1914 Archives | Eugenics and Other Evils

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 …

Leave comment

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 …

1 comment

Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Eugenics is a great force in the evolution of man.” Francis Darwin (son of Charles)

Filed under 1914, Darwinism, eugenics, Evolution, Francis Darwin, Francis Galton, Oops!, The Eugenics Review, Year

Francis Darwin in Francis Galton (the Galton Lecture) as found in The Eugenics Review, 1914: But it is time to speak of Galton as a eugenist–on which if we look to the distant future his fame will reset. For no one can doubt that the science of eugenics must become a great and beneficent force …

Leave comment

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 …

2 comments

G. P. Mudge, “Biology, Theology and Medicine in Relation to the State.” and the crippling of the nation

Filed under 1911, 1914, Charity, degeneration, dysgenic breeding, Evolution, First Conference for Race Betterment (1914), imbeciles, laws of heredity, national stock, race, race betterment, social body, socialism, tuberculous

G. P. Mudge, “Biology, Theology and Medicine in Relation to the State.” London Hospital Gazette, Yol. 17, No. S. May, 1911. pp. 189-193. As quoted by Leonard Cole at the First Conference for Race Betterment in 1914. No doubt it seemeth right to alleviate misery, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to pamper …

Leave comment

George William Hunter’s “Civic Biology” — the Eugenics Textbook at the Heart of the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’

Filed under 1914, American Eugenics, American Indian, applied biology, Artificial Selection, Biological Laws, birth defects, Blond Hair, Blue Eyes, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, Caucasian, Charity, Charles Davenport, China, Civic Biology, civilization, Clarence Darrow, criminals, Darwinism, defectives, definition of eugenics, degeneration, dysgenic breeding, dysgenics, education, eugenics, eugenics as a science, euthenics, Evolution, feeble-minded, Fit and Unfit, George William Hunter, German Eugenics, Germany, hereditary cripples, Holocaust, hygiene, individual freedom, inferior people, Inherit the Wind, insane asylums, Intermarriage, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, lethal chamber, man as animal, marriage, Mongolian (yellow race), Natural selection, Nazis, negative eugenics, Parasitism, quote collections, race, scientific racism, scientific world view, Scopes Monkey Trial, sentimentalism, social body, The Jukes, The Kallikaks

The so-called ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ was a media sensation at the time, but how it actually went down was shamelessly skewed afterwards to make it seem that the evolutionists were humble seekers of truth and those who stood against them ignorant, religious bigots. This viewpoint was perpetuated effectively through movies on the trial such as …

1 comment

The Eugenic Roots of Genetic Counseling

Filed under 1914, 1915, 1916, 1949, 1952, 1954, 1968, 1972, abortion, After-birth abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, ASHG, birth control, birth defects, compulsory sterilization, Contraception, defectives, degeneration, Down Syndrome, dysgenic breeding, dysgenics, education, Elaine Freeman, eugenics, euthanasia, euthenics, every child a wanted child, Evolution, family planning, feeble-minded, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, Frederick Osborn, genetic counseling, genetic load, Genetics, Germany, H.J. Muller, Harrison Brown, Harry J. Haiselden, Helen Keller, hereditary courts, hereditary cripples, heredity clinic, Holocaust, human weeds, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, Lee R. Dice, Madison Grant, medical genetics, medical killing, meningomyelocele, mental defectives, mongolism, morality, Natural selection, Nazis, New York Times, planned evolution, quote collections, race, rational selection, sanctity of life, science, sentimentalism, social body, spina bifida, sterilization, The God Committee, The Passing of the Great Race, Year

Charity requires us to believe that most contemporary genetic counselors are not at all motivated by considerations that we would term ‘eugenic.’ However, the founders of the field left no doubt about their motivations, stating them plainly and explicitly, and characterizing them as definitely constituting eugenics. The following material raises more than reasonable doubt that …

Leave comment

Eugenics is Darwinism and Evolution Applied

Filed under 1879, 1895, 1914, 1921, adaptation, American Eugenics, applied biology, Bible, Biological Laws, Charles Darwin, civilization, conscious selection, Darwinism, defectives, definition of eugenics, Dobzhansky, dysgenics, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, eugenics as a science, euthenics, Evolution, First Conference for Race Betterment (1914), Fit and Unfit, Francis Darwin, Francis Galton, Frederick Osborn, H.J. Muller, Helene Stocker, human breeding, inferior people, Karl Pearson, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, League for the Protection of Mothers, national stock, Natural selection, Origin of the Species, Paul Popenoe, Plato, quote collections, race, race betterment, racial progress, rational selection, Richard Weikart, right to life, sanctity of life, science, scientific world view, The Eugenics Review, Wisconsin, Year

In the essay on the definition of eugenics hosted on this site, it is shown that eugenics was merely seen as Darwinism intelligently applied to the human race. On this page, further corroboration of this will be provided in the words of the eugenicists themselves. Emphasis is added. —————————– R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, …

2 comments

Eugenicists Shared in Common with the Nazis Concepts of the “Social Body.”

Filed under 1863, 1879, 1889, 1900, 1910, 1914, 2012, American Eugenics, August Weismann, Civic Biology, Darwinism, death rate, defectives, degeneration, duty, dysgenic breeding, Ernst Haeckel, eugenics, euthanasia, Evolution, First Conference for Race Betterment (1914), Greece, Helene Stocker, Herbert Spencer, immortality, John Stuart Mill, League for the Protection of Mothers, morality, Natural selection, Progressive Era, Progressives, quote collections, race betterment, Rome, social body, social organism, Utilitarianism, W. Duncan McKim, Wisconsin, Year

One of the under-appreciated elements of what animated the eugenics mindset was the view that each species could very well be conceived of as a ‘body’ of sort. A different level of moral calculation could be applied to the ‘social organism’ or ‘social body’ then the individual. This is no mere invoking of the ‘common …

3 comments

Mass Extermination and ‘Lethal Chambers’ Widely Considered by Eugenicists in America, England, and Germay

Filed under 1890, 1900, 1908, 1910, 1911, 1914, 1915, 1922, 1930, American Eugenics, birth control, birth rate, capital punishiment, carbonic acid gas, Charity, compulsory sterilization, Constitution, Contraception, defectives, degeneration, eugenics, Eugenics Education Society, euthanasia, feeble-minded, Frank Taussig, George Bernard Shaw, George William Hunter, idiots, imbecile, infanticide, laisser-faire, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, lethal chamber, life unworthy of life, man as animal, Margaret Sanger, minimum wage, Nazis, sanctity of life, segregation, self-defense, society, sterilization, The Pivot of Civilization, W. Duncan McKim, Year

Long before the Nazis implemented the ‘Final Solution,’ American and English eugenicists had talked often of the use of ‘lethal chambers’ to deal with the pressing problem of the ‘unfit.’ You can imagine Hitler’s surprise, when, after acting on precisely what elites in America and England had long been advocating for, he was perceived as …

1 comment

Category: 1914