Part 15 (1/2)
Eugenics sets up no specific superman, as a type to which the rest of the race must be made to conform. It is not looking forward to the cessation of its work in a eugenic millenium. It is a perpetual process, which seeks only to raise the level of the race by the production of fewer people with physical and mental defects, and more people with physical and mental excellencies. Such a race should be able to perpetuate itself, to subdue nature, to improve its environment progressively; its members should be happy and productive. To establish such a goal seems justified by the knowledge of evolution which is now available; and to make progress toward it is possible.
CHAPTER VIII
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. n.o.body 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 quant.i.ties. 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded. 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded.
”There is nothing striking in the annals of this family. It comes as near the lowest margin of human existence as possible and ill.u.s.trates 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 pa.s.s 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 reestablish 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.e.xual 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 const.i.tute 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 cla.s.ses 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 comrades.h.i.+p 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 partic.i.p.ants 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.