It has been
calculated that the number of epileptics in the state of New Jersey,
where the most careful investigation of the problem has been made, will
double every 30 years under present conditions.
calculated that the number of epileptics in the state of New Jersey,
where the most careful investigation of the problem has been made, will
double every 30 years under present conditions.
Applied Eugenics by Roswell H. Johnson and Paul Popenoe
To those who
accept that philosophy, made prominent by Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart
Mill, Herbert Spencer, and a host of other great thinkers, eugenics
rightly understood must seem a prime necessity of society.
But can any philosophy dispense with eugenics? Take those to whom the
popular philosophy of happiness seems a dangerous goal and to whom the
only object of evolution that one is at present justified in
recognizing is that of the perpetuation of the species and of the
progressive conquest of nature, the acquiring of an ascendancy over all
the earth. This is now as much a matter of self-preservation as it is of
progress: although man no longer fights for life with the cave bear and
saber-toothed tiger, the microbes which war with him are far more
dangerous enemies than the big mammals of the past. The continuation of
evolution, if it means conquest, is not a work for dilettantes and Lotos
Eaters; it is a task that demands unremitting hard work.
To this newer philosophy of creative work eugenics is none the less
essential. For eugenics wants in the world more physically sound men and
women _with greater ability in any valuable way_. Whatever the actual
goal of evolution may be, it can hardly be assumed by any except the
professional pessimist, that a race made up of such men and women is
going to be handicapped by their presence.
The correlation of abilities is as well attested as any fact in
psychology. Those who decry eugenics on the ground that it is impossible
to establish any "standard of perfection," since society needs many
diverse kinds of people, are overlooking this fact. Any plan which
increases the production of children in able families of _various_ types
will thereby produce more ability of all kinds, since if a family is
particularly gifted in one way, it is likely to be gifted above the
average in several other desirable ways.
Eugenics sets up no specific superman, as a type to which the rest of
the race must be made to conform. It is not looking forward to the
cessation of its work in a eugenic millenium. It is a perpetual process,
which seeks only to raise the level of the race by the production of
fewer people with physical and mental defects, and more people with
physical and mental excellencies. Such a race should be able to
perpetuate itself, to subdue nature, to improve its environment
progressively; its members should be happy and productive. To establish
such a goal seems justified by the knowledge of evolution which is now
available; and to make progress toward it is possible.
CHAPTER VIII
DESIRABILITY OF RESTRICTIVE EUGENICS
In a rural part of Pennsylvania lives the L. family. Three generations
studied "all show the same drifting, irresponsible tendency. No one can
say they are positively bad or serious disturbers of the communities
where they may have a temporary home. Certain members are epileptic and
defective to the point of imbecility. The father of this family drank
and provided little for their support. The mother, though hard working,
was never able to care for them properly. So they and their 12 children
were frequent recipients of public relief, a habit which they have
consistently kept up. Ten of the children grew to maturity, and all but
one married and had in their turn large families. With two exceptions
these have lived in the territory studied. Nobody knows how they have
subsisted, even with the generous help they have received. They drift in
and out of the various settlements, taking care to keep their residence
in the county which has provided most liberally for their support. In
some villages it is said that they have been in and out half a dozen
times in the last few years. First one family comes slipping back, then
one by one the others trail in as long as there are cheap shelters to be
had. Then rents fall due, neighbors become suspicious of invaded
henroosts and potato patches, and one after another the families take
their departure, only to reappear after a year or two.
"The seven children of the eldest son were scattered years ago through
the death of their father. They were taken by strangers, and though kept
in school, none of them proved capable of advancement. Three at least
could not learn to read or handle the smallest quantities. The rest do
this with difficulty. All but two are now married and founding the
fourth generation of this line. The family of the fourth son are now
county charges. Of the 14 children of school age in this and the
remaining families, all are greatly retarded. One is an epileptic and at
16 can not read or write. One at 15 is in the third reader and should be
set down as defective. The remainder are from one to four years
retarded.
"There is nothing striking in the annals of this family. It comes as
near the lowest margin of human existence as possible and illustrates
how marked defect may sometimes exist without serious results in the
infringement of law and custom. Its serious menace, however, lies in the
certain marriage into stocks which are no better, and the production of
large families which continue to exist on the same level of
semi-dependency. In place of the two dependents of a generation ago we
now find in the third generation 32 descendants who bid fair to continue
their existence on the same plane--certainly an enormous multiplication
of the initial burden of expense. "[75]
From cases of this sort, which represent the least striking kind of bad
breeding, the student may pass through many types up to the great tribes
of Jukes, Nams, Kallikaks, Zeros, Dacks, Ishmaels, Sixties, Hickories,
Hill Folk, Piney Folk, and the rest, with which the readers of the
literature of restrictive eugenics are familiar. It is abundantly
demonstrated that much, if not most, of their trouble is the outcome of
bad heredity. Indeed, when a branch of one of these clans is
transported, or emigrates, to a wholly new environment, it soon creates
for itself, in many cases, an environment similar to that from which it
came. Whether it goes to the city, or to the agricultural districts of
the west, it may soon manage to reestablish the debasing atmosphere to
which it has always been accustomed. [76] Those who see in improvement
of the environment the cure for all such plague spots as these tribes
inhabit, overlook the fact that man largely creates his own environment.
The story of the tenement-dwellers who were supplied with bath tubs but
refused to use them for any other purpose than to store coal,
exemplifies a wide range of facts.
[Illustration: FIG. 26. --To this shanty an elderly man of the
"Hickory" family, a great clan of defectives in rural Ohio, brought his
girl-bride, together with his two grown sons by a former marriage. The
shanty was conveniently located at a distance of 100 feet from the city
dump where the family, all of which is feeble-minded, secured its food.
Such a family is incapable of protecting either itself or its neighbors,
and should be cared for by the state. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions. ]
[Illustration: A CHIEFTAIN OF THE HICKORY CLAN
FIG. 27. --This is "Young Hank," otherwise known as "Sore-Eyed
Hank. " He is the eldest son and heir of that Hank Hickory who, with his
wife and seven children, applied for admission to their County Infirmary
when it was first opened. For generation after generation, his family
has been the chief patron of all the charities of its county. "Young
Hank" married his cousin and duplicated his father's record by begetting
seven children, three of whom (all feeble-minded) are now living. The
number of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren is increasing every
year, but the total can not be learned from him, for he is mentally
incapable of counting even the number of his own children. He is about
70 years of age, and has never done any work except to make baskets. He
has lived a wandering life, largely dependent on charity. For the last
25 years he has been partly blind, due to trachoma. He gets a blind
pension of $5 a month, which is adequate to keep him supplied with
chewing tobacco, his regular mastication being 10 cents a day. Such
specimens can be found in many rural communities; if they were
segregated in youth both they and the community would be much better
off. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions. ]
Although conditions may be worst in the older and more densely populated
states, it is probable that there is no state in the union which has not
many families, or group of families, of this dependent type, which in
favorable cases may attract little notice, but therefore do all the more
harm eugenically; in other cases may be notorious as centers of
criminality. Half a dozen well-defined areas of this kind have been
found in Pennsylvania, which is probably not exceptional in this
respect. "These differ, of course, in extent and character and the
gravity of the problems they present. In some there is great sexual
laxity, which leads to various forms of dependency and sometimes to
extreme mental defect. In others alcoholism prevails and the people show
a propensity for deeds of violence. All informants, however, practically
agreed to the following characterization:
"1. Because of the thefts and depredations and the frequent applications
for charitable relief from such sections they constitute a parasitic
growth which saps the resources of the self-respecting, self-sustaining
contingent of the population.
"2. They furnish an undue proportion of court cases, and are thus a
serious expense to county and state.
"3. They are a source of physical decay and moral contamination, and
thus menace the integrity of the entire social fabric. "[77]
Society has long since admitted that it is desirable to restrict the
reproduction of certain classes of gross defectives, and criminals, by
the method of segregation. The ground for this is sometimes biological,
perhaps more often legal, as in the case of the insane and criminal,
where it is held that the individual is legally incapacitated from
entering into a contract, such as that of marriage. It would be better
to have the biological basis of restriction on marriage and reproduction
recognized in every case; but even with the present point of view the
desired end may be reached.
From an ethical standpoint, so few people would now contend that two
feeble-minded or epileptic persons have any "right" to marry and
perpetuate their kind, that it is hardly worth while to argue the point.
We believe that the same logic would permit two individuals to marry,
but deny them the privilege of having children. The reasons for this may
be considered under three heads.
1. Biological. Are there cases in which persons may properly marry but
may properly be prevented by society from having any offspring, on the
ground that such offspring would be undesirable components of the race?
The right of marriage is commonly, and may well be properly, regarded as
an inalienable right of the individual, in so far as it does not
conflict with the interests of the race. The companionship of two
persons between whom true love exists, is beyond all question the
highest happiness possible, and one which society should desire and
strive to give its every member. On that point there will be no
difference of opinion, but when it is asked whether there can be a
separation between the comradeship aspect and the reproduction aspect,
in marriage, whether any interest of the race can justifiably divorce
these two phases, often considered inseparable, protests are at once
aroused. In these protests, there is some justice. We would be the last
ones to deny that a marriage has failed to achieve its goal, has failed
to realize for its participants the greatest possible happiness, unless
it has resulted in sound offspring.
That word "sound" is the key to the distinction which must be made. The
interests of the race demand sound offspring from every couple in a
position to furnish them--not only in the interests of that
couple,--interests the importance of which it is not easy to
underestimate--but in the interests of the future of the race, whose
welfare far transcends in importance the welfare of any one individual,
or any pair of individuals. As surely as the race needs a constant
supply of children of sound character, so surely is it harmed by a
supply of children of inherently unsound character, physically or
mentally, who may contribute others like themselves to the next
generation. A recollection of the facts of heredity, and of the fact
that the offspring of any individual tend to increase in geometric
ratio, will supply adequate grounds for holding this conviction:--that
from a biological point of view, every child of congenitally inferior
character is a racial misfortune. The Spartans and other peoples of
antiquity fully realized this fact, and acted on it by exposing deformed
infants. Christianity properly revolted as such an action; but in
repudiating the action, it lost sight of the principle back of the
action. The principle should have been regarded, and civilized races are
now coming back to a realization of that fact--are, indeed, realizing
its weight far more fully than any other people has ever done, because
of the growing realization of the importance of heredity. No one is
likely seriously to argue again that deformed infants (whether their
deformity be physical or mental) should be exposed to perish; but the
argument that in the interests of the future of the race _they would
better not be born_, is one that admits of no refutation.
From a biological point of view, then, it is to the interest of the race
that the number of children who will be either defective themselves, or
transmit anti-social defects to their offspring, should be as small as
possible.
2. The humanitarian aspect of the case is no less strong and is likely,
in the present state of public education, to move a larger number of
individuals. A visit to the children's ward of any hospital, an
acquaintance with the sensitive mother of a feeble-minded or deformed
child, will go far to convince anyone that the sum total of human
happiness, and the happiness of the parents, would be greater had these
children never been born. As for the children themselves, they will in
many cases grow up to regret that they were ever brought into the world.
We do not overlook the occasional genius who may be crippled physically
or even mentally; we are here dealing with only the extreme defectives,
such as the feeble-minded, insane, and epileptic. Among such persons,
human happiness would be promoted both now and in the future if the
number of offspring were naught.
3. There is another argument which may legitimately be brought forward,
and which may appeal to some who are relatively insensitive to the
biological or even the humanitarian aspects of the case. This is the
financial argument.
Except students of eugenics, few persons realize how staggering is the
bill annually paid for the care of defectives. The amount which the
state of New York expends yearly on the maintenance of its insane wards,
is greater than it spends for any other purpose except education; and in
a very few years, if its insane population continues to increase at the
present rate, it will spend more on them than it does on the education
of its normal children. The cost of institutional care for the socially
inadequate is far from being all that these people cost the state; but
those figures at least are not based on guesswork. The annual cost[78]
of maintaining a feeble-minded ward of the state, in various
commonwealths, is:
Illinois $136. 50
Indiana 147. 49
Minnesota 148. 05
Ohio 155. 47
Wisconsin 159. 77
Kansas 170. 16
Michigan 179. 42
Kentucky 184. 77
California 208. 97
Maine 222. 99
At such prices, each state maintains hundreds, sometimes thousands, of
feeble-minded, and the number is growing each year. In the near future
the expenditures must grow much more rapidly, for public sentiment is
beginning to demand that the defectives and delinquents of the
community be properly cared for. The financial burden is becoming a
heavy one; it will become a crushing one unless steps are taken to make
the feeble-minded productive (as described in the next chapter) and an
intangible "sinking fund" at the same time created to reduce the burden
gradually by preventing the production of those who make it up. The
burden can never be wholly obliterated, but it can be largely reduced by
a restriction of the reproduction of those who are themselves socially
inadequate.
[Illustration: TWO JUKE HOMES OF THE PRESENT DAY
FIG. 28. --The Jukes have mostly been country-dwellers, a fact
which has tended to increase the amount of consanguineous marriage among
them. Removal into a new environment usually does not mean any
substantial change for them, because they succeed immediately in
re-creating the same squalid sort of an environment from which they
came. In the house below, one part was occupied by the family and the
other part by pigs. Photographs from A. H. Estabrook. ]
Alike then on biological, humanitarian and financial grounds, the nation
would be the better for a diminution in the production of physically,
mentally or morally defective children. And the way to secure this
diminution is to prevent reproduction by parents whose offspring would
almost certainly be undesirable in character.
Granted that such prevention is a proper function of society, the
question again arises whether it is an ethically correct procedure to
allow these potentially undesirable parents to marry at all. Should they
be doomed to perpetual celibacy, or should they be permitted to mate, on
condition that the union be childless.
The eugenic interests of society, of course, are equally safeguarded by
either alternative. All the other interests of society appear to us to
be better safeguarded by marriage than by celibacy. Adding the interests
of the individual, which will doubtless be for marriage, it seems to us
that there is good reason for holding such a childless marriage
ethically correct, in the relatively small number of cases where it
might seem desirable.
Though such unions may be ethically justifiable, yet they would often be
impracticable; the limits will be discussed in the next chapter.
It is constantly alleged that the state can not interfere with an
individual matter of this sort: "It is an intolerable invasion of
personal liberty; it is reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard;
it is impossible to put artificial restraints on the relations between
the sexes, founded as they are on such strong and primal feelings. "
The doctrine of personal liberty, in this extreme form, was enunciated
and is maintained by people who are ignorant of biology and
evolution;[79] people who are ignorant of the world as it is, and deal
only with the world as they think it ought to be. Nature reveals no such
extreme "law of personal liberty," and the race that tries to carry such
a supposed law to its logical conclusion will soon find, in the supreme
test of competition with other races, that the interests of the
individual are much less important to nature than the interests of the
race. Perpetuation of the race is the first end to be sought. So far as
according a wide measure of personal liberty to its members will compass
that end, the personal liberty doctrine is a good one; but if it is held
as a metaphysical dogma, to deny that the race may take any action
necessary in its own interest, at the expense of the individual, this
dogma becomes suicidal.
As for "reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard," this is merely
a catch-phrase intended to arouse prejudice and to obscure the facts.
The reader may judge for himself whether the eugenic program will
degrade mankind to the level of the brutes, or whether it will ennoble
it, beautify it, and increase its happiness.
The delusion which so many people hold, that it is impossible to put
artificial restraint on the relations between the sexes, is amazing.
Restraint is already a _fait accompli_. Every civilized nation already
puts restrictions on numerous classes of people, as has been
noted--minors, criminals, and the insane, for example. Even though this
restriction is usually based on legal, rather than biological grounds,
it is nevertheless a restriction, and sets a precedent for further
restrictions, if any precedent were needed.
[Illustration: "MONGOLIAN" DEFICIENCY
FIG. 29. --A common type of feeble-mindedness is accompanied by
a face called Mongoloid, because of a certain resemblance to that of
some of the Mongolian races as will be noted above. The mother at the
left and the father were normal. This type seems not to be inherited,
but due to some other influence,--Goddard suggests uterine exhaustion
from too many frequent pregnancies. ]
It is, we conclude, both desirable and possible to enforce certain
restrictions on marriage and parenthood. What these restrictions may be,
and to whom they should be applied, is next to be considered.
CHAPTER IX
THE DYSGENIC CLASSES
Before examining the methods by which society can put into effect some
measure of negative or restrictive eugenics, it may be well to decide
what classes of the population can properly fall within the scope of
such treatment. Strictly speaking, the problem is of course one of
individuals rather than classes, but for the sake of convenience it will
be treated as one of classes, it being understood that no individual
should be put under restriction with eugenic intent merely because he
may be supposed to belong to a given class; but that each case must be
investigated on its own merits,--and investigated with much more care
than has hitherto usually been thought necessary by many of those who
have advocated restrictive eugenic measures.
The first class demanding attention is that of those feeble-minded whose
condition is due to heredity. There is reason to believe that at least
two-thirds of the feeble-minded in the United States owe their condition
directly to heredity,[80] and will transmit it to a large per cent of
their descendants, if they have any. Feeble-minded persons from sound
stock, whose arrested development is due to scarlet fever or some
similar disease of childhood, or to accident, are of course not of
direct concern to eugenists.
The number of patent feeble-minded in the United States is probably not
less than 300,000, while the number of latent individuals--those
carrying the taint in their germ-plasm and capable of transmitting it to
their descendants, although the individuals themselves may show good
mental development--is necessarily much greater. The defect is highly
hereditary in nature: when two innately feeble-minded persons marry,
all their offspring, almost without exception, are feeble-minded. The
feeble-minded are never of much value to society--they never present
such instances as are found among the insane, of persons with some
mental lack of balance, who are yet geniuses. If restrictive eugenics
dealt with no other class than the hereditarily feeble-minded, and dealt
with that class effectively, it would richly justify its existence.
But there are other classes on which it can act with safety as well as
profit, and one of these is made up by the germinally insane. According
to the census of 1910, there are 187,791 insane in institutions in the
United States; there are also a certain number outside of institutions,
as to whom information can not easily be obtained. The number in the
hospitals represented a ratio of 204. 3 per 100,000 of the general
population. In 1880, when the enumeration of insane was particularly
complete, a total of 91,959 was reported--a ratio of 188. 3 per 100,000
of the total population at that time. This apparent increase of insanity
has been subjected to much analysis, and it is admitted that part of it
can be explained away. People are living longer now than formerly, and
as insanity is primarily a disease of old age, the number of insane is
thus increased. Better means of diagnosis are undoubtedly responsible
for some of the apparent increase. But when every conceivable allowance
is made, there yet remains ground for belief that the proportion of
insane persons in the population is increasing each year. This is partly
due to immigration, as is indicated by the immense and constantly
increasing insane population of the state of New York, where most
immigrants land. In some cases, people who actually show some form of
insanity may slip past the examiners; in the bulk of cases, probably, an
individual is adapted to leading a normal life in his native
environment, but transfer to the more strenuous environment of an
American city proves to be too much for his nervous organization. The
general flow of population from the country to large cities has a
similar effect in increasing the number of insane.
But when all is said, the fact remains that there are several hundred
thousand insane persons in the United States, many of whom are not
prevented from reproducing their kind, and that by this failure to
restrain them society is putting a heavy burden of expense, unhappiness
and a fearful dysgenic drag on coming generations.
The word "insanity," as is frequently objected, means little or nothing
from a biological point of view--it is a sort of catch-all to describe
many different kinds of nervous disturbance. No one can properly be made
the subject of restrictive measures for eugenic reasons, merely because
he is said to be "insane. " It would be wholly immoral so to treat, for
example, a man or woman who was suffering from the form of insanity
which sometimes follows typhoid fever. But there are certain forms of
mental disease, generally lumped under the term "insanity," which
indicate a hereditarily disordered nervous organization, and individuals
suffering from one of these diseases should certainly not be given any
chance to perpetuate their insanity to posterity. Two types of insanity
are now recognized as especially transmissible:--dementia precox, a sort
of precocious old age, in which the patient (generally young) sinks into
a lethargy from which he rarely recovers; and manic-depressive insanity,
an over-excitable condition, in which there are occasional very erratic
motor discharges, alternating with periods of depression. Constitutional
psychopathic inferiority, which means a lack of emotional adaptability,
usually shows in the family history. The common type of insanity which
is characterized by mild hallucinations is of less concern from a
eugenic point of view.
In general, the insane are more adequately restricted than any other
dysgenic class in the community; not because the community recognizes
the disadvantage of letting them reproduce their kind, but because there
is a general fear of them, which leads to their strict segregation; and
because an insane person is not considered legally competent to enter
into a marriage contract. In general, the present isolation of the sexes
at institutions for the insane is satisfactory; the principal problem
which insanity presents lies in the fact that an individual is
frequently committed to a hospital or asylum, kept there a few years
until apparently cured, and then discharged; whereupon he returns to his
family to beget offspring that are fairly likely to become insane at
some period in their lives. Every case of insanity should be accompanied
by an investigation of the patient's ancestry, and if there is
unmistakable evidence of serious neuropathic taint, such steps as are
necessary should be taken to prevent that individual from becoming a
parent at any time.
The hereditary nature of most types of epilepsy is generally held to be
established,[81] and restrictive measures should be used to prevent the
increase of the number of epileptics in the country.
It has been
calculated that the number of epileptics in the state of New Jersey,
where the most careful investigation of the problem has been made, will
double every 30 years under present conditions.
In dealing with both insanity and epilepsy, the eugenist faces the
difficulty that occasionally people of the very kind whose production he
most wishes to see encouraged--real geniuses--may carry the taint. The
exaggerated claims of the Italian anthropologist C. Lombroso and his
school, in regard to the close relation between genius and insanity,
have been largely disproved; yet there remains little doubt that the two
sometimes do go together; and such supposed epileptics as Mohammed,
Julius Caesar, and Napoleon will at once be called to mind. To apply
sweeping restrictive measures would prevent the production of a certain
amount of talent of a very high order. The situation can only be met by
dealing with every case on its individual merits, and recognizing that
it is to the interests of society to allow some very superior
individuals to reproduce, even though part of their posterity may be
mentally or physically somewhat unsound.
A field survey in two typical counties of Indiana (1916) showed that
there were 1. 8 recognizable epileptics per thousand population. If
these figures should approximately hold good for the entire United
States, the number of epileptics can hardly be put at less than 150,000.
Some of them are not anti-social, but many of them are.
Feeble-mindedness and insanity were also included in the census
mentioned, and the total number of the three kinds of defectives was
found to be 19 per thousand in one county and 11. 4 per thousand in the
other. This would suggest a total for the entire United States of
something like one million.
In addition to these well-recognized classes of hopelessly defective,
there is a class of defectives embracing very diverse characteristics,
which demands careful consideration. In it are those who are germinally
physical weaklings or deformed, those born with a hereditary diathesis
or predisposition toward some serious disease (e. g. , Huntington's
Chorea), and those with some gross defect of the organs of special
sense. The germinally blind and deaf will particularly occur to mind in
the latter connection. Cases falling in this category demand careful
scrutiny by biological and psychological experts, before any action can
be taken in the interest of eugenics; in many cases the affected
individual himself will be glad to cooperate with society by remaining
celibate or by the practice of birth control, to the end of leaving no
offspring to bear what he has borne.
Finally, we come to the great class of delinquents who have hitherto
been made the particular object of solicitude, on the part of those who
have looked with favor upon sterilization legislation. The chronic
inebriate, the confirmed criminal, the prostitute, the pauper, all
deserve careful study by the eugenist. In many cases they will be found
to be feeble-minded, and proper restriction of the feeble-minded will
meet their cases. Thus there is reason to believe that from a third to
two-thirds of the prostitutes in American cities are feeble-minded. [82]
They should be committed to institutions for the feeble-minded and kept
there. It is certain that many of the pauper class, which fills up
almshouses, are similarly deficient. Indeed, the census of 1910
discovered that of the 84,198 paupers in institutions on the first of
January in that year, 13,238 were feeble-minded, 3,518 insane, 2,202
epileptic, 918 deaf-mute, 3,375 blind, 13,753 crippled, maimed or
deformed. A total of 63. 7% of the whole had some serious physical or
mental defect. Obviously, most of these would be taken care of under
some other heading, in the program of restrictive eugenics. While
paupers should be prohibited from reproduction as long as they are in
state custody, careful discrimination is necessary in the treatment of
those whose condition is due more to environment than heredity.
In a consideration of the chronic inebriate, the problem of
environmental influences is again met in an acute form, aggravated by
the venom of controversy engendered by bigotry and self-interest. That
many chronic inebriates owe their condition almost wholly to heredity,
and are likely to leave offspring of the same character, is
indisputable. As to the possibility of "reforming" such an individual,
there may be room for a difference of opinion; as to the possibility of
reforming his germ-plasm, there can be none. Society owes them the best
possible care, and part of its care should certainly be to see that they
do not reproduce their kind. As to the borderland cases--and in the
matter of inebriety borderland is perhaps bigger than mainland--it is
doubtful whether much direct action can be taken in the present state of
scientific knowledge and of public sentiment. Education of public
opinion to avoid marriage with drunkards will probably be the most
effective means of procedure.
Finally, there is the criminal class, over which the respective
champions of heredity and environment have so often waged partisan
warfare. There is probably no field in which restrictive eugenics would
think of interfering, where it encounters so much danger as here--danger
of wronging both the individual and society. Laws such as have been
passed in several states, providing for the sterilization of criminals
_as such,_ must be deplored by the eugenist as much as they are by the
pseudo-sociologist who "does not believe in heredity"; but this is not
saying that there are not many cases in which eugenic action is
desirable; for inheritance of a lack of emotional control makes a man
in one sense a "born criminal. "[83] He is not, in most respects, the
creature which he was made out to be by Lombroso and his followers; but
he exists, nevertheless, and no ameliorative treatment given him will be
of such value to society as preventing his reproduction.
The feeble-minded who make up a large proportion of the petty criminals
that fill the jails, must, of course, be excluded from this discussion
except to note that their conviction assists in discovering their
defect. They should be treated as feeble-minded, not as criminals. [84]
Those who may have been made criminals by society, by their environment,
must also be excepted. In an investigation, the benefit of the doubt
should be given to the individual. But when every possible concession is
made to the influence of environment, the psychiatric study of the
individual and the investigation of his family history still show that
there are criminals who congenitally lack the inhibitions and instincts
which make it possible for others to be useful members of society. [85]
When a criminal of this natural type is found, the duty of society is
unquestionably to protect itself by cutting off that line of descent.
This, we believe, covers all the classes which are at this time proper
subjects for direct restrictive action with eugenic intent; and we
repeat that the problem is not to deal with classes as a whole, but to
deal with individuals of the kind described, for the sake of
convenience, in the above categories. Artificial class names mean
nothing to evolution. It would be a crime to cut off the posterity of a
desirable member of society merely because he happened to have been
popularly stigmatized by some class name that carried opprobrium with
it. Similarly it would be immoral to encourage or permit the
reproduction of a manifestly defective member of society of the kinds
indicated, even though that individual might in some way have secured
the protection of a class name that was generally considered desirable.
Bearing this in mind, we believe no one can object to a proposal to
prevent the reproduction of those feeble-minded, insane, epileptic,
grossly defective or hopelessly delinquent people, whose condition can
be proved to be due to heredity and is therefore probably transmissible
to their offspring. We can imagine only one objection that might be
opposed to all the advantages of such a program--namely, that no proper
means can be found for putting it into effect. This objection is
occasionally urged, but we believe it to be wholly without weight. We
now propose to examine the various possible methods of restrictive
eugenics, and to inquire which of them society can most profitably
adopt.
CHAPTER X
METHODS OF RESTRICTION
The means of restriction can be divided into coercive and non-coercive.
We shall discuss the former first, interpreting the word "coercive" very
broadly.
From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself
is execution. This has been used since the beginning of the race, very
probably, although rarely with a distinct understanding of its eugenic
effect; and its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not
be underestimated. It is a method the use of which prevents the
rectification of mistakes. There are arguments against it on other
grounds, which need not be discussed here, since it suffices to say that
to put to death defectives or delinquents is wholly out of accord with
the spirit of the times, and is not seriously considered by the eugenics
movement.
The next possible method castration. This has practically nothing to
recommend it, except that it is effective--an argument that can also be
made for the "lethal chamber. " The objections against it are
overwhelming. It has hardly been advocated, even by extremists, save for
those whose sexual instincts are extremely disordered; but such advocacy
is based on ignorance of the results. As a fact, castration frequently
does not diminish the sexual impulses. Its use should be limited to
cases where desirable for therapeutic reasons as well.
It is possible, however, to render either a man or woman sterile by a
much less serious operation than castration. This operation, which has
gained wide attention in recent years under the name of "sterilization,"
usually takes the form of vasectomy in man and salpingectomy in woman;
it is desirable that the reader should have a clear understanding of its
nature.
Vasectomy is a trivial operation performed in a few minutes, almost
painlessly with the use of cocain as a local anaesthetic; it is sometimes
performed with no anaesthetic whatever. The patient's sexual life is not
affected in any way, save in the one respect that he is sterile.
Salpingectomy is more serious, because the operation can not be
performed so near the surface of the body. The sexual life of the
subject is in no way changed, save that she is rendered barren; but the
operation is attended by illness and expense.
The general advantage claimed for sterilization, as a method of
preventing the reproduction of persons whose offspring would probably be
a detriment to race progress, is the accomplishment of the end in view
without much expense to the state, and without interfering with the
"liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the individual. The general
objection to it is that by removing all fear of consequences from an
individual, it is likely to lead to the spread of sexual immorality and
venereal disease. This objection is entitled to some consideration; but
there exists a still more fundamental objection against sterilization as
a program--namely, that it is sometimes not fair to the individual. Its
eugenic effects may be all that are desired; but in some cases its
euthenic effects must frequently be deplorable. Most of the persons whom
it is proposed to sterilize are utterly unfit to hold their own in the
world, in competition with normal people. For society to sterilize the
feeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the born criminals, the
epileptic, and then turn them out to shift for themselves, saying, "We
have no further concern with you, now that we know you will leave no
children behind you," is unwise. People of this sort should be humanely
isolated, so that they will be brought into competition only with their
own kind; and they should be kept so segregated, not only until they
have passed the reproductive age, but until death brings them relief
from their misfortunes. Such a course is, in most cases, the only one
worthy of a Christian nation; and it is obvious that if such a course is
followed, the sexes can be effectively separated without difficulty, and
any sterilization operation will be unnecessary.
Generally speaking, the only objection urged against segregation is
that of expense. In reply, it may be said that the expense will decrease
steadily, when segregation is viewed as a long-time investment, because
the number of future wards of the state of any particular type will be
decreasing every year. Moreover, a large part of the expense can be met
by properly organizing the labor of the inmates. This is particularly
true of the feeble-minded, who will make up the largest part of the
burden because of their numbers and the fact that most of them are not
now under state care. As for the insane, epileptic, incorrigibly
criminal, and the other defectives and delinquents embraced in the
program, the state is already taking care of a large proportion of them,
and the additional expense of making this care life-long, and extending
it to those not yet under state control, but equally deserving of it,
could probably be met by better organization of the labor of the persons
involved, most of whom are able to do some sort of work that will at
least cover the cost of their maintenance.
That the problem is less serious than has often been supposed, may be
illustrated by the following statement from H. Hastings Hart of the
Russell Sage Foundation:
"Of the 10,000 (estimated) mentally defective women of child-bearing age
in the state of New York, only about 1,750 are cared for in institutions
designated for the care of the feeble-minded, and about 4,000 are
confined in insane asylums, reformatories and prisons, while at least
4,000 (probably many more) are at large in the community.
"With reference to the 4,000 feeble-minded who are confined in hospitals
for insane, prisons and reformatories and almshouses, the state would
actually be the financial gainer by providing for them in custodial
institutions. At the Rome Custodial Asylum 1,230 inmates are humanely
cared for at $2. 39 per week. The same class of inmates is being cared
for in the boys' reformatories at $4. 66; in the hospitals for insane at
$3. 90; in the girls' reformatory at $5. 47, and in the almshouse at about
$1. 25. If all of these persons were transferred to an institution
conducted on the scale of the Rome Custodial Asylum, they would not only
relieve these other institutions of inmates who do not belong there and
who are a great cause of care and anxiety, but they would make room for
new patients of the proper class, obviating the necessity for
enlargement. The money thus saved would build ample institutions for the
care of these people at a much less per capita cost than that of the
prisons, reformatories and asylums where they are now kept, and the
annual per capita cost of maintenance would be reduced from 20 to 50 per
cent. , except in almshouses, where the cost would be increased about $1
per week, but the almshouse inmates compose only a small fraction of the
whole number.
"I desire to emphasize the fact that one-half of the feeble-minded of
this state are already under public care, but that two-thirds of them
are cared for in the wrong kind of institutions. This difficulty can be
remedied without increasing the public burden, in the manner already
suggested. That leaves 15,000 feeble-minded for whom no provision has
yet been made. It must be remembered that these 15,000 persons are being
cared for in some way. We do not allow them to starve to death, but they
are fed, clothed and housed, usually by the self-denying labor of their
relatives. Thousands of poor mothers are giving up their lives largely
to the care of a feeble-minded child, but these mothers are unable to so
protect them from becoming a menace to the community, and, in the long
run, it would be far more economical for the community to segregate them
in institutions than to allow them to remain in their homes, only to
become ultimately paupers, criminals, prostitutes or parents of children
like themselves. "
Some sort of provision is now made for some of the feeble-minded in
every state excepting eleven, viz. : Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah and
West Virginia. Delaware sends a few cases to Pennsylvania institutions;
other states sometimes care for especially difficult cases in hospitals
for the insane. The District of Columbia should be added to the list, as
having no institution for the care of its 800 or more feeble-minded.
Alaska is likewise without such an institution.
Of the several hundred thousand feeble-minded persons in the United
States, probably not more than a tenth are getting the institutional
care which is needed in most cases for their own happiness, and in
nearly every case for the protection of society. It is evident that a
great deal of new machinery must be created, or old institutions
extended, to meet this pressing problem--[86] a problem to which,
fortunately, the public is showing signs of awakening. In our opinion,
the most promising attempt to solve the problem has been made by the
Training School of Vineland, New Jersey, through its "Colony Plan. "
Superintendent E. R. Johnstone of the Training School describes the
possibilities of action along this line, as follows:[87]
There are idiots, imbeciles, morons and backward children. The
morons and the backward children are found in the public schools in
large numbers. Goddard's studies showed twelve per cent. of an
entire school district below the high school to be two or three
years behind their grades, and three per cent. four or more years
behind.
It is difficult for the expert to draw the line between these two
classes, and parents and teachers are loth to admit that the morons
are defective. This problem can best be solved by the establishment
of special classes in the public schools for all who lag more than
one year behind. If for no other reason, the normal children should
be relieved of the drag of these backward pupils. The special
classes will become the clearing houses. The training should be
largely manual and industrial and as practical as possible. As the
number of classes in any school district increases, the
classification will sift out those who are merely backward and a
little coaching and special attention will return them to the
grades. The others--the morons--will remain and as long as they are
not dangerous to society (sexually or otherwise) they may live at
home and attend the special classes. As they grow older they will
be transferred to proper custodial institutions. In the city
districts, where there are many classes, this will occur between
twelve and sixteen years of age. In the country districts it will
occur earlier.
These institutions will be the training schools and will form the center
for the training and care of the other two groups, i. e. , the imbeciles
and idiots. Branching out from the training schools should be colonies
(unless the parent institution is on a very large tract of ground, which
is most advisable). These colonies, or groups of comparatively small
buildings, should be of two classes. For the imbeciles, simple buildings
costing from two to four hundred dollars per inmate. The units might
well be one hundred. A unit providing four dormitories, bath house,
dining-halls, employees' buildings, pump house, water tank, sewage
disposal, laundry, stables and farm buildings can be built within the
above figures providing the buildings are of simple construction and one
story. This has been done at Vineland by having the larger imbecile and
moron boys make the cement blocks of which the buildings are
constructed.
For the idiots the construction can be much the same. Larger porches
facing the south and more toilet fixtures will be necessary, and so add
a little to the cost.
The colony should be located on rough uncleared land--preferable
forestry land. Here these unskilled fellows find happy and useful
occupation, waste humanity taking waste land and thus not only
contributing toward their own support, but also making over land that
would otherwise be useless.
One reason for building inexpensive buildings is that having cleared a
large tract--say 1,000 acres--the workers can be moved to another waste
tract and by brushing, clearing of rocks, draining and what not,
increase its value sufficiently to keep on moving indefinitely.
Many of these boy-men make excellent farmers, dairymen, swineherds and
poultry raisers under proper direction, and in the winter they can work
in the tailor, paint, carpenter, mattress and mat shops.
Nor need this be confined to the males alone. The girl-women raise
poultry, small fruits and vegetables very successfully. They pickle and
can the products of the land, and in winter do knitting, netting and
sewing of all kinds.
No manufacturer of to-day has let the product of his plant go to waste
as society has wasted the energies of this by-product of humanity. And
the feeble-minded are happy when they have occupation suited to their
needs. If one will but see them when they are set at occupations within
their comprehension and ability, he will quickly understand the joy they
get out of congenial work.
Colonies such as Mr. Johnstone describes will take care of the
able-bodied feeble-minded; other institutions will provide for the very
young and the aged; finally, there will always be many of these
defectives who can best be "segregated" in their own homes; whose
relatives have means and inclination to care for them, and sufficient
feeling of responsibility to see that the interests of society are
protected. If there is any doubt on this last point, the state should
itself assume charge, or should sterilize the defective individuals; but
it is not likely that sterilization will need to be used to any large
extent in the solution of this problem. In general it may be said that
feeble-mindedness is the greatest single dysgenic problem facing the
country, that it can be effectively solved by segregation, and that it
presents no great difficulty save the initial one of arousing the public
to its importance.
Similarly the hereditarily insane and epileptic can best be cared for
through life-long segregation--a course which society is likely to adopt
readily, because of a general dread of having insane and epileptic
persons at liberty in the community. There are undoubtedly cases where
the relatives of the affected individual can and should assume
responsibility for his care. No insane or epileptic person whose
condition is probably of a hereditary character should be allowed to
leave an institution unless it is absolutely certain that he or she will
not become a parent: if sterilization is the only means to assure this,
then it should be used. In many cases it has been found that the
individual and his relatives welcome such a step.
The habitual criminals, the chronic alcoholics, and the other defectives
whom we have mentioned as being undesirable parents, will in most cases
need to be given institutional care throughout life, in their own
interest as well as that of society. This is already being done with
many of them, and the extension of the treatment involves no new
principle nor special difficulty.
It should be borne in mind that, from a eugenic point of view, the
essential element in segregation is not so much isolation from society,
but separation of the two sexes. Properly operated, segregation
increases the happiness of the individuals segregated, as well as
working to the advantage of the body politic. In most cases the only
objection to it is the expense, and this, as we have shown, need not be
an insuperable difficulty. For these reasons, we believe that
segregation is the best way in which to restrict the reproduction of
those whose offspring could hardly fail to be undesirable, and that
sterilization should be looked upon only as an adjunct, to be used in
special cases where it may seem advantageous to allow an individual full
liberty, or partial liberty, and yet where he or she can not be trusted
to avoid reproduction.
Having reached this point in the discussion of restrictive eugenics, it
may be profitable to consider the so-called "eugenic laws" which have
been before the public in many states during recent years. They are one
of the first manifestations of an awakening public conscience on the
subject of eugenics; they show that the public, or part of it, feels the
necessity of action; they equally show that the principles which should
guide restrictive eugenics are not properly understood by most of those
who have interested themselves in the legislative side of the program.
Twelve states now have laws on their statute books (but usually not in
force) providing for the sterilization of certain classes of
individuals. Similar laws have been passed in a number of other states,
but were vetoed by the governors; while in many others bills have been
introduced but not passed. We shall review only the bills which are
actually on the statute books in 1916, and shall not attempt to detail
all the provisions of them, but shall consider only the means by which
they propose to attain a eugenic end.
The state of Indiana allows the sterilization of all inmates of state
institutions, deemed by a commission of three surgeons to be
unimprovable physically or mentally, and unfit for procreation. The
object is purely eugenic. After a few hundred operations had been
performed in Jeffersonville reformatory, the law aroused the hostility
of Governor Thomas R. Marshall, who succeeded in preventing its
enforcement; since 1913 we believe it has not been in effect. It is
defectively drawn in some ways, particularly because it includes those
who will be kept in custody for life, and who are therefore not proper
objects of sterilization.
The Washington law applies to habitual criminals and sex offenders; it
is a punitive measure which may be ordered by the court passing sentence
on the offender, but has never been put in force. Sterilization is not a
suitable method of punishment, and its value as a eugenic instrument is
jeopardized by the interjection of the punitive motive.
California applied her law to all inmates (not voluntary) of state
hospitals for the insane and the state home for the feeble-minded, and
all recidivists in the state prisons. The motive is partly eugenic,
partly therapeutic, partly punitive. It is reported[88] that 635
operations have been performed under this law, which is administered by
the state commission for the insane, the resident physician of any state
prison, and the medical superintendent of any state institution for
"fools and idiots. " For several years California had the distinction of
being the only state where sterilization was actually being performed in
accordance with the law. The California measure applies to those serving
life sentences--an unnecessary application. Although falling short of an
ideal measure in some other particulars, it seems on the whole to be
satisfactorily administered.
Connecticut's law provides that all inmates of state prisons and of the
state hospitals at Middletown and Norwich may be sterilized if such
action is recommended by a board of three surgeons, on eugenic or
therapeutic grounds. It has been applied to a few insane persons (21, up
to September, 1916).
Nevada has a purely punitive sterilization law applying to habitual
criminals and sex offenders. The courts, which are authorized to apply
it, have never done so.
[Illustration: FEEBLE-MINDED MEN ARE CAPABLE OF MUCH ROUGH LABOR
FIG. 30. --Most of the cost of segregating the mentally
defective can be met by properly organizing their labor, so as to make
them as nearly self-supporting as possible. It has been found that they
perform excellently such work as clearing forest land, or reforesting
cleared land, and great gangs of them might profitably be put at such
work, in most states. Photograph from the Training School, Vineland, N.
J. ]
[Illustration: FEEBLE-MINDED AT A VINELAND COLONY
FIG. 31. --They have the bodies of adults but the minds of
children. It is not to the interest of the state that they should be
allowed to mingle with the normal population; and it is quite as little
to their own interest, for they are not capable of competing
successfully with people who are normal mentally. ]
Iowa's comprehensive statute applies to inmates of public institutions
for criminals, rapists, idiots, feeble-minded, imbeciles, lunatics,
drug fiends, epileptics, syphilitics, moral and sexual perverts and
diseased and degenerate persons. It is compulsory in case of persons
twice convicted of felony or of a sexual offense other than "white
slavery," in which offense one conviction makes sterilization mandatory.
The state parole board, with the managing officer and physician of each
institution, constitute the executive authorities. The act has many
objectionable features, one of the most striking of which is the
inclusion of syphilitics under the head of persons whom it is proposed
to sterilize. As syphilis is a curable disease, there is scarcely more
reason for sterilizing those afflicted with it than there is for
sterilizing persons with measles.
accept that philosophy, made prominent by Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart
Mill, Herbert Spencer, and a host of other great thinkers, eugenics
rightly understood must seem a prime necessity of society.
But can any philosophy dispense with eugenics? Take those to whom the
popular philosophy of happiness seems a dangerous goal and to whom the
only object of evolution that one is at present justified in
recognizing is that of the perpetuation of the species and of the
progressive conquest of nature, the acquiring of an ascendancy over all
the earth. This is now as much a matter of self-preservation as it is of
progress: although man no longer fights for life with the cave bear and
saber-toothed tiger, the microbes which war with him are far more
dangerous enemies than the big mammals of the past. The continuation of
evolution, if it means conquest, is not a work for dilettantes and Lotos
Eaters; it is a task that demands unremitting hard work.
To this newer philosophy of creative work eugenics is none the less
essential. For eugenics wants in the world more physically sound men and
women _with greater ability in any valuable way_. Whatever the actual
goal of evolution may be, it can hardly be assumed by any except the
professional pessimist, that a race made up of such men and women is
going to be handicapped by their presence.
The correlation of abilities is as well attested as any fact in
psychology. Those who decry eugenics on the ground that it is impossible
to establish any "standard of perfection," since society needs many
diverse kinds of people, are overlooking this fact. Any plan which
increases the production of children in able families of _various_ types
will thereby produce more ability of all kinds, since if a family is
particularly gifted in one way, it is likely to be gifted above the
average in several other desirable ways.
Eugenics sets up no specific superman, as a type to which the rest of
the race must be made to conform. It is not looking forward to the
cessation of its work in a eugenic millenium. It is a perpetual process,
which seeks only to raise the level of the race by the production of
fewer people with physical and mental defects, and more people with
physical and mental excellencies. Such a race should be able to
perpetuate itself, to subdue nature, to improve its environment
progressively; its members should be happy and productive. To establish
such a goal seems justified by the knowledge of evolution which is now
available; and to make progress toward it is possible.
CHAPTER VIII
DESIRABILITY OF RESTRICTIVE EUGENICS
In a rural part of Pennsylvania lives the L. family. Three generations
studied "all show the same drifting, irresponsible tendency. No one can
say they are positively bad or serious disturbers of the communities
where they may have a temporary home. Certain members are epileptic and
defective to the point of imbecility. The father of this family drank
and provided little for their support. The mother, though hard working,
was never able to care for them properly. So they and their 12 children
were frequent recipients of public relief, a habit which they have
consistently kept up. Ten of the children grew to maturity, and all but
one married and had in their turn large families. With two exceptions
these have lived in the territory studied. Nobody knows how they have
subsisted, even with the generous help they have received. They drift in
and out of the various settlements, taking care to keep their residence
in the county which has provided most liberally for their support. In
some villages it is said that they have been in and out half a dozen
times in the last few years. First one family comes slipping back, then
one by one the others trail in as long as there are cheap shelters to be
had. Then rents fall due, neighbors become suspicious of invaded
henroosts and potato patches, and one after another the families take
their departure, only to reappear after a year or two.
"The seven children of the eldest son were scattered years ago through
the death of their father. They were taken by strangers, and though kept
in school, none of them proved capable of advancement. Three at least
could not learn to read or handle the smallest quantities. The rest do
this with difficulty. All but two are now married and founding the
fourth generation of this line. The family of the fourth son are now
county charges. Of the 14 children of school age in this and the
remaining families, all are greatly retarded. One is an epileptic and at
16 can not read or write. One at 15 is in the third reader and should be
set down as defective. The remainder are from one to four years
retarded.
"There is nothing striking in the annals of this family. It comes as
near the lowest margin of human existence as possible and illustrates
how marked defect may sometimes exist without serious results in the
infringement of law and custom. Its serious menace, however, lies in the
certain marriage into stocks which are no better, and the production of
large families which continue to exist on the same level of
semi-dependency. In place of the two dependents of a generation ago we
now find in the third generation 32 descendants who bid fair to continue
their existence on the same plane--certainly an enormous multiplication
of the initial burden of expense. "[75]
From cases of this sort, which represent the least striking kind of bad
breeding, the student may pass through many types up to the great tribes
of Jukes, Nams, Kallikaks, Zeros, Dacks, Ishmaels, Sixties, Hickories,
Hill Folk, Piney Folk, and the rest, with which the readers of the
literature of restrictive eugenics are familiar. It is abundantly
demonstrated that much, if not most, of their trouble is the outcome of
bad heredity. Indeed, when a branch of one of these clans is
transported, or emigrates, to a wholly new environment, it soon creates
for itself, in many cases, an environment similar to that from which it
came. Whether it goes to the city, or to the agricultural districts of
the west, it may soon manage to reestablish the debasing atmosphere to
which it has always been accustomed. [76] Those who see in improvement
of the environment the cure for all such plague spots as these tribes
inhabit, overlook the fact that man largely creates his own environment.
The story of the tenement-dwellers who were supplied with bath tubs but
refused to use them for any other purpose than to store coal,
exemplifies a wide range of facts.
[Illustration: FIG. 26. --To this shanty an elderly man of the
"Hickory" family, a great clan of defectives in rural Ohio, brought his
girl-bride, together with his two grown sons by a former marriage. The
shanty was conveniently located at a distance of 100 feet from the city
dump where the family, all of which is feeble-minded, secured its food.
Such a family is incapable of protecting either itself or its neighbors,
and should be cared for by the state. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions. ]
[Illustration: A CHIEFTAIN OF THE HICKORY CLAN
FIG. 27. --This is "Young Hank," otherwise known as "Sore-Eyed
Hank. " He is the eldest son and heir of that Hank Hickory who, with his
wife and seven children, applied for admission to their County Infirmary
when it was first opened. For generation after generation, his family
has been the chief patron of all the charities of its county. "Young
Hank" married his cousin and duplicated his father's record by begetting
seven children, three of whom (all feeble-minded) are now living. The
number of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren is increasing every
year, but the total can not be learned from him, for he is mentally
incapable of counting even the number of his own children. He is about
70 years of age, and has never done any work except to make baskets. He
has lived a wandering life, largely dependent on charity. For the last
25 years he has been partly blind, due to trachoma. He gets a blind
pension of $5 a month, which is adequate to keep him supplied with
chewing tobacco, his regular mastication being 10 cents a day. Such
specimens can be found in many rural communities; if they were
segregated in youth both they and the community would be much better
off. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions. ]
Although conditions may be worst in the older and more densely populated
states, it is probable that there is no state in the union which has not
many families, or group of families, of this dependent type, which in
favorable cases may attract little notice, but therefore do all the more
harm eugenically; in other cases may be notorious as centers of
criminality. Half a dozen well-defined areas of this kind have been
found in Pennsylvania, which is probably not exceptional in this
respect. "These differ, of course, in extent and character and the
gravity of the problems they present. In some there is great sexual
laxity, which leads to various forms of dependency and sometimes to
extreme mental defect. In others alcoholism prevails and the people show
a propensity for deeds of violence. All informants, however, practically
agreed to the following characterization:
"1. Because of the thefts and depredations and the frequent applications
for charitable relief from such sections they constitute a parasitic
growth which saps the resources of the self-respecting, self-sustaining
contingent of the population.
"2. They furnish an undue proportion of court cases, and are thus a
serious expense to county and state.
"3. They are a source of physical decay and moral contamination, and
thus menace the integrity of the entire social fabric. "[77]
Society has long since admitted that it is desirable to restrict the
reproduction of certain classes of gross defectives, and criminals, by
the method of segregation. The ground for this is sometimes biological,
perhaps more often legal, as in the case of the insane and criminal,
where it is held that the individual is legally incapacitated from
entering into a contract, such as that of marriage. It would be better
to have the biological basis of restriction on marriage and reproduction
recognized in every case; but even with the present point of view the
desired end may be reached.
From an ethical standpoint, so few people would now contend that two
feeble-minded or epileptic persons have any "right" to marry and
perpetuate their kind, that it is hardly worth while to argue the point.
We believe that the same logic would permit two individuals to marry,
but deny them the privilege of having children. The reasons for this may
be considered under three heads.
1. Biological. Are there cases in which persons may properly marry but
may properly be prevented by society from having any offspring, on the
ground that such offspring would be undesirable components of the race?
The right of marriage is commonly, and may well be properly, regarded as
an inalienable right of the individual, in so far as it does not
conflict with the interests of the race. The companionship of two
persons between whom true love exists, is beyond all question the
highest happiness possible, and one which society should desire and
strive to give its every member. On that point there will be no
difference of opinion, but when it is asked whether there can be a
separation between the comradeship aspect and the reproduction aspect,
in marriage, whether any interest of the race can justifiably divorce
these two phases, often considered inseparable, protests are at once
aroused. In these protests, there is some justice. We would be the last
ones to deny that a marriage has failed to achieve its goal, has failed
to realize for its participants the greatest possible happiness, unless
it has resulted in sound offspring.
That word "sound" is the key to the distinction which must be made. The
interests of the race demand sound offspring from every couple in a
position to furnish them--not only in the interests of that
couple,--interests the importance of which it is not easy to
underestimate--but in the interests of the future of the race, whose
welfare far transcends in importance the welfare of any one individual,
or any pair of individuals. As surely as the race needs a constant
supply of children of sound character, so surely is it harmed by a
supply of children of inherently unsound character, physically or
mentally, who may contribute others like themselves to the next
generation. A recollection of the facts of heredity, and of the fact
that the offspring of any individual tend to increase in geometric
ratio, will supply adequate grounds for holding this conviction:--that
from a biological point of view, every child of congenitally inferior
character is a racial misfortune. The Spartans and other peoples of
antiquity fully realized this fact, and acted on it by exposing deformed
infants. Christianity properly revolted as such an action; but in
repudiating the action, it lost sight of the principle back of the
action. The principle should have been regarded, and civilized races are
now coming back to a realization of that fact--are, indeed, realizing
its weight far more fully than any other people has ever done, because
of the growing realization of the importance of heredity. No one is
likely seriously to argue again that deformed infants (whether their
deformity be physical or mental) should be exposed to perish; but the
argument that in the interests of the future of the race _they would
better not be born_, is one that admits of no refutation.
From a biological point of view, then, it is to the interest of the race
that the number of children who will be either defective themselves, or
transmit anti-social defects to their offspring, should be as small as
possible.
2. The humanitarian aspect of the case is no less strong and is likely,
in the present state of public education, to move a larger number of
individuals. A visit to the children's ward of any hospital, an
acquaintance with the sensitive mother of a feeble-minded or deformed
child, will go far to convince anyone that the sum total of human
happiness, and the happiness of the parents, would be greater had these
children never been born. As for the children themselves, they will in
many cases grow up to regret that they were ever brought into the world.
We do not overlook the occasional genius who may be crippled physically
or even mentally; we are here dealing with only the extreme defectives,
such as the feeble-minded, insane, and epileptic. Among such persons,
human happiness would be promoted both now and in the future if the
number of offspring were naught.
3. There is another argument which may legitimately be brought forward,
and which may appeal to some who are relatively insensitive to the
biological or even the humanitarian aspects of the case. This is the
financial argument.
Except students of eugenics, few persons realize how staggering is the
bill annually paid for the care of defectives. The amount which the
state of New York expends yearly on the maintenance of its insane wards,
is greater than it spends for any other purpose except education; and in
a very few years, if its insane population continues to increase at the
present rate, it will spend more on them than it does on the education
of its normal children. The cost of institutional care for the socially
inadequate is far from being all that these people cost the state; but
those figures at least are not based on guesswork. The annual cost[78]
of maintaining a feeble-minded ward of the state, in various
commonwealths, is:
Illinois $136. 50
Indiana 147. 49
Minnesota 148. 05
Ohio 155. 47
Wisconsin 159. 77
Kansas 170. 16
Michigan 179. 42
Kentucky 184. 77
California 208. 97
Maine 222. 99
At such prices, each state maintains hundreds, sometimes thousands, of
feeble-minded, and the number is growing each year. In the near future
the expenditures must grow much more rapidly, for public sentiment is
beginning to demand that the defectives and delinquents of the
community be properly cared for. The financial burden is becoming a
heavy one; it will become a crushing one unless steps are taken to make
the feeble-minded productive (as described in the next chapter) and an
intangible "sinking fund" at the same time created to reduce the burden
gradually by preventing the production of those who make it up. The
burden can never be wholly obliterated, but it can be largely reduced by
a restriction of the reproduction of those who are themselves socially
inadequate.
[Illustration: TWO JUKE HOMES OF THE PRESENT DAY
FIG. 28. --The Jukes have mostly been country-dwellers, a fact
which has tended to increase the amount of consanguineous marriage among
them. Removal into a new environment usually does not mean any
substantial change for them, because they succeed immediately in
re-creating the same squalid sort of an environment from which they
came. In the house below, one part was occupied by the family and the
other part by pigs. Photographs from A. H. Estabrook. ]
Alike then on biological, humanitarian and financial grounds, the nation
would be the better for a diminution in the production of physically,
mentally or morally defective children. And the way to secure this
diminution is to prevent reproduction by parents whose offspring would
almost certainly be undesirable in character.
Granted that such prevention is a proper function of society, the
question again arises whether it is an ethically correct procedure to
allow these potentially undesirable parents to marry at all. Should they
be doomed to perpetual celibacy, or should they be permitted to mate, on
condition that the union be childless.
The eugenic interests of society, of course, are equally safeguarded by
either alternative. All the other interests of society appear to us to
be better safeguarded by marriage than by celibacy. Adding the interests
of the individual, which will doubtless be for marriage, it seems to us
that there is good reason for holding such a childless marriage
ethically correct, in the relatively small number of cases where it
might seem desirable.
Though such unions may be ethically justifiable, yet they would often be
impracticable; the limits will be discussed in the next chapter.
It is constantly alleged that the state can not interfere with an
individual matter of this sort: "It is an intolerable invasion of
personal liberty; it is reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard;
it is impossible to put artificial restraints on the relations between
the sexes, founded as they are on such strong and primal feelings. "
The doctrine of personal liberty, in this extreme form, was enunciated
and is maintained by people who are ignorant of biology and
evolution;[79] people who are ignorant of the world as it is, and deal
only with the world as they think it ought to be. Nature reveals no such
extreme "law of personal liberty," and the race that tries to carry such
a supposed law to its logical conclusion will soon find, in the supreme
test of competition with other races, that the interests of the
individual are much less important to nature than the interests of the
race. Perpetuation of the race is the first end to be sought. So far as
according a wide measure of personal liberty to its members will compass
that end, the personal liberty doctrine is a good one; but if it is held
as a metaphysical dogma, to deny that the race may take any action
necessary in its own interest, at the expense of the individual, this
dogma becomes suicidal.
As for "reducing humanity to the level of the barn-yard," this is merely
a catch-phrase intended to arouse prejudice and to obscure the facts.
The reader may judge for himself whether the eugenic program will
degrade mankind to the level of the brutes, or whether it will ennoble
it, beautify it, and increase its happiness.
The delusion which so many people hold, that it is impossible to put
artificial restraint on the relations between the sexes, is amazing.
Restraint is already a _fait accompli_. Every civilized nation already
puts restrictions on numerous classes of people, as has been
noted--minors, criminals, and the insane, for example. Even though this
restriction is usually based on legal, rather than biological grounds,
it is nevertheless a restriction, and sets a precedent for further
restrictions, if any precedent were needed.
[Illustration: "MONGOLIAN" DEFICIENCY
FIG. 29. --A common type of feeble-mindedness is accompanied by
a face called Mongoloid, because of a certain resemblance to that of
some of the Mongolian races as will be noted above. The mother at the
left and the father were normal. This type seems not to be inherited,
but due to some other influence,--Goddard suggests uterine exhaustion
from too many frequent pregnancies. ]
It is, we conclude, both desirable and possible to enforce certain
restrictions on marriage and parenthood. What these restrictions may be,
and to whom they should be applied, is next to be considered.
CHAPTER IX
THE DYSGENIC CLASSES
Before examining the methods by which society can put into effect some
measure of negative or restrictive eugenics, it may be well to decide
what classes of the population can properly fall within the scope of
such treatment. Strictly speaking, the problem is of course one of
individuals rather than classes, but for the sake of convenience it will
be treated as one of classes, it being understood that no individual
should be put under restriction with eugenic intent merely because he
may be supposed to belong to a given class; but that each case must be
investigated on its own merits,--and investigated with much more care
than has hitherto usually been thought necessary by many of those who
have advocated restrictive eugenic measures.
The first class demanding attention is that of those feeble-minded whose
condition is due to heredity. There is reason to believe that at least
two-thirds of the feeble-minded in the United States owe their condition
directly to heredity,[80] and will transmit it to a large per cent of
their descendants, if they have any. Feeble-minded persons from sound
stock, whose arrested development is due to scarlet fever or some
similar disease of childhood, or to accident, are of course not of
direct concern to eugenists.
The number of patent feeble-minded in the United States is probably not
less than 300,000, while the number of latent individuals--those
carrying the taint in their germ-plasm and capable of transmitting it to
their descendants, although the individuals themselves may show good
mental development--is necessarily much greater. The defect is highly
hereditary in nature: when two innately feeble-minded persons marry,
all their offspring, almost without exception, are feeble-minded. The
feeble-minded are never of much value to society--they never present
such instances as are found among the insane, of persons with some
mental lack of balance, who are yet geniuses. If restrictive eugenics
dealt with no other class than the hereditarily feeble-minded, and dealt
with that class effectively, it would richly justify its existence.
But there are other classes on which it can act with safety as well as
profit, and one of these is made up by the germinally insane. According
to the census of 1910, there are 187,791 insane in institutions in the
United States; there are also a certain number outside of institutions,
as to whom information can not easily be obtained. The number in the
hospitals represented a ratio of 204. 3 per 100,000 of the general
population. In 1880, when the enumeration of insane was particularly
complete, a total of 91,959 was reported--a ratio of 188. 3 per 100,000
of the total population at that time. This apparent increase of insanity
has been subjected to much analysis, and it is admitted that part of it
can be explained away. People are living longer now than formerly, and
as insanity is primarily a disease of old age, the number of insane is
thus increased. Better means of diagnosis are undoubtedly responsible
for some of the apparent increase. But when every conceivable allowance
is made, there yet remains ground for belief that the proportion of
insane persons in the population is increasing each year. This is partly
due to immigration, as is indicated by the immense and constantly
increasing insane population of the state of New York, where most
immigrants land. In some cases, people who actually show some form of
insanity may slip past the examiners; in the bulk of cases, probably, an
individual is adapted to leading a normal life in his native
environment, but transfer to the more strenuous environment of an
American city proves to be too much for his nervous organization. The
general flow of population from the country to large cities has a
similar effect in increasing the number of insane.
But when all is said, the fact remains that there are several hundred
thousand insane persons in the United States, many of whom are not
prevented from reproducing their kind, and that by this failure to
restrain them society is putting a heavy burden of expense, unhappiness
and a fearful dysgenic drag on coming generations.
The word "insanity," as is frequently objected, means little or nothing
from a biological point of view--it is a sort of catch-all to describe
many different kinds of nervous disturbance. No one can properly be made
the subject of restrictive measures for eugenic reasons, merely because
he is said to be "insane. " It would be wholly immoral so to treat, for
example, a man or woman who was suffering from the form of insanity
which sometimes follows typhoid fever. But there are certain forms of
mental disease, generally lumped under the term "insanity," which
indicate a hereditarily disordered nervous organization, and individuals
suffering from one of these diseases should certainly not be given any
chance to perpetuate their insanity to posterity. Two types of insanity
are now recognized as especially transmissible:--dementia precox, a sort
of precocious old age, in which the patient (generally young) sinks into
a lethargy from which he rarely recovers; and manic-depressive insanity,
an over-excitable condition, in which there are occasional very erratic
motor discharges, alternating with periods of depression. Constitutional
psychopathic inferiority, which means a lack of emotional adaptability,
usually shows in the family history. The common type of insanity which
is characterized by mild hallucinations is of less concern from a
eugenic point of view.
In general, the insane are more adequately restricted than any other
dysgenic class in the community; not because the community recognizes
the disadvantage of letting them reproduce their kind, but because there
is a general fear of them, which leads to their strict segregation; and
because an insane person is not considered legally competent to enter
into a marriage contract. In general, the present isolation of the sexes
at institutions for the insane is satisfactory; the principal problem
which insanity presents lies in the fact that an individual is
frequently committed to a hospital or asylum, kept there a few years
until apparently cured, and then discharged; whereupon he returns to his
family to beget offspring that are fairly likely to become insane at
some period in their lives. Every case of insanity should be accompanied
by an investigation of the patient's ancestry, and if there is
unmistakable evidence of serious neuropathic taint, such steps as are
necessary should be taken to prevent that individual from becoming a
parent at any time.
The hereditary nature of most types of epilepsy is generally held to be
established,[81] and restrictive measures should be used to prevent the
increase of the number of epileptics in the country.
It has been
calculated that the number of epileptics in the state of New Jersey,
where the most careful investigation of the problem has been made, will
double every 30 years under present conditions.
In dealing with both insanity and epilepsy, the eugenist faces the
difficulty that occasionally people of the very kind whose production he
most wishes to see encouraged--real geniuses--may carry the taint. The
exaggerated claims of the Italian anthropologist C. Lombroso and his
school, in regard to the close relation between genius and insanity,
have been largely disproved; yet there remains little doubt that the two
sometimes do go together; and such supposed epileptics as Mohammed,
Julius Caesar, and Napoleon will at once be called to mind. To apply
sweeping restrictive measures would prevent the production of a certain
amount of talent of a very high order. The situation can only be met by
dealing with every case on its individual merits, and recognizing that
it is to the interests of society to allow some very superior
individuals to reproduce, even though part of their posterity may be
mentally or physically somewhat unsound.
A field survey in two typical counties of Indiana (1916) showed that
there were 1. 8 recognizable epileptics per thousand population. If
these figures should approximately hold good for the entire United
States, the number of epileptics can hardly be put at less than 150,000.
Some of them are not anti-social, but many of them are.
Feeble-mindedness and insanity were also included in the census
mentioned, and the total number of the three kinds of defectives was
found to be 19 per thousand in one county and 11. 4 per thousand in the
other. This would suggest a total for the entire United States of
something like one million.
In addition to these well-recognized classes of hopelessly defective,
there is a class of defectives embracing very diverse characteristics,
which demands careful consideration. In it are those who are germinally
physical weaklings or deformed, those born with a hereditary diathesis
or predisposition toward some serious disease (e. g. , Huntington's
Chorea), and those with some gross defect of the organs of special
sense. The germinally blind and deaf will particularly occur to mind in
the latter connection. Cases falling in this category demand careful
scrutiny by biological and psychological experts, before any action can
be taken in the interest of eugenics; in many cases the affected
individual himself will be glad to cooperate with society by remaining
celibate or by the practice of birth control, to the end of leaving no
offspring to bear what he has borne.
Finally, we come to the great class of delinquents who have hitherto
been made the particular object of solicitude, on the part of those who
have looked with favor upon sterilization legislation. The chronic
inebriate, the confirmed criminal, the prostitute, the pauper, all
deserve careful study by the eugenist. In many cases they will be found
to be feeble-minded, and proper restriction of the feeble-minded will
meet their cases. Thus there is reason to believe that from a third to
two-thirds of the prostitutes in American cities are feeble-minded. [82]
They should be committed to institutions for the feeble-minded and kept
there. It is certain that many of the pauper class, which fills up
almshouses, are similarly deficient. Indeed, the census of 1910
discovered that of the 84,198 paupers in institutions on the first of
January in that year, 13,238 were feeble-minded, 3,518 insane, 2,202
epileptic, 918 deaf-mute, 3,375 blind, 13,753 crippled, maimed or
deformed. A total of 63. 7% of the whole had some serious physical or
mental defect. Obviously, most of these would be taken care of under
some other heading, in the program of restrictive eugenics. While
paupers should be prohibited from reproduction as long as they are in
state custody, careful discrimination is necessary in the treatment of
those whose condition is due more to environment than heredity.
In a consideration of the chronic inebriate, the problem of
environmental influences is again met in an acute form, aggravated by
the venom of controversy engendered by bigotry and self-interest. That
many chronic inebriates owe their condition almost wholly to heredity,
and are likely to leave offspring of the same character, is
indisputable. As to the possibility of "reforming" such an individual,
there may be room for a difference of opinion; as to the possibility of
reforming his germ-plasm, there can be none. Society owes them the best
possible care, and part of its care should certainly be to see that they
do not reproduce their kind. As to the borderland cases--and in the
matter of inebriety borderland is perhaps bigger than mainland--it is
doubtful whether much direct action can be taken in the present state of
scientific knowledge and of public sentiment. Education of public
opinion to avoid marriage with drunkards will probably be the most
effective means of procedure.
Finally, there is the criminal class, over which the respective
champions of heredity and environment have so often waged partisan
warfare. There is probably no field in which restrictive eugenics would
think of interfering, where it encounters so much danger as here--danger
of wronging both the individual and society. Laws such as have been
passed in several states, providing for the sterilization of criminals
_as such,_ must be deplored by the eugenist as much as they are by the
pseudo-sociologist who "does not believe in heredity"; but this is not
saying that there are not many cases in which eugenic action is
desirable; for inheritance of a lack of emotional control makes a man
in one sense a "born criminal. "[83] He is not, in most respects, the
creature which he was made out to be by Lombroso and his followers; but
he exists, nevertheless, and no ameliorative treatment given him will be
of such value to society as preventing his reproduction.
The feeble-minded who make up a large proportion of the petty criminals
that fill the jails, must, of course, be excluded from this discussion
except to note that their conviction assists in discovering their
defect. They should be treated as feeble-minded, not as criminals. [84]
Those who may have been made criminals by society, by their environment,
must also be excepted. In an investigation, the benefit of the doubt
should be given to the individual. But when every possible concession is
made to the influence of environment, the psychiatric study of the
individual and the investigation of his family history still show that
there are criminals who congenitally lack the inhibitions and instincts
which make it possible for others to be useful members of society. [85]
When a criminal of this natural type is found, the duty of society is
unquestionably to protect itself by cutting off that line of descent.
This, we believe, covers all the classes which are at this time proper
subjects for direct restrictive action with eugenic intent; and we
repeat that the problem is not to deal with classes as a whole, but to
deal with individuals of the kind described, for the sake of
convenience, in the above categories. Artificial class names mean
nothing to evolution. It would be a crime to cut off the posterity of a
desirable member of society merely because he happened to have been
popularly stigmatized by some class name that carried opprobrium with
it. Similarly it would be immoral to encourage or permit the
reproduction of a manifestly defective member of society of the kinds
indicated, even though that individual might in some way have secured
the protection of a class name that was generally considered desirable.
Bearing this in mind, we believe no one can object to a proposal to
prevent the reproduction of those feeble-minded, insane, epileptic,
grossly defective or hopelessly delinquent people, whose condition can
be proved to be due to heredity and is therefore probably transmissible
to their offspring. We can imagine only one objection that might be
opposed to all the advantages of such a program--namely, that no proper
means can be found for putting it into effect. This objection is
occasionally urged, but we believe it to be wholly without weight. We
now propose to examine the various possible methods of restrictive
eugenics, and to inquire which of them society can most profitably
adopt.
CHAPTER X
METHODS OF RESTRICTION
The means of restriction can be divided into coercive and non-coercive.
We shall discuss the former first, interpreting the word "coercive" very
broadly.
From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself
is execution. This has been used since the beginning of the race, very
probably, although rarely with a distinct understanding of its eugenic
effect; and its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not
be underestimated. It is a method the use of which prevents the
rectification of mistakes. There are arguments against it on other
grounds, which need not be discussed here, since it suffices to say that
to put to death defectives or delinquents is wholly out of accord with
the spirit of the times, and is not seriously considered by the eugenics
movement.
The next possible method castration. This has practically nothing to
recommend it, except that it is effective--an argument that can also be
made for the "lethal chamber. " The objections against it are
overwhelming. It has hardly been advocated, even by extremists, save for
those whose sexual instincts are extremely disordered; but such advocacy
is based on ignorance of the results. As a fact, castration frequently
does not diminish the sexual impulses. Its use should be limited to
cases where desirable for therapeutic reasons as well.
It is possible, however, to render either a man or woman sterile by a
much less serious operation than castration. This operation, which has
gained wide attention in recent years under the name of "sterilization,"
usually takes the form of vasectomy in man and salpingectomy in woman;
it is desirable that the reader should have a clear understanding of its
nature.
Vasectomy is a trivial operation performed in a few minutes, almost
painlessly with the use of cocain as a local anaesthetic; it is sometimes
performed with no anaesthetic whatever. The patient's sexual life is not
affected in any way, save in the one respect that he is sterile.
Salpingectomy is more serious, because the operation can not be
performed so near the surface of the body. The sexual life of the
subject is in no way changed, save that she is rendered barren; but the
operation is attended by illness and expense.
The general advantage claimed for sterilization, as a method of
preventing the reproduction of persons whose offspring would probably be
a detriment to race progress, is the accomplishment of the end in view
without much expense to the state, and without interfering with the
"liberty and pursuit of happiness" of the individual. The general
objection to it is that by removing all fear of consequences from an
individual, it is likely to lead to the spread of sexual immorality and
venereal disease. This objection is entitled to some consideration; but
there exists a still more fundamental objection against sterilization as
a program--namely, that it is sometimes not fair to the individual. Its
eugenic effects may be all that are desired; but in some cases its
euthenic effects must frequently be deplorable. Most of the persons whom
it is proposed to sterilize are utterly unfit to hold their own in the
world, in competition with normal people. For society to sterilize the
feeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the born criminals, the
epileptic, and then turn them out to shift for themselves, saying, "We
have no further concern with you, now that we know you will leave no
children behind you," is unwise. People of this sort should be humanely
isolated, so that they will be brought into competition only with their
own kind; and they should be kept so segregated, not only until they
have passed the reproductive age, but until death brings them relief
from their misfortunes. Such a course is, in most cases, the only one
worthy of a Christian nation; and it is obvious that if such a course is
followed, the sexes can be effectively separated without difficulty, and
any sterilization operation will be unnecessary.
Generally speaking, the only objection urged against segregation is
that of expense. In reply, it may be said that the expense will decrease
steadily, when segregation is viewed as a long-time investment, because
the number of future wards of the state of any particular type will be
decreasing every year. Moreover, a large part of the expense can be met
by properly organizing the labor of the inmates. This is particularly
true of the feeble-minded, who will make up the largest part of the
burden because of their numbers and the fact that most of them are not
now under state care. As for the insane, epileptic, incorrigibly
criminal, and the other defectives and delinquents embraced in the
program, the state is already taking care of a large proportion of them,
and the additional expense of making this care life-long, and extending
it to those not yet under state control, but equally deserving of it,
could probably be met by better organization of the labor of the persons
involved, most of whom are able to do some sort of work that will at
least cover the cost of their maintenance.
That the problem is less serious than has often been supposed, may be
illustrated by the following statement from H. Hastings Hart of the
Russell Sage Foundation:
"Of the 10,000 (estimated) mentally defective women of child-bearing age
in the state of New York, only about 1,750 are cared for in institutions
designated for the care of the feeble-minded, and about 4,000 are
confined in insane asylums, reformatories and prisons, while at least
4,000 (probably many more) are at large in the community.
"With reference to the 4,000 feeble-minded who are confined in hospitals
for insane, prisons and reformatories and almshouses, the state would
actually be the financial gainer by providing for them in custodial
institutions. At the Rome Custodial Asylum 1,230 inmates are humanely
cared for at $2. 39 per week. The same class of inmates is being cared
for in the boys' reformatories at $4. 66; in the hospitals for insane at
$3. 90; in the girls' reformatory at $5. 47, and in the almshouse at about
$1. 25. If all of these persons were transferred to an institution
conducted on the scale of the Rome Custodial Asylum, they would not only
relieve these other institutions of inmates who do not belong there and
who are a great cause of care and anxiety, but they would make room for
new patients of the proper class, obviating the necessity for
enlargement. The money thus saved would build ample institutions for the
care of these people at a much less per capita cost than that of the
prisons, reformatories and asylums where they are now kept, and the
annual per capita cost of maintenance would be reduced from 20 to 50 per
cent. , except in almshouses, where the cost would be increased about $1
per week, but the almshouse inmates compose only a small fraction of the
whole number.
"I desire to emphasize the fact that one-half of the feeble-minded of
this state are already under public care, but that two-thirds of them
are cared for in the wrong kind of institutions. This difficulty can be
remedied without increasing the public burden, in the manner already
suggested. That leaves 15,000 feeble-minded for whom no provision has
yet been made. It must be remembered that these 15,000 persons are being
cared for in some way. We do not allow them to starve to death, but they
are fed, clothed and housed, usually by the self-denying labor of their
relatives. Thousands of poor mothers are giving up their lives largely
to the care of a feeble-minded child, but these mothers are unable to so
protect them from becoming a menace to the community, and, in the long
run, it would be far more economical for the community to segregate them
in institutions than to allow them to remain in their homes, only to
become ultimately paupers, criminals, prostitutes or parents of children
like themselves. "
Some sort of provision is now made for some of the feeble-minded in
every state excepting eleven, viz. : Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah and
West Virginia. Delaware sends a few cases to Pennsylvania institutions;
other states sometimes care for especially difficult cases in hospitals
for the insane. The District of Columbia should be added to the list, as
having no institution for the care of its 800 or more feeble-minded.
Alaska is likewise without such an institution.
Of the several hundred thousand feeble-minded persons in the United
States, probably not more than a tenth are getting the institutional
care which is needed in most cases for their own happiness, and in
nearly every case for the protection of society. It is evident that a
great deal of new machinery must be created, or old institutions
extended, to meet this pressing problem--[86] a problem to which,
fortunately, the public is showing signs of awakening. In our opinion,
the most promising attempt to solve the problem has been made by the
Training School of Vineland, New Jersey, through its "Colony Plan. "
Superintendent E. R. Johnstone of the Training School describes the
possibilities of action along this line, as follows:[87]
There are idiots, imbeciles, morons and backward children. The
morons and the backward children are found in the public schools in
large numbers. Goddard's studies showed twelve per cent. of an
entire school district below the high school to be two or three
years behind their grades, and three per cent. four or more years
behind.
It is difficult for the expert to draw the line between these two
classes, and parents and teachers are loth to admit that the morons
are defective. This problem can best be solved by the establishment
of special classes in the public schools for all who lag more than
one year behind. If for no other reason, the normal children should
be relieved of the drag of these backward pupils. The special
classes will become the clearing houses. The training should be
largely manual and industrial and as practical as possible. As the
number of classes in any school district increases, the
classification will sift out those who are merely backward and a
little coaching and special attention will return them to the
grades. The others--the morons--will remain and as long as they are
not dangerous to society (sexually or otherwise) they may live at
home and attend the special classes. As they grow older they will
be transferred to proper custodial institutions. In the city
districts, where there are many classes, this will occur between
twelve and sixteen years of age. In the country districts it will
occur earlier.
These institutions will be the training schools and will form the center
for the training and care of the other two groups, i. e. , the imbeciles
and idiots. Branching out from the training schools should be colonies
(unless the parent institution is on a very large tract of ground, which
is most advisable). These colonies, or groups of comparatively small
buildings, should be of two classes. For the imbeciles, simple buildings
costing from two to four hundred dollars per inmate. The units might
well be one hundred. A unit providing four dormitories, bath house,
dining-halls, employees' buildings, pump house, water tank, sewage
disposal, laundry, stables and farm buildings can be built within the
above figures providing the buildings are of simple construction and one
story. This has been done at Vineland by having the larger imbecile and
moron boys make the cement blocks of which the buildings are
constructed.
For the idiots the construction can be much the same. Larger porches
facing the south and more toilet fixtures will be necessary, and so add
a little to the cost.
The colony should be located on rough uncleared land--preferable
forestry land. Here these unskilled fellows find happy and useful
occupation, waste humanity taking waste land and thus not only
contributing toward their own support, but also making over land that
would otherwise be useless.
One reason for building inexpensive buildings is that having cleared a
large tract--say 1,000 acres--the workers can be moved to another waste
tract and by brushing, clearing of rocks, draining and what not,
increase its value sufficiently to keep on moving indefinitely.
Many of these boy-men make excellent farmers, dairymen, swineherds and
poultry raisers under proper direction, and in the winter they can work
in the tailor, paint, carpenter, mattress and mat shops.
Nor need this be confined to the males alone. The girl-women raise
poultry, small fruits and vegetables very successfully. They pickle and
can the products of the land, and in winter do knitting, netting and
sewing of all kinds.
No manufacturer of to-day has let the product of his plant go to waste
as society has wasted the energies of this by-product of humanity. And
the feeble-minded are happy when they have occupation suited to their
needs. If one will but see them when they are set at occupations within
their comprehension and ability, he will quickly understand the joy they
get out of congenial work.
Colonies such as Mr. Johnstone describes will take care of the
able-bodied feeble-minded; other institutions will provide for the very
young and the aged; finally, there will always be many of these
defectives who can best be "segregated" in their own homes; whose
relatives have means and inclination to care for them, and sufficient
feeling of responsibility to see that the interests of society are
protected. If there is any doubt on this last point, the state should
itself assume charge, or should sterilize the defective individuals; but
it is not likely that sterilization will need to be used to any large
extent in the solution of this problem. In general it may be said that
feeble-mindedness is the greatest single dysgenic problem facing the
country, that it can be effectively solved by segregation, and that it
presents no great difficulty save the initial one of arousing the public
to its importance.
Similarly the hereditarily insane and epileptic can best be cared for
through life-long segregation--a course which society is likely to adopt
readily, because of a general dread of having insane and epileptic
persons at liberty in the community. There are undoubtedly cases where
the relatives of the affected individual can and should assume
responsibility for his care. No insane or epileptic person whose
condition is probably of a hereditary character should be allowed to
leave an institution unless it is absolutely certain that he or she will
not become a parent: if sterilization is the only means to assure this,
then it should be used. In many cases it has been found that the
individual and his relatives welcome such a step.
The habitual criminals, the chronic alcoholics, and the other defectives
whom we have mentioned as being undesirable parents, will in most cases
need to be given institutional care throughout life, in their own
interest as well as that of society. This is already being done with
many of them, and the extension of the treatment involves no new
principle nor special difficulty.
It should be borne in mind that, from a eugenic point of view, the
essential element in segregation is not so much isolation from society,
but separation of the two sexes. Properly operated, segregation
increases the happiness of the individuals segregated, as well as
working to the advantage of the body politic. In most cases the only
objection to it is the expense, and this, as we have shown, need not be
an insuperable difficulty. For these reasons, we believe that
segregation is the best way in which to restrict the reproduction of
those whose offspring could hardly fail to be undesirable, and that
sterilization should be looked upon only as an adjunct, to be used in
special cases where it may seem advantageous to allow an individual full
liberty, or partial liberty, and yet where he or she can not be trusted
to avoid reproduction.
Having reached this point in the discussion of restrictive eugenics, it
may be profitable to consider the so-called "eugenic laws" which have
been before the public in many states during recent years. They are one
of the first manifestations of an awakening public conscience on the
subject of eugenics; they show that the public, or part of it, feels the
necessity of action; they equally show that the principles which should
guide restrictive eugenics are not properly understood by most of those
who have interested themselves in the legislative side of the program.
Twelve states now have laws on their statute books (but usually not in
force) providing for the sterilization of certain classes of
individuals. Similar laws have been passed in a number of other states,
but were vetoed by the governors; while in many others bills have been
introduced but not passed. We shall review only the bills which are
actually on the statute books in 1916, and shall not attempt to detail
all the provisions of them, but shall consider only the means by which
they propose to attain a eugenic end.
The state of Indiana allows the sterilization of all inmates of state
institutions, deemed by a commission of three surgeons to be
unimprovable physically or mentally, and unfit for procreation. The
object is purely eugenic. After a few hundred operations had been
performed in Jeffersonville reformatory, the law aroused the hostility
of Governor Thomas R. Marshall, who succeeded in preventing its
enforcement; since 1913 we believe it has not been in effect. It is
defectively drawn in some ways, particularly because it includes those
who will be kept in custody for life, and who are therefore not proper
objects of sterilization.
The Washington law applies to habitual criminals and sex offenders; it
is a punitive measure which may be ordered by the court passing sentence
on the offender, but has never been put in force. Sterilization is not a
suitable method of punishment, and its value as a eugenic instrument is
jeopardized by the interjection of the punitive motive.
California applied her law to all inmates (not voluntary) of state
hospitals for the insane and the state home for the feeble-minded, and
all recidivists in the state prisons. The motive is partly eugenic,
partly therapeutic, partly punitive. It is reported[88] that 635
operations have been performed under this law, which is administered by
the state commission for the insane, the resident physician of any state
prison, and the medical superintendent of any state institution for
"fools and idiots. " For several years California had the distinction of
being the only state where sterilization was actually being performed in
accordance with the law. The California measure applies to those serving
life sentences--an unnecessary application. Although falling short of an
ideal measure in some other particulars, it seems on the whole to be
satisfactorily administered.
Connecticut's law provides that all inmates of state prisons and of the
state hospitals at Middletown and Norwich may be sterilized if such
action is recommended by a board of three surgeons, on eugenic or
therapeutic grounds. It has been applied to a few insane persons (21, up
to September, 1916).
Nevada has a purely punitive sterilization law applying to habitual
criminals and sex offenders. The courts, which are authorized to apply
it, have never done so.
[Illustration: FEEBLE-MINDED MEN ARE CAPABLE OF MUCH ROUGH LABOR
FIG. 30. --Most of the cost of segregating the mentally
defective can be met by properly organizing their labor, so as to make
them as nearly self-supporting as possible. It has been found that they
perform excellently such work as clearing forest land, or reforesting
cleared land, and great gangs of them might profitably be put at such
work, in most states. Photograph from the Training School, Vineland, N.
J. ]
[Illustration: FEEBLE-MINDED AT A VINELAND COLONY
FIG. 31. --They have the bodies of adults but the minds of
children. It is not to the interest of the state that they should be
allowed to mingle with the normal population; and it is quite as little
to their own interest, for they are not capable of competing
successfully with people who are normal mentally. ]
Iowa's comprehensive statute applies to inmates of public institutions
for criminals, rapists, idiots, feeble-minded, imbeciles, lunatics,
drug fiends, epileptics, syphilitics, moral and sexual perverts and
diseased and degenerate persons. It is compulsory in case of persons
twice convicted of felony or of a sexual offense other than "white
slavery," in which offense one conviction makes sterilization mandatory.
The state parole board, with the managing officer and physician of each
institution, constitute the executive authorities. The act has many
objectionable features, one of the most striking of which is the
inclusion of syphilitics under the head of persons whom it is proposed
to sterilize. As syphilis is a curable disease, there is scarcely more
reason for sterilizing those afflicted with it than there is for
sterilizing persons with measles.
