Social Darwinism – the term actually – is hard to pin down as to its origins.   Some sources say that its a knock against Darwin when his critics try to apply Darwin’s evolutionary biology to a social context, an application that Darwin never intended.   Other sources say that SD should really be called “survival of the fittest” because the man who first proposed these SD ideas, Herbert Spencer, also coined the “survival” phrase.

 

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”  Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr. 

 

Eugenics was an ambitious, worldwide program that set about to eliminate the lowest tenth of the human population by restricting marriages and involuntarily sterilizing those who were considered to be “feebleminded,” or were petty criminals, epileptics, and alcoholics.  The lowest tenth also included, in America, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, and immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe.   In many ways, this technique is akin to treating human beings like live stock and culling the weak to improve the gene pool.  So, beginning in the 20th Century, with the help of such philanthropic giants as the Carnegie Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation, prominent eugenicists wrote and recommended sterilization policies that would become laws in 28 states by 1932.  60,000 Americans would eventually have their reproductive rights taken from them, though Eugenics enthusiasts sought to eliminate almost 14 million Americans 1.

 

Eugenics actually originated with Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton who drew conclusions from his examinations of prominent British families and inherited traits.  An Italian physician named Cesare Lombroso added to this field of knowledge by stating “there exists…a group of criminals, born for evil, against whom all social cures break against a rock – a fact which compels us to eliminate the[se criminals] completely, even by death.”   in 1874, an English doctor named Jugdale examined on inmates in a New York jail, especially six who were related.  Jugdale sdiscovered that these inmates’ family tree was “full of social deviants” 2.

 

Coupled with the influx of millions of new immigrants from different places like Eastern and Southern Europe, old stock Americans looked for reasons to restrict this flood of “an army of the unfit”.  So, America began passing laws that limited immigration from those parts of Europe – 1921’s Emergency Immigration (or Quota) Act placed a quota of just 3% of any group’s population based on the 1910 Census.  In 1924, the Immigration Act went further by changing the quota to 2% and changing the Census date to 1890, adversely affecting the most recent additions to America.  The 1924 law also restricted Asian citizenship as well.

 

But, the worst part about the eugenics movement is that the American movement became the envy of the German National Socialist Party as they rose to power in the late 1920s.  “The National Socialist Physicians League head Gerhard Wagner praised America’s eugenic policies and pointed to them as a model for Germany” 2.   In fact, during the 1930s, both American and German eugenic scientists and programs exchanged information and praised each other as model programs for other like-minded countries to follow.   Euthanasia of the insane was proposed in Alabama in 1936 if compulsory sterilization wasn’t enough to stop the increase in number coming into sanitariums.   Even the inventor of the iron lung suggested that the insane be disposed of efficiently “in small euthanasia facilities supplied with proper gases” 2.

 

  Though American eugenics programs did not have the depth or breadth that the Nazi eugenics program had (the Holocaust), compulsory sterilization laws were still in effect until the late 1960s and early 1970s.  In fact, 60,000 doesn’t compare with 6 million or even 11 million if you count all of the victims of the Nazi genocidal machine.

 

But that doesn’t minimize the fact that America is supposed to be a democracy that allows many freedoms and protects peoples’ rights, and during this sad history, the country and its states chose to interfere with peoples’ right to marry whomever they wanted and also to have children.  When the laws of the land and the courts of the land uphold those immoral laws based upon bogus science, what recourse do the weak have?   Isn’t that what the government’s job is – protect the weak, in cases like these?

 

Questions:  (PICK TWO OF THE THREE QUESTIONS) 

1. Do states bear any responsibility for the compulsory sterilization laws that they had passed in the early part of the 20th Century?  Why or why not?  If so, what should be done for those surviving victims, especially the ones who are still alive who were sterilized in the 1960s or 1970s?

2. Do you think the philanthropic organizations like Carnegie Institute or Rockefeller Foundation bear any responsibility in this mess?  Why or why not?

3. Is it possible that the Human Genome Project could spur similar sentiments or feelings about fetal manipulation in order to create a healthier, more perfect child?  Why or why not?

(300 words total after writing BOTH of your answers).   Due Friday, January 13 before class begins.  

Sources: 

1. Black, Edwin. War against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003. Print.

2. Quinn, Peter. “Race Cleansing In America.” American Heritage Mar. 2003: 35-43. Web. 2012. <http://faculty.nwacc.edu/abrown/WesternCiv/Articles%5CEugenics.pdf>

NPR’s story on North Carolina’s recommendation to provide assistance for the 2,000 survivors of NC’s eugenic’s program.