At its annual meeting in 1914 the German Society for Race Hygiene
adopted a resolution on the subject of applied eugenics. "The future of
the German people is at stake," it declares. "The German empire can not
in the long run maintain its true nationality and the independence of
its development, if it does not begin without delay and with the
greatest energy to mold its internal and external politics as well as
the whole life of the people in accordance with eugenic principles. Most
important of all are measures for a higher reproduction of healthy and
able families. The rapidly declining birth-rate of the healthy and able
families necessarily leads to the social, economical and political
retrogression of the German people," it points out, and then goes on to
enumerate the causes of this decline, which it thinks is partly due to
the action of racial poisons but principally to the increasing willful
restriction of the number of children.
The society recognizes that the reasons for this limitation of the size
of families are largely economic. It enumerates the question of expense,
considerations of economic inheritance--that is, a father does not like
to divide up his estate too much; the labor of women, which is
incompatible with the raising of a large family; and the difficulties
caused by the crowded housing in the large cities.
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