It might easily be made a physical impossibility for criminals, hereditary paupers, imbeciles, profligates, and others suffering f...rom gross bodily or mental defects, to propagate their failings and their vices. In no long time our prisons, workhouses, and asylums would be empty.... Prostitution would become a forgotten calling. Pauperism would cease. Disease would be almost unknown. By the same methods which breeders adopt, our race could be raised to the highest pitch of perfection and of excellence. The people who shall first have the moral courage to do this, will take the lead among the nations of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...feminism differs from reform of any kind, even franchise reform. Feminists, I should say, are not reformers at all, but rather ...intellectual biologists and psychologists.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... every woman's organization recognizes that reformers are far more common than feminists, that the passion to look after your f...ellow man, and especially woman, to do good to her in your way is far more common than the desire to put into every one's hand the power to look after themselves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the great mistake of the reformers is to believe that life begins and ends with health, and that happiness begins and ends wit...h a full stomach and the power to enjoy physical pleasures, even of the finer kind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... throughout the ages down to modern times, conditions of imprisonment, what with overcrowding, idleness, and all their attendan...t evils, have been such that not only the person but also to a deplorable extent the personality has been "confined or restrained." The problem of the betterment of our physical prison conditions goes hand in hand ... with the problem of re-creating and releasing personality "deep-dungeoned in self," of giving scope to the forces that tend upward, of counteracting and rendering harmless the already dominant tendencies toward evil.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around in candy stores and bars and drinking soda pop ...on stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: "This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn't be on the street!" That judgment represents a profound misunderstanding of cities. It makes no more sense than to drop in at a testimonial banquet in a hotel and conclude that if these people had wives who could cook, they would give their parties at home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... most reform movements in our country have been cursed by a lunatic fringe and have mingled sound ideas for social progress wit...h utopian nonsense.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »