Category: segregation camps

The ‘Minimum Wage’ as a way to make ‘defectives stand out’ for possible eugenic selection, 1913

Henry R. Seager, “The Minimum Wage as Part of a Program for Social Reform.” 1913. [SOURCE] As the enumeration of these benefits suggests, important reform to accompany minimum wage be comprehensive provision for industrial and trade education vocational guidance. Starvation wages are due frequently to exploitation, frequently to physical, mental and moral defects in the …

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

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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Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Put the Defectives in a Camp and Drown Them’, W.S. Main, Wisconsin State Senator

W.S. Main, Wisconsin state senator, speaking in 1890, as found in “Criminals and their Treatment”, in Proceedings of the Wisconsin Conference for 1890. Quoted in “Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring 1960. If all these [hereditary criminals] could be marshalled into one great camp and with a mill stone around each of their necks, cast into …

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Eugenic Quote of the Day: Compulsory Vaccination and Compulsory Sterilization? Justified on the Same Principle

Oliver Wendell Holmes in the 1927 Buck vs. Bell decision upholding the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck, ‘feeble-minded.’  [Reference] An Act of Virginia, approved March 20, 1924, recites that the health of the patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives, under careful safeguard, &c.; …

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Buck vs. Bell Supreme Court Decision, Opinion by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1927)

Oliver Wendell Holmes delivering the Supreme Court’s decision in Buck vs. Bell [Source] 274 U.S. 200 Buck v. Bell (No. 292) Argued: April 22, 1927 Decided: May 2, 1927 143 Va. 310, affirmed. Syllabus 1. The Virginia statute providing for the sexual sterilization of inmates of institutions supported by the State who shall be found …

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The Lethal Chamber Proposal, 1930 Letter to Editor by Dr. Richard Berry

A little known fact is that those with a eugenics mindset had been talking about ‘lethal chambers’ and ‘segregation camps’ for a long time before the Nazis actually used them.  Here is one example. The Lethal Chamber Proposal To the Editor, Eugenics Review   SIR,-I observe in your issue of April 1930, page 6, that you …

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The Roots of the Concentration Camp Were American and British Eugenicists, Not Nazis

For what its worth, the very idea of the ‘concentration camp’ was as much American and British, if not more, as it was Nazi Germany.  These ‘segregation’ camps were seen as humane and hygienic ways to prevent the breeding of ‘defective stock.’  Quotes from Eugenicists discussing such camps are provided below.  No attempt is made …

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Frederick Taylor and the Connection Between Eugenics, Capitalism, and Communism: Scientific Management

Buy “Scientific Management” on Amazon | Kindle | Nook Frederick Taylor and the Connection Between Eugenics, Capitalism, and Communism:  Scientific Management Frederick Winslow Taylor has blood on his hands. Judging from the reaction typical of those familiar with Taylor’s work, the idea that he, or at least, his ideas, were complicit in any great crimes …

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The Obstacle of Sentiment and Sentimentalists to Pure Scientific Application

One of the common themes that surfaces in eugenic writings is their annoyance that others do not act on the logical implications of Science.  Note that, in the main, they are not taking issue with people who do not agree with their conclusions, but rather those who do agree–but will not act on them.  This …

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