Category: 1913

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 …

Continue reading

Wilson: Government is a Living Thing that Obeys Darwin and Evolution

Woodrow Wilson in The New Freedom, 1913 (ISBN: 978-1-947844-89-6): The makers of our Federal Constitution read Montesquieu with true scientific enthusiasm. They were scientists in their way,—the best way of their age,—those fathers of the nation. Jefferson wrote of “the laws of Nature,”—and then by way of afterthought,— “and of Nature’s God.” And they constructed …

Continue reading

Houston Stewart Chamberlain on Forel’s Assessment of the Negro Race

Source: Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century [page 290], 1913. Professor August Forel, the well-known psychiatrist, has made interesting studies in the United States and the West Indian Islands, on the victory of intellectually inferior races over higher ones because of their greater virility. “Though the brain of the Negro is weaker …

Continue reading

Letter by Theodore Roosevelt to Charles Davenport: Society should not permit degenerates to reproduce their kind.

From The Outlook, January 3rd letter of 1913 [Source] My dear Mr. Davenport: I am greatly interested in the two memoirs you have sent me.  They are very instructive, and, from the standpoint of our country, very ominous.  You say that  those people are not themselves responsible, that it is “society” that is responsible.  I …

Continue reading

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 …

Continue reading