plication even now, and they could easily 
be made to dread it. . . . 
The inevitable removal of births from 
the sphere of an uncontrollable Provi- 
dence to the category of deliberate acts 
will enormously enhance the responsibility 
of the parent—and of the State that has 
failed to adequately discourage the philo- 
progenitiveness of the parent—towards 
the child. Having permitted the child to 
come into existence, public policy and the 
older standard of justice alike demand, 
under these new conditions, that it must 
be fed, cherished and educated, not merely 
up to a respectable minimum, but to the 
full height of its possibilities. The State 166 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
will, therefore, be the reserve guardian of 
all children. If they are being under- 
nourished, if their education is being neg- 
lected, the state will step in, take over 
the responsibility of their management, 
and enforce their charge upon the par- 
ents. 
Those are splendid words which should 
be gravely pondered over by our reformers 
(and would-be reformers), philanthro- 
pists, sociologists and legislators. 
Other opinions on the subject, among 
them those of Herbert Spencer, will be 
found in Dr. Jacobi’s article, in the 
Articles from The Critic and Guide. 
And I will conclude these quotations 
with the words of an eminent judge. 
Our judges are very conservative, are in- 
fluenced by precedent, and when they see 
that one of their own class was in favor of 
our propaganda, they may be more in- 
clined to give us a hearing, and—who 
knows?—may perhaps even show leniency QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
167 
to one who may be unfortunate enough to 
fall into the clutches of the law. 
In the year 1888, when Mrs. Annie 
Besant’s “Law of Population” was prose- 
cuted in Australia, Mr. Justice Windeyer, 
in a judgment delivered in the Supreme 
Court of New South Wales, most strongly 
upheld the book as necessary and valuable. 
The following is an extract from this 
judgment: 
“A court of law has now to decide for 
the first time whether it is lawful to argue 
in a decent way with earnestness of 
thought and sobriety of language the right 
of married men and women to limit the 
number of children to be begotten by them 
by such means as medical science says are 
possible and not injurious to health. Of 
the enormous importance of this question, 
not only to persons of limited means in 
every society and country, but to nations, 
the populations of which have a tendency 
to increase more rapidly than the means 168 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
of subsistence, there cannot be the slight- 
est doubt. Since the days when Malthus 
first announced his views on the subject to 
be misrepresented and vilified, as orig- 
inators of new ideas usually are by the 
ignorant and unthinking, the question has 
not only been pressing itself with increas- 
ing intensity of force upon thinkers and 
social reformers dealing with it in the ab- 
stract, but the necessity of practically 
dealing with the difficulty of over-popula- 
tion has become a topic publicly discussed 
by statesmen and politicians. It is no 
longer a question whether it is expedient 
to prevent the growth of a pauper popu- 
lation, with all its attendant miseries fol- 
lowing upon semi-starvation, overcrowd- 
ing, disease, and an enfeebled national 
stamina of constitution; but how countries 
suffering from all these causes of national 
decay shall avert national disaster by 
checking the production of children, whose 
lives must be too often a misery to them- QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
169 
selves, a burden to society, and a danger 
to the State. Public opinion has so far 
advanced in the consideration of a ques- 
tion that has become of burning impor- 
tance in the mother country by reason of 
its notoriously increasing over-popula- 
tion, that invectives are no longer hurled 
against those who, like John Stuart Mill 
and others, discuss in the abstract the 
necessity of limiting the growth of popu- 
lation ; but they are reserved for those who 
attempt practically to follow up their 
teaching and show how such abstract rea- 
soning should be acted upon. It seems to 
be conceded by public opinion, and has 
indeed been admitted in argument before 
us, that the abstract discussion of the 
necessity of limiting the number of chil- 
dren brought into the world is a subject 
fitted for the philosopher and student of 
sociology. The thinkers of the world 
have so far succeeded in educating it upon 
the subject, and public attention is so 170 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
thoroly aroused as to its importance, that 
every reader of our English periodical lit- 
erature knows it to be constantly discussed 
in magazines and reviews. Statesmen, 
reviewers, and ecclesiastics join in a com- 
mon chorus of exhortation against im- 
provident marriages to the working class, 
and preach to them the necessity of de- 
ferring the ceremony till they have saved 
the competency necessary to support the 
truly British family of ten or twelve chil- 
dren. Those, however, who take a prac- 
tical view of life, will inevitably ask 
whether the masses, for whose benefit this 
exhortation is given, can be expected to 
exercise all the powers of self-denial which 
compliance with earning his three or four 
shillings a day, without any hope of ever 
being able to educate, and bring up eight 
or ten children would demand? The 
Protestant world rejects the idea of a 
celibate clergy as incompatible with pur- 
ity and the safety of female virtue, tho QUOTATIONS FROM AUTHORITIES 
171 
the ecclesiastic is strengthened by all the 
moral helps of a calling devoted to the 
noblest of objects, and by every induce- 
ment to a holy life. With strange incon- 
sistence, the same disbelievers in the power 
of male human nature to resist the most 
powerful instincts, expect men and 
women, animated by no such exalted mo- 
tives, with their moral nature more or less 
stunted, huddled together in dens where 
the bare conditions of living preclude even 
elementary ideas of modesty, with none of 
the pleasures of life, save those enjoyed 
in common with the animals—expect 
these victims of a social state, for which the 
educated are responsible if they do not use 
their superior wisdom and knowledge for 
its redress, to exercise all the self-control 
of which the celibate ecclesiastic is sup- 
posed to be incapable. If it is right to 
declaim against over-population as a dan- 
ger to society, as involving conditions of 
life not only destructive to morals but con- 172 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
elusive to crime and national degeneration, 
the question immediately arises, can it be 
wrong to discuss the possibility of limiting 
births by methods which do not involve in 
their application the existence of an im- 
possible state of society in the world as it 
is, and which do not ignore the natural 
sexual instincts in man. 
“Why is the philosopher who describes 
the nature of the diseases from which we 
are suffering, who detects the causes which 
induce it and the general character of the 
remedies to be applied, to be regarded as 
a sage and a benefactor, but his necessary 
complement in the evolution of a great 
idea, the man who works out in practice 
the theories of the abstract thinker, to be 
denounced as a criminal ?” ARTICLES FROM 
THE CRITIC AND GUIDE THE CRITIC AND GUIDE AND ITS 
PROPAGANDA 
The Critic and Guide was the first journal 
in this country to advocate the rational limita- 
tion of offspring and to demand the abrogation 
of the laws against imparting information 
about the prevention of conception. It still 
remains the only journal in its field. There is 
hardly an issue which does not contain one or 
several editorials and articles dealing with the 
subject from various points of view. 
When we started our propaganda, there was 
not a publication, either medical or lay, that 
could be induced to touch the subject however 
mildly, however gingerly. Any discussion of 
it, either pro or con, was in the literal sense of 
the word, taboo. It was considered indecent, 
obscene to refer to it. (A question which con- 
cerns the very life and happiness of the in- 
dividual and of the race indecent!) Fortu- 
nately, our persistent propaganda has had its 
effect. There are now several publications that 
175 176 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
venture occasionally to allude to the subject. 
They still do it in a timid, apologetic manner; 
some bring it up only to condemn it in the most 
approved medieval fashion, but still the taboo 
has been broken, and the writer hopes that this 
volume will serve to still further influence, in 
the right direction, the editorial thought of the 
country. 
Of the numerous articles on the subject of 
prevention of conception which appeared in 
The Critic and Guide the following present the 
subjects from slightly different angles perhaps, 
and will serve to complement what we have had 
to say. The man who fails to be convinced by 
the arguments presented by us and by those 
that follow is hopeless indeed. He will never 
be a convert to our cause. A COUNTRY IN WHICH THE PREVEN- 
TION OF CONCEPTION IS OFFI- 
CIALLY SANCTIONED 
By Dr. J. Rutgers, The Hague, Holland. 
[I was extremely glad to learn that we have 
at least one country in the world in which the 
prevention of conception is legally sanctioned, 
a country which is doing exactly what I have 
been advocating for many years should be done, 
namely that physicians and visiting nurses 
should instruct the people in the methods of 
prevention and furnish these means free to the 
poor—and in which the results are exactly as I 
foretold they would be, namely the general 
health of the people has improved, the mortality 
has fallen down to the lowest in Europe, illegiti- 
mate births have decreased, sexual “immorality” 
has not increased, and poverty and various 
forms of degeneracy are decidedly on the de- 
crease. Foreigners are generally apt to mag- 
nify the value of the good things they find in 
another country, and I therefore asked Dr. J. 
177 178 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Rutgers of The Hague, one of the most indefati- 
gable workers in the cause of limitation of off- 
spring among the poor, to give me a brief 
statement of just what exactly the free neomal- 
thusian propaganda has accomplished in Hol- 
land. He wrote the statement for me in 
English, and I reproduce it in his own words 
with merely a few stylistic corrections here and 
there.] 
The kingdom of Holland, which in former 
centuries had fought itself free from the cleri- 
cal government of Spain, is perhaps the only 
country in the world where freedom of speech 
and press is not a fiction.* Apart from crimi- 
nal and obscene publications every opinion is 
admissible by law and by post. Limitation of 
offspring is as freely discussed as artificial 
fecundation. Conscious regulation of one’s 
offspring in accordance with one’s existing 
means for living and for education, in accord- 
* In 1911, we for the first time in our history had 
again a clerical government, and a bill was passed for- 
bidding the dissemination of practical neomalthusian 
information publicly or when not asked for. This did 
not stop our work, but at the first elections that fol- 
lowed (last summer) the ministry was overthrown and 
now we have again a liberal government. FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
179 
ance also with individual wishes, and last not 
least with the health and the energy of the par- 
ents, is freely preached in Holland as a com- 
mon sense precaution, as a matter of course. 
So Holland is the best test of the results fol- 
lowing when neomalthusianism is discussed 
freely and when the giving of information is not 
checked by law. 
Intelligent and well to do people adopted the 
principle at once; the elite of the laboring 
class soon followed. But then came the danger 
that the unfit would multiply without limit and 
the fit would not multiply in the same ratio. 
Therefore the Neomalthusian League in Hol- 
land now doubles its efforts in order to deal with 
this transitional condition, and for twelve years 
our League has been working chiefly among the 
mass of laborers, where the information is also 
welcome as soon as it is brought within their 
reach. These last years even the very poor 
women begin to implore our assistance to ob- 
tain the appliances gratuitously. 
It is our experience that information is 
asked, first for maintaining the standard of life 
in order to give to the children a good educa- 
tion and all necessities of life, second for spar- 180 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
ing the health of the mother. Especially in the 
middle class and among the better paid labor- 
ing people, education of children is now careful 
and the bringing up joyous where formerly 
scarcity and anxiety reigned. Children are 
now a blessing, not a curse; they are welcome, 
or they are not born. Just as in former times 
I often noticed that death of infants was a re- 
lief and was acknowledged as such, so now par- 
ents are anxious for all that concerns the good 
health of the children. In this respect a recip- 
rocal a,ction may be observed: in families where 
children are carefully procreated they are 
reared carefully, and where children are care- 
fully treated, they are carefully procreated. 
So there are few countries where, propor- 
tional with the falling birth rate, the death rate 
of children in the first year of life has fallen so 
rapidly as in Holland, and our surplus of births 
over deaths is among the highest in the world, 
as Dr. C. V. Drysdale shows in his statistical 
diagrams. 
Indeed parental prudence is no race-suicide, 
as could be presumed a priori. The statistical 
figures in Holland that cannot be denied prove 
that in practice neomalthusianism is a factor FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
181 
of race improvement. We see it in every case. 
Rich people that are too lazy, too luxurious, 
too selfish to want children, will die without 
leaving offspring. Poor people that are too 
miserable will also refuse to have children, since 
the laws forbid wage-work for children. Every 
mother that feels herself weak, exhausted, suf- 
fering, will prevent procreation. Only indi- 
viduals that feel themselves happy, efficient, en- 
ergetic, in good health, individuals endowed with 
a good humor and who love children heartily, 
only they will procreate, and that is all we 
want. It is conscious selection instead of brute 
natural selection. It is the same principle that 
all breeders of races in the animal kingdom and 
all gardeners have long since realized; there 
is no race improvement without limitation of 
numbers. Only in the human being it is the 
mother herself who is conscious if she feels well 
enough for this highest of all missions. How 
can any one imagine that ignorance and care- 
lessness should be more propitious for the fu- 
ture of the race than intelligent consciousness! 
The Neomalthusian League in Holland has 
worked now nearly 33 years in spreading 
knowledge. Mr. S. Van Houten, afterwards 182 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Prime Minister, having prepared public opinion 
since 1877, the League was founded by Mr. C. 
V. Gerritsen, a well known business man and 
statesman, in Amsterdam in 1881, only four 
years after the inauguration of the first Neo- 
malthusian League in London, created by Dr. 
C. R. Drysdale, Sr. 
This was a revival of public consciousness in 
sexual matters against ignorance and obscur- 
antism. The first woman doctor in Holland, 
Dr. Aletta H. Jacobs in Amsterdam, was the 
first doctor to give information gratis to poor 
women. 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 infor- 
mation in the prevention of conception, is only 
given to married people when asked. We are 
lecturing everywhere. But the essential mis- 
sionary work is done privately and modestly, 
often unconsciously by showing the happy re- 
sults in their own families, by the nearly 5,000 
members of our League spread over the whole 
country, among whom are physicians, clergy- 
men and teachers, etc. Every day information 
is asked by letters and still more by our printed FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
183 
postcards: all information is given cost-free and 
post-free. Almost all younger doctors and 
midwives are giving information, and are help- 
ing mothers in the cases when it is wanted on 
account of pathological indications. More- 
over 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 re- 
sults proved most brilliantly by the statistical 
figures of our country. 
Certainly there are abuses, but the abuses of 
knowledge are never so enormous as the abuses 
of ignorance. And hygiene is the highest form 
of morality. THE PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION 
Clara G. Stillman. 
An illuminating paper read at the recent Eu- 
genics Congress ended with the sentence: “The 
great problem is not to bring better babies into 
the world, but to take care of such as come. 
The problem of the world is spoiled babies.” 
And we may add that the solution of this prob- 
lem will be materially advanced when we decide 
to bring less babies into the world. 
Those who are convinced that the voluntary 
prevention of conception is a most important 
weapon in the modern fight with poverty, dis- 
ease, and racial deterioration, will find their 
position only strengthened by a survey of their 
opponents’ objections. These objections are 
mainly of three kinds—and might be classified 
as the pseudo-religious, the pseudo-moral and 
the pseudo-scientific, because all are based on 
conceptions which our present state of knowl- 
edge and social development have enabled us to 
outgrow. In the first we find the assertion 
184 FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
185 
that prevention is blasphemous, since it argues 
a lack of confidence in the wisdom of the Cre- 
ator, who bade humanity: “Be fruitful and mul- 
tiply.” In the second, the fear that a knowl- 
edge of prevention will lessen the chastity of 
women, since they will no longer be deterred 
from illicit relations by fear of the conse- 
quences. In the third, the sinister prophecy 
that, with the methods of prevention a matter 
of common knowledge, the birth rate will de- 
crease until humanity disappears from the 
earth. Or in some cases this latter objection 
is raised for some specific country from motives 
of patriotism, as for example in France to-day. 
As for the first, some writer has already 
pointed out that the economic justification for 
the command to replenish the earth no longer 
obtains, since at the time when it was given 
there were only eight people in the world. 
The question of the effect on woman’s chas- 
tity may be taken more seriously. Undoubt- 
edly absolute chastity in women will not be 
reckoned as high in the future as in the past. 
The ideal will be increasingly that of temper- 
ance rather than that of complete abstinence. 
But this change, which is already beginning to 186 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
be noticeable, will not depend on the prevention 
of conception, but mainly on woman’s changed 
economic status, and our increased understand- 
ing of sexual problems. Furthermore a chas- 
tity that depends for its existence on fear alone 
is hardly a valuable moral asset. We may con- 
fidently expect that in the future economic in- 
dependence, a knowledge of sex hygiene, and the 
growing respect for her own individuality, will 
keep woman from undesirable unions at least as 
thoroly as she is kept from them to-day by 
purely conventional considerations. 
As for the idea that the birth rate will de- 
crease until mankind dies out—this danger is a 
purely imaginary one. The superior intelli- 
gence of man, by diminishing the risks of life, 
has enabled him to cover the earth with billions 
of his kind, and become its master, tho he is 
the least fertile of all animals. Further it is 
misleading to refer always to the falling birth 
rate without relating it to the death rate. Not 
a high birth rate but a low infant mortality is 
a sign of vigor and high development. 
These objections uniformly ignore present 
conditions and the facts of organic and social 
evolution which we now have at our command. FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
187 
Social utility has come to be the measure of 
morality instead of the sanction of some arbi- 
trary, external authority. Insofar as they are 
weighed in the balance of social utility and 
found wanting, the accepted religious and 
moral codes are being cast aside and the strong 
religious and ethical sentiments of mankind are 
for the first time finding their way into channels 
where their influence upon the world can be for 
good alone, since they will be based on actual 
knowledge and the passion for democracy in 
the place of superstition and the principle of 
submission. 
If we then free our minds from old standards 
that are in no way related to modern life, and 
study impartially the effect that a general 
knowledge of preventive measures would have 
upon the social conditions of our day, we find 
first of all this situation: 
Prevention of conception is already an ac- 
cepted principle among the educated classes of 
every civilized country. According as the op- 
position of the law and public opinion are more 
or less stringent, it is practiced with more or 
less secrecy, but secret or open, the practice is 
here to stay and it is spreading. The fear of 188 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
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 re- 
placed by the worst. At first glance this may 
seem plausible. Granting our opponents’ pre- 
mise temporarily, the conclusion is logically un- 
avoidable that in order to restore a normal re- 
lation between the so-called more or less intelli- 
gent 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. 
Far from coming to this conclusion, however, the 
opponents of so-called race-suicide strenuously 
oppose its spread, and instead of teaching pre- 
vention to the poor, preach procreation to the 
rich. As preaching has never yet availed to 
change the course of evolution, tho it may un- 
doubtedly retard it, these people are simply 
stupidly and blindly intensifying the very con- 
dition they deplore. 
Of course the validity of this argument rests 
on the assumptions: first, that the less fertile 
stocks must diminish, which as has been pointed 
out is quite contrary to fact; and second, that 
the higher and lower classes of society are high 
and low because of some inherent quality and FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
189 
not thru the powerful Influence of environment. 
In this again they are utterly out of date since 
the determining part that poverty plays in 
every social problem, for years recognized only 
by Socialists, is slowly penetrating the public 
mind—as evidenced by the recent investigation 
connecting prostitution with low wages. Not 
only is poverty the fruitful cause of child labor, 
alcoholism, prostitution, criminality, defective 
mentality and degenerate physique, but these 
results become in their turn the causes of more 
poverty and more degeneration in an endless 
vicious circle. Whatever strikes a blow at pov- 
erty will strike a blow as well at these manifold 
forms of human misery. 
It is from this point of view that the right to 
prevent conception appears not only morally 
justifiable, but a potent factor for moral regen- 
eration. For each family only as many chil- 
dren as the mother can bear in health and the 
family income will permit of rearing in accord- 
ance with the highest existing standards of hy- 
giene and education—this should be the first de- 
mand, so obviously rooted in common sense. 
The first consequence of feeling that we con- 
sciously call our children into being will be an 190 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
increased sense of responsibility for each child 
that is born, rather than the helpless and hope- 
less fatalism that accepts them as sent by God 
and leaves it to Him to see them safely thru ex- 
istence. God’s success in this direction has not 
been brilliant, as witness our juvenile courts, 
our reform schools, our wayward and delinquent 
boys and girls, our spoiled babies by thousands 
and thousands that have become the problem of 
the world. With the knowledge of prevention 
common poverty, the wide-spread practice of 
abortion and that of infanticide will naturally 
disappear; another gain for health, morality 
and happiness. With less children among the 
poor, there is an increase of leisure for both 
mother and children, with the result that the 
standard of living rises. Children are kept and 
cared for at home and not dumped on the street 
to form part of the savage and bestial sub- 
stratum of our civilization, and their young 
lives will not be blighted by premature toil un- 
der disgusting conditions. 
Here is a woman, of whom I heard recently, 
who on the eighth anniversary of her marriage 
was expecting her eighth child. Now she lies 
in the hospital, having had several miscarriages FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
191 
since then. When her seventh child was born, 
they were so poor that she had to get up the 
next day. Her husband earned only $4.50 a 
week and her own mother was lying sick in the 
next room, where she remained helpless for nine 
months until she died. Another, with eleven 
children, thanked God when her drunken hus- 
band on one of his sprees walked off a pier into 
the East River. The assurance that she would 
never have to bear another child made the pros- 
pect of merely supporting the eleven she al- 
ready had comparative Heaven. It sickens one 
to think what love and home means to these poor 
wretches and what life will do to their children, 
yet these cases are typical of thousands. The 
morality that accepts such conditions as nor- 
mal and necessary must be abolished. 
I hope to see the day when a poor woman can 
go to a health station to get instructions for 
preventing an undesired pregnancy as simply 
and naturally as she goes to-day to get a for- 
mula for modifying her baby’s milk. Before 
this can be accomplished, however, much work 
will have to be done. Our physicians will have 
to throw overboard some of their professional 
ethics—wherever they conflict with social ethics 192 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
—and join with our sociologists and intelligent 
lay people in besieging the legislature with the 
demand to repeal the law which makes the giving 
of such information an offense punishable by 
five years’ imprisonment. The suffragists in 
this state have been using this method of hold- 
ing a hearing before a legislative committee 
every year for the past forty-five years. Their 
long patience is about to be rewarded, but when 
they began their cause was just about as unpop- 
ular as this is now. 
We hear a great deal to-day about the unma- 
ternal nature of the modern woman. But the 
accusation that the woman of to-day is less ma- 
ternal than her greatgrandmother has nothing 
to substantiate it. We do not know how the 
woman of the past felt, since, in the first place, 
she was inarticulate; secondly, marriage was 
the only career open to her: and thirdly, mar- 
riage inevitably meant children. To look upon 
the large families of the past as expressions of 
woman’s maternal sentiment is absurd. They 
were simply the expressions of her helplessness 
in the mechanical fulfillment of a duty imposed 
from without, a duty which often involved the 
sacrifice of her life. Our Colonial fathers, for FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
193 
instance, were quite in the habit of wearing out 
three or four wives in the process of building up 
those splendid, old-fashioned families of theirs. 
Some interesting figures on this subject are 
given by Wm. Hard in his book “The Women of 
To-morrow.” Far from being a sign of ama- 
ternalism, as Ellen Key calls it, the movement 
to restrict the number of offspring results from 
the increased realization of the dignity and so- 
cial importance of maternity. Its aim is to res- 
cue motherhood from the degradation of being 
the plaything of passion, and raise it to the 
dignity of a science. Never before has there 
been such a high respect for motherhood as there 
is to-day. 
If we pursue this tendency a little further, we 
find that it also fully justifies the woman who 
elects to have no children. If evolution means 
anything the instinct on which depends the fu- 
ture continuation of the race and all its past 
development cannot disappear. Whether one 
has children or not is a purely personal matter. 
Only after the child is born has society any 
rights, and then it has duties as well as rights. 
In the recognition of the individual nature of 
love and of the social nature of parenthood, the 194 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
hitherto warring principles of individual happi- 
ness and social responsibility in the sexual 
sphere are at last beautifully harmonized—and 
this recognition represents the highest summit 
that our thought on the subject has yet reached, 
and the starting point for the morality of the 
future. PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION AS A 
DUTY 
Bv James F. Mortom, Jr. 
Prevention of conception is always a right, 
and very frequently a duty. I do not regard 
the question of limitation of offspring as pri- 
marily a quantitative one, but rather as funda- 
mentally qualitative. In this, I part company 
most emphatically from Malthus and his earlier 
disciples. The pressure of population against 
subsistence is a theoretical possibility; but un- 
der conditions of freedom from land monopoly 
and of proper cultivation it could not menace 
any part of the earth for many generations. 
There is no actual case of over-population or 
even the near approach of the same. All ap- 
parent examples, like that of Ireland, when 
closely examined, turn out, as long since dem- 
onstrated by Henry George, to be the result of 
human blundering with regard to the use of 
natural resources and natural opportunities. 
With the lowering of the birthrate observable 
195 196 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
wherever general prosperity increases, it is 
probable that a natural barrier against exces- 
sive increase will be found amply operative 
under a better and more comfortable state of 
society. 
The need of prevention of conception arises 
from quite a different cause, or rather from 
many causes entirely dissociated from the hy- 
pothetical approach of a time when standing- 
room on the earth shall be available for only a 
fraction of the population. It is a necessity 
because conditions favorable to sexual associa- 
tion are not uniformly favorable to procreation. 
While our theological moralistic friends are 
never weary of assuring us that Nature or what 
they call God created the sexual organs and sex- 
ual appetites for the sole purpose of guaran- 
teeing survival and increase of the race, their 
unproven assertion is negatived by practical ex- 
perience. No sex association without a subse- 
quent childbirth means a maximum number of 
one association in two or three years during a 
fractional portion of the adult life of any man 
or woman. Even then, the outcome must be 
abnormally huge families, which, even if desir- 
able, must be economically impossible to the av- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
197 
erage man and woman, or but from one to five 
or six sex acts in a whole lifetime. This is a 
situation which cannot be evaded. If the weak 
reply be made that attempts at procreation are 
not always successful, and that successive repe- 
titions of the act are thus warranted and prob- 
able in many cases, before Nature’s end is at- 
tained, but little is gained for the argument. 
The concession is too slight to alter the situa- 
tion materially; and a premium is placed on 
natural barrenness, which of itself must tend to 
defeat the supposed plan of Nature. If the ne- 
cessity of continence is to disappear after the 
childbearing stage is passed, the whole principle 
is abandoned; since if the one end of the sex act 
is procreation, persistence in it after the end 
has ceased to be possible must be as hostile to 
natural ethics as the use of scientific means to 
prevent conception. 
The issue is a clearcut one. The enemies of 
prevention of conception must logically demand 
of all men and women a rigid sexual continence 
except on a few occasions, separated by long in- 
tervals. So far as appeasing the sexual urge is 
concerned, these few permitted occasions might 
as well be eliminated. If a sexual fast of sev- 198 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
eral years is no hardship, the prolongation of 
such fast during the whole of life would be prac- 
tically as easy. The few permitted tastes of 
the forbidden fruit are merely enough to whet 
the appetite, and to cause the deeper suffering 
from unsatisfied desire.* Yet the prohibition 
of anticonceptual methods involves nothing else. 
It is too late in the day to deny the existence 
and the imperative character of the sexual ap- 
petite. Theologians may regard it as a temp- 
tation of their friend the Devil; but science is 
compelled to recognize it as warp and woof of 
our being. If Nature meant to render the sex- 
ual act just enticing enough to ensure the con- 
tinuance of the race, she has been guilty of a 
grievous miscalculation, and has overshot the 
mark to an immeasurable extent. The most 
confirmed teleologist must admit this fact, or 
deny the universal testimony of history and 
everyday observation. The error of his deity 
must be counteracted in some way. If preven- 
tives be barred, what is the substitute? 
One answer to the attempt to thwart a nat- 
* In passing, it need only be suggested that a fre- 
quent result of such abnormal continence would be early 
impotence, involving a complete thwarting of Nature’s 
presupposed purpose. FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
199 
ural appetite is found in the institution known 
as prostitution. Inevitable tho it is as a result 
of an entire complex of conditions which will be 
done away with, if at all, but slowly and in a 
long period of time, sexual satisfaction for hire 
cannot commend itself to the thoughtful mind 
as ideal or in any way admirable as a finality. 
It involves the setting apart of a fractional por- 
tion of one sex to relieve the surplus sexual needs 
of a larger portion of the other sex. The indi- 
viduals thus set apart are sacrificed to a form 
of specialization which practically destroys 
their personal and social life in all other re- 
spects. Moreover, the system is accompanied 
by the spread of diseases of the most hideous and 
deadly kind, which can be minimized but by no 
means annihilated by precautions. These dis- 
eases reach far beyond the prostitute and her 
patrons, and are speedily scattered among men, 
women and children of all classes and degrees, 
who are entirely innocent of voluntary contact 
with the source of the infection. The complete 
annulment of the use of preventives between lov- 
ers or married couples, and the consequent lim- 
itation of indulgence to the few occasions al- 
ready mentioned, would inevitably create an in- 200 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
conceivably wider demand for relief thru other 
channels; and prostitution, with its accompani- 
ments of white slavery and venereal disease, 
would thrive as never before, and would be as- 
sured of permanence and increase as an inevi- 
table social institution. Moreover, such relief 
as it brings is but for one sex. No outlet is 
provided for strongly sexed, that is normal and 
vigorously healthful women. To meet their 
need, the weak and waning institution of male 
prostitution must be revived, and established in 
full force. Alternative to prostitution for both 
sexes are only such avenues as self-abuse and 
homosexualism, neither of which is likely to meet 
the approval of our moralistic friends who de- 
mand the abandonment of preventives. The 
claim that no relief whatever will be found nec- 
essary is too absurd for further refutation. 
Yet, tho the reactionary moralists have no 
practical substitute to offer for scientific con- 
trol of conception, they persist in denouncing 
the application to this aspect of life of that cul- 
tivated intelligence with which man prides him- 
self on governing his other relations to the 
world of nature. Apart from the exploded tele- 
ological argument, they rest their attacks FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
201 
either on alleged ethical grounds founded on an 
antiquated theology, or on claims that preven- 
tives are artificial interferences with a natural 
process and that they are uniformly injurious. 
The theological argument is of no consequence 
to enlightened men and women. As to artifici- 
ality, no such thing exists. The human brain 
and all its products spring directly from nature, 
and result by logical sequences from her method 
of evolution. Prevention of conception is no 
more perniciously artificial than the eating of 
cooked food or the dwelling in elaborately con- 
structed houses. The whole history of progress 
consists in the working over by human intelli- 
gence of the raw materials and crude activities 
of unintelligent nature. The charge of injuri- 
ousness, so often brought forward at an earlier 
period of the discussion of the subject, is not 
heard so often at the present day. That some 
methods of prevention have proved hurtful, and 
that others must be used with caution and under 
intelligent direction, need not trouble us 
greatly. The best modern scientific methods 
are free from this objection. Even at worst, 
the risk from an unsafe or ill applied method of 
prevention is but little compared to the certain 202 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
injury derived from excessive childbearing or 
abnormally protracted continence. Excessive 
procreation is pernicious to the woman; and its 
result is the forcing into the world of a breed of 
undesired and hence commonly undesirable chil- 
dren, condemned by both heredity and environ- 
ment (even if prenatal influence prove not to be 
scientifically maintainable) to wretched lives 
and to careers often of positive evil to society. 
Moreover, what is to be done with the by no 
means negligible class of women who are physi- 
ologically incapable of bearing children, and are 
yet possessed of a full measure of normal sex- 
ual passion and deeply in love? What hope is 
there for loving and passionate men and women, 
who cannot beget or bear offspring without the 
certainty of transmitting disease? 
When driven from every other refuge, the 
final cry of the conventionalist is that ability to 
prevent conception will increase what he is 
pleased to call immorality. The attitude of 
mind which can frame such a proposition is 
probably beyond the reach of reason, as it is 
without sympathy for the inner needs of hu- 
manity. If the current dogmas of sexual ethics 
rest on an unshakable foundation of natural FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
203 
law, it is inconceivable that universal violation 
of them should be the inevitable result of the 
mere removal of a physical consequence. The 
average man or woman does not steal, simply 
because his hands are unchained, nor murder be- 
cause a paving-stone lies ready to his hand. It 
is not the mere thought of material consequences 
that prevents individuals from the continual vio- 
lation of their own codes. Higher ethical 
standards are reached by education, not by per- 
petual restraint of liberty. 
As a matter of fact, the general knowledge 
of methods of preventing conception would not 
have the dire results so confidently predicted. 
The strength of the sexual appetite overrides 
the fear of consequences to-day; and those who 
from weakness of desire or from intensity of 
moral convictions find themselves able to resist 
its imperious call are not moved by a mere cal- 
culation of the chances of safety. The few 
who are at present continent from no other mo- 
tive than fear of conception are in nearly all 
cases wearing out their lives in worse ways thru 
abnormal activities or thru a species of celibacy 
which hurts both themselves and the community 
worse than the gratification of their acute long- 204 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
ings could possibly do. At most, they are but 
a handful, in comparison with the other suffer- 
ers, both in and out of marriage, who are to- 
day the victims of unwelcome conception, free- 
dom from which, without in the least increas- 
ing their sexual activities, would mean health 
and life and the more intelligent and careful 
breeding of offspring blessed and not cursed into 
the world. PREVENTION A NECESSITY TO MAR- 
RIED LIFE 
Edwin C. Walker. 
Among the many facts entirely ignored or 
only cursorily considered and then slightingly 
dismissed by the opponents of scientific preven- 
tion of conception, are these: 
Late marriage is prevention of conception. 
It is a kind that inevitably and greatly aug- 
ments the volume of involuntary sexual excita- 
tion in men and women, strongly tends to make 
early and occasional masturbation the habit of 
years or of life, leads surely to increased pat- 
ronage of the prostitute and so more widely dis- 
seminates sexual diseases, spreads homosexu- 
ality, discourages normal and healthful sociabil- 
ity among men and women, driving members of 
each sex into one-sided associations that nar- 
row the social outlook and harden the sympa- 
thies ; and disturbs and wrecks the nervous sys- 
tems of millions. 
The “reformers” who seek the limitation of 
205 206 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
the sexual association of a couple to the from 
two to six times during life when offspring are 
desired, also are propagandists of prevention of 
conception, and of a particularly mischievous 
kind, for to most of the evils flowing from late 
marriage and which necessarily are concomi- 
tants of this “reform,” is to be added that of 
sexual teasing, teasing of a peculiarly intimate 
and trying and disintegrating nature. A man 
and woman of strong or of even only moderate 
sexual desires who love each other and who live 
together must express their affection only by 
tender words and caresses and kisses if they are 
resolved to have no cohabitation except the very 
few times when they think they are ready for 
children. Such a loving and caressive associa- 
tion, stopping short always of its natural ter- 
mination, leaves strained and aching testes and 
ovaries, quivering and irritable nerves, all the 
conditions that are the very seedbed of seriousi 
neuroses, of bodily weakening and mental break- 
ing. If it be said that those who adopt such a 
regimen have the strength of will to endure all 
consequences, it may be answered that the 
strength of will wThich carried religious martyrs 
to the stake did not prevent the flames perform- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
207 
ing the full ministry of fire upon their bodies. 
If it be further objected that this form of pre- 
vention will be chosen only by those whose sexu- 
ality is of very low voltage and Avho therefore 
will not be injuriously affected by the teasing 
of incomplete love-association, I retort that this 
amounts to a confession that only those whose 
power to help continue the race is very near the 
ebbing can escape the bad consequences of this 
kind of prevention of conception and that, no 
matter how great their intellectual powers may 
be, their racial strains soon must reach extinc- 
tion. 
The opponents of methods of limitation of 
the number of children which, while preventing 
the union of the spermatozoa and the ova, do 
not put upon the race the terrible burden of 
the evils I have named, and many more, usually 
conveniently forget that the alternative prac- 
tically is not the discontinuance of non-pro- 
creative intercourse, but abortion, and that 
abortions will increase with the lessening of the 
inhibitory force of old superstitions, both with- 
out and within the pale of marriage, unless that 
evil is prevented by the “absorbent substitution 
of the opposite good,” scientific prevention of 208 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
conception. As to those who lump prevention 
and abortion together as equally evil, or as the 
same thing, the less we say about their men- 
tality and their ethics the less unparliamentary 
we shall be. It has even been asserted, often, 
that prevention is just as much “murder” as is 
the destruction of a six-months embryo. Then, 
of course, late marriage, association only when 
children are desired, or the abstention from mar- 
riage of those who think themselves physically 
or mentally unfit to procreate, is “murder.” 
This is the logical absurdity into which plunge 
all who can not discriminate, who can not tell 
likeness from unlikeness, who can not distin- 
guish between prevention and abortion. 
But I need not dwell here; others have covered 
this part of the field fully and convincingly. 
Suffice it to say, that the quickening conscience 
of the race is revolting more and more against 
the criminal childishness of the anti-naturalists; 
the demand is growing that the banning of the 
knowledge of harmless preventives shall cease, 
that the forcing of the alternative of wholesale 
infanticide, wholesale wrecking of the bodies and 
torturing of the nerves of women, shall cease. 
Every State or federal statute, every pronun- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
209 
ciamento of a church conclave, which places sci- 
entific prevention of conception in the category 
with abortion is an insult to intelligence and a 
crime against humanity. INFANTICIDE, ABORTION, AND PRE- 
VENTION OF CONCEPTION 
L. Jacobi, M.D. 
I 
It is an established proposition that any spe- 
cies of plant or animal life, if allowed to multi- 
ply unchecked, would in no very long time over- 
run the entire surface of the globe. The mul- 
tiplication of plants and animals takes place in 
a geometrical ratio. This sounds tame enough, 
but as soon as we attempt to realize the true 
meaning of such an increase, the statement be- 
comes highly alarming. Much ingenious com- 
putation has been devoted to showing the result 
to be expected from unchecked reproduction. 
For example, the eggs of a single codfish, if al- 
lowed to mature thru several generations unmo- 
lested, would in three or four years fill the 
oceans with one solid mass. (The curious 
mathematician who performed this calculation, 
has left the resulting overflow out of considera- 
210 FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
211 
tion.) A plant yielding one hundred seeds an- 
nually, would in ten years produce one hun- 
dred quintillions of adult plants. The ele- 
phant, of all animals the slowest breeder, would 
stock the entire world in several thousand years. 
A single pair of guinea-pigs may produce 1000 
in a single year (breeding begins at two months 
of age). 
To bring the marvelous natural process of 
propagation vividly home to our limited imag- 
ination, it may be said that the unhampered re- 
production of any species would soon consume 
the total quantity of matter contained in our so- 
lar system! 
However, all these interesting calculations 
are made in the subjunctive mood. In reality, 
no unmolested propagation ever takes place 
long enough to reach such proportions. 
Speaking of the codfish, we have no evidence of 
any marked numerical increase, their number 
probably remaining near a certain average thru 
many generations. This means that only a 
small minority of the innumerable codfish eggs 
attain maturity, the vast remainder going to 
waste. The apparent extravagance of nature 
is nowhere more strikingly exemplified. Yet the 212 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
extravagance is only apparent. Millions of 
eggs are necessary in order that a few may de- 
velop into new individuals, for codfish-eggs 
have to run the gauntlet of infinite dangers 
from other creatures and from physical condi- 
tions. Vast numbers are doomed to destruc- 
tion, a mere lucky handful emerging victorious 
from this so-called “struggle for existence.” 
These few represent the “survival of the fittest,” 
as the process has been aptly named by Herbert 
Spencer, a term now generally accepted. 
In the words of John Fiske, “there is an un- 
ceasing struggle for life—a competition for the 
means of subsistence—going on among all 
plants and animals. In this struggle by far 
the greater number succumb without leaving off- 
spring, but a few favored ones in each genera- 
tion survive and propagate to their offspring 
the qualities by virtue of which they have sur- 
vived.” (“Cosmic Philosophy,” Vol. 11, Ch. 
X.) 
And again: “Battles far more deadly than 
those of Gettysburg or Gravelotte have been in- 
cessantly waged on every square mile of the 
earth’s life-bearing surface, since life first be- 
gan. It is only thus that the enormous in- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
213 
crease of each species has been kept within 
bounds 
The human race is also subject to the same 
law of multiplication. Populations have been 
known to become doubled in 25 years, and, ac- 
cording to Euler’s calculations, this result may 
be achieved under favorable conditions in half 
that period. 
We may safely accept it as an axiom, that the 
multiplication of mankind is capable of rapidly 
outstripping the means of subsistence. Ac- 
cording to Rev. Malthus, the famous author of 
the epoch-making “Essay on the Principle of 
Population,” published in England in 1798, the 
means of subsistence increase in an arithmeti- 
cal progression, while population grows in a 
geometrical progression, the latter quickly 
leaving the former far behind. Whether things 
can be reduced to such exact mathematical for- 
mulas or not, the essential truth inherent in the 
proposition of Rev. Malthus must be acknowl- 
edged as beyond the reach of doubt. And un- 
til the time arrives when man will be capable of 
utilizing the latent powers of his planet to an 
extent now undreamed, he must again and again 
be brought face to face with the problem of 214 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
keeping population within the limits of suste- 
nance derived bj human labor from Mother 
Earth. 
This tendency of population to tread on the 
heels of production has from the earliest times 
been the immediate cause of progress. “It pro- 
duced,” says Spencer in his “Principles of Bi- 
ology,” “the original diffusion of the race. It 
compelled men to abandon predatory habits and 
take to agriculture. It led to the clearing of 
the earth’s surface. It forced men into the so- 
cial state; made social organization inevitable; 
and has developed the social sentiments. It 
has stimulated to progressive improvement in 
production, and to increased skill and intelli- 
gence. It is daily thrusting us into closer con- 
tact and more mutually-dependent relation- 
ships. And after having caused, as it ulti- 
mately must, the due peopling of the globe, and 
the raising of its habitable parts into the high- 
est state of culture—after having perfected all 
processes for the satisfaction of human wants 
—after having, at the same time, developed the 
intellect into competence for its work and the 
feelings into fitness for social life—after having 
done all this, the pressure of population must FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
215 
gradually approach to an end—an end, how- 
ever, which it cannot absolutely reach.” 
While thus recognizing the beneficent role 
played by pressure of population in the evolu- 
tion of mankind, we must not underestimate 
those forces which have always tended to antag- 
onize the dangers of excessive propagation. It 
is not the latter alone that we have to credit 
with the blessings of civilization. Pressure of 
population alone, without the counter-pressure 
of antagonistic forces, would have produced no 
progress. Both were requisite to maintain a 
balance. Let us now dwell briefly on these 
checks to excessive multiplication. 
In the past, pressure of population has ever 
been reduced and moderated by the wholesale 
destruction of human life in wars, epidemics, 
and periodical famines. Ravages by the larger 
beasts of prey have also contributed a small 
share (tigers in India, etc.). 
Pestilential diseases, especially such as 
plague and small-pox, have repeatedly devas- 
tated the earth’s population, and this far more 
thoroly and generally than any war. The 
death-dealing powers of Nature leave the en- 
mity between man and man far behind. The 216 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
great epidemic of “Black Death,” which swept 
over Europe in the 14th century, carried off 
25,000,000 lives, amounting to one quarter of 
the entire European population. During the 
Great Plague of London in the 17th century, 
70,000 died. In America, as late as 1839, 
whole tribes of Indians have been wiped out by 
small-pox. 
With the gradual elimination of wars and epi- 
demics, and with the steady improvement in hy- 
gienic conditions, the pressure of overpopula- 
tion has shown a corresponding increase. 
Says a recent writer (Scott Nearing) : “A con- 
tinuance of the rate of increase in population 
which prevailed in the early 19th century would 
have resulted, in the near future of the Western 
World, in an overpopulation problem as seri- 
ous as that now confronting China or India.” 
However, such a rate of increase has not con- 
tinued, and to understand the reason we must 
turn our attention to a check on overpopulation 
not mentioned as yet, tho it is, perhaps, the 
most important of them all, according to high 
authority (Charles Darwin). This check, pe- 
culiar to man, supersedes the blind cosmic forces 
more and more as the human race advances. FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
217 
It is the conscious effort to keep the number of 
newly born individuals within tolerable limits. 
The earliest expedient resorted to by primi- 
tive peoples has been, naturally enough, the 
killing of infants at birth or shortly after. We 
find this method of infanticide still prevailing in 
many parts of the globe (it is common in Aus- 
tralia), and it may be safely inferred to have 
been very widely diffused in the past. 
Infanticide is employed not only as a conven- 
ient means of regulating the growth of popula- 
tion, but serves also to determine its quality, for 
usually the weakest infants are put to death. 
Males being a more valuable asset in primitive 
society, it is ordinarily the females who are sac- 
rificed. The custom of infanticide was at one 
time almost universal, and represents the earli- 
est conscious effort at dealing a blow to a peril- 
ous rate of multiplication. 
“The murder of infants,” remarks Darwin in 
his “Descent of Man,” “has prevailed on the 
largest scale thruout the world and has met with 
no reproach.” And again: “Barbarians find it 
difficult to support themselves and their children, 
and it is a simple plan to kill their infants.” 
M’Lennan in his “Primitive Marriage,” also in- 218 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
dines to the view that these practices originated 
in the impossibility of supporting all the in- 
fants that are born. 
True, some competent observers have attrib- 
uted the fearfully common practice of infanti- 
cide partly to female vanity, the women wish- 
ing to avoid lactation in order to preserve their 
good figure, but this additional motive may be 
dismissed as negligible. 
For the sake of completeness, other conscious 
checks to overpopulation may be fitly men- 
tioned, for instance, licentiousness, encouraged 
here and there in the hope of keeping down the 
rate of increase. The same applies to homo- 
sexuality, occasionally sanctioned by various 
peoples for the purpose of retarding multiplica- 
tion. Prostitution, also, has been credited by 
some authorities with a regulative function of 
this nature. Thus, G. de Molinari (La Viri- 
culture) believes that prostitution has acted 
beneficially by neutralizing the excesses of the 
sexual impulse, indirectly suppressing the neces- 
sity of infanticide, and finally leading to the 
prohibition of that method. 
In a very different way, prostitution has 
within recent years suppressed infanticide. FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
219 
We are told, namely, that in a certain Chinese 
province it was customary for poor parents to 
kill some or all of the girls born to them, for 
they were too heavy a burden and brought no 
compensation. 
Lately, however, the development of steam- 
ship lines along the coast has brought vice and 
prostitution along with it, and the Chinese girls 
can be sold profitably into brothels. Hence the 
killing of female infants has been abandoned in 
that province. 
While it may be admitted that prostitution 
and other minor factors have not been without 
some influence on the custom of murdering in- 
fants, yet this influence has never been general 
or far-reaching enough to abolish infanticide. 
Quite another factor came into action before 
that institution was supplanted, as we shall 
presently see. 
II 
How long infanticide continued to be prac- 
ticed, before it dawned on the primitive mind 
that it could be avoided by extinguishing the in- 
fant’s life while yet in the mother’s womb, is a 
matter of vague conjecture. Sooner or later, 220 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
however, the discovery was inevitable, and hence- 
forth artificial abortion may be assumed to 
have replaced gradually the custom of infanti- 
cide. 
At first abortion was probably resorted to 
only during the later stages of pregnancy, when 
the expanding body of the mother betrayed her 
condition even to the unobservant eye. The 
initial stages are not likely to be recognized by 
the savage, since intercourse begins early in 
both sexes, and pregnancy often supervenes be- 
fore menstruation has appeared, while later a 
new impregnation may easily occur, and thus 
the menstrual flow repeatedly anticipated and 
kept in abeyance. When at last primitive man 
had learned to recognize early pregnancy, ef- 
forts were probably made to interrupt it. 
The substitution of abortion for infanticide 
must be considered chronologically and ethically 
a step in advance. The motives prompting 
abortion are in general identical with the causes 
of infant-murder. The deterring factors, such 
as maternal love, or aversion to taking life, 
which may have induced an occasional mother 
to spare her child when infanticide was the cus- 
tom, must have lost their influence with the ad- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
221 
vent of abortion. The latter could be invoked 
without any such scruples and was no doubt a 
welcome substitute for murder. 
The extensive practice of artificial abortion 
among the uncivilized and the semi-civilized 
races ought to be a matter of astonishment to 
those who blame civilization for all human ills, 
and look backward upon “the state of nature” 
as a paradise lost. The number of primitive 
peoples resorting to artificial abortion is verily 
legion. 
Wherever it is employed, we usually find in- 
fanticide entirely abandoned, and this confirms 
the conjecture indulged in above. Some peo- 
ples distinctly specify that abortion is per- 
missible, while infanticide is punishable as mur- 
der. In fact, the majority of lower races look 
leniently on artificial abortion, and even certain 
civilized peoples sanction the practice. The 
Turks, for example, allow it up to the fifth 
month of pregnancy, as they consider the fetus 
lifeless until that time. 
It is interesting to take notice of the methods 
employed by primitive races to procure abor- 
tion. Probably the oldest and most obvious 
procedure consists in violent measures directed 222 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
against the abdomen of the pregnant woman. 
The “patient” lies down, and the wise old 
woman or the medicine-man kneels on the pros- 
trate body, executes a dance on her stomach, 
kicks her, and maltreats her generally in vari- 
ous more or less ingenious ways, until certain 
symptoms make their appearance and testify to 
the success of the “operation.” 
With advancing knowledge of human anat- 
omy and physiology, these crude measures be- 
come abandoned in favor of procedures directed 
against the fetus or the organs concerned with 
gestation. Special implements are designed for 
the purpose of puncturing the fetal membranes 
or dilating the os uteri, and these primitive in- 
ventions often show a high degree of ingenuity, 
besides bearing witness to a remarkable knowl- 
edge of local anatomy. 
Medicinal remedies, too, have been very ex- 
tensively administered for the purpose of pro- 
ducing abortion. These medicines were usually 
derived from vegetable sources, the occasionally 
great specific virtues were ascribed to certain 
disgusting substances of animal origin. 
Making the necessary allowances for changes 
due to better knowledge of drugs and improved FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
223 
technique in manufacturing instruments, it 
must be confessed that in principle the crude 
efforts of lower races are not very different 
from the methods now in vogue among civilized 
peoples. 
Of the latter it must be stated that abortion 
is universally practiced on a very extensive 
scale, and this condition of affairs dates back 
to ancient times. In Greece, Plato and Aris- 
totle approved of artificial abortion, recom- 
mending its employment as early as possible. 
In Rome, abortion was very commonly pro- 
cured, but the patriarchal law of the early Ro- 
mans vested the right to produce abortion not 
in the mother, but in the father. 
Abortion was unqualifiedly condemned only 
by the Christian Church, owing to certain the- 
oretical notions, as Ellis says. Various penal- 
ties were gradually introduced, culminating in 
the declaration that artificial abortion is equiv- 
alent to murder. All these penalties and 
threats and exhortations have failed signally to 
hold the practice in check. “Abortion,” says 
Havelock Ellis, “is exceedingly common in all 
civilized countries.” 
Nay, more than that, in recent years a strong 224. 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
movement in support of the right to perform 
abortion has sprung up. 
This movement appears to have originated in 
Italy, where Balestrini had published a learned 
and suggestive book on the subject, now recog- 
nized as a work of authority. His broad and 
humane ideas were received very warmly, espe- 
cially by members of the legal profession, who 
rallied to his support. 
Some years later a remarkable novel, called 
Le Droit d’Avortement, appeared in France. 
The author, Dr. Jean Darricarrere, advocated 
the thesis that a woman has the inalienable 
right to abortion. 
In Russia, a similar view is presented by Art- 
sibasheff in his now famous sensational novel 
Sanin. The protagonist cynically ridicules 
those who take abortion seriously. He consid- 
ers the interruption of early pregnancy a mat- 
ter of slight consequence, a mere interference 
with a “chemical reaction.” 
But it was in Germany that the new move- 
ment found its strongest advocates. Here a 
number of distinguished women have openly 
come forward in support of a prospective 
mother’s right to abortion. FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
225 
Countess Gisela Streitberg was the pioneer, 
with her book: “Das Recht zur Beseitigung Kei- 
menden Lebens.” She was followed by several 
capable feminine disciples, and soon a number 
of eminent lawyers joined the women in their 
fight against the legal restrictions placed upon 
abortion. 
They argue that no laws are needed to pro- 
tect the unborn child, since the natural maternal 
instincts are quite adequate, and will not be 
disobeyed in the absence of powerful and rea- 
sonable motives. When, however, such motives 
are present, no one has the right to force moth- 
erhood upon the unwilling woman. 
That these ideas have not fallen upon unheed- 
ing ears, may be gathered from a resolution 
passed at the Woman’s Congress in 1905, de- 
manding that abortion should be declared pun- 
ishable only when brought about by another 
person against the will of the pregnant woman. 
“Alike on the side of practice and of theory,” 
says Havelock Ellis, “a great change has taken 
place during recent years in the attitude to- 
wards abortion.” There is even a noticeable 
tendency to shift all blame from the woman to 
her environment, and to look upon her not as an 226 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
offender, but a victim of prejudice and circum- 
stance. 
[The author could have mentioned a number 
of other publications which indicate a radical 
change of attitude towards the question of abor- 
tion. In belles lettres the most important con- 
tribution is Brieux’ famous play “Maternity”; 
this play, by the greatest living French drama- 
tist, ought to be read by everybody. In Ger- 
many quite some literature has sprung up de- 
manding a certain latitude for the pregnant 
woman in her decision as to whether or not she 
is willing to carry the fetus to full term. 
Among them we might mention “Das Keimende 
Leben” by Herbert Eulenberg which in the form 
of a lawyer’s plea defending an accused woman 
abortionist demands the acquittal of the ac- 
cused. 
In the September 1912 issue of the Critic and 
Guide we referred to a memorial by a Berlin 
physician to the Penal Code Commission sug- 
gesting that every woman who has already had 
three children or any single girl who has been 
seduced or raped should have perfect legal right 
to have abortion induced on herself. But the 
most important contribution to the subject that FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
227 
has come to mj notice is a work in two volumes 
by Dr. Eduard Ritter von Liszt, Royal Im- 
perial District Judge in Vienna, entitled “Die 
Kriminelle Fruchtabtreibung.” This is a work 
which discusses the subject in a calm, dispas- 
sionate, legal manner, and is worthy the care- 
ful attention of every earnest student of the 
subject. W. J. R.] 
Admitting all these arguments, and giving 
due consideration to the exigencies of individual 
cases, we must, nevertheless, refuse to accept 
artificial abortion as a solution of the prob- 
lem. Even where its employment may be con- 
doned, it is a necessary evil at best, by no means 
an adequate and ethically sound remedy for 
overpopulation or for unwelcome pregnancy. 
For abortion, while indubitably more humane 
than infanticide, is fraught with grave conse- 
quences to the woman. Entirely omitting the 
anxious question as to its status in regard to 
the unborn creature, and confining ourselves to 
cold utilitarian considerations, we cannot close 
our eyes to the misery, the suffering, the un- 
timely deaths which so often follow in the wake 
of artificial abortion. Where life is not imme- 
diately forfeited, permanent disability fre- 228 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
quently results. In many instances, serious op- 
erations are subsequently necessary, and not a 
few lives, spared at first, are snuffed out later 
as a direct penalty for violating nature’s laws. 
The waste of energy and the distress inflicted 
upon the woman herself and upon her family, 
not to mention the economic losses which weigh 
heavily on the less fortunate, are in themselves 
arguments against abortion, more powerful and 
eloquent than any rhetoric. 
It would be sad indeed, were the human race 
condemned forever to invoke the aid of this gory 
expedient in its struggle against excessive mul- 
tiplication. Fortunately, however, the outlook 
is not so bleak. There is another resource, cer- 
tain to become widely diffused, and destined to 
supplant artificial abortion, even as abortion 
suppressed infanticide. 
Ill 
It may be conjectured that interruption of 
pregnancy during the later months was gradu- 
ally abandoned in favor of earlier interruption, 
and the steadily receding time of interference 
must have finally suggested a desire to avert 
pregnancy altogether. Presently some means FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
229 
was devised to accomplish this purpose, and hu- 
manity witnessed the origin of a new departure 
in dealing with the ubiquitous problem of over- 
population. For a long time preventive at- 
tempts must have been tentative and sporadic, 
the older expedient of abortion continuing to 
exist side by side with the new method, and 
slowly yielding ground to its encroachments. 
It is only in comparatively recent times that we 
find abortion rapidly receding before measures 
employed to prevent conception in cases where 
pregnancy is unwelcome. 
This 'prophylaxis of conception, as I prefer 
to call it (meaning in Greek: guarding against 
or warding off), was known and occasionally 
employed in antiquity, as may be gathered from 
a familiar passage in Genesis (xxxviii) : And 
Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s 
wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy 
brother. And Onan knew that the seed should 
not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in 
unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the 
ground, lest that he should give seed to his 
brother.” In modern terms, Onan sought to 
guard against conception by practicing coitus 
mterruptus. Erroneously, however, his name  LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
230 
has become associated with masturbation 
(“onanism”). 
The ancient Greeks, too, had remedies called 
Atokia, which prevented (or were supposed to 
prevent) conception, and were distinguished 
from Phthoria, or remedies producing abortion. 
In early Roman days, Soranus, the greatest ob- 
stetrician of antiquity, advocated prevention of 
conception as a substitute for abortion, with 
the dangers of which he was familiar. 
Nevertheless, it is only in modern times that 
prophylaxis of conception has come to be widely 
employed, and this movement for the control of 
procreation may be said to date from Malthus’ 
famous “Essay on Population” (1798). In 
this book, as we have already indicated, the 
author assumes that propagation of the human 
race takes place in a geometrical progression, 
while the means of subsistence can be augmented 
much more slowly, corresponding to an arith- 
metical progression. As a result, starvation is 
ever threatening mankind, and can be averted 
only by a judicious control of propagation. 
Malthus wras a clergyman, and the remedy he 
proposed consisted in “self-control,” that is, he 
counseled judicious abstinence from sexual in- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
231 
tercourse as the best preventive measure. He 
believed that the power of self-control increased 
pari passu with civilization, and would enable 
people to refrain altogether from marital 
pleasures when such restraint was demanded in 
the interest of the race. 
Without denying these assertions some sem- 
blance of truth, we are compelled to say that 
the Reverend Malthus failed signally in his esti- 
mate of the influence wielded by the reproduc- 
tive instinct. He reckoned without his host, 
and suggested a cure which was worse than the 
disease. His naively-sincere attitude brought 
him an abundance of undeserved ridicule, and 
his book is nowadays mentioned with an indul- 
gent smile. 
He had not lived and labored in vain, how- 
ever. His ideas were adopted by several fol- 
lowers, who recognized the truth inherent in his 
statements, while they cast about for more prac- 
ticable preventive measures than mere self-con- 
trol. 
The pioneer in advocating these so-called 
Neo-malthusian methods was James Mill, father 
of John Stuart Mill. He aired his views very 
cautiously in an article written in 1818 for the 232 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
Encyclopedia Britannica. Four years later, 
his friend Francis Place, wrote as follows on the 
subject: “If it were once clearly understood 
that it was not disreputable for married persons 
to avail themselves of such precautionary means 
as would, without being injurious to health, or 
destructive of female delicacy, prevent concep- 
tion, a sufficient check might at once be given to 
the increase of population beyond the means of 
subsistence. The course recommended will, I 
am freely persuaded, at some period be pursued 
by the people even if left to themselves.” 
These prophetic words were realized in an- 
other half-century and now prevention of con- 
ception is affecting the birth-rate of all civilized 
countries. There are societies and periodicals 
in all civilized languages, devoted to the propa- 
gation of Neo-malthusian principles. 
“It is no longer permissible,” says Havelock 
Ellis, “to discuss the validity of the control of 
procreation, for it is an accomplished fact and 
has become a part of our modern morality.” 
The same view is taken by Sidney Webb 
(Pop. Science Monthly, 1906, p. 526) : “If a 
course of conduct is habitually and deliberately 
pursued by vast multitudes of otherwise well- FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
233 
conducted people, forming probably a majority 
of the whole educated class of the nation, we 
must assume that it does not conflict with their 
actual code of morality.” 
This widespread resort to prophylaxis of 
conception finds its expression in the decline 
of the birth-rate, and eminent authorities can 
be quoted to show that this decline must be at- 
tributed to voluntary intervention. 
Says Scott Nearing, in a paper on Race 
Suicide vs. Overpopulation (1911): “Any con- 
scious restriction in the birth-rate is popularly 
referred to as race-suicide. It is in this sense 
that Roosevelt employed the term. The prev- 
alence of a conscious restriction in the birth- 
rate on the part of the vast majority of Ameri- 
can families has been established beyond ques- 
tion. Until 1850 any great increase in popu- 
lation was prevented by a high death rate. In 
the succeeding century, as a result of science 
and sanitation, the death rate was gradually 
reduced, and an overwhelming increase in pop- 
ulation was prevented in only one way—by de- 
creasing the birth-rate. The decline in the 
birth-rate therefore saved the modern civilized 
world from over-population and economic dis- 234 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
aster. An equilibrium of population has been 
reestablished thru the saving grace of the de- 
crease in the birth-rate, commonly called “race 
suicide.” 
Prof. H. W. Conn likewise considers the di- 
minishing birth-rate voluntary: “My own belief 
is that this is the greatest factor in the dimin- 
ishing size of families. Indeed, I should rather 
be inclined to believe that if this factor could 
be removed, we should find the race practically 
as fertile as in previous generations.” 
According to Dr. John S. Billings (Forum, 
1893), one of the chief causes of the diminish- 
ing birth-rate is the “diffusion of information 
with regard to the subject of generation by 
means of popular and school treatises on physi- 
ology and hygiene, which diffusion began be- 
tween 30 and 40 years ago. Girls of 20 years 
of age at the present day know much more 
about anatomy and physiology than did their 
grandmothers at the same age, and the mar- 
ried women are much better informed as to the 
means by which the number of children may be 
limited than were those of 30 years ago.” 
Prof. Chas. F. Emerick, after a study of this 
subject, sums up as follows: “Our conclusion is FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
235 
that the diminishing birth-rate is primarily 
volitional, and that the various factors which 
make for involuntary sterility are of minor im- 
portance.” And he rightly adds that “the 
weight of well-defined opinion supports the 
view that the decline of the birth rate is voli- 
tional.” 
In his “Essentials of Economic Theory,” 
Clark says: “There are measures not here to be 
named in detail, which keep down the number 
of births. By strength and also by weakness, 
by virtue and also by vice, is the economic man- 
date which limits the rate of growth of popula- 
tion carried out.” 
These opinions may be accepted as conclu- 
sive evidence of the frequency and universality 
with which prophylaxis of conception is prac- 
ticed by modern civilized peoples. If addi- 
tional proof is demanded, it may be found in 
the attitude of the Church towards this prac- 
tice. “The Church,” says Ellis, “always alive 
to sexual questions, has realized the impor- 
tance of the modern movement and has adapted 
herself to it, by proclaiming to her more igno- 
rant children that incomplete intercourse is a 
deadly sin, while refraining from making in- 236 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
quiries into this matter among her more edu- 
cated members.” He concludes that “the 
adoption of preventive methods of conception 
follows progress and civilization, and the gen- 
eral practice of such methods, by Catholics and 
non-Catholics, is merely a matter of time.” 
Passing over this familiar reactionary atti- 
tude of the Christian Church, let us inquire 
how the modern movement is viewed by philan- 
thropists, sociologists, physicians, and think- 
ing people generally. Here are a few repre- 
sentative voices. 
Prof. Edward A. Ross pleads for education 
along the lines of birth-restriction: “Education 
is what is needed—education directed against 
the old idea that it is the woman’s duty to bring 
as many children into the world as possible in 
the belief that God will look after these chil- 
dren when they are brought here. Neither do 
I believe in the restriction of marriage save in 
the case of physical or mental defectives. Mar- 
riage is the normal state for all, whether poor 
or rich. But marriage, with poverty as a con- 
dition, should necessarily restrict the number of 
children. 
“What I stand for is the national need for a FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
237 
more perfect knowledge of parental responsi- 
bility among all classes of our people.” 
Dr. William J. Robinson writes emphatically 
as follows: “There is no single measure that 
would so positively, so immediately contribute 
towards the happiness and progress of the hu- 
man race as teaching the people the proper 
means of prevention of conception. This has 
been my sincerest and deepest conviction since 
I have learned to think rationally. It is the 
sincere and deep conviction of thousands of 
others, but they are too cowardly to express it 
in public.” 
Another physician, Dr. William U. Holt, 
says: “Conscious and limited procreation is dic- 
tated by love and intelligence; it improves the 
race. Unconscious, irresponsible procreation 
produces domestic misery and half-starved chil- 
dren.” 
The opinion of women themselves on this sub- 
ject is naturally very valuable: Here is what 
Mrs. Helen La Reine Baker has written: 
“There are already too many children in the 
world. What we want now is quality and not 
quantity. Parents should be taught the re- 
sponsibility of bringing children into the world. 238 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
When the birth-rate will decrease, we shall have 
a better and stronger race.” 
H. G. Wells, the brilliant English writer, is 
not alarmed by the continued fall in the birth- 
rate in America and in Europe. He pleads for 
“more temperate and better controlled procrea- 
tion.” 
These quotations could be multiplied indefi- 
nitely. Let one more reference suffice. Thru- 
out Herbert Spencer’s works there are scat- 
tered pithy expressions of his views on our sub- 
ject. A few extracts may fitly conclude our 
survey of authoritative opinion. 
Speaking, in the “Principles of Biology,” of 
human population in the Future, he says: “In 
proportion as the emotional nature becomes 
more evolved, and there grows up a higher sense 
of parental responsibility, the begetting of chil- 
dren that cannot be properly reared will be uni- 
versally held intolerable.” 
And again, in the “Principles of Ethics”: 
“If, however, improvident marriages are to be 
reprobated—if to bring children into the world 
when there will probably be no means of main- 
taining any, is a course calling for condemna- 
tion ; then there must be condemnation for those FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
239 
who bring many children into the world when 
they have means of properly rearing only a 
few. Improvidence after marriage cannot be 
considered right, if improvidence before mar- 
riage is considered wrong.” 
Elsewhere in the same work we read: “While 
the rate of multiplication continues so to exceed 
the rate of mortality as to cause pressure on 
the means of subsistence, there must continue 
to result much unhappiness; either from balked 
affections or from overwork and stinfed means. 
Only as fast as fertility diminishes, which we 
have seen it must do along with further men- 
tal development, can there go on such diminu- 
tion of the labors required for efficiently sup- 
porting self and family, that they will not con- 
stitute a displeasurable tax on the energies.” 
In the meantime, while waiting for the ade- 
quate decrease of fertility to take place natu- 
rally, Spencer is in favor of prevention of con- 
ception, as will be evident from the following 
parenthetical phrase from a sentence occurring 
in his Ethics: “When the pressure of popula- 
tion has been rendered small—proximately by 
prudential restraints, and ultimately by de- 
crease of fertility,” etc. 240 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
In the “Principles of Ethics” there is also 
this passage: “While the struggle for existence 
among men has to be carried on with an inten- 
sity like that which now exists, the quantity of 
suffering to be borne by the majority must re- 
main great. This struggle for existence must 
continue to be thus intense so long as the rate 
of multiplication continues greatly in excess of 
the rate of mortality. Only in proportion as 
the production of new individuals ceases to go 
on so greatly in excess of the disappearance of 
individuals by death, can there be a diminution 
of the pressure upon the means of subsistence, 
and a diminution of the strain and the accom- 
panying pains that arise more or less to all, and 
in a greater degree to the inferior.” 
In his last book, “Facts and Comments,” writ- 
ten, as he tells us in his letters, at the rate of 
ten lines per day, he says emphatically (Chap- 
ter “Some Regrets”) : “I detest that conception 
of social progress which presents as its aim, in- 
crease of population, growth of wealth, spread 
of commerce. In the politico-economic ideal of 
human existence there is contemplated quantity 
only and not quality. Instead of an immense 
amount of life of low type I would far sooner FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
241 
see half the amount of life of a high type. . . . 
Increase in the swarms of people whose exist- 
ence is subordinated to material development is 
rather to be lamented than be rejoiced over.” 
IV 
It is evident that prevention of conception is 
not a remedy for overpopulation only, but a 
powerful factor in improving the quality of the 
race. We may here appropriately consider the 
various groups of cases in which conception is 
best avoided. 
The least objectionable are the strictly medi- 
cal indications. There are many pathological 
conditions in which pregnancy and childbirth 
are equivalent to serious impairment and short- 
ening of life, or even to death. There is no 
room for difference of opinion when a woman is 
afflicted with advanced tuberculosis, organic 
heart-disease, grave changes in the kidneys, etc. 
Here the law permits even the use of artificial 
abortion when pregnancy has supervened, and 
no one will hesitate to advise the patient to 
avoid becoming pregnant altogether. We have 
no right to demand the sacrifice of the mother’s 
life for the sake of the progeny. Here pro- 242 
LIMITATION OF OFFSPRING 
phylaxis of conception is undertaken in the in- 
terest of the woman. 
A different indication is furnished by those 
diseases or hereditary defects of the parents 
which are likely to be transmitted to their off- 
spring. Syphilis, insanity, degeneracy, and 
grave moral taints belong to the group. Here 
it is clearly a service to the race to desist from 
propagating imbeciles, lunatics and criminals. 
This might be called the eugenic indication for 
prophylaxis of conception, and the law, again, 
has recognized it. In some States there is a 
legal provision demanding the sterilization of 
confirmed or habitual criminals. Prevention 
of propagation is thus assured from the outset. 
After the medical and the eugenic indica- 
tions,- comes the economic one. This usually 
meets with opposition from certain quarters, yet 
no valid argument can be presented against it. 
It benefits the parents, it is decidedly beneficial 
to society, and it is even merciful toward the 
unborn and unconceived creature, which is fre- 
quently saved from a life of misery. If we 
have no right to demand a sacrifice of the 
mother for the sake of the child, neither have 
we the right to demand sacrifices which, tho FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
243 
stopping short of being immediately fatal, nev- 
ertheless shorten and cripple the woman’s life. 
Finally, there are numerous and varied cases, 
when a woman, having conceived, will seek to 
interrupt pregnancy at any price. Here, if 
anywhere, prevention is preferable to “cure.” 
Such are the principal cases and conditions 
calling for prophylaxis of conception, and 
when this method of dealing with them becomes 
generally adopted, then will commence the 
period of seven lean years for all those who now 
thrive by interrupting undesirable pregnancy. 
Who will deny that much unhappiness' and 
misery will thus be averted, and that society 
will gain incalculably in consequence? 
Finally, prophylaxis of conception cannot 
fail to exert an indirect influence on our cur- 
rent sex morality. By conferring upon the 
woman immunity from the most dreaded sequel 
of illicit indulgence, it will undoubtedly tend to 
equalize the conduct of both sexes when con- 
fronted by temptation, and by generally facili- 
tating marriage, it is bound to contribute to- 
ward the establishment of more hygienic sex re- 
lations, which, again, must redound to the bene- 
fit of society at large. LET ME BE CREATED IN LOVE 
By James P. Warbasse, M.D. 
A proposition that would seem scarcely to 
need defense is that the uncreated child should 
not force itself upon parents who do not want 
it. It is so apt to find itself in an unconge- 
nial atmosphere that three are caused to suffer 
where two were happy before. 
There was a time, in the days of constant 
warfare, with its frightful mortality, and in the 
days of slow industry, with its meager produc- 
tivity, that people and more people were needed 
to fight and toil and kill and die. But the ma- 
chine, the conquest of disease, and the passing 
of the superstitions which glorified the crimes 
of war, all prompt mankind to produce more 
people not for the sake of the numbers alone. 
Only the capitalist, with his hunger for profits, 
and the priest with his hunger for sheep to en- 
large his fold, now cry out: “Give us more 
people, for upon their backs we ride to glory.” 
But to breed people, to be thrown into the 
244 FROM THE CRITIC AND GUIDE 
245 
hopper to be ground into profits, and to bring 
forth sinners, to be saved for the glory of the 
saviors, is not so highly esteemed a human func- 
tion as it erstwhile was. 
Were the unconceived child to speak perhaps 
it might say: “Let me be created in love and 
born only as a gift to parents whose hands are 
held out with loving welcome to receive me. 
Spare me from the hostile frown of my crea- 
tors.” A babe is so important a thing that it 
is deserving only of loving parents; and parents 
and lovers are so important that to mar their 
union by an unwelcome child is to threaten both 
parenthood and sexual love. A Practical Treatise on the Causes, Symptoms, and 
Treatment of 
Sexual Impotence 
And Other Sexual Disorders in Men and Women 
BY 
WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
Chief of the Department of Genito-Urinary Diseases and Dermatology, 
Bronx Hospital and Dispensary; Editor The American Journal 
of Urology, Venereal and Sexual Diseases; Editor and 
Founder of The Critic and Guide; Author of Sexual 
Problems of T'oday; Never Told Tales; 
Practical Eugenics, etc. 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 
Part I—Masturbation. Its Prevalence, Causes, Varieties, Symptoms, 
Results, Prophylaxis and Treatment. Coitus Interruptus and its 
Effects. 
Part II—Varieties, Causes and Treatment of Pollutions, Spermator- 
rhea, Prostatorrhea and Urethrorrhea. 
Part III—Sexual Impotence in the Male. Every phase of its widely 
varying causes and treatment, with illuminating case reports. 
Part IV—Sexual Neurasthenia. Causes, Treatment, case reports, 
and its relation to Impotence. 
Part V—Sterility, Male and Female. Its Causes and Treatment. 
Part VI—Sexual Disorders in Woman, Including Frigidity, Vaginis- 
mus, Adherent Clitoris, and Injuries to the Female in Coitus. 
Part VII—Priapism. Etiology, Case Reports and Treatment. 
Part VIII—Miscellaneous Topics. Including: Is Masturbation a 
Vice?—Two Kinds of Premature Ejaculation.—The Frequency of 
Coitus.—“Useless” Sexual Excitement.—The Relation Between Mental 
and Sexual Activity.—Big Families and Sexual Vigor.—Sexual Per- 
versions. 
Part IX—Prescriptions and Minor Points. 
Third edition revised and enlarged. 
Cloth bound, 422 pages. Postpaid, $3.00. 
Address: THE CRITIC AND GUIDE COMPANY 
12 MT. MORRIS PARK W., NEW YORK CITY THE DISOKDEKS OF THE 
SEXUAL SYSTEM 
“He who throws light on the dark and intricate 
problems of sex, helping to unravel the mysteries of 
and to cure the complex sexual disorders, does indeed 
a signal service to humanity.” 
We believe that in bringing out our latest work, 
Sexual Impotence and Other Sexual Disorders in 
Men and Women, we have given the profession one 
of the most useful, one of the most valuable books that 
have ever been published. A gratifyingly large num- 
ber of physicians have told us that the book not only 
helped them to treat successfully sexual weakness and 
other disorders in their patients or in themselves, but 
that it opened their eyes to the significance of many 
things which they did not understand before. 
Those who have read the book know its value and 
importance; those who have not may be interested to 
read what the medical journals have to say about it. 
Here are a few extracts: 
No American authority has given more serious thought 
to the subject of sexual diseases than the author of this 
volume; he has given to us in it the best that in him lies. 
No physician who has had to combat this distressing condi- 
tion, and those conditions dependent upon it, has any doubt 
of its serious importance. And we all recognize the weak- 
ness of the literature on the subject. Dr. Robinson takes SEXUAL IMPOTENCE 
a sensible view of things which have not been sensibly con- 
sidered; nowhere has he shown this to better advantage 
than in this volume on a difficult subject. 
—Medical Fortnightly. 
Dr. Robinson discusses the numerous phases of this sub- 
ject, in both sexes, clearly and in detail. He tells no lies 
to conform to moral, social and religious ideals, and con- 
sequently those who differ with him in beliefs or in pre- 
tensions may censure him as immoral. In some of these 
points there is opportunity for difference of opinion, but 
on the whole we think that Dr. Robinson has expressed 
what the majority of physicians believe, tho not necessarily 
the opinion most frequently published. Pretty nearly 
every conceivable sexual abnormality, physical or psychic 
is at least alluded to. If we were to select any one feature 
of this work for special mention, it would be the uniform 
common sense of the author.—Buffalo Medical Journal. 
This book is not by any means a rehash of some other 
book or a resume of several. This treatise is interesting 
and valuable, and the author is absolutely honest and fear- 
less in his opinions. A unique and helpful feature is the 
case reports which illustrate every phase of sexual dis- 
order.—Indianapolis Medical Journal. 
Dr. Robinson deals with the subject in a dignified, scien- 
tific way, that will be helpful to the physician who has 
judgment enough to realize that he is as responsible for 
functions around which a modern, sham, conventional 
modesty has thrown a hiatus of folly as he is for the ap- 
petite, eliminative powers or nutritive functions of the same 
persons. And the science of eugenics can never be worthy 
of medical consideration until the people are taught that 
it is as much the duty and Dusiness of physicians to in- 
quire about the sexual habits of patients as of their habits 
of eating and drinking. This book will do much good, and 
that good will be as extensive as its reading. 
—Texas State Journal of Medicine. SEXUAL IMPOTENCE 
In this book we have a complete treatise on sexual dis- 
orders and their treatment, with descriptions of actual 
individual cases, giving the individual symptomatology and 
individual treatment. When given in this manner the de- 
scription becomes indelibly impressed on the memory and 
enables a physician when he gets a case to understand and 
classify it without a great amount of difficulty. 
—Charlotte Medical Journal. 
The name of the author is ample assurance that this 
treatise is not a rehash nor lacking in honest opinions fear- 
lessly expressed. The style of the writer is notably per- 
sonal, clear, straightforward and conversational. The ex- 
haustion of the first edition in less than two months from 
the day of publication shows unmistakably the need of 
a book of this character. It also shows that the profession 
is at last becoming alive to its shortcomings in the matter 
of sexual disorders and is beginning to be willing to learn. 
—Southern California Practitioner. 
Perhaps no subject pertaining to human ills has been so 
neglected by medical teachers or medical text-books as 
the subject discussed in this volume. While legitimate 
medical literature was indiscreetly silent on sex teachings, 
the quack literature was teeming with misinformation, 
which, as the author intimates, did more real harm than 
did sexual ignorance or sex abuse. The doctor will find 
this work instructive.—Illinois Medical Journal. 
As is to be expected Robinson goes into the subject 
thoroly, and calls a spade a spade, with the result that he 
has evolved a volume full of meat and of great value to 
the physician, whose ingenuity is often taxed to the ut- 
most to discover the whys and wherefores at the bottom of 
impotence. The racy Robinsonesque style adds interest to 
the text matter of the volume.—Medical Times. 
Dr. William J. Robinson is to-day the most eminent 
student of venereal disease. This fact will not need sub- 
stantiation by those who have followed his work as set SEXUAL IMPOTENCE 
forth in his various books. This volume is a complete 
treatise on sexual impotence. It has the merit of being a 
practical work. By this we mean it can be readily con- 
sulted and the author’s meaning is always plain. Dr. Rob- 
inson is a forceful writer and his teachings are up-to-date. 
The author gives all that is new and true on the subject, 
and teaches us how to proceed in cases that we have treated 
without a complete guide in the past. No practitioner can 
afford to be without this book.—Therapeutic Record. 
The author states his views on certain mooted sexual 
questions with an unequivocal clearness and positiveness 
which certainly leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind as to 
just what the author wanted to say. This is a book full of 
meat, served up in the author’s frank and catchy style. 
—Medical Summary. 
In reviewing this classical work, we make unhesitatingly 
the statement that this is the only complete treatise on 
sexual impotence and other sexual disorders in the Eng- 
lish or any other language. Any physician who has made 
a careful study of the book cannot fail to treat his cases 
with a fair degree of success. It is a distinctly practical 
volume. In his inimitable style the talented author has 
woven his scientific truths into the fifty-eight chapters, 
each of which reads like an interesting novel. 
•—Pacific Medical Journal. 
The author has departed from the usual technical writ- 
ing of books. While his views may appear radical at 
times, his style is interesting, forceful, simple and yet ele- 
gant. The work is the result of the author’s experience, 
of which he is easily the literary and practical master. 
It contains some new information on the nature and treat- 
ment of sexual impotence, presented in a clear, systematized 
form, therefore well adapted for the general practitioner. 
—Denver Medical Times. 
Among other phases of sexual disorders that are in- 
cluded in this volume are sterility, relation of sexual to SEXUAL IMPOTENCE 
mental disorders, masturbation and many other conditions 
of great importance to the patient and intense interest to 
the physician. Many case reports are given in full that 
add value to the work. Patients suffering from sexual 
disturbances present themselves to every physician, be he 
specialist or general practitioner. For this reason this 
book by Dr. Robinson appeals to the entire medical pro- 
fession.—Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic. 
Dr. Robinson has written a great deal on the sex ques- 
tion. There is a large fund of information in this book 
which should be known. The clinical phases of the subject 
have been kept in mind, the frequent reports of cases, etc., 
fill the needs of the physician. Impotence is reviewed 
from every practical standpoint. It is an entertainingly 
written volume, and gives rise to thought and study. 
—Medical Herald. 
Especially interesting are the chapters upon treatment. 
These are in every respect excellent and practical and can- 
not fail to be of service to any physician who has patients 
of this kind to treat—and who has not? 
—American Journal of Clinical Medicine. 
The author expresses himself and his original ideas with 
the well known characteristic freedom which has given his 
editorials in The Critic ahd Guide such wide publicity 
and interest.—Northwest Medicine. 
Special emphasis is laid on treatment, and there are a 
number of entirely new conceptions dwelt upon. It is 
one of the most interesting clinical surveys of the subject 
ever offered to the profession.—Archives of Diagnosis. 
Dr. Robinson, the author of this book, is a specialist of 
national reputation and he is one of the most forcible 
writers in the medical profession. Such works as the one 
before us, are doing a great work in enlightening the medi- 
cal profession and thru them, the men and women of 
the country, who most need enlightenment, advice and SEXUAL IMPOTENCE 
treatment, upon the sex question. It is certainly a valuable 
book to the profession and contains information of in- 
estimable importance. Its careful perusal by every physi- 
cian will be the means of offering much in the way of 
valuable suggestions for the more successful and better 
management of many difficult and oftentimes misunder- 
stood cases. We must not lose sight of the large numbers 
of disorders of various kinds that may be traceable back 
to some sexual disturbance. The successful physician of 
the present time must acquaint himself with the far-reach- 
ing influence of the sex question. Certainly the successful 
management of cases of sexual impotence by the family 
physician will build up for him a reputation with the re- 
sult that he will not only be well-paid financially but will 
enjoy the lasting thanks of his patients as well. 
—Texas Medical News. 
It is an unfortunate fact that few physicians pay little 
real attention to the diagnosis and treatment of venereal 
diseases and still fewer to the sexual diseases or disorders 
that are not venereal. It is still more unfortunate that 
few physicians realize or admit their ignorance of these 
subjects. From this standpoint alone there is need of such 
a book as “Sexual Impotence,” but when the book is brief, 
concise, plainly written, and very much to the point it must 
be further commended. The author wastes no time on 
anatomy, physiology, and various theories, which may be 
found in other places, but goes directly at his subject, 
devoting the most space to those things which are of the 
greatest practical importance, namely: masturbation, and 
its influence on sexual disorders, pollutions and spermator- 
rhea, sexual impotence, sexual neurasthenia, and sterility 
with its treatment. The ground covered under the above 
subjects is not only intensely interesting but immensely 
important and practical; and few men will read the book 
without some benefit.—The Journal-Lancet. 
The author is a master of his subject and has produced 
a work of exceedingly great value. It will be appreciated SEXUAL IMPOTENCE 
by all medical men who very frequently meet cases in- 
cluded in this category and require aid. A section on 
prescriptions gives the author’s favorite methods of ex- 
hibiting certain drugs and combinations of drugs. It will 
be found a very useful book for this class of prevalent dis- 
orders.—Medical World. 
Of books on the sexual question there seems to be no 
end. This book however, we must admit, fills a sphere of 
usefulness that we cannot ascribe to many of the others. 
Dr. Robinson has taken a prominent lead in modernizing 
our present day sexual viewpoint. Many who write on 
these lines are theorists and dreamers, but Robinson’s writ- 
ings stand apart by their very practicability. Thruout 
this work the needs of the physician have been kept in 
mind, and the result is a sane, sensible and useful book. 
—Medical Sentinel. 
Dr. Robinson’s well-known ability in the clinical field 
of sexual deviations finds practical and scientific expression 
in this book, which is an adequate guide in the treatment 
of the sexual disorders of both men and women. 
—Medical Council. 
We think that all readers of Dr. Robinson’s book will 
be especially interested in his treatment of sterility and 
sexual neurasthenia, and we believe the work worthy of 
wide circulation among physicians.—American Practitioner. 
When the reader has completed the volume he is struck 
with the minuteness, the detail, the wealth of knowledge 
spread before him, and withal, the simple phraseology, the 
common-sense of the author and his uncommon power of 
placing before one facts, facts and yet more facts. He 
tears away the veil of mystery, sheds light on the all too 
prevailing ignorance of the medical man, specialist as well 
as general practitioner, and places in his hands means 
for the alleviation of the sufferings of many an individual 
whose ailments are but too often treated slightingly or 
not at all.—Virginia Medical Semi-Monthly. SEXUAL PROBLEMS 
OF TODAY 
WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
(Dr. Robinson’s work deals with every phase of the 
ex question, both in its individual and its social as- 
pects. In this book the scientific knowledge of a 
Dhysician, eminent as a specialist in everything per- 
iaining to the physiological and medical side of these 
;opics, is combined with the vigorous social views 
)f a thinker who has radical ideas and is not afraid 
;o give them outspoken expression. 
A few of the subjects which the author discusses 
n trenchant fashion are: 
The Relations Between the Sexes and Man’s Inhumanity 
to Woman. — The Influence of Abstinence on Man’s Sexual 
Health and Sexual Power. — The Double Standard of Morality 
and the Effect of Continence on Each Sex.— The Limitation of 
Offspring: the Most Important Immediate Step for the Better- 
(ment of the Human Race, from an Economic and Eugenic 
Standpoint. — What To Do With the Prostitute and How To 
Abolish Venereal Disease.—The Question of Abortion Considered 
In Its Ethical and Social Aspects. — Torturing the Wife When 
the Husband Is At Fault. — Influence of the Prostate on Man’s 
Mental Condition.—The Most Efficient Venereal Prophylactics, 
etc. etc. 
“ SEXUAL PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY ” will give 
[most of its readers information they never possessed 
oefore and ideas they never had before — or if they 
bad, never heard them publicly expressed before. 
Cloth-bound, 320 Pages, $2 Postpaid 
THE CRITIC AND GUIDE CO. 
12 MT. MORRIS PARK W. NEW YORK At last we have a clear, plain, concise book on the treat- 
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expressly for the general practitioner. 
No Physician who has occasion to treat Gonorrhea can do justice to his 
Patient without a study of this latest and clearest volume on the subject. 
THE TREATMENT OF 
GONORRHEA 
And Its Complications in Men and Women. 
For the General Practitioner. 
By 
WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, 
M.D. 
An idea of the scope of this work may be gained from the Chapter Headings: 
i. Extent and Seriousness of Gonorrhea. 2. Classification of Urethral 
Inflammations. 3. Gonorrheal Urethritis in the Male. 4. The Germ and the 
Diagnosis of Gonorrhea. 5. Course and Symptomatology of Acute Gonorrhea. 
6. Treatment of Acute Gonorrhea. 7. Case Reports. 8. Common Bacterial Ure- 
thritis. 9. Chancroidal Urethritis. 10. Syphilitic Urethritis. n. Chemical 
Urethritis. 12. Prophylactic Urethritis. 13. Traumatic Urethritis. 14. Toxic 
Urethritis. 15. Urethritis from Excess and Masturbation. 16. The Widely Vary- 
ing Conditions Known as Chronic Gonorrhea. 17. Treatment of Chronic Gonor- 
rhea. 18. Length of Time Required to Cure Chronic Gonorrheal Conditions. 19. 
Instruments Used in Treatment. 20. Abortive Treatment. 21. Prevention of 
Gonorrhea. 22. Minor Complications of Gonorrhea (Phimosis, Paraphimosis, 
Balanitis, Adenitis, Painful Erections and Chordee, Retention of Urine). 23. Acute 
Prostatitis. 24. Chronic Prostatitis. 25. Epididymitis. 26. Seminal Vesiculitis. 
27. Gonorrhea of the Rectum. 28. Gonorrhea of the Mouth. 29. Stricture. 
30. Gonorrheal Rheumatism. 31. Gonorrhea vs. Tobacco, Alcohol and Sexual 
Intercourse. 32. Gonorrhea in Women. 33. Vulvovaginitis in Little Girls. 34. 
Gonorrheal Ophthalmia. 35. Minor Points. Part 13.—Materia Medica of Gonor- 
rheal and Non-Gonorrheal Urethritis and Their Complications. 36. Silver Salts 
—Inorganic and Organic. 37. Miscellaneous Antiseptics and Astringents. 38. 
Vegetable Astringents. 39. Local Anesthetics. 40. Anti-Gonorrheal Remedies 
for Internal Use. 41. Urinary Antiseptics. 42. Lubricants. 43. Formulary. 
315 pages, cloth, $2.50 postpaid 
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THE 
CRITIC AND GUIDE 
Dr. Robinson s Famous Little Monthly 
It is the most original journal in the country. It is the only 
one of its kind, and is interesting from cover to cover. There is no 
routine, dead matter in it. It is one of the very few journals 
that is opened with anticipation just as soon as it is received and 
of which every line is read with real interest. 
Not only are the special problems of the medical profession itself 
dealt with in a vigorous and progressive spirit, but the larger, social 
aspects of medicine and physiology are discussed in a fearless and 
radical manner. 
Many problems untouched by other publications, such as the sex 
question in all its varied phases, the economic causes of disease and 
other problems in medical sociology, are treated boldly and freely 
from the standpoint of modem science. In discussing questions 
which are considered taboo by the hyper-conservative, the editor 
says what he wants to say very plainly without regard for Mrs. 
Grundy. 
The Critic and Guide was a pioneer in the propaganda for 
birth control, venereal prophylaxis, sex education of the young, and 
free discussion of sexual problems in general. It contains more 
interesting and outspoken matter on these subjects than any other 
journal. 
While of great value to the practitioner for therapeutic sugges- 
tions of a practical, up-to-date and definite character, its editorials 
and special articles are what make The Critic and Guide unique 
among journals, read eagerly alike by the medical profession and 
the intelligent laity. 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY 
ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
THE CRITIC AND GUIDE COMPANY 
12 MT. MORRIS PARK W. :: :: NEW YORK CITY AN EPOCH-MAKING BOOK 
Never-Told Tales 
GRAPHIC STORIES OF THE DISASTROUS 
RESULTS OF SEXUAL IGNORANCE 
By 
WILLIAM J. ROBINSON, M.D. 
Editor of the American Journal of Urology and of The Critic and Guide 
Every doctor, every young man and woman, every newly-married 
couple, every parent who has grown-up children, should read this 
book. 
Every one of the tales teaches a distinct lesson, a lesson of vital 
importance to the human race. 
We knew that we were getting out a useful, a NECESSARY book, 
and we expected it would meet with a favorable reception, but we 
never expected the reception would be so extravagantly and so 
unanimously enthusiastic. There seems to have been a long-felt 
but dormant want for just such a book. One reader, who has a 
fortune running into the millions, writes: 
“I would have given a good part of my fortune if the knowledge 
I obtained from one of_your stories to-day had been imparted to 
me ten years ago.” 
Another one writes: 
“I agree with you that your plain, unvarnished tales from real 
life should have been told long ago. But better late than never. 
Your name will be among the benefactors of the human race for 
having brought out so forcibly those important, life-saving truths. 
I know that I personally have already been benefited by them.” 
Fine Cloth Binding. One Dollar per Copy 
NINTH EDITION 
THE CRITIC AND GUIDE COMPANY 
12 MT. MORRIS PARK, WEST NEW YORK