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Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/3/20

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The Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury by John Collier
Born 28 April 1801
24 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, England
Died 1 October 1885 (aged 84)
12 Clifton Gardens, Folkestone, Kent, England
Cause of death Inflammation of the lungs
Resting place The parish church on his estate at Wimborne St Giles, Dorset
Known for Philanthropy
Years active 44 Years
Nationality British
Successor
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury

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Shield of arms of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, as displayed on his Order of the Garter stall plate, viz. quarterly 1st and 4th, argent three bulls passant sable armed and unguled or, for Ashley; 2nd and 3rd, gules a bend engrailed between six lions rampant or, for Cooper.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury KG (28 April 1801 – 1 October 1885),[1] styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851 and then Lord Shaftesbury following the death of his father, was a British politician, philanthropist and social reformer. He was the eldest son of Cropley Ashley-Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury and his wife Lady Anne Spencer, daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, and older brother of Henry Ashley, MP.

Early life

Lord Ashley, as he was styled until his father's death in 1851,[2] was educated at Manor House school in Chiswick (1812–1813), Harrow School (1813–1816) and Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained first class honours in classics in 1822, took his MA in 1832 and was appointed DCL in 1841.[3]

Ashley's early family life was loveless, a circumstance common among the British upper classes, and resembled in that respect the fictional childhood of Esther Summerson vividly narrated in the early chapters of Charles Dickens's novel Bleak House.[4] G.F.A Best in his biography Shaftesbury writes that: "Ashley grew up without any experience of parental love. He saw little of his parents, and when duty or necessity compelled them to take notice of him they were formal and frightening."[5] Even as an adult, he disliked his father and was known to refer to his mother as "a devil".

This difficult childhood was softened by the affection he received from his housekeeper Maria Millis, and his sisters. Millis provided for Ashley a model of Christian love that would form the basis for much of his later social activism and philanthropic work, as Best explains: "What did touch him was the reality, and the homely practicality, of the love which her Christianity made her feel towards the unhappy child. She told him bible stories, she taught him a prayer."[6] Despite this powerful reprieve, school became another source of misery for the young Ashley, whose education at Manor House from 1808 to 1813 introduced a "more disgusting range of horrors".[5] Shaftesbury himself shuddered to recall those years, "The place was bad, wicked, filthy; and the treatment was starvation and cruelty."[5]

By teenage years he had become a committed Christian and whilst at Harrow two experiences happened that would influence his later life. "Once, at the foot of Harrow Hill, he was the horrified witness of a pauper’s funeral. The drunken pall-bearers, stumbling along with a crudely-made coffin and shouting snatches of bawdy songs, brought home to him the existence of a whole empire of callousness which put his own childhood miseries in their context. The second incident was his unusual choice of a subject for a Latin poem. In the school grounds, there was an unsavoury mosquito-breeding pond called the Duck Puddle. He chose it as his subject because he was urgently concerned that the school authorities should do something about it, and this appeared to be the simplest way of bringing it to their attention. Soon afterwards the Duck Puddle was inspected, condemned and filled in. This little triumph was a useful fillip to his self-confidence, but it was more than that. It was a foretaste of his skill in getting people to act decisively in face of sloth or immediate self-interest. This was to prove one of his greatest assets in Parliament."[7]

Political career

Ashley was elected as the Tory Member of Parliament for Woodstock (a pocket borough controlled by the Duke of Marlborough) in June 1826 and was a strong supporter of the Duke of Wellington.[3] After George Canning replaced Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister, he offered Ashley a place in the new government, despite Ashley having been in the Commons for only five months. Ashley politely declined, writing in his diary that he believed that serving under Canning would be a betrayal of his allegiance to the Duke of Wellington and that he was not qualified for office.[8] Before he had completed one year in the Commons, he had been appointed to three parliamentary committees and he received his fourth such appointment in June 1827, when he was appointed to the Select Committee On Pauper Lunatics in the County of Middlesex and on Lunatic Asylums.[9]

Reform of the Lunacy Laws

See also: History of psychiatric institutions

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Lord Shaftesbury by Henry Hering.

In 1827, when Ashley-Cooper was appointed to the Select Committee On Pauper Lunatics in the County of Middlesex and on Lunatic Asylums, the majority of lunatics in London were kept in madhouses owned by Dr Warburton. The Committee examined many witnesses concerning one of his madhouses in Bethnal Green, called the White House. Ashley visited this on the Committee's behalf. The patients were chained up, slept naked on straw, and went to toilet in their beds. They were left chained from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning when they were cleared of the accumulated excrement. They were then washed down in freezing cold water and one towel was allotted to 160 people, with no soap. It was overcrowded and the meat provided was "that nasty thick hard muscle a dog could not eat". The White House had been described as "a mere place for dying" rather than curing the insane and when the Committee asked Dr MacMichael whether he believed that "in the lunatic asylums in the neighbourhood of London any curative process is going on with regard to pauper patients", he replied: "None at all".[10]

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Lord Shaftesbury by George Frederick Watts.

The Committee recommended that "legislative measures of a remedial character should be introduced at the earliest period at the next session", and the establishment of a Board of Commissioners appointed by the Home Secretary possessing extensive powers of licensing, inspection and control.[11] When in February 1828 Robert Gordon, Liberal MP for Cricklade, introduced a bill to put these recommendations into law, Ashley seconded this and delivered his maiden speech in support of the Bill. He wrote in his diary: "So, by God's blessing, my first effort has been for the advance of human happiness. May I improve hourly! Fright almost deprived me of recollection but again thank Heaven, I did not sit down quite a presumptuous idiot". Ashley was also involved in framing the County Lunatic Asylums (England) Act 1828 and the Madhouses Act 1828. Through these Acts, fifteen commissioners were appointed for the London area and given extensive powers of licensing and inspection, one of the commissioners being Ashley.[12]

In July 1845 Ashley sponsored two Lunacy Acts, ‘For the Regulation of lunatic Asylums’ and ‘For the better Care and Treatment of Lunatics in England and Wales’. They originated in the Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy which he had commended to Parliament the year before. These Acts consolidated and amended previous lunacy laws, providing better record keeping and more strict certification regulations to ensure patients against unwarranted detention. They also ordered, instead of merely permitting, the construction of country lunatic asylums with and establishing an ongoing Lunacy Commission with Ashley as its chairman.[13] In support of these measures, Ashley gave a speech in which he claimed that although since 1828 there had been an improvement, more still needed to be done. He cited the case of a Welsh lunatic girl, Mary Jones, who had for more than a decade been locked in a tiny loft with one boarded-up window with little air and no light. The room was extremely filthy and was filled with an intolerable smell. She could only squat in a bent position in the room and this had caused her to become deformed.[14]

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The Earl of Shaftesbury by Carlo Pellegrini, 1869

In early 1858 a Select Committee was appointed over concerns that sane persons were detained in lunatic asylums. Lord Shaftesbury (as Ashley had become upon his father's death in 1851) was the chief witness and opposed the suggestion that the certification of insanity be made more difficult and that early treatment of insanity was essential if there was to be any prospect of a cure. He claimed that only one or two people in his time dealing with lunacy had been detained in an asylum without sufficient grounds and that commissioners should be granted more not fewer powers. The Committee's Report endorsed all of Shaftesbury's recommendations except for one: that a magistrate's signature on a certificate of lunacy be made compulsory. This was not put into law chiefly due to Shaftesbury's opposition to it. Clarification needed The Report also agreed with Shaftesbury that unwarranted detentions were "extremely rare".[15]

In July 1877 Shaftesbury gave evidence before the Select Committee on the Lunacy Laws, which had been appointed in February over concerns that it was too easy for sane persons to be detained in asylums. Shaftesbury feared that because of his advanced age he would be taken over by forgetfulness whilst giving evidence and was greatly stressed in the months leading up to this: "Shall fifty years of toil, anxiety and prayer, crowned by marvellous and unlooked-for success, bring me in the end only sorrow and disgrace?" When "the hour of trial" arrived Shaftesbury defended the Lunacy Commission and claimed he was now the only person alive who could speak with personal knowledge of the state of care of lunatics before the Lunacy Commission was established in 1828. It had been "a state of things such as would pass all belief". In the Committee's Report, the members of the Committee agreed with Shaftesbury's evidence on all points.[16]

In 1884 the husband of Mrs Georgina Weldon tried to have her detained in a lunatic asylum because she believed that her pug dog had a soul and that the spirit of her dead mother had entered into her pet rabbit. She commenced legal action against Shaftesbury and other lunacy commissioners although it failed. In May Shaftesbury spoke in the Lords against a motion declaring the lunacy laws unsatisfactory but the motion passed Parliament. The Lord Chancellor Selborne supported a Lunacy Law Amendment Bill and Shaftesbury wanted to resign from the Lunacy Commission as he believed he was honour bound not to oppose a Bill supported by the Lord Chancellor. However, Selborne implored him not to resign so Shaftesbury refrained. However, when the Bill was introduced and it contained the provision which made it compulsory for a certificate of lunacy to be signed by a magistrate or a judge, he resigned. The government fell, however, and the Bill was withdrawn and Shaftesbury resumed his chairmanship of the Lunacy Commission.[17]

Shaftesbury's work in improving the care of the insane remains one of his most important, though less well known, achievements. He wrote: "Beyond the circle of my own Commissioners and the lunatics that I visit, not a soul, in great or small life, not even my associates in my works of philanthropy, has any notion of the years of toil and care that, under God, I have bestowed on this melancholy and awful question".[18]

Child labour and factory reform

In March 1833 Ashley introduced the Ten Hours Act 1833 into the Commons, which provided that children working in the cotton and woollen industries must be aged nine or above; no person under the age of eighteen was to work more than ten hours a day or eight hours on a Saturday; and no one under twenty-five was to work nights. However the Whig government, by a majority of 145, amended this to substitute "thirteen" in place of "eighteen" and the Act as it passed ensured that no child under thirteen worked more than nine hours, insisted they should go to school, and appointed inspectors to enforce the law.[19]

In June 1836 another Ten Hours act was introduced into the Commons and although Ashley considered this Bill ill-timed, he supported it. In July one member of the Lancashire committees set up to support the Bill wrote that: "If there was one man in England more devoted to the interests of the factory people than another, it was Lord Ashley. They might always rely on him as a ready, steadfast and willing friend".[20] In July 1837 he accused the government of ignoring the breaches of the 1833 Act and moved the resolution that the House regretted the regulation of the working hours of children had been found to be unsatisfactory. It was lost by fifteen votes.[20]

The text of A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd a Factory Cripple was sent to Lord Ashley and with his support was published in 1840.[21] Ashley employed William Dodd at 45 shillings a week and he wrote "The Factory System: Illustrated" to describe the conditions of working children in textile manufacture. This was published in 1842.[22] These books were attacked by John Bright in parliament who said that he had evidence that the books described Dodd's mistreatment but were in fact driven by Dodd's ingratitude as a disgruntled employee. Ashley sacked Dodd who emigrated to America.[23]

In 1842 Ashley wrote twice to the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, to urge the government to support a new Factory Act. Peel wrote in reply that he would not support one and Ashley wrote to the Short Time Committees of Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire who desired a Ten Hours Act:

Though painfully disappointed, I am not disheartened, nor am I at a loss either what course to take, or what advice to give. I shall persevere unto my last hour, and so must you; we must exhaust every legitimate means that the Constitution afford, in petitions to Parliament, in public meetings, and in friendly conferences with your employers; but you must infringe no law, and offend no proprieties; we must all work together as sensible men, who will one day give an account of their motives and actions; if this course is approved, no consideration shall detach me from your cause; if not, you must elect another advocate. I know that, in resolving on this step, I exclude myself altogether from the tenure of office; I rejoice in the sacrifice, happy to devote the remainder of my days, be they many or be they few, as God in His wisdom shall determine, to an effort, however laborious, to ameliorate your moral and social condition.[24]


In March 1844 Ashley moved an amendment to a Factory Bill limiting the working hours of adolescents to ten hours after Sir James Graham had introduced a Bill aiming to limit their working hours to twelve hours. Ashley's amendment was passed by eight votes, the first time the Commons had approved of the Ten Hour principle. However, in a later vote his amendment was defeated by seven votes and the Bill was withdrawn.[25] Later that month Graham introduced another Bill which again would limit the employment of adolescents to twelve hours. Ashley supported this Bill except that he wanted ten hours not twelve as the limit. In May he moved an amendment to limit the hours worked to ten hours but this was lost by 138 votes.[26]

In 1846, whilst he was out of Parliament, Ashley strongly supported John Fielden's Ten Hours Bill, which was lost by ten votes.[27] In January 1847 Fielden reintroduced his Bill and it finally passed through Parliament to become the Ten Hours Act.[28]

Miners

Ashley introduced the Mines and Collieries Act 1842 in Parliament to outlaw the employment of women and children underground in coal mines. He made a speech in support of the Act and the Prince Consort wrote to him afterwards, sending him the "best wishes for your total success". At the end of his speech, his opponent on the Ten Hours issue, Cobden, walked over to Ashley and said: "You know how opposed I have been to your views, but I don't think I have ever been put into such a frame of mind in the whole course of my life as I have been by your speech".[29]

Climbing boys

Ashley was a strong supporter of prohibiting the employment of boys as chimney sweeps. Many climbing boys were illegitimate who had been sold by their parents. They suffered from scorched and lacerated skin, their eyes and throats filled with soot, with the danger of suffocation and their occupational disease—cancer of the scrotum.[30] In 1840 a Bill was introduced into the Commons outlawing the employment of boys as chimney sweeps, and strongly supported by Ashley. Despite being enforced in London, elsewhere the Act did not stop the employment of child chimney sweeps and this led to the foundation of the Climbing-Boys' Society with Ashley as its chairman. In 1851, 1853 and 1855 Shaftesbury introduced Bills into Parliament to deal with the ongoing use of boy chimney sweeps but these were all defeated. He succeeded in passing the Chimney Sweepers Regulation Act 1864 but like its predecessors, it remained ineffectual. Shaftesbury finally persuaded Parliament to pass the Chimney Sweepers Act 1875 which ensured the annual licensing of chimney sweeps and the enforcement of the law by the police. This finally eradicated the employment of boys as chimney sweeps.[31]

After Shaftesbury discovered that a boy chimney sweep was living behind his house in Brock Street, London, he rescued the child and sent him to "the Union School at Norwood Hill, where, under God's blessing and special merciful grace, he will be trained in the knowledge and love and faith of our common Saviour".[32]

Education reform

In 1844 Ashley became president of the Ragged School Union that promoted ragged schools. These schools were for poor children and sprang up from volunteers. Ashley wrote that "If the Ragged School system were to fail I should not die in the course of nature, I should die of a broken heart".[33]

Religion and Jewish restorationism

Shaftesbury was a pre-millennial evangelical Anglican who believed in the imminent second coming of Christ. His belief underscored the urgency of immediate action. He strongly opposed the Roman Catholic Church and any hint of Romanism or ritualism among High Church Anglicans. He strongly opposed the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, fearful of Catholic features. In 1845 he denounced the Maynooth Act, which funded the Catholic seminary in Ireland that would train many priests.[34]

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Lord Shaftesbury's "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine", published in the Colonial Times, in 1841

Shaftesbury was a leading figure within 19th-century evangelical Anglicanism.[35] Shaftesbury was President of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) from 1851 until his death in 1885. He wrote, of the Bible Society, "Of all Societies, this is nearest to my heart... Bible Society has always been a watchword in our house." He was also president of the Evangelical Alliance for some time.[2]

Shaftesbury was also a student of Edward Bickersteth and together they became prominent advocates of Christian Zionism in Britain.[36][37] Shaftesbury was an early proponent of the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land, providing the first proposal by a major politician to resettle Jews in Palestine. The conquest of Greater Syria in 1831 by Muhammad Ali of Egypt changed the conditions under which European power politics operated in the Near East. As a consequence of that shift, Shaftesbury was able to help persuade Foreign Minister Palmerston to send a British consul, James Finn, to Jerusalem in 1838. Shaftesbury became president of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews,[38] of which Finn was a prominent member. A committed Christian and a loyal Englishman, Shaftesbury argued for a Jewish return because of what he saw as the political and economic advantages to England and because he believed that it was God's will. In January 1839, Shaftesbury published an article in the Quarterly Review, which although initially commenting on the 1838 Letters on Egypt, Edom and the Holy Land (1838) by Lord Lindsay, provided the first proposal by a major politician to resettle Jews in Palestine:[39][40]

The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain; the finest cotton may be obtained in almost unlimited abundance; silk and madder are the staple of the country, and olive oil is now, as it ever was, the very fatness of the land. Capital and skill are alone required: the presence of a British officer, and the increased security of property which his presence will confer, may invite them from these islands to the cultivation of Palestine; and the Jews, who will betake themselves to agriculture in no other land, having found, in the English consul, a mediator between their people and the Pacha, will probably return in yet greater numbers, and become once more the husbandmen of Judaea and Galilee.[41]


The lead-up to the Crimean War (1854), like the military expansionism of Muhammad Ali two decades earlier, signalled an opening for realignments in the Near East. In July 1853, Shaftesbury wrote to the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation” in need of “a nation without a country... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" In his diary that year he wrote "these vast and fertile regions will soon be without a ruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territory must be assigned to some one or other... There is a country without a nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country."[42][43] This is commonly cited as an early use of the phrase, "A land without a people for a people without a land" by which Shaftesbury was echoing another British proponent of the restoration of the Jews to Israel, (Dr Alexander Keith.)

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Bust of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, by F. Winter, 1886. In the collection of Dorset County museum, Dorchester

Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade

Shaftesbury served as the first president of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade: a lobbying group opposed to the Anglo-Asian opium trade. The Society was formed by Quaker businessmen in 1874, and Shaftesbury was president from 1880 until his death.[44] The Society's efforts eventually led to the creation of the investigative Royal Commission on Opium.

Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain

The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus, London, erected in 1893, was designed to commemorate his philanthropic works. The fountain is crowned by Alfred Gilbert's aluminium statue of Anteros as a nude, butterfly-winged archer. This is officially titled The Angel of Christian Charity, but has become popularly if mistakenly known as Eros. It appears on the masthead of the Evening Standard.

Veneration

Lord Shaftesbury is honoured together with William Wilberforce on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 30 July. Lord Shaftesbury was a member of the Canterbury Association, as were two of Wilberforce's sons, Samuel and Robert. Lord Ashley joined on 27 March 1848.[45]

Family

Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, married Lady Emily Caroline Catherine Frances Cowper (died 15 October 1872), daughter of Peter Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper and Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper; Emily is likely in fact to have been the natural daughter of Lord Palmerston (later her official stepfather), on 10 June 1830. This marriage, which proved a happy and fruitful one, produced ten children.[46] It also provided invaluable political connections for Ashley; his wife's maternal uncle was Lord Melbourne and her stepfather (and supposed biological father) Lord Palmerston, both Prime Ministers.

The children, who mostly suffered various degrees of ill-health, were:[47]

1. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury (27 June 1831 – 13 April 1886), ancestor of all subsequent earls.[48] He proved to be a disappointing heir apparent, constantly running up debts with his extravagant wife Harriet, born Lady Harriet Chichester.[49]
2. Hon. (Anthony) Francis Henry Ashley-Cooper, second son (b. 13 March 1833[50] – 13 May 1849)[51][52]
3. Hon. (Anthony) Maurice William Ashley-Cooper, third son (22 July 1835 – 19 August 1855), died aged 20, after several years of illness.[53]
4. Rt. Hon. (Anthony) Evelyn Melbourne Ashley (24 July 1836 – 15 November 1907), married 1stly 28 July 1866 Sybella Charlotte Farquhar (ca. 1846 – 31 August 1886), daughter of Sir Walter Rockcliffe Farquhar, 3rd Bt. by his wife Lady Mary Octavia Somerset, a daughter of the Duke of Beaufort and had one son Wilfred William Ashley, and one daughter. His granddaughter was Hon. Edwina Ashley, later Lady Mountbatten (1901–1960), who had two daughters Patricia, Countess Mountbatten of Burma (1924-2017) and Lady Pamela Hicks (b. 1929). Evelyn Ashley left several other descendants via his daughter and Edwina's younger sister. Evelyn Ashley married 2ndly 30 June 1891 Lady Alice Elizabeth Cole (4 February 1853 – 25 August 1931), daughter of William Willoughby Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen by his 1st wife Jane Casamajor, no issue. The Rt Hon Evelyn Melbourne Ashley died 15 November 1907.
5. Lady Victoria Elizabeth Ashley, later Lady Templemore (23 September 1837[54] – 15 February 1927), married 8 January 1873 (aged 35) St George's, Hanover Square, London Harry Chichester, 2nd Baron Templemore (4 June 1821 – 10 June 1906), son of Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Templemore and Lady Augusta Paget, and had issue.[55]
6. Hon (Anthony) Lionel George Ashley-Cooper (b. 7 September 1838 – 1914).[54] He md 12 December 1868 Frances Elizabeth Leigh "Fanny (d. 12 August 1875), daughter of Capel Hanbury Leigh;[56] apparently had no issue.
7. Lady Mary Charlotte Ashley-Cooper, second daughter (25 July 1842[57] – 3 September 1861.[58]
8. Lady Constance Emily Ashley-Cooper, third daughter, or "Conty" (29 November 1845 – 16 December 1872[59] or 1871[60] of lung disease[61])
9. Lady Edith Florence Ashley-Cooper, fourth daughter (1 February 1847 – 25 November 1913)[62]
10. Hon. (Anthony) Cecil Ashley-Cooper, sixth son and tenth and youngest child (8 August 1849 – 23 September 1932);[62] apparently died unmarried.

Legacy

Although he was offered a burial at Westminster Abbey, Shaftesbury wished to be buried at St. Giles. A funeral service was held in Westminster Abbey during early morning of 8 October and the streets along the route from Grosvenor Square and Westminster Abbey were thronged with poor people, costermongers, flower-girls, boot-blacks, crossing-sweepers, factory-hands and similar workers who waited for hours to see Shaftesbury's coffin as it passed by. Due to his constant advocacy for the better treatment of the working classes, Shaftesbury became known as the "Poor Man's Earl".[3]

One of his biographers, Georgina Battiscombe, has claimed that "No man has in fact ever done more to lessen the extent of human misery or to add to the sum total of human happiness".[63]

Three days after his death, Charles Spurgeon eulogized him saying, "DURING the past week the church of God, and the world at large, have sustained a very serious loss. In the taking home to himself by our gracious Lord of the Earl of Shaftesbury, we have, in my judgment, lost the best man of the age. I do not know whom I should place second, but I certainly should put him first—far beyond all other servants of God within my knowledge—for usefulness and influence. He was a man most true in his personal piety, as I know from having enjoyed his private friendship; a man most firm in his faith in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; a man intensely active in the cause of God and truth. Take him whichever way you please, he was admirable: he was faithful to God in all his house, fulfilling both the first and second commands of the law in fervent love to God, and hearty love to man. He occupied his high position with singleness of purpose and immovable steadfastness: where shall we find his equal? If it is not possible that he was absolutely perfect, it is equally impossible for me to mention a single fault; for I saw none. He exhibited scriptural perfection, inasmuch as he was sincere, true, and consecrated. Those things which have been regarded as faults by the loose thinkers of this age are prime virtues in my esteem. They called him narrow; and in this they bear unconscious testimony to his loyalty to truth. I rejoiced greatly in his integrity, his fearlessness, his adherence to principle, in a day when revelation is questioned, the gospel explained away, and human thought set up as the idol of the hour. He felt that there was a vital and eternal difference between truth and error; consequently, he did not act or talk as if there was much to be said on either side, and, therefore, no one could be quite sure. We shall not know for many a year how much we miss in missing him; how great an anchor he was to this drifting generation, and how great a stimulus he was to every movement for the benefit of the poor. Both man and beast may unite in mourning him: he was the friend of every living thing. He lived for the oppressed; he lived for London; he lived for the nation; he lived still more for God. He has finished his course; and though we do not lay him to sleep in the grave with the sorrow of those that have no hope, yet we cannot but mourn that a great man and a prince has fallen this day in Israel. Surely, the righteous are taken away from the evil to come, and we are left to struggle on under increasing difficulties" (“Departed Saints Yet Living.” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons. Vol. 31. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1885. 541–542).

See also

• London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews – Shaftesbury was president of the society.
• A land without a people for a people without a land
• Christian Zionism
• YMCA - Shaftesbury served as YMCA's first president from 1851 until his death in 1885.[64]

Notes

1. "Hall of fame: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury", The Gazette
2. Smith, Benjamin E., ed. (1906). "Cooper, Anthony Ashley". The Century Cyclopedia of Names. New York: The Century Company. p. 277.
3. John Wolffe, ‘Cooper, Anthony Ashley-, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801–1885)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 13 February 2012.
4. Geoffrey Best, Shaftesbury (London: B. T. Batsford, 1964), p. 14.
5. Best, p. 15.
6. Best, p. 16.
7. II. Grand Seigneur —Good Samaritan, 24/11/2018.
8. Georgina Battiscombe, Shaftesbury: A Biography of the Seventh Earl. 1801–1885 (London: Constable, 1974), p. 28.
9. Battiscombe, p. 31.
10. Battiscombe, pp. 35–36.
11. Battiscombe, p. 37.
12. Battiscombe, pp. 37–38.
13. Battiscombe, p. 182.
14. Battiscombe, p. 182–183.
15. Battiscombe, p. 259.
16. Battiscombe, pp. 319–320.
17. Battiscombe, pp. 330–331.
18. Battiscombe, p. 318.
19. Battiscombe, p. 88, p. 91.
20. Battiscombe, p. 109.
21. Lord Ashley, Spartacus, retrieved 2 January 2014
22. Anthony Ashley Cooper, HistoryMole, retrieved 2 January 2014
23. William Dodd in Spartacus Educational, retrieved 2 January 2014
24. Battiscombe, pp. 143–144.
25. Battiscombe, p. 171.
26. Battiscombe, p. 175.
27. Battiscombe, p. 199.
28. Battiscombe, p. 202.
29. Battiscombe, pp. 148–149.
30. Battiscombe, pp. 125–126.
31. Battiscombe, pp. 126–127.
32. Battiscombe, p. 127.
33. Battiscombe, p. 196.
34. John Wolffe, "Cooper, Anthony Ashley-, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801–1885)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 6 Nov 2017
35. Chapman, Mark (2006). Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford University Press. p. 61. ISBN 9780192806932.
36. Larsen, David L.; et al. (1998). The Company of the Preachers: A History of Biblical Preaching from the Old Testament to the Modern Era, Volume 2. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications. p. 463. ISBN 978-0-8254-3086-2.
37. Lewis, Donald (2 January 2014). The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury And Evangelical Support For A Jewish Homeland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 380. ISBN 9781107631960.
38. Wigram, Joseph Cotton bp. of Rochester (1866). Report on the conference upon the Rosenthal case, held with the representatives of the committee of the London society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, by the bishop of Rochester and others. London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. p. 2 [1].
39. The London Quarterly Review, Volume 64
40. Nahum Sokolow "History of Zionism, 1600–1918"
41. Masalha, Nur. The Zionist Bible, Routledge, 2014 ISBN 9781317544654
42. Shaftsbury as cited in Hyamson, Albert, "British Projects for the Restoration of Jews to Palestine", American Jewish Historical Society, Publications 26, 1918, p. 140
43. Garfinkle, Adam M., "On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase". Middle Eastern Studies, London, Oct. 1991, vol. 27
44. A.W. Bob Coats (15 May 1995). The Economic Review. Taylor and Francis. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-415-13135-3. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
45. Blain, Rev. Michael (2007). The Canterbury Association (1848–1852): A Study of Its Members’ Connections (PDF). Christchurch: Project Canterbury. pp. 12–13, 89–92. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
46. Grace Irwin (1976). The seventh earl: a dramatized biography. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6059-0.
47. Brigitte Gastel Descendants of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough Archived 8 July 2004 at Archive.today
48. He was father of the 9th Earl (1869–1961), whose elder son Lord Ashley was father of the ill-fated 10th Earl (1938–2004, murdered by an estranged third wife), father of the 11th Earl (1977–2005) and the 12th Earl (b. 1979). Ironically, despite the 7th Earl's six sons, only the eldest son's heirs male survive to the present, in the person of the 12th Earl, last of his line. Other lines, including that of the reformer Lord Shaftesbury's four brothers, had all died out by 1986 (the death, without sons, of the Hon. John Ashley-Cooper, younger son of the 9th Earl).
49. Geoffrey B. A M. Finlayson. The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 1801–1885 Published by Regent College Publishing, 2004 ISBN 1-57383-314-2, ISBN 978-1-57383-314-1, 640 pages, p. 501 in particular refers to the future 8th Earl's debts, but there are other references. Page 500 refers to the birth of the future 9th Earl in 1869.
50. Finlayson. The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 1801–1885 p. 94
51. Ibid p. 622 index
52. Brigitte Gastel Descendants of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough< Archived 8 July 2004 at Archive.today provides full details, including full Christian names, dates of birth and death, places etc. Retrieved 8 December 2008
53. Brigitte Gastel for full dates. Also see less detail in Finlayson p. 130
54. Jump up to:a b Brigitte Gastel. Also see Finlayson p. 130
55. Lord Templemore's heir male and descendant is the present Marquess of Donegall; his fatherinheriting that title in 1975.
56. Ibid p. 622 index
57. Brigitte Gastel. Also see Finlayson p. 196. According to Finlayson, Countess Emily nearly suffered a miscarriage, and did indeed have a miscarriage in 1843.
58. Brigitte Gastel. Also see Ibid p. 427. However, p. 504 gives a different date 1860.
59. Brigitte Gastel.
60. Finlayson p. 621 index
61. Ibid p. 504
62. Brigitte Gastel. Also see Finlayson p. 621 index
63. Battiscombe, p. 334.
64. Cannon, John (2015). A Dictionary of British History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191044809.

References

• Georgina Battiscombe, Shaftesbury: A Biography of the Seventh Earl. 1801–1885 (London: Constable, 1974).
• John Wolffe, ‘Cooper, Anthony Ashley-, seventh earl of Shaftesbury (1801–1885)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 13 February 2012.

Further reading

• Best, Geoffrey. Shaftesbury (1964) short scholarly biography online free
• Bready, J. Wesley. Lord Shaftesbury and social-industrial progress (1927)
• Finlayson, Geoffrey. "The Victorian Shaftesbury." 'History Today (March 1983) 33#3 pp 31-35.
• Finlayson, Geoffrey B. A. M. The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1981), a major scholarly biography
• Furse-Roberts, David Andrew Barton. "The Making of an Evangelical Tory: The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885) and the Evolving Character of Victorian Evangelicalism." (PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2015, ).
• J. L. Hammond and B. Hammond, Lord Shaftesbury (1923). online free
• E. Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 3 vols. (1887). Volume 1; Volume2; Volume3
• Lewis, Donald (2010). The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury And Evangelical Support For A Jewish Homeland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 380. ISBN 9781107631960.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Shaftesbury
• John Debrett The Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland vol. 1: "Cropley Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury", p. 143. Reprinted 2002 from the original edition circa 1810. The entry gives details of Shaftesbury's four brothers and three surviving sisters. Further details of their marriages and descendance are available here.
• "Archival material relating to Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury". UK National Archives.
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Josephine Butler
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/4/20

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Butler in 1851, portrait by George Richmond

Josephine Elizabeth Butler (née Grey; 13 April 1828 – 30 December 1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era. She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.

Grey grew up in a well-to-do and politically connected progressive family
which helped develop in her a strong social conscience and firmly held religious ideals. She married George Butler, an Anglican divine and schoolmaster, and the couple had four children, the last of whom, Eva, died falling from a banister. The death was a turning point for Butler, and she focused her feelings on helping others, starting with the inhabitants of a local workhouse. She began to campaign for women's rights in British law. In 1869 she became involved in the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation that attempted to control the spread of venereal diseases—particularly in the British Army and Royal Navy—through the forced medical examination of prostitutes, a process she described as surgical or steel rape. The campaign achieved its final success in 1886 with the repeal of the Acts. Butler also formed the International Abolitionist Federation, a Europe-wide organisation to combat similar systems on the continent.

While investigating the effect of the Acts, Butler had been appalled that some of the prostitutes were as young as 12, and that there was a slave trade of young women and children from England to the continent for the purpose of prostitution. A campaign to combat the trafficking led to the removal from office of the head of the Belgian Police des Mœurs, and the trial and imprisonment of his deputy and 12 brothel owners, who were all involved in the trade. Butler fought child prostitution with help from the campaigning editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead, who purchased a 13-year-old girl from her mother for £5. The subsequent outcry led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 and brought in measures to stop children becoming prostitutes. Her final campaign was in the late-1890s, against the Contagious Diseases Acts which continued to be implemented in the British Raj.


Butler wrote more than 90 books and pamphlets over the course of her career, most of which were in support of her campaigning, although she also produced biographies of her father, her husband and Catherine of Siena. Butler's Christian feminism is celebrated by the Church of England with a Lesser Festival, and by representations of her in the stained glass windows of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral and St Olave's Church in the City of London. Her name appears on the Reformers Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery, London, and Durham University named one of their colleges after her. Her campaign strategies changed the way feminist and suffragists conducted future struggles, and her work brought into the political milieu groups of people that had never been active before. After her death in 1906 the feminist leader Millicent Fawcett hailed her as "the most distinguished Englishwoman of the nineteenth century".[1]

Biography

Early life; 1828–1850


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John Grey, Butler's father, portrait by George Patten

Josephine Grey was born on 13 April 1828 at Milfield, Northumberland. She was the fourth daughter and seventh child of Hannah (née Annett) and John Grey, a land agent and agricultural expert,[2][3][a] who was a cousin of the reformist British Prime Minister, Lord Grey.[5] In 1833 John was appointed manager of the Greenwich Hospital Estates in Dilston, near Corbridge, Northumberland, and the family moved to the area,[4] where John acted as Lord Grey's chief political agent in Northumberland.[5] In this role John promoted his cousin's political opinions locally, including support for Catholic emancipation, the abolition of slavery, the repeal of the Corn Laws and reform of the poor laws.[5] Josephine was taught at home before completing her schooling at a boarding school in Newcastle upon Tyne which she attended for two years.[6]

John treated his children equally within the home. He educated them in politics and social issues and exposed them to various politically important visitors.[7] John's political work and ideology had a strong influence on his daughter, as did the religious teaching she received from her mother;[8] the family background and the circles in which she moved formed a strong social conscience and a staunch religious faith.[9]

At about the age of 17 Grey went through a religious crisis, which probably stemmed from an incident in which she discovered the body of a suicide while out riding.[10][ b] She became disenchanted with her weekly church attendance, describing the local vicar as "an honest man in the pulpit ... [who] taught us loyally all that he probably himself knew about God, but whose words did not even touch the fringe of my soul's deep discontent".[12] Following her crisis, Grey did not identify with any single strand of Christianity, and remained critical of the Anglican church.[13] She later wrote that she "imbibed from childhood the widest ideas of vital Christianity, only it was Christianity. I have not much sympathy with the Church".[14] She began to speak directly to God in her prayers:

I spoke to Him in solitude, as a person who could answer. ... Do not imagine that on these occasions I worked myself up into any excitement; there was much pain in such an effort, and dogged determination required. Nor was it a devotional sentiment that urged me on. It was a desire to know God and my relation to Him.[15]


In mid-1847 Grey visited her brother in County Laois, Ireland. It was at the height of the Great Famine and the first time she had come into contact with widespread suffering among the poor; she was deeply affected by her experiences[16][17] and later recalled that "As a young girl, I had no conception of the full meaning of the misery I saw around me, yet it printed itself upon my brain and memory."[18]

Early married life; 1850–1864

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George Butler, Josephine's husband

By 1850 Grey had grown close to George Butler, a Fellow of Exeter Colege, Oxford, whom she had met at several of the balls hosted around County Durham.[19][c] By October that year George was sending her self-penned poems; the couple were engaged in January 1851 and married in January 1852. The Butlers set up home at 124, High Street, Oxford.[21] George was a scholar and cleric and shared with his wife a commitment to liberal reforms and a love of Italian culture.[19] The couple also both had a strong Christian belief and Josephine Butler later wrote of her husband that they often "prayed together that a holy revolution might come about and that the Kingdom of God might be established on the earth".[22]

In November 1852 the Butlers had a son, George Grey Butler, followed by a second, Arthur Stanley—known as Stanley—in May 1854.[23] Butler's later memories of Oxford were of a closeted and misogynist community lacking in family life; she was often the only female at social gatherings and would listen in anger to what her biographer Judith Walkowitz describes as "the open acceptance of the double standard by the gentlemen of the university".[2] Butler was offended by a discussion regarding the publication in 1853 of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Ruth in which the heroine is seduced by a man of means and subsequently abandoned. Butler saw that the male conversationalists considered it natural that a "moral lapse in a woman was spoken of as an immensely worse thing than in a man";[24] she decided not to voice her feelings on the point but "to speak little with men, but much with God".[25] As a more practical measure she—and George—began to help many of the fallen woman of Oxford and invited some to live in their house. One case in which they were involved concerned a young woman serving a prison sentence at Newgate Prison. She had been seduced by a university don who had subsequently abandoned her; the woman had murdered her baby in despair. The Butlers contacted the governor of Newgate to arrange for her to stay in their house at the end of her sentence.[2][26]

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Bust of Butler in 1865, aged 36, by Alexander Munro

In 1856 Butler's health began to suffer from Oxford's damp atmosphere,[d] which exacerbated a long-standing lesion on her lung; her doctor informed her that to remain in Oxford could be fatal. As an immediate step George purchased a house in Clifton, near Bristol, where their third son, Charles, was born in 1857.[28] The same year, as a longer-term measure, George took the position of vice-principal at Cheltenham College and they moved to a local house.[29] They continued their support for liberal causes, including that of the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi, although their sympathy for the Union side in the American Civil War led to social ostracism; Butler considered that the resultant feeling of social isolation "was often painful ... but the discipline was useful".[2][30]

In May 1859 Butler gave birth to her final child, a daughter, Evangeline Mary, known as Eva. In August 1864 Eva fell 40 feet (12 m) from the top-floor banister onto the stone floor of the hallway in her home; she died three hours later.[31] Butler was distraught at the loss and had disturbed sleep for several years; she was unable to write about the circumstances until 30 years later.[32][33] The subsequent inquest gave a verdict of accidental death.[34]

In October 1864 Stanley contracted diphtheria while Butler was still grieving for Eva. She was suffering from depression and was in poor health. After the worst of Stanley's ailment passed, Butler decided to take him to Naples for them both to rest and recuperate. The ship in which they travelled down the west coast of Italy faced rough weather, and Butler had a physical breakdown on board from which she nearly died.[35][e]

Liverpool and the start of reform work; 1866–1869

In January 1866 George was appointed headmaster of Liverpool College, and the family moved to premises in the Dingle area.[37][38] Despite the new surroundings, Butler continued to mourn for Eva but focused her feelings on helping others; she later wrote that she "became possessed with an irresistible urge to go forth and find some pain keener than my own, to meet with people more unhappy than myself. ... It was not difficult to find misery in Liverpool."[39] She made regular visits to the workhouse at Brownlow Hill, an institution that could hold 5,000 individuals.[f] She would sit with the women in the cellars—many of whom were prisoners—and pick oakum with them, while discussing the Bible or praying with them.[42][43]

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Butler's hostel for women, Liverpool in a derelict condition in 2009 before its demolition

Just as they had done in Cheltenham, the Butlers began providing shelter in their own home for some of the women, often prostitutes in the terminal stages of venereal disease. It soon became clear that there were more women in need than they could provide for, so Butler set up a hostel, with funds from local men of means.[44] By Easter 1867 she had established a second, larger home, in which more appropriate work was provided, such as sewing and the manufacture of envelopes; the "Industrial Home", as she called it, was funded by the workhouse committee and local merchants.[45]

Butler campaigned for women's rights, including the right to the vote and to have a better education.[2] In 1866 she was a signatory on a petition to amend the Reform Bill to widen the franchise to include women. The petition, which was supported by the MP and philosopher John Stuart Mill, was ignored and the bill became law.[46]


Butler considered the Liverpool hostels a stop-gap; women would continue to struggle to find employment until they had been better educated.[47] In 1867, with the suffragist Anne Clough, she established the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women, which aimed to raise the status of governesses and female teachers to that of a profession;[48] She served as its president until 1873.[2] A series of lectures, initially in towns in the north of England, began under James Stuart, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Although it was thought thirty students would sign up, three hundred joined.[49] In 1868 Butler published "The Education and Employment of Women", her first pamphlet, in which she argued for access to higher education for women, and more equal access to a wider range of jobs.[2] It was the first of 90 books and pamphlets she wrote.[2] That May she petitioned the senate of the University of Cambridge to provide examinations for women; the Cambridge Higher Examination for women was introduced the following year. Jordan notes that "much of the credit for this should go to Anne Clough, but ... Butler played a very influential part ... of the campaign."[50]

At the time British law relating to marriage was based on the legal doctrine of coverture, in which a woman's legal rights and obligations were subsumed by those of her husband upon their matrimony. By law a woman had no separate legal existence, and all her property became her husband's; divorce initiated by a woman was difficult and complicated.[51] In April 1868 Butler and fellow suffragist Elizabeth Wolstenholme set up and became joint secretaries of the Married Women's Property Committee to pressure parliament into changing the law. Butler remained on the committee until the campaign was successful, with the passing into law of the Married Women's Property Act 1882.[52]

First attempt to repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts; 1869–1874

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Butler in 1876

In 1869 Butler became aware of the Contagious Diseases Acts. They had been introduced in 1864, 1866 and 1869 to regulate prostitution in an attempt to control the spread of venereal diseases, particularly in the British Army and Royal Navy.[53] The Acts authorised the police to detain women in specific areas[g][h] considered to be prostitutes—no evidence was needed, other than the police officer's word. If a magistrate agreed, women were given genital examinations. If women were suffering from sexually transmitted diseases, they were held in a lock hospital until the condition was cured. If they refused to be examined or hospitalised they could be imprisoned, often with hard labour.[54][56]

Units of plain-clothed policemen specialised in arresting suspected prostitutes; according to Jordan, the officers were "hated for their surveillance and harassment of prostitutes and working-class women ... who they treated with little regard for their legal rights".[57] Women who were subjected to the examination found their names and reputations affected and, according to the historian Hilary Cashman, "the Acts had the effect of turning them to prostitution by barring respectable ways of life to them".[58]


In September 1869 Wolstenholme met Butler in Bristol to discuss what could be done about the Acts. The National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was founded that October, but excluded women from its membership. In response, Wolstenholme and Butler formed the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (LNA) before the end of the year.[59][60] The organisation published a Ladies Manifesto, which stated that the Acts were discriminatory on grounds of both sex and class; the Acts, it was claimed:

not only deprived poor women of their constitutional rights and forced them to submit to a degrading internal examination, but they officially sanctioned a double standard of sexual morality, which justified male sexual access to a class of 'fallen' women and penalised women for engaging in the same vice as men.[56]


On 31 December 1869 the Ladies National Association published a statement in The Daily News that it had "been formed for the purposes of obtaining the repeal of these obnoxious Acts". Among the 124 signatories were the social theorist Harriet Martineau and the social reformer Florence Nightingale.[61][ i]

Butler toured Britain in 1870, travelling 3,700 miles to attend 99 meetings in the course of the year. She focused her attention on working-class family men, the majority of whom were outraged at the description Butler gave of the examination women were forced to undergo; she called the process surgical or steel rape.[63][64] Although she persuaded many members of her audiences,[65] she faced significant opposition, which put her in danger. At one meeting pimps threw cow dung at her; at another, the windows of her hotel were smashed, while at a third, threats were made to burn down the building where she was hosting a meeting.[66][67]

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The Home Secretary, Henry Bruce, who set up a Royal Commission in 1871 to examine the Contagious Diseases Acts

At the 1870 Colchester parliamentary by-election the LNA fielded a candidate against the Liberal Party candidate Sir Henry Storks, a supporter of the Acts, who had implemented a similar regime when he commanded the British army in Malta.[68] Butler held several local meetings during the campaign; during one, she was chased by a group of brothel owners.[69] The presence of the LNA candidate split the Liberal vote and allowed the Conservative Party candidate to win the seat;[68] Butler considered that "it proved to be somewhat of a turning-point in the history of our crusade".[70] Because of Stork's loss at the by-election the Home Secretary, Henry Bruce, announced a Royal Commission to examine the situation.[71][72] One MP told Butler that

Your manifesto has shaken us very badly in the House of Commons; a leading man in the House remarked to me, "We know how to manage any other opposition in the House or in the country, but this is very awkward for us—this revolt of the women. It is quite a new thing; what are we to do with such an opposition as this?"[73]


The commission began work in early January 1871 and spent six months taking evidence.[74] After Butler testified on 18 March, a member of the committee, Liberal MP Peter Rylands, stated: "I am not accustomed to religious phraseology, but I cannot give you an idea of the effect produced except by saying that the spirit of God was there".[2][75] Nevertheless, the commission's report defended the one-sided nature of the legislation, saying "... there is no comparison to be made between prostitutes and the men who consort with them. With the one sex the offence is committed as a matter of gain; with the other it is an irregular indulgence of a natural impulse."[76] The report accepted the findings that the sexual health of men in the 18 areas covered by the Acts had improved. In relation to the compulsory examinations, the commission was swayed by the descriptions of "steel rape", and suggested it should be voluntary not compulsory. The commission heard significant evidence that many prostitutes were as young as 12 and recommended that the age of consent should be raised from 12 to 14. Bruce took no action on the recommendations for six months.[77]

In February 1872 Bruce proposed a bill that took some of the commission's recommendations,[j] but widened the geographical scope from the 18 military centres to the whole of the UK. Although the LNA's initial stance was to accept some of the bill's clauses and try and change others, Butler rejected it in its entirety and published The New Era, a 56-page pamphlet attacking the legislation; the pamphlet was re-published in serial form in The Shield.[k] It was the first split in the repeal movement and she lost many personal supporters because of her stance. The bill faced too much opposition from the parliamentary supporters of the Contagious Diseases Acts, and was withdrawn.[80][81]

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Handbill issued prior to a talk during the 1872 Pontefract by-election

Two months after the withdrawal of Bruce's bill, a ministerial by-election in Pontefract in 1872 gave the LNA an opportunity for further action. Although they did not field a candidate, Butler attended meetings in the town. At one LNA meeting the floor of the room had been liberally sprinkled with cayenne pepper by her opponents, making speaking difficult. After it was cleared away, her opponents set bales of straw alight in a storeroom below, which led to smoke rising through the floorboards; two members of the Metropolitan Police—specially drafted into the town for the by-election—looked on but took no action.[82][83][l] Although the incumbent Liberal candidate, Hugh Childers, was returned, there were heavy abstentions, and his vote was reduced by around 150 (from an electorate of 2,000).[85][m] In December 1872 Butler met the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, when he visited Liverpool College. Although he supported the aims of the LNA, he was politically unable to back the LNA publicly, and had supported Bruce's bill.[87]

European pressure and the white slave trade; 1874–1880

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James Stansfeld, the first general secretary of the International Abolitionist Federation, caricature by Carlo Pellegrini in Vanity Fair

The fall of the Liberal government in 1874, and its replacement with Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative administration meant that the repeal campaign stalled;[2] Butler called it a "year of discouragement" when there was "deep depression in the work".[88] Although the LNA kept up the pressure, progress in persuading Liberal MPs to oppose the Contagious Diseases Acts was slow, and the government was implacable in its support of the measures.[89]

At a meeting of regional LNA branches in May, one speech focused on legislation in Europe; the meeting resolved to correspond with sister organisations on the continent. At the start of December 1874 Butler left for Paris and a tour that covered France, Italy and Switzerland, where she met with local pressure groups and civic authorities. She encountered strong support from feminist groups, but hostility from the authorities.[90][91] She returned from her travels at the end of February 1875.[92]

As a result of her experiences, in March 1875 Butler formed the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution (later renamed the International Abolitionist Federation),[n] an organisation that campaigned against state regulation of prostitution and for "the abolition of female slavery and the elevation of public morality among men".[96][97] The Liberal MP James Stansfeld—who wished to repeal the Acts—became the federation's first general secretary;[92] Butler and her friend, the Liberal MP Henry Wilson, became joint secretaries.[96]

In 1878 Josephine wrote a biography of Catherine of Siena, which Glen Petrie—her biographer—thought was probably her best work;[98] Walkowitz considers the work provided a "historical justification for her own political activism".[2] Another biographer, Helen Mathers, believes that "in emphasising that she and Catherine were born to be leaders, of both men and women, ... [Butler] made a profound contribution to feminism".[99]

Butler became aware of the slave trade of young women and children from England to mainland Europe in 1879.[100] Young girls were considered "fair game", according to Mathers, as the law allowed them to become prostitutes at the age of 13. After playing a minor role in starting an investigation into an accusation of trafficking,[o] Butler became active in the campaign in May 1880, and wrote to The Shield that "the official houses of prostitution in Brussels are crowded with English minor girls", and that in one house "there are immured little children, English girls of from twelve to fifteen years of age ... stolen, kidnapped, betrayed, got from English country villages by every artifice and sold to these human shambles".[101] She visited Brussels where she met the mayor and local councillors and made allegations against the head of the Belgian Police des Mœurs and his deputy as to their involvement in the trade. After the meeting she was contacted by a detective who confirmed that the senior members of the Police des Mœurs were guilty of collusion with brothel keepers. She returned home and filed a deposition containing a copy of the statement from the detective and sent them to the Procureur du Roi (Chief Prosecutor) and the British Home Secretary. Following an investigation in Belgium, the head of the Police des Mœurs was removed from office, and his deputy was put on trial alongside 12 brothel owners; all were imprisoned for their roles in the trade.[102]

Second attempt to repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts; 1880–1885

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William Gladstone, a friend of the Butlers, and a tacit supporter of Butler's work

The 1880 general election had removed Disraeli's Conservative party from office; they were replaced by Gladstone's second ministry containing a high proportion of MPs who wanted to repeal the Acts.[103] As Prime Minister, Gladstone had the power to nominate candidates to vacant positions within the Church and, in June 1882, he offered George Butler the position of canon of Winchester Cathedral. George had been considering retirement, but he and Josephine were concerned about their finances, as much of their income had been spent on the LNA and other causes Josephine supported. George accepted the appointment, and they moved into a grace and favour home near the cathedral.[104] Josephine Butler set up another hostel for women near their home.[105]

Political pressure from Liberal backbenchers, particularly Joseph Chamberlain and Charles Hopwood, led to increasing opposition to the Acts. In February 1883 Hopwood tabled a resolution in parliament: "That this House disapproves of the compulsory examination of women under the Contagious Diseases Acts", which was debated in April. MPs voted by a majority of 72 to suspend the inspections; three years later the Acts were formally repealed.[106]


Child prostitution and Eliza Armstrong; 1885–1887

Two of Butler's allies in the campaign against child prostitution

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Florence Soper Booth

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William Thomas Stead

In 1885 Butler met Florence Soper Booth, the daughter-in-law of William Booth, who founded the Salvation Army. The meeting led to Butler's involvement in the campaign to expose child prostitution in Britain and its associated trade.[107] Along with Booth, Benjamin Scott the City Chamberlain and several supporters from the LNA, she persuaded the campaigning editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead, to help their cause.[108][109]

Stead considered the best way to prove that the purchase of young girls for prostitution took place in London, was to buy a girl himself.[110] Butler introduced him to a former prostitute and brothel owner who was staying in her hostel. In a slum in Marylebone, Stead purchased a 13-year-old girl from her mother for £5, and took her to France.[p] In July 1885 Stead began the publication of a series of articles entitled "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon", exposing the extent of child prostitution in London.
[112] In the first article—which covered six pages of the Gazette—Stead recounted an interview he had with Howard Vincent, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department:

"But", I said in amazement, "then do you mean to tell me that in very truth actual rapes, in the legal sense of the word, are constantly being perpetrated in London on unwilling virgins, purveyed and procured to rich men at so much a head by keepers of brothels?" "Certainly", said he, "there is not a doubt of it." "Why", I exclaimed, "the very thought is enough to raise hell." "It is true", he said; "and although it ought to raise hell, it does not even raise the neighbours."[113][114]


On 16 July—ten days after the article was published—Butler gave a speech at a meeting at London's Exeter Hall calling for increased protection for the young and the raising of the age of consent. The following day she and George left for a holiday in Switzerland and France.[115] While they were away, a moribund parliamentary bill from 1883 dealing with the age of consent was re-debated by MPs; the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 was passed on 14 August 1885.[115][116] The Act raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 years of age, while the procurement of girls for prostitution by administering drugs, intimidation or fraud was made a criminal offence, as was the abduction of a girl under 18 for purposes of carnal knowledge.[117][q] The police investigated Stead's purchase, and Butler was forced to cut her holiday short to return for questioning. Although she avoided all charges, Stead was imprisoned for three months.[120]

The passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act led to the formation of purity societies, such as the White Cross Army, whose aims were to force the closure of brothels through prosecution. The societies widened their remit to suppress what they considered indecent literature—including information on birth control—and the entertainment provided by the music halls.[2][121] Butler warned against the purity societies because of their "fatuous belief that you can oblige human beings to be moral by force, and in so doing that you may in some way promote social purity".[122] Her warnings went unheeded by other suffragists, and some, such as Millicent Fawcett—who was later Butler's biographer—continued to combine their activities in the feminist movement with the work for the purity societies.[2]


India, Empire and the final years; 1897–1906

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Butler in old age, by George Frederic Watts, 1894

Although the Contagious Diseases Acts had been repealed in the UK, the equivalent legislation was active in the British Raj in India, where prostitutes near the British cantonments were subjected to regular forced examinations.[123] The relevant law was contained in the Special Cantonments Acts which had been put on to a practical footing by Major-General Edward Chapman, who issued standing orders for the inspection of prostitutes, and the provision of "a sufficient number of women, to take care that they are sufficiently attractive, to provide them with proper houses".[124]

Butler began a new campaign to have the legislation repealed, comparing the girls to slaves. After the campaign put pressure on MPs, the widespread publication of Chapman's orders led to what Mathers describes as "outrage across Britain".[125] In June 1888 the House of Commons passed a unanimous resolution repealing the legislation, and the Indian government was ordered to cancel the Acts.[126] To circumvent the order, the India Office advised the Viceroy of India to instigate new legislation ensuring that prostitutes suspected of carrying contagious diseases had to undergo an examination or face expulsion from the cantonment.[125]

Towards the end of the 1880s George's health began to decline, and Butler spent increasing time looking after him.[127] They holidayed in Naples in 1889, but George contracted influenza in the 1889–90 pandemic. They returned to Britain but George died on 14 March 1890;[19] Butler suspended campaigning in the aftermath of his death.[2] Soon after, she left Winchester, and moved to a house in Wimbledon, London, which she shared with her eldest son and his wife.[128]

Butler, at 62, felt she was too old to travel to India, but two American supporters visited on her behalf and spent four months building a dossier showing that the lock hospitals, compulsory examination and use of underage prostitutes—some as young as 11—were all continuing to operate.[129] The campaign in Britain pushed again for changes, and Butler spoke at meetings, published pamphlets and wrote to missionaries in India.[2][130]

Although many of Butler's friends and supporters of shared causes spoke out against British Imperial Policy, Butler did not. She wrote that because of the work Britain had undertaken in making slavery illegal, "[w]ith all her faults, looked at from God's point of view, England is the best, and the least guilty of the nations".[131] During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Butler published Native Races and the War (1900), in which she supported British action and its imperialist policy. In the book she took a strong line against the casual racism inherent in her countrymen's dealings with foreigners, writing:


Great Britain will in future be judged, condemned or justified, according to her treatment of those innumerable, coloured races, heathen or partly Christianized, over whom her rule extends ... Race prejudice is a poison which will have to be cast out if the world is ever to be Christianized, and if Great Britain is to maintain the high and responsible place among the nations which has been given to her.[132]


From 1901 Butler began to withdraw from public life, resigning her positions in the campaign organisations and spending more time with her family.[133] In 1903 she moved to Wooler in Northumberland, to live near her eldest son. On 30 December 1906 she died at home and was buried in the nearby village of Kirknewton.[2]

Approach, analysis and legacy

Two memorials to Butler

Image
Butler's name on the lower section of the Reformers memorial, Kensal Green Cemetery

Image
The blue plaque erected in 2001 by English Heritage at Butler's former residence in Wimbledon

In 1907 Josephine Butler's name was added to the south side of the Reformers' Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. The memorial was erected for those "who had defied custom and interest for the sake of conscience and public good".[134] She is celebrated in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 May,[135] and represented in a stained glass window in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral,[136] All Saints' Church, Cambridge and St Olave's Church in the City of London.[137]

Her connections to Liverpool were memorialised in a more secular fashion. A building in the Faculty of Business and Law at Liverpool John Moores University was named "Josephine Butler House". The building, originally the first Radium Institute in the UK, in the Cultural Quarter in Hope Street, was built in 1867 and demolished in 2013 when the site became a car park[138][139] and subsequently student housing which opened in 2015.[140]

In 1915 the LNA merged with the International Abolitionist Federation to form the Association of Moral and Social Hygiene, which changed its name to the Josephine Butler Society in 1953. As at 2017 the society still operates; it campaigns for the protection of prostitutes and provides "protection for women and children who are criminally detained, violently abused or exploited by others who profit from their prostitution".[141][142]

In 2005 Durham University named Josephine Butler College after her, reflecting her and George's connection to the area and the university.[143][144] The Women's Library, at the London School of Economics, holds a number of collections related to Butler. They include papers from the Ladies' National Association; more than 2,500 letters in the Josephine Butler Letter Collection; and the Josephine Butler Society Library consisting of books and pamphlets collected by the society.[145] In 2001 English Heritage placed a blue plaque on her former residence in Wimbledon;[146] her former house in Cheltenham was demolished in the 1970s, but in 2002 the Cheltenham Civic Society placed a plaque on the building which now occupies the site.[147]

Butler was not only a staunch feminist but a passionate Christian,[148] whose favourite phrase was "God and one woman make a majority".[149] Although staunchly liberal, she felt constant tensions between her liberal and feminist philosophies. According to the feminist historian Barbara Caine, "Liberalism provided the framework for Butler's whole social and political approach. It was an integral part of her feminism", although it was in conflict with the liberal approach to sexuality and desire. Butler resolved the conflict through her religion.[150]

According to Walkowitz, Butler "pushed liberal feminism in new directions, developing theories and methods of political agitation that directly affected future campaigns for the emancipation of women".[2] She developed new approaches to campaigning and moved the debate beyond discussions in middle-class houses to the public forum, bringing into the political debate women who had never been involved before.[2][67] Butler's campaigning, says Walkowitz, "not only reshaped gender, class, and sexual subjectivities in late Victorian Britain but also informed national political history and state-building".[2]

Numerous historians consider the success of the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts to be a milestone in the history of female emancipation.[2] According to the political historian Margaret Hamilton, the campaign showed that "attitudes toward women were changing".[54] The feminist scholar Sheila Jeffreys says that Butler is "one of the bravest and most imaginative feminists in history",[67] while Fawcett wrote that she was "convinced that ... [Butler] should take the rank of the most distinguished Englishwoman of the nineteenth century".[1] Her unnamed obituarist in The Daily News considered that Butler's name

will always rank amongst the noblest of the social reformers, the fruit of whose labours is the highest inheritance that we have. She fought with enormous courage and self-sacrifice in a battlefield where she was subjected to the fiercest antagonism ... She never faltered in her task, and it is to her in supreme that the English statute book owes the removal of one of the greatest blots that ever defaced it. Her victory marked one of the great stages of progress of woman to that equality of treatment which is the final test of a nation's civilization.[151]


See also

• Biography portal
• Christianity portal
• History of feminism
• List of suffragists and suffragettes

Notes and references

Notes


1. The couple eventually had ten children, the last of whom was born in May 1836.[4]
2. The man—a valet to a local gentleman—had been dismissed from his position for fathering an illegitimate child; Grey recognised him.[10][11]
3. Although she wrote an autobiography and a biography of her husband, Josephine never clarified where or when they first met.[20]
4. Extensive flooding of the local Thames Valley that year had been a contributory factor.[27]
5. Jordan considers that Butler was suffering a hysterical paralysis,[36] while her biographer, Helen Mathers, describes it as a "psychogenic paralysis, which produces ... [a] dramatic physical manifestation of the patient's emotional suffering".[35]
6. The workhouse system—brought about by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834—was a method of providing accommodation and employment to those unable to find work or support themselves. The employment provided was of a menial nature, including digging ditches, grinding corn or breaking stones.[40][41]
7. Those areas covered by the Acts were 18 military stations, garrisons and seaport towns, including an area of up to 15 miles from the military installation.[54]
8. In 1869 the "Association for the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts" was formed to campaign to extend their operation over the whole of the UK.[55]
9. In March 1870 the statement was reprinted in The Shield, a weekly newspaper launched to support the repeal campaign.[62]
10. The bill raised the age of consent to 14 and gave police powers to suppress brothels, crack down on prostitutes under the age of 16.[78]
11. In The New Era, She pointed out that Bruce's Bill was based on legislation that governed the situation in Berlin, where nearly 30,000 women were being examined; cases of syphilis has risen since the legislation had been introduced.[79]
12. Local residents were appalled at the treatment meted out to the women, and identified 16 men who were among those responsible; all were members of the election committee of the Liberal candidate Hugh Childers.[84]
13. Childers was also shocked by the events, and made efforts to apprehend those responsible. He also changed his stance on the Contagious Diseases Acts, and in an 1875 speech in the House of Commons he said the legislation failed "in the most marked degree with regard to the principle of equally treating the two sexes, which ought to be the basis for our legislation". He was one of the MPs who voted to finally repeal the Acts in 1886.[86]
14. Sources disagree about the original name. One source says it was the "British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of the Government Regulation of Vice";[93] another calls it the "British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution";[94] others call it the "British and Continental (later International) Federation for the Abolition of Governmental (later State) Regulation of Vice".[95]
15. Butler was contacted by Alfred Dyer, a Quaker, who told her details of one case; she put him in touch with the lawyer Alexis Spingard and the men investigated the case—and others—more fully.[100]
16. The girl, Eliza Armstrong, was temporarily homed in France before being returned to Britain where she was educated at the Princess Louise Home, Essex, where she was trained for a career in domestic service. Several years later she wrote to Stead thanking him for his actions. By that time she had married and had six children.[111]
17. A late amendment to the bill by Henry Labouchère—Section 11, known as the Labouchere Amendment—created the crime of indecency between men, the first criminalisation on all acts aside from sodomy, which was covered by earlier legislation. Sex between males was illegal in Britain until 1967.[118][119]

References

1. Fawcett & Turner 1927, p. 1.
2. Walkowitz 2004.
3. Garner 2009, p. 1.
4. Jordan 2001, p. 13.
5. Thompson 2004.
6. Jordan 2001, p. 15.
7. Jordan 2001, p. 23.
8. Jordan 2001, pp. 14–15.
9. "Josephine Butler Collection". University of Liverpool. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
10. Petrie 1971, p. 27.
11. Boyd 1982, p. 29.
12. Butler 1909, p. 15.
13. Mathers 2014, p. 22.
14. Jordan 2001, p. 16.
15. Jordan 2001, p. 19.
16. Jordan 2001, pp. 17–18.
17. Mathers 2014, p. 20.
18. Butler 1887, p. 44.
19. Matthew 2004.
20. Mathers 2014, p. 27.
21. Mathers 2014, pp. 27–28, 198.
22. Butler 1892, p. 102.
23. Mathers 2014, pp. 32, 39.
24. Butler 1892, pp. 95–96.
25. Williamson 1977, p. 16.
26. Mathers 2014, p. 36.
27. Jordan 2001, p. 47.
28. Jordan 2001, pp. 47–50.
29. Petrie 1971, p. 41.
30. Petrie 1971, p. 44.
31. Mathers 2014, pp. 45–46.
32. Jordan 2001, p. 55.
33. Garner 2009, p. 6.
34. Jordan 2001, p. 57.
35. Mathers 2014, p. 47.
36. Jordan 2001, p. 62.
37. Petrie 1971, pp. 47–48.
38. Jordan 2001, p. 66.
39. Butler 1892, p. 183.
40. Williams 2006, p. 116.
41. Snell 1987, p. 122.
42. Williamson 1977, p. 18.
43. Mathers 2014, p. 53.
44. Mathers 2014, p. 60.
45. Boyd 1982, p. 39; Mathers 2014, p. 60; Walkowitz 1982a, p. 116.
46. Mathers 2014, p. 61.
47. Boyd 1982, p. 39.
48. Jordan 2001, p. 86.
49. Jordan 2001, pp. 87–88.
50. Jordan 2001, p. 96.
51. Mathers 2014, p. 70.
52. Walkowitz 2004; Jordan 2001, p. 88; Gordon & Doughan 2014, pp. 91–92.
53. Summers 1999, p. 1.
54. Hamilton 1978, p. 14.
55. Gordon & Doughan 2014, p. 16.
56. Walkowitz 1982, p. 80.
57. Jordan 2001, p. 107.
58. Cashman 1990, p. 27.
59. D'Itri 1999, p. 31.
60. Jordan 2001, p. 110.
61. "The Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts". The Daily News. 31 December 1869. p. 5.
62. Jordan 2001, p. 112.
63. Mathers 2014, pp. 81, 84.
64. Williamson 1977, p. 79.
65. Walkowitz 2004; Jordan 2001, pp. 113–15; Mathers 2014, pp. 84–85.
66. Jordan 2001, p. 123.
67. Bindel, Julie (21 September 2006). "A Heroine for Our Age". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016.
68. Mathers 2014, p. 86.
69. Butler 1910, pp. 27–28.
70. Butler 1910, p. 25.
71. Jordan 2001, p. 127.
72. Fawcett & Turner 1927, p. 64.
73. Butler 1910, p. 11.
74. Petrie 1971, p. 108.
75. Butler 1909, p. 112.
76. Royal Commission 1871, p. 17.
77. Mathers 2014, p. 97.
78. Mathers 2014, p. 98.
79. Mathers 2014, p. 99.
80. Mathers 2014, pp. 98–99.
81. Jordan 2001, pp. 134–35.
82. Butler 1910, pp. 48–50.
83. Jordan 2001, pp. 138–39.
84. Jordan 2001, pp. 139–40.
85. Jordan 2001, p. 140.
86. Petrie 1971, p. 136.
87. Mathers 2014, p. 102.
88. Butler 1909, p. 61.
89. Mathers 2014, p. 125.
90. Jordan 2001, p. 146.
91. Mathers 2014, pp. 111–13.
92. Petrie 1971, p. 183.
93. Limoncelli 2010, p. 46.
94. Gordon & Doughan 2014, p. 25.
95. Harrington 2013, p. 32.
96. Jordan 2001, p. 165.
97. Summers 2006, p. 216.
98. Petrie 1971, p. 185.
99. Mathers 2014, p. 133.
100. Mathers 2014, p. 128.
101. Butler 2003, pp. 21–22.
102. Boyd 1982, p. 49; Jordan 2001, pp. 192–98; Mathers 2014, pp. 129–31.
103. Mathers 2014, p. 139.
104. Mathers 2014, pp. 136–37.
105. Williamson 1977, p. 85.
106. Strachey 1928, pp. 21–22; Jordan 2001, pp. 213–15; Mathers 2014, pp. 141–43.
107. Jordan 2001, p. 217.
108. Mathers 2014, pp. 149–50.
109. Jordan 2001, pp. 224–25.
110. Petrie 1971, p. 250.
111. Le Feuvre 2015, 3750–56.
112. Jordan 2001, p. 225.
113. Stead, William Thomas (6 July 1885). "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon". Pall Mall Gazette. p. 3.
114. Petrie 1971, pp. 244–45.
115. Mathers 2014, p. 154.
116. Jordan 2001, p. 229.
117. Farmer 2016, p. 276.
118. Selfe & Burke 2012, p. 11.
119. "The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885". British Library. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
120. Mathers 2014, p. 155.
121. Mathers 2014, p. 158.
122. Walkowitz 1982a, p. 252.
123. Petrie 1971, pp. 266–67.
124. Fawcett & Turner 1927, p. 127.
125. Mathers 2014, p. 165.
126. Jordan 2001, p. 243.
127. Jordan 2001, pp. 162–63.
128. Mathers 2014, p. 199.
129. Mathers 2014, pp. 169–70.
130. Fawcett & Turner 1927, p. 120.
131. Butler 1954, p. 196.
132. Butler 1900, pp. 152–53.
133. Jordan 2001, pp. 284–85, 289.
134. Crawford 2003, p. 142.
135. "Collects—Lesser Festival—May". Church of England. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
136. Jordan 2001, p. 297.
137. Beeson 2011, p. 119.
138. Prentice, David; Jones, Catherine (28 August 2007). "The 800; A birthday celebration of 800 people who put Liverpool on the map". Liverpool Daily Echo. p. 1.
139. Bartlett, David (14 April 2009). "LJMU applauds pounds 10m deal for Hope Street sites sale; Income helped fund arts and learning academy". Daily Post. p. 3.
140. Graham, James (21 October 2013). "US buyer for Josephine Butler site". TheBusinessDesk. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
141. Daggers & Neal 2006, p. 3.
142. "Basic Principles". The Josephine Butler Society. Archived from the original on 6 September 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
143. "Durham's latest College salutes social reformer and women's campaigner". Durham University. 14 December 2005. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
144. "Our History". Durham University. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
145. "LSE Library". London School of Economics. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
146. "Butler, Josephine (1828–1906)". English Heritage. Archived from the original on 31 August 2016. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
147. "Cheltenham Civic Society Blue Plaques Commemorate Prominent People". Gloucestershire Echo. 11 March 2002. p. 18.
148. Summers 1999, pp. 8–9.
149. Mathers 2014, p. 109.
150. Caine 1993, pp. 155–56.
151. "A Noble Woman". The Daily News. 2 January 1907. p. 6.

Sources

• Beeson, Trevor (2011). The Church's Other Half: Women's Ministry. London: SCM Press. ISBN 978-0-334-04382-9.
• Boyd, Nancy (1982). Three Victorian Women Who Changed Their World: Josephine Butler, Octavia Hill, Florence Nightingale. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-333-30057-2.
• Butler, Arthur (1954). Portrait of Josephine Butler. London: Faber & Faber. OCLC 4025069.
• Butler, Josephine (1887). Our Christianity Tested by the Irish Question. London: T Fisher Unwin. JSTOR 60214285. OCLC 908833972.
• Butler, Josephine (1892). Recollections of George Butler. Bristol: J W Arrowsmith. OCLC 315370873.
• Butler, Josephine (1900). Native Races and the War. London: Gay & Bird. OCLC 10402401.
• Butler, Josephine (1909). Johnson, George William; Johnson, Lucy A. Nutter (eds.). Josephine E. Butler: an autobiographical memoir. Bristol: J W Arrowsmith. OCLC 15558901.
• Butler, Josephine (1910) [1896]. Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade. London: H Marshall & Son. OCLC 26954275.
• Butler, Josephine (2003). Jordan, Jane; Sharp, Ingrid (eds.). Josephine Butler and the Prostitution Campaigns: Child prostitution and the age of consent. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-22688-2.
• Caine, Barbara (1993). Victorian Feminists. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204336.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-820433-6.
• Cashman, Hilary (January 1990). "Singular Iniquities: Josephine Butler and Marietta Higgs". New Blackfriars. 71 (834): 26–32. JSTOR 43248476.
• Crawford, Elizabeth (2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928. London: Routledge. ISBN 1-135-43402-6.
• Daggers, Jenny; Neal, Diana, eds. (2006). "Introduction". Sex, Gender, and Religion: Josephine Butler Revisited. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-0-8204-8117-3.
• D'Itri, Patricia Ward (1999). Cross Currents in the International Women's Movement, 1848–1948. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-782-6.
• Farmer, Lindsay (2016). Making the Modern Criminal Law: Criminalization and Civil Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-105859-2.
• Fawcett, Millicent; Turner, E M (1927). Josephine Butler: Her Work and Principles, and Their Meaning for the Twentieth Century. London: Association for Moral & Social Hygiene. OCLC 1252742.
• Garner, Rod (2009). Josephine Butler. London: Darton Longman & Todd. ISBN 978-0-232-52747-6.
• Gordon, Peter; Doughan, David (2014). Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825–1960. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7130-4045-6.
• Hamilton, Margaret (Spring 1978). "Opposition to the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1864–1886". Albion. 10(1): 14–27. JSTOR 4048453.
• Harrington, Carol (2013). Politicization of Sexual Violence: From Abolitionism to Peacekeeping. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4094-9963-3.
• Jordan, Jane (2001). Josephine Butler. London: Hambledon Continuum. ISBN 978-1-84725-045-2.
• Le Feuvre, Cathy (2015). The Armstrong Girl: A child for sale: the battle against the Victorian sex trade(Kindle ed.). Oxford: Lion Books. ISBN 978-0-7459-6821-6.
• Limoncelli, Stephanie (2010). The Politics of Trafficking: The First International Movement to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of Women. Standford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-6294-6.
• Mathers, Helen (2014). Patron Saint of Prostitutes: Josephine Butler and the Victorian Sex Scandal. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-9209-4.
• Matthew, H C G (2004). "Butler, George (1819–1890)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4184. Retrieved 8 July 2016. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Petrie, Glen (1971). Singular Iniquity: Campaigns of Josephine Butler. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-11662-3.
• Report of Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1871. OCLC 23264353.
• Selfe, David W; Burke, Vincent (2012). Perspectives on Sex Crime & Society. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-34063-6.
• Snell, K D M (1987). Annals of the Labouring Poor: Social Change and Agrarian England, 1660–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-33558-4.
• Strachey, Ray (March 1928). "The Centenary of Josephine Butler: An Interview with Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett". Social Service Review. 2 (1): 1–9. JSTOR 30009144.
• Summers, Anne (Autumn 1999). "'The Constitution Violated': The Female Body and the Female Subject in the Campaigns of Josephine Butler". History Workshop Journal. 48: 1–15. JSTOR 4289632. PMID 21351675.
• Summers, Anne (Autumn 2006). "Which Women? What Europe? Josephine Butler and the International Abolitionist Federation". History Workshop Journal. 62: 214–31. JSTOR 25472881.
• Thompson, F M L (2004). "Grey, John (1785–1868)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11550. Retrieved 4 July 2016. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Walkowitz, Judith R (1982a). Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-27064-9.
• Walkowitz, Judith R (Spring 1982). "Male Vice and Feminist Virtue: Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain". History Workshop. 13: 79–93. JSTOR 4288404.
• Walkowitz, Judith R (2004). "Butler, Josephine Elizabeth (1828–1906)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32214. Retrieved 2 June 2016. (subscription orUK public library membership required)
• Williams, Chris (2006). A Companion to 19th-Century Britain. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-5679-0.
• Williamson, Joseph (1977). Josephine Butler: The Forgotten Saint. Leighton Buzzard: Faith Press. ISBN 978-0-7164-0485-9.

External links

• Josephine Butler Memorial Trust
• Works by Josephine Butler at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Josephine Butler at Internet Archive
• Works by Josephine Butler at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Archival Material at Leeds University Library
• Newspaper clippings about Josephine Butler in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
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Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/4/20

Image
The Right Honourable The Earl Grey, KG PC
Portrait painting by an unknown artist after Sir Thomas Lawrence c. 1828
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office: 22 November 1830 – 9 July 1834
Monarch: William IV
Preceded by: The Duke of Wellington
Succeeded by: The Viscount Melbourne
Leader of the House of Lords
In office: 22 November 1830 – 9 July 1834
Preceded by: The Duke of Wellington
Succeeded by: The Viscount Melbourne
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office: 24 September 1806 – 25 March 1807
Prime Minister: The Lord Grenville
Preceded by: Charles James Fox
Succeeded by: George Canning
Leader of the House of Commons
In office: 24 September 1806 – 31 March 1807
Prime Minister: The Lord Grenville
Preceded by: Charles James Fox
Succeeded by: Spencer Perceval
First Lord of the Admiralty
In office: 11 February 1806 – 24 September 1806
Prime Minister: The Lord Grenville
Preceded by: The Lord Barham
Succeeded by: Thomas Grenville
Personal details
Born: 13 March 1764, Fallodon, Northumberland, England
Died: 17 July 1845 (aged 81), Howick, Northumberland, England
Political party: Whig
Spouse(s): Mary Ponsonby (m. 1794)
Relations: House of Grey (family)
Children: 16, including Henry, Charles, Frederick, and Eliza Courtney (illegitimate)
Parents: Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey; Elizabeth Grey
Relatives: Sir George Grey (brother)
Alma mater: Trinity College, Cambridge

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845), known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from November 1830 to July 1834.

A member of the Whig Party, he was a long-time leader of multiple reform movements, most famously the Reform Act 1832. His government also saw the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, in which the government purchased slaves from their owners in 1833. Grey was a strong opponent of the foreign and domestic policies of William Pitt the Younger in the 1790s. In 1807, he resigned as foreign secretary to protest the King's uncompromising rejection of Catholic Emancipation. Grey finally resigned in 1834 over disagreements in his cabinet regarding Ireland, and retired from politics. His biographer G. M. Trevelyan argues:

in our domestic history 1832 is the next great landmark after 1688 ... [It] saved the land from revolution and civil strife and made possible the quiet progress of the Victorian era.[1]

Scholars rank him highly among all British prime ministers. [2] Earl Grey tea is named after him.[3]

Early life

Image
Shield of arms of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey

Descended from a long-established Northumbrian family seated at Howick Hall, Grey was the second but eldest surviving son of General Charles Grey KB (1729–1807) and his wife, Elizabeth (1743/4–1822), daughter of George Grey of Southwick, co. Durham. He had four brothers and two sisters. He was educated at Richmond School,[4] followed by Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge,[5] acquiring a facility in Latin and in English composition and declamation that enabled him to become one of the foremost parliamentary orators of his generation.

Titles

He became the second Earl Grey, Viscount Howick and Baron Grey of Howick on 14 November 1807 upon the death of his father. Upon the death of his uncle on 30 March 1808 he became the third Baronet Grey of Howick.

Government career

Elected to Parliament, 1786


Grey was elected to Parliament for the Northumberland constituency on 14 September 1786, aged just 22. He became a part of the Whig circle of Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the Prince of Wales, and soon became one of the major leaders of the Whig party. He was the youngest manager on the committee for prosecuting Warren Hastings. The Whig historian T. B. Macaulay wrote in 1841:

At an age when most of those who distinguish themselves in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection was wanting that could set off to the height his splendid talents and his unblemished honour. At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the delegates of the British Commons, at the bar of the British nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone, culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in the vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age which has passed away. But those who, within the last ten years, have listened with delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost.[6]


Image
Grey in a blue coat, white waistcoat and tied cravat, and powdered hair, by Henry Bone (after Thomas Lawrence), August 1794.

Grey was also noted for advocating Parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. His affair with the Duchess of Devonshire, herself an active political campaigner, did him little harm although it nearly caused her to be divorced by her husband.

Foreign Secretary, 1806–07

In 1806, Grey, by then Lord Howick owing to his father's elevation to the peerage as Earl Grey, became a part of the Ministry of All the Talents (a coalition of Foxite Whigs, Grenvillites, and Addingtonites) as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Following Fox's death later that year, Howick took over both as Foreign Secretary and as leader of the Whigs. The ministry broke up in 1807 when George III blocked Catholic Emancipation legislation and required that all ministers individually sign a pledge, which Howick refused to do, that they would not, "propose any further concessions to the Catholics."[7]

Years in Opposition, 1807–30

A group of naked British Whig politicians, including three Grenvilles, Sheridan, St. Vincent, Moira, Temple, Erskine, Howick, Petty, Whitbread, Sheridan, Windham,and Tomline, Bishop of Lincoln, crossing the river Styx in a boat named the Broad Bottom Packet. Sidmouth's head emerges from the water next to the boat. The boat's torn sail has inscription "Catholic Emancipation" and the center mast is crowned with the Prince of Wales feathers and motto "Ich Dien". On the far side the shades of Cromwell, Charles Fox and Robespierre wave to them. Overhead, on brooms, are the Three Fates; to the left a three-headed dog. Above the boat three birds soil the boat and politicians.

Image
In Charon's Boat (1807), James Gillray caricatured the fall of the Whig administration, with Howick taking the role of Charon rowing the boat.

The government fell from power the next year, and, after a brief period as a member of parliament for Appleby from May to July 1807, Howick went to the Lords, succeeding his father as Earl Grey. He continued in opposition for the next 23 years. There were times during this period when Grey came close to joining the Government. In 1811, the Prince Regent tried to court Grey and his ally William Grenville to join the Spencer Perceval ministry following the resignation of Lord Wellesley. Grey and Grenville declined because the Prince Regent refused to make concessions regarding Catholic Emancipation.[8] Grey's relationship with the Prince was strained further when his estranged daughter and heiress, Princess Charlotte, turned to him for advice on how to avoid her father's choice of husband for her.[9]

On the Napoleonic Wars, Grey took the standard Whig party line. After being initially enthused by the Spanish uprising against Napoleon, Grey became convinced of the French emperor's invincibility following the defeat and death of Sir John Moore, the leader of the British forces in the Peninsular War.[10] Grey was then slow to recognise the military successes of Moore's successor, the Duke of Wellington.[11] When Napoleon first abdicated in 1814, Grey objected to the restoration of the Bourbons, an authoritarian monarchy and when Napoleon was reinstalled the following year, he said that that was an internal French matter.[12]

Image
Grey c. 1820

In 1826, believing that the Whig party no longer paid any attention to his opinions, Grey stood down as leader in favour of Lord Lansdowne.[13] The following year, when Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister, it was therefore Lansdowne and not Grey who was asked to join the Government which needed strengthening following the resignations of Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington.[14] When Wellington became Prime Minister in 1828, George IV (as the Prince Regent had become) singled out Grey as the one person he could not appoint to the Government.[15]

Prime Minister (1830–34) and Great Reform Act 1832

Further information: Whig government, 1830–1834

In 1830, following the death of George IV and when the Duke of Wellington resigned on the question of Parliamentary reform, the Whigs finally returned to power, with Grey as Prime Minister. In 1831, he was made a member of the Order of the Garter. His term was a notable one, seeing passage of the Reform Act 1832, which finally saw the reform of the House of Commons, and the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. As the years had passed, however, Grey had become more conservative, and he was cautious about initiating more far-reaching reforms, particularly since he knew that the King was at best only a reluctant supporter of reform.

Grey contributed to a plan to found a new colony in South Australia: in 1831 a "Proposal to His Majesty's Government for founding a colony on the Southern Coast of Australia" was prepared under the auspices of Robert Gouger, Anthony Bacon, Jeremy Bentham and Grey, but its ideas were considered too radical, and it was unable to attract the required investment.[16]

It was the issue of Ireland which precipitated the end of Grey's premiership in 1834. Lord Anglesey, the Viceroy of Ireland, preferred conciliatory reform including the partial redistribution of the income from the church tithe to the Catholic church and away from the established Protestant one, a policy known as “appropriation”.[17] The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Stanley, however, preferred coercive measures.[18] The cabinet was divided and when Lord John Russell drew attention in the House of Commons to their differences over "appropriation", Stanley and others resigned.[19] This triggered Grey to retire from public life, leaving Lord Melbourne as his successor. Unlike most politicians, he seems to have genuinely preferred a private life; colleagues remarked caustically that he threatened to resign at every setback.

Grey returned to Howick but kept a close eye on the policies of the new cabinet under Melbourne, whom he, and especially his family, regarded as a mere understudy until he began to act in ways of which they disapproved. Grey became more critical as the decade went on, being particularly inclined to see the hand of Daniel O'Connell behind the scenes and blaming Melbourne for subservience to the Radicals with whom he identified the Irish patriot. He made no allowances for Melbourne's need to keep the radicals on his side to preserve his shrinking majority in the Commons, and in particular he resented any slight on his own great achievement, the Reform Act, which he saw as a final solution of the question for the foreseeable future. He continually stressed its conservative nature. As he declared in his last great public speech, at the Grey Festival organised in his honour at Edinburgh in September 1834, its purpose was to strengthen and preserve the established constitution, to make it more acceptable to the people at large, and especially the middle classes, who had been the principal beneficiaries of the Reform Act, and to establish the principle that future changes would be gradual, "according to the increased intelligence of the people, and the necessities of the times".[20] It was the speech of a conservative statesman.[21]

Lord Grey's Ministry, November 1830 – July 1834

Image
Lord Grey atop Grey's Monument, looking down Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne

• Lord Grey — First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
• Lord Brougham — Lord Chancellor
• Lord Lansdowne — Lord President of the Council
• Lord Durham — Lord Privy Seal
• Lord Melbourne — Secretary of State for the Home Department
• Lord Palmerston — Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• Lord Goderich — Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
• Sir James Graham — First Lord of the Admiralty
• Lord Althorp — Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons
• Charles Grant — President of the Board of Control
• Lord Holland — Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
• The Duke of Richmond — Postmaster-General
• Lord Carlisle — Minister without Portfolio

Changes

• June 1831 — Lord John Russell, the Paymaster of the Forces, and Edward Smith-Stanley, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, join the Cabinet.
• April 1833 — Lord Goderich, now Lord Ripon, succeeds Lord Durham as Lord Privy Seal. Edward Smith-Stanley succeeds Ripon as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. His successor as Chief Secretary for Ireland is not in the Cabinet. Edward Ellice, the Secretary at War, joins the Cabinet.
• June 1834 — Thomas Spring Rice succeeds Stanley as Colonial Secretary. Lord Carlisle succeeds Ripon as Lord Privy Seal. Lord Auckland succeeds Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty. The Duke of Richmond leaves the Cabinet. His successor as Postmaster-General is not in the Cabinet. Charles Poulett Thomson, the President of the Board of Trade, and James Abercrombie, the Master of the Mint, join the Cabinet.

Personal life

On 18 November 1794, Grey married Hon. Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby (1776–1861), only daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly and Hon. Louisa Molesworth. The marriage was a fruitful one; between 1796 and 1819 the couple had ten sons and six daughters:

• unnamed daughter Grey (stillborn, 1796)
• Lady Louisa Elizabeth Grey (7 April 1797 – 26 November 1841). She married John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, on 9 December 1816. They had five children, including Charles, Grey's favourite grandson, who died young named Charles William.
• Lady Elizabeth Grey (10 July 1798 – 8 November 1880). She married John Crocker Bulteel on 13 May 1826. They had five children, including Louisa Bulteel through her daughter Margaret Baring who is the great-grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.
• Lady Caroline Grey (30 August 1799 – 28 April 1875). She married Captain Hon. George Barrington on 15 January 1827. They had two children
• Lady Georgiana Grey (17 February 1801 – 13 September 1900), who never married.
• Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (28 December 1802 – 9 October 1894). He married Maria Copley on 9 August 1832.
• General Charles Grey (15 March 1804 – 31 March 1870). He married Caroline Farquhar on 26 July 1836. They had seven children, including Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey.
• Admiral Sir Frederick William Grey (23 August 1805 – 2 May 1878). He married Barbarina Sullivan on 20 July 1846.
• Lady Mary Grey (2 May 1807 – 6 July 1884). She married Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax, on 29 July 1829. They had seven children.
• The Honourable William Grey (13 May 1808 – 11 February 1815), who died at the age of six.
• Admiral The Honourable George Grey (16 May 1809 – 3 October 1891). He married Jane Stuart (daughter of General Hon. Sir Patrick Stuart) on 20 January 1845. They had eleven children.
• Thomas Grey (29 December 1810 – 8 July 1826), who died at the age of fifteen.
• Rev. John Grey MA, DD, Canon and Rector of Durham (2 March 1812 – 11 November 1895). He married Lady Georgiana Hervey (daughter of Frederick William Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol) in July 1836. They had three children. He remarried Helen Spalding (maternal granddaughter of John Henry Upton, 1st Viscount Templetown) on 11 April 1874.
• Reverend Francis Richard Grey (31 March 1813 – 22 March 1890). He married Lady Elizabeth Howard (daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and granddaughter of Lady Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire) on 12 August 1840.
• Captain the Hon. Henry Cavendish Grey (16 October 1814 – 5 September 1880)
• William George Grey (15 February 1819 – 19 December 1865). He married Theresa Stedink on 20 September 1858.

He also had an illegitimate daughter with Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire:

• Eliza Courtney (20 February 1792 – 2 May 1859). She married General Robert Ellice on 10 December 1814.

Image
Inscription on Grey's Monument

Relationship with Georgiana Cavendish

While Mary was frequently pregnant during their marriage and remained at home, Grey travelled alone and had affairs with other women. Before he married Mary, his engagement to her nearly suffered because of his affair with Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. The young Grey met Georgiana sometime in the late 1780s to early 1790s while attending a Whig society meeting in Devonshire House. Grey and Georgiana became lovers, and in 1791 she became pregnant. Grey wanted Georgiana to leave her husband the duke and live with him, but the duke told Georgiana if she did, she would never see her children again. Georgiana was sent to France where, on 20 February 1792 in Aix-en-Provence, she gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Eliza Courtney. She returned to England with the child in September 1793, and entrusted her to Grey's parents, who raised her as though she were his sister.

Georgiana and Charles spent time with their daughter, who was informed of her true parentage some time after Georgiana's death in 1806. She married General Robert Ellice. Her maternal aunt, Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough, visited the Greys in 1808 (without knowing she was Eliza's aunt) and later wrote of her strange observations in which she stated "he (Charles) seems very fond of her". Eliza later named her youngest child Charles and named her eldest daughter Georgiana.

Later years

Image
Grave at Howick Hall in Howick, Northumberland

Grey spent his last years in contented, if sometimes fretful, retirement at Howick with his books, his family, and his dogs. The one great personal blow he suffered in old age was the death of his favourite grandson, Charles, at the age of 13. Grey became physically feeble in his last years and died quietly in his bed on 17 July 1845, forty-four years to the day since going to live at Howick.[22] He was buried in the Church of St Michael and All Angels there on the 26th in the presence of his family, close friends, and the labourers on his estate.[21]

In popular culture

Charles Grey is portrayed by Dominic Cooper in the 2008 film The Duchess, directed by Saul Dibb and starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes. The film is based on Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.

Commemoration and tea

Image
Earl Grey tea is named after Grey

Earl Grey tea, a blend which uses bergamot oil to flavour the brew, is named after Grey.[23]

Grey is commemorated by Grey's Monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, which consists of a statue of Lord Grey standing atop a 40 m (130 ft) high column.[citation needed] The monument was once struck by lightning and Earl Grey's head was seen lying in the gutter in Grey Street.[citation needed] The monument lends its name to Monument Metro station on the Tyne and Wear Metro (at that point effectively Newcastle's 'underground' system), located directly underneath.[citation needed] Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne and Grey College, Durham are also named after Grey.[citation needed]

References

1. Peter Brett, "Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl Grey" in D. M. Loades, ed. (2003). Reader's guide to British history. p. 1:586. ISBN 9781579584269.
2. Paul Strangio; Paul 't Hart; James Walter (2013). Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives. Oxford UP. p. 225. ISBN 9780199666423.
3. Kramer, Ione. All the Tea in China. China Books, 1990. ISBN 0-8351-2194-1. Pages 180–181.
4. "Info" (PDF). fretwell.kangaweb.com.au.
5. "Grey, Charles (GRY781C)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
6. Thomas Babington Macaulay, ‘Warren Hastings’, Edinburgh Review LXXIV (October 1841), pp. 160–255.
7. Smith paperback 1996 p125
8. Smith, E.A. (1996). Lord Grey 1764–1845. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited. pp. 198–9. ISBN 978-0750911276.
9. Smith paperback 1996 pp 222–6
10. Smith paperback 1996 pp 169–71
11. Smith paperback 1996 pp 172–4
12. Smith paperback 1996 pp 176–8
13. Smith paperback 1996 pp 240–1
14. Smith paperback 1996 pp 241–2
15. Smith paperback 1996 pp245-6
16. "Foundation of the Province". SA Memory. State Library of South Australia. 5 February 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
17. Smith paperback 1996 pp 288–93
18. Smith paperback 1996 p301
19. Smith paperback pp 304–5
20. Edinburgh Weekly Journal, 17 September 1834.
21. E. A. Smith, 'Grey, Charles, second Earl Grey (1764–1845)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, May 2009, accessed 13 February 2010.
22. GRO Register of Deaths: SEP 1845 XXV 130 ALNWICK
23. Wallop, Harry (28 March 2011). "Lady Grey tea: fact file". Retrieved 18 October 2012.

Further reading

• Brett, Peter. "Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl Grey" in D. M. Loades, ed. (2003). Reader's guide to British history. pp. 1:586–87. ISBN 9781579584269.
• Smith, E. A. (2004). "Charles Grey, second Earl Grey (1764–1845)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11526. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Smith, E. A. (1990), Lord Grey, 1764–1845, London
• Phillips, John A., and Charles Wetherell. "The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the political modernization of England." American historical review 100.2 (1995): 411-436. in JSTOR
• Trevelyan, G. M. (1920), Lord Grey of the Reform Bill online free

Other sources

• Mosley, Charles (1999), Burke's Peerage and Baronetage of Great Britain and Ireland (106th ed.), Cassells
• A N Other (1910), "A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information", Encyclopædia Britannica, New York, retrieved 10 May 2008
• Mosley, Charles (1999), Charles Mosley (ed.), Burke's Peerage & Baronetage (106th ed.)
• 10 Downing Street website, PMs in history, archived from the original on 25 August 2008, retrieved 26 July 2006

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl Grey
• on the Downing Street website.
• Works by or about Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• "Archival material relating to Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey". UK National Archives.
• Portraits of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Works by or about Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey at Internet Archive
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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The Association for Moral and Social Hygiene [Excerpt]
Records of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene
by The National Archives
Accessed: 3/4/20



The Association for Moral and Social Hygiene was created in 1915 as a gender equality pressure group independent of any political party, philosophical school or religious creed. Aims: To promote a high and equal standard of morality and sexual responsibility for men and women in public opinion, law and practice; To secure the abolition of state regulation of prostitution, whatever form it may take, and to secure the suppression and the punishment of third party profiteering from prostitution (eg brothel-keeping, procuring); To examine existing or proposed legislation dealing with health (eg treatment of venereal disease) and public order (solicitation laws) and to oppose any laws or administrative regulations which are aimed at or may be applied to some particular section of the community; To study and promote such legislative, administrative, social, educational and hygienic reforms as will tend to encourage the highest public and private morality; To keep these principles continually before Government departments. Basic principles: social justice; equality of all citizens before the law; a single moral standard for men and women. It produced its own journal 'The Shield'.

Origins of the Association: The Association for Moral and Social Hygiene was established in 1915 following the amalgamation of the Ladies' National Association and 'British Continental and General Federation for Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution' (which later became the International Abolitionist Federation). Josephine Butler founded the Ladies' National Association in the 1860s when she led her campaign against the Contagious Diseases Acts in Great Britain. These Acts applied to certain garrison towns and seaports, and attempted to preserve the health of servicemen by arrest and compulsory medical examination of women found within these areas who were suspected of being there for immoral purposes. The Acts were repealed in 1886. Josephine Butler also made contact with abolitionists in Europe and established the International Abolitionist Federation in Mar 1875.

Work from 1915-1962: Sir Charles Tarring held the Chair at the first Executive Committee meeting on 5 Nov 1915. Helen Wilson was first honorary secretary and Alison Neilans, assistant secretary. Neilans later became General Secretary, a position she held until her death in 1942.

Like its predecessors, the Association continued to oppose state regulation of prostitution. This was seen in its campaigns to repeal the provisions of the Defence of the Realm Acts in the First and Second World Wars (Sections 40D and 33B respectively), and against 'solicitation laws' by introducing Public Places (Order) Bills, Street Bills and Criminal Justice Bills between the 1920s and 1940s. It also made representations to the Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution 1954-1957 and was very critical of the Street Offences Act 1959, which was in part a product of the report emanating from that Committee. The Association became concerned with a wide range of issues relating to sexuality: for example, sex education, sex tourism, sexual offences and age of consent, traffic in women and children, and child prostitution. In 1962 the Association changed its name to the Josephine Butler Society.

The Josephine Butler Society (1962-fl.2007) was formed in 1962 and was the renamed Association for Moral & Social Hygiene. Its objectives were: To promote a high and equal standard of morality and sexual responsibility for men and women in public opinion, law and practice; To promote the principles of the International Abolitionist Federation in order to secure the abolition of state regulation of prostitution, to combat the traffic in persons and to expose and prevent any form of exploitation of prostitution by third parties; To examine any existing or proposed legislation on matters associated with prostitution or related aspects of public order and to promote social, legal and administrative reforms in furtherance of the above objectives. Its basic principles were: social justice; equality of all citizens before the law; a single moral standard for men and women. (Taken from membership and donation form 1990). The Josephine Butler Society was a pressure group not a rescue organisation. It wished to prevent the exploitation of prostitutes and marginalisation of those who could be forced into this activity by poverty and abuse, and it believed these problems should be addressed by changes in the law. It believed that more should be done to prevent young people from drifting into prostitution, to help those who wished to leave it, and to rehabilitate its victims. Its work in the early 21st century took two main forms: to make representation to various departments of the UK Government on prostitution and related issues an; to liaise and network with other agencies both statutory and voluntary who worked in related areas.

Josephine Elizabeth Butler [née Grey](1828-1906) was born on 13 Apr 1828 (7th of 10 children of John Grey and Hannah née Annett). In 1835 the Grey family moved to Dilston near Corbridge, Northumberland after her father's appointment in 1833 as agent for the Greenwich Estates in the north. On 8 Jan 1852 Josephine married George Butler at Corbridge, Northumberland. He had been a tutor at Durham University, and then a Public Examiner at Oxford University. In 1857 they moved to Cheltenham following husband's appointment as Vice-Principal of Cheltenham College. In 1866 they moved to Liverpool following husband's appointment as Head of Liverpool College. Josephine took up plight of girls in the Brownlow Hill workhouse and established a Home of Rest for girls in need. In 1868 Josephine became President of North England Council for Promoting Higher Education of Women, and in the following year she was Secretary of Ladies' National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts (extended by legislation in 1866 and 1869). In 1875 she established the International Abolitionist Federation in Liverpool. In 1883 the Contagious Diseases Acts were suspended. In 1885 the age of consent was raised to 16 which Josephine fought for. The Contagious Diseases Acts were repealed in 1886. From 1888 until Oct 1896, Josephine edited 'Dawn' a quarterly journal. In 1890 George Butler died. Josephine moved to London and continued campaigning against state regulation abroad. In 1894 she moved to her son's home in Galewood within Ewart Park near Milfield. In 1906 Josephine moved to Wooler where she died on 30 Dec and was buried at Kirknewton.
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American Sexual Health Association / American Social Hygiene Association
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/4/20

American Sexual Health Association
Operates in the US
Abbreviation: ASHA
Formation: 1914
Type: NGO
Purpose: Information and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDS)
Region served: United States
Website [1]

The American Sexual Health Association (ASHA) is an American non-profit organization established in 1914, that cites a mission to improve the health of individuals, families, and communities, with an emphasis on sexual health, as well as a focus on preventing sexually transmitted infections and their harmful consequences. ASHA uses tools such as education, communication, advocacy and policy analysis activities with the intent to heighten public, patient, provider, policymaker and media awareness of STI prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment strategies.

History

ASHA was born out of the early 20th century social hygiene movement. At the beginning of the twentieth century venereal disease (VD), or what we now call sexually transmitted diseases or infections (STDs/STIs), was a prevalent concern for social health organizations. Sexuality was not an acceptable topic for polite conversation in Victorian society, and VD largely remained behind a veil of shame. At the same time, however, reports of rising incidence rates for syphilis and gonorrhoea gave cause for serious concern. For example, by one perhaps inflated but widely accepted estimate in 1901, as many as 80 percent of all men in New York City had a gonorrhoea infection at one time or another. Early efforts to eradicate "social diseases" focused on prostitution on one hand, as both a threat to the family as a source of infection, and the threat to public health on the other, with the focus on addressing the problem through both medical and educational means.

In 1913, at a conference in Buffalo, New York, several organizations dedicated to fighting prostitution and venereal disease joined together to form the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA).
The association was established to stop the venereal disease epidemic through public education on STIs and working to break down the social stigma attached to VD. In 1914, ASHA established its national headquarters in New York City. Founders and supporters included Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University; Jane Addams of Chicago's Hull House; Edward Keyes, Jr., M.D.; Dr. Thomas N. Hepburn, leader of the Connecticut social hygiene movement; Grace Dodge, philanthropist; John D. Rockefeller, Jr., initial financial contributor; and Dr. William Freeman Snow, Stanford University professor and secretary of the California State Board of Health.

Bureau of Social Hygiene

From 1911 to 1934, the Bureau of Social Hygiene (BSH) funded research and sought to influence public policy on a number of issues related to sex, crime and delinquency. Although the BSH received contributions from a number of organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), the Bureau was largely dependent upon the patronage of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR Jr.), who created the organization to address many of his own personal concerns and interests.

Research and Reform

The idea for the BSH originated in 1910, following JDR Jr.’s participation in a grand jury investigation of white slavery in New York City. Motivated by frustration with temporary public commissions that could only recommend governmental action, JDR Jr. established a permanent and private body to deal directly with a variety of social ills, including prostitution, corruption, drug use and juvenile delinquency.

Image
Pamphlet produced by the Bureau of Social Hygiene: "Commercialized Prostitution in New York City" 1916

The goals and projects of the BSH evolved over time. Its earliest efforts concentrated on surveying the scope of prostitution in New York City and the reform of young women involved in the trade. The BSH commissioned George Kneeland to study various aspects of prostitution in New York City and offered Katherine Bement Davis of the Bedford Hills Women’s Reformatory the resources to study the impact of prostitution on young women and the possible paths to reform. The BSH also devoted significant efforts to sex education, sponsoring the publication of materials related to sexual health and working with state departments of health to disseminate these materials among the general public.

The Root of the Problem

In 1917 [Katherine Bement] Davis was named general secretary of the BSH, and her appointment transformed the organization. She believed that prostitution could not be fully addressed without a deeper understanding of human sexuality. To promote this understanding, Davis spent years advocating for more scientific research into human sexuality. This advocacy helped to create a partnership between the BSH and the National Research Council (NRC) and to form the NRC’s Committee for Research in the Problems of Sex.

The Committee for Research in Problems of Sex was established in 1921 following a proposal by Davis and Earl F. Zinn “[t]o undertake systematic comprehensive research in sex in its individual and social manifestations, the prime purpose being to evaluate conclusions now held and to increase our body of scientifically derived data.”[1] The proposed fields of research included the psychological and physiological aspects of the “sex instinct,” abstinence, masturbation, contraception, venereal disease and sexual relationships. Importantly, these fields of research were to be explored not only from medical and biological perspectives but also from a sociological perspective.

Image
Yale University - endocrinology continuous extractor, 1940

Yet to the dismay of both Zinn and Davis, throughout the 1920s the Committee remained a relatively conservative organization controlled primarily by men trained in the medical sciences rather than the social sciences. The Committee repeatedly funded studies that focused on topics of animal biology and sexuality while ignoring proposed studies on human sexuality. In addition to being uncomfortable with topics of human sexuality and fearing a public backlash, committee members also expressed a general distrust of the social sciences. Davis encountered significant obstacles from BSH trustees who sought to distance the BSH from its work in sex research and direct it towards topics deemed less controversial. Bowing to internal pressures, Davis retired in 1928, and with her retirement the BSH became more deeply involved in the field of criminology.

Beginning in 1931 the BSH planned its own demise by allowing all of its outstanding grants expire. By 1933 all BSH grants had concluded, and the organization effectively ceased operations, although it was not formally dissolved until 1940. Research into sex, including grants to fund the study of endocrinology and the work of Alfred Kinsey, was subsequently taken up by the RF [Rockefeller Foundation].

Notes:

[1]Outline Presented by Mr. Zinn, Earl F. Zinn, undated, Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC), Rockefeller Family Boards, RG III 2 O, Box 7, Folder 50.

-- Bureau of Social Hygiene, by The Rockefeller Foundation Digital History


Bureau of Social Hygiene

The Bureau of Social Hygiene resulted from the appointment of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to a Special Grand Jury to investigate white slavery in New York City in 1910. In conferences taken in the course of this investigation, Mr. Rockefeller, Jr. became convinced that for a lasting improvement of conditions a permanent organization was needed. On March 22, 1911, The Committee of Three, including Mr. Rockefeller, Paul Warburg and Starr J. Murphy [counsel for the Rockefeller Foundation and personal legal adviser of John D. Rockefeller for 17 years] met. The name "Bureau of Social Hygiene" was first used in October of that year, but was not used consistently until 1913.

In 1913 the Bureau was incorporated and its purpose was stated as " ... the study, amelioration, and prevention of those social conditions, crimes, and diseases which adversely affect the well being of society, with special reference to prostitution and the evils associated therewith." The Bureau would engage in research and education, publish reports, and employ and/or cooperate with other public or private agencies to obtain these goals. The emphasis in the years from 1911 until the reorganization of 1928 was mainly on prostitution, the control of vice, and their relationships to police organization. Narcotics was also an early interest.

The General Secretary during the early years was Katharine Bement Davis. She resigned in 1928 and Lawrence B. Dunham was appointed Director. In 1929 the certificate of incorporation was amended and the emphasis on prostitution was dropped. From 1929-1934 the Bureau developed an interest in criminology. Studies and projects were still conducted in narcotics and social hygiene during this time.


The Bureau functioned through grants. It was not a foundation and had no set endowment. In the early years, financial backing came from several sources including Paul Warburg, the New York Foundation, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Mr. Rockefeller was always the main contributor. Grants were occasionally channeled through the Bureau from the Spelman Fund of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation. Grants were most often long range, covering periods of from three to five years. The Bureau did not interfere in the conduct of a project once the money had been granted, but it was careful in its selection of projects and kept in close touch for the duration of the grant.

The Bureau ceased making new appropriations in 1934 and by mid 1937 all the previous commitments had been brought to a close. Annual meetings were held until 1940 when the Bureau was dissolved on November 13th.

Associated With:
• American Birth Control League.
American Social Hygiene Association.
• British Social Hygiene Council.
• Bureau of Social Hygiene (New York, N.Y.)
• Flexner, Abraham, 1866-1959.
• Fosdick, Raymond B., 1883-1972.
• Frankfurter, Felix, 1882-1965.
• Glueck, Sheldon, 1896-
• Harrison, Leonard Vance, b. 1891.
• Hoover, J. Edgar 1895-1972.

Subjects:
• Birth control
• Correctional institution
• Crime and criminals
• Criminal behavior, prediction of
• Criminal investigation--Scientific
• Criminal law
• Criminal psychology
• Criminal statistics
• Drug control
• Eugenics

-- Bureau of Social Hygiene, by Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC)


World War I

ASHA's early worked focused on education and awareness efforts within the armed forces. ASHA worked with the US War Department during World War I when VD occurrences surged among soldiers. Their efforts included educating soldiers about venereal diseases and their transmission and attempting to eliminate prostitution, which was believed to be the primary vehicle for VD transmission among the armed forces. ASHA was successful in shutting down many of the prostitution rings that traditionally surrounded military bases. Due to its contribution to the war effort, ASHA gained national attention and succeeded in creating public awareness of VD.

Between the wars

During the 1920s, ASHA served as a central coordinator for the local or regional committees, doctors, public health officials, and social welfare agencies that were combating sexually transmitted infections. In addition, ASHA published the Journal of Social Hygiene and the Social Hygiene Bulletin, conducted studies on the prevalence of syphilis, undertook surveys on VD, published synopsis of laws concerning prostitution, and supported legislation that required a premarital exam for syphilis. The program also promoted character and sex education as a means of preventing the spread of STIs. The ASHA educational program emphasized preparation for a wholesome family life, avoiding VD, and physical as well as moral fitness.

ASHA had developed into a mature organization by the 1930s with an effective network of supporting local organizations. ASHA also was involved in cooperative projects with a variety of organizations. In a single year, ASHA collaborated with the Federal Council of Churches [the predecessor organization of the World Council of Churches] and the National Congress of Parents and Teachers to promote sex education programs and materials; provided leadership for efforts by the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection to consider the social hygiene elements of child health; conducted institutes for public health nurses under the auspices of the National Organization of Public Health Nursing; and provided data to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in preparation for Indian Health Programs.

World War II

Image
American Social Health Association World War II poster

During World War II, ASHA fulfilled a role reminiscent of its work during World War I, serving on the VD Coordinating Committee for the US military and working against prostitution. ASHA's efforts contributed to a 50% drop in VD infection rates in the military during the first years of the war. In 1944, the military began using penicillin as a cure for syphilis and by the late 1950s it was believed that syphilis was no longer a serious health threat. As a result, the Journal of Social Hygiene discontinued publication.

Journal of Social Hygiene
by American Social Hygiene Association.
Albany, N. Y. : Boyd Printing Co., inc.,

• 1914 (v.1 n.1)
• 1915 (v.1 n.2 - v.1 n.4)
• 1916 (v.2 n.1 - v.2 n.4)
• 1917 (v.3 n.1 - v.3 n.4)
• 1918 (v.4 n.1 - v.4 n.4)
• 1919 (v.5 n.1 - v.5 n.4)
• 1920 (v.6 n.1 - v.6 n.4)
• 1921 (v.7 n.1 - v.7 n.4)
• 1922 (v.VIII n.1 - v.VIII ind.)
• 1923 (v.IX n.1 - v.IX n.9)
• 1924 (v.10 n.1 - v.10 ind.)
• 1925 (v.11 n.1 - v.11 ind.)
• 1926 (v.12 n.1 - v.12 n.9)
• 1927 (v.13 n.1 - v.13 n.9)
• 1928 (v.14 n.1 - v.14 n.9)
• 1929 (v.15 n.1 - v.15 n.9)
• 1930 (v.16 n.1 - v.16 n.9)
• 1931 (v.17 n.1 - v.17 n.9)
• 1932 (v.18 n.1 - v.18 n.9)
• 1933 (v.19 n.1 - v.19 n.9)
• 1934 (v.20 n.1 - v.20 n.9)
• 1935 (v.21 n.1 - v.21 n.7-9)
• 1936 (v.22 n.1 - v.22 n.9)
• 1937 (v.23 n.1 - v.23 n.9)
• 1938 (v.24 n.1 - v.24 n.9)
• 1939 (v.25 n.1 - v.25 n.9)
• 1940 (v.26 n.1 - v.26 n.9)
• 1941 (v.27 n.1 - v.27 n.9)
• 1942 (v.28 n.1 - v.28 n.9)
• 1943 (v.29 n.1 - v.29 n.9)
• 1944 (v.30 n.1 - v.30 n.9)
• 1945 (v.31 n.1 - v.31 n.9)
• 1946 (v.32 n.1 - v.32 n.9)
• 1947 (v.33 n.1 - v.33 n.9)
• 1948 (v.34 n.1 - v.34 n.9)
• 1949 (v.35 n.1 - v.35 n.9)
• 1950 (v.36 n.1 - v.36 ind.)
• 1951 (v.37 n.1 - v.37 n.9)
• 1952 (v.38 n.1 - v.38 n.9)
• 1953 (v.39 n.1 - v.39 n.9)
• 1954 (v.40 n.1 - v.40 n.9)


Kinsey era

The release of the Kinsey reports on sexual behavior in 1948 and 1954 created national controversy. ASHA played a prominent role in the debate, organizing a national conference to bring together leading authorities in the fields of psychology, statistics, education, medicine, law, religion, anthropology and sociology to exchange views as to the significance of Kinsey's new information. The goal was to look at the information as scientific data instead of pornography. As Walter Clark, ASHA president from 1937 to 1951, commented, "The truth never harms . . . And it seems reasonable to hope that when today's older generation, conditioned against frankness in sex matters, passes away and today's youth takes over tomorrow's world, the truth about sex shall indeed make them free—free of the diseases, the exploitations, the ignorance and superstitions which for ages have burdened and blighted society."

Also in the 1950s, ASHA began to distribute a comprehensive annual questionnaire to health officers across the country. The responses, tabulated by ASHA and analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were published annually as Today's VD Control Problem, continuing under ASHA auspices until 1975. Today's VD Control Problem provided the statistical basis for testimony before Congress, as ASHA returned year after year to urge adequate federal appropriations for STD control.

The 1960s and 1970s

As ASHA began to recognize that the STD issue connected with other issues, it reflected its broader approach in a name change, moving from American Social Hygiene Association to American Social Health Association in 1960. Among the issues of concern identified by ASHA was the link between STDs and drug use. In 1961 ASHA launched a new program that was the first to focus on the prevention of narcotic addiction and the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts. The agency evaluated existing programs, issued position papers and informational booklets, maintained a clearinghouse, and sponsored four community-based pilot projects.

By the 1970s, though, additional novel problems led to soaring STD rates, including the sexual revolution, more international travel, gay liberation, birth control for women, and increasing drug use. Scientists were also recognizing more sexually transmitted pathogens, and viral STDs were making an appearance as well, from herpes simplex virus (HSV) to human papilloma virus (HPV). ASHA's public outreach efforts in this era included the creation of the Herpes Resource Center in 1979, the first program in the U.S. for people living with a viral STD. ASHA also established the National VD Hotline, where trained volunteers offers scientifically accurate information and support. ASHA also launched its first modern public awareness campaign, VD is For Everybody.[1] Working with the National Advertising Council, ASHA called attention to the alarming increase in the number of STDs by means of radio, television, and print public service announcements.

During the 1980s, ASHA continued to educate the public about sexually transmitted infections, primarily by means of telephone information and referral hot-lines, such as the National STD Hotline and the National AIDS Hotline. ASHA established the latter hotline in 1986, at that time the largest health-related hotline in the world. By the 1990s, the hotline was answering more than 1.5 million calls per year. The association also continued to advocate for public policies to combat STDS and increased funding for research. The identification of the AIDS virus added a new area of concern to the association's fight against sexually transmitted infections.

ASHA Today

ASHA continues its mission to improve the health of improving the health of individuals, families and communities with a focus on preventing sexually transmitted diseases and their harmful consequences, and has broadened its efforts into the field of sexual health. Its current programs include:

STI Resource Center, that provides information, materials and referrals to the public who have questions or concerns about sexually transmitted infections. Through its telephone hotline and online message boards, the Center answers questions on such topics as transmission, risk reduction, prevention, testing, and treatment and partner communication.

Herpes Resource Center, founded in 1979, continues to provide information and support through its multiple web pages, message board and publications. The center also offers The Helper, a quarterly journal that discusses the latest in herpes information, research, treatment, testing and patient-advocacy.

HPV and Cervical Cancer Prevention Resource Center, established in 1991, offers information and referrals about the Human Papillomavirus to patients, health care providers, and policy makers. The HPV Resource Center focuses on issues including HPV vaccines, partner communication and cervical cancer screening. The Center also offers a bimonthly electronic journal, HPV News, that covers the latest in HPV research, treatment and testing options, and policy issues.

ASHA's Research division conducts numerous research projects among local, regional, and national constituents focusing on a variety of populations and an assortment of health topics including sexually transmitted infections. ASHA's Washington staff works to educate members of Congress and other important voices in health policy about the urgency of research and frontline programs in the STI field.

Advocacy: ASHA has maintained a policy office in Washington, DC and has worked in partnership with other organizations in the area of sexual and reproductive health to advocate for proper attention and funding to STD research and programs.

National Cervical Cancer Coalition: NCCC became an ASHA program in the fall of 2011. Founded as a grass-roots organization in 1996, NCCC supports cervical cancer patients/survivors, families, and caregivers. NCCC has chapters[2] across the U.S.

ASHA milestones

• 1914 American Social Hygiene Association was founded
• 1920s John D. Rockefeller, Jr. commits funds to support ASHA's mission
• 1927 ASHA establishes the Valentine's Day Committee to promote sexual responsibility
• 1931 Trains field and send them to uncover commercial houses of prostitution, ASHA's leader, Thomas Parran, Jr., MD, is appointed Surgeon General by FDR
• 1934 CBS cancels a radio address by Dr. Parran, New York Commissioner of Health, because the script includes the word "syphilis"
• 1937 ASHA established First National Social Hygiene Day
• 1938 Eleanor Roosevelt attends ASHA's annual luncheon in honor of the passage of Venereal Disease Control Act
• 1943 Perception shifts from moral to medical interventions to solve the VD problem
• 1945 Joe Louis joins ASHA for a major public awareness campaign
• 1954 ASHA begins to monitor rates of venereal disease by collecting data that was then analyzed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention "Today's VD Control Problem" published by ASHA until 1970. ASHA testifies before Congress, as it continues to do today, to urge adequate federal appropriations for VD control.
• 1959 ASHA changes its name to the American Social Health Association
• 1970s Dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infection rates because of international travel, the sexual revolution, gay liberation and increasing drug use. Scientists recognizing more and more sexually transmitted pathogens. Genital herpes, human Papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis B identified.
• 1979 ASHA creates the National Herpes Resource Center, which includes the National Herpes Hotline
• 1986 ASHA opens the National AIDS Hotline, the largest health-related hotline in the world
• 1999 ASHA opens the National HPV and Cervical Cancer Prevention Resource Center with hotline
• 2011 ASHA merges with the National Cervical Cancer Coalition (NCCC) in October. NCCC becomes a program of ASHA and expands ASHA's reach to include cervical cancer survivors.
• 2012 ASHA changes its name to the American Sexual Health Association

See also

• Maurice Bigelow
• Reproductive health
• Social hygiene movement

References

1. https://www.youtube.com/user/ashastd#p/u/2/SN9_J3_9wPc
2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-08-04. Retrieved 2014-08-01.

External links

• Official website
• Finding aid for the American Social Health Association records at the Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries.
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Part 1 of 4

Journal of Social Hygiene, January, 1922 [Excerpts]
Vol. VIII
by The American Social Hygiene Association
370 Seventh Avenue, New York

Contents:

• Editorial Announcement
• Education in Sex and Heredity: A Practical Program, by Henry M. Grant
• A Study of Specialized Courts Dealing with Sex Delinquency, II. The Misdemeanants' Division of the Philadelphia Municipal Court, by George E. Worthington and Ruth Topping
• Book Reviews
• Abstracts of Periodical Literature
• Note and Comment
• Social Hygiene Bibliography
• Contributors to This Issue
• "Now It Can Be Told"
• Book Reviews:
o Reid. The Prevention of Venereal Disease
o Galloway. The Father and His Boy
• Abstracts of Periodical Literature:
o Stoops. The Will and the Instinct of Sex.
o Darwin. The Aims and Methods of Eugenical Societies.
o Robinson. Control of Venereally Diseased Persons in Interstate Commerce
• Note and Comment:
o Annual Report of Interdepartmental Board
o The Eastern European Red Cross Conference on Venereal Diseases
o The Western European Red Cross Conference on Venereal Diseases

The Will and the Instinct of Sex. By John Dashiell Stoops, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. xxxii, No. 1, October, 1921.

As volition, reason, and individuality have developed in man, there has been a tendency to conquer or at least to control the instincts. In plants and animals, where none of these qualities exists, the sole objective of sex is the perpetuation of life. To them, sex is entirely unconscious. In man, however, sex consciousness has resulted in a deep sense of shame. Man, through reason, directs the channels through which the sex instinct expresses itself, but the sex drive itself is independent of reason. Its suppression by will is only an illusion, for, submerged below the level of conscious motives, it becomes the subconscious nucleus of a separate disorganizing personality.

With the development of the inner life of man, the drive of the sex instinct came into open conflict with the will. This dissociation of the will from the drive of sex diabolized both the sex instinct and the institution of the family. By demoralizing the family it destroyed the normal objective of the sex drive. It disorganized the very process of the will itself, for will, to be effective, must have something of the power and immediacy of instinct and emotion.

The emotion of sex is the voice of a unit larger than the individual. It is the voice of the race. It should be recognized by the individual. The drives of sex and parenthood must be regarded as entering into the very basis of the will. The moralization of the drive of sex restores to the will one of its main sources of power and one of its chief social objectives, which it lost in medieval times. A recognition of the ideal of sex will result in a positive development in which our instincts and emotions and desires will be organized in a system of objective ends. The facts of experience, such as sensations, images, and ideas, are always organized, more or less completely, into wholes by the various instinctive drives. It is within such a drive or whole that every sustained process of volition must function, and sex is one of the dominant drives of the race in the individual mind. The drives, the creative patterns, of life are in the instincts, and the will must find its ends and its motive powers in the instincts. The sex instinct has its unity of pattern, and volition can find a durable end only within the instinctive pattern which nature provides.


***

The Aims and Methods of Eugenical Societies. By Leonard Darwin. Science, Vol. liv, No. 1397, October 7, 1921.

Eugenic societies should strive for three things: (1) to make the public realize more fully what a potent influence heredity has on the race; (2) to try to ascertain and make known the rules by which the individual ought to regulate his own conduct in regard to parenthood in accordance with the laws of heredity in so far as they are now surely known; and (3) to determine the action which the state should take to stimulate and enforce conduct productive of racial progress, and to advocate a line of advance.

To accomplish the first purpose, it is necessary to spread a general knowledge of the laws of heredity. In doing this, there is the difficulty of breaking through the barriers of ignorance. Men uninformed of the facts of eugenics are prejudiced against believing that all men are not equal by birth. Great care should be taken to indicate that, though experience in the stock-yard enables eugenists to understand the laws of natural inheritance, yet reliance on these laws carries with it no implication whatever that the methods of the animal breeder ought to be introduced into human society. Those who regard the efforts of eugenists with distrust, should be eager to advocate the teaching of biology, since it is through biology that eugenic errors will be detected.

The second of the main lines is concerned with the rules by which an individual can guide his conduct in all matters relating to racial progress. The question of birth control brings up a number of ethical, racial, and economic factors. Even when approached calmly and scientifically, it is difficult to arrive at precise conclusions. For instance, it is quite possible that two individuals whose families were characterized by some degree of ill health, would, because of strong will power and high moral sense, obey any self-denying ordinance in regard to marriage. That would mean that there is a danger of losing the characteristic of high moral caliber from the race. This aspect must indeed be regarded by the eugenist.

In regard to the part of the state in the eugenic plan, there is much to be considered. Legislative reforms can seldom be effectively promoted unless they are sanctioned by public opinion and likewise eugenical societies would be wise to avoid taking action in regard to legislation unless proposed nearly unanimously. Legislation of general application producing beneficial racial effects includes certain taxation reforms. Taxation should fall less heavily on those burdened with families. Practical steps should be taken to lessen the fertility of habitual criminals and of the grossly unfit generally.

Progress on eugenic lines will make mankind become continually nobler, happier, and healthier. Those who imagine it is the aim of eugenical societies to make man a stronger animal or a better beast of burden are utterly ignorant of the meaning of the eugenical ideal.

***

NOTE AND COMMENT

ANNUAL REPORT OF INTERDEPARTMENTAL BOARD.


The report submitted by Thomas A. Storey, retiring executive secretary of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, for the year of 1920–21, contains many items of more than casual interest. One of the most striking facts brought out is the cost of venereal diseases, directly and indirectly. They cost the nation, through wage losses alone, $54,000,000, annually. The cost of the diseases to the army was estimated at $15,000,000 in a single year. Army and navy commanders, quoted in the report, credit the Social Hygiene Board with a large influence in reducing the venereal rate in 1920. The venereal disease rate in the army is said to be the best on record.

The report indicates that the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board has cooperated in the several phases of venereal-disease control. With the help of the law, 75 red-light districts have been shut down completely. In an effort to establish a measure of venereal-disease control, the sum of $2,450,000 was apportioned among the 48 states. These funds of the last four years, matched by state appropriations, have been devoted to supplying free salvarsan, free treatment centers, informational publicity, and repressive measures.

Forty institutions are cooperating with the Board in training teachers in social hygiene, in order to educate coming generations accurately and adequately.
The Board has also expended much effort in developing the medical phases of venereal-disease control. The leading scientific schools are lending their men and laboratories to the cause. Forty-three separate researches are occupied on the unsolved medical problems.

Active members of the Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board are Edward Clifford, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, J. M. Wainwright, Assistant Secretary of War, Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Surgeon General M. W. Ireland of the Army, Surgeon General E. R. Stitt of the Navy, and Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming of the Public Health Service. Dr. T. A. Storey, of the College of the City of New York, formerly chief inspector of the New York State military training commission, was executive secretary over the period covered by the report. He has been succeeded lately in that position by Dr. Valeria H. Parker, an active figure in the social-hygiene work of the National League of Women Voters, the National Women's Christian Temperance Union, the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teachers Associations, and the American Social Hygiene Association.

***

THE EASTERN EUROPEAN RED CROSS CONFERENCE ON VENEREAL DISEASES.

Prague was the center to which all the eastern European countries sent delegates for the meeting beginning December 5, 1921. The countries participating were Austria, Bulgaria, Czecho-Slovakia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Roumania, Serbia, and Yugo-Slavia.

***

THE WESTERN EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON VENEREAL DISEASES.

This Conference, also promoted by the League of Red Cross Societies, was held at the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, December 14, 1921. The countries sending delegates were: Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

***

OCTOBER, 1921, ISSUES WANTED

Owing to the widespread demand from scientific and other educational institutions for copies of Vol. VII, No. 4, SOCIAL HYGIENE (October, 1921), the entire issue is exhausted. The Association would be glad to have copies returned by those members and subscribers who feel that they can spare them, in order that this demand from reference sources may be supplied.

***

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION

Honorary President


Charles W. Eliot

Honorary Vice-Presidents

Miss Jane Addams
Newton D. Baker
R. Fulton Cutting
James Cardinal Gibbons [Deceased]
O. Edward Janney, M.D.
David Starr Jordan
Julius Rosenwald
William H. Welch, M.D.
President: Hermann M. Biggs, M.D.

Vice-Presidents

John J. Eagan
William S. Keller
John H. Stokes, M.D.
Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D.

Treasurer

Jerome D. Greene

Secretary

Donald R. Hooker, M.D.

Board of Directors

Thomas M. Balliet
Maurice A. Bigelow
Hugh Cabot, M.D.
John M. Cooper
Mrs. Henry D. Dakin
Williams A. Evans, M.D.
Livingston Farrand, M.D.
Raymond B. Fosdick
Henry James
Edward L. Keyes, Jr., M.D.
Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw
James Pedersen, M.D.
Rockwell H. Potter
Roscoe Pound
George D. Pratt
Frederick F. Russell, M.D.
William F. Snow, M.D.
Mrs. Anna Garlin Specer
Walter T. Sumner
C.E.A. Winslow
Hugh H. Young, M.D.

Executive Committee

Edward L. Keyes, Jr., M.D.
Maurice A. Bigelow
Mrs. Henry D. Dakin
Raymond B. Fosdick
Henry James
George D. Pratt
William F. Snow, M.D.
President and Secretary, ex officio

***

CONTENTS OF RECENT ISSUES

January, 1921


What Venereal Diseases Cost the Community, by Charles J. MacAlister
The Essential Sociological Equipment of Workers with Delinquents, by Arthur J. Todd
The Social Hygiene Program of the Army, by Percy M. Ashburn
The American Negro and Social Hygiene, by Charles W. Roman

The American Negro and Social Hygiene, by Charles W. Roman, Former President, National Medical Association

Health and longevity, within certain limitations, are purchasable commodities. All may buy who are willing and able to meet the terms. In a large measure this is also true of morals. Standards of health and moral ideals are mutually complementary and measurably determined by heredity and environment. Morbidity and mortality are deeply influenced by conduct, and yet the conduct of an individual or a group cannot always be inferred from the incidence of disease, nor can the status of morals be determined by a registered death-rate. The American negro has been so influenced by his heredity and so hampered by his environment that it is difficult to determine the measure of his responsibilities, especially in matters of morals and health.

This discussion is confined to social-hygiene problems as they find peculiar development among the colored people. In such a study it is difficult to establish indisputable facts, which, of course, increases the fallibility of any deductions or explanations that may be offered. I shall therefore stay within the limits of my personal experiences and professional observations.

About twenty-five years ago I was rudely shocked by the arrest and conviction of an old colored physician upon the charge of procuring an abortion. I had known the old man for many years and had regarded him as an exceptionally well-balanced and upright individual, with strong personal opinions and independent standards of conduct. He was seriously pious and earnestly altruistic. I had never thought of this man in connection with crime. The evidence brought out at the trial showed him to be a victim of circumstances rather than an intentional criminal, and he got off with a light sentence. Popular sympathy, in which I joined, favored him.

The old doctor returned from the penitentiary neither repentant nor humiliated. The arguments with which he justified his conduct in the face of my reproof shocked and astonished me, but aroused in me an interest in sex matters that has gathered momentum with years. This old black man, with the incitement and collusion of both the prospective parents and their friends, interrupted the course of gestation in a white woman, and felt no sense of guilt. All of the participants were equally free from compunctions of conscience. I was interested and puzzled. It took me a long time to find a satisfactory explanation of the conduct of these people.

My final conclusion was that human reason has not yet devised a code which harmonizes individual interests with social welfare. Here is the heart, not only of the sex problem, but of the social and economic troubles that have alternately caused and defeated revolutions since history began. Conduct and convention deviate to the breaking point, then mix up and start all over again in the same directions, to repeat indefinitely the vicious circle. The times are ripe for resetting the landmarks of convention and restating the standards of social morality. It is the duty of all good citizens not only to take a hand in this work but to study and inform themselves that they may intelligently help others. Thoughtful colored people are very much at sea just now both in religion and in morals. The spirit of intolerance and extremism so manifest in all phases of our socio-economic life today is particularly pernicious among colored people. There is danger of losing the landmarks in the attempt to reset them. The necessary inhibitions of civilization may be destroyed in the effort to establish freedom, and self-determination may end in anarchy instead of democracy.

The emotionality of the colored man's religion has often militated against its practicality; that is, his moral practices have not conformed to his spiritual professions.
Judge Stevens, of Winston-Salem, told me that in investigating the life-history of Negro criminals, he was surprised to note that he seldom found an adult who was not or had not been a member of the church. The actual fact of this failure of the Negro church to influence the moral conduct of its members would probably explain many phases of the racial problem. It unfortunately conforms also to what the colored man believes of his white brother. I am quite sure that some religious missionaries of the white race would be surprised to know the opinions that illiterate colored people have of "white folks' religion." How clearly each sees the mote in the other's eye!

The mysteries thrown about religion often darken the counsels of practical wisdom. This undesirable condition becomes a social calamity when pathology is used to interpret the ways of Providence and disease is regarded as a moral agent for the protection of the innocent. Nature is inexorable and without sympathy, but she is also fair and without prejudice. She respects only obedience and intelligence, having no mercy on ignorance nor sympathy for innocence. Social hygiene is inextricably bound up with the sex relations, and the so-called "venereal diseases," by their frequency and destructiveness, make not only our most interesting and perplexing health problems but our most complicated and discouraging moral questions.

Available statistics indicate a higher venereal rate among colored Americans than among white. This statement is subject to many qualifications and reservations. The figures are undoubtedly tinged with prejudice. Comparisons to be just should be made with similar grades and classes, and the statistics should be gathered under like circumstances. This was seldom or never done, not even in the army. (The colored physicians within and without the army are unanimous in their testimony of unfairness to colored soldiers in health and administrative matters.1 [1. A striking illustration of this kind of reasoning is to be found in a recent number of a reputable medical journal (American Journal of Opthalmology, Vol. iv, No. 1) in which some comparative anatomical generalizations are made concerning the structure of the nasal canal. The conclusions are based upon the examination of 15 white individuals and 9 colored individuals. The youngest one of the whites was 23 years old, the youngest of the colored was 65. The oldest white was 67; the oldest colored, 90. The combined age of the nine Negroes was 652, while that of the fifteen whites was 629, making the average for the whites a little less than 42 years; for the colored a little more than 72 years. When we consider the well-known changes that time brings in the structure of the face, the unsoundness of any comparative data which ignore these changes must at once be apparent.]) But when all is said and done the higher incidence must be admitted. The colored people need to be convinced of the facts and their importance. This duty, of course, falls primarily upon the colored medical men, who see the facts and appreciate the situation. But they need both encouragement and help. There are some very essential facts of the race situation that seem to be ignored, suppressed, or unknown by one side or the other in practically all of the discussions of the color problem in this country. The venereal-disease incidence is not sufficiently understood by the colored people. Yet the prevalence of venereal diseases bears a demonstrable relationship to the average intelligence of a community. And the rate among colored people shows an unvarying relationship to that of the whites for the same community; highest where highest among whites and lowest where lowest among whites. The frequent co-existence of the tubercular bacillus and Spirochaeta pallida is another condition found among colored people to which the rank and file of the medical profession are not fully alive.

One of the purposes of social hygiene is to "advocate the highest standards of private and public morality." This is a phase of the work of which the colored people stand particularly in need. The home is not only the first and most important social unit, but it is the basis of civilization. Sexual promiscuity is in direct antagonism to the home. The heritages of slavery and the handicaps of race prejudice have played havoc with the home life of the colored people. This is the steepest grade on the long and weary road from serfdom to citizenship. Here is the race's weakest point. The slum life of the city and the poverty and illiteracy of the country are cunning and dangerous enemies to the personal purity and self-restraint of good homes. The abolition of the open saloon and the red-light district has been a Godsend to the Negro home. It has been truthfully said: "What can most be depended on to stand against the alluring circumstances of a tempting occasion are fixed principles and fixed habits of thought and character. These are the effects of rearing and of lifelong education rather than of sporadic efforts spent on adults." Next to the home the public school is the most available and effective teacher and guardian of individual and public morals. Here again the neglect of schools for colored children creates a distinct gap in the chain of defenses against a lower social morality.

Health problems begin with the souls and not with the bodies of men.
Tried by the standards of aspiration and self-help, the colored people qualify as a deserving group for social reenforcement. The colored woman resents the promiscuity of the colored man and hopes for the dawn of a better day. Nor is the colored man completely unresponsive to the single-standard appeals. He usually recognizes the injustice of prostitution. Not only are the colored people deserving of help, but they are worth saving. Competent army medical authority, after an exhaustive investigation, concludes that "the Negro seems to have more stable nerves, has better eyes, and metabolizes better. Thus in many respects the uninfected colored troops show themselves to be constitutionally better physiological machines than the white men."

Reproduction is as important to society as nutrition is to the individual; for social continuity depends upon the succession of individual lives as individual bodies depend upon cell life and reproduction. Social health, therefore, requires not only the structural integrity and normal functioning of the individuals composing the group, but the ability and willingness upon the part of those individuals to produce offspring fit to succeed them.

The scarcity of children among educated colored people is one of the striking phases of the social-hygiene problem as it affects the race. The fact of this scarcity is too patent to need proof. What is the explanation? Is it physical, mental, moral or environmental? My opinion, based on personal observation, thought, and experience, is that all four factors enter into the problem, but that environment is the most important. The moral status of the colored people has been greatly influenced by the handicaps of racial prejudice. In private practice I have frequently heard intelligent and upright colored women say they would rather die than to bring children into the world to suffer what they had suffered. Infanticide and abortion, those gruesome American vices, are not unknown in the social life of colored America. On the other hand the doctrines of birth control are finding many devotees among intelligent colored people. I recall very vividly a case of mine where four successive full-term stillbirths were followed by a self-induced abortion that ended fatally. What advice should have been given this young and apparently healthy mother? Society has no right to unsex people, nor to force unwilling parenthood upon any one. Instruct such women intellectually and morally and leave them the freedom and responsibility of a decision.

Health not only comprehends the physical integrity of our bodies and the normal cooperative functioning of their organs, but our moral practices and our spiritual aims. Beliefs and hopes lie within the connotations of health. A man must be before he can be anything. The right to live may be conceded, but the ability to do so must be asserted, demonstrated, proved. When the returns are all in, moral purpose is quite as important in matters of health as physical stamina. All of this the Negro sees as through a glass darkly, and feels as a strange and not understood activating motive.

Inertia is more dangerous to reform that opposition. A voice crying in the wilderness is typical of a teacher of a new doctrine. Heedlessness precedes opposition as opposition presages interest. The bulk of our colored population forms a fertile field for social-hygiene work. Not only does the awakening racial consciousness of these people render propitious the present time for spreading the principles of social hygiene, but any common effort in a good cause will tend to lessen the acuteness of those growing angularities of racial differences that bode no good to the republic. The believers in human brotherhood have never been able to formulate a workable definition of their doctrine. The nearest approach to a workable formula is the ethical equivalent to the mathematical axiom, "things equal to the same thing are equal to each other." People who will work for the same ends will work for each other. If the social order is not to collapse, the whole of civilization must be infused with spiritual values and goals. It is not only a moral privilege but a patriotic duty to strengthen the ideals of social purity and widen the horizon of social justice among all elements of our population during this period of reconstruction and change.

The colored people are now at that stage of racial evolution where the blandishments of personal appeal outweigh the influence of rational argument. Reading is not general enough for effective missionary efforts by the printed word. But if the lines of policy are wisely laid, the race presents a peculiarly inviting field for the operation of the forces of social betterment -- a field at once accessible and responsive, where personality is at a premium and adaptability means success


Galahad, Knight Who Perished: A Poem to All Crusaders Against the International and Interstate Traffic in Young Girls

Galahad ... soldier that perished ... ages ago,
Our hearts are breaking with shame, our tears overflow.
Galahad ... knight who perished ... awaken again,
Teach us to fight for immaculate ways among men.

Soldiers fantastic, we pray to the star of the sea,
We pray to the mother of God that the bound may be free.
Rose-crowned lady from heaven, give us thy grace,
Help us the intricate, desperate battle to face

Till the leer of the trader is seen nevermore in the land,
Till we bring every maid of the age to one sheltering hand.
Ah, they are priceless, the pale and the ivory and red!
Breathless we gaze on the curls of each glorious head!
Arm them with strength mediaeval, thy marvelous dower,
Blast now their tempters, shelter their steps with thy power.
Leave not life's fairest to perish -- strangers to thee,
Let not the weakest be shipwrecked, oh, star of the sea!
[By permission of the Macmillan Company, from The Congo and Other Poems, by Vachel Lindsay.]


I well remember how the vision of the veritable existence of the World Mother first dawned upon me many years ago. I think I was privileged to see Her, however faintly, not only as an ideal, or even as One in the succession of Personifications of the Mother Aspect of Deity, but also as a wondrous living Being, the Exquisite Jewel in the Hierarchy of Earth's Adepts, the World Mother for this epoch, the Star of the Sea, as She is severally named....

Thus I have come to believe, even to know, that there is such a wondrous and glorious Being on our Earth as the World Mother... I have also learned that She ever seeks human agents and human helpers who will serve in Her name and endeavour to live in Her presence. Whilst women especially represent Her, She also needs men of honour to be her knights, ever ready to fight for the weak and the exploited and to guard with knightly loyalty all women and children, as true knights should. Unhappily, men tend to forget the ideals of chivalry, save those who are still knightly in their nature....

On one other memorable occasion an Angel Teacher opened my consciousness into some realisation of the present holder of the Office of World Mother, who is Mary, the mother of Jesus...

"She sends this message through the Brotherhood to men:-


"In the Name of Him whom long ago I bore, I come to your aid. I have taken every woman into my heart, to hold there a part of her that through it I may help her in her time of need.

"Uplift the women of your race till all are seen as queens, and to such queens let every man be as a king, that each may honour each, seeing the other's royalty. Let every home, however small, become a court, every son a knight, every child a page. Let all treat all with chivalry, honouring in each their royal parentage, their kingly birth; for there is royal blood in every man; all are the children of the KING."


-- The Spiritual Significance of Motherhood, by Geoffrey Hodson


Vachel Lindsay is what I would call a village genius, as naïve as a child. He came from Springfield, Illinois, and his mother was a kind of a theosophist. The boy was looked on, even from his earliest days, as the people around Springfield said, as being half-cracked, which he definitely was. He had a couple of early notions about poetry, three or four, which are kind of unique and kind of fun. One of them was that poetry is, or should be, like a circus act. It should be what he called the “higher vaudeville.” He himself read his poems for a period of ten or twelve years to the largest audiences that have ever been in this country for poetry. Everybody was absolutely wild about him. He used to insist that anybody who came to his poetry readings would show a book of his own collected poems at the door so that they would have the text, because, along side the text were written instructions to the audience who would join in certain passages. He was like a poetical revivalist. And he would turn his readings and his public performances into tent shows, carnivals, which combined about one-half religious fervor and the other half the enthusiasm of the carny baker, carnival barker. But they were supposed to be great fun.

The American public tired of them after a while. After he had made such a success doing this sort of thing he fell from favor, but he had committed his life to going around giving readings. He didn’t have any other means of livelihood. His audiences continued to dwindle. He’d been a fad for a while, and the audiences got smaller and smaller and smaller, and finally he didn’t have any livelihood from it at all. He was engaged in a tragic love affair with another American poet named Sara Teasdale. What happens to Vachel Lindsay, at the age of fifty-two, after his vogue passed, his vogue of the village genius and the revivalist carnival poet, what happened was that he went back to the house where he was born in Springfield and swallowed a bottle of Lysol and died this hideous, agonizing death by his own hand. It’s funny, isn’t it, how these ecstatic, ebullient types always end up as suicides or alcoholics or come to some kind of tragic end. I’ve heard Vachel Lindsay spoken of as a precursor of Dylan Thomas, and in some ways indeed he was. He had the same kind of naïve, enthusiastic sense of mission. He was a great public performer. At his height he got the highest prices for public readings of anybody up until the time of Dylan Thomas. He burned out quickly. He was demoralized by his personal life. He felt betrayed by his public. And in the end he had no personal resources to draw on.

But he is what I would characterize as a hell of a lot of fun as a poet. He wrote far too much. He was really completely uncritical of his own work. He didn’t know what was good or what was bad. He wrote easily. He wrote in very heavy rhythmical cadences. He wrote poems that are so odd and so crazy and so naïve that you wouldn’t believe them unless you saw them, but in a few they catch the accent of the American ballyhoo, the carnival, the circus atmosphere, where native types or folk legends are caught up and made, not only larger than life, but into something like a display by P.T. Barnum. But he was completely undiscriminating. For Vachel Lindsay, it didn’t make any difference to him whether he mythologized Abraham Lincoln or Johnny Appleseed or Mary Pickford. It was all the same to him. If he got going on one of these figures, they were all just part of his sideshow. So therefore there is an enormous lot of waste and enormous lot of undistinguished stuff, but the best of it is really inimitable.

He was an absolute child, all the way up until the age of fifty-two, when he died. This is his idea, for example, of a Negro minister giving sermons. And Lindsay has this marvelous capacity, which a poet really ought to have, of really throwing himself, in his own way, into the subject. This is Vachel Lindsay’s idea put into the mouth of a Negro preacher. This is called “When Peter Jackson Preached in the Old Church.” Here’s the circus-style Vachel Lindsay.

When Peter Jackson Preached in the Old Church
[To be sung to the tune of the old negro spiritual “Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.”]

Peter Jackson was a-preaching
And the house was still as snow.
He whispered of repentance
And the lights were dim and low
And were almost out
When he gave the first shout:
“Arise, arise,
Cry out your eyes.”
And we mourned all our terrible sins away.
Clean, clean away.
Then we marched around, around,
And sang with a wonderful sound: --
“Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.
Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.”
And we fell by the altar
And fell by the aisle,
And found our Savior
In just a little while,
We all found Jesus at the break of the day,
We all found Jesus at the break of the day.
Blessed Jesus,
Blessed Jesus.


-- Classes on Modern Poets and the Art of Poetry, by James Dickey


Is “Stigma” Removable?, by Ada E. Sheffield
Colony Care for Isolation and Dependent Cases, by Charles Bernstein
The Work of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, 1919–20, by Thomas A. Storey

April, 1921

The Responsibilities of Religious Leaders in Sex Education, by Thomas W. Galloway
A New Emphasis in Social Hygiene Education, by Harry A. Wembridge
The Status of Sex Education in Public Educational Institutions, by Vivian H. Harris
A Psychological Study of Motion Pictures in Relation to Venereal Disease Campaigns, by Karl S. Lashley and John B. Watson

July, 1921

The Distribution of Wealth as a Eugenist Sees It, by Roswell H. Johnson

The Distribution of Wealth as a Eugenist Sees It, by Roswell Hill Johnson, M.S.1 [The author desires to acknowledge the cooperation of Mr. Kenneth M. Gould in the preparation of this paper.], Professor of Geology, School of Mines, University of Pittsburgh

No issues are more significant for the future well-being of the human race or bulk larger in the public mind today than those which involve the continuance of our present modes of distribution of wealth. This is conceded by every thoughtful person wherever his sympathies or judgments may lie in regard to points of controversy. To the extent to which the existing method of distribution can be held to contain the salt of soundness in respect to the maximum development of personality, as far as scientific criteria can be applied thereto, the rationally minded must concede its desirability and formulate their social policies accordingly.

The two outstanding problems are:

1. To what extent is economic status correlated with desirable germinal qualities?

2. To what extent is racial contribution correlated with economic status?

The first of these, of course, assumes the essential validity of modern theories of the inheritance of moral and mental traits. The second resolves itself into three distinct problems, those respectively of (a) viability, (b) nuptiality, (c) fecundity, all of which are factors in determining the total contribution of a given stock to the social population.

The attack on these two most vital lines of investigation [is] greatly hampered and obscured by unscientific thinking and romanticizing. It is a fundamental psychological law that we prefer conclusions that are pleasurable, and unconsciously conceal from ourselves the disagreeable, especially where it involves defects in our own personalities. Hence arises the reluctance of mediocrity to admit the existence or importance of variable germinal qualities. This is a vice peculiarly characteristic of a political democracy like the United States, wherein a strong equalitarian prejudice has existed almost from the beginning of our national experiment and has become, in fact, a fixed tradition.

But let us analyze vigorously the biological aspects of the present economic system, and then examine the few instances where quantitative observations of the problem have been made and correlations of some sort measured.

The competitive economic world, in several important ways, is selective of superior ability. It will not do, of course, to press these suggestions too far, nor is it claimed that the same factors operate universally or with equal intensity or justice to all concerned. But they are certainly present in some degree and may even be called the rule in the industrial and business world today.

1. The search for employees is selective. In the civil service, federal, state, and municipal, and increasingly in the private commercial world the passage of competitive examinations is a requirement for employment. This is a highly desirable tendency worthy of extension and the examination content should be psychologically studied and improved. But even where the examination method is not in use, executives have almost universally recognized the necessity of some principles of selection in employment. Frequently the independent judgment of others is called for and compared. The possession of diplomas and honors of various kinds is a distinct factor in many professional and technological pursuits; and in almost every occupation the previous positions held and salaries received are inquired into. All of these factors act selectively to sift the wheat from the chaff.

2. Promotion is selective. Whether it be for the purpose of holding men, or to promote the morale of organizations, or to stimulate to greater or more consistent production, or simply as the reward of proved merit in the special qualities needed in a given industry or business, promotion recognizes superior ability. There is of course the element of "pull" which frequently enters in. Some will perhaps feel that the business world is so permeated with this that actual merit seldom gets its deserts. Making due allowances here, it is, however, often the case that even the so-called "pull" is based upon superiority of some sort -- family connections, possession of tact or other desirable social qualities, having won the admiration of judges whose opinion is highly respected, aggressiveness, etc. The defeated are naturally wont to attribute the success of the winner to favoritism. The star scholar is always "teacher's pet" in the minds of the laggards.

3. Regularity of employment is another element which attaches in some measure to superior germinal qualities. This is not to deny the possibility of temporary or even prolonged unemployment due to misfortune or economic depression. But the superior workman is ordinarily not the first to be dropped in such periods of stress. Neither is he subject to other types of interferences which are concomitant with physical, mental, or emotional deficiency. He is less liable to protracted illness, on account of better personal hygiene. He is less frequently in trouble with the law through arrest and imprisonment. He is not handicapped by habits of inebriety or drug addiction which render him temporarily inefficient or jobless. He is, of course, seldom constitutionally psychopathic, the victim of an instability which makes his relations with himself or his fellowmen difficult.

4. The process of choosing one's profession or occupation involves a considerable degree of judgment of one's fitness for the opportunities in a particular calling. This is no mean type of ability in those who have been especially successful in finding a congenial vocation which calls forth their best knowledge, energy, and satisfaction for the greatest return.

5. Superiority is likewise manifested by the avoidance of unwise investments and the choice of wise ones. This obviously plays a large part in the stability of accumulations of capital of any size. All persons who have cash are subject to the blandishments of salesmen efficient in the promotion of their own products or investments. To criticize them shrewdly and resist those that are unreliable is necessary where money is to be retained. This is a mark of calm and well-informed judgment.


A few compilations of data bearing on the subject of correlation between desirable germinal qualities and economic status have been made. As yet this is a but slightly cultivated field, but one that deserves the best efforts of sociological, psychological, and eugenic investigators. The following examples are illustrative:

1. Paterson1 [Donald G. Paterson, School and Society, vol. vii, No. 160, pp. 84-89, Jan. 19, 1918.] made a mental survey of the school population of a Kansas town of 2,500 inhabitants using Pintner's Mental Survey Scale. The town is a railroad center and is divided into an east and a west side by the railroad. East of the tracks are the homes of the laboring class, mostly railway trainmen and shop mechanics. West of the tracks live the business and professional classes. The results for the east side school and for the west side school were calculated and presented separately. Using the percentile method, the median indices for the six grades of the east side school ranged from 32 to 52.5 with the median index for all the children at 56, while those for the corresponding grades in the west side school ranged from 49 to 70, and the median for all children was 59. When the grades were distributed into five classes of ability (dull, backward, normal, bright, very bright), the distribution among children of the laboring classes was markedly skewed toward the left (lower grades of mentality), while the curve of the children of the business and professional classes was skewed to the right. The writer states that the tests involved in this study are not objective measures of "beliefs, customs, or political, religious, and educational traditions," but are rather measures of native endowment, relatively uninfluenced by social and economic forces. He contends, therefore, that the inferior mental ability of children found in poor social surroundings is not due to the social factors involved, but to the mental inferiority of the parent stocks.

2. Kornhauser2 [Arthur H. Kornhauser, Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 157-164, October, 1918.] made a comparative study of the financial standing of parents as indicated by possession of telephones (a significant index of economic status) and the intelligence of their children. One thousand school children chosen at random were distributed into three divisions: (a) Retarded -- those whose actual grade in school was one year or more under the theoretically normal grade, assuming regular promotion of one whole grade each year from the age of six on. (b) Normal -- those who were at grade, (c) Advanced -- those whose actual grade was one year or more above normal. The distribution was as follows: retarded, 29 per cent; normal, 52.5 per cent; advanced, 18.5 per cent. The families of the same thousand children were subscribers to telephone service in the following proportion: families of the retarded children, 56 telephones, or 19.3 per cent (of the total telephones); normal, 168, or 32 per cent; advanced, 92, or 49.7 per cent. By the simple association formula of Yule, the positive coefficient of correlation between this intelligence of school children and the possession of telephones by their families was found to be .61. Evidently a real association exists in this case between school standing and economic standing.

3. Scott3 [Walter Dill Scott, "The Scientific Selection of Salesmen," Advertising and Selling, Oct., Nov., Dec., 1915.] describes tests conducted by large tobacco and silk concerns upon the efficiency of their salesmen and employees. In the case of the silk firm, 26 employees, well-known to at least three of the bosses, were rated in numerical order by five bosses, following a personal interview of each employee by each boss. The men were then ranked according to their average output and corresponding value to the firm. The two rankings gave a positive correlation of .88, while the coefficients between the rankings of the various bosses ranged between .57 and .91, four of the five being over .8. This high correlation shows that ability as measured by impartial judges has its reflection in efficiency. That efficiency is appreciated and financially rewarded by the average industrial concern is generally true.

4. The Civic Club of Pittsburgh, an organization interested in all forms of social welfare, has for a number of years had a committee, of which I have had the privilege of being chairman, whose object is to secure scholarships for poor students of exceptional ability who would not otherwise be able to continue their education. This is a distinctly eugenic aim and it is highly desirable that no aspiring young man or woman of native talent should be deprived of the opportunity of proper training owing to adventitious financial circumstances or the humbleness of his origin. But the results so far have been meager because in fact it develops that the most promising students go to college, owing to the higher incidence of ability in families that are able to send their children. Interviews with teachers and pupils also reveal the fact that it is very infrequent that a brilliant student in grammar school fails to enter high school. It is well known that in high school and college those who graduate average greatly superior in record to those who drop out before graduation.

From these studies the conclusions may be drawn that there is some positive correlation between ability and income. That correlation is naturally most marked within a particular occupation group. It is less obvious between occupations. This is one of the many facts which makes a better and more scientific type of vocational guidance important, even imperative, in the near future.

In the past many factors of privilege or prejudice have existed which acted to interfere with the normal tendency of intellectual ability to find its proper level and secure its just reward. Many of these have already disappeared or are fast disappearing in our modern civilized nations, and I believe we may confidently expect that as time goes on there will be found fewer and fewer of such obstacles to the unhampered movement of talent and genius to positions of power and leadership in society.

For instance, the institutions of royalty, nobility, and caste are passing. The wars and revolutions of the past decade have probably set the seal of doom upon hereditary monarchy, and the privilege of the nobility has distinctly lost ground in the majority of Western constitutional governments.

The prejudice against the trades or commerce or against humble origins independent of ability, while still strong in some nations has, especially as the result of the war, shown a rapid decline.

Taxation is becoming increasingly graduated to the economic capacity of the individual. All varieties of income, estate, and inheritance taxes contribute to this general effect.

Unfair trade practices are being increasingly called in question, both by the arousal of public opinion against them and by governmental interference.

Unfair discrimination in the choice of advancement of personnel is still not rare, of course, but there are signs that public opinion is less indifferent to it than formerly, especially in the political field.

Finally, positive elements are helping to extend the incidence of opportunity and to graduate it more surely to negative capacities. Of these, the free public library is of first importance. Those who voluntarily profit by the public library system are obviously the most deserving from the standpoint of ability. Recent tendencies in education are also in the direction of greater adaptation to the distribution of intelligence in the general population. The growth of the mental testing movement in the schools is one phase of this, which, with the increase of competitive scholarships makes the inequitable holding back of talent less common.

Granted then that the evidence, meager as it is, at least favors the hypothesis that desirable germinal qualities are correlated to some extent with economic status, what are the implications of this assumption upon the problem of racial contribution?

In the first place, better economic status indubitably increases viability -- whether this is an environmental or hereditary fact is beside the point. The effect upon both the vitality and longevity is there and can be measured. Numerous studies of infant mortality have proved that a child's chances of survival beyond the fatal first year of life increase in almost direct proportion to family income within the lower income groups. The significance of this for the race stream is that a greater percentage of children in better economic status attain to maturity and become capable of reproduction.

As to the relation of financial condition to nuptiality, or the ratio of marriages per 1000 persons of all ages a given year, less can be predicated. Probably a higher financial status has little net effect upon the age of marriage. If anything, it tends to defer marriage, because the whole influence of education and the habits of forethought and calculated self-interest among the upper classes make for delay. Financial ability alone, of course, might be expected, other things being equal, to hasten and facilitate marriage, but unfortunately increasing standards more than counteract this possible effect.

There is likely, however, to be a helpful selective effect through the action of preferential mating. The young men and women of better financial status are sought for these reasons as well as for other qualities. Eligibility with those of a similar financial level is thus enhanced. This feature has been thought by some to be wholly an evil. It is only an evil when out of balance with other characteristics in the individual case.

When we come to a consideration of the birth-rate, the influence of economic status is a commonplace. Where, as in the United States, efficient means of birth control are known only to the well-informed and are prevented, because of legal interferences from widespread dissemination in the lower classes, birth-rate is almost inevitably correlated positively with ignorance, which is in turn a function of poverty. Where on the other hand, efficient means of birth control are widely known and no legal prohibitions exist, this correlation is reduced, because the naturally inhibiting effects of poverty on fecundity then have a chance to make themselves felt.

A third possibility which should appeal to those of a scientific mind who have in the past withheld their approval from the movement for birth control would be the setting up of moderate legal restrictions on birth control information, coupled with a eugenic birth control society which should concern itself with distributing information and approved devices to married couples of inferior germinal qualities. Of course, the basis of selection would have to be esoteric, the ostensible reasons being those advanced on a purely sentimental basis by the existing birth control societies. I believe the lower-class Negro and the illiterate white birth-rates could be greatly reduced by such a system. The result would not be, as some analyze the situation, the substitution of complete knowledge for complete ignorance. If we compare the facts of the present status with the proposed one, we find that with the exception of the fraction of the population among which religious prohibitions operate, the great majority of the population is now using some sort of birth deterrents, generally ineffective and often harmful, in lieu of the desired more efficient means. The present rigidity of control is based on the desire to keep the more efficient means under control.

What then are the specific recommendations that the eugenist might make looking toward a juster adaptation of economic conditions to native ability and the encouragement of a more eugenic distribution of racial contribution?

1. With respect to taxation, it should be recognized that there is a point above which incomes do not add to the desire nor the financial capacity for having children. Below that point, on the other hand, prudent parents will voluntarily have fewer children than they would be willing to have if their incomes warranted. The incidence of taxation, from the eugenic point of view, should be limited to those fortunes which rise above this point; in other words the biologically excessive wealth should be taxed.
It is obvious that this dividing line is higher than the exemptions allowed by our present income tax law, which places the heaviest burden upon the salaried and professional classes which constitute in the large a very desirable portion of the population. To compensate for the loss in revenue here, a steeper gradation of inheritance taxes above the biologically excessive point would be possible. Exemption from taxation of all future bond issues should be abolished.

2. Proceeding on the principles outlined before, the removal of the present restrictions on the legality of sale and dissemination of literature, oral information, and means of efficient birth control are desirable. But safeguards are needed against the abuse of such freedom and should be provided by the continued restriction of commercial advertising or public exhibition of such means as previously suggested, coupled with an active propagation of such information and distribution of approved means to the eugenically inferior. It is of course true that not all eugenists are agreed upon the best racial policy to be followed in regard to birth control. Here, at least, is a suggested one..

3. Legislation to promote fair play in business, prohibition of fraudulent methods, and education to a higher level of business ethics.

4. Sound vocational guidance, involving systematic mental measurements of all school children, the extension of continuation schools, trade testing and individual analysis, and free facilities for such service to older persons. More discriminating personnel work in business and industry generally.

5. Special educational opportunities for those especially fitted to profit by them, as opposed to the mistaken attitude of equality in present school ideals.

6. Support and extension of the free public library system.

7. Support of scientific laboratories
, (a) for the benefit of inventors with technical ability but limited capital; (b) for those discovered to be peculiarly apt as scientific investigators.

8. Opposition to all social factors interfering with or postponing the marriage of superiors. Among such factors are graduate fellowships with inadequate stipends; educational isolation of the sexes in men's and women's colleges; over-elaborate standards of living and invidious display in expenditure; and too prolonged education for admission to the learned professions.
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Part 2 of 4

Some Dysgenical Effects of the War in Italy, by Marcello Boldrini

Some Dysgenical Effects of the War in Italy, by Marcello Boldrini, Dottore in Science Echonomiche, Rome

The effects of the war on the hygiene of the races are so complicated and intricate as to make full exemplification thereof practically impossible. However, all results of the war, from the most direct, -- the death of vast numbers of the best of the young men on the battle-fields, -- to the most remote, have an aspect that is disgenical or, using the word in its broadest and most general sense, eugenical.

At first, the military authorities, attentive to the menace to the physical efficiency of the populations arising from the state of war and the necessity for present and future measures for prevention and reparation, and the civil authorities, concerned with taking over the war industries and convinced of the political interest in avoiding demographic decadence, which is the point of departure of social and economic decadence, directed their efforts toward relieving the extraordinary conditions in which the population was living and toward obtaining remedies for preventing, controlling, and limiting the disastrous consequences. But the remedies taken were, necessarily, extremely hasty rather than organized, systematic, and of a preventive and reparative nature; not so much from the difficulty of reconciling exigencies directly contrasting, nor from the impracticability of the measures suggested by those who comprehended the burden of the situation, if nothing more; as from the lack of an exact notion of the evils themselves which, always difficult to estimate, are exceptionally so in wartime because of their rapid appearance and increase and the irregularity of their sequence. For this reason, if much has been done, there is still a great deal left to be accomplished and, since a large part of the causes of the disgenical disturbance have now been removed or are on the point of being removed, the situation must be made clear and the disgenical consequences of the war defined with the greatest precision before determining the plan for post-war measures which must essentially be organic, systematic, and continuous. We are in the same position as the farmer who shuts himself in the house and watches the hailstorm through the windows after having brought in the few plants which he can protect and then, when the storm is over, goes out to estimate the damages before deciding what must be done. So must we consider the social cyclone which raged over Europe for six years, the havoc of which we are only now able to estimate. The program, then, is to draw up an inventory of the damages and means for reparation.

It is my intention to emphasize, first, the peculiar situation of Italy, a country which, perhaps more than any other, has suffered from the war because facing the same demands that confronted the other great nations, it had at its disposal less adequate means and instruments. I shall endeavor to put in evidence some of the disgenical effects of the war which, ordinarily, are given the least consideration but which, when brought to the attention, are seen to be of exceptional importance.

It i said, and not only as metaphor, that each population has its age. Age is not spoken of here in the historical sense (because such a concept would leave the empiric-scientific field to enter the philosophic); but in the sense of the average age, that is, the arithmetical average of the age of its components at a given time. Now it is clear that the high or low average age of a population depends upon its composition or whether the old or young have the greater preponderance. Hence, the average age of a population may be assumed to indicate its composition, according to age.

It is also said that a young population, whose average age is low, may look to the future while the past belongs to the old; that the one lives in memories while the other dreams of a future of power and success; that while the latter is content with the position attained and riches amassed, the former looks to developing and strengthening its power in the world and directing all its energies for the realization of a better tomorrow.

The Italian population, in 1914, was one of the youngest in western Europe. Estimating roughly, on the basis of broad divisions of age, we may consider that the average age of the populations of the three great powers of continental Europe, before the war, was practically the following: France, 28 years; Italy, 25 years; Germany, 24 years. The countries of the north are found to have the highest average age and Russia and the Balkans the lowest.

However, we may say that the war has increased the average age of the Italian population. Without conjecturing on the extent, as the data for the estimation would be insufficient and inexact, the reasons for the increase may be readily set forth.

For this, it is necessary to draw up a demographic balance sheet of the Italian war. The task is arduous and long and I do not intend to tire the readers with minute reference to the data and judgments on the basis of which I reached my results. I intend to give only a broad estimate but, in reaching this, I overlook nothing and feel confident of the value of the results.

Losses

Estimated number of births below normal for the five-year period, 1914-1918: 1,132,000
Estimated number of deaths above normal from 0-1 year in the same period: 144,000
Estimated number of deaths above normal from 1-5 years in the same period: 40,000
Presumable total infantile mortality: 1,316,000
Deaths in the army, all classifications (calculation of the Supreme Command): 428,000
Estimated number of civilian deaths above normal for the five-year period, 1914-1918: 172,000
Presumable total adult mortality: 600,000
Presumable total losses: 1,916,000

Gains

Estimated excess of emigrants over repatriates not occurring in the five-year period 1914-1918: 1,106,000
Estimated number of repatriates in excess of emigrants in this period: 450,000
Presumable total gains: 1,556,000
Presumable net losses: 360,000


Aside from the political and economic importance of the decrease in emigration and the intensified repatriation, with respect to the efficiency of the colonies without flags and the national commercial balance, it is probable that the immense demographic restoration of the Italian population could almost completely compensate for the losses caused by the war in the country.

But, if we analyze the various parts of the balance sheet, we readily observe that only the "deaths in war" and "estimated number of civilian deaths above normal for the 5 years" find actual compensation in the excess of repatriates over emigrants and, partially, in the limited emigration, since, in these classifications, the statistics are of adult males, the majority of whom are around the average age, while the other classifications in the statement of losses are of infants which find only partial compensation in the restricted emigration. Hence, the equilibrium of the ages of the Italian population has been destroyed by the war. The conclusion is, then, that the war has raised the average age of the Italian population.

At first, it would appear that in exchanging youths for adults, Italy had gained. The younger individuals displaced by the war, of whom perhaps 60 per cent had reached the twentieth year and who were capable of giving returns later only by an expenditure of capital, are certainly not as valuable as adults capable of producing and reproducing.

However, a population is a living organism and will always be such. Its future is formed from its present as the present has been formed from the past, and, in a certain sense, is the past. The reproductive classes are nourished by the continuous wave of young classes which surge forth as the leaves are nourished by the sap which mounts from the trunk and roots. The infants of today represent the reproducers, workers, and defenders of the country of tomorrow, and the present decrease of their numbers will have its effect on the future generations for an indeterminable time.

The sudden advancement of the age of the population, aside from reasons of an economic, social, and military character, must be considered one of the most serious evils of the war from a eugenical and social-hygienic point of view. And from this evil, Italy, a young nation, has suffered more than the older nations. A proportionally identical diminution of the young men in France has had, in fact, less effect on the average age of the nation in which the young men represented a lesser majority of the total population and, for this reason, the effect was less disastrous for our sister nation than for us.

In many instances, good quality compensates for loss in quantity. However, the quality of the present young generation, in spite of its eminent characteristics, does not make up for the limited numbers. The reasons are many, but only one of the most important will be set forth here. I cannot give statistics to prove what I would say for the entire kingdom of Italy, but must base my proof entirely on data which I have accumulated for the city of Rome.

From a study of 3005 families of married soldiers, belonging to the working classes, who were in service outside the city for a certain period of time, it appears that while the annual pre-war fecundity per thousand was 317, the fecundity for the period of military service, limited exclusively to soldiers who have returned to their families on leaves of absence or on special missions, decreased to 92 annually per thousand. Thus 100 annual births in the pre-war period were reduced to 29.

On the other hand, the annual fecundity of the married men of Rome, taken as a whole, from 15 to 50 years, decreased from 246 per thousand to 187 per thousand, that is, from 100 in the pre-war period to 76. Nevertheless, this decrease, although apparently less, was relatively greater than the decrease in the fecundity of the soldiers. This is explained by the facts that not all the married men from 15 to 50 years belonged to the working classes, not all of them were soldiers, and not all of those who were soldiers were in service outside of Rome. To this it must be added that the group of married soldiers in question during their service in the army, of course, grew older, while the group of married men from 15 to 50 years upon the basis of which the annual fecundity was calculated, received constant accessions, and therefore, renewed itself without growing old. In short, it may be said that if the annual fecundity of all the married men decreased, as did that of the soldiers belonging to the working classes, from 100 to 29, the number of births per thousand married men, would have decreased from 246 to 71, instead of to 187 as appears.

On this basis, and taking the absolute figures of the birth-rates, we can say that if all the married men had been soldiers and have been in service outside Rome, their fecundity would have been reduced to the level of the fecundity of the absent soldiers belonging to the working classes, and the average birth-rate per annum before the war would have been reduced from 15.312 to 4.428 instead of to 11.677 as actually happened. If, instead, there had been no war, the births would have remained at 15.312. The difference, 15.312-4.428=10.884 births, indicates the assumed loss, in case that all the married men had been in military service, while the difference, 15.312-11.677-3.635 births, indicates the actual loss. The difference between the assumed loss and the actual loss, equal to 7.249 births, indicates, approximately, the births attributable to the married men who were not soldiers and to those soldiers who were stationed in Rome. These 7.249 births represent 62 per cent of the total of 11.677 births, which indicates that at Rome, during the war, approximately 62 per cent of the births were attributable to men who were not soldiers and to soldiers who were in service in the city. We do not know what percentage of births may be attributed to them in normal times. It is certainly much less than 62 per cent, either because the number of births in families of soldiers at the front belonging to the working classes was very low during the war, or because, ordinarily, this class is more prolific than the other classes of married men.

In consideration of the selective method on which the conscription was based, the soldiers were, necessarily, the best individuals from a physical and, probably, psychical point of view, and, in all probability, capable of transmitting to their progeny the marks of their superiority. For this reason, during the war, a great proportion of the children born must have been of an inferior nature because fathered by men who had been rejected in the Army and were, hence, less perfect physically and mentally and by wives who, by virtue of the influence of sexual selection and, taken as a whole, were certainly not the best.

Practically as much may be said of those soldiers who, for the greater part of the time, were in service in the city. Those soldiers who were not at the front were, in part, employed in the war offices, but the great majority, in Rome at least, were those who were the oldest and the less perfect physically, while a large number were the timid who had succeeded in escaping the dangers and hardships of the camp, the "embusques," as they were called in Europe. Hence, they were individuals who were inferior to the actual soldiers whom duty kept from their families. There is no reason, therefore, to be optimistic about the inheritance given by them to their children. The conditions which we have set forth for Rome apply, generally speaking, to all the large cities
but certainly not to the country districts where the evils from the state of war must have been greater in regard to the quality of the births.

In the country districts, the division between soldiers and civilians was more distinct. The "grey zone" of soldiers who were not in actual service was completely missing or very rare and there was a total lack of war office employees. And, for reasons easy to understand, the selection exercised by conscription was more rigorous in the country districts while, on the other hand, the temporary return of the soldiers was less frequent, occurring only when on leave or, in rare instances, on special missions. For this reason the percentage of the births attributable to the civilians was higher and the proportion of inferior births relatively greater.

We must admit, as we have already affirmed, that if the war births were few, their good quality cannot be depended upon to compensate for their numbers. We must also observe that this lamentable condition must have been intensified in those nations whose conscriptions were more rigorous and who had in service a greater number of drafted classes. It is probable then that the quality of the births in France, first, and then in Italy, has suffered more from the state of war than the quality of those of the other great allies.

In Italy, making due allowances, the war births do not in fact present such an element of inferiority as is generally thought and alluded to. It was said at one time that emigration had brought to our country "money and infidelity."1 [F. Coletti. Dell' Emigrazione Italiana, in Cinquanta Anni di Storia Italiana. Milan, 1912. p. 230.] (Note: The Italian word "corno" means horn or plenty; the plural has the meaning, among other things, of "infidelity" which is implied here, although in English it is impossible to indicate the double significance of the word.) In the case of the war, which in many respects resembles emigration, there might be substituted for the word "money" the word "misery," without substantially changing the form and significance of the aphorism. Let us state, however, that in the case of war likewise there is much exaggeration. The illegitimate birth-rate is not, in truth, perceptibly changed.

Let us make a calculation, comparing the legitimate births with the illegitimate, and the illegitimate births of the whole kingdom of Italy (exclusive of the provinces invaded by the enemy in 1917, for which there are no data) with the illegitimate births of any province of the war zone, i.e., that portion of the country in which soldiers were quartered at any time during the war.

Considering the legitimate and the illegitimate birth-rates of the kingdom of Italy in the period 1913-14 as normal, or 100, and making 100 also the illegitimate birth-rate in four provinces of the war zone in the same period, we obtain for the successive years the figures indicated in the following table. Knowing the actual rates, and the populations upon which they were calculated, we can then arrive at the presumable number of the illegitimate births to be attributed to the presence of the army. The diminution found in the legitimate births for the Kingdom at large agrees, substantially, with the diminution found in the illegitimate births which proves, in short, that a state of war has no special influence on the illegitimate birth-rate. However, in the four provinces of the war zone taken into consideration, the illegitimate births have maintained themselves somewhat higher than the illegitimate births of the whole Kingdom, and the difference is presumably due to the presence in them of the mobilized army. But it is easily demonstrated that this fact should not be given too great importance. On the basis of numbers indicated, we estimated in the last column of the table, the absolute numbers of illegitimate births to be attributed to the presence of the army in the four provinces considered; they are 689 births in three years as against a total of 6389 illegitimate births, that is, about 11 per cent. If also in 1918, for which we have no data, an increase was found in the presumable number of illegitimate births to be attributed to the army, this percentage would probably not be greatly increased.

Kingdom of Italy / Four provinces of the war zone

Year / Legitimate births / Illegitimate births (exclusive of 5 invaded provinces) / Illegitimate births / Presumable number of illegitimate births to be attributed to the presence of the army

1913-14 / 100 / 100 / 100 / --
1915 / 99.5 / 91.4 / 93.9 / 70
1916 / 70.2 / 69.1 / 79.4 / 248
1917 / 62.3 / 63.2 / 78.0 / 371


We shall next seek to ascertain the probability of adulterous births, due to the concentration of the army in some provinces. It may be thought that given a smaller ratio of adulterous births in the provinces of the interior of the Kingdom of Italy than in the provinces of the war zone, where the army assembled, the coefficients of legitimate births might also be diminished more in the former than in the latter, and that therefore an equal diminution should attest an influence of the presence of the army in some provinces on the adulterous births that was practically nil.

Acting on this assumption, let us make equal to 100 the legitimate birth-rate of 1913-14 taken as normal for the whole kingdom of Italy and for 4 provinces of the war zone. We shall obtain for the following years the figures indicated below. We shall therefore be led to admit that the influence of the army on adulterous births, at least in four provinces of the war zone, was practically negligible.

Year / Kingdom of Italy Legitimate births / Four provinces of the war zone Legitimate births

1913-14 / 100 / 100
1915 / 99.5 / 98.4
1916 / 79.2 / 79.5
1917 / 62.3 / 62.0


The mobilization of the army, the concentration in a small territory of so many young men on whom the popular sympathy was centered, the separation of the heads from their respective families, the deteriorated economic and housing conditions -- in short all the conditions created by a state of war -- would appear to have contributed very little to increasing the "children of nobody," the "sons of the good God," as they are picturesquely designated in many parts of Italy, and to introduce into the families of soldiers those elements of discord to which allusion is made with so much pessimism in the popular phrases which we quoted above. The facts are that wives in general, and especially wives of the border districts, remained true to their husbands, away for the immediate defense of their own families and homes; the girls did not go beyond the limit in the enthusiasm which led them to give all proper sympathy to the fighters; while the soldiers knew how to profit moderately by the opportunities which they had for being well received by the people and above all by the feminine element.

But like all medals this one also has its reverse side. The scarcity of illegitimate and adulterous births of course affirms little regarding the sexual good behavior of the soldiers.

During the first months of the war, a decree of General Cadorna, which indicates the nobility of mind of this leader, prohibited all soldiers of whatever grade, from associating with public women, calling to each one's attention his duty of preserving all his energies, both moral and physical, for the good of his country. The decree did not have, however, quite the effect desired; clandestine vice began to flourish and orders of all kinds to combat the evil appeared impotent. In order to restrain the menace, it was necessary to choose a new line of conduct; that is, it was necessary to regulate the evil in order to be better able to supervise it and in any case to safeguard the army from physical as well as from moral harm, which is implicit in the former. In such a way it came to be recognized, in a certain sense, that the soldier had a right to a sexual life, irregular but controlled; to divert his desire for the women left in the country, and also for those with whom he was in daily contact. This is probably one of the causes of the comparative scarcity of the illegitimate and adulterous births of the war zone, of which we have spoken. The good with which we are occupied is therefore a good obtained in part, at least, at the expense of evil, and is therefore evil in its turn. But social hygiene has profited by it to some extent, at least, and it is that with which we are concerned at this moment.

Up to now we have spoken of the influence of the war on the number and quality of births. Before concluding, the subject merits a sketch of the prospects which the conditions created by the war itself present in regard to the births of the future.

Among the many ways in which the war has dangerously influenced the quality of those whom the sons of peace have bred and will breed, there must be placed in the front rank, at least in Italy, the increase of tuberculosis, malaria, and mental diseases, that is to say, those affections which without being definitely inheritable certainly influence the physical and psychical constitution of the descendants.

The enormous increase found in mental disease and mortality through tuberculosis and malaria, making a singular contrast to the tendency toward diminution observed in the last period of peace, hinges directly on the conditions brought about as regards the country, the soldiers, and the civil population. The deteriorated sanitation system; the renewal of tubercular activity by the strenuous life of the army in carriers of the bacillus who had been erroneously adjudged inactive and declared fit for military service; the lessened power of resistance of the soldiers, weaker than in the past, and of the population, less carefully nourished; the repatriation of half a million prisoners who had largely been exposed to the contagion; these are to be mentioned among the more important reasons which caused the scourge of tuberculosis to appear again after a period of secure and promising regress.
According to figures of the Direzione Generale della Sanita' Pubblica (Central Bureau of Public Health), the average death-rate for tuberculosis in 139 cities increased from 1914 to 1917 in the ratio of 100 to 123, and according to the statistics of the American Red Cross for 26 cities, making the death-rate of 1914 equal to 100, those of 1917 would range from 199 to 170, showing only two cases of regress. The year 1918, if we trust the figures of the Red Cross compiled for 16 cities, shows a new and perceptible ascent.

As for malaria, it is enough to remember the condition of the waters disturbed by the military works and by the thinning of forests; the lessened attention to tracts for cultivation, owing to the labor crisis; the formation of stagnant pools in the military excavations and in the hollows caused by the large grenades; the stationing of large contingents of troops in the malaria zones of the Kingdom and of the Balkans, with no other serious prophylactic precaution than a daily dose of quinine, little welcome, and for that reason I suppose, unused by the soldiers; the bad sanitary and alimentary conditions -- these are reasons for the rapid progress of the malady. According to statistics of the Direzione Generale della Sanita' Pubblica, the death-rate for malaria increased from 1914 to 1917 in the ratio of 100 to 128, while in the same period the death-rate in 139 cities increased 554 per cent. There are no statistics for 1918 which, it is believed, would indicate a new and intensive progress of malaria, while 1919, as appears, in virtue of the intensive anti-malaria campaign and of the adoption of new means of combating the mosquito after the studies of Senator Grassi, would indicate, at least in certain sections, the beginning of a noticeable improvement.

The increase in mental disorders caused by the war cannot of course be demonstrated by the figures at hand and it does not seem that the subject could be presented as having special characteristics in Italy. However, its importance seems of such significance as not to admit of its being passed over entirely; we must, therefore, consider it in a secondary way. When countries like the European countries have for years subjected the greater part of their own male youth and a quota of their civil population to the life of war and that of prison, it cannot be supposed that from this there have not ripened fruits dangerous for the mental hygiene of the race.

An American physician, Dr. Norman, who has devoted an interesting study to mental disorders caused by the war, says in substance, that the persons who are exposed to grave shocks, who have been struck by aerial shells, who have been exposed to violent explosions, without having been apparently wounded, who have lost a great part of their resistance through fatigue, anxiety, insufficient sleep, etc., during the war -- that these have to contend with serious morbid afflictions. Such persons frequently present mental disorders which may be considered as new forms, even if medical practice confuses them, as I suppose, with the customary hysterical manifestations; forms for which, if there is no need of creating a suitable nomenclature, there is at any rate an urgent need for accurate study and records to reveal the symptoms observed and to suggest the methods of cure. These deserve to be completed together with others related thereto which have been present for a long time in prison camps. The disease of the prisoners which is usually called "barbed-wire disease" ("malattia del reticolato," "psychose du fil de fer," "Stachel drahtfieber"), according to the studies of a Swiss doctor, Vischer, has points of contact with those special forms of neurasthenia which are manifested in barracks, in prisons, during exploration trips, and during long sailing voyages, and which are characterized by the intolerable compulsion of living with casual companions who never change.

We must not neglect to mention the influence of the war on the state of mind of the civil population, now a prey to patriotic exaltation at each success, now to despair which possesses their minds at the announcement of military reverses, always preoccupied and anxious as to the fate of their own relatives and friends at the front.


It is clear that the social-hygienic aspect of all the factors mentioned should not be overlooked; the populations affected by both mental and physical burdens in greater measure than in the past do not give assurance as to the fit constitutional qualities of the offspring produced by them, and which will come to light in the next few years. The effects of the mental state of the progenitors on their offspring, according to an English report, on the statements of German doctors, was already observed during the war.2 [Editor's Note: Such occurrences, if actually substantiated by experiment, would prove that there is such a thing as maternal prenatal influence, which is not generally accepted by biologists today.] There is mention made of scraggy new-born babies, with a peculiar coloring, wrinkled skins, continually grasping with their hands. As to those suffering from constitutional maladies, they have been the object of study for a long time and do not need to be especially considered here.

The war, therefore, in Italy as elsewhere and in certain respects more gravely, brought out two principal groups of harmful effects, striking both in number and quality those who are universally known as "war infants" ("figli di guerra," "Kriegsneugeborene") and threatening the physical and psychical constitution of a large number of adults who will be the parents of a generation of "peace infants."

We have endeavored to set forth these evils as clearly as possible, and this, it may be said, constitutes the first step toward remedy. At this point the task of students ends. The problem of eugenic reconstruction, which through the numerous interferences characterizing the social life, has strong points of comparison with economic reconstruction, is of such political significance that it cannot but fall in the sphere of governmental action and therefore claim, together with the second, the attention of those who are or will be in later years at the head of the state.


The Biological Bearing of Army Mental Tests, by Arthur H. Estabrook

THE BIOLOGICAL BEARING OF ARMY MENTAL TESTS
ARTHUR H. ESTABROOK, PH. D.
Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.


The physical and mental examination of the men drafted for military service during the world war was the first complete national health survey of any large group carried on in this country. Although it comprised only the males between the ages of 21 and 31 inclusive, nevertheless it gave a cross-section of the make-up of the human family. These examinations showed the status of this section of the population as it existed in 1917-18. The results were in no way affected by war conditions.

All men within the drafted age were examined by the medical officers of the local draft boards in their home communities before being sent to the army camps. Thus the more pronounced cases of physical and mental defects were eliminated at once and never reached the various army cantonments. On the mental side these included the idiots, some of the imbeciles, the well-recognized cases of insanity, and the known epileptics. The other mental cases such as the higher grades of feeble-mindedness and various forms of nervous and mental unfitness, were not discovered in a great number of cases until an examination was given by the neuro-psychiatric and psychological boards at the cantonment.

The Surgeon General of the Army had early recognized the necessity for a mental survey of the prospective troops, and had created in his office at Washington two divisions, one of Neurology and Psychiatry, and the other of Psychology. It was the function of these two, by intercorrelation, to know and act on the problem of the mental hygiene of the army.
The work of the Division of Neuro-psychiatry in brief showed the following results: that the army returned to the civil community about 70,000 men unfit for any military duty because of mental defects. These men are classified under eight headings and attention is again called to the fact that none had been wounded.

Defect / Number / Per Cent

1. Mental defect / 21,858 / 31.6
2. Neuroses or functional nervous disorders / 11,443 / 16.5
3. Psychoses or mental disease / 7,910 / 11.4
4. Organic nervous disease / 6,916 / 9.9
5. Epilepsy / 6.388 / 9.3
6. Constitutional psychopathic states / 6,196 / 8.9
7. Glandular disorders affecting growth / 4,805 / 6.9
8. Inebriety (alcohol or drugs) / 3,878 / 5.5
-- / 69,394 / 100.0


The Division of Psychology was responsible in great part for the discovery, examination, and certification of the group of mental defectives. It should be noted here that the actual discharge of these cases was effected by the neuro-psychiatrists, in many cases on recommendation of the psychological boards. The Division of Psychology also made other investigations and studies which have significance of eugenical nature.

But let us first consider in detail the work and organization of the psychological group. In each camp were several trained psychologists with a staff of workers whose particular function it was to carry out the specific purposes of this section, which were:

1. The discovery of men whose superior intelligence suggested their consideration for advancement.

2. The prompt selection of men mentally inferior and their assignment to special work-organizations suited to their various abilities.

3. To form organizations of uniform mental or superior mental strength where such particular mental strength was desired.

4. To select suitable men for training in various army duties or for special training in technical schools.

5. To recognize early the mentally slow as contrasted with the stubborn or disobedient.

6. To discover men whose low grade of intelligence rendered them a burden and a menace to the service, and to take steps for their discharge.


To facilitate the attainment of these objects three kinds of mental tests were used:

a. Alpha, a group test for men who could read and write English. This test material is arranged so that each question may be answered by an underlining, checking, or crossing out. This can be given to as many simultaneously as can be gathered in one place, and in less than an hour.

b. Beta, a group test for foreigners or illiterates. The instructions were given by pantomime and demonstration. The answers were made by marks on a printed form. The intelligence is measured by use of concrete or picture material instead of printed language.

c. Individual tests: The Yerkes-Bridge Point Scale, the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon tests, and a performance scale, the latter being adapted from the Pintner-Paterson set of performance tests.

Theoretically those who failed in Alpha were given Beta; then those who made a low grade in Beta were given individual tests. In many cases the literates were not given the intervening Beta examination but received individual attention at once. A letter rating was secured for each person. Thus the rating a man earned furnished a fairly reliable index of his ability to learn, to think quickly and accurately, to analyze a situation, to maintain a state of mental alertness, and to comprehend and follow instructions. However, these ratings alone are not entirely indicative of a man's value to the service. They do not measure emotional traits or his special capacities, such as courage, the power to command, mechanical ability, and the like. But the claim can fairly be made that they constitute the best single index of all-round superiority so far evolved. The score is little influenced by schooling. Some of the best records have been made by men who had not completed the grammar grades.

The letter ratings are:

A. Very superior intelligence, earned by 4 or 5 per cent of a draft quota.

B. Superior intelligence, less exceptional than that represented by A, and obtained by 8 to 10 per cent.

C +. High average intelligence, 15 to 18 per cent.

C. Average intelligence, 25 per cent.

C -. Low average intelligence, 20 per cent. Persons able to do satisfactory work of a routine nature.

D. Inferior intelligence, 15 per cent. Slow in learning, with little initiative, requiring more than average amount of supervision.

D - and E. Very inferior intelligence, about 10 per cent. D- men were those who were inferior in intelligence but capable of service in development and labor battalions, and E those mentally unfit for service and for whom discharge was recommended. The majority of D - and E men were below the mental age of ten years.

Perhaps the most important work accomplished by the psychologist was the immediate rejection of draft men who were so mentally inferior as to be unacceptable to the army. These were the middle- and high-grade feeble-minded and many constitutional psychopaths who could be found only through lengthy individual tests. These men were returned immediately to their families and to their home communities, and resumed their former places in society. The army could not afford to lower its efficiency by having such misfits in its ranks and so returned them to be a burden to society as before. Society is beginning to realize this burden.

The conscientious objectors formed another group of interest to the psychologist. These were men who objected to compulsory military service for many reasons, personal, religious, and otherwise. A few studies have been published concerning the mental make-up of these persons. The results of the complete mental tests given by the writer to the conscientious objectors in but one Southern camp showed in general that they were either abnormal or defective with the exception of a few who had clear-cut, well-defined scruples against service, and a few sects such as the Quakers. Several cases of dementia praecox were found in this group. Some, however, were found to be of an intellectually superior type. Lieutenant Lincoln at Fort Leavenworth and other examiners whose conclusions have been set forth report that the conscientious objector type was above the average of all drafted men mentally. The writer does not make a generalization for the entire group of conscientious objectors, as but one camp was under his observation. Many who claimed only religious reasons as a basis for release from army service were willing to perform non-combatant duties, such as could be found in the medical department in the care of the sick. One man was known to have accepted stretcher-bearer service at the front, a more hazardous duty than that of infantryman. It will be interesting and valuable to have family history studies of many of these conscientious objectors whose names are, of course, on file in the offices of the War Department in Washington.

Observation was also made of the malingerers, i.e., those who attempted to secure release by simulating either mental or physical disease or defects. Large numbers were found to be unstable mentally but not sufficiently defective to be unacceptable to the army for some useful and necessary occupation. The great majority were found acceptable for infantry training and work.


One may note particularly that men rated A, B, and C+, were found to be best suited for officer material, and were therefore the men picked first for training in officers' training camps. It was found through studies at these special camps, that men who had a mental rating below that of C+ were generally not sufficiently acute mentally to become officers and acquire the knowledge necessary in the short time allowed for such training. The statistical section of the General Staff of the War Department has stated that more officers were killed or wounded for every thousand who went to France than were killed or wounded for every thousand enlisted men who went overseas, and the etigenical significance of this statement is particularly poignant when we remember that the officers' average mental rating is found in the high mental group. This, coupled with the fact that it was the unfit who could not stand the pace of military service, who were sent home from the camps to perform their functions in society as best they could and to reproduce their kind, forms food for thought.

At many of the camps the psychologist examined the prostitutes who were arrested in company with soldiers. This was done at the request of the local representatives of the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities. Here mental tests were given and individual family histories were secured as far as possible. The Commission on Training Camp Activities was doing its best to rid the camp areas of prostitutes and it welcomed the advice of the expert on mental conditions. Here again it was found that many of the prostitutes were either cases of dementia praecox or were high-grade mental defectives. After-care of these prostitutes was then made easy by commitment to some custodial institution or return to their homes when found advisable.


To the army the chief value of the psychological work lay in its ability to aid in the production of an efficient war organization. Its activities dealt largely with cacogenic persons, with less emphasis on the positive side of eugenics. However, the Division of Psychology at Washington has in its files a mental rating of one and a half million persons. It has lists of all the mentally defective and abnormal found, with more or less of their personal history attached. Thus, as a starting point, great eugenical studies could be made, and many valuable histories worked out. Finally, the cross-section of the mental and physical make-up of the population started in the great emergency by the army might be made the basis for a complete mental, physical, and social study of the entire population of the United States.
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Part 3 of 4

Eugenics in the Central Empires since 1914, by Geza von Hoffmann

EUGENICS IN THE CENTRAL EMPIRES SINCE 1914
GEZA VON HOFFMANN
Budapest


Professor Erwin Baur, the famous geneticist and former head of the Biological Institute in Potsdam, said in the second year of the war: "I always thought that the time has not yet come to make eugenics practical. Yet I changed my mind. We lose our best men in the war; the birth-rate falls rapidly; so we must do something." At the same time he accepted the presidency of the Berlin Society for Race-Hygiene.

Formerly German eugenists believed that first our theoretical knowledge must be deepened. Accordingly Germans before the war published excellent books on heredity and allied topics, but made little attempt to popularize these sciences or to put them into practice. During the war the opinion of Professor Baur quoted above dominated all elements concerned. "We must make good our losses!" This was the aim of a movement which soon spread all over the country.

In the minds of average people or of educated men who were not biologists, this meant quantity, nothing but quantity. Of course quality was aimed at, too, but only such quality as could be obtained through education, sanitation, and other social means, not hereditary quality in a biological sense. This movement made no distinction between men and men. Every man, every new-born being, meant a unit which swelled the numbers of the population. It was truly a democratic movement, the supporters of which not seldom refuted eugenic arguments as anti-democratic. Almost all discussion concentrated upon the question of how to make the birth-rate rise, or rather how to assist the family with many children, without regard to the quality of the family stock.

The old science of population which did not yet know the achievements of modern biology, was again taken up, societies were founded for the cultivation of this science, books and articles appeared in great numbers, and congresses were arranged. The largest society founded at that time is the "German Society for the Cultivation of the Sciences of Population" (Deutsche Gesell-schaft fur Bevolkerungspolitik) at Berlin, with a great number of members in all classes of society. It had committees at work in almost all fields of the social problems, always watching that the interests of large families be guarded when new laws or ordinances were issued. Official circles were inclined to accept the opinion of the society. It was in the line of the work of this society, when the Prussian Landtag, later also the German Reichstag, appointed parliamentary committees to study the population problem. These committees published several reports on the question of how to combat venereal diseases, laying much stress upon the foundation of free dispensaries. These were actually established all over the country. The parliamentary committees, however, did not finish their work, as far as I know.

Besides the society just mentioned, many others were founded with rather local significance. In Halle am Salle the Bund fur die Erhaltung und Mehrung der Deutschen Volkskraft worked under the leadership of Prof. Emil Abderhalden, publishing a number of pamphlets and actively assisting families with many children. Similar was the work of the Verein fur Familienwohl in Dusseldorf, and of the Rhein-Mainische Gesellschaft fur Bevolkerungs-politik in Frankfurt am Main, which later became a local of the large national society named above.

Besides this "population" movement we have in Germany the eugenic movement, or, as the Germans call it after the word coined by Wilhelm Schallmayer, race-hygiene. Eugenics and race-hygiene are not quite identical, the second being a broader conception, but the explanation of the theoretical differences would lead us too far. Be it sufficient now to point out one practical difference. The motto of eugenics we may define as "Quality, not quantity." Race-hygiene says: "Quality and quantity."

This may be a reflex to the same stimuli -- losses of the war and the falling birth-rate -- which made the adherents of the population movement demand more and more children. But race-hygiene is well founded also biologically and its students showed clearly that the quality of the progeny in a given society cannot be separated from its quantity. This is not the place to explain this statement and we mention it only in order to make clear the demands of race-hygiene.

The movement is organized in the German Society for Race-Hygiene, Munich, founded in 1905 by Dr. Alfred Ploetz, whose excellent articles in the first and third volume of his Archiv far Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie (G. Teubner, Leipzig, editor) outline the program of race-hygiene.

The International Society for Race-Hygiene, also founded by Dr. Ploetz, did not actually work during the war, although international relations were not entirely disrupted. The German Society, with local societies in Berlin (Prof. E. Baur, Prof. Max Christian); in Munich (Dr. A. Ploetz, Prof. Max von Gruber, Prof. Ernst Rudin, Prof. Fritz Lenz, J. F. Lehmann); in Freiburg, under the leadership of the famous anthropologist Prof. Eugen Fischer, author of the Rehobother Bastards, one of the best books on the question of illegitimacy; and in Stuttgart (Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg) did much to disseminate biological knowledge and to mitigate the one-sided "only-quantity" movement of the populationists. The aim of race-hygiene also is the raising of the birth-rate, but those of the best stocks only. Under the influence of its leading members, the Medical Society of Munich appointed a committee to study this question and published the fruits of nearly two years' work in a monograph which is the standard reference of German practical eugenics.1 [1. The books and most important articles mentioned in this review are enumerated in the bibliography at the end.]

In order to raise the interest in problems of quality, the Berlin Society, together with about twenty of the leading organizations in social work, discussed thoroughly the question of marriage certificates. A special scheme was advocated, which was first put forward in Germany: the exchange of physicians' certificates between prospective partners in marriage should be made obligatory by law, but it should be left to the discretion of the contracting parties to follow the advice of the physician or not. The majority of the experts found even this scheme too far-reaching, accepting only the plan that the idea of consulting a physician before marriage should be popularized. Accordingly leaflets were prepared and distributed in great numbers in several states of the Empire, even through official channels. The Berlin Society for Race-Hygiene published the minutes of the discussion and continued to demand the legal enactment of the exchange of physicians' certificates. As far as I am informed, authorities in Berlin now seem to be inclined to accept the proposition.

The effects of the work of the Society for Race-Hygiene showed itself in most of the actions initiated by different societies or individuals in the interest of future generations. Besides the one-sided "one-quantity movement" and the "quality-and-quantity movement," we find therefore in most cases efforts to obtain "quantity" and a little "quality" too. Biological knowledge was not general enough to follow all the theses of eugenics or race-hygiene, but more or less was accepted. So the congresses held on these topics always discussed race-hygiene too. The semi-official Zentralstelle fur Volkswohlfahrt organized a congress at Berlin in 1915, which was attended by more than a thousand persons, to discuss the question of how to strengthen the population in quantity and quality; the German Society for the Study of the Science of Population organized a similar congress in Darmstadt in 1916; the Ausschuss fur Volksvermehrung, under the leadership of Pastor D. Weber, united a number of chiefly religious societies representing several millions of members and held many conferences; the women's organizations, the teachers, the postal employees, and so on, had all taken up these topics at their annual meetings, and race-hygiene formed always a part of the discussions. In February, 1918, a large congress was arranged in Berlin by the Society to Promote Friendship between the Central Powers (Waffenbruderliche Vereinigung). The population question was fully discussed by the delegates of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, but the shadow of the great antagonism between conservative and radical thought which later led to the revolution, already disturbed the discussion.

Of course, during the war in Germany a large mass of literature was produced which contained many excellent and original propositions. We mention the plan of Zeiler, who wanted to levy very high taxes on families with few children and to give high benefits to large families. Zeiler worked out his plan in detail. A similar and more ingenious proposition was made by Hugo Froese. These and other plans tried to introduce some precautionary measures in order that the benefits granted might not become simple poor-law assistance, which would only induce the poorest classes of society to propagate at the expense of the tax-bearers, but this eugenical point of view was not always respected.

One of the propositions was actually adopted by the government of Bavaria. All the postal, railway, and telegraph employees of the state annually receive a certain amount for each child, in case at least three children are present in the family. The amount increases from 300 to 900 marks according to the salary of the employee. This is not much, but the difference is still felt, as the family with three children receives three times the amount, whereas to the family with fewer children no such assistance is granted.

Other government employees also receive some children benefit. The principle of assistance to large families is also adopted in the collection of taxes, i.e., bachelors have to pay higher taxes, although the benefits thus granted are very small. More effective were benefits of one mark a day paid to the wives of members of the army in case they nursed their children. This system may have contributed to the very low death-rate among infants during the war.

In Magdeburg a marriage office was opened to facilitate the remarriage of healthy war-widows and the plan was followed in other parts of the empire, also among the German population of Bohemia.

Of purely scientific work, we must mention the researches in family heredity started in Munich, the first work being that of Prof. Ernst Rudin. Dr. Wilhelm Schallmayer published the third edition of his famous Vererbung und Auslese in 1918. This pioneer of German race-hygiene died October 4, 1919. Race-hygiene and allied topics were and are taught in some of the universities, for instance by Prof. Alfred Grotjahn at the University of Berlin, Priv. Doz. Dr. Fritz Lenz at the University of Munich, and Priv. Doz. Dr. Max Christian at the Technical University of Berlin.

Since the end of the war almost nothing has been done in the field of eugenics. There are quite other thoughts now which agitate the minds of the best of the people. The adherents of the populationist movement are silent and negotiations have been taken up to unite the German Society for the Study of the Science of Population and the German Society for Race-Hygiene.

In Austria there never was much interest in eugenics. A certain group of savants, Dr. Rudolph Goldscheid, Prof. Paul Kamerer, and Prof. Julius Tandler, tried to introduce eugenics in Vienna, but they were above all party men, being fervent adherents of Social Democratic teachings. As in Austria and central Europe, almost all leaders of the socialist and communist movements are Jews, it is interesting to note that, as it is said, all members of the society founded by Dr. Goldscheid were Jews except one.

In 1917, the former minister Professor Mataja started a movement in Vienna the aim of which was identical with that of the German populationists, an Austrian Society for the Study of the Science of Population. Whereas in Germany there was a well-established eugenic movement which succeeded in giving to the populationist theories some biological foundation, in Austria there was no such parallel force working. Therefore the adherents of Mataja discussed the problem from the point of view of applied social science and statistics, but did not penetrate the field of biology or heredity. The society arranged a number of interesting lectures and a congress on the sanitary aspects of child welfare.

A congress was arranged at Vienna in 1916 by the Deutech-osterreichische Zentralstelle fur Volkswohlfakrt, which discussed the population problem. Political agitation troubled even these meetings, as the radicals attacked the speakers who did not follow their teachings, including Prof. Johann Ude, of Graz, who is the champion of race regeneration in Austria on purely Catholic lines. His Volksheilzentrale does much to popularize sanitary and other measures in the population.

In Bohemia researches were made in heredity in the Ernestinum in Prague, following the methods of Dr. H. H. Goddard, of America, and at the end of the war a Czech Society for Eugenics was founded.

The Hungarian people have always shown keen interest in measures which aimed at race regeneration or similar ends. Eugenics were early discussed in Hungary and at first the teachings of English and American eugenists were followed. Later the German conception of race-hygiene was accepted, and in 1914 a commission was appointed to organize the movement. From the beginning the government has shown an active interest in the work and was represented on the commission. The outbreak of the war delayed preparations and it was only in 1917 that the Hungarian Society for Race-Hygiene and for the Study of the Science of Population was founded. The presidency was accepted by Count Paul Teleki, later minister of foreign affairs and prime minister, and leading men of science and public life were prominent in the movement.

As the name of the society indicates, the double movement which divided the efforts of race regeneration in Germany was united in Hungary from the beginning. Students of social science and of biology worked together in the greatest harmony. As biological knowledge in the population was and is still very scarce, the popularization of information on heredity was the first task. Lectures were held, courses and public discussions on eugenics arranged, pamphlets issued in great numbers. Still deficiency in knowledge was the greatest impediment to the introduction of practical measures, as men having the best will to do something could not always find the right solution when the time came for action.

Hungary was the first country on the European continent which accepted eugenics as a government measure. Count Teleki, when in 1917 appointed head of the Welfare Office for War Sufferers, declared his intention of introducing practical eugenics. I was called from Berlin and had the honor of directing the necessary work. We thought the group of war sufferers mostly excellent stock from an hereditary point of view, best adapted for the first trial measures, which could later be extended to the population as a whole. Here also the chief aim was at the beginning to spread sound eugenical ideas. Lectures were held in all institutions where the mutilated and other victims of the war were treated or taught, pictures were posted everywhere, and leaflets distributed in great numbers. The army commandants also distributed these leaflets to the soldiers.

Later we tried some practical measures. The most important was the distribution of land to the mutilated in such a way that the best men in the hereditary sense of the word received land enough to support a family and that the stipulations of the contract encouraged the rearing of children.

Then we tried to direct the returning soldiers of good stock out of the large and overcrowded cities to the country, the latter being better adapted to a healthy family life.
If we had two positions to fill, e.g., that of a janitor who probably could not rear more than two or three children, or would rather stay single, and that of a manager on a country farm, then we sent a man whose propagation seemed not advisable to fill the janitor's post, and sent the healthy and otherwise desirable man to the farm. Respective advices were given as to the duty of the healthy to rear many children and that of the defective to terminate his bad stock in his own interest. Of course, such steps were taken only after thorough investigation and medical examination.

Much interest was shown by the men as to the advisability of their marriage and propagation. Efforts were made to convince the sick and the mutilated that their defects were not hereditary, and we were pleased to see how the advice given enlightened these poor victims of the war. All local authorities and the different government offices were asked to assist these efforts of race regeneration, to spread sound eugenical ideas among the population, and to act accordingly when fulfilling their official duties.

Acquaintances were facilitated between men and women who wanted to marry and had no suitable partner. A questionary was filled out, and, accompanied by a picture of the person but without his name, it was shown to persons of the other sex, who applied for such information in the notary offices or in the state institutions where the wounded were treated, and soldiers taught. In case the wish was expressed to meet, the acquaintance was made possible and the outcome was left to the persons concerned. Precautionary measures were taken to exclude fraud.

To persons wishing to marry, medical advice was given.
After some propaganda, this work was to be thoroughly organized, and later the exchange of medical certificates according to the German plan already mentioned in this article, was to be established by law. The medical offices to be used for this purpose were already selected in different clinics and other public institutions. In one of them even the animals needed for blood examinations were bought. The medical rules to be followed by the examiners were worked out in detail by the most competent physicians. Then the revolution broke out in October, 1919, and brought everything to a sudden end. The leading officials of the institutions had to leave their posts and to give them over to uneducated young men. The pictures and leaflets which before the revolution were used to spread eugenical ideas were destroyed. Later, during the period of communism, the remaining numbers of the eugenic periodical Nemzetvedelem were burned as immoral literature, and the eugenic movement was called one of the most dangerous and reactionary things existing. As one of the chief aims of Bolshevism in Hungary was to exterminate the upper-class families and to establish proletarian rule, the anger of the communists against eugenics can be understood.

Of other government measures, we may mention first of all the assistance given to public officials and state employees after the birth of their children. Hungary was the first country to give this assistance. All public officials and state employees received, according to a law of 1912, 200 kronen annually for each child. Since that time the amount given was several times raised; since 1918 the assistance amounts to 800 kronen for each child.2 [2. In the summer of 1920, the government promised to double these benefits.] I do not believe that any other country pays as much for family assistance, although the payment is far from being enough to cover all expenses of the rearing of children. The fact that the amount is the same in all grades and does not vary with income, is in a certain way contra-selective, as it means for the lowest paid grades of officials the proportionately highest benefit and induces them therefore to propagate more than it does the higher grades. On the whole the system is of eugenical significance, as the men forming the staff of government officials in Hungary are a selected body.

In a similar way the number of children is taken into consideration when state employees are permitted to purchase food, clothing, and merchandise at lower prices, a relief work which has been carried on since the latter part of the war.

In 1917 the income tax law was amended in such a way that persons with no children have to pay 15 per cent more, and persons with only one child 10 per cent more taxes than others.

Besides the purely eugenic movement there is a movement to fight venereal diseases, organized in the "Union to Protect the Nation" (Nemzetvedelmi Szovetseg] which arranged a congress in 1916 lasting over a month. The first authorities of the country gave lectures which later were published and presented to the government. The general thought was that to combat these diseases effectively, the whole field of race regeneration must be taken up. A similar congress was arranged in 1917 to discuss the problems of social hygiene3 [3. Social hygiene includes in Europe all measures in the interest of the health of the people, and not only the fight against venereal diseases, as in America.] and it was demanded that in order to make the movement effective, a special Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare should be created. Steps were taken in this direction, but the plan was realized only after the revolution, although the preparations had not yet been made.

Since Bolshevism was broken in August, 1920, the whole country needs "race regeneration," not so much in the sense of eugenics, but sound morals, order and law, healthy family life, and regard for future generations. Everybody's whole time and energy is devoted to the reorganization of the country and to avert the consequences of a so-called peace. Later, when conditions change, the time will come to continue the work of eugenics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SCHALLMAYER, WILHELM: Vererbung und Auslese. Jena: G. Fischer, Third edition, 1918.

The standard work of German race-hygiene which should be read by every student of eugenics.

ARCHIV FUR RASSEN- UND GESELLSCHAFTSBIOLOGIE. Leipzig: G. Teubner. (Periodical) The best review of eugenics in German.

POLITISCH-ANTHROPOLOGISCHE MONATSSCHRIFT. Berlin: Steglitz. (Periodical)

An interesting review of that branch of the movement which demands pure race and high breed, combating racial intermixture.

ERHALTUNG UND MEHRUNG DER VOLKSKRAFT. Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1917.

This first-class book contains the fruit of nearly two years' work of the Medical Society of Munich.

RUDIN, ERNST: Studien uber Vererbung und Entatehung Geistiger Sttirungen. Berlin, 1916.

An excellent study in heredity. The reader will see how conservative, thorough, and exact are the German methods in solving these problems.

SCHALLMAYER, WILHELM: Einfuhrung in die Rassenhygiene. Vol. II., Der Ergebnisse der Hygiene. Berlin: W. Weichardt, 1917.

One of the founders of German race hygiene gives here a synopsis of the question.

SIEMENS, H. W.: Die Biologischen Grundlagen der Rassenhygiene und der Bevolkerungs-politik. Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1917.

An excellent introduction to and short survey of race-hygiene.

ZEILER, A.: Gesetzliche Zulagen fur jeden Haushalt, Stuttgart, 1917.

One of the most discussed plans to raise the birth-rate.

Die Erhaltung und Mehrung der deutschen Volkskraft. No. 12, Der Schnften der Zentral-stellefurVolkswohlfahrt. (New series) Berlin: C. Heymann, 1916.

Contains the lectures and discussion of the congress of 1915.

Uber den gesetzlichen Austausch von Gesundheitszeugnissen vor der Eheschliessung und Rassenhygienische Eheverbote. Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1917.

Contains the interesting discussions of the representatives of about twenty leading societies on the question of marriage certificates.

CHRISTIAN, MAX: Die wirtschaftliche Begilnstigung des Kinderreichtums. Archiv fur Raasen- und Gesellschoftsbiologie, Vol. XI., No. 6, August, 1916.

The author gives a practical scheme for the solution of the problem.

FASSBENDER, M.: Des deutschen Volkes Wille zum Leben. Freiburg im Baden: 1917.

The "population question" from the catholic point of view.

VON HOFFMANN, G.: Krieg und Rassenhygiene. Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1916.

A short survey of race-hygiene in Germany and its demands.

Das neue Deutschland, Symposium on Krieg und Volksvermehrung. Berlin, 1916.

A number of first-class authors give their view on the population question.

LENZ, FRITZ; Uberblick uber die Rassenhygiene Jahreskurse fur arztliche Fortbildung, Munich: J. R Lehmann, October, 1917.

Dr. Lenz, one of the best students of eugenics, shows in this excellent and original study what the physician has to know about eugenics and heredity.

NEISSEB, ADOLF: Die Geschlechtskrankheiten und ihre Bekampfung. Berlin, 1916.

This book gives the actual program of the German movement to combat venereal diseases and explains the problem.

PAULL, H.: Die neue Familie. No. 70, Der deutsche Krieg. Stuttgart: von Jaeckh, 1916.

Dr. Paul, who founded the Bund fur deutsche Familie und Volkskraft in Karlsruhe, explains the problem of race regeneration and proposes practical measures. He is one of the leaders of that branch of the movement which lays much stress upon the moral side of the question.

Kunstliche Fehlgeburt und kunstliche Unfruchtbarkeit, ihre Indikationen, Technik und Rechtslage. Leipzig: G. Thieme, 1918.

An exhaustive handbook on sterilization and abortion for physicians and students of eugenics. The book is written by a number of leading authorities. The American laws on sterilization are treated in detail.

Nemzetvedelem (Protection of the Race). Hungarian review of eugenics. Budapest, since 1918.

Minutes of the Congress on Venereal Diseases, Budapest, 1916. Published by the Nemzetvedelmi Szovetseg, Budapest.


Society Becoming Self-Conscious, by Benjamin C. Gruenberg

SOCIETY BECOMING SELF-CONSCIOUS
BENJAMIN C. GRUENBERG, PH. D.
Assistant Educational Director, United States Public Health Service


In the autumn before the outbreak of the European war, the British National Birth-Rate Commission began its investigations; and in June of 1916 it completed its report. This report was described by Sidney Webb as "the most candid, the most outspoken and the most important statement that this country has yet had, as to the extent, nature and the ethical character of the voluntary regulation of the married state which now prevails over the greater part of the civilized world."

But the Commission did not consider the task assigned to it as by any means completed, and recommended the continuation of its investigations. The Commission was reconstituted under the presidency of the Lord Bishop of Birmingham and the directorship of Dr. C. W. Saleeby in 1918, with about forty members. The second report,1 [1. Problems of Population and Parenthood. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1920. 423 p.] that of the reconstituted Commission, is before us. Under the resolutions establishing the Commission, its task was to inquire into:

1. The fall of the general birth-rate with the increase in the illegitimate birth-rate.

2. The causes of infant deaths and of stillbirths.

3. The movements of population and the ratio of the sexes in the Empire.

4. Economic problems of parenthood and their possible solution.

5. The relation of the housing problem to parenthood.

6. The spread of venereal diseases, their relation to sterility, degeneracy, and their probable increase during demobilization.

7. The increased industrial employment of women of child-bearing age.

8. The differential or qualitative aspects of the present birthrate.

9. The relation of the new Ministry of Health to racial reconstruction.

10. The need for a census immediately after the war and for an anthropometric department under the Ministry of Health.

The volume consists of a brief historical introduction, lists of members and of witnesses, and an outline table of contents (pages v to xxix); the report, prepared in five sections (pages xxi to clxi); notes of reservation from the majority opinion on the voluntary restriction of birth, on marriage certificates, on venereal diseases, on divorce, and on alcohol, signed by minority groups, varying in size from one to twelve of the commissioners (pages clxii to clxvi); and Part II, minutes of the evidence of forty-six witnesses (pages 1 to 423).

The statistical study of birth-rates is confined to supplementing the findings in the first report with the figures for more recent years (1913-1918), which show a steady continuance in the decline of the birth-rate, with a steady advance in the percentage of illegitimate births. The decline of births during the war was, however, accompanied by a marked decline in the infant death-rate. This was a continuation of the tendency already observed for several years before the war, and was due, in part, to an increase and improvement of child-welfare work by the local authorities, the probable increase of breast-feeding as well as of the use of dry and condensed milks (because of the high price of "fresh" cow's milk) and the decline of the birth-rate itself.

More important than the decline of the birth-rate, in the estimation of the Commission, is the fact that the birth-rate has been declining in such a way as to be more pronounced among the classes "which have demonstrated superior capacity for the struggle of life in the past by rising in the social scale." Mr. Sidney Webb, however, while agreeing with the Commission in considering the reckless multiplication of the irresponsible and least valuable members of the community in every class an alarming fact, points out that the portion of the community (about 150,000 families) having an income of over one thousand pounds a year is statistically insignificant, although absorbing economically a quarter of the national income. Although no consideration seems to have been given to the question of differential survival of the "superior classes," the Commission recommends a permanent anthropometric department under the Ministry of Health and the establishment of a general register, and urges the making of a census in various parts of the Empire simultaneously in order to make possible comparisons throughout. It urges especially an inquiry on the relation of religion to the birth-rate.

The most important factor in the decline of the birth-rate is the voluntary restriction which is taking place on a large and increasing scale and with an incidence that is far from eugenic, no matter what one's theories of the social and economic distribution of human qualities may be. And the most important factor in the determination of voluntary restriction is economic. The Commission, as a whole, was apparently working on the assumption that an increase is per se desirable and that somehow a large population is of value to the "Empire" as distinct from the people who make up the Empire. Although the voluntary control of births began with the educated and professional classes for reasons described by some of the witnesses as "selfish," it has steadily spread to other parts of the population because of the strain and anxiety incident to childbearing, nursing, and rearing, and because of the costs of education and the desire to provide for the future of girls -- in short, because potential parents demand more from life for themselves, and actual parents demand more from it for their children.

There is general agreement in the Commission (1) that abortion is ethically indefensible, except under medical direction with a view to removing serious risk to the mother; (2) that persons who are likely to transmit any serious physical or mental taint should not have children; (3) that no means of preventing conception can be tolerated that may injure the health of potential parents or of children; (4) that no person should refuse the duties of parenthood for purely selfish reasons; (5) that while parents cannot be relieved of their responsibility, it is, nevertheless, the duty of society to remove disabilities that may be imposed on worthy parents without any fault of theirs; and (6) that instruction should be given especially to young persons in the laws of sex hygiene, the prevalence and dangers of venereal disease, the right and healthy use of the state of marriage, the immorality of inducing abortion with criminal intent at any period of pregnancy, the duties, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood, the importance of healthy offspring, and the value of family life to the nation and the human race.


The Commission further agrees that no moral issue is raised in regard to the limitation of the family when there is good reason for such a course; but moral issues are raised by the means used for the purpose. The Commission then presents six "arguments for the use of contraceptives" and six "arguments against the use of contraceptives." But twelve members of the Commission signed a note of reservation disapproving the former and approving the latter; and of the twelve dissenters, seven are theologians.

The proposed remedies range all the way from the neo-Malthusian recommendations of the universal practice of birth control for the elimination of poverty, as a solution of the population problem, to the inculcation of various kinds of "holiness" as a panacea for all problems. Thus the president of the Mother's Union, who presented some very interesting summaries of investigations into the reasons for voluntary restriction of families, on being asked by Rider Haggard whether she could imagine people in crowded rooms and with no comforts understanding the "dignity and holiness of parenthood and of the duty to the country in the passing on of life," replied: "That is all the more reason why they should be taught." In short, the emptiness and hardships of life are to be replaced by magic words. There is considerable material on various schemes for the endowment of motherhood, on the causes of illegitimacy, the need for legislation on the protection of children, and on the relation between the industrialization of the female population to the problems of childbirth and child nurture.

The chapter on "The Causes of the Loss of Infants both Before and After Birth" is perhaps the most important constructive portion of the report, since it deals with the human elements and the concrete factors through which their welfare may be controlled, although many of the members of the Commission did not apparently see the far-reaching implications of their demands for suitable milk supply, adequate housing, and leisure, comfort, and peace of mind for the mother before and after childbirth.

The role of the venereal diseases in causing loss of population leads to an exhaustive discussion of the ethics of prophylactic packets as against stations for the early treatment of infections; of compulsory treatment; of the problem of prostitution; of confidential death certificates; and of marriage laws with respect to venereal diseases.

The relation of alcoholism to the birth-rate elicits the endorsement of Lord D'Abernon's program for regulating drink, which consists of the discouragement of the use of beverages of excessive alcoholic strength; the avoidance of drinking alcohol on an empty stomach, and the avoidance of continuous or frequently repeated drinking of alcoholic beverages. But Dr. R. J. Drummond, representing the Morals Committee of the United Free Church of Scotland, makes the reservation that nothing short of absolute prohibition would meet the needs of the case.

On marriage and divorce, there is a greater variety of opinion, but the Commission agrees that there is need for reform in the marriage laws in its discrimination against women; that the distinction between the religious rite and the legal contract of marriage should be recognized; but that the legal contract should be considered a moral obligation on the part of all citizens who live together as husbands and wives, whatever their views on the religious rite; that the courts should give special consideration to the interest of children in cases of divorce; and that subsequent marriage of parents should make their children legitimate.

At every point the problems considered by the Commission and the suggestions and facts presented by the witnesses lead to fundamental biological and economic factors. Social hygiene as a body of thought may perhaps carry on in total disregard of the surrounding conditions; but the health of society is impossible when the mass of people lives in ignorance, privation, and squalor. The theorizing of the experts, the exhortation of the moralists, and the orations of statesmen will remain the ineffective manifestations of the fact that these good people are agitated; they will not increase birth-rates, diminish morbidity or mortality, nor do anything to lessen the misery and anguish of those who suffer, so long as the concern remains with empire or nation or trade balance rather than with the kind of organisms that make up nations and empires.

The contradiction between the ostensible advancement of the national welfare through elimination of child labor and through the prolongation of the period of compulsory education on the one hand, and the actual fact that all these requirements oppress the mass of workers most mercilessly during the transient period, on the other, is but one aspect of the habitual failure of statesmanship based upon a quantitative theory of society to face what is really important in human affairs.

Our civilization is based upon attitudes and traditions which assume legitimacy of exploiting people by those who can for private purposes. This acceptance of "prostitution" as a prominent principle of human dealing pervades all of our relationships. A study of this report leaves one with the conviction that we cannot eliminate one special phase of prostitution or one side of the consequences unless we are willing to throw the whole scheme of exploitation overboard.


The Sins of Industry against the Race, by Herman Lundborg

THE SINS OF INDUSTRY AGAINST THE RACE
HERMAN LUNDBORG
Docent, University of Upsala, Sweden


It is a melancholy fact that there has been a bitter race between certain civilized peoples of our times in the production and selling of all sorts of manufactures, useful and necessary things as well as articles of luxury, in enormous quantities. Rivalry for the markets of the world has then sprung up, and had to spring up some time or other, between the principal trading nations. This has perhaps been the deepest-lying cause of the great war. It surely was no chance happening that Germany and England, the two foremost trading empires of Europe, got to fighting a struggle for life or death.

Industry has in the course of decades made these and other countries richer by milliards. Universal prosperity has increased enormously, very considerable improvements of environment have been brought about, and nevertheless, our modern civilization is at present practically in ruins. Thus these riches have been of no use to us, but have instead brought with them great harm. From many parts of England, and from other places, there is shown by reports that industry is the greatest devitalizer of races and peoples.
An English military medical report, in which an account is given of the physical examinations during the war of 2,500,000 of young Englishmen from all parts of the country, states that only 36 per cent were unreservedly fit for military service. More than 10 per cent were so deficient that they had to be considered unfit for every sort of work, military as well as civil, and on this account, became parasites upon society.

The Galton Laboratory in London has published very comprehensive statistics concerning the number of children per couple in different social strata of England: within the intellectual population, on an average, 1.6; among the poorly endowed 6.6; and among criminals 7. Thus the socially deficient give birth without any sense of responsibility to masses of children, who show not only a high death-rate, but also deficiency like their parents. It will be the lot of the fitter to take care of these children that have been forced upon them by people who, as a rule, do not trouble themselves about their own offspring. Our civilization cannot stand higher, as long as such things are allowed to take place unchallenged almost anywhere in the world. Those are indeed sad figures. It is easy to understand that great anxiety is prevailing in England on account of the signs of general debility and degeneration, which are at present beginning to be conspicuous.

As a rule people have no clear conception of how dangerous the effects of industry are upon individuals and society. This is a very complicated subject, but let us critically examine these questions from a race-biological point of view, and not content ourselves with merely pointing out its most obvious mischief in regard to the surroundings. Sociologists and also physicians, as a rule, look at these things too superficially. They generally reason as follows: The riches which pour into the country, thanks to an ever-developing industry, are welcome and advantageous to us. Consequently, laissez faire! At the same time we must, it is true, work for good surroundings and improved universal hygiene, in order to hold our own with the injuries. Such reasoning is false, for many of the perils that go under the name of industrialism are not to be removed so easily.

To begin with, one might seriously discuss the question, whether wealth pouring into a country really is of use to a people. One has a right to doubt this, for experience shows that rapidly increased prosperity, in olden times as well as in ours, breeds an infinitude of needs, the desire for luxury increases, effeminacy begins to show, love for work decreases, and so on. Luxurious living calls forth too much love for ease, for which the children will soon enough have to suffer. The women begin more and more commonly to shun maternity, and all round about us we witness how the 0-1-2-children system flourishes, beginning within the wealthier classes of society. Gradually this process goes deeper and removes by and by every trace of peoples before vigorous. This is what is called race suicide.

We inhabitants of the north ought not to look for our ideals, for instance, to France, which is agriculturally one of the most fertile countries of Europe; but where, however, the people nowadays have neither the desire nor the strength to bear and bring up a sufficient number of children. Instead, the French people are slowly wasting away, and are dying out or mingling with other, perhaps inferior races, such as Africans and the like.


The Swedish people has until of late lived in poverty, but children have never been lacking in the Swedish homes. Most of these have had to fight their way in the world. Nevertheless, as a people, the Swedes have generally up to the present day been conceded to rank among the most superior stocks of Europe, physically as well as intellectually. Is this to continue? Hardly; at least not if we walk on such dangerous ways as we have now turned into. High living and decreasing nativity within the wealthier classes of society are bad omens. Add to this that a spreading industrialism is entirely corroding us.

A people that does not naturally increase, degenerates. There is, so far as I know, no historical example proving that a people showing a lower number of births than of deaths yearly is able to recover itself. It is on the high road to ruin.


Had our mothers and grandmothers put the neo-Malthusian system into practice to such an extent as is done in France at the present day, or in many upper-class Swedish families, most of the professional and intellectual classes of our country would never have been born. They would have been stifled unborn. This appears most clearly if we go through some big genealogical work. The present writer, as the fourth of a family of seven, would not have been born. It is no wonder that such a doctrine, which for many makes a virtue of indolence and egotism, is in our day so widely and enthusiastically adopted.

To avoid being mistaken I will lay stress upon the fact that, of course, I do not in the least consider an indiscriminate "rabbit-reproduction" in the human world as something desirable, but I venture to hold that healthy and able parents in fairly good circumstances commit a crime against nature and against their own race, if they content themselves with one or two children, while the less endowed classes of the people are multiplying several times over.

The state has indeed a heavy responsibility for the conditions remarked upon just now. It does not sufficiently encourage the elements of the people that are of first-rate value in their wish to marry and keep their families properly. Our individualistic time pays more regard, to the "right" of the individual and cares little what becomes of the families and the whole race. One might say that nowadays a war of extermination is being carried on against families and children, and the authorities very often set a bad example. Wage policy, lack of housing, hard times, and other circumstances combine to undermine the existence of the families. Is it possible, then, to expect that the race will in the long run be able to keep fit for competition or even fit for life? We must awake to the perils of this system. The future of the family and the race has above all to be secured.

It is undoubtedly harmful to let young people in industry, who have not yet families of their own, handle a disproportionally large income, which they often live up in waste and frivolity. At the same time their elder fellow workers are almost starving, because they have wives and children to maintain.

That the women have been thrown, together with the men, into the jaws of the industrial Moloch is decidedly an evil, both for themselves and for society. A great many of these women are no doubt worth a far better fate than their lot. Within factory walls all sorts of elements come together, bad as well as good. Many of them go to the dogs on account of bad surroundings. It is difficult for them to manage by themselves: they take to dangerous pleasures, immorality, even prostitution. Soon enough they form amorous relations indiscriminately -- as a rule not from necessity, but in consequence of temptations and love of pleasure. There are, unfortunately, too many men who, if relations of that kind come easily within reach, prefer this irregular sort of life with women, liquors, and conviviality, to the road of self-denial in economic matters which leads to a home and family of one's own. This brings with it many a misspent life. No small number of them die prematurely. Gradually there ensues corruption of society, frivolity, vulgarity, which is noticeable everywhere. Who is to blame? And with whom rests the responsibility?

It is no easy matter to do justice to all, but this much is certain, that industry is very much to blame. It breeds a proletariat of both men and women, that often, sooner or later, are heaped up in poorhouses, hospitals, workhouses and prisons.


Industry's list of sins is, however, far from complete. Race-destroying tendencies of the greatest moment still remain to be mentioned. Thoroughgoing research and statistics show that the farming population, especially the peasantry, is in all countries superior to the industrial population as regards health and racial capacity. This does not, as many people believe, solely depend upon the healthier nature of the life that is lived in the country, but the whole constitution, which, in its turn, depends upon good and well-adapted hereditary tendencies, is in et per se better. The peasantry possess from ancient times an inherent rich fund of good tendencies, a strong racial power. The surroundings become, it is true, worse and worse the lower one penetrates into the layers of urban society, but that is not the real reason for the fact that the individuals dwelling there have inferior constitutions. Everywhere among a people where no irrational despotism or anarchism prevails, there ensues a natural stratification. The individuals who have more favorable hereditary combinations to thank for their existence, tend to rise, and those, on the contrary, who have less favorable ones, sink lower down. The lowest of the proletarians show an inferior and very ill-adapted constitution. Persons who content themselves with, or have to content themselves with bad surroundings, are, as a rule, not race-fit.

Factories, springing up from the ground like mushrooms, absorb the young sons and daughters of the country. Shorter working day, higher wages, varying manner of living, possess a wonderful attractive power. The population of the rural districts decreases. The towns and industrial communities are growing rapidly. The conditions of environment are worse here than in the country. Tuberculosis, alcoholism, venereal diseases, and other evils begin to ravage and play havoc among a population of this kind. Industry swallows up a great part of the peasantry; another part, which does not want to go under the industrial yoke, emigrates to foreign countries, and there lays the foundation of new, perhaps in course of time, flourishing peoples and communities. The result of it all is, that the peasantry gradually disappears from the old countries, where people do not seem to appreciate their worth but look upon all human values as wares that can be bought for money. A human stuff which is fully satisfactory material for a great people is, however, not to be bought in any market. It takes hundreds and thousands of years to build up again a race-fit peasant class, if the old one has been annihilated. [/b]

Thus there is no doubt that a people which undermines and exterminates its peasantry, marches toward hard times. The history of many peoples bears witness to this fact. A sign of the times is the circumstance that in industrial countries agriculture is not able to keep up the competition sufficiently with an industry that is allowed to grow wild without any limitation whatever. In order to illustrate, more clearly than by words, the changes and displacements that take place in the structure of a people which degenerates through industrialism or in any other way (several causes usually cooperate), I have devised the diagram shown below.

A sound and healthy race-fit people has, as is shown by stage 1, a strong middle class. This is represented by the white field. I count in this class also landed peasants. The small dotted field at the top represents the upper classes, or rather, the intellectual leaders and the higher officials of the country. These layers have, in spite of their fitness for civilization, a lower race-biological value than the middle class, on account of the fact that they, as a rule, die out quickly, and have to be recruited little by little from the lower layers. The striped field is the large body of manual laborers, and lowest down at the bottom some more or less unfit human material, such as tramps, habitual criminals, and other asocial elements.

DIAGRAM
showing changes in the social structure of a people in the process of industrialization.
Image
The light fields represent the middle class (including the farmers).
The dotted fields represent the upper classes.
The striped fields represent the working classes.
The black fields represent the socially unfit (the degenerates) in the upper and lower classes.


During the process of degeneration, changes set in within the body of the people, as is shown by stages 2, 3, 4, and 5. First of all, the whole population is very considerably increased, for industrial work is able to give food to many people; but at the same time there appears a strongly noticeable inversion of the social structure. The old middle class decreases and disappears almost entirely; a new middle class is formed, it is true, but that is another and inferior kind than the earlier was. Together with this both the upper and the lower classes increase, but chiefly the latter. The degenerating process appears in the upper classes, too. The most numerous layer will by and by be the factory hands, together with an increasing deposit at the bottom, the human dross.

The great increase of the bottom layers is the most serious factor in the whole situation, for bodily and mental deficiency is the distinguishing characteristic of those individuals comprising this numerous bottom layer. The higher grades of laborers do not, of course, meet with this judgment. But a good deal of unskilled industrial work claims such a small amount of intelligence and efficiency in other respects, that all sorts of borderline individuals who cannot in any other way earn their livings, thus secure the possibility of a livelihood not only for themselves, but also for a family. Many of these, men as well as women, do not want to marry, but they have, nevertheless, sexual instincts, and therefore beget a progeny, whose support, frequently becomes a burden upon the state. As at the same time the middle class shrinks, the upper classes, of which the greater part live in the towns, has an inadequate progeny, it is clear that the people is increasingly proletarized, and that it becomes, as a whole, inferior in racial capacity to its status before it was industrialized. In other words, a whole army of more or less poorly endowed individuals comes into existence, and these individuals very soon manage to work their will consciously, or unconsciously. If they do not succeed by competitive means, they resort to revolutionary and anarchistic methods, and, deal summarily with all who stand against them. That is to say, the upper classes are those to suffer. There may come a reign of terror. Everything falls into a state of confusion. Civilization sinks. The people now degenerates rapidly, and destruction is near. Other peoples invade the country. The result may be something better, but also something worse, depending upon the qualities of the invading people.

All this process may go on more or less rapidly. The degeneration, however, Is not long in coming, if one thinks In social and racial terms. The great mass of the people, as well as a great many politicians, are not able to survey this process, which takes a period of several generations. They do not see the real, deepest-lying causes, but only the surface. Hence their aims, and endeavors for amelioration will only be a symptomatic and not a radical cure.

From what has been said above it appears obvious that modern nations are moving in the wrong direction. We disregard the simplest demands of nature. An unlimited industry always preys on human material, and this it does to such an extent that one may be justified in venturing a paradox: we can indeed not afford to let industry grow unchecked, although it brings us billions, for all our vital power and our future as independent peoples are at stake.

There is, it is true, in every country an absolutely necessary minimum of industry, that we cannot, and must not evade, but that measure is, I think, already exceeded. The development of a people in a sound direction necessarily demands that industry be kept within reasonable bounds. It must and ought to be proportionate to the other trades and professions. The shareholders and the industrial managers have no right, I take it, to throw all the rest of humanity into peril. The dance round the golden calf must be stopped before it is too late. To this there will probably come from the political economists the reply: How is that possible? The finances of the state require increased industry, or we shall, sooner or later, reach national bankruptcy. I will answer with a counter-question: Can we permit the sacrifice of our last reserve fund, the national power and the racial capacity, in order to obtain an occasional mitigation of the misery? Does this not remind one rather strongly of an incurable gambler, who takes his very last belongings, perhaps some old family jewels, rich in memories of the past, in order with these to try once more his luck at the gaming tables, with the risk of losing these too, and be left there an impoverished beggar, and perhaps be driven to suicide?

Of what avail are whole heaps of gold, nay, the wealth of all the world, if we through wars are marching toward times of trouble and degeneration? It is no easy thing for a private man to resist all the temptations of wealth. It is perhaps still more difficult for a people to take the road of self-denial and, instead of living in pleasures and enjoyments, lead the lives of hard-working, saving men, which make for amelioration. The time will certainly come when people will clearly see that the industrializing tendency of our time has far more dangerous effects than the old mercantile system, condemned in its day. It will be the task of the civilized peoples together to settle these momentous questions in a satisfactory way.

Nature is a severe teacher who forces us, unruly and ignorant children of men, into obedience, sooner or later. It would be a good thing for us if we proved more docile, and less intractable.
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Part 4 of 4

Progress, 1920–1921, by Kenneth M. Gould

PROGRESS, 1920-21
KENNETH M. GOULD


In a year that has been notable for many outstanding events in the field of social hygiene, the selection of items for inclusion in a panoramic chronicle of progress is a difficult task. In this period, the anti-venereal campaign throughout the world has come nearer to self-analysis and self-realization in the definition of its basic problems and in the expansion of its aims to meet the needs of great civilian populations, than ever before. The passing of the emergency of the war has left on both sides of the Atlantic an acute sense of the necessity of a broader conception of social hygiene than the mere maintenance of military or physical efficiency against the ravages of syphilis and gonococcus infections. If any one emphasis has marked the work of the year, it has been an educational one. Great conferences and assemblages organized for study have addressed themselves to two principal objectives: 1. The recognition of the principles and data which could be universally accepted by thoughtful persons as the least common denominators of this highly complex and controversial field. 2. The discovery of methods for the better conveyance of such principles and data to the consuming public, both adolescent and adult.

Of such gatherings, the following, at least, should be mentioned:

1. The summer social-hygiene course held under the auspices of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, the United States Bureau of Education, the United States Public Health Service, and the American Social Hygiene Association, at Teachers College, Columbia University, July 6 to August 13, 1920. This was designed primarily to prepare teachers of standard subjects, social workers, and parents to play their appropriate parts in the needed sex instruction of all young people. It was expressly agreed that social-hygiene education in the schools and colleges should not be given prominence as a course or courses of sex instruction per se by special teachers; and that, on the contrary it should be merged unobtrusively into regular subjects of instruction.

Some 75 special students were registered for the course and did work in it of academic grade, while the large number of special visitors from allied social agencies and from other summer school courses brought the daily attendance at the lecture courses to about 200. The work was organized in a daily lecture series on the biological groundwork of social hygiene; a daily lecture series by various experts on different practical aspects of the social-hygiene campaign; tri-weekly conferences with specialists; an advanced seminar in social-hygiene education; and frequent showings of moving pictures and other illustrative and exhibit materials.

The value of this first experimental summer course was generally recognized, and the continuation of the program in the future is assured.

2. The Institute on Venereal Disease Control conducted by the United States Public Health Service at the New National Museum, Washington, November 22 to December 3, 1920. This was a shorter and more intensive effort designed particularly for the benefit of health officers, physicians, and nurses, nearly 600 of whom registered for the Institute. To this end, the Public Health Service organized a faculty of 54 of the ablest men and women who are authorities in the various phases of venereal-disease control. Although limited by the nature of its functions to public-health work, the Service proved definitely that its policies are formed on the broadest educational principles. Nine out of the fourteen courses offered by the Institute dealt with ideals, and but five with treatment.

3. The crowning event of the year in social-hygiene work was the All-America Conference on Venereal Diseases held in Washington immediately following the Institute, December 6-11, 1920. Four national organizations, two governmental and two voluntary, cooperated in the planning and administration of this Conference: The United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, the United States Public Health Service, the American Red Cross, and the American Social Hygiene Association. Including the general conference committee and its section secretaries, upwards of 400 delegates registered for the Conference, representing practically every state in the union, and in addition special representatives were present from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo.

The plan of organization was unique, and an enormous amount of work was done and many agreements reached with a minimum of friction and delay. The General Conference Committee, consisting of authorities in their respective fields, was chosen by the president, Dr. William H. Welch, on recommendation of the Administrative Committee, Dr. Livingston Farrand, of the Red Cross, Dr. Thomas A. Storey, of the Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, Dr. Claude C. Pierce, of the United States Public Health Service, and Dr. William F. Snow, chairman, of the American Social Hygiene Association. The Conference Committee, divided into sections on the basis of the special experience and training of its members, met each morning to consider the special problems raised in their respective fields and the question submitted by the delegates from the general sessions of the Conference. The daily reports of these sectional committees were then discussed and revised in committee of the whole at afternoon sessions. The results were then presented to the evening sessions of the entire conference for discussion and action. The subjects dealt with by the several sections were these:

1. Medical Research and Laboratory Questions.

2. Diagnosis and Treatment of Syphilis.

3 and 4. Gonorrhea in the Male and Female.

5. Public Health and Administrative Problems.

6. Clinic and Hospital Questions.

7. Statistics.

8. Public Information and Education.

9. Law Enforcement Measures.

10. Protective Social Measures.

11. Psychological Aspects of the Venereal-Disease Problem.

12. Social Service.

The product of this sifting process was a series of resolutions which express probably the best consensus of expert opinion available at the present time upon the points, both technical and controversial, which demand authoritative knowledge. A preliminary report of these has been published, and a final report will soon be issued.

Of the findings and attitudes of the Conference it is impossible to speak in detail. All schools of thought on social-hygiene problems were represented and none was repressed. Yet the general temper of the delegates and committee members was conservative, holding fast to methods and measures of proved efficiency. The Conference condemned the use of civilian so-called medical prophylaxis on the basis of such data as exist at present, and went on record in favor of strict extra-marital continence as the foundation stone of a correct program of sexual ethics, although recognizing the impossibility of final solutions for all circumstances.

One of the most encouraging results of the Conference was the participation of the representatives from most of the Latin-American countries. While few in number and with a limited experience in social-hygiene campaigns in their own nations such as have been carried on by many of the older nations, they were active and helpful participants and doubtless took back with them also a wealth of practical information and measures adaptable to their local conditions.

4. The All-America Conference was the first of a series of regional conferences on venereal diseases recommended by the Medical Advisory Board of the League of Red Cross Societies in its conference at Cannes in the Spring of 1919. The second of these was the North European Conference, held at Copenhagen, May 20 to 25, 1921. The participating nations here were Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Representatives of the German Red Cross Society were also present. The questions of adequate provision by these important maritime nations of diagnostic and treatment facilities for seamen of their merchant marines, and notification, a measure now generally accepted in the Western hemisphere, were subjects of live discussion. In general, advanced and fearless methods of dealing with the venereal-disease question were advocated, the Scandinavian nations having been notable for the radical way in which they have dealt with certain vexing questions.

Other regional conferences of a similar nature are planned for the near future. Among these will be one for the southeastern European nations to be held at Prague in the fall of this year, and one for the southwestern nations at Paris.

In the United States, the year has been one of varying fortunes for the federal and state programs of venereal-disease control. The major parties in the presidential campaign both made platform declarations which might be interpreted favorably to social hygiene, the Democratic demanding the continuance of the government campaign of sex education; the Republican approving the principle of federal aid to the states in health and welfare activities. In addition, President Harding, as candidate, president-elect, and president has several times expressed his purpose to establish a federal department of public welfare of cabinet rank, comprising all activities of public health, education, social service, and veteran relief, now scattered through many uncoordinated bureaus and departments. Just how the work of venereal-disease control may be organized under such a new plan of administration is not yet clear. The Sixty-sixth Congress, at its last short session, deleted from the Sundry Civil Bill appropriations for the maintenance of the work of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board including apportionments to state boards of health for venereal-disease control. This was not, however, because of lack of interest in this work, and it did not repeal the Chamberlain-Kahn Act of 1918, under which the Board operated for the protection of the military and naval forces of the United States from venereal diseases. The expressed intention of the sponsors of this Act, and of Congress at the time of its passage, was that the work should be continued into peace-time and expanded on a civilian basis. The surgeons general of the Army, Navy, and the Public Health Service, representing respectively the Secretaries of War, Navy, and the Treasury in the composition of the Board, therefore appealed to the Sixty-seventh Congress for deficiency appropriations totalling $925,000 for this work during 1921-22, $500,000 of which is to be allotted to states on the basis of a minimum apportionment of $5,000 each, the remainder to be allotted in proportion to population. The balance was requested for the continuance of the educational, laboratory, and protective work initiated by the Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board. Congress again reviewed the situation and appropriated $225,000 with the restriction that it be used for the protective measures program, the position taken being that the several states ought now to support fully the medical and educational phases of the work. Many state boards of health and at least twenty-seven legislatures, alive to the imperative need of continuing the program, have provided funds for diagnostic and treatment facilities within these states, and to a large extent the economies of the federal government have been compensated by local appropriations and volunteer funds.

A government measure of more than passing interest to social hygienists is the Sheppard-Towner bill for the protection of maternity and infancy, which passed the Senate during the last Congress, and which has been reintroduced in the present one with fair chances of success. While opponents of this bill have claimed that it is paternalistic and dangerous legislation and is not sound administratively, no one disputes the need for improved hygiene in the fields of birth and care of children, the mortality rate of American mothers and children from causes connected with childbirth being among the highest of civilized nations. As an educational influence indirectly in the field of social hygiene the discussions of this bill have been of great importance.

Voluntary organizations of public health and social hygiene have shown marked advance during the past year in the direction of better coordination and prevention of duplication. The formation of the National Health Council and the National Child Health Council, composed of the leading organizations in their respective fields, have been the most outstanding events here. The National Health Council, though but a few months old, has already demonstrated that the possibilities of cooperation between its corporate members are almost limitless. These include a bureau of information, a legislative bureau, cooperative conferences and planning meetings. Experiments are being tried out providing common services of bookkeeping, stock-room and shipping, library, and other services. It is significant, however, that in all of these plans complete autonomy in their respective fields is retained by the participating organizations. In the social-hygiene field, the American Social Hygiene Association and the Bureau of Social Hygiene have been active in this new movement.

In Great Britain, two important bodies which are at work in venereal-disease control, the National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases and the Society for the Prevention of Venereal Diseases, have been hitherto largely in opposition to each other in their envisagement of the problem and their convictions as to the methods by which it is to be attacked. The National Council, the older organization, has held steadily to the educational type of work, supplemented by strong emphasis on multiplication and improvement of treatment centers, believing that no permanent gain can be effected in the reduction of venereal diseases unless at the same time the general standard of sex ethics in the population is raised, and the number of promiscuous sex contacts lessened. The Society for the Prevention of Venereal Diseases, on the other hand, assuming that a large proportion of human beings will tend permanently to remain incontinent, feels that the only practical course is to consider disease entirely apart from morality and to provide inexpensive and easily obtainable drugs for self-disinfection after exposure. By thus placing the onus of responsibility upon every individual who indulges in illicit sexual intercourse, to prevent his own infection, the Society hopes to reduce perceptibly and eventually to eradicate the venereal diseases in the population of Great Britain.

There are signs that a rapprochment between these two conflicting organizations may be effected. The best public sentiment of England realizes that it is not desirable for those sincerely thoughtful in these all-important questions to be hostile and divided. The National Council, in a recent memorandum which is understood to have received the approval of the Minister of Health, makes the following statement:

Whilst it cannot be too clearly or publicly stated that the way to avoid contracting these diseases is to avoid infection, and the way to avoid infection is to refrain from all forms of promiscuous sexual intercourse, it must nevertheless be recognized that there exists a large number of individuals, men and women, who do not respond either to the moral or to the social appeal, ....

Where such individuals, acting on their own initiative, desire to purchase from chemists disinfectants as a protection against these diseases, no legal difficulty exists to prevent them from so doing. . . . The recommending to the public by advertisement or other similar means, of disinfectants in connection with these diseases, however, must result in giving increased notoriety to quack remedies, and is to be deprecated. . . . Further, the public should be officially warned against any attempt at self-treatment of these diseases, if and when any signs or symptoms are experienced. . . .

If an individual has incurred or has reason to think that he or she has incurred risk of infection, it is his or her bounden duty to cleanse himself or herself thoroughly and immediately. . . .1 [1. National Health, Vol. xiii, No. 140, p. 255, May, 1921.]


There thus seems to be a real basis of common ground between the two British organizations, from which some form of cooperation may well evolve.

No survey of international activities would be complete without mention of the important part played by the League of Red Cross Societies in stimulating effective action against the venereal diseases throughout the world and particularly in Europe. Its Division for Combating Venereal Diseases, in addition to calling and supervising the regional conferences above-mentioned, has conducted venereal-disease surveys of certain countries, and has been a constant and active center of propaganda by literature, motion-picture films, and other educational matter. The League's headquarters at Geneva is in peculiarly close contact with American social-hygiene activities and derives much of its inspiration and materials therefrom. The International Journal of Public Health, established last year by the League, is a notable example of medical journalism.

Out of many interesting and effective experiments in different types of educational work which have been carried on in the United States during the past year, only a few of special significance can be mentioned. Perhaps one of the most important was the demonstration trips made by the "social-hygiene field car" in North Carolina, Florida, and New York State. This truck was completely equipped for showing motion pictures outdoors or under all kinds of conditions indoors, so that the most modern educational films on social hygiene could be shown to selected audiences in entire communities in isolated and inaccessible rural districts as well as towns. An advance officer, two lecturers (one white and one Negro), and an operator have been the principal staff, although a woman physician and other temporary appointees have been used. In North Carolina alone five counties were completely covered in the demonstration and more than 40,000 persons of both sexes saw motion pictures and heard lectures. In each state arrangements for follow-up work have been made. The United States Public Health Service and the American Red Cross have cooperated with the American Social Hygiene Association in these demonstrations carried out with the state and local health authorities.

Particular attention has been directed to hygiene campaigns among the Negroes, both in the South and the North by federal and private organizations. The special aim has been in every case to train leadership among the Negroes themselves and to evoke constructive effort for themselves by members of their own race. An experimental campaign was carried on by the Public Health Service in Tennessee. Hygiene courses have been established in numerous Negro colleges and schools. A lecture series for Negro social workers of New York City was held under the auspices of the New York Urban League.

In Cleveland a public-health survey was executed under the auspices of the Cleveland Hospital Council and the general direction of Dr. Haven Emerson, which will probably remain a model of technique for many years. Venereal diseases formed one of the nine main divisions upon which a staff contributed by the American Social Hygiene Association investigated the city's record and made valuable recommendations. Cleveland has set a mark for other cities to emulate in the willingness with which it submits itself to diagnosis in all fields of social welfare, and the sincerity with which it seeks to remedy the deficiencies discovered.

A review of the legislative accomplishments of the year is indicative of much progress. In the United States forty-two state legislatures met this winter between January and June, and a campaign on a national scale to introduce social-hygiene bills in those whose laws were inadequate, was undertaken by the American Social Hygiene Association, in conjunction with the National League of Women Voters and other organizations. Of 177 bills on social-hygiene subjects introduced in the forty-odd legislatures, 87 had become laws by May 1. Seven states adopted measures to prohibit the advertising of venereal-disease nostrums. Six states passed laws to prevent ophthalmia neonatorum. Many adopted or strengthened the vice repressive act, the injunction and abatement act, and others of the "standard forms" of laws recommended by the federal authorities. The New York legislature passed a drastic act for the state censorship of moving pictures. But perhaps the most interesting pieces of new legislation are those dealing with the regulation of the marriage relation. These are usually spontaneous expressions of a need felt by citizens of certain states for more protection of partners in marriage and for posterity from those who are unfit for marriage. Eight states out of thirteen in which such bills were introduced passed laws requiring certificates of freedom from venereal diseases in one or both partners in order to obtain a marriage license. Certain of these marriage regulation bills attracted wide attention for their innovations. Such is the North Carolina law, by which the candidates are required to present physicians' certificates that they are free from venereal disease or tuberculosis in an infectious state, and have never been adjudged idiots, imbeciles, or of unsound mind. The result has been to reduce considerably the numbers of persons applying for licenses in North Carolina, and to drive many seeking marriage into Virginia and South Carolina. Physicians are naturally unwilling to give certificates requiring a life-long knowledge of the candidate concerned, rather than of merely giving his immediate physical and mental condition.

Another law which attracts interest was the amendment of the existing law in Oregon, requiring a certificate of freedom from venereal disease from the male only. The amendment includes females as well. The Oregon legislature also referred to the people for referendum the Owens-Adair bill, requiring mental and physical examinations for both applicants for marriage license, providing that if either party fails to pass the examination, he shall not be permitted to marry unless both are sterilized. Whether the temper of the populace will approve so radical a bill, is a question of keen interest to social hygienists and eugenists.

Abroad, important legislation on the marriage state has been adopted or is pending in the national legislatures of several countries. Great Britain is in the throes of a campaign for a more liberal divorce law, the present one allowing divorce on the ground of adultery only, and discriminating against women. A bill sponsored by Lord Buckmaster, which places both sexes on the same footing and allows divorce on the grounds of adultery, desertion for three years and upward, cruelty, incurable insanity after five years' confinement, habitual drunkenness, and imprisonment under commuted death sentence. The debates have been unusually acrimonious, the chief opposition to the bill coming from the clergy. Whether the present bill emerges victorious or not, it is plain that England's inflexible law on this subject cannot long remain unaltered.

In Sweden new legislation of this character has not only been advocated but passed. Divorce may now be obtained upon application after one year of marriage if the partners mutually request it. Illegitimate children have equal rights of every kind with their legitimate brothers. These and other laws constitute a code governing family life and the marriage relation which will be observed with very keen interest during the next few years.


October, 1921

A Study of Specialized Courts Dealing with Sex Delinquency. I. The Morals Court of Chicago, by George F. Worthington and Ruth Topping
A Program for the Statistics of the Venereal Diseases, by Louis I. Dublin and Mary Augusta Clark
International Venereal-Disease Statistics, by Knud Stouman
The Present Prevalence of Venereal Diseases, by Lawrence Marcus
Age, Sex, and Marriage in Relation to Incidence, by Raymond S. Patterson
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The Social Hygiene Movement
by American Journal of Public Health
November, 1913

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American Journal of Public Health
Official Organ of the American Public Health Association
Published Monthly by the American Public Health Association.
VOLUME III.-Old Series Vol. IX. NOVEMBER, 1913. Number 11
$2.00 a year. 20 cents a copy.
LIVINGSTON FARRAND, M. D., Editor. SELSKAR M. GUNN, B. S., Managing Editor.
PHILIP P. JACOBS, Ph.D., Business Manager.
All expressions of opinions and all statements of supposed facts are published on the authority of the
writer over whose signature they appear and are not to be regarded as expressing the
views of the American Public Health Association. unless such statements
or opinions have been adopted by vote of the Association.
American Public Health Association
The United States of America
The Dominion of Canada The Republic of Mexico The Republic of Cuba
Officers 1913-1914
President, Dr. William C. Woodward, Third Vice-President, Dr. C. J. Hastings,
Washington, D. C. Toronto, Canada.
First Vice-President, Dr. John F. Anderson, Secretary, Professor S. AM. Gunn,
Washington, D. C. Boston, Mass.
Second Vice-President, Dr. M. Lebredo, Treasurer, Dr. Livingston Farrand,
Havana, Cuba. New York City
Section Officers
Laboratory Vital Statistics Public Health Officials
Chairman, Prof. Edward Bartow, Chairman, Prof. W F. Wilcox, Chairman, Dr. C. V. Chapin,
Urbana, Ill. Ithaca, N. Y. Providence, R. I.
Vice-Chairman, C. E. A. Winslow, Vice-Chairman, Dr. E. Liceaga, Vice-Chairman, Dr. C. J. Hasting.
New York City. Mexico City. Toronto, Canada.
Secretary, Dr. D. L. Harris, Secretary, Dr. Louis I. Dublin, Secretary, Dr. E. C. Levy,
St. Louis, Mo. New York City. Richmond, Va.
Recorder, Dr. A. Freeman, Recorder, Dr. A. S. Fell,
Richmond, Va. Trenton, N. J.
Sanitary Engineering Sociological
Chairman, Mr. R. S. Weston, Chairman, Mr. Lawrence Veiller,
Boston, Mass. New York City.
Vice-Chairman, Mr. George W. Fuller, Vice-Chairman, Dr. H. E. Dearholt,
New York City. Milwaukee, Wis.
Secretary, Dr. H. D. Pease, Secretary, Mr. S. Poulterer Morris,
New York City. Denver, Col.

THE SOCIAL HYGIENE MOVEMENT.

There was recently held in Buffalo, the Fourth International Congress on School Hygiene, concerning which a prominent life insurance expert made the comment-"They called it a congress on school hygiene, but it was in reality a conference on sex education; there wasn't a section of the congress that at some point in its program did not jump the track to discuss certain phases of the sex problem." This was literally true. One of the largest audiences of the entire congress, numbering several thousand persons, assembled to hear President Eliot and the other speakers on the program of the annual meeting of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene.

That the public is now thoroughly interested in the sex problem in all its various phases is certain. The many lectures and social hygiene meetings being held in every section of the United States are evidences of this; the columns of newspaper space devoted to the white slave traffic indicate it; the good, indifferent and vicious plays upon the subject that are bidding for public attention, prove that this interest extends to all classes; the increasing volume of literature, also good, indifferent, and vicious, shows that the people generally are taking time to read; the fight for legislation relating to marriage, prostitution, minimum wage, protection of girls, is proof that the best elements of society recognize the importance of the problem, and are combining to work out a solution. It behooves the various organizations and individuals interested in the progress of this movement to study it intensively and to plan for the crystalization of public sentiment in sound laws and wise administration.

During the sessions of the International Congress referred to, there occurred another meeting which promises to have a far reaching influence on the situation. This was a joint conference between representatives of the American Federation for Sex Hygiene and the American Vigilance Association. As a result, formal action was taken ratifying a merger and reorganization of the work of these two associations under a single board of directors. A new name is to be chosen later, but the purpose of the union is to build up the strong, practical and representative organization for promoting investigation and progress along all lines of work related to the proper understanding and utilization of sex as an influence in the development of the human race, and for combating venereal disease, commercialized vice and other harmful influences which have developed about the sex functions. There seems to be money enough available to insure the carrying out of any plans adopted. The announcement of the directorate and executives which may be chosen will be awaited with the greatest interest and it is devoutly to be hoped that the personnel will be such as to give assurance of sane guidance in this new agency for human conservation.

The leaders of the new federation have a most difficult task before them. It will be necessary to weld together a large number of diversified and, even, antagonistic elements.

For example, there are those who believe that the teaching of sex hygiene is the only method of practical value; but within the ranks of this group, a difference of opinion exists as to what shall be taught, at what ages the teaching shall be undertaken, and by whom it shall be done.

There are others who believe that moral education of young people constitutes the only safe method of attacking this problem; of these some advocate the influence of the church in developing religious experience, and would suppress all information concerning sex; some would teach the simple facts of sex, and advocate a single standard of morals, encourage early marriage and the promotion of temperance, as the important things to do.

Still others believe the transmission of venereal diseases to be the only important phase of the problem, and advocate strict administrative control of these diseases as the key to the situation. But even the supporters of this view are sharply divided as to the proper methods to be adopted -- Shall we segregate or not segregate the prostitutes? Shall we subject all prostitutes so far as possible to medical examination? Shall we provide isolation Wards for venereal cases? Shall we establish venereal disease clinics, as tuberculosis clinics have been established? Shall we approve the prophylactic methods adopted by armies and navies?

Some are interested in this movement as a factor in the great vague field of eugenics.

There are also many equally sincere persons who regard all these efforts as futile. They hold that sex education only arouses in young men and women a morbid curiosity which had better be left dormant, or they say that prostitution has always existed and always will exist, and that the parents of each child can alone deal properly with the matter. To bring together these earnest persons holding divergent views, and sometimes fanatical in their convictions, in support of a scientific, and effective campaign is the most difficult task any public welfare organization has yet set itself.

The spirit of sarcasm evidenced in the article in the July number of this Journal and the bitterness of the reply published in September have been exhibited in a lesser degree many times during the recent history of the social hygiene movement, but there are signs that the future promises better things. One of the sanest, most encouraging pieces of actual constructive work that has been done in sex education is outlined in the second annual report of the Oregon Social Hygiene Society. The establishment of the Bureau of Social Hygiene for scientific laboratory, clinical and field research upon the underlying causes of prostitution and commercialized vice, marks another advance. The inauguration in New York City of a chain of diagnostic stations by the health department, and the making of syphilis and gonococcus infections reportable, is a most important event in the progress of the medical attack. The decision of this same city to add a "venereal" building to its infectious disease hospital group is a still further advance in the right direction.

When we consider a simple list of the serious and carefully planned efforts which are now being made by the various agencies to grapple with the large questions covered by the term social hygiene, it is manifest that the battle is on. The need of the hour is for a strong national organization equipped and manned to direct the fight. The work of the pioneer societies has prepared the way. Their foundation should now be built upon rapidly. There is need for standardizing the pamphlets and other literature which are being distributed. The material for popular lectures should be most carefully reviewed and censored. Exhibits and, particularly, statistics on this subject require to be worked over so thoroughly that their accuracy and import cannot be challenged. It is to be hoped that the association may become an authoritative but conservative bureau of information upon every subject related to the problems of sex.

Active members of the Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board are Edward Clifford, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, J. M. Wainwright, Assistant Secretary of War, Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Surgeon General M. W. Ireland of the Army, Surgeon General E. R. Stitt of the Navy, and Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming of the Public Health Service. Dr. T. A. Storey, of the College of the City of New York, formerly chief inspector of the New York State military training commission, was executive secretary over the period covered by the report. He has been succeeded lately in that position by Dr. Valeria H. Parker, an active figure in the social-hygiene work of the National League of Women Voters, the National Women's Christian Temperance Union, the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teachers Associations, and the American Social Hygiene Association.

-- Journal of Social Hygiene, Vol. VIII, January, 1922, by The American Social Hygiene Association


At the present moment there are two important issues connected with the social hygiene movement, upon which the general American public is seeking advice and guidance. (1) Shall we teach sex hygiene in the public schools? (2) Shall we actively try to suppress prostitution?

There are strong arguments against school instruction as it ordinarily would be given, but they are opposed on the ground that there is practically no such thing as ignorance of sex even among children. The question of sex-education of children is not one of innocence vs. sex knowledge, but of pick-up street tradition vs. the truth about sex. A number of careful educational experiments on this question are now being conducted in various parts of the world, and there seems to be reason for believing that it will be answered in due time. Meanwhile there is no discouragement in the fact that progress is slow in this direction, provided only it be progress. It is vitally important that education on this subject be sound, scientific, and wise. The new association should follow these experiments closely and make its observations available to the interested public.

Similarly it should watch the experiments in the suppression of prostitution and the control of venereal diseases. In theory this is a simpler problem than the selection of what shall be taught about sex, but in practice it is found to possess so many moral, medical, and other angles that the situation seems hopeless to all except the most courageous and persistent workers. Vice Commissions have repeatedly reported the failure of segregation as an effective measure for reducing either the prevalence of prostitution or of diseases associated with it, yet there continues in every city a large body of people who believe that an "unofficial" segregation is the necessary price of freedom from most undesirable scattering of prostitutes throughout residence districts. The experience of other cities is drawn upon for alleged facts and figures to support this position. The new association should be in possession of accurate and complete data about each city or community wherein any activity along these lines has been shown.

In short, the first function of the new society would seem to be the securing of trust-worthy information upon which a constructive program can be based. With the facts in hand a simple and effective educational campaign can be inaugurated, to be followed by the furthering of well considered legislation and the establishment of sound administrative methods. If, in pursuit of such experimental work as may be necessary to provide the desired facts, the hysteria and lack of balance which has too often characterized earlier interest in this problem can be suppressed, the new society will not only have justified its existence but will have earned the gratitude of all those to whom the public welfare is of deep concern. May it prove equal to its task!
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