Eugenics: A Plan for Further Work

IN what I have just said I have tried to be cautious, and have felt, at every step, that generalizations are restricted by lack of sufficient facts. This is the serious need of the time. To fill this need the American Breeders' Association has organized a Committee on Eugenics composed as follows: David Starr Jordan, Chairman; Alexander Graham Bell, Luther Burbank, W. E. Castle, C. R. Henderson, A. Hrdlicka, V. L. Kellogg, Adolf Meyer, J. Arthur Thomson, W. L. Tower, H. J. Webber, C. E. Woodruff, Frederick A. Woods, Charles Davenport, Secretary. The various duties of this Committee may be summed up in the three words: investigation, education, legislation.

The first, and for some time the main work of the Committee must be investigation. We want, above all, to learn as soon as possible how human characteristics are inherited. The results of the new science of heredity give reason for anticipating that many, if not most, characteristics are of an alternative sort either not re-appearing in the offspring or re-appearing in predictable proportions depending upon the distribution of these characteristics in the ancestry. We have already seen that a score or more of characteristics, largely specific diseases, are inherited in such alternative fashion, and about their behavior in progeny definite information has been given. We must ascertain the facts about other characteristics.

The data must first be collected; then analyzed. This work is so vast that it must be divided between many people, specialists able to weigh and analyze scientifically the results. Consequently it has been found desirable to appoint sub-committees to collect and study the data. A sub-committee on Feeble-mindedness has been organized under the chairmanship of Dr. A. F. Rogers, Superintendent of the Minnesota School for Feeble Minded and Colony for Epileptics, and with Dr. H. H. Goddard, Director of the Department of Psychological Research at the New Jersey Training School for Feeble Minded Girls and Boys, as Secretary. At the present moment this committee is collecting answers to the question: "Do two imbecile parents ever beget normal children?" This committee has most important interests, since the number of feeble-minded in the United States alone is probably not less than 150,000 of which 15,000 are in institutions.

A sub-committee on Insanity is being organized under the chairmanship of Dr. Adolf Meyer, for some time Director of the Pathological Institute of the New York State Commission in Lunacy and recently appointed head of the Phipps Psychiatrical Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. The secretary of this Sub-Committee is Dr. E. E. Southard, Pathologist to the State Board of Insanity, Massachusetts. This sub-committee has im- portant work to do, for there are over 150,000 insane in the Institutions of the United States alone.

Other sub-committees are contemplated to study the protoplasmic basis of eye defects, deafness, predisposition toward lung and throat trouble, toward diseases of the excretory and circulatory organs; toward cancer, skin diseases, crippled appendages and so on. Still other sub-committees should deal with criminality and pauperism, with the effects of consanguineous marriages and of such mongrelization as is pro- ceeding on a vast scale in this country. Perhaps other sub-committees, recruited from those who make physical examinations, will study inheritance of muscular strength, of sound wind and endurance. Possibly registrars of colleges will serve on sub-committees for the study of inheritance of various intellectual traits. Other sub-committees will be added as needed. A second class of investigation may better be undertaken by the central committee. It is the obtaining of records of the inheritance of characteristics of health, ability and temperament from typical American families. In the attempt to secure such records 5000 blanks have been distributed and about 300 Family Records received back. These are being studied to determine the laws of incidence of disease and the inheritance of various other characteristics. This sort of work might be taken up by genealogists who wish to incorporate more biological data in their family histories. The limitations to this work are set only by lack of means for carrying on correspondence. It seems possible that data of this sort might be collected by the national Bureau of the Census for limited registration areas.

While the acquisition of new data is desirable, much can be done by studying the extant records of institutions. The amount of such data is enormous. They lie hidden in records of our numerous charity organizations, our 42 institu- tions for the feeble-minded, our 115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, our 350 hospitals for the insane, our 1200 refuge homes, our 1300 prisons, our 1500 hospitals and our 2500 alms- houses. Our great insurance companies and our college gymnasiums have tens of thousands of records of the characters of human blood lines. These records should be studied, their hereditary data sifted out and properly recorded on cards and the cards sent to a central bureau for study in order that data should be placed in their proper relations in the great strains of human protoplasm that are coursing through the country. Thus could be learned not only the method of heredity of human characteristics but we shall identify those lines which supply our families of great men: our Adamses, our Abbotts, our Beechers, our Blairs, and so on through the alphabet. We shall also learn whence come our 300,000 insane and feeble-minded, our 160,000 blind or deaf, the 2,000,000 that are annually cared for by our hospitals and Homes, our 80,000 prisoners and the thousands of criminals that are not in prison, and our 100,000 paupers in almshouses and out. This three or four percent of our population is a fearful drag on our civilization. Shall we as an intelligent people, proud of our control of nature in other respects, do nothing but vote more taxes or be satisfied with the great gifts and bequests that philanthropists have made for the support of the delinquent, defective and dependent classes? Shall we not rather take the steps that scientific study dictates as necessary to dry up the springs that feed the torrent of defective and degenerate protoplasm?

Greater tasks than those contemplated in the broadest scheme of the Eugenics committee have been carried out in this country. If only one-half of one percent of the 30 million dollars annually spent on hospitals, 20 millions on insane asylums, 20 millions for almshouses, 13 millions on prisons, and 5 millions on "the feeble-minded, deaf and blind were spent on the study of the bad germ-plasm that makes necessary the annual expenditure of nearly 100 millions in the care of its produce we might hope to learn just how it is being reproduced and the best way to diminish its further spread. A new plague that rendered four percent of our population, chiefly at the most productive age, not only incompetent but a burden costing 100 million dollars yearly to sup- port would instantly attract universal attention, and millions would be forthcoming for its study as they have been for the study of cancer. But we have become so used to crime, disease and degeneracy that we take them as necessary evils. That they were, in the world's ignorance, is granted. That they must remain so, is denied.

The second great duty of the Committee on Eugenics, education, is not less important than investigation. For the ascertained laws would be more than scientifically interesting; they would be guides to action on the part of the reading, thinking public. As precise knowledge is acquired it must be set forth in popular magazine articles, in public lectures, in addresses to workers in social fields: in circular letters to physicians, teachers, the clergy and legislators. The nature and the dangers of unfit matings, the way to secure sound progeny, must ever be set forth.

And, finally, when public spirit is aroused, its will must be crystallized in appropriate legislation. Since the weak and the criminal will not be guided in their matings by patriotism or family pride, more powerful influence or restraints must be exerted as the case requires. And as for the idiots, low imbeciles, incurable and dangerous criminals they may under appropriate restrictions be prevented from procreation either by segregation during the reproductive period or even by sterilization. Society must protect itself; as it claims the right to deprive the murderer of his life so also it may annihilate the hideous serpent of hopelessly vicious protoplasm. Here is where appropriate legislation will aid in eugenics and in creating a healthier, saner society in the future.

We come now to the practical question, how can the necessary studies be made? It is believed that the Committee of Eugenics may well be entrusted with organizing the work along the lines that have been successfully begun or it would co-operate with any body that seemed better able to organize the work. But it can do nothing without funds. The committee does not solicit funds but it stands ready to do the nation's business by making clear the nation's need to legislators and to philanthropists. One cannot fail to wonder that, where tens of millions have been given to bolster up the weak and alleviate the suffering of the sick, no important means have been provided to enable us to learn how the stream of weak and susceptible proto- plasm may be checked. Vastly more effective than ten million dollars to "charity" would be ten millions to Eugenics. He who, by such a gift, should redeem mankind from vice, imbecility and suffering would be the world's wisest philanthropist.

I think Ben Stein only scratched the surface regarding Darwinism and Eugenics.

Charles Davenport ran the Station for Experimental Evolution and the ERO. He was a co-editor of Biometrika, the journal founded by Galton (Charles Darwin's cousin) and Karl Pearson (Darwin Medalist). Starr Jordan wrote Evolution and Animal Life and many zoology books. Sewall Wright (Darwin Medalist) was one of W.E. Castle's students. Wright also studied under Charles Davenport. J. Arthur Thomson translated Weismann's Evolution Theory. Thomson was the author of many books on evolution and biology. He co-authored the Simple Science series with Julian Huxley (Darwin Medalist). He was vice president of the british Eugenics Society in the same year that Alfred Ploetz was also vice-president. Vernon Kellog was a member of the American Eugenics Society and author of numerous books on evolution (Darwinism Today, etc).

More info on these people here.

As a matter of curiosity, are you advocating for the reproductive rights of, for example, repeat or chronic rapists, pedophiles, and murderers?

It's more like he is on a crusade against the theory of evolution, and because he has no evidence that can disprove that theory he is out to hype eugenics, tie Darwin's descendants to eugenics, thereby smearing Darwin, and hence discrediting Darwin's theory of evolution.

You are right as usual. This guy has tried to tie Darwin to Nazi eugenics since Ben Stein's flop of a "documentary" came out.

I watched a History Chanel presentation on the other day on Hitler's attempt to implement a eugenics program called the Lebensborn project. This was the breeding of SS men to "racially pure" Aryan women. They referenced the major influencing figures of the eugenics movement (and the fact that most states in the US at one time had eugenic laws like sterilization of the mentally handicapped). Interestingly, NO mention of Darwin or Darwinism was made in the one hour program.

Darwin can’t be responsible for what eugenics nuts did after his death.

But the eugenics nuts do cite him and his ideas as their inspiration.

Reverend Wright shies away from being honest about his inspiration (Louis Farrakhan) merely speaking of him as a great man.

At least these guys were upfront about Darwin inspiring them.