Applied Eugenics Part 14

(1) Reducing the racial contribution of the least desirable part of the population.

(2) Increasing the racial contribution of the superior part of the population.

The first part of this program is the most pressing and the most easily dealt with; it is no cause for surprise, then, that to many people it has seemed to be the predominant aim of eugenics. Certainly the problem is great enough to stagger anyone who looks it full in the face; although for a variety of reasons, satisfactory statistical evidence of racial degeneracy is hard to get.

Considering only the "inst.i.tutional population" of the United States, one gets the following figures:

BLIND: total, 64,763 according to census of 1900. Of these, 35,645 were totally blind and 29,118 partly blind. The affection is stated to have been congenital in 4,730 cases. Nineteen per cent of the blind were found to have blind relatives; 4.5% of them were returned as the offspring of cousin marriages.

DEAF: total, 86,515, according to the census of 1900. More than 50,000 of them were deaf from childhood (under 20), 12,609 being deaf from birth. At least 4.5% of the deaf were stated to be offspring of cousin marriages, and 32.1% to have deaf relatives. The significance of this can not be determined unless it is known how many normal persons have deaf relatives (or blind relatives, in considering the preceding paragraph), but it points to the existence of families that are characterized by deafness (or blindness).

INSANE: the census of 1910 enumerated only the insane who were in inst.i.tutions; they numbered 187,791. The number outside of inst.i.tutions is doubtless considerable but can not be computed. The inst.i.tutional population is not a permanent, but mainly a transient one, the number of persons discharged from inst.i.tutions in 1910 being 29,304.

As the number and size of inst.i.tutions does not increase very rapidly, it would appear probable that 25,000 insane persons pa.s.s through and out of inst.i.tutions, and back into the general population, each year. From this one can get some idea of the amount of neurotic weakness in the population of the United States,--much of it congenital and heritable in character.

FEEBLE-MINDED: the census (1910) lists only those in inst.i.tutions, who totaled about 40,000. The census experts believe that 200,000 would be a conservative estimate of the total number of feeble-minded in the country, and many psychologists think that 300,000 would be more nearly accurate. The number of feeble-minded who are receiving inst.i.tutional care is almost certainly not more than 10% or 15% of the total, and many of these (about 15,000) are in almshouses, not special inst.i.tutions.

PAUPERS: There were 84,198 paupers enumerated in almshouses on January 1, 1910, and 88,313 admitted during the year, which indicates that the almshouse paupers are a rapidly shifting group. This population, probably of several hundred thousand persons, who drift into and out of almshouses, can hardly be characterized accurately, but in large part it must be considered at least inefficient and probably of mentally low grade.

CRIMINALS: The inmates of prisons, penitentiaries, reformatories, and similar places of detention numbered 111,609 in 1910; this does not include 25,000 juvenile delinquents. The jail population is nearly all transient; one must be very cautious in inferring that conviction for an offense against the law indicates lack of eugenic value; but it is worth noting that the number of offenders who are feeble-minded is probably not less than one-fourth or one-third. If the number of inebriates could be added, it would greatly increase the total; and inebriacy or chronic alcoholism is generally recognized now as indicating in a majority of cases either feeble-mindedness or some other defect of the nervous system. The number of criminals who are in some way neurotically tainted is placed by some psychologists at 50% or more of the total prison population.

Add to these a number of epileptics, tramps, prost.i.tutes, beggars, and others whom the census enumerator finds it difficult to catch, and the total number of possible undesirable parents becomes very large. It is in fact much larger than appears in these figures, because of the fact that many people carry defects that are latent and only appear in the offspring of a marriage representing two tainted strains. Thus the feeble-minded child usually if not always has feeble-mindedness in both his father's and mother's ancestry, and for every one of the patent feeble-minded above enumerated, there may be several dozen latent ones, who are themselves probably normal in every way and yet carry the dangerously tainted germ-plasm.

The estimate has frequently been made that the United States would be much better off eugenically if it were deprived of the future racial contributions of at least 10% of its citizens. While literally true this estimate is too high for the group which could be considered for attempts to directly control in a practical eugenics program.

Natural selection, in the early days of man's history, would have killed off many of these people early in life. They would have been unable to compete with their physically and mentally more vigorous fellows and would have died miserably by starvation or violence. Natural selection's use of the death-rate was a brutal one, but at least it prevented such traits as these people show from increasing in each generation.

Eugenists hope to arrive at the same result, not by the death-rate but by the birth-rate. If germinally anti-social persons are kept humanely segregated during their lifetime, instead of being turned out after a few years of inst.i.tutional life and allowed to marry, they will leave no descendants, and the number of congenital defectives in the community will be notably diminished. If the same policy is followed through succeeding generations, the number of defectives, of those incapable of taking a useful part in society, will become smaller and smaller. One who does not believe that these people hand on their traits to their descendants may profitably consider the famous history of the so-called Juke family, a strain originating among the "finger lakes" of New York, whose history was published by R. L. Dugdale as far back as 1877 and lately restudied by A. H. Estabrook.

"From one lazy vagabond nicknamed 'Juke,' born in 1720, whose two sons married five degenerate sisters, six generations numbering about 1,200 persons of every grade of idleness, viciousness, lewdness, pauperism, disease, idiocy, insanity and criminality were traced. Of the total seven generations, 300 died in infancy; 310 were professional paupers, kept in almshouses a total of 2,300 years; 440 were physically wrecked by their own 'diseased wickedness'; more than half the women fell into prost.i.tution; 130 were convicted criminals; 60 were thieves; 7 were murderers; only 20 learned a trade, 10 of these in state prison, and all at a state cost of over $1,250,000."[74]

How heredity works both ways, is shown by the history of the Kallikak family, published by H. H. G.o.ddard a few years ago.

"At the beginning of the Revolutionary War a young man, known in the history as Martin Kallikak, had a son by a nameless, feeble-minded girl, from whom there have descended in the direct line four hundred and eighty individuals. One hundred and forty-three of these are known to have been feeble-minded, and only forty-six are known to have been normal. The rest are unknown or doubtful. Thirty-six have been illegitimate; thirty-three, s.e.xually immoral, mostly prost.i.tutes; twenty-four, alcoholic; three, epileptic; eighty-two died in infancy; three were criminal, and eight kept houses of ill-fame. After the war, Martin Kallikak married a woman of good stock. From this union have come in direct line four hundred and ninety-six, among whom only two were alcoholic, and one known to be s.e.xually immoral. The legitimate children of Martin have been doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. These two families have lived on the same soil, in the same atmosphere, and in short, under the same general environment, yet the bar sinister has marked every generation of one and has been unknown in the other."

If it were possible to improve or eradicate these defective strains by giving them better surroundings, the nation might easily get rid of this burden. But we have given reasons in Chapter I for believing that the problem can not be solved in that way, and more evidence to the same effect will be present in other chapters of the book.

An understanding of the nature of the problem will show that present methods of dispensing justice, giving charity, dealing with defectives and working for social betterment need careful examination and numerous modifications, if they are not to be ineffectual or merely palliative, or worse still, if they are not to give temporary relief at the cost of greatly aggravating the social disease in the end.

In the past America has given and at present still gives much thought to the individual and little, if any, to posterity. Eugenics does not want to diminish this regard for the individual, but it does insistently declare that the interests of the many are greater than those of the few, and it holds that a statesmanlike policy requires thought for the future as well as the present. It would be hard to find a eugenist to-day who would propose, with Plato, that the infants with bad heredity should be put to death, but their right to grow up to the fullest enjoyment of life does not necessarily include the right to pa.s.s on their defective heredity to a long line of descendants, naturally increasing in number in each generation. Indeed a regard for the totality of human happiness makes it necessary that they should not so continue.

While it is the hope of eugenics that fewer defective and anti-social individuals shall be born in the future, it has been emphasized so much that the program of eugenics is likely to be seen in false perspective.

In reality it is the less important side of the picture. More good citizens are wanted, as well as fewer bad ones. Every race requires leaders. These leaders appear from time to time, and enough is known about eugenics now to show that their appearance is frequently predictable, not accidental. It is possible to have them appear more frequently; and in addition, to raise the level of the whole race, making the entire nation happier and more useful. These are the great tasks of eugenics. America needs more families like that old Puritan strain which is one of the familiar examples of eugenics:

"At their head stands Jonathan Edwards, and behind him an array of his descendants numbering in 1900, 1,394, of whom 295 were college graduates; 13 presidents of our greatest colleges; 65 professors in colleges, besides many princ.i.p.als of other important educational inst.i.tutions; 60 physicians, many of whom were eminent; 100 and more clergymen, missionaries, or theological professors; 75 were officers in the army and navy; 60 prominent authors and writers, by whom 135 books of merit were written and published and 18 important periodicals edited; 33 American states and several foreign countries, and 92 American cities and many foreign cities have profited by the beneficent influences of their eminent activity; 100 and more were lawyers, of whom one was our most eminent professor of law; 30 were judges; 80 held public office, of whom one was vice president of the United States; three were United States senators; several were governors, members of Congress, framers of state const.i.tutions, mayors of cities and ministers of foreign courts; one was president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; 15 railroads, many banks, insurance companies, and large industrial enterprises have been indebted to their management. Almost if not every department of social progress and of the public weal has felt the impulse of this healthy and long-lived family. It is not known that any one of them was ever convicted of crime."

Every one will agree that the nation needs more families like that. How can it get them? Galton blazed the way in 1865, when he pointed to selective breeding as the effective means. The animal breeder knows what marvels he can accomplish by this means; but it is not practicable to breed human beings in that direct way. Is there any indirect method of reaching the same ends?

There are, in our opinion, a good many such means, and it is the princ.i.p.al purpose of this book to point them out. The problem of constructive or positive eugenics, naturally divides itself into two parts:

1. To secure a sufficient number of marriages of the superior.

2. To secure an adequate birth-rate from these marriages.

The problem of securing these two results is a complex one, which must be attacked by a variety of methods. It is necessary that superior people first be made to desire marriage and children; and secondly, that it be economically and otherwise possible for them to carry out this desire.

It may be of interest to know how the Germans are attacking the problem, even though some of their measures may be considered ineffective or inadvisable.

At its annual meeting in 1914 the German Society for Race Hygiene adopted a resolution on the subject of applied eugenics. "The future of the German people is at stake," it declares. "The German empire can not in the long run maintain its true nationality and the independence of its development, if it does not begin without delay and with the greatest energy to mold its internal and external politics as well as the whole life of the people in accordance with eugenic principles. Most important of all are measures for a higher reproduction of healthy and able families. The rapidly declining birth-rate of the healthy and able families necessarily leads to the social, economical and political retrogression of the German people," it points out, and then goes on to enumerate the causes of this decline, which it thinks is partly due to the action of racial poisons but princ.i.p.ally to the increasing willful restriction of the number of children.

The society recognizes that the reasons for this limitation of the size of families are largely economic. It enumerates the question of expense, considerations of economic inheritance--that is, a father does not like to divide up his estate too much; the labor of women, which is incompatible with the raising of a large family; and the difficulties caused by the crowded housing in the large cities.

In order to secure a posterity sufficient in number and ability, the resolution continues, The German Society for Race Hygiene demands:

1. A back-to-the farm movement.

2. Better housing facilities in the cities.

3. Economic a.s.sistance of large families through payment of a substantial relief to married mothers who survive their husbands, and consideration of the number of children in the payment of public and private employees.

4. Abolition of certain impediments to marriage, such as the army regulation forbidding officers to marry before they reach a certain grade.

5. Increase of tax on alcohol, tobacco and luxuries, the proceeds to be used to subsidize worthy families.

6. Medical regulations of a hygienic nature.

7. Setting out large prizes for excellent works of art (novels, dramas, plastic arts) which glorify the ideal of motherhood, the family and simple life.

8. Awakening a national mind ready to undergo sacrifices on behalf of future generations.

In spite of some defects such a program brings out clearly the principle of eugenics,--the subst.i.tution of a selective birth-rate for the selective death-rate by which natural selection has brought the race to its present level. Nature lets a mult.i.tude of individuals be born and kills off the poorer ones; eugenics proposes to have fewer poor ones and more good ones born in each generation.

Any means which tends to bring about one of those ends, is a part of Applied Eugenics.

By this time the reader will have seen that eugenics has some definite ideals not only as to how the race can be kept from deteriorating further, under the interference with natural selection which civilization entails, but as to how its physical, mental and moral level can actually be raised. He can easily draw his own conclusions as to what eugenics does _not_ propose. No eugenist worthy of the name has ever proposed to breed genius as the stockman breeds trotting horses, despite jibes of the comic press to the contrary. But if young people, before picking out their life partners, are thoroughly imbued with the idea that such qualities as energy, longevity, a sound const.i.tution, public and private worth, are primarily due to heredity, and if they are taught to realize the fact that one marries not an individual but a family, the eugenist believes that better matings will be made, sometimes realized, sometimes insensibly.

Furthermore, if children from such matings are made an a.s.set rather than a liability; if society ceases to penalize, in a hundred insidious ways, the parents of large and superior families, but honors and aids them instead, one may justifiably hope that the birth-rate in the most useful and happy part of the population will steadily increase.

Perhaps that is as far as it is necessary that the aim of eugenics should be defined; yet one can hardly ignore the philosophical aspect of the problem. Galton's suggestion that man should a.s.sist the course of his own evolution meets with the general approval of biologists; but when one asks what the ultimate goal of human evolution should be, one faces a difficult question. Under these circ.u.mstances, can it be said that eugenics really has a goal, or is it merely stumbling along in the dark, possibly far from the real road, of whose existence it is aware but of whose location it has no knowledge?

There are several routes on which one can proceed with the confidence that, if no one of them is the main road, at least it is likely to lead into the latter at some time. Fortunately, eugenics is, paradoxical as it may seem, able to advance on all these paths at once; for it proposes no definite goal, it sets up no one standard to which it would make the human race conform. Taking man as it finds him, it proposes to multiply all the types that have been found by past experience or present reason to be of most value to society. Not only would it multiply them in numbers, but also in efficiency, in capacity to serve the race.

By so doing, it undoubtedly fulfills the requirements of that popular philosophy which holds the aim of society to be the greatest happiness for the greatest number, or more definitely the increase of the totality of human happiness. To cause not to exist those who would be doomed from birth to give only unhappiness to themselves and those about them; to increase the number of those in whom useful physical and mental traits are well developed; to bring about an increase in the number of energetic altruists and a decrease in the number of the anti-social or defective; surely such an undertaking will come nearer to increasing the happiness of the greatest number, than will any temporary social palliative, any ointment for incurable social wounds. 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 a.s.sumed 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.