Atlanta Georgian. [volume], June 07, 1914, One Star Extra, Image 16

About Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939

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'The Ever Growing Danger of Too Late Marriages Among the Intelligent
A Distinguished University
Professor Discusses In
teresting Facts Showing
How the Honor Men and
Women of American Col
leges by Marrying Too
Late or Not at All Are
Depriving the Nation of
the Kind of Children It
Needs Most.
By Prof. Roswell Hill Johnson,
of the University of Pittsburgh, Pa.
(In an Address Before the National Conference
on Race Betterment.)
ARRIAGE selection in man has one
sharp distinction from that in the in
ferior species. In the latter, because
of the larger role of instinct and the lesser role
of social regulation and judgment, nearly all
the individuals mate. There are very few un
mated females and very few unmated males,
except in specles having severe male combat,
when matelessness is the result of defeat.
Where combat prevailg, the main result of mar
riage selection is to cause a disparity of size
and strength between the sexes and to accentu
ate bodily weapons, such as horns, canine
teeth, spurs and the like.
Since the disparity of size and strength be
tween the sexes in man is no greater than that
in the anthropoid apes, there is no evidence
that male combat played a large role in the
dawn-man, Indeed, the great reduction of the
canine teeth indicates that combat has played
a smaller role as time has passed, and fortun
ately so.
Marriage selection in primitive man, as soon
as individual combat was reduced, operated
very slightly, if unaided. Thus in warfare, the
males of the defeated tribes were frequently
killed, and the females taken as additional
wives. Or, even when all eventually mated,
some, who possessed a specially desirable
characteristic to a higher degree, were chosen
earlier and thereby had more progeny, or they
were chosen by the superior, whbse progeny
would in some cases inherit a greater viability.
It is very probable that many of our esthetic
attributes, such as musical and artistic ability,
which are difficult to account for by lethal
gelection, have been produced by marriage
selection.
In modern man we have the contrast of an
unprecedented number of unmated individuals.
This condition has developed with the growth
of romantic love, which is the exclusive pref
erence for a very long period for one mate
over.all others. As Finck has pointed out, this
has been very much accentuated from the time
of Petrarch on.
Now if these unmated individuals differ from
the others in any important respect, marriage
selection is very important. Or if we can alter
the percentage of the unmated in different
classes, marriage selection may become very
potent.
It is obvious that the innately mediocre indi
viduals are most numerous, and that both the
markedly superior and inferior by nature are
far less common. | mean by superior those who
gre individually happier and socially more use
ful than the average. The mental characteris
tics, at least in such a category, are too com
plex for a unit character treatment, even if
such superiority is built up by unit character
istics.
We must consider then what causes the fail
ure to mate and what is the quality of each of
these classes. Taking the men we have:
1. An unwillingness to submit to the re
straints of marriage.
2. Infection by disease.
3. Pessimism In regard to women.
4. Deficiency in normal feeling or perversion.
5. Deficiency of one kind or another causing
difficulty in getting an acceptable mate.
Why the Mexicans Believe Annexation by the U. 8. Is Their Destiny|
A
By Wallace Thompson.
(Former Editor of the Mexican Herald.)
EXICANS of every class regard subjuga-
M tion to the United States as their
. country's ultimate destiny. This Is a
feeling which in Latin America is not entirely
original. In Mexico, however, there are serious
thinkers, statesmen worthy of any nation's
best period, who have seriously maintained
that notking in the ordinary course of history
can prevent the United States from ultimately
conquering and annexing Mexico, and then the
Jesser States to the south of her. The most sig
nificant of these prophets was the late Ignacia
Mariscal.
Mariscal, who until his death seven years ago
was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, was
one of the great diplomatists of our time. Few
statesmen have understood so well the inter
play of forces which make the complex history
of the world. The sincerest friend Porfirio ¥az
ever had was this little, lean, bowed old man
~sth the long dark hair and the white imperial
«ho took the portfollo of Foreign Affairs in
Diaz's earliest Cabinet and held it til] his death
He, perhaps more than Diaz himself, made pos
sible the creation of the mighty oligarchy un
€+ which Mexico prospered for forty vears
1t wag Mariscal who kept Europe and the
United States at bay while the Diaz Govern
ment found its feet, who paved the way for the
favorable loans which Jose Yves Limantour as
Finance Minister was able to negotiate in
Burope for the bullding of modern Mexico, and
;ho £tood as the firm buffer bhetween Diaz the
D;‘::ldl';;“el ;ll;t:(l;:]w :;;ugh Indian instincts of
lcan—--the same instinets which
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The Romans, When They Forcibly Stole the
Sabine Women to Furnish the Wives
They Lacked, Exhibited an Instinct
That Is Necessary to Preserve a
Nation. This is a noted
Painting of “The Sabine
Women” by David.
The persons in these five groups are, as a
class, inferfor. 'This inferiority is in part in
nate and in part the result of bad environment.
But since innate inferiority is so frequently a
large factor, we can conclude that the group
as a whole will average innately inferior.
Then there are two other classes, largely
superifor by nature: :
6. Those who seek some other end so ardent
ly that they will not make the necessary sacri
fice in money and freedom to marry.
7. Those whose likelihood of early marriage
is reduced by a prolonged education and ap
prenticeship.
We see that the action of marriage selection
in regard to males, while favorable in some
ways, is in great need of improvement. Such
efforts may be made along three lines.
1. Try to lead all young men to avoid a loose
life. A general effort will be heeded more by
the superior than by the inferior.
2. Hold up the role of husband and father
as particularly honorable, and proclaim its
shirking, without adequate cause, as dishonor
able. For a man to say he has never met a
girl whom he can love, simply means he has
not diligently sought one, or else he has a de
ficient emotional equipment, for there are
many, surprisingly many, estimable, attractive,
unmarried women.
3. Cease prolonging the educational period
past the early twenties. The professional
schools in our country are steadily delaying
the age of graduation, and thereby that of mar
riage. They formerly asked for high school
training, and many still ask no more. But other
schools have demanded more and more, till
now one requires a collegiate bachelor's degree
for entrance. The situation is made still more
serions for medical students by the frequent
post-graduate hospital practice without pay.
It is time to call a halt. This cannot go on
without serious loss to the race. Our young
men should not have their marriage postponed
by external eircumstancas past twenty-five
years. This means we must allow students to
specialize earlier. If there is need of limiting
the number of candidates, let us have com
petitive entrance examinations. We must have
our superior men marrying earlier, even at
some cost to their early efficiency. The high
efficiency of any profession can be more safely
kept up by demanding a minimum amount of
continuation work in afternoon. evening or
geasonal classes, laboratories or clinics. No
more graduate fellowships should be estab
lished till those now existing carry a stipend
adequate for marriage.
Now we come to the consideration of mar
riage selection in women. Are the unhmated in
ferior?
We do find some intérior individuals, such
as those unattractive in manner and appear-
made Madero fail and are hastening Huerta to
his grave.
Mariscal was the soul of the Diaz regime, and
those who read history in causes will ultimately
trace the present chaos back to his death, four
years before the fall of Diaz. For it was Maris
cal, standing at the elbow of General Diaz, who
kept his great friend not only at peace with the
world and with hands upheld by every Govern
ment in Christendom, but also close to the
humnble Indians who loved him and believed in
him.
Only after Mariscal died did Diaz begin to
forget his friends, the peons, who called him
affectionately “Don Porfirio,” and knew that,
whatever might come of wrong, whatever abuse
jefes politicos might pile on them, there was
always Don Porfirio in Mexico City to whom
they could go and receive a hearing and justice.
All the long vears that Mariscal lived this was
the spirit of the Diaz regime, but when the For
eign Minister died selfish, grasping, grafting
officials got the master’'s ear, the old man let
them have their way, and the Indians who had
journeyed from Oaxaca and far Quintana Roo
to tell him of their humble grievances were
turned back without an audience for the first
time in memory.
It was not oil, or railroads, or land laws, or
money that brought about the fall of Diaz and
the crumbling of the fabric of government he
had built up. That fabric was destined to go
with [¥az, as none knew better than Diaz him
self. But that the eud came as and when it
did was the direct and inevitable resu!t of Don
Porfiro’'s forgetting the humble serfs who had
faith in him-—the old, old story of every des
potism, But Diaz did not forget until Mariscal
was no longer there to remind him.
It was this Don llgnacio Mariscal, frail and
gentle, who expressed one day the far-sighted
Delief of the Mexicans in the ultimate designs
of the United States for annexation.
In the Alameda, the beautiful little park in
the heart of the capital, Mariscal, in his old
age, used to walk every morn‘ng before going
to his office in the Foraign Relations Building
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The Educated Woman Who Puts Pet Dogs Before Wifehood and
Motherhood Is Another Menace to Society.
ance, wholly as the result of poor health. This
may be either inherited or else the result of
ignorance frequently due to mental inferiority.
Others are unattractive because of the absence
of all feeling, or of some physical abnormality.
And still others are unmated because they have
fallen into ways ' loose living, some as the
direct result of innate defects such as feeble
mindedness or unusual susceptibility to sug
gestion. .
On the other hand, when we have passed
these groups of women, we find large groups
that are distinctly superior. Some of these
have had their chance of marriage reduced by
going to women'’s colleges, others through en
gaging in pre-eminently feminine occupations,
such as the teaching of children, yielding mea
gre opportunities to associate with men, or
others through living in those cities that have
an undue proportion of women. Then there
are, besides these, superior women who, be
cause they are brought up in families without
brothers or brothers' friends, are so unnnatur
ally shy that they are unable to become friend
ly with men, however much they may care to.
There are still others who repel men by a man
ner of extreme self-repression and coldness,
sometimes the result of parents’ or teachers’
over-zealous efforts to inculcate modesty and
reserve, things valuable in due degree, but bad
in excess.
In order to present to you the seriousness of
the situation I attach the results of a study
made by my student, Miss Helen D. Murphey.
This deals with the graduates of Washington
Seminary, in Washington, Pa., a secondary
school for women, founded in 1837, greatly an
tedating the first woman's college which
opened in 1865. You will see that the marriage
rate has declined. [This chart shows that
whereas in 1845 78 per cent of the graduates
married and 20 per cent went into occupations
other than home-making, in 1900 the figures
were b 8 per cent and 39 per cent respectively.]
not far away. There, one such morning, an
American editor, long his close friend, found
him, and together they walked in the sunlight
under the cypress and banana trees. It was
‘just after the battle of Manilla, and Marlscal
expressed the conviction, which all Americans
were then disavowing, that the United States
would annex the Philippines. The American
expressed his faith in his Government, but Ma
riscal went on, musing::
“Ah, well; it is very good for Mexico, that
news. You will have your hands full, so that
vou will not be able to turn this way for some
years to come,” The old man smiled his shrewd,
sweet smile, and that was all. And Mariscal
had never guessed wrong.
The opinion of the great diplomatist was, of
course, the most significant, but even in those
days he was not alone. Mexicans of standing
would discuss the same subject calmly with
their American friends, and in circles where
thinking men met it was held not unworthy of.
the calmest and keenest minds,
Of course, there was extravagance, to more
practical American minds, in some of the asser
tions-—in most of them, in fact. Even at the
height of Diaz's power, for instance, his ene
mies loved to assert confidently that he held
his “throne” only because the Mexicans feared
intervention from the United States in case of
another revolution. They went further, so far,
indeed. as to state that a great daily newspaper
of Mexico which was printed in English made
Diaz possible, because its support and interpre
tation of his Government influenced American
public opinion in his favor and kept it from
breaking forth as it would be sure to do were
the real facts known, ete,, ete.
Mexicans always seemed to have exaggerated
opinions of the interest Americans took in their
internal affairs, But one has to wonder now
if their extravagant emotions did not see far
ther and more clearly—as instinet often does—
than our elaborate knowledge of all the facts
would allow us.
They were used to congquerors, and in
his cups not a brownskinned man jack ot
them but would roar out anathemas agains*
The drop in the
'6os is due to the
Civil War, You
will also notice
that the percentage
engaged in occupa
tions other than
housewifery has
increased progres
sively. It is not
clear which of
these occurrences
is casual.
The ominous
ness of this de
clining marriage
rate is aggravated by the low birth rate which
these same women are found to contribute.
Now combining these results to get the birth
rate of the graduates as a whole, we have a
most discouraging result.
Only the earliest classes, with one or two
exceptions, have enough children to reproduce
the class. And this is not a college, and is
not in New Dlngland, but in the same small city
as Washington and Jefferson College, a much
larger institution for men. If then under these
favorable conditions, the marriage rate is so
low, and marriage is so late, we may infer that
the low rate is widespread.
Let us now examine some of the results thus
far attained in a study of Wellesley College
data, made by my student, Miss Bertha Stutz
mann.
Taking the Wellesley graduates of the classes
of 1905 to 1912, inclusive, it was found that
19.1 per cent of them were already married in
the Fall of 1912, when the facts were collect
ed. But for graduates whose schélarship was
sufficiently high to entitle them tc member
ship in the honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, the
ratio of marriage to that of those who did not
make this society was as 15 to 19. In other
words, high scholarship in college women is
(in this case at least) not found to be an aid
the “gachupins” (Spaniards), using thus the
only Aztec word they knew, while asserting
that in his vitiated half-breed veins flowed the
blood of Indian kings. When sober he was
docile and gentle and hating—Villa has given
us a glimpse of the depth of that calm hatred.
To this simple peon the American "gringos”
were only a new and queer sort of conqueror.
The peon long since came to the conclusion
that the Americans who were flooding the
country were but the advance guard of an in
vading army which would come, at last, to take
Mexico and oust the government. Toward
the last the news had gotten abroad very gen
erally amongst the native workmen that in
the United States an able-bodied Mexican was
paid from three to five pesos a day' for his
work, as against the fifty centavos of lesp he
received in Mexico. The possibility of{ an
American government with work for all aty in
creased wages was therefore not entirely d&is
agreeable to men whose only patriotism whs
in dividual. The American who dealt with tRe
working class direct was therefore never sir
prised when, If he talked with one of bis
peons, he found himself expected to answé’r
intelligently some question of this sort: i
“When is it, Senor, that you Americans aré
coming down to take Mexico and pay us all
three pesos a day for work like this?”
This was the spirit of the Mexicans up to
the outbreak of the present series of civil
wars, a spirit of intellectual expectancy and
fatalism, not hostile and only doubtfully re
sentful. The cases are not isolated. but typi
cal, and will be recognized by anyone who
knows his Mexico. Four years of war have
changed the surface attitude, of course, but
underneath is still the stolid conviction of the
Mexican that it is only a matter of time until
the American flag gets all of the salutes in
Mexico, and peace and prosperity reign in
dyllically over the rich storehouses of un
opened mountains and untilled fields.
These are feelings whbhich all American do
not take very seriously. Many are sure that
if actual intervention is to come that Mexico
will be handled as Cuba has been, and quickly
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The W:rsl\ip of an Unattainable Womanly Ideal, Exemplified by Dante’s
Devotion to the Dead Beatrice, Has Become in the Professor’s
Opinion, a Greater Social Menace in Our Days.
to marriage, while in the normal school girls
the opposite was the case. It seems fair to
assume that intellectuality in women is normal-
Iy attractive to men, if these women do not
neglect their social opportunities,
We see from this that the Wellesley alum
nae have a very low marriage and birth rate.
There is only one mitigating circumstance,
that these women have married superior men.
Out of the last fifteen recently reported engage
ments which I noted, seven are to college or
university alumni, although college graduates
make up but about 1 per cent of the whole
population.
That college women are superior to the
average woman is a safe inference. However,
we may use another criterion of superiority.
Eminence may be measured by space in col
lective biographies. Miss Castle’s figures show
a correlation of eminence with a very late age
at marriage and a consequent decreased racial
contribution.
The objection has been made that eugenists
are too much disturbed by this late marriage
of superior women. To postpone marriage
serfously reduces the likelihood of marriage.
The critic says that late marrying women will
have their children closer together and so
eventually have as many. But the facts as
taught self-government. But those who watch
Cuba with open eyes are still frankly skeptical
of our success there, and now the Mexican
problem looms even greater than Cuba ever
did.
How much fact is there back of the bland
confidence abroad that the American Govern
ment has a really definite policy of diplomacy?
In the light of the apparent helter-skelter
handling of tne Mexican situation, most
Americans continue to disbelieve even to-day
over the Mexican fears of 1898.
But has anything happened to dissipate
those fears? Perhaps Mariscal spoke more
from an understanding of his own country
men than from any deep appreciation of the
American, but have we failed to react in
everything exactly as he anticipated we would.
Has fate or the traditions of our State De
partment allowed us to escape our destiny, or
Mexico to escape hers? Has the introduction
of an entirely new set of ideals into American
Government {n the present Administration
been able to prevent us from stepping into an
advanced position toward Mexico, and our vir
stual abrogation of the treaty of 18492 Can
anything now prevent us from assuming some
sort of protectorate over Mexico, war or no
war?
It is a fact never published that during
Grant’s Administration, when Mexico was
seething with Civil War, previous to the rise
of the Diaz government, the problem of estab
lishing an American protectorate was brought
up again in Washington and an elaborate ex
change of notes with European powers took
place. Only the success of Diaz in bringing
peace to the battle-scarred land prevented our
assuming at that time the attitude of protector
and conqueror whieli Mexicans regard as our
natural destinv. The documents gre all in the
archives of the State Department; perhaps
they may yet be brought to light,
There is no reason to believe that President
Johnson or President Grant or their ministers
‘was any more anxious fo rintervention than
is President Wilson's Administration. Events
shaped themselves to force our hand, as they
have shaped themselves in the past few
collected by Miss Smith do not bear this out.
Furthermore, the late marriage of superior per
sons cuts down their contribution to the race
stream, because the years of fertility left to
the wife are reduced. Again, late marriages
are relatively ineffective because of the length
ened generation. Suppose a generation to be
twenty-five years or thirty-three and a third
years respectively in two different stocks, and
that all persons marry and each couple have
four surviving children or two per parent. The
result is that the twenty-five year stock counsti
tutes two-thirds of the population at the end
of a century. i
Is it not imperative that something be done
to raise the marriage rate of all superior wom
en? To this end we must dissuade superior
men from shirking marriage. If these superior
men would keep their records clean, they would
not sufter the severe depreciation which they
do sustain in the eyes of superior women. But
let us not take that ambiguous shibboleth “the
single standard of morals” to mean a general
sex strike, that is, ostracizing every man who
has had illicit experience.. This s too extreme.
These extremists must remember that it is hard
to get men to marry at even a normal rate, as
current statistics abundantly prove. Slow and
hard as it is, we must content ourselves to
build up a sounder moral basis by better at
tested methods.
Inappreciation of wifehood and motherhood
by misguided feminists must cease, and greater
honor and appreciation must be meted out to
mothers, in order to more than compensate for
the recognition that women earn in rival oc
cupations. Women should properly be per
mitted to do any work they wish, not incom
patible with their well-being; but greater honor
and esteem is due those who have not shirked
the paramount function and responsibilities of
motherhood.
Eligible young people should have their cir
cle of acquaintances broadened. Co-education,
I believe, is one of the best means, as associ
ating the best groups. But many other means
should be encouraged. We have in this a fur
ther justification of cards, dancing and thea
tres. That these may sometimes be pursued
intemperately need not condemn them uni
versally. These and other social devices ex
tend the range of acquaintance, and also give
the necessary time for mutual estimates and
friendships. Others besides parents should feel
some obligation to afford these social oppor
tunities to young people. Surfeit for some in
dividuals and dearth for others calls for cur
tailment here and encouragement there.
1 now pass to the consideration"ot the ob
jection so frequently heard that tha selection
of mates in man cannot possibly be improved,
because it is wholly a personal and capricious
thing. But the objectors on this score ignore
the fact that three mental stages are normally
passed through in this mate-choosing process.
They fall into error by concentrating attention
on the last, most obvious, emotional “love-is
blind” stage. The first involves the broad de
termination of our associates. The second is
the narrowing of choice to those whom we
specially admire and elect as friends. The
last is the actual “falling in love.”
One of the chief factors in this first stage is
the structure of the social unit to which we
belong. How frequently matings are deter
mined by the school, church, or neighborhood!
Then there is another group, composed of our
parents’ chosen friends, with whose children
we are naturally thrown. The mother who
sends her girl to the university rather than
into the ddncing set, determines largely the
type of her daughter’'s fiance, not only because
her associates are different in the two cases,
but because the girl’s ideals will be differently
built up. The young man who goes with fas®
girls is indirectly determining the kind of girl
he will marry—if, indeed, he is not thereby led
to abandon marriage. During this second stage
of more intensive associations or friendships
there is clear-headed discrimination, before the
emotions have become imperious. I believe
that the period of mere friendliness is longer in
most cases than the period of conscious loving
before marriage. So we see the choice of a
mate is not ordinarily capricious.
In closing let me urge you to do all in your
power to correct this growing tendency to post
pone if not to abandon marriage entirely, on
the part of our superior young people. Hold
out marriage as one of the ends of a useful,
normal, beautiful life. Help superior young
people to meet, and encourage and further their
early marriage, Give more honor and appreci
ation to those who have married well and have
had adequate children. And in whatever ways
vou properly can, reduce this appalling pere
centage of superior celibates who are thus pulle
ing down the quality of the human race.
e ee L )
months, despite frantic efforts to avoid an
{ssue. Once the mighty Juarez and once the
greater Diaz forestalled the play. To-day there
seems no Juarez and no Diaz.
Here in the United States we have been
looking out over the country and putting our
ears to the ground and feeling the pulse of
public opinion by reading all the exchanges,
down to the weekly weaklies with patent in
sides out in Wyoming, and we have declared
that America does not want war. President
Wilson has been asserting it with the frenzied
faith of one who must make it true. Not one
of us but prays it, and not one of us but
knows that we have no need for war and little
need for a national honor that Mexico can
harm. But all the same we cheer when the
news of the order to the fleet goes out,
straighten our shoulders over the firmness at
last of our Watchful Waliting Government, and
are ready to have the pianist play “Dixie,”
“The Star Spangled Banner” and moving pie
tures of the flag, the navy and the army
thrown on the screen while we cheer franti.
cally, after the style of 1898, and the army
and the navy march on to death and honor,
What do the Mexicans know about ug that
we do not know? What did Don Ignacio Maris
cal mean and how far into the future did his
keen old eyés see? Was it us alone, or Mexi
co alone, or civilization or our innate barbar.
ism alone? We can only ask questions, in
stirring times. Answers have to wait on
events.
Meanwhile those who have known and loved
Mexico remember only depreciatory laughter
when their serious. thinking Mexican friends
asserted that the time would come when we
would be their conquerors, and patronizingly
we think of the gentle peon, now carrying a
musket and practicing on his friends against
the day when he shall trade his life for a life
as good as our own, but who half a d=ven years
ago. with the grime of honest tcll on his
hande, asked respectfu'ly:
“When it iz, Senor, that you Americang ar
coming down to take Mexico and pay us tifi
negng A ‘day wages, as they pay onw
roads in the United States of the N 4