The three great crime-breeders of today are intemperance, gambling, and evil reading. The devil is sowing his seed for his future harvest. There is no foe so much to be dreaded as that which perverts the imagination, sears the conscience, hardens the heart, and damns the soul. If you allow the devil to decorate the Chamber of Imagery in your heart with licentious and sensual things, you will find that he has practically thrown a noose about your neck and will forever after exert himself to draw you away from the "Lamb of God which taketh away sins of the world." You have practically put rope on memory's bell and placed the other end of the rope in the devil's hands, and, though you may will out your mind, the memory of some vile story or picture that you may have looked upon, be assured that even in your most solitary moments the devil will ring memory's bell and call up the hateful thing to turn your thoughts away from God and undermine all aspirations for holy things: ... My experience leads me to the conviction that once these matters enter through the eye and ear into the chamber of imagery in the heart of the child, nothing but the grace of God can ever erase or blot it out.... When a man and woman marry they are responsible for their children. You can't reform a family in any of these superficial ways. You have to go deep down into their minds and souls. The prevention of conception would work the greatest demoralization. God has set certain natural barriers. If you turn loose the passions and break down the fear you bring worse disaster than the war. It would debase sacred things. break down the health of women and disseminate a greater curse than the plagues and diseases of Europe?

2 ... At three different epochs in human history, the Creator made known His will. Just as to the first man, He said: "Increase and multiply," so a thousand years later to the second father of humanity, to Noe [Noah], and to his sons, He spoke a pregnant word, and it bore the same burden, "Increase and multiply and fill the earth"; for so we read in Genesis. Still another thousand years rolled on and the sameblessing was repeated, for the word of the Lord came to Abraham: "Fear not; 1am thy protector and thy reward exceeding great." The patriarch answered: "What wilt Thou give me; behold, 1 have no child." Then God brought him forth out of the tent, saying 'Look up to the heavens and number the stars, if thou canst: so shall thy seed be: The reward of Abraham's faith is paternity. And after that, from Abraham to the last of the prophets, text on text and example after example. confirm the doctrine that children are the blessing of marriage, no matter what the new gospel of selfishness may proclaim. In the Old Testament curse alternates with blessing: "He who is blessed shall be a father, the cursed shall stand alone. "If it is said to the just. "Thy wife shall be like a fruitful vine," to the wicked man and the sinner comes the sentence: "In a single generation his name will be blotted out, :.. God said: "Increase and multiply"; man says: "Let us fear to increase and multiply; the earth might become too narrow; the fewer there are to share the good things oflife the more there will be for each...." ... Malthus, in his book entitled "Principles of Population As It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, gave the impetus to the movement. He held that the population of the earth increases more rapidly than the means of subsistence, because population advances almost in a geometrical proportion, as two, four, eight, sixteen, while the fertility of the land increases approximately only in an arithmetical proportion, as one, two, three, four, five and so on. Hence, the continually increasing population must eventually exceed the capacity of the earth to supply food.... But the facts are against the theory that the earth is inadequate to support the growth of population. The United States, even with the wasteful methods of farming now in vogue, could feed hundreds of millions. Under different conditions even little Ireland would be capable of supporting three times its present population. Brazil, Peru, Mexico have room for teeming millions within their borders. Portions of the dark continent of Africa were once densely peopled; so was Asia Minor; and they might become garden spots of the earth once more. There is still plenty of elbow room on the globe.... God makes no mistakes, and for every soul He creates and infuses into a mortal body, He furnishes what is needful for its well-being. History may be reviewed in vain for an instance of any consider. able country wherein poverty and want can be fairly traced to the increase of the number of mouths beyond the power of the accompanying hands to fill them. In most cases they can, more properly, be attributed to unjust laws, misgovernment, destruc tive warfare, decadent commerce, a distegard of the Divine law, vice and crime... Can it be possible that wealth is the natural enemy of infancy and childhood? And is the instinct of reproduction weaker in the privileged classes, the spirit of self-denial more pronounced? Is it not rather that large families are looked upon with disdain as a plebeian institution, entailing too much sacrifice, debarring the mother from many pleasures she is unwilling to forgo? Is it not because every new birth requires the expense account to be overhauled, several chapters of travel to be blotted out, transfers to be made to the side of the nurse and the governess, balls and parties and receptions to be given up? ... We must get back to Christian principles and mold Christian lives, till the humblest sees that life is not all for pleasure, self-ease and enjoyment, that duty and conscience must play a great part and march in the vanguard of true progress.

DR. ALETTA JACOBS Very often the mothers in this hospital did not want the babies that were born to them. They were actually glad when the babies were born dead. No, they were not bad women-just ordinary, every-day women. Sometimes it was because they already had enough babies, sometimes because the previous baby was still so little, sometimes because they were so very poor, sometimes for other rea. sons. But whether the reason was a good one or a bad one, the fact remained that the baby was not desired Now it seemed to me that a baby should not be a punishment. If a woman does not want a child it is better both for her and for the child that she should not have one. Moreover, I noticed that many of the sickly children born in the hospital were children that had been born against their mothers' wishes. The mothers' state of mind during pregnancy had affected the baby. Besides this there were many children with very bad heredity-mental sickness and physical sickness in the parents, which would very probably appear in the off. spring These children should never have been born. Sometimes a mother would say to me. "No wonder the baby is puny and sick. Why, when this child was conceived my husband was as drunk as could be." For reasons like these I decided that moth ers should be taught how to prevent conception. * Children shou Page 167 2. That in times of great decadence we are not to try to accommodate ourselves to decadentconditions by temporizing expedients, but by the highest moral remediesand by righteousnes - attehatever cost. Practically I find that the people who came to me having used various mechanical means of preventing conception, have lost something in their married life which ought to have been more precious to them than life itself. All meddling with the sexual relation to secure facultative ste. rility degrades the wife to the level of a prostitute. Therefore there is no right or decent way of controlling births but by total abstinence....

DR, JOHN W, WILLIAMS 1 make it a rule to refuse to discuss the question with perfectly healthy, normal persons. On the other hand, if I find that a wife is steadily losing ground as the result of rapidly recurring pregnancies, 1 send for the husband and say that in my opinion as a medi. cal man it is highly advisable that his wife should not have another child for a specified length of time In that event I advise him as to the most efficacious method of preventing conception: as 1 considet it more intelligent to prevent a breakdown than to treat it after it has occurred. I give the same advice after certain senous obsetrical complications, and in women who are suffering Besides this there were many children with very bad heredity - mental sickness and physical sickness in the parents, which would very probably appear in the off. spring These children should never have been born. Sometimes a mother would say to me. "No wonder the baby is puny and sick. Why, when this child was conceived my husband was as drunk as could be. "For reasons like these I decided that moth. ers should be taught how to prevent conception. Children should be born not oftener than once in three years. For the first year the mother should devote herself to caring for the child. The second year she should have to get back her vitality and strength. The third year she may again become pregnant.'

DR. HOWARD A. KELLY Let me enunciate these fundamental principles which must control my judgment: 1. That the medical profession must continually deal with the moral aspects of a case, and today our great loss is the unwillingness of some doe tors to have any thing to do with morals, because they have had no moral training and have done no moral thinking.... hand, if I find that a wife is steadily losing ground as the result of rapidly recurring pregnancies, I send for the husband and say that in my opiaion as a medical man it is highly advisable that his wife should not have another child for a specified length of time. In that event I advise him as to the most efficacious method of preventing conception: as 1 consider it more intelligent to prevent a breakdown than to treat it after it has occurred. 1 give the same advice after certain serious obset rical complications, and in women who are suffering from tuberculosis, certain forms of heart disease and other setious chronic disease, in which I know by experience that another pregnancy will subject the patient to serious danger. In such cases 1 consider it mare conset: vative to give such advice than to be obliged to perform a therapeutic abortion after peggnancy has occurned. Fnally, in the presence of certain chronic dis. eases, which to my mind will always complicate the occurrence of pregnancy, and in which therapeutic abortion is necessary to relieve immediate danger to the patient's life I hold that it is justifiable to rebder the patient sterile by operative means.... In other words, I do not believe that the physician is justified in giving advice as to the prevention of conception solely for the convenience of his patients. but should limit it entirely to those cases which pres. ent a definite medical indication for the temporary or permanent avoidance of pregnancy. To my mind any other course practically places the plysician in the same class as the professional abortionist.?

DR. R.C. BRANNON 1 beg to take issue with you, in regard to your pro. paganda for the control of births, as being subver. sive to religion, morals, and health of both men and women. This, when you come to sift the matter down to its final analysis, is what is shortening the lives of the human race, making weaklings in mind and body the children of strong men, and wrecking the nerves and bodies of women who ought to be the proud and happy mothers of a dozen healthy children. The preventioh of large families has caused an increase in insanity, tuberculosis. Bright's discase. diabetes and cancer, and I am willing to submit the proposition to the judgment of three of the greatest gynecologists in the United States. I have stepped in the breach and used my influence to curtail the bud practice of limiting the size of the family, as my expetience as a ploysician of twenty years' practise has proven to my mind that it is the most hurtul and wicked sin that was ever indulged in since the world was created. tt is a swift and sure road to the grave. Man was put here to multiply and replenish the earth. How terrible has been the punishment of many a rich man I have known-pethaps poor and struggling in eatly life, who decided he would escape the responsibility of rearing a large family, with the result when a little past life's prime his wife died of a eancer, and what enjoyment did either of them derive from his fortune of more than a half million dollars: filthy lucre begotten by misety habiss, that rightly should have been expended unselfishly in bringing up a large family that would have bkssed the earth."

question 1:

what arguments do your documents make for or against birth control?

question 2:

How did the progressive Era influence the arguments surrounding birth control? ( in other word) how do we see the characteristics of the progressive Era in these documents.