This may be laid down as absolutely true: the sex fluid is more important to the male organism than many times its quantity in blood; that it has its function in building the character of the boy and making a man of him; it gives him the male voice and the male courage and the male strength. The loss of this fluid saps his very life energy and makes of him only a "thing' that might have been a man. And it is for this very reason, sex abuse, that we have so many "things" and so few men; and yet we are not saving our boys or making one sensible concerted effort to bring to them the knowledge that is of such very great importance to them, individually and to the entire race.

Let it be said with shame to us as a race that the practice of self-abuse at some time in life is almost universal with both sexes, and has led to untold misery and race deterioration.

One might live an otherwise model life, and through this avenue of sex gratification tear down the body and the mind and the character as well; in fact, destroy all that is desirable in the human, that distinguishes it above the other animals. In this way the human animal descends, not to the plane of the beast, which in nature is normal and right, but far below the plane of the beast, for the depths of human degradation take hold of hell itself.

The sex appetite once started becomes an abnormal craving the same as the appetite for whisky or morphine, though worse. The victim, for one is certainly a "victim" in the clutches of any abnormal appetite, in this, as in all others, reasons with himself that it is natural, and hence excusable and right; thus is the pathway to reform blocked and the pathway to ruin made straight and wide. But with all his reasoning there is always the mental conviction that the thing is not right, and hence the secrecy that attaches to such matters.

Parents very often delude themselves into the belief that their children are safe from these bad habits, when at the very time their children's lives are being ruined. The need of knowledge, absolute, specific, strongly impressed knowledge, is universal; no child is safe without it, and not one in a thousand will escape the cultivation of these harmful, life-sapping, character-destroying habits unless they are saved from them. Oh the shame of it, that we have made so little effort to save the race right here at the fountain-head of its very being!

Politics is supposed to be a "bad" question, though why "the science of government" should be called bad may probably be attributed to the fact that the so-called "good" people allow the so-called "bad" people to run things largely to suit themselves. Here "eternal vigilance" is still the price of liberty. The disposition of good people to let bad conditions alone does not help to make the bad conditions any better; and the disposition of all the people to keep from an open discussion of this sex question does not help the matter, but is a tacit acknowledgment that things are either right as they are, or else that people do not care whether they are right or not.

On this question, which is so rotten bad that politics smells sweet beside it, there seems to be a feeling of hopelessness, - that nothing can be done, that the wrongs will continue in spite of any effort to check them. This, in the humble judgment of the writer, is a sad mistake, and it is directly contrary to logic and fact. To allow people to remain ignorant of the normal functions of sex and the importance of obeying nature's laws is certainly no way to help bring about a better condition, and especially to withhold this knowledge from the children borders on criminal neglect.

There was a time when drinking alcoholic liquors was an almost universal custom; when every grocery store sold whisky the same as it sold sugar; when even the clergy had to make rules keeping its members from overindulgence. Education has brought the people to realize the injurious effects of alcohol on the system, and has hastened the day when alcoholic drinks will not be consumed by any one. Right now the majority of the people are opposed to the manufacture and sale of such drinks, and even the victims are longing to be free.

The sex abuses are more deeply rooted and more harmful, making it the more important that the work of education be started at once and pushed with vigor, for the very life of the race is here at stake.

Even the marriage state today is little less than legalized prostitution. The male forces his abnormal attention on the female against every principle of animal ethics. Women are slowly and painfully murdered in this way, and the voice of protest is smothered in a "conventional modesty" that is false as hell.

How long it will take the race to cast aside its prudery and face this grave question of normal sex life, with courage and a determination to return to a proper exercise of the sex functions, I do not know, I only feel that the matter is of such grave importance that no one who believes in right living can longer keep silent.

I believe in boys and girls and men and women associating together in the closest friendship and comradeship, and that the sex function should make the men gallant, courteous, and the courageous protectors of the women, and the women gracious and lovable. And I believe and know that through the cultivation of these higher feelings of friendship, love, and respect, and close comradeship, the grosser appetites will be retarded and a purer plane of expression be reached.

I am convinced that woman should be given a much broader freedom than she now enjoys and the right and power to control her own body, and this means economic independence from man, who has degraded her to his wishes because of his economic power over her. The complete enfranchisement of the women is the first step, but there are many others that must be taken before the race reaches any right plane of expression on this very important phase of being.

I would like to say more, but having already said more than enough to everlastingly damn me in the eyes of the prudes, perhaps it is well that I desist before they have me arrested for using "indecent language" or on some other flimsy pretext that has been employed to smother the voice of intelligent protest against the wrong use of the sex organs. Thanks be, there are a few voices howling in the wilderness, and the light will yet dawn and men and women will walk together in purity and more abundant life, and children will be brought into the world who are the product of love instead of lust.

Note. - I am pleased to acknowledge that several cities and some state health boards are taking up some of these great questions in an educational way. The Indiana State Board of Health, Indianapolis, Ind., has published a pamphlet on "Social Hygiene vs. The Sex Plagues" that is most commendable, and can be had for a two-cent stamp for postage. Don't fail to send for one or more.