Charity Archives | Eugenics and Other Evils

Foster Kennedy: Euthanasia for “Nature’s Mistakes” up to the age of 5

Filed under 1941, Action T4 Program, adaptation, After-birth abortion, American Eugenics, American Psychiatric Association, applied biology, birth defects, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, Charity, civilization, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, conscious selection, death as creative, defectives, democracy, dysgenic breeding, eugenics, euthanasia, Evolution, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, Foster Kennedy, genetic counseling, German Eugenics, hereditary courts, human breeding, humanitarianism, infanticide, IQ, medical killing, mental defectives, national degeneration, national stock, Oliver Wendell Holmes, sentimentalism, social body, social organism, Spartans, sterilization, suffering, The God Committee, unfit, useless eaters, vaccination, Year

Kennedy’s address at the 97th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in 1941 encapsulates well how the acceptance of evolution and utilitarian thinking are tied into arguments for eugenics (and euthanasia), which is ironic, of course, since many advocates for euthanasia deny such connections and modern proponents of evolution become apoplectic at the insinuation …

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Sterilization May Lead to Sexual Promiscuity, Frank C. Richmond, 1934

Filed under capital punishiment, Charity, compulsory sterilization, criminals, family planning, infanticide, marriage, mental defectives, mental deficient, public health, segregation, social body, society, the State, vasectomy, Wisconsin, Year

Frank C. Richmond, Sterilization in Wisconsin, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 25, Issue 4 (November-December), Winter, 1934. Page: 593. Human surgical sterilization may lead to sexual promiscuity and incidentally to spread of venereal disease. Voluntary sterilization tends to promote social evils in this way and answers why sterilization should be practiced only on …

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The Minimum Wage As Means to Exterminate Defectives: Taussig, 1911

Filed under 1911, alcoholism, American Eugenics, capital punishiment, Charity, chloroform, civilization, compulsory sterilization, criminals, eugenics, euthanasia, feebleminded, Frank Taussig, hereditary cripples, human breeding, legislative eugenics, minimum wage, right to reproduce, segregation, segregation camps, self-defense, society, unemployable, Year

SOURCE: Frank Taussig, Principles of Economics, Volume II, 1911. Pages 299-300. As with legislation on hours, factory conditions, and the like, a compulsory minimum wages rate might serve simply to regulate the plane of competition. All employers would be affected alike; no one could undersell the others by cutting below the established rate. There would …

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E.A. Ross and the Difference in Races

Filed under 1907, American Eugenics, Charity, E.A. Ross, human breeding, minimum wage, Progressive Era, Progressives, race, race hygiene, scientific racism, society, Wisconsin, Year

Source: E.A. Ross, discussing ‘Social Darwinism’ in American Journal of Sociology 12 (March 1907), 715. Strongly attracted as I am by the hopeful and noble views that have been expressed, I cannot but feel that Dr. Wells’s is right. The theory that races are virtually equal in capacity leads to such monumental follies as lining …

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Sydney Webb: The parasites should not be allowed to compete as wage-earners, for it prevents natural selection from working…

Filed under 1920, Charitable organizations, Charity, criminals, death as creative, defectives, degeneration, Fit and Unfit, idiots, lunacy, mental defectives, minimum wage, moral perverts, morality, national efficiency, Natural selection, Parasitism, pauperism, poverty, Progressive Era, public welfare, social organism, Year

Sydney Webb in Industrial Democracy (regarding the minimum wage) – 1920 The problem of the Unemployable is not created by the fixing of a National Minimum by law. The Unemployable we have always with us. With regards to certain sections of the population, this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but of social …

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Davenport: Death is Nature’s Great Blessing to the Race. Why Keep Defectives Alive?

Filed under 1914, American Eugenics, Artificial Selection, birth defects, Charity, Charles Davenport, criminals, death, death as creative, death rate, defectives, education, eugenics, feebleminded, laws of heredity, legislative eugenics, marriage, mental defectives, Natural selection, negative eugenics, Oops!, positive eugenics, race betterment, race hygiene, racial progress, rational selection, religion, segregation, society, sterilization, the State, Year

Charles Davenport, in The Eugenic Programme And Progress in its Achievement (1914) [italics in original, bold added] The lowest stratum of society has, on the other hand, neither intelligence nor self-control enough to justify the State to leave its matings in their own hands. On the contrary, the defectives and criminalistic are, so far as …

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Charity a Hindrance to Natural Selection

Filed under 1914, alcoholism, American Eugenics, Artificial Selection, Biological Laws, birth rate, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, Charitable organizations, Charity, conscious selection, Darwinism, death as creative, death rate, defectives, definition of eugenics, education, eugenics, eugenics as a science, Evolution, family planning, Francis Galton, human breeding, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, legislative eugenics, man as animal, Plato, poverty, race betterment, science, tuberculous, Year

In the following foreword from a compilation of 12 eugenic lectures (1914), we see that eugenics is perceived as merely applied evolution. Furthermore, ‘modern man,’ being a sympathetic being, keeps alive those that should die. With luck, principles of breeding already used with animals will be brought to bear on humans. ——————- Foreword by Lewellys …

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Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Defective (ie, ‘disabled’) people should not be allowed to reproduce for the good of the state.’ RZ Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI

Filed under 1879, American Eugenics, Biological Laws, birth defects, Charity, defectives, degeneration, duty, education, eugenics, eugenics quote of the day, euthanasia, Evolution, feeble-minded, Fit and Unfit, Herbert Spencer, Natural selection, Progressive Era, rational selection, right to reproduce, scientism, Wisconsin, Year

R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, “The Duty of the State in its Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Idiotic, the Crippled and Deformed, and the Insane.” [Source] In the progress of modern civilization, the state has come slowly to a recognition of certain duties and obligations to these unfortunate classes. At …

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The Duty of the State in the Treatment of the Deformed: R. Z. Mason, Appleton WI, 1879

Filed under 1879, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, aristocratic, authority, Biological Laws, birth defects, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, carbonic acid gas, Charitable organizations, Charity, compulsory education, Darwinism, defectives, degeneration, drunkard, duty, dysgenic breeding, education, eugenics, euthanasia, every child a wanted child, Evolution, feeble-minded, Fit and Unfit, genetic counseling, Herbert Spencer, hereditary cripples, idiots, imbecile, imbeciles, immortality, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, legislative eugenics, life unworthy of life, lunacy, man as animal, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national stock, philanthropy, progress, Progressive Era, Progressives, public school, race, race betterment, rational selection, religion, right to life, right to reproduce, science, scientific world view, sentimentalism, social organism, Wisconsin, Year

R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, “The Duty of the State in its Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Idiotic, the Crippled and Deformed, and the Insane.” [Source / Italics added, bold text added] In the progress of modern civilization, the state has come slowly to a recognition of certain duties and …

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Leon Cole on the Social Body and Our Duty to Future Generations

Filed under 1907, 1911, 1914, American Eugenics, applied biology, breeding horses or cattle, Charity, defectives, duty, eugenics, Evolution, feeble-minded, First Conference for Race Betterment (1914), Fit and Unfit, Francis Galton, Herbert Spencer, infanticide, Karl Pearson, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, life unworthy of life, man as animal, medical genetics, medical killing, national stock, Natural selection, nature vs nurture, philanthropy, Progressive Era, race betterment, racial progress, rational selection, right to life, sanctity of life, social body, social organism, Year

From The Relation of Philanthropy and Medicine to Race Betterment by Leon J. Cole, University of Wisconsin, at the First Conference for Race Betterment (1914) Among those who have in their treatment of this subject emphasized the importance of the natural selection viewpoint may be mentioned especially Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Karl Pearson, the …

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