Eugenics as a Movement
“It must be introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious, tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operate with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races…I see no impossibility in Eugenics becoming a religious dogma among mankind.”
- Francis Galton, "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims" (1904)
“Here is a gangrened member of the body politic; the question is not how it came to be so, but what shall be done to stop the spread of the poison, and save the life of the patient.”
- Henry Boies, “Prisoners and Paupers” (1893)
Although eugenics never achieved the status that Galton envisioned for it in his home country of England, it exploited many of the fears and prejudices endemic in 1900s America.
"Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind…Any group of farmers who permitted their best stock not to breed, and let all the increase come from the worst stock, would be treated as fit inmates for an asylum…Some day we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty of the good citizens of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type. The great problem of civilization is to secure a relative increase of the valuable as compared with the less valuable or noxious elements in the population…The problem cannot be met unless we give full consideration to the immense influence of heredity…"
- Theodore Roosevelt to Charles B. Davenport, January 3, 1913, Charles B. Davenport Papers, Department of Genetics, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.
This mindset was not so different from the late nineteenth century resentment toward the paupers who crowded the poorhouses and drained the public purse. The idea that poverty was hereditary, and those paupers thus incorrigible, only justified these sentiments.
- Francis Galton, "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims" (1904)
“Here is a gangrened member of the body politic; the question is not how it came to be so, but what shall be done to stop the spread of the poison, and save the life of the patient.”
- Henry Boies, “Prisoners and Paupers” (1893)
Although eugenics never achieved the status that Galton envisioned for it in his home country of England, it exploited many of the fears and prejudices endemic in 1900s America.
"Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind…Any group of farmers who permitted their best stock not to breed, and let all the increase come from the worst stock, would be treated as fit inmates for an asylum…Some day we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty of the good citizens of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type. The great problem of civilization is to secure a relative increase of the valuable as compared with the less valuable or noxious elements in the population…The problem cannot be met unless we give full consideration to the immense influence of heredity…"
- Theodore Roosevelt to Charles B. Davenport, January 3, 1913, Charles B. Davenport Papers, Department of Genetics, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.
This mindset was not so different from the late nineteenth century resentment toward the paupers who crowded the poorhouses and drained the public purse. The idea that poverty was hereditary, and those paupers thus incorrigible, only justified these sentiments.
Publicizers of Eugenics:
The Eugenics Record Office
Harry Laughlin was a fervent supporter of the most radical eugenic measures, and an early popularizer of eugenic sterilization.
“Our failure to sort immigrants on the basis of their natural worth is a very serious national menace.” - Harry Laughlin, testifying before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization "It is only with the individual of a hereditary, degenerate make-up which manifests itself in an inability to get on, or lack of ambition, or laziness which drives him or her beyond the bounds of self-maintained usefulness in an organized society that this study is concerned. These individuals are so strikingly anti-social that society is justified, if the general uselessness can be shown to be hereditary, in cutting off the descent line of this whole group of individuals, even if their specific traits and defects cannot be catalogued." - Harry H. Laughlin "Report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means of Cutting off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population: The Scope of the Committee's Work" Bulletin, No. 10A Eugenics Record Office February 1914 |
Charles Davenport was director of the ERO, incubator of scientific breakthroughs and eugenic proposals for social policy.
“The population of the United States will, on account of the great influx of blood from southeastern Europe, rapidly become darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more given to crimes of larceny, kidnapping, assault, murder, rape and sex immorality. And the ratio of insanity in the population will rapidly increase.” - Charles Davenport “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.” - Charles Davenport, Eugenics: The Science Of Human Improvement By Better Breeding (1910) |