by Edwin Black
Laughlin’s constant racial and ethnic derogations were no longer confined to scholarly journals, but were now echoing in Congressional hearing rooms. Indeed, a graphic raceological immigration exhibit from a recent eugenics conference had been installed for public examination in the Immigration Committee’s hearing rooms. All these ethnic and racial revilements in turn opened Carnegie and the movement to increasingly vituperative attacks from the large immigrant groups that were becoming ever more entrenched in the country. But Laughlin was unbending. “If immigration is to be made a biological or racial asset to the American people,” he railed, “radical statutory laws must be enforced.” At one point he authored an immigration treatise under the Carnegie Institution’s credential, which concluded that America was being infested by defective immigrants; as its prime illustration, the treatise offered “The Parallel Case of the House Rat,” which traced rodent infestation from Europe to the rats’ ability “to travel in sailing ships.”24
Incendiary or not, Laughlin’s rhetoric and eugenic data were producing results with Congress. It was exactly the scientific justification Johnson and other government figures needed to implement greater quotas and deploy the overseas network they wanted. Johnson was increasingly becoming not just a congressman favoring racial immigration quotas, but a eugenic organizational leader in his own right. In 1923, while chairing Congress’s House Immigration and Naturalization Committee, Johnson also joined an elite new private entity with a Congressional-sounding name. The new seven-man ad hoc panel was called the “Committee on Selective Immigration.” Chaired by Johnson’s friend, raceologist Madison Grant, and vice-chaired by immigration specialist Robert DeCourcy Ward, the body also included Laughlin as secretary and eugenic ophthalmologist Lucien Howe.25
The Committee on Selective Immigration’s first report concluded that America needed the Nordic race to thrive. “Immigrants from northwestern Europe furnish us the best material for American citizenship and for the future upbuilding of the American race. They have higher living standards than the bulk of southeastern Europeans; are of higher grade of intelligence; better educated; more skilled; better able to understand, appreciate and support our form of government.” In contrast, the committee concluded, “Southern and eastern Europe… have been sending large numbers of peddlers, sweatshop workers, fruit-stand keepers [and] bootblacks…. “26
Citing the research on “inferiors” produced by Laughlin and other experts, the eugenic committee assured, “Had mental tests been in operation [years ago]… over 6 million aliens now living in this country, free to vote, and to become the fathers and mothers of future Americans, would have never been admitted.” Relying on Laughlin and other commonly accepted eugenic principles, the ad hoc committee advocated passage of Laughlin’s overseas surveillance laws and declared that racial quotas “based on the 1890 census [are] sound American policy…. “27 Because Johnson functioned as both a member of the elite eugenic panel and as chairman of the House Immigration Committee, eugenic immigration quotas based on 1890 demographics now seemed assured.
Suddenly, in June of 1923, Johnson was thrust into new importance within the eugenics movement. On June 16, he was elected president of the Eugenics Research Association. Prior to this he hadn’t even been a member of the organization. Nonetheless, this now positioned Johnson, with all his governmental powers, at the narrow pinnacle of eugenic organizational leadership. At the same time, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, whose department was responsible for the domestic aspects of immigration, had signaled his willingness to cooperate in creating the overseas eugenic network to investigate immigrant families. The battle for negative eugenics-prevention-could now be waged at its source.28
No wonder that four days later, on June 20, Merriam anxiously telephoned Davenport. Secretary Davis had just sent a letter to President Warren Harding supporting the eugenic immigration legislation, and Davis was eager to secure any scientific underpinnings to justify it. Davis was due to sail to Europe on July 4, and now he contacted Merriam to ask if Laughlin might accompany him. Merriam answered that the Carnegie Institution would of course cooperate. That was the exciting part of Merriam’s telephone conversation with Davenport. But then Merriam expressed his concerns about Laughlin.29
Laughlin was unpracticed in politics and was now expostulating scientific conclusions that were provoking reproach. Merriam told Davenport that the Carnegie Institution was quite aware of Laughlin’s shortcomings and wanted to ensure that nothing stood in the way of a quiet success for “the plan” and its incorporation into the expected 1924 immigration refonns. Laughlin did not merely verbalize extremist views; many saw him as a eugenic zealot who would do anything to accomplish his goals. Yet in this situation, some political caution was necessary. “It is understood,” Merriam repeated to Davenport moments later, “that the desire to have Dr. Laughlin associated with the Secretary is not for the purpose of changing our plans but is rather due to the fact that the Secretary recognizes that our work… can be useful to him…. It is not expected that there will be any modification of our plan, but rather that the Secretary will help to carry out the plans which you and Dr. Laughlin have worked out.”30
Minutes later, Merriam went to the unusual extreme of dictating a letter to Davenport explicitly reiterating his concerns. “In order that there may be no misunderstanding… regarding Dr. Laughlin’s work,” Merriam wrote, “I wish to be frank and say that I have heard a number of quite different criticisms”-he scratched out the word different and penned in the word frank-“… quite frank criticisms of Dr. Laughlin’s conclusions drawn from his recent studies…. Because the genetics and eugenics work is so important it is necessary that we be exceedingly guarded, lest conclusions go beyond the limits warranted by the facts and therefore ultimately diminish the effectiveness of our scientific work.” Merriam closed with a warning, “I am sure that neither you nor Dr. Laughlin will underestimate my interest in this problem or my recognition of its very great importance.”31
Davenport in turn spoke to Laughlin, advising him that Secretary Davis had invited Laughlin to join him in sailing to Europe. Davenport also verbalized Merriam’s concerns about Laughlin. When Merriam’s letter arrived in Cold Spring Harbor a few days later, Davenport issued a pointed memorandum to Laughlin driving home Merriam’s censure by quoting verbatim: “In order that there may be no misunderstanding… regarding Dr. Laughlin’s work I wish to be frank and say that I have heard a number of quite frank criticisms of Dr. Laughlin’s conclusions drawn from his recent studies…. Because the genetics and eugenics work is so important, it is necessary that we be exceedingly guarded lest conclusions go beyond the limits warranted by the facts and therefore ultimately diminish the effectiveness of our scientific work…. I am sure that neither you nor Dr. Laughlin will underestimate my interest in this problem or my recognition of its very great importance.”32
The next Monday, Davis appointed Laughlin “Special Immigration Agent to Europe,” making it official with a certificate. Laughlin had a penchant for titles that used the word agent. First he was retained as a “Special Agent of the Bureau of the Census.” Then Johnson dubbed him the House’s “Expert Eugenics Agent.”33 Now in his latest agent capacity he would tour Europe for six months, quietly investigating the family trees of aspiring immigrant families.
If he could establish the scientific numbers necessary to pronounce certain ethnic and racial groups as either eugenically superior or inferior, America’s whole system of immigration could change. Laughlin wanted all potential immigrants to be ranked in one of three classes. “Class 1: Not sexually fertile, now or potentially, and not debarred on account of cacogenesis [genetic dysfunction]. Class 2: Sexually fertile, now or potentially, and not debarred on account of cacogenesis. Class 3: Sexually fertile, now or potentially, and debarred on account of cacogenesis.”34 Laughlin now found himself the syndic of America’s genetic future.
Despite the urgings of the Carnegie Institution, Laughlin was unwilling to s
ail with Davis in July. He needed more time. Instead, he and his wife departed aboard the 5.5. Belgoland about a month later, in time to attend an international eugenics meeting in Lund, Sweden. For the next six months, Laughlin would travel throughout Europe, setting up shop at American consulates and rallying logistical support from like-minded European eugenics groupS.35
Scandinavia was first. In Sweden, he contacted the American embassy in Stockholm, as well as consular officials in Uppsala and Goteborg. In Denmark, he visited the consulate in Copenhagen. Laughlin concluded that Sweden was actually hoarding its superior strains by discouraging emigration through such groups as the Society for the Prevention of Emigration and an investigation undertaken by the government’s Emigration Commission. Working with Sweden’s official State Institute of Race-Biology, Laughlin launched ancestral verifications of four immigrant candidates, all young men, one from Kalmartan, one from Valhallavagen, and two from Stockholm. The American consul was to provide a social worker to undertake the field work along the lines of an earlier Laughlin study that was being translated into Swedish.36
He was sure his work in Sweden would yield scientific proof that Nordics were superior human beings. Writing from Europe, he expressed his elation to Judge Harry Olson of Chicago. “It seems that the Swedish stock has been selected for generations by a very hard set of national conditions-severe climate, relatively poor soil. The strenuous struggle for existence seems to have eliminated the weaklings…. Of course, the original Nordic stock was sound, else it would have died out entirely… [and] could not have made a good stock.” Indeed, Laughlin thought that Swedish emigrants “must be considered her finest product in international commerce.”37
His optimism faded as he traveled south. In Belgium, Laughlin contacted the American consul in Brussels to initiate investigations of four applicants whose visas had not yet been approved-two men and a woman from Brabant, and a woman from Brussels. His fellow eugenic activist Dr. Albert Govaerts, who had studied the previous year in Cold Spring Harbor, helped Laughlin get organized and performed the physical examinations. The Solvay Institute, with the consent ofVrije University, provided desk space.38
In Italy, he liaised with that country’s Commissioner General of Emigration who agreed to help prepare field studies of four Italians seeking to emigrate to the U.S. Laughlin was convinced Italy had “an excess of population” and that the Italian government was “desirous of finding an outlet for their ‘unemployed.’” With this in mind, he began investigating the four Italians.39
In England, an office was set up for Laughlin in the Eugenics Education Society headquarters outside London. Four Britons who had applied to emigrate were selected for familial examination. They included two Middlesex Jews (a teenage man named Morris and a woman in her twenties), plus a young woman from Devonshire and a young man from Hampshire. U.S. Public Health Service officers stationed in England were to perform the medical examinations.40
Laughlin reported back to Davenport that the various investigations “were made by a field worker… in much the same fashion as similar individual and family histories are made by eugenical field workers in the United States.” The help of U.S. consuls was indispensable to “securing the most intimate individual and family histories of would-be emigrants to America… awaiting visas.” Indeed, the individuals themselves were actually selected by the consuls, “who are giving their full cooperation in the work,” Laughlin added. He hoped consular officials would go further and glean confidential family character information from local priests. If immigrant candidates felt the questions were too intrusive or offensive, Laughlin explained, field workers would “simply withdraw to the American Consulate, and announce that if the would-be immigrant desires to have his passport vised [issued a visa], he must provide the information concerning his own ‘case history’ and ‘family pedigree.’” Laughlin boasted that the consuls would “smooth the way for perfecting these field studies.”41
Mental tests to identify feeblemindedness were of course part of the investigation, although Laughlin did not indicate what language was being used in the various non-English-speaking countries. Where U.S. Public Health staff was not available for medical examinations, Laughlin proposed contract nurses or physicians. Secretaries and stenographers stationed around the Continent would be employed to type up the results42
The purpose of Laughlin’s family probes was not to help the United States properly ascertain the intellectual, economic, political or social caliber of individual immigrants, which fell well within any government’s prerogative, but rather to determine how much tainted blood an applicant had received from his forebears. Ancestral blood, not individual worth, would be Laughlin’s sole determinant.
He was receiving excellent cooperation until he arrived in Paris in late November of 1923. There he set up a mailing account at the local American Express office at 11 Rue Scribe, and was then ready to begin work. But when he contacted American Consul General A. M. Thackera to begin his local probes, the embassy balked. Someone at the embassy checked Regulation 124, dating back to 1896. It was against regulations for American consuls to correspond with officials of other American departments. Laughlin, as Special Immigration Agent to Europe, was officially a representative of the Department of Labor. Obviously, the rule would not allow them to collaborate with Laughlin.43
To resolve the problem, a conference was held in Paris on Sunday, December 2, 1923, attended not only by Consul General Thackera, but also by his British counterpart, Consul General Robert Skinner, as well as Consul General-at-Large Robert Frazer. They could find no way around the regulations. So they cabled Washington for instructions. By the end of the week, the State Department sent notice that the rule had been waived, so long as the diplomats “confined themselves to facts and did not render opinion or try to outline policy,” as Laughlin reported it. The project proceeded unimpeded, mainly because the consuls were eager to cooperate.44
Before he was done, Laughlin had visited twenty-five U.S. consular offices in ten countries: Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, England, Spain and France, as well as the French colony of Algiers. Not only did Laughlin proudly establish eugenic testing procedures and precedents wherever he went, he created a network of friendly American consuls throughout the Continent, a feat he bragged about to the ERO. In fact, going beyond on-site work with the twenty-five consulates, Laughlin also mass-mailed every American consulate in Europe and the Near East-128 consulates in all-advising them of his project and seeking detailed local demographic data. Within months, two consulates had already provided partial reports directly to Laughlin, and more than two dozen others had sent the requested information to the State Department to be forwarded to Laughlin, who was still traveling. Eventually eighty-seven consulates supplied the requested population and ethnic information directly to Laughlin. Only eleven did not respond.45
During his whirlwind tour, Laughlin found little time for sightseeing. Moreover, as he traveled from city to city and incurred mounting expenses for stenographers, field investigators, report printing and other general living expenses, he was advancing his own money. He was still collecting a salary as ERO assistant director, but he complained more than once, “I am bearing my own expense.” He was uncertain if he would ever be reimbursed. In late 1923, Laughlin petitioned Davenport, “If these studies prove profitable, and I am permitted to continue them beyond the first of January [1924], I respectfully request that provision be made for my expenses.”46
Assistant Secretary of Labor Henning had promised a $500 stipend, and Laughlin had applied to receive it, but Henning’s secretary then notified Laughlin that the department had “no means of sending you cash in advance…. “ Laughlin confided to Davenport, “I am a little uneasy about the 500 Dollars. The Department of Labor promised, but did not deliver.”47
Carnegie and the ERO were not helpful, still apprehensive about Laughlin’s growing reputation for outlandish race science. Even the prestigious scient
ific journal Nature had publicly castigated Laughlin in a review of his 1922 study on eugenic sterilization. For Laughlin, the tension with his own organization was palpable. To counter the bad reviews, he began sending a disenchanted Merriam as many complimentary European reviews of his work as he could. He also dispatched frequent optimistic reports back home justifying his investment of time, but noted that, in return, “I have not heard very many times from Cold Spring Harbor.”48
At one point in late November of 1923, an almost desperate Laughlin admitted that the British and Belgian family case studies had already exhausted the anticipated $500 Labor Department reimbursement, and “the Swedish and Italian studies will need additional funds.” He asked for financial assistance from the Carnegie Institution, and also mentioned this request to Davenport, so formally as to almost be provocative. “I… do not feel like going into the matter any further without authorization for expenses from the director of the Eugenics Record Office,” Laughlin wrote to Davenport, who was, of course, the director of the ERa. He added, “I should also like the assurance that in case the Department of Labor does not supply the money which I have actually spent for field assistance, I should be reimbursed [by the ERO].”49
Finally, on December 21, the Carnegie Institution decided to be more forthcoming with support for Laughlin’s European endeavors. Davenport dispatched a letter to Laughlin in Belgium assuring him that the Department of Labor would reimburse all legitimate expenses. At the end of the letter he casually appended exactly what he knew Laughlin most wanted to hear: “Did I tell you that $300 has been appropriated for your traveling expenses in the budget of this Department [at Carnegie], and a check will be made out to you for it January first?”50
