,
even though some of their measures may be considered ineffective or
inadvisable.

At its annual meeting in 1914 the German Society for Race Hygiene
adopted a resolution on the subject of applied eugenics. "The future of
the German people is at stake," it declares. "The German empire can not
in the long run maintain its true nationality and the independence of
its development, if it does not begin without delay and with the
greatest energy to mold its internal and external politics as well as
the whole life of the people in accordance with eugenic principles. Most
important of all are measures for a higher reproduction of healthy and
able families. The rapidly declining birth-rate of the healthy and able
families necessarily leads to the social, economical and political
retrogression of the German people," it points out, and then goes on to
enumerate the causes of this decline, which it thinks is partly due to
the action of racial poisons but principally to the increasing willful
restriction of the number of children.

The society recognizes that the reasons for this limitation of the size
of families are largely economic. It enumerates the question of expense,
considerations of economic inheritance--that is, a father does not like
to divide up his estate too much; the labor of women, which is
incompatible with the raising of a large family; and the difficulties
caused by the crowded housing in the large cities.

In order to secure a posterity sufficient in number and ability, the
resolution continues, The German Society for Race Hygiene demands:

1. A back-to-the farm movement.

2. Better housing facilities in the cities.

3. Economic assistance of large families through payment of a
substantial relief to married mothers who survive their husbands, and
consideration of the number of children in the payment of public and
private employees.

4. Abolition of certain impediments to marriage, such as the army
regulation forbidding officers to marry before they reach a certain
grade.

5. Increase of tax on alcohol, tobacco and luxuries, the proceeds to be
used to subsidize worthy families.

6. Medical regulations of a hygienic nature.

7. Setting out large prizes for excellent works of art (novels, dramas,
plastic arts) which glorify the ideal of motherhood, the family and
simple life.

8. Awakening a national mind ready to undergo sacrifices on behalf of
future generations.

In spite of some defects such a