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 reëstablish 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.