"THE LITTLE VOICE CALLING AT THE DOOR OF EXISTENCE."

Otago Witness, Issue 3231, 16 February 1916, Page 71

"THE LITTLE VOICE CALLING AT THE DOOR OF EXISTENCE."

A LETTER FROM ONE WHO WANTS MORE CHILDREN AND CANNOT AFFORD TO HAVE THEM. "I am a teacher in a small city in tha West," writes John Lincoln, in the New York'New Republic. "I am married to the best woman in the world. We have two children, a boy and a girl, fast grow--rag up. Wo 'own' a small house, heavilymortgaged. I think I may, without vanity, call myself an effective teacher. Not exceptionally so, perhaps, but well above the average. Needless to say, I should not mention this were is not an essential link in what I have to say. Tilings That Hit Hard.— "My salary is, as teachers' salaries go, a fair one. But it has already practically reached the limit which I can expect to receive. . There is no disguising the fact that wo have to watch our expenses pretty closely, though we have thus far prevented disproportionate concern over bank account* or undue apprehension for tho future from diverting us from the -worthwhile things of life. "Not that 1 never reflect on the arrangement of things whereby you have three motor cars while I have none. [The letter is addressed to the rich.] But that aspect of the case never troubles me for long. The things that do hit a bit harder onr inability to travel, to indulge in an occasional dissipation in music or drama, to squander a little on dressing

up the children, or to pay a competent instructor to find out just how much there is in certain artistic tendencies in our little girl. What He Wants.— "But there are compensations even in these privations. For when my wife and I do go to the theatre we are as happy as a pair of children on a picnic. And if we ever get a few days away from home just by ourselves, we are positively as romantic 'as if we were on our honeymoon. "But by this time you are asking what I am driving at and what in the world all this has to do with you. I will tell you—and in very few words. "I want more children, and I cannot afford to have them. And you, though you do not know it, are to blame. There is my case in a nutshell. Reasonable Desires. — "I wonder whether you know what 't is to want more children? There was a time a few years ago when I used to come home at night and stumble on something soft on the stairway in the dark. 'That infernal dog again,' I would say, and turning on the light would pick up a bit of stuffed brown felt with sprawling legs, dilapidated ears, and button eyes—eyes with the oddest expression in the world. "Well, my children are outgrowing 'he stage of toy dogs, and I do not like to contemplate' that fact. Ido not love them less as they grow older, but I want some more of them in the smaller sizes. I want a little follow small enough to sit on my shoulder and pull my hair. I Avant to steal into an upper room in the dark, and going over in one corner grope around in a crib for a little fist into which to thrust my finger. I want a little lady at the breakfast table who when I feel a bit blue will suddenly out with a remark that would put to shame Aristophanes, Mark Twain, and Mr Dooley rolled in one. "I call these perfectly manly and reasonable desires. What is more, my wife wants the same things—and many others. And finally, our two children need younger brothers and sisters, for I have come to believe that the only way to bring up two children right is to make them a small minority in the household. A Mere Abstraction. — " 'Well,' you say, 'if you want more children, why don't you have them?' If you were really candid with yourself you would admit that that is a superfluous, not to say a stupid, question. How can a sane man, who is now just living within his income, talk about increasing his family when his salary is being lowered every year ? Yes, being lowered; not in dollars and cents, to be sure, but in butter, milk, and eggs. The trouble is that to you the high cost of living is a mere abstraction. You have never realised it vividly and concretely, for the simple reason that it is years since you have looked at you own grocery bill.— Other Facts.— "And the grocery bill is only the beginning of the difficulty. There is the problem of household help. My wife has brought up two children past babyhood, and has done the work practically alone, but there are limits to her strength. There is 'the matter of insurance. There are doctors' bills —unavoidable with children in the house, however healthy. There is. the fact that one more child, probably two, at any rate, would mean that my present house would be too small. There is „he tremendous fact that children as they grow older grow costlier. And in that connection there is question of provision for their later education. Standard of Living.— "Perhaps your comment at this point is that I insist on too high a standard of living. Ido not think that remark comes with good taste from you, but if you wish to know, it is true—l do refuse to have more children at the price of lowering the standard of our living, and I refuse, not for my own sake or even for my wife's, but for the sake of the children we already have. "And so the upshot of it all is that I shall probably never have more children. It will be a disappointment, but we human beings are born to encounter disappointment. If the matter ended there, I should not be writing you this letter. But the matter does not end there. "I ask you to take a glance at my two children. To begin with they are both good-looking —if you can't see it, I have their grandmother's word for. it. Their health is excellent. They are both, in the opinion of several teachers, above the average intellectually, the girl especially being quick as a flash. It is a fair presumption, I believe, that if I had more children they would share some of these same characteristics —at any rate, their blood would go back through all four of their grandparents to stock that was in this country, in New England, before '-he year 1675: along two of those lines to the Mayflower. ' In tho light of* these facts, is it overbold to declare that the nation needs those children ? The Conclusion.— "The facts of the situation are perfectly plain. The nation must have more of the right kind of babies. There are plenty of the right kind of parents Avho want tho babies. There is plenty oK'wealth to support the babies. And the conclusion is : more of that wealth must bo put into those parents' hands. "In other words, this problem is here, regardless of how big your income is or where it comes from. It has got to be settled, regardless, possibly, of how small your income becomes or where it goes to. The incomes must be arranged to suit the babies, not the babies to suit the incomes. Do not construe this, I bog of you, as a call for a higher birth-rate. On the contrary it may mean a lower birth-rate. It is merely a demand for a higher rate of better births. "This problem of arranging tho incomes to suit the babies is, I willingly grant, quite the reverse of simple, but it is the

most urgent problem that the nation, that human it}', now faces. You can help toward its solution in just one way : ny standing up openly against the present method of the distribution of wealth and in favour of a method that will eradicate at least the grosser features of its injustice. "I have faith that you will hear and act. But if, having heard, you do not act, I shall put in more terrible and vivid imagery the true relation which you will then bear to the little hands that are knocking, the little voices that are calling, at the door of existence."