by Edwin Black
In ERO Bulletin #13, How to Make a Eugenical Family Study, coauthored by Davenport and Laughlin, field workers and information recorders were informed that eugenic authorities would explain the “eugenical meaning of the facts recorded.”67
Even within the accepted parameters, the data was often only approximated. Heights for several dozen Jewish children were charted in one report with a special entry, “These weights recorded by nurses… are considered by Dr. Cohen as more accurate than those recorded on March 20.” Physician Brett Ratner submitted extensive physical measurements of newborns, with a caveat. “The sheet… [includes] the length,” he explained, “which is taken by the attending doctor by suspending the child by its legs, which is of course very inaccurate, and the chest was also done by the attending physician. Therefore, I cannot vouch for the chest and length measurement. The weights, however, are all absolutely accurate.”68
Often, the science was filtered through personal animus, colored language and even name-calling. Character flaws were frequently accentuated in clinical eugenic descriptions, almost as if to pass the reader a cue. “James Dack was commonly known as ‘Rotten Jimmy,’” read one typical description. “The epithet was given because of the diseased condition of his legs… although the term is said to have been equally applicable to his moral nature.” No wonder Goddard admitted that in writing his revered eugenic text on the Kallikak family, “We have made rather dogmatic statements and have drawn conclusions that do not seem scientifically warranted by the data. We have done this because it seems necessary to make these statements and conclusions for the benefit of the lay reader…. “ In Vermont, a careful and methodical statewide survey condemned one man as eugenically unfit based on the genetic datum that he was “a big hopeless good for nothing.”69
Davenport and Laughlin brashly predicted, “The day will yet come when among the first questions, asked by an employer of the applicant for a position, will be those relating to the occupations of his kin and the success they have had in such occupations.”
Correcting the American ethic with a eugenic voice, they promulgated the stunning admonishment, “There are those who adhere to the obviously false doctrine that men are born equal and therefore it really doesn’t matter who marries whom.”70
The men and women of eugenics wielded the science. They were supported by the best universities in America, endorsed by the brightest thinkers, financed by the richest capitalists. They envisioned millions of America’s unfit being rounded up and incarcerated in vast colonies, farms or camps. They would be prohibited from marrying and forcibly sterilized. Eventually-perhaps within several generation-only the white Nordics would remain. When their work was done at home, American eugenicists hoped to do the same for Europe, and indeed for every other continent, until the superior race of their Nordic dreams became a global reality.
Yet the very first sentence of the United States Constitution protected future generations. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice… secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”71 Posterity would be the monumental issue over which the forces of eugenics struggled. To eugenicists, the future of America and humanity itself was at stake.
In 1924, they would wage a pitched battle against a lone adversary. This adversary would not be a crusading journalist or an outspoken politician, but rather a helpless Virginia teenager named Carrie Buck. Declared feebleminded, she was actually a good student in a family of good students. Called a menace to society and to the future of mankind, she was actually just poor white trash from the back streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. This simple yet often eloquent girl would make the perfect test case. She was selected for exactly this reason.
* * *
Carrie Buck’s mother, Emma, was one of Charlottesville’s least respected citizens. Widowed and worthless, living on the margins of society, Emma was deemed a perfect candidate for feeblemindedness. After World War I, Virginia had a well-established policy of sweeping its social outcasts into homes for the feebleminded and epileptic. In Virginia, the two conditions, feeblemindedness and epilepsy, were virtually synonymous. They were also synonymous with another diagnosis, shiftlessness, that is, the genetic defect of being worthless and unattached in life.72
On April 1, 1920, Emma was hauled before a so-called Commission on Feeblemindedness. Justice of the Peace C. D. Shackleford convened the very brief hearing required. Physician J. S. Davis conducted the examination, referred to on the form as “an inquisition.” The state’s form enumerated sixty pointed questions. Question two, under Social History and Reaction, asked if Emma had ever been convicted of a crime. Emma’s response: “Prostitution.” In those days any woman might be charged with prostitution, whether for actually selling her body or simply for conducting herself in a fashion morally repugnant to the local authorities or even to the cop on the beat. Question eighteen, under Personal and Developmental History, asked if Emma had any diseases. She responded that she had syphilis. Question eight, under Physical Condition, asked specifically if Emma had ever had syphilis, to which her response was yes. Question nine, also under Physical Condition, asked if any venereal disease was present, and for the third time Emma confirmed that she had had syphilis. As to her moral character, the hearing officials wrote “notoriously untruthful.” Indeed, question five, under Social History and Reaction, asked whether she had “conducted… herself in a proper conjugal manner.” The examiners wrote “No.”73
A few minutes later, Emma was officially deemed feebleminded. Shackleford signed the order of commitment, declaring she was “suspected of being feebleminded or epileptic.” Five days later, Emma was driven to the Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. There she was consigned to Ward Five. She would remain at the colony for the rest of her life.74
Years before, in 1906, when Emma was still married, she had given birth to a daughter, Carrie. When Emma’s husband died, the widow drifted into the social fringes of Charlottesville. At age three, Carrie was removed from Emma’s custody and placed with another family. There were no formal adoption proceedings. Charlottesville peace officer J.T. Dobbs and his wife simply took the child into their Grove Street house. The Dobbses had a child of their own, approximately Carrie’s age. Mrs. Dobbs needed extra help with the chores. Carrie was good at her chores, and also did well in school. School records show her performance was “very good-deportment and lessons.” But when Carrie was in sixth grade, the Dobbses withdrew the girl from school so she could concentrate on the increasing load of housework-not only for their home on Grove Street, but for others in the neighborhood that Carrie was “loaned” to. Although Carrie never felt like she was a part of the Dobbs family, she was happy to be there. She recalled being obedient, and always considered herself “a good girl.”75
One day in the summer of 1923, seventeen-year-old Carrie was discovered to be pregnant. She explained that she had been raped. “He forced himself on me,” Carrie later recollected, “he was a boyfriend of mine and he promised to marry me.” Years later, she would accuse a Dobbs nephew of being the rapist.76
The Dobbses would not listen to her explanations. They wanted Carrie-and her shame-out of the house at once. As Dobbs was the local peace officer, and familiar with the legal workings of the county, he knew just what to do. He filed commitment papers with Justice Shackleford. Dobbs claimed the girl was feebleminded, epileptic or both, and anyway, the family could no longer afford to board her. Shackleford scheduled a commitment proceeding.77
On January 23, 1924, Shackleford convened a brief hearing. Two doctors attended to render their expert opinions. The Dobbses testified that Carrie had experienced “hallucinations and… outbreaks of temper” and had engaged in “peculiar actions.” Carrie was quickly declared “feeble-minded” and transferred to the custody of the Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. For Shackleford, it was the second generation of Bucks he had sent to the colony-first the
mother, Emma, and now her daughter, Carrie.78
It was not unusual for Virginia to use its Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded as a dumping ground for those deemed morally unsuitable. Classifying promiscuous women as morons was commonplace. The colony’s superintendent, Dr. Albert Priddy, admitted as much in a report: “The admission of female morons to this institution has consisted for the most part of those who would formerly have found their way into the red-light district and become dangerous to society…. “79
But the numbers of morally condemned women were becoming economically daunting. “If the present tendency to place and keep under custodial care in State institutions all females who have become incorrigibly immoral [continues],” he argued, “it will soon become a burden much greater than the State can carry. These women are never reformed in heart and mind because they are defectives from the standpoint of intellect and moral conception and should always have the supervision by officers of the law and properly appointed custodians.” Priddy’s solution was the common eugenic remedy, sterilization.80
When Carrie was condemned, eugenical sterilizations were not yet legal in Virginia. Priddy’s institution had certainly sterilized many women, but always as part of “therapeutic” treatment for unspecified types of “pelvic disease.”81 These therapeutic sterilizations on young, unsuspecting women were recorded as “voluntary,” with informed consent transcripts to prove it. One such transcript read:
Doctor: Do you like movies?
Patient: Yes, sir.
Doctor: Do you like cartoons?
Patient: Yes, sir.
Doctor: You don’t mind being operated on, do you?
Patient: No, sir.
Doctor: Then you can go ahead.82
Priddy well understood how far outside the law such sterilizations were. In 1916, he had been taken to court for sterilizing several members of another Virginia family. On September 23, 1916, while the hardworking George Mallory was on shift at a nearby sawmill, his wife Willie and nine of their dozen children were at home in Richmond. Two family friends were visiting. Suddenly, two Richmond policemen burst in and declared the Mallory home “a disorderly house,” that is, a brothel. It was later alleged that one of the policemen actually “made an indecent proposal” to one of the daughters.83
No matter, the younger children were turned over to the juvenile court, which, citing “vicious and immoral influences,” transferred them to the Children’s Home Society. Willie and her two eldest daughters, Jessie and Nannie, were confined at the City Detention Home, and then on October 14 referred to the Commission for the Feebleminded.84
Willie later recalled her experience. “A doctor examined my mind,” she recounted, “and asked if I could tell whether salt was in the bread or not, and did I know how to tie my shoes. There was a picture hanging on the wall of a dog. He asked me if it was a dog or a lady. He asked me all sorts of foolish questions, which would take too long for me to tell you…. Then the doctor took his pencil and scratched his head and said, ‘I can’t get that woman in.’” But the attending juvenile probation officer, Mrs. Roller, was determined to have the family institutionalized. She told the doctor to write “unable to control her nerves,” and added, “We can get her in for that.”85 He did so.
Mrs. Mallory, Jessie and Nannie were committed for lack of nervous control. Priddy had them now. Willie and Jessie were sterilized first. In late 1917, Priddy was getting ready to operate on the other daughter, Nannie, when he received another in a series of letters from George Mallory. Proud and strong-willed, Mallory expressed himself in powerful, if simple, terms. His English was lousy and his spelling atrocious. But his outrage was palpable. Grammar and form did not matter for Mallory. His family had been ripped from his home, and he wanted them back. On November 5,1917, after several earlier letters were ignored, Mallory wrote an angry final demand.86
Dr Priddy
Dear sir one more time I am go write to you to ask you about my child I cannot here from her bye no means I have wrote three orfour times cant get hereing from her at all. We have sent her a box and I dont no wheather she recevied them or not. I want to know when can I get my child home again My family have been broked up on fake pertents same as white slavery. Dr what busneiss did you have opreatedeing on my wife and daughter with out my consent. I am a hard working man can take care of my family and can prove it and before I am finish you will find out that I am. I heard that some one told you lots of bad news but I have been living with her for twenty three years and cant no body prove nothing againts my wife they cant talk anything but cant prove nothing… just to think my wife is 43 years old and to be treated in that way, you ought to be a shamed of your selft of opreateding on her at that age just stop and think of how she have been treated what cause did you have opreateding her please let me no for there is no law for such treatment I have found that out I am a poor man but was smart anuf to find that out I had a good home as any man wanted nine sweet little children now to think it is all broke up for nothing I want to no what you are go do I earn 75$ a month I dont want my child on the state I did not put her on there. if you don’t let me have her bye easy term I will get her by bad she is not feeble minded over there working for the state for nothing now let me no at once I am a humanbeen as well as you are I am tired of being treated this way for nothing I want my child that is good understanded let me know before farther notise. Now I want to know on return mail what are you go do wheather are go let my child come home let me here from her
Verly Truiley Mr George Mallory
My last letter to you for my child with out trouble don’t keep my child there I have told you not to opreated on my child if you do it will be more trouble….87
Priddy was livid, and wrote Mallory back, threatening his own action. “Now, don’t you dare write me another such letter or I will have you arrested in a few hours.” Implying a threat of surgical consequences, he added, “If you dare to write me another such communication I will have you arrested and brought here too.” Mallory’s spelling was bad, but he retained an attorney who could spell quite correctly. He sued Priddy for sterilizing his wife and daughter Jessie. Mallory also filed a writ of habeas corpus, and by early 1918 his family was returned to him. Although Priddy’s conduct was upheld on appeal, the judge warned Priddy not to sterilize any other patients until the law was changed.88
Enter Carrie Buck. She would be the test case.
Virginia’s legislators had been reluctant to pass a eugenic sterilization law. “[We] were laughed at by the lawmakers who suggested they might fall victim to their own legislation,” recalled Joseph Dejarnette, superintendent of the Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia. He added, “I really thought they ought to have been sterilized as unfit.”89
In 1922, after numerous state laws had been vetoed or overturned by the courts on Constitutional grounds, Laughlin completed a massive 502-page compilation of state eugenical legislation. It was entitled Eugenical Sterilization in the United States. The dense volume, bristling with state-by-state legal analysis and precedent, included what lawyers and eugenicists unanimously declared to be a new “model sterilization law,” updated since previous iterations of Laughlin’s model legislation. It was indeed the complete legislator’s guide. Laughlin was certain that a law that followed a rigid course of due process, proper notification to the patient, adversarial protection of the patient’s rights, and a narrow, nonpunitive, health-based eugenical sterilization regimen could withstand a U.S. Supreme Court challenge. Burnishing the report’s legal soundness was the fact that it was not issued by any of the Cold Spring Harbor entities, but was distributed as an official document of the Municipal Court of Chicago. Judge Olson, who headed Chicago’s Municipal Court, concomitantly served as president of the Eugenics Research Association. Olson even wrote the introduction, saluting Laughlin, who “rendered the nation a signal service in the preparation of this work…. “90
Laughlin personally sent a copy to Priddy. Now Priddy and his fellow Vi
rginia eugenicists would carefully follow Laughlin’s advice. In the fall of 1923, with a mandate from Virginia’s State Hospital Board, Priddy and colony attorney Aubrey Strode authored comprehensive new legislation closely resembling the text and format of Laughlin’s model statute. By March 30, 1924, Virginia’s eugenics law, which now included numerous due process safeguards, was finally passed by both state houses and signed by the governor. It was to take effect on June 17, 1924.91
Although Carrie was condemned as feebleminded on January 23,1924, she was not immediately admitted to the colony. Pregnant girls were not permitted in the facility. On March 28, Carrie gave birth to a daughter, Vivian. Since Carrie had been declared mentally incompetent, she could not keep the child. Ironically, the Dobbses took Vivian in.92 Three generations of Bucks had intersected with J.T. Dobbs.
Carrie’s arrival at the colony was delayed until June 4, just days before the new sterilization law took effect. A legal guardian, Robert Shelton, was properly appointed for her and properly paid $5 per day, just as the statute and due process required. On September 10, 1924, a colony review board properly met and ruled that Carrie “is feebleminded and by the laws of heredity is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted…, “ and as such “she may be sexually sterilized… and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization…. “93
Upon completion of the hearing, the board properly inquired if they could proceed. Colony attorney Strode properly advised that the Virginia act “had yet to stand the test of the Courts.” Strode later recounted, “Whereupon, I was instructed to take to court a test case.”94
