of the point under
consideration. In France, more than half the women who have reached
the age of nubility are married; in Ireland, generally speaking, less
than a third. In both countries the crude birth rate is far below that
in other European lands. Yet the fertility of the Irish wife exceeded
that of her French compeer by 44 per cent in 1880, and by no less than
84 per cent in 1900. And since that time the prolificity of the Irish
mother has so increased that she is now, approximately speaking,
inferior only to the Dutch or Finnish mother in this respect.

In general, in any country where we find a diminished prolificity a
falling off of childbirth _unaccompanied_ by a decrease in the number
of marriages occurring at the reproductive ages, we may attribute this
decrease to _voluntary restriction of childbearing_ on the part of the
married, or in other words, to the prevalence of "birth control."
This incidentally, is not a theoretical statement, but one supported
by the almost unanimous medical opinion in all countries. Everywhere
and especially here in our own United States, we find evidence of the
extensive employ of "birth control" measures to prevent that normal
development of family life which underlies the vigor and racial power
of every nation. These preventive measures which arbitrarily control
human birth had long been in use in France with results which,
especially since the war, have been frequently and publicly deplored
in the press, and have led the French Government to offer substantial
rewards to encourage the propagation of large families. From France
the preventive practices of "birth control" had spread, after 1870,
over nearly all the countries of western Europe, to England and to the
United States; though they are not as much apparent in those countries
where the Roman Church has a strong hold on the people.

As a general thing, the practice of thus unnaturally limiting
families--"unnaturally" since the custom of "birth control" derives
from no natural, physical law--prevails, in the first instance, among
the well-to-do, who should rather be the first to set the example of
protest against it by having the families they are so much better able
to support and educate than those less favored with the world's goods.
If the evil of voluntary control of human birth were restricted to a
privileged class, say one of wealth, the harm done would, perhaps, not
be so great. But, unfortunately, in the course