s--the
qualities of courage and resolution in both men and women, of
scorn of what is mean, base and selfish, of eager desire to
work or fight or suffer as the case may be provided the end to
be gained is great enough, and the contemptuous putting aside
of mere ease, mere vapid pleasure, mere avoidance of toil and
worry. I do not know whether I most pity or most despise the
foolish and selfish man or woman who does not understand that
the only things really worth having in life are those the
acquirement of which normally means cost and effort. If a man
or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout
life denied those highest of all joys which spring only from
home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy
children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy--the
sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the
beginning of a campaign, or the man who toils hard and is
brought to ruin by the fault of others. But the man or woman
who deliberately avoids marriage, and has a heart so cold as
to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to
dislike having children, is in effect a criminal against the
race, and should be an object of contemptuous abhorrence by
all healthy people_.

_Of course no one quality makes a good citizen, and no one
quality will save a nation. But there are certain great
qualities for the lack of which no amount of intellectual
brilliancy or of material prosperity or of easiness of life
can atone, and which show decadence and corruption in the
nation just as much if they are produced by selfishness and
coldness and ease-loving laziness among comparatively poor
people as if they are produced by vicious or frivolous luxury
in the rich. If the men of the nation are not anxious to work
in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and
ready and able to fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of
families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest
thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that
nation has cause to be alarmed about its future_.

_There is no physical trouble among us Americans. The trouble
with the situation you set forth is one of character, and
therefore we can conquer it if we only will._

_Very sincerely yours,_