e-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 con