"The real undermining of health is not seen. It is done in an insidious
way. It has to be carefully ferreted out."
DR. HARVEY W. WILEY.
WHAT EVERY MOTHER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EUGENICS
In the preceding pages we have written about eugenics as a science; it is
our intention now to point out briefly in just what way eugenics directly
concerns the mothers of to-day. In the first place let us try to appreciate
what it will mean to the race if "the fit only are born." "Fit" children,
it will be recalled, means children born healthy of healthy, selected
parents, parents with a good ancestral history, conveying to their
offspring a reasonably adequate legacy. If the "fit only are born" we start
with a healthy stock. What a significant and tremendous advantage this is.
At once we rid the world of the potential inefficients--the feeble-minded,
the insane, the criminal, the deaf-mute, the drunkard. If we are correct in
assuming that the reason why all former civilizations have failed and
passed away, was because they bred a race of people physically and mentally
unfit to survive, the demand of the eugenist that only "fit children shall
be born" will strike at the very root of this evil. If we uproot the cause
of racial degeneration we begin the building of a race that should not
degenerate. If we establish a race that will not degenerate, it must gain
strength and virility with each generation.
This assumption is logically correct, but we must do more than breed "fit"
children. We must take care of them after they are born. We must furnish
them with a good environment (see page 3). Heredity without favorable
environment counts for very little,--we must never forget that. Heredity
and environment are the two important determining factors in the life of
every child born. If eugenics furnishes the heredity by ensuring the [48]
birth of the "fit" only, it depends upon the mothers of the race to provide
the environment. Every mother must know how to take the best care of
herself and of her child. This book is devoted to instructing her in the
details of this duty.
We cannot hope, however, to reach this high altruistic plane by simply
taking the first step in the right direction. We who are alive to-day must
begin the work, and leave it to posterity to carry forward. We must do our
part. Every mother must become an enthusiastic eugenist. If she begins to
teach, and preach, and practise its principles now, she will contribute to
the heredity of unborn generations. To those of us who are alive to-day,
environment is the vastly more important consideration, for our heredity is
fixed and beyond the power of control. The question of eugenics for the
present generation, therefore, is a question of environment.
All our efforts must be directly in developing what heredity gives our
children. We are wholly responsible for that. We must feed and clothe them
properly; we must provide air spaces and playgrounds for exercise; we must
educate them, and protect them from disease; and we must safeguard the
birth of future generations by keeping our race stream pure. This is no
small task, and the only way it will ever be satisfactorily accomplished is
for each mother to realize her individual trust. The average individual
does not realize the actual conditions that prevail. When recently the
question of the public health was investigated by competent authorities,
and the report furnished to the United States Senate, it caused a
tremendous sensation. If that is possible in a body composed of men who are
supposed to be intelligent and wide-awake to existing conditions, how much
more significant and appalling it should be to the average mother whose
interest is centered in her own home.
According to the statistics and statements given in that document the
annual financial loss from needless deaths and accidents alone amounted to
$3,000,000,000. [Page 49]
Acute diseases are held responsible for a large part of the loss. Chronic
diseases are responsible for the greatest part of the waste of life, and
they are believed to be increasing in their ravages. Minor ailments,
believed to be nine-tenths preventable, are now costing the nation many
dollars through incapacitation of persons and through leading to serious
illness. Industrial accidents, largely preventable, are also exacting a
heavy toll annually.
That this great waste of life and health and the national economic loss
that results can be modified by national action is asserted. Here are to be
found the reasons advanced for a great national department of health. The
work of this department would be varied. It would include direct work in
promoting health on the part of the government, such as administering the
food and drug act; aiding the healing and educational agencies, both city
and State; obtaining information concerning the cause and prevention of
diseases, and disseminating scientifically proved information on all health
subjects.
It is maintained that the movement for the conservation of health is the
most momentous of the conservation movements in this country, and that of
all the national wastes which are to be condemned, this waste of health is
the gravest.
Many startling statements are set forth in the document. Dr. Charles
Wardell Stiles, of the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital
Services, declares that "The United States is seven times dirtier than
Germany and ten times as unclean as Switzerland." He declares that: "Lack
of interest in preventive measures against diseases is slaughtering the
human race." He takes the position that the real trouble is not so much
race suicide as race slaughter, and that it is rather that too many
children are allowed to die than that not enough children are born.
It is estimated that tuberculosis, a preventable disease, costs the nations
$1,000,000,000 annually. Typhoid fever is estimated by Dr. George M. Kober,
dean of the medical department of Georgetown University, to cost over
$300,000,000 annually. [Page 50]
In connection with acute diseases this statement is made: "The loss from
tuberculosis has been reduced to half of what it was thirty years ago.
Nevertheless, of the 90,000,000 people now living in the United States at
least 5,000,000 will be lost through this disease because adequate effort
is not made to prevent it. Besides the economic waste through deaths from
any disease, the waste through sickness from the same disease is also
colossal."
Great as are the reductions in the rates of infant mortality by improved
milk and water supplies and by educational campaigns, the present rate is
still enormous.
"If some witch or wizard could conjure up the unnecessary babies' funerals
annually occurring in this country it would be found that the little
hearses would reach from New York to Chicago. If we should add the mourning
mothers and friends, it would make a cortége extending across the
continent."
While the death rates from acute diseases have been greatly reduced, the
rates from chronic diseases have been steadily increasing. Cancer is one of
the chronic diseases apparently on the increase.
That the annual death toll and the 3,000,000 constant sick beds could be
reduced from one-fourth to one-half by proper measures is asserted. In
other words, there might be saved every day, as many lives as perished on
the _Titanic_, with the consequent enormous economic saving.
These are surely impressive statements. It would seem as though it should
be a simple task to pass a Public Health Bill, establishing a bureau in
Washington, with a representative in the cabinet, whose sole duty it would
be to preserve the public health. It has proved rather the reverse,
however. We have been able to inaugurate various species of
conservation,--of lands, of forests, of water,--but the conservation of
human life is not important enough. Even though states and empires depend
upon their people for their very existence, our statesmen feel that human
life is too cheap, too common, to take immediate steps in this direction.
If women--especially mothers--would devote themselves to the eugenic [51]
end of legislation, men would soon obey. The application of eugenics to the
human species, coming, almost in the spirit of an inspiration, at the time
when women are about to be enfranchised, is significant. It may be that
destiny has decreed that the one shall be the complement of the other; it
is certainly beyond contradiction that in eugenics the women of the earth
have a divine weapon with which to wage a righteous and an awaking
propaganda of truth.
A mother should be interested in every phase of the subject. Her daughter's
success in marriage should intimately concern her. Her health and her
happiness in that sphere should elicit her deepest maternal consideration.
She may rightly hope to be proud of her daughter's offspring, and to find
pleasure in the society of her grandchildren. She should, therefore, devote
all her efforts to ascertain the truth, with reference to the physical and
mental equipment of her future son-in-law; his ability adequately to
support a family; his sobriety, his disposition, associates, etc., should
all be carefully considered and pondered over. This is not going far
enough, however; we must know positively that he is not diseased,--that he
is not a victim of gonorrhoea or syphilis.
When parents weigh in the balance the possibility of a wrecked life, of
destroying the right to have children, or of bringing them into the world
blind or diseased; of permanently destroying the hope of happiness, peace,
and success, no combination of advantages in a son-in-law is deserving of
the slightest consideration. We are treating of the sacred things of
life--of life itself. If parents combine to crucify and betray their
daughters--to sell them body and soul into bondage for social or other
advantages; if they preserve silence when they should speak and thereby
take all the sunshine, for all eternity, out of one existence; then, if on
their death-beds these daughters should accuse them, the guilty knowledge
that they were responsible will be the sting that will blast their hope of
peace and forgiveness here and in the worlds to come.
When mothers realize that, every day, in every large hospital in every city
in the civilized world some woman (a daughter of some mother) is being [52]
unsexed because of these unjustly obtained diseases, surely their voices
shall speak in no uncertain way.
Another eugenic suggestion that should deeply concern every good mother is,
that the mother's milk is the private property of the babe, and whoever
deprives the babe of this, the sole right it possesses, is not only a thief
but a scoundrel. A curious and significant fact was discovered by
investigators when studying the question of infant mortality a few years
ago. It was found from a mass of statistics that there were two recent
instances when the death rate of infants decreased suddenly and quite
decidedly. The first instance was when the Civil War in this country caused
a cotton famine in England. As a result of the famine the factories of
Lancashire were all closed and the employees being then without work
remained at home. As a large percentage of the workers were married women
with children they had the time and the opportunity to nurse their children
regularly. Despite the fact that these women were starved and badly clad
and deprived of the comforts of home, the death rate of the infants dropped
steadily to an unprecedently low mark.
A number of years later, when the German army surrounded Paris during the
Franco-Prussian War the besieged inhabitants of the capital suffered from
hunger and disease. The death rate of the adult population increased
enormously while the death rate of the infants dropped markedly.
The explanation of this curious phenomenon was simply that while times were
normal the women labored outside of their homes and as a consequence the
babies were not fed regularly and when fed were not fed mothers' milk. It
demonstrated a truth that we are apt to lose sight of, that mothers' milk,
even the milk from badly-nourished, poverty-stricken mothers is infinitely
better than an abundant supply of artificial food combined with neglect. In
view of the fact that there is a distinct tendency to evade this maternal
duty these facts should be suggestive and important. It is the duty of the
mother with any eugenic sense to preach and to practise this gospel. [53]
Paris learned the lesson of the siege because though she has the smallest
birth-rate to-day, she nevertheless has the smallest infant death-rate of
any large city in Europe.
The writer believes that in eugenics the women of the race have the
instrument wherewith to save the world. He is assured that it is the
supreme potential agency for the betterment of the race, and that mankind
will never be inspired with a holier cause. He believes that through all
the ages the human race has been growing better, coming nearer the truth,
and that as a result of this patient progress, there has been evolved the
eugenic idea that is to solve the problems of the human family. If the "fit
only are born" think of the possibilities of education and of environment.
Each child is born with a great potential promise, and endowed with a
reasonably good heredity, the whole effort of that child will be toward a
higher moral attainment. If the effort of the individuals of the race is to
achieve a high moral success, the quality of the civilization of future
generations will be far superior to the type with which we are familiar.
Eugenics gives to women the supreme civilizing instrument of the future. It
places the burden of the morality of the home and of the race on their
shoulders. If we deny the writing on the wall it does not render the
warning negative. The signs of the times are epochal. The great political
parties are realizing, for the first time in history, that new and
important issues concerning the family, the home, and the children, in
other words the nation's manhood and womanhood, must be considered and
included in their platforms. They know that the time has gone when
statesmen will exclusively decide what shall be done with the sons and
daughters which women bring into the world. They know that the mothers of
the race must have a voice in deciding for peace or war since they create
every soldier that will lie dead when war is over. Women will help decide
the question of taxation by government and by trusts, because they know
that it comes out of their incomes and they need it all for their children.
Women know that their cause is the cause of freedom, and freedom is the[54]
cause of the eugenist. They know that the function of government should be
justice and no code of justice can have higher ethics than the ethics of
eugenism.
MOTHERS' EUGENIC CLUBS.--There should be established in every community a
mothers' eugenic club. The object of the club should be to further the
eugenic idea. Papers should be prepared, read, and discussed on subjects
having a eugenic interest.
One of the main aims of these clubs should be to interest the local
Congressman and the member of the State Legislature in eugenics. In all
probability they will know nothing specific about race-culture--unless they
are exceptional men--in which case it will be the duty of the members of
the club to educate them. The object of such education of course would be
to ensure that they will act intelligently when any legislative proposal is
made having a eugenic interest. Find out what they know about the public
health as contained in the report on page 48, and if they will vote in
favor of a Public Health Bureau. You should know how your representatives
stand on the Pure Food and Drugs Act; if they really appreciate the
significance of the measure; if they would be in favor of pensioning
mothers and widows who have children depending upon them; what their views
are regarding compulsory marriage licenses; the reporting of venereal
diseases to the local health authorities; if they would favor the
segregation of the feeble-minded and their maintenance and treatment by the
state; if they endorse the eugenic principle that "the fit only shall be
born," and if they really understand just what that means.
If the mothers in every community would take this step, they could control
the legislation affecting such subjects in a comparatively short time. If
the various States concede to women the right to vote--as they will sooner
or later--such mothers' clubs would have a large and intelligent share in
educating the women's votes on questions which directly concern their own
immediate and remote welfare.
The question of education would concern these clubs and much could be done
by mothers to direct the authorities as to just what is needed to educate
for [Page 55] parenthood, along the lines suggested elsewhere in this book.
A mothers' eugenic club would rightly become an instrument for good in all
local sociological interests. It could maintain a trained nurse to care for
the sick and helpless, to teach the people how to live, and how to care for
their homes and their children. The members themselves could visit the
poor, the needy, and the sick.
There are so many people in the world who are near the brink of
failure,--so many who need a little hope infused into their lives,--and so
many who are really deserving of help and sympathy and inspiration. The
women who do this work for the work's sake are amply repaid by the good
they find to do. The doing of such work is a consecration and an education.
Life means more, and the whole temperament reflects a truer sympathy and a
stronger purpose.
There are many mothers, for example, who are willing to do what is
essential in the interest of their children, but they do not know what
should be done. These people cannot afford a physician or a nurse to teach
them, nor do they even know that their methods are wrong or that they need
any instruction. We must carry the information and the explanation to them.
We must show them the need for a change of methods. This is the work for
those charitably disposed women who desire some worthy purpose in life, who
really wish to do some genuine good. All the equipment they need is good
common sense. They will explain why it is essential to pasteurize the milk
before feeding it to the baby because most of the milk used by the poor is
unfit for use as a baby food. They will show how to keep the nipples and
the bottles clean, and they will give them lessons on how to prepare the
food to the best advantage. They will instruct them how to dress the baby
in hot weather, and they will explain why it is necessary to provide the
baby with all the fresh air possible. They will gain the confidence of
these mothers and they will tell them all they know, in tactful and
diplomatic and common-sense language so that they may appreciate the
eugenic reasons for everything they do regarding the care and well-being of
the baby. In every city in the country this work is needed and is [56]
waiting for the missionaries who will volunteer. To teach mothers the need
for boiled water as a necessary drink for baby and older children is alone
a worthy avocation. To impress upon one of these willing but ignorant
mothers the absolute necessity for washing her hands before preparing
baby's food, that she must keep a covered vessel in which the soiled
napkins are placed until washed, that she should frequently sponge her baby
in hot weather,--and explain thoroughly why these are important
details,--is a work of true religious charity. They should be taught to rid
their houses of flies, and especially to keep them from the baby and from
its food, bottles, and nipples. They should be instructed to discontinue
milk at the first sign of intestinal trouble, to give a suitable dose of
castor oil, and to put the child on barley water as a food until the danger
is passed. They should be taught to know the serious significance of a
green watery stool, that it is the one danger signal in the summer time
that no mother can ignore without wilfully risking the life of her baby.
They should be shown how to prepare special articles of diet when they are
needed. If every mother were educated to the extent as indicated in the
above outline the appalling infant mortality would fall into
insignificance. It is not a difficult task, nor would it take a long time
to carry out; it is the work for willing women who have time and who
perhaps spend that time in less desirable but more dramatic ways. It is
education that is needed, and it is education that is willingly received,
as all mothers are ready to devote their time in the acquirement of
knowledge that will help them save their offspring. This is the eugenic
opportunity and it is an opportunity that should devolve upon the women of
the race.
Such a mothers' club would receive the willing financial support of the men
of the community. It should be placed upon a sound financial basis because,
to be successful, it would have to bestow much material aid. I know of
clubs that are self-supporting, however. Each club needs a leader to begin
it; will the reader be that one in her Community?
A Mothers' Eugenic Club would of course discuss the practical side of [57]
the eugenic question: the proper feeding and clothing of children; hygiene,
sanitation, housekeeping and homemaking, and the efficiency and health of
each member of the home, and all other topics of interest to every wife and
mother. The writer believes that in the very near future we shall have a
Mothers' Eugenic Club in every community in the United States; that these
clubs will be guided by, and be an instrument of, a National Eugenic
Bureau, composed of women, that will coöperate and harmonize the work as a
whole, so that the conservation of human life will be effected to its
maximum extent; that the excessive infant mortality will be overcome,
because ignorant and incompetent mothers--the greatest cause of infant
mortality--will be educated and instructed in the rudiments of eugenics and
will consequently, to a large extent, cease to be ignorant and incompetent;
that the desecration of young wives will stop, and stop forever, because
vice and disease will be branded and exposed; that the feeble-minded, the
deaf-mute, the imbecile, and the insane, will no longer be allowed to
propagate their kind, to the permanent detriment of the race.
When such clubs are established, and when all mothers do their individual
duty in the interest of the race, we shall begin to see the dawn of a
promise that will achieve its supreme success in the generations that will
people the earth in the eugenic aftertime.
* * * * *
[61]
CHILD-BIRTH