War Against the Weak Read online

  Eventually, the eugenics movement and its supporters began to speak a common language that crept into the general mindset of many of America’s most influential thinkers. On January 3, 1913, former President Theodore Roosevelt wrote Davenport, “I agree with you… that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind…. Some day, we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty, of the good citizen of the right type, is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type.” Episcopalian Bishop John T. Dallas of Concord, New Hampshire, issued a public statement: “Eugenics is one of the very most important subjects that the present generation has to consider.” Episcopalian Bishop Thomas F. Gailor of Memphis, Tennessee, issued a similar statement: “The science of eugenics… by devising methods for the prevention of the propagation of the feebleminded, criminal and unfit members of the community, is… one of the most important and valuable contributions to civilization.” Dr. Ada Comstock, president of Radcliffe College, declared publicly, “Eugenics is ‘the greatest concern of the human race.’ The development of civilization depends upon it.” Dr. Albert Wiggam, an author and a leading member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, pronounced his belief: “Had Jesus been among us, he would have been president of the First Eugenic Congress.”42

  While many of America’s elite exalted eugenics, the original Galtonian eugenicists in Britain were horrified by the sham science they saw thriving in the United States and taking root in their own country. In a merciless 1913 scientific paper written on behalf of the Galton Laboratory, British scientist David Heron publicly excoriated the American eugenics of Davenport, Laughlin, and the Eugenics Record Office. Using the harshest possible language, Heron warned against “certain recent American work which has been welcomed in this country as of first-class importance, but the teaching of which we hold to be fallacious and indeed actually dangerous to social welfare.” His accusations: “Careless presentation of data, inaccurate methods of analysis, irresponsible expression of conclusions, and rapid change of opinion.”43

  Heron lamented further, “Those of us who have the highest hopes for the new science of Eugenics in the future are not a little alarmed by many of the recent contributions to the subject which threaten to place Eugenics… entirely outside the pale of true science…. When we find such teaching-based on the flimsiest of theories and on the most superficial of inquiries-proclaimed in the name of Eugenics, and spoken of as ‘entirely splendid work,’ we feel that it is not possible to use criticism too harsh, nor words too strong in repudiation of advice which, if accepted, must mean the death of Eugenics as a science.”44

  Heron emphasized “that the material has been collected in a most unsatisfactory manner, that the data have been tabled in a most slipshod fashion, and that the Mendelian conclusions drawn have no justification whatever…. “ He went so far as to say the data had been deliberately skewed. As an example, he observed that “a family containing a large number of defectives is more likely to be recorded than a family containing a small number of defectives.”45 In sum, he called American eugenics rubbish.

  Davenport exploded.

  He marshaled all his academic and rhetorical resources and the propagandists of the ERO. Davenport and A. J. Rosanoff combined two defensive essays and a journal article denouncing Dr. Heron’s criticism into a lengthy ERO Bulletin. The bulletin, entitled Reply to the Criticism of Recent American Work by Dr. Heron of the Galton Laboratory, was circulated to hundreds of public administrators, eugenic theorists and others whose minds needed to be swayed, assuaged or buttressed.46

  As keeper of the eugenic flame and defender of its faithful, Davenport correctly portrayed Dr. Heron’s assault to be against “my reputation [which] I regard as of infinitely less importance than the acquisition of truth; and if! resent these evil innuendoes it is not for myself at all, but only for the protection of the scientific interests which I am, for the time, custodian.” In a rambling, point-by-point confutation, Davenport belittled Heron’s attack as a vendetta by his Galtonian enemies in England. He explained away his faulty data as typographical. His rebuttal was rich with abstruse formulas in support of his subverted theses47

  In Davenport’s mind, Mendel’s laws hovered as the sacred oracle of American eugenics, the rigid determiner of everything tall and short, bright and dim, right and wrong, strong and weak. All that existed in the chaotic pool of life was subservient to Mendel’s tenets as res pun by Davenport. Indeed, Davenport cherished those tenets as if chiseled by the finger of God. Come what may, Davenport declared he would never “deny the truth of Mendelism.” He defiantly proclaimed, “The principles of heredity are the same in man and hogs and sun-flowers.”48

  But the attacks did not stop. True, eugenics had ascended to a scientific standard throughout the nation’s academic and intellectual circles, becoming almost enshrined in the leading medical journals and among the most progressive bureaucrats. The word itself had become a catchphrase of the intelligentsia. But soon the sweeping reality of the eugenics movement’s agenda started filtering down to the masses. Average people slowly began to understand that the ruling classes were planning a future America, indeed a future world, that would leave many of them behind. Sensational articles began to appear in the press.

  “14 million to be sterilized” was the warning from the Hearst syndicate of newspapers in late September of 1915. Alexander Graham Bell, long queasy about Davenport’s obsession with defectives, reacted at once, contacting Cold Spring Harbor for some reassurance. Davenport wrote back on September 25: “I am very sorry that ripples of a very sensational fake article about the plans of the Eugenics Record Office to sterilize 14 million Americans has rippled”-he crossed out “has rippled”-”… have disturbed the placid waters about [Bell’s vacation home in] Beinn Bhreagh [Nova Scotia].” Davenport assured Bell he would warn others “against believing things… in the Hearst papers.” Bell, only briefly comforted, wrote back, “Your note… is a great relief to me, as I was naturally disturbed over the newspaper notices-even though I didn’t believe them.”49

  The articles did not stop, however. Crusading journalists and commentators began to expose American eugenics as a war of the wealthy against the poor. On October 14, 1915, the Hearst newspapers syndicated a series of powerful editorials pulling no punches. Typical was an editorial in the San Francisco Daily News:

  WHERE TO BEGIN

  The millions of Mrs. Harriman, relict of the great railroad “promoter,” assisted by other millions of Rockefeller and Carnegie, are to be devoted to sterilization of several hundred thousands of American “defectives” annually, as a matter of eugenics.

  It is true that we don’t yet know all that the millions of our plutocracy can do to the common folks. We see that our moneyed plutocrats can own the governments of whole states, override constitutions, maintain private armies to shoot down men, women and children, and railroad innocent men to life imprisonment for murder, or lesser crimes. And IF WE SUBMIT TO SUCH THINGS, we ought not to be surprised if they undertake to sterilize all those who are obnoxious to them.

  Of course, the proposition depends much on who are to be declared “defective.”

  The old Spartans, with war always in view, used to destroy, at birth, boys born with decided physical weakness. Some of our present-day eugenists go farther and damn children before their birth because of parents criminally inclined. Then we have eugenic “defectives” in the insane and the incurably diseased. The proposition is not wholly without justification. But isn’t there another sort of “defective,” who is quite as dangerous as any but whom discussion generally overlooks, especially discussion by the senile long-haired pathologists, and long-eared college professors involved in the Harriman-Rockefeller scheme to sterilize?

  A boy is born to millions. He either doesn’t work, isn’t useful, doesn’t contribute to human happiness, is altogether a parasite, or else h
e works to add to his millions, with the brutal, insane greed for more and more that caused the accumulation of the inherited millions. Why isn’t such THE MOST DANGEROUS “DEFECTIVE” OF ALL? Why isn’t the prevention of more such progeny THE FIRST DUTY OF EUGENICS? Such “defectives” directly attack the rights, liberties, happiness, and lives of millions.

  Talk about inheriting criminal tendencies. Is there a ranker case of such than the inheritance of Standard Oil criminality as evidenced in the slaughter of mothers and their babes at Ludlow?

  Sterilization of hundreds of thousands of the masses, by the Harrimans and Rockefellers? LET’S FIRST TRY OUT THE “DEFECTIVENESS” OF THE SONS OF BILLIONAIRES!

  Let’s first sterilize where sterilization will mean something immediate, far-reaching and thorough in the way of genuine eugenics!50

  More letters flew across the country as leading scholars began assessing the movement’s image. Davenport worked on damage control. He began writing letters. Among the first was to Thomas D. Eliot, a major eugenic activist then living in San Francisco. “The article upon which the editorial in the San Francisco Daily News was based was entirely without any foundation in fact,” Davenport assured Eliot. “The writer for the Hearst syndicate supplied them with an absolutely baseless and basely false article about imaginary plans of the Eugenics Record Office. As a matter of fact, the Eugenics Record Office exists only for the purpose of making studies primarily in human heredity and has nothing whatsoever to do with propaganda for sterilization. After the printing of this false article in scores of papers in this country my attention was called to it, and I wrote a letter to the New York American and requested them to publish the letter. This they refused to do…. “51

  Davenport scoffed, “We know the name of the unfortunate who wrote the article for the Hearst syndicate. To my protestation, he replies only that he proposes to publish a series of articles, intimating that he has worse ones in store [than] that already published. I tell you this so that you may be prepared for the future. It is quite within the range of possibility that he may state that the Rockefeller, Carnegie and Harriman millions are to be devoted to forcing the whites of the South to have children by the blacks in order to grade up the blacks. I can imagine even worse things.” He dismissed Hearst readers as “paranoiacs and imbeciles,” and urged his colleagues to stand fast.52 But the press continued.

  On February 17, 1916, a New York American reporter named Miss Hoffmann insisted on traveling up to New Haven, Connecticut, to interview the prominent Yale economist Irving Fisher about eugenics. Fisher, a leading raceologist, occupied a central role in the eugenics movement. The reporter had latched onto a sentence in a leading eugenic publication, which asserted, “Many women of the borderline type of feeblemindedness, where mental incapacity often passes for innocence, possess the qualities of charm felt in children, and are consequently quickly selected in marriage.” Fisher did not know where the correct documentation was to support such a statement. “I should have turned her loose on you,” he wrote to Davenport, “had I not known your sentiment on reporters especially of the Hearst journals!… Much as I dislike the tone of their articles… if we do not help them, they will do us positive injury… [and yet] in spite of their sensationalism, we can utilize them to create respect for the eugenics idea in the mind of the public.”53

  Fisher appended a typical progress report to his letter. “You will be glad to know,” he wrote, “that I have interested the Dean here in trying to secure something in eugenics. You will doubtless hear from him…. I am delighted to see how other colleges have taken the matter up. Yale seems to be a little behind in this matter.”54

  Davenport was relieved that Fisher had steered the New York American reporter elsewhere, admitting, “I might have reacted in a way which I should subsequently have regretted.”55 Such scandals in the press prompted Alexander Graham Bell to distance himself from the eugenics movement.

  Davenport surely sensed Bell’s apprehension. When it came time to call the Spring 1916 scientific board meeting, Davenport struggled with the phrasing of his letter to Bell. “Do you authorize call for meeting here April Eighth.” Vigorously scratched out. Slight variation: “Do you authorize me to call meeting here on April Eighth.” Vigorously scratched out. Start again: “Do you…. “ Scratched out, starting once more: “Shall I issue call Director’s meeting here on April Eighth.”56

  On the afternoon of April 8, 1916, too impatient for a letter to arrive, Bell telephoned a message to Cold Spring Harbor.

  Dr. Davenport: Greatly regret inability to attend meeting of Eugenics Board as 1 had intended. Detained at last moment by important matters, demanding my immediate attention. 1 believe 1 have now served for three years as chairman. 1 would be much obliged if you would kindly present my resignation on the Board and say that it would gratify me very much to have some member now appointed to the position.

  With best wishes for a successful meeting,

  Alexander Graham Bell57

  Davenport was surely shaken. He sent off a note asking if Bell would at least stay on until the end of the year as chairman of the board of scientific directors; at the same time, he assured Bell that in the future more emphasis would be placed on positive human qualities. Bell reluctantly agreed, but his connection to the movement was now permanently frayed.

  On April 20, 1916, Bell agreed to chair just one more meeting, the December 15 session, but with “the understanding that 1 will then resign as Chairman of the Board.” He added, “I am very much pleased to know from your letter that more attention is now to be paid to the Eugenic positive side than heretofore.”58

  Just before the meeting, Bell once again reminded Davenport that he would participate in the year-end meeting, but “I hope that you do not forget that 1 am to be allowed to resign from the chairmanship at this meeting.” After that December meeting, Bell severed his relations with the movement altogether. In a polite but curt letter, Bell informed Davenport, “I will no longer be associated with yourself and the other directors. With best wishes for the continuance of the work, and kind regards.”59

  By the end of 1917, Mrs. Harriman’s privately funded Eugenics Record Office had merged with the Carnegie Institution’s Experimental Station. Both entities were headed by Davenport. They existed virtually side-by-side at Cold Spring Harbor, and to a large extent functioned as extensions of one another. This created a consolidated eugenic enterprise at Cold Spring Harbor. To facilitate the legal merger of what everyone knew was an operational fact, Mrs. Harriman deeded the ERO’s existing assets plus a new gift of $300,000 to the Carnegie Institution, thus providing for the ERO’s continued operation. As part of the merger, the ERO transferred its collection of 51,851 pages of family documentation and index cards on 534,625 individuals. Each card offered lines for forty personal traits.60

  The science of eugenics was now consolidated under the sterling international name of the Carnegie Institution. Eugenics was stronger than ever.

  * * *

  Eugenics did not reform despite its public pillorying. The movement continued to amass volumes of data on families and individuals by combining equal portions of gossip, race prejudice, sloppy methods and leaps of logic, all caulked together by elements of actual genetic knowledge to create the glitter of a genuine science.

  A statistical study found that fewer than 12 percent of Negro songs were in a minor key. “It tends to justify the general impression that the negro is temperamentally sunny, cheerful, optimistic,” reported Eugenical News. As such, the study purveyed as scientific evidence that while “slave songs… refer to ‘hard trials and tribulations,’” the genetic constitution of Negroes under American apartheid nonetheless displayed a “dominant mood… of jubilation…. “61

  Eugenicists began compiling long lists of ship captains and their progeny to identify an invented genetic trait called “thalassophilia,” that is, an inherited love of the sea. Eugenical News listed several captains who died or were injured in shipwrecks. “Such
hardy mariners do not call for our sympathy,” declared Eugenical News, “they were following their instinct.”62

  Behaviors, mannerisms, and personal attributes that we now understand to be shaped by environment were all deemed eugenic qualities. “When we look among our acquaintances,” Davenport wrote, “we are struck by their diversity in physical, mental, and moral traits… they may be selfish or altruistic, conscientious or liable to shirk… for these characteristics are inheritable…. “63

  In painstakingly compiled family trait booklets, each numbered at the top right for tracking, the most personal and subjective measurements were recorded as scientific data. Family trait booklet #40688, of the Bohemian farmer Joseph Chloupek and his Irish wife Mary Sullivan, was typical. Question 12 asked for “special tastes, gifts or peculiarities of mind or body.” For Chloupek, his traits were noted as “reading, affectionate, firm.” His wife was noted as “very religious… broad minded in her religious attitude toward others.” The rest of the family was similarly assessed, including Chloupek’s mother, Eugenia, who was marked as a “good mother.”64

  Approximations were frequently entered as authentic scientific measurements. Question 13 called for the height either in inches, or, if preferred, with any of four notations: “very short, short, medium tall, very tall.” Question 15 recorded hair color as “albino, flaxen, yellow-brown, light brown, medium brown, dark hair, black.” Question 17 asked for the individual’s skin to be described as “blond, intermediate, brunette, dark brown, black Negro, yellow, yellow-brown or reddish-brown.” Question 26 asked for visual acuity, and the choices were “blind, imperfect, strong, or color blind”; in the case of the Chloupek family, the most common response was “good.”65

  A second genealogical tool, the family folder, recorded such eugenic “facts” as “participation in church activities” and “early moral environment.” Special areas were set aside for notations as to whether the individual was known for “interest in world events or neighborhood gossip,” or “modesty,” or whether the person “holds a grudge.” Question fifty-six asked for an evaluation of the individual’s “optimism, patriotism, care for the good opinion of others.”66