[page number] VIII [end page number]
Since this is happening among our graduates from practically all our colleges and universities, what about the future? The New-England families of the old stock are dying out fast. We are told (By Wiggam) that we could gather up all the descendents [sic] of the Pilgrims and ship them back to England in a ship no bigger than the Mayflower. We are told that the average school-teacher who marries produces scarcely more than two children. But the average boot-black raises almost four children. When I drive through Park Avenue past the residences of the officials of our Bridge Works, I could speed at thirty miles an hour for I see no children in my way, but when I drive through Monticello Street I have to creep along at five miles an hour because the street swarms with Italians. Unless the superior classes will produce at least four children per family, the children of the Roumanians, [sic] Bulgarians, Greeks, hybrid Portugese, low Italians and other immigrants will rule this country when we reach the year 2,000, if not before, because any man with eyes can see that the old American stock is steadily dying out.
But can we have no hope for these coming generations? I believe we can do three things. First, we must find out more facts, especially about the way individual traits perpetuate themselves through heredity, and about the way to encourage a higher birth-rate among those classes of our people who have carried our best blood and have furnished us our leaders in the past. Can we not find some way to cherish forever in America the blood of the Pilgrim fathers? Or of our New-England ancestry? Since our best stock of American blood is passing away, what are the causes and how can we remedy those causes? Second, I believe we should teach the facts that we already know. We should teach young people that God made the family and God intends that we perpetuate it. The Roman Catholics and Mormons teach this doctrine vigorously and effectively and their people raise large families.