The best test (the only possible mathematical test) of our moral, physiological and financial progress is the constant increase in longevity of our population. In 1890 to 1899 it was 46.20; in 1900 to 1909 it was 51 years. Such rise cannot be equalled in any other country except in Scandinavia where birth limitation was preached long before it was in Holland. None of the dreadful consequences anticipated by the advocates of clericalism, militarism and conservatism have occurred. In spite of our low birth-rate the population in our country is rising faster than ever before, simply because it is concomitant with a greater economic improvement and better child hygiene.” The good doctor closes his letter by saying: “One must have been a family physician for twenty-five years like myself in a large city (Rotterdam) to appreciate the blessings of conscious motherhood resulting in the better care of children, the higher moral standard. And all these blessings are taken away from you by your government’s peculiar laws, made to please the Puritans.” Dr. Jacobi, Ex-President of the American Medical Association and the New York Academy of Medicine, said: “The future of mankind is conditioned by its children. Unless they be healthy and fit to work physically and mentally, they can not perform any duty in the service of the family, the municipality or the state. Hereditary influences propagate epilepsy, idiocy, feeble-mindedness and cretinism. Such children should not have been permitted to be born. Yet the prohibition of unnecessary and not wanted accessions of human beings is considered criminal.” Dr. Lydia Allen de Vilbis of the New York State Department of Health, said that among the 25,000 deaths of children under one year of age that occur annually in New York State, half were due to causes with which medical boards could not hope to cope—the defective, the deformed, the crippled, the diseased. “What are we going to do about these babies who are born only to suffer and die?” she asked. “There are at least 12,000 a year, 1,000 for each month, more than thirty a day. What for? Because we are so stupid that we still believe a pound of cure is better than an ounce of prevention.” _MARY ALDEN HOPKINS. Harper’s Weekly, 1915._