Chapter XXI: The Conspiracy Against the Race

To most persons it will certainly be a surprise to hear that race suicide has been openly advocated in the columns of leading Socialist publications. True it is that the number of individuals endeavoring to spread this practice by their writings is comparatively[21] small; still, as the articles have continued to appear for years at more or less regular intervals, without exciting anything like serious opposition, we are forced to conclude that advocacy of race suicide is looked upon by a very large number of the Revolutionists as one of their characteristic virtues.

Though many vile articles advocating race suicide were published in the 1910 and the 1911 editions of "The New York Call," we shall pass them over, and discuss those of a more recent date.

In the Sunday editions of "The Call," Anita C. Block has for years been editing a page called "Woman's Sphere." This section of the paper on the 24th of March, 1912, contained an editorial comment under the caption "Enforced Motherhood and the Law," in which the practice of base and criminal race suicide is encouraged:

"Within a space covering not much more than a month, six letters have been received by us, containing in substance about what is contained in the following letter:

"'Mrs. A. C. Block, New York City:

"'Dear Comrade Block.--I have been a reader of "The Call" since
December 1, 1911. I do not know whether you can give me any
information as to what I wish to know....

"'I have three children, 3½ years, 2¼ years, and a baby 9 months.
Now, you cannot blame me if I do not care for more for some time to
come....

"'Could you give any information? Dr.... in "..." [We suppress the
author's name and the title of his work.] and "..." by ... contain
the sentence, "Every woman should know prevention of conception." I
should be thankful for any advice.

"'Yours for the Co-operative Commonwealth.'"

The editorial comment then goes on to say:

"Four of these letters we answered personally, stating the
impossibility of imparting this information under our present laws.
But when letters continued to come, we felt that any subject that
indeed meant everything in the world to the wives of the working
class, was entitled to publicity in these columns.

"These women ought to know exactly what the laws are that make the
giving of this terribly needed information--A Felony. And so we
print below the Federal or United States law on this subject."

The law is then given in all its details, after which the New York State law on the same subject is also quoted.

We are then told that "such are some of the laws on this grave subject, and, of course, no sane person would endeavor to violate them, openly at any rate. But as Dr.... states elsewhere in this page, we cannot be prevented from agitating for their repeal. Nor can we be prevented from educating the people wherever possible to an understanding that a knowledge of the means of preventing conception is a knowledge of one of the means of regenerating the race.

"Moreover even under Socialism, where economic conditions will be
such that every woman can support a dozen children in comfort if
she wants to, the volitional limitation of offspring will be
completely justifiable. For even parents in the most comfortable
circumstances should have the right to determine how many children
they want. Of all things in the world this is a matter for the
individual and not for society to determine."

Dr...., to whom reference was made in the above editorial comment, is also the author of another work advertised as follows in "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call," March 24, 1912:

"The three most important measures for the improvement of the human
race from a eugenic standpoint. What are they? I suppose everybody
who has given the subject any thought has his remedies. I have
studied the subject for years and my answer is:

"1. Teaching the people the proper means of the prevention of
conception so that the people may have only as many children as
they can afford to have, and to have them when they want to have
them.

"2.....

"3.....

"Of the three measures the first one is the most important and
still it will be the last one to come, because our prudes think it
would lead to immorality. And nevertheless I will repeat what I
said several times before, that there is no single measure that
would so positively, so immediately contribute toward the happiness
and progress of the human race as teaching the people the proper
means of regulating reproduction. This has been my sincerest and
deepest conviction since I have learned to think rationally. It is
the conviction of thousands of others, but they are too careful of
their standing to express it in public. I am happy, however, to be
able to state that my teachings have converted thousands; many of
our readers who were at first shocked by our plain talk on this
important subject are now expressing their full agreement with our
ideas. And Congress may pass draconian laws, the discussion of this
subject cannot, must not, be stopped."

On April 13, 1913, another article on the subject of race suicide, by Clara G. Stillman, appeared in "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call" under the caption, "The Right to Prevent Conception." Only part of the foul composition is here given:

"Those who are convinced that the voluntary prevention of
conception is a most important weapon in the modern fight with
poverty, disease and racial deterioration, will find their position
only strengthened by survey of their opponents' objections. These
objections are mainly of three kinds--and might be classed as the
pseudo-religious, the pseudo-moral and the pseudo-scientific,
because all are based on conceptions which our present state of
knowledge and social development have enabled us to outgrow....

"Prevention of conception is already an accepted principle among
the educated classes of every civilized country. According as the
opposition of the law and public opinion are more or less
stringent, it is practised with more or less secrecy; but secret or
open, the practice is here to stay, and it is spreading. The fear
of most of its opponents is, therefore, not nearly so much that the
human race will become extinct as that its best elements will
gradually be replaced by the worst. At first this may seem
plausible. Granting our opponents' premise temporarily, the
conclusion is logically unavoidable that in order to restore a
normal relation between the so-called more and less intelligent or
desirable classes of society, we must put into the hands of all the
methods of restricting their increase, now utilized only by the
few."

On June 1, 1913, "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call" contained a four-column article on race suicide, entitled, "Musings of a Socialist Woman." The author, Antoinette F. Konikow, who was a delegate to the Socialist National Conventions of 1908 and 1912, thus expresses her views:

"I consider the question of the prevention of conception to be of
greater value to women than even the knowledge of sexual
diseases....

"After meeting hundreds of women and girls in heart to heart talks,
I came to the sincere conviction that lectures on sex hygiene which
do not give a thorough understanding of conception in its definite
bearings on practical life and also of its possibilities of
prevention--that such lectures miss their main aim in bringing help
to distressed humanity....

"Instead of meeting every need and demand of the worker, we are so
hampered by the fear of getting a bad reputation among our enemies
that we express our support to a new tendency only after it has
acquired a certain respectability in society....

"Do the daring words of Comrade Clara G. Stillman or Dr....'s
article not hurt the feelings of some of our Comrades? No doubt
some readers felt dissatisfied but not more so than others who had
to read the conservative statement of Comrade Carey in 'The
Leader,' that he considers Bebel's conception of the family
un-Socialistic and anti-Socialistic....

"Do our morals stand on a higher plane, thanks to the careful
guardianship of our laws?...

"It is high time then to serve notice upon all our benevolent
censors and upholders of such laws, and declare ourselves fit to
get along without their superior guidance. It is time to open a
crusade against this hypocritical suppression of knowledge, which
leads to endless and needless suffering. It is time to emphatically
declare the right of the mother to control the functions of her own
body for her own good and the welfare of her offspring."

The disastrous consequences of such a crusade to further the cause of race suicide are very forcibly brought home to us by an article which appeared in "The Call," May 10, 1914, on "The Conscious Limitation of Offspring in Holland":

"Our headquarters at The Hague and our subdivisions in all our
greater towns are spreading theoretical leaflets and pamphlets; but
the special pamphlet giving practical information in the prevention
of conception, is only given to married people when asked. We are
lecturing everywhere. But the essential missionary work is done
privately and modestly, often unconsciously by showing the happy
results in their own families, by the nearly 5,000 members of our
league spread over the whole country, among whom are physicians,
clergymen and teachers, etc. Every day information is asked by
letters and still more by our printed postcards; all information is
given cost-free and post-free. Almost all younger doctors and
midwives are giving information, and are helping mothers in the
cases when it is wanted on account of pathological indications.
Moreover special nurses are instructed in helping poor women.
Harmless preventive means are more and more taking the place of
dangerous abortion. So, merely by our freedom of giving
information, we have reached the desirable results proved most
brilliantly by the statistical figures of our country."

On May 21, 1914, "Woman's Sphere" of "The Call" devoted two more of its columns to the race suicide propaganda in the form of an article by Sonia Ureles under the caption, "Hats Off, Gentlemen, The Law!" Since many parts of the production are too foul to permit our quoting them, we shall give but a few short passages:

"But the doctors only scowled, and the nurse told her gently that
the law did not permit poor people to regulate the birth of their
offspring....

"To the thought of a private practitioner she gave no heed; it was
to her a luxury undreamed of....

"The nurse, a well-meaning honest creature, writhed uncomfortably
under her gaze. 'It's--it's against the law to give out such
information,' she stammered.

"'I don't care about the law,' came the stubborn reply. 'You
promised. Now tell me.' Nevertheless she left the hospital without
the information....

"She applied to the women of her neighborhood for information. They
told her things they thought they knew, and things they thought
they ought to know. And her health was the price she paid....

"They who knew, but would not tell, left her one alternative. She
chose it. And so,

"'Hats off, gentlemen--the law!'"

In this same issue of "The Call," May 24, 1914, there is an editorial comment that promised the base devotees of race suicide an abundance of filthy reading matter for the future:

"If unwelcome motherhood is not in accordance with a constructive
eugenic program, then the free imparting of information concerning
the prevention of involuntary motherhood must be. But as has been
pointed out in these columns again and again, to make this part of
a constructive eugenic program is to run up against vicious and
barbarous state and federal laws which make the giving of necessary
information a crime, punishable by imprisonment.

"In connection with this entire subject we call the attention of
our readers to the grim sketch by Sonia Ureles, appearing elsewhere
on this page today.

"This is the first of a series of stories on the same subject which
Miss Ureles is writing for 'Woman's Sphere.' All who know the vivid
reality of this writer's work will look forward to them with keen
anticipation."

Let it not be thought for a moment that "The Call" has yet given up its propaganda of race suicide. As recently as May 25, 1919, there appeared in the magazine section of that vile Socialist daily of New York City an article on the subject entitled, "Birth Control and the War," the article being no less than twelve columns long. Several quotations are hereby given:

"Everywhere the feudal-minded ones act upon substantially the same
impulse. Everywhere they impel and, to a large extent, though by
indirection, they compel, prolific breeding among the less
intelligent persons. These latter are also the victims of the
prevailing religious, political, economic and industrial systems
and superstitions. The feudalistic ones proclaim fecundity as a
religious duty to God and a moral duty to the state. By psychologic
tricks a vanity of the unfortunate classes is encouraged so as to
make even the fools believe, or, at least, feel that they, too,
have a place in the sun....

"By the uniform activities and lingering dominance of the feudal
mind we have remained in a state of development in which we
compete, like the stock-raiser, for an international and
intercredal supremacy in and through breeding....

"As yet we have had no very urgent need for territorial expansion.
Our turn is coming and is coming soon, if only we will heed our own
feudal-minded ones, and will breed fast enough. But, without being
aggressors in this sense, we are yet unavoidably drawn into the
vortex of a world war inaugurated by the feudal-minded of other
nations and unconsciously promoted to a small degree by our own
feudal-minded ones by education for feudal-mindedness and for
prolific breeding in our people....

"The next world war may possibly be one in which the disadvantaged
of all nations will fight the feudal-minded of all nations.
Something quite near to such an invitation already has come from
Russia. Shall we hasten such a conflict by continuing to preach the
sacredness of fecundity and of war? Or shall intelligent restraint
of the feudalistic compulsion help us toward a more perfect and
peaceful adjustment with the processes that make for the
democratization of welfare, with and by intelligent family
limitation as one means?"

"The Call" is one of the official papers recognized by the Socialists of America. In 1914, while the race suicide propaganda was being carried on in its columns, lectures to be delivered for its benefit by Eugene V. Debs in many of the cities of New Jersey were advertised in its columns. It is most likely, therefore, that such a splendidly informed leader of the Revolutionists as Debs, like many thousands of members of the rank and file of the party, read some of the articles favoring race suicide. As we have never yet heard of Debs or a single Socialist complaining against the race suicide propaganda so long carried on in the columns of "The Call," we shall, unless the Marxians repudiate this form of immorality of their paper, be forced to conclude that their leader as well as a very large number of his followers intend legalizing this vice if they ever gain control of our country.

In April, 1919, a vile, crimson pamphlet was on sale in the radical book-stores of the middle west. We shall not give the title, for it is too foul and indecent. On page 4 it warns its readers "not to forget this fact, celibacy, absolute continence from want of desire congenial or acquired, monkish asceticism are pathological states, diseased states of mind or body." Further on, we read, on page 10:

"Do not be a suffering Jesus. Do not take him as an example. Do not
whine or snuffle, but get ahead in the world while you can. Get
lands, property and independence somehow....

"The teachings of Christianity were designed for the castration of
the human soul. Christ would make you, not a free man, a hero, and
a warrior, but a hireling, a submissive beast of burden, a helot, a
nobody. Christianity is cowardice institutionalized and
peace-on-earth is the philosophy of the tax gatherer, the usurer,
and the international exploiter." On the inner side of the back
cover of the foul pamphlet a book is advertised by the
"International Socialist Control Association of Chicago," which
seems also to publish the crimson pamphlet from which the above
quotation was taken. The advertisement of the book is hereby given
in part:

"MOTHERS AND FATHERS, ATTENTION.

"The welfare of the world depends upon the bringing up of children.

"Everything depends upon the right start, hence it is your highest
duty to see that your children are started right.

"Foremost men say and statistics show the stupendous peril of our
political, religious, and educational system. The root of education
is not merely knowing how to read and write, but knowing men
analytically and scientifically.

"Anything is possible to the man who knows how and why. We develop
and plan out your life according to your adaptions and
inclinations--no guess work but cold, hard, mathematical facts. We
show you how to control, manage, and handle humanity and make it
your business to shape men's minds as easily as clay.

"Misery, superstition and poverty must go."

On the back cover sheet of the pamphlet it is stated that the International Socialist Control Association of Chicago is "An organization that teaches the suppressed and downtrodden truth, long controlled by the political and religious machine. The only organization that places health, happiness and marriage upon solid, scientific principles."

In the summer of 1919, "The Call" of New York City, Morris Hillquit's vile publication, became more bold than ever in favoring race suicide. On June 29, 1919, for instance, there appeared a three-column article in the magazine section of the paper, entitled, "The ... League." Parts of the article are hereby quoted:

"Many readers of 'Woman's Sphere' have expressed themselves as
eager to know the raison d'etre of The ... League, which is the
latest development in the birth control movement.

"The answer is that this new league is started to speed up the
birth control movement. Its first aim is to take the question
straight to Congress and repeal the Federal statute which prohibits
the circulation of contraceptive knowledge. All the restrictive
state laws are modeled on this Federal obscenity statute. If that
is repealed, the state laws can easily be made to follow suit....

"The repeal of this obnoxious out-of-date legislation is the
longest single step toward that end.

"The next step is to get the subject taught in the medical schools,
and to have the best possible scientific information wisely and
well distributed. Every health agency in the country should have it
for the benefit of all who are in need. It should be available at
hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, maternity centers, charity
organizations and, most of all, through the Federal Health Service
and the National Children's Bureau....

"Most Socialists are already convinced of the rightness of birth
regulation, but not all of them see the need for working now to
free the information. Some say, 'Oh, just work to achieve Socialism
and when we have that, things like birth control will come without
effort.' ...

"Birth control is a necessary tool for the struggle after social
justice. Therefore, Socialists should insist upon it right now, and
not be content to wait for the Co-operative Commonwealth to bring
it to them, also they should not hesitate to co-operate with
non-Socialists to get it. Birth control is a blessing to humanity
as a whole. Everybody needs it."

On July 13, 1919, "The Call" published an editorial on Dr. Abraham Jacobi who had recently died. In the course of the editorial the following statement is made:

"Many honors have been showered upon Dr. Jacobi, but probably none
will be more brilliant than the fact that he was one of the first
to fearlessly discuss the question of birth control."

On July 15, 1919, there appeared in "The Call" the letter of the director of the birth control league similarly praising the late Dr. Jacobi:

"...He did not wait till the baby was born, nor did he limit
himself to what is ordinarily known as the prenatal care. He again
and again proved his sincere belief that the only way to give
babies a fair chance in this world is for the parents to know how
to regulate the family birth rate."

"The Call" on July 14, 1919, advertised seven birth control meetings to be held during the week in New York City. Two days later, on July 16, it advertised an open air birth control rally.

In "Woman's Sphere" of the magazine section of "The Call," July 27, 1919, there appears another three-column article favoring race suicide, entitled, "How Shall We Change the Law?" We shall quote briefly:

"Once it is no longer on the statute books that it is unlawful to
impart information on the prevention of conception, then people may
freely help each other to attain the precious information so
urgently needed. The 'limited' bill would give this right only to
doctors and possibly to nurses and midwives....

"And while we would not be so unscientific as to deny for a moment
that it would be better for every woman to get her advice and
instruction concerning the use of contraceptive directly from a
doctor, nevertheless it is impossible to overestimate the help men
and women could give each other were the free exchange of
information on methods of birth control legal instead of
illegal....

"We feel quite sure that women will get infinitely more sympathetic
help and advice from each other than they will ever get from any
free clinic doctors."

"The Call" on July 26, 1919, announced that Anita C. Block, editress of "Woman's Sphere" of the paper, had accepted nomination as a delegate to the August 30, 1919, convention of the Socialist Party in Chicago.

The September 2, 1919, issue of "The Call" states that it received the congratulations of the National Convention of the party then assembled at Chicago. There is, however, no record of any Socialist complaint against its continued race suicide propaganda. We can, therefore, draw our conclusions as to whether the Socialists approve of propagating race suicide.

Away down in Mexico there lives a certain Linn A. E. Gale, a young Socialist who fled to that country from the United States to escape conscription. He is a "brave" fellow, for not only did he shirk his duties as a soldier and flee from his native land to escape jail, but he publishes a Socialist magazine in Mexico City in which he seeks to deprive of life those who have as much right to it as he himself has; in other words he is carrying on a campaign for race suicide. We quote from the August, 1919, issue of his Socialist publication, known as "Gale's Magazine":

"Mr. Felix F. Palavinci,

"Manager of El Universal,

"Mexico City, D. F. Mexico:

"Sir.--It is generally believed that you inspired the recent act of
the health department of this city in having confiscated copies of
a Spanish translation of ...'s famous book on how to practise birth
control, and in sentencing me to the penitentiary when I refused to
pay a $500 fine for publishing the said translation, which
outrageous and malicious penalty was revoked by order of Mexico's
Secretary of State, Manuel Aguirre Berlanga.

"It is hard to believe that a man of your intelligence and supposed
progressive ideas would be guilty of such a contemptible act. Yet
facts are facts and the facts leave little room for doubt that you
were to a large extent, if not almost entirely, responsible. The
persistent series of bitter and abusive articles published by your
newspaper, El Universal, against birth control and against me
personally, constitute convincing proof of your interest in
preventing contraceptive information from being diffused among the
Mexican people...."

In the same issue of Gale's Mexican Socialist magazine there appears an article entitled, "First Congress of the National Socialist Party of Mexico." Speaking of the party platform to be adopted, Gale says in part:

"Another clause should put the party squarely on record as opposing
the recent tyrannical and illegal effort of the Mexico City health
department to prevent the dissemination of scientific birth control
information among the poorer classes."

Hysterical critics of the New York Assembly have accused the Judiciary Committee of that body of accepting as evidence against the five suspended Socialist Assemblymen every conceivable reproach against the Socialist Party of America which could be scraped together out of its entire history. An inquiry to ascertain the qualifications of Socialists to make the laws of the land assuredly would be justified in searching every possible source of information. But, as a matter of fact, the Judiciary Committee confined its investigation to evidence bearing directly upon the political and governmental aspects of the case.

Had the Judiciary Committee wished to bring out what would most surely and deeply shock the moral sense of the American people--the organized propagation of immorality with which the five suspended Assemblymen were linked--the facts given in this and the preceding chapter show that no difficulty would have been found in digging up overwhelming evidence. The preceding chapter shows the propagation of free-love doctrines through all the publicity departments of the Socialist Party of America. The present chapter shows that the "New York Call," the chief political organ of the New York State branch of the Socialist Party of America, with which the five suspended Assemblymen were most intimately linked, has for years carried on an unclean and indecent propaganda to teach all within its polluting reach to violate one of the laws of the State of New York.