War Against the Weak

by Edwin Black

  68. Laughlin, Bulletin No. 10A, pp. 45-46, 55.

  69. Laughlin, Bulletin No. 10A, pp. 6, 13. Van Wagenen, p. 20. Karl Pearson and Ethel Elderton, A Second Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring (London: Dulau and Co. Limited, 1910), pp. 39-40.

  70. Van Wagenen, p. 13.

  71. Laughlin, Bulletin No. 10A, p. 9.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1. Martin W. Barr, Mental Defectives (Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1904; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1973), p. 195-196. Mark H. Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1963), p. 48.

  2. “Obituary: Dr. Harry C. Sharp: A Medical Leader,” The New York Times, 1 November 1940. Elof Axel Carlson, The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2001), pp. 207,208,224. Dr. A.J. Ochsner, “Surgical Treatment of Habitual Criminals,” Journal of the American Medical Association vol. XXXIll (1899), p. 867-868.

  3. Dr. Harry C. Sharp, “The Severing of the Vasa Deferentia and its Relation to the Neuropsychopathic Constitution,” New York Medical Journal, 8 March 1902, p. 413. Dr. Daniel R. Brower, “Medical Aspects of Crime,” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. XXXII (1899), pp. 1282- 1287.

  4. Sharp, p. 413. Carlson, p. 214.

  5. Sharp, p. 412.

  6. Sharp, pp. 413-414.

  7. “An Act for the Relief of the Poor,” 30 January 1824: Indiana Historical Society. Also see Oscar C. McCulloch, “The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study In Social Degradation,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (Boston: George H. Ellis, 1888), pp. 154-159.

  8. McCulloch, pp. 154, 159.

  9. McCulloch, pp. 154, 157-159. Carlson, p. 174.

  10. Carlson, pp. 185-186, 188, 190.

  11. Thurman B. Rice, “A Chapter In The Early History of Eugenics in Indiana,” selected by Paul Popenoe, Eugenical News vol. XXXIll No 1-2 (March-June 1948), pp. 24-25.

  12. Carlson, pp. 210-211. Rice, p. 27.

  13. Carlson, pp. 218-219. Harry H. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (Chicago: Psychopathic Laboratory of the Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922), p. 35.

  14. Laughlin, p. 36.

  15. Carlson, p. 211.

  16. Laughlin, p. 15.

  17. Bleecker Van Wagenen, chairman, Preliminary Repon of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder’s Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population, p. 18: ABA.

  18. Laughlin, pp. 40-41.

  19. Harry H. Laughlin, secretary, Bulletin No. 10A: The Report of the Committee to Slndy and to Repon on the Best Practical Means of Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population (Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor, 1914), fold-out on “Sterilization Bills Introduced Into Legislatures, But Which Were Defeated or Have Not Yet Become Laws.”: CSH.

  20. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, pp. 6, 8. Laughlin, Bulletin 10A, fold-out on “Analysis of Existing Sterilization Laws, 1913.”

  21. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization: 1926, p. 10. Laughlin, Bulletin 10A, fold-out on “Analysis of Existing Sterilization Laws, 1913.”

  22. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, pp. 8-9, 21. Laughlin, Bulletin 10A, foldout on “Analysis of Existing Sterilization Laws, 1913.” Laughlin, Bulletin No. 10A, fold-out on “Sterilization Bills Introduced Into Legislatures, But Which Were Defeated or Have Not Yet Become Laws.”

  23. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, pp. 23-24. Laughlin, Bulletin 10A, foldout on “Analysis of Existing Sterilization Laws, 1913.” William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of u.s. Presidents: Third Edition, (New York: Wmg Books, 1991), pp. 416-417, 424-425. Entry number 64927, The Columbia World of Quotations, 1996 (New York: Bartleby.com, 2001).

  24. Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States, pp. 25-26. Laughlin, Bulletin 10A, foldout on “Analysis of Existing Sterilization Laws, 1913,” foldout continuation.

  25. Laughlin, Bulletin 10A, fold-out on “Analysis of Existing Sterilization Laws, 1913,” fold-out continuation. Van Wagenen, p. 15. Carlson, pp. 216,226.

  26. Van Wagenen, p. 18.

  27. Van Wagenen, p. 18.

  28. Van Wagenen, p. 18.

  29. “Notes on the Early Days of the ‘Eugenics Education Society’,” unpublished manuscript, p. II, 13: SA/EUG/B11 Wellcome Library.

  30. Overview of Galton’s life, at www.mugu.com. Daniel J. Kevles, In The Name of Eugenics, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 63-64. Leonard Darwin citation in Michael W. Perry, ed., Eugenics and Other Evils (Seattle, WA: Inkling Books, 2000), p. 23. C.W. Saleeby citation in Perry, p. 36. See “The International Eugenics Congress, An Event of Great Imponance in the History of Evolution, Has Taken Place,” Journal of the American Medical Association vol. LIX, no. 7, p. 555. See Dr. Caleb W. Saleeby, “The Discussion of Alcoholism at the Eugenics Congress,” British Journal of Inebriety, October 1912, pp. 1,2-3, 5-6. See Dr. Caleb W. Saleeby, “The House of Life: The Mental Deficiency Bill,” July 23 1912. See Charles B. Davenport, “A Discussion of the Methods and Results of Dr. Heron’s Critique,” Eugenics Record Office Bulletin No. 11: Reply to the Criticism of Recent American Work by Dr. Heron of the Galton Laboratory (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Eugenics Record Office, 1914), pp. 23-24. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Announcement of Station for Experimental Evolution (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1905), pp. 4: APS: Davenport Beginnings of Cold Spring Harbor. The Eugenics Education Society, “Programme,” Problems in Eugenics 11>1. 11: Report of Proceedings of the First International Eugenical Congress (Kingsway, W.C.; Eugenics Education Society, 1913), p. 1, 3, 5, 6-13.

  31. “Programme,” Problems in Eugenics Vol. 11, p. 5. Jon Alfred Mjeen, “Harmonic and Disharmonic Racecrossing,” Eugenics in Race and State, Vol. 11: Scientific Papers of the Second International Congress of Eugenics, (Baltimore: WJ.lkins and Wilkins, 1923), pp. 58-60.

  32. “London Letter,” Journal of the American Medical Association vol. LIX (1912), p. 555. “Programme,” Problems in Eugenics Vol. 11, p. 2. Letter, Wmston Churchill to unknown recipient, 27 May 1910: PRO- HO 144/1085/193548/1. Letter, William Borland to the Depanment of State, 25 March, 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.lEI. Letter, Huntington Wilson, Acting Secretary of State, to William Borland: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.IEI. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Lord Weardale, 28 February 1911: NA: 59/250/22/14/4-5656 Doc. No. 592.7B1/4.

  33. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Mr. Alfred Mitchell Innes, Charge d’affairs of Great Britain, 3 July 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/2; Letter, Henry L. Stimson to Philander Chase Knox, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1.

  34. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Governor Phillip L. Goldsborough, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Governor Woodrow Wilson, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Governor Walter R. Stubbs, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Governor James B. McCreary, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. L.S. Rowe, President, American Academy of Political and Social Science, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Professor H.W. Farnam, President, American Economic Association, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. W. W. Keen, President, American Philosophic Society, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. Reuben Peterson, President, American Gynecological Society, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. W.N. Bullard, President, American Neurological Association, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Ch
ase Knox to Dr. W. Leslie Carr, President, American Pediatric Society, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. John B. Murphy, President, American Medical Association, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1.1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. Charles E. Bessey, President, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1. Letter, Philander Chase Knox to Dr. John H. Finley, President American Social Science Association, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1.1. Letter, Philaner Chase Knox to Professor C. E. Seashore, President, American Psychological Association, 20 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 540.1A1/1.

  35. Letter, lra Remsen, President, National Academy of Sciences, to Philander Chase Knox, 24 June 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 54O.1A1/1. Letter, Henry L. Stimson to Philander C. Knox, 8 July 1912: NA: 59/250/22/10/3-5459 Doc. No. 54O.1A1/1.

  36. Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (New York: Oxford Universiry Press, 1970), pp. 644-645.

  37. “The International Eugenics Congress.” Saleeby, “The Discussion of Alcoholism at the Eugenics Congress,” p. 6. Also see Saleeby, “The House of Life: The Mental Deficiency Bill.”

  38. Saleeby, “The House of Life: The Mental Deficiency Bill.”

  39. Saleeby, “The Discussion of Alcoholism,” p. 6.

  40. “The International Eugenics Congress.”

  41. Charles B. Davenport, Heredity In Relation To Eugenics (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1911; reprint, New York: Arno Press Inc., 1972), p. 241.

  42. Davenport, p. 67. “How Herediry Builds Our Lives,” Eugenical News, Vol. XXVII (1942), p. 53.

  43. Davenport, pp. 216, 219.

  44. Davenport, p. 222.

  45. Davenport, p. 1; also see Letter, Charles B. Davenport to Professor V.L. Kellogg, 30 October 1912: APS B:D27 Kellogg, Vernon #3. Davenport, pp. 80-82.

  46. Davenport, pp. 255-259.

  47. “College Courses in Genetics and Eugenics,” Eugenical News Vol. 1 (1916), pp. 26-27.

  48. Carnegie Instirution ofWashingron, “ERO Schedule: Inquiry Into the Narure of Instruction Offered By Schools and Colleges in Eugenics (Not Sex-Hygiene) and Human Heredity”: APS: ERO documents, Series X. Letter, Charles B. Davenport to Professor Irving Fisher, 8 February 1916: APS: BD27-Fisher #1.

  49. Hamilton Cravens, The Triumph of Evolution: The Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1900-1941, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universiry Press, 1988), p. 53.

  50. George William Hunter, A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems (New York: American Book Company, 1914), p. 263, as cited in Steven Selden, Inheriting Shame (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999), p. 71. Selden, p. 61-69.

  51. See Francis Galton, Inquiries Into Human Faculty And Its Development (London: JM Dent & Co, 1883), pp. 19-20. See Francis Galton, “On the Anthropometric Laboratory at the late International Health Exhibition,” Journal of the Anthropoiogical lnstitute, pp. 205-206, 214-218. James Cattell, “Mental Tests and Measurements,” Mind (1890), pp. 378-380.

  52. Theta H. Wolf, Alfred Binet (Chicago: The Universiry of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 21, 29, 71,141,162-165,172,177,179-182,183-185, 191,201,202,207.

  53. The Vmeland Training School, “The Vineland Training School- History,” at www.vineland.org. Charles B. Davenport and David F. Weeks, Eugenics Record Office Bulletin No.4: A First Study of Inheritance in Epilepsy (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Eugenic Record Office), pp. 4-5.

  54. Henry H. Goddard, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness (Vineland, New Jersey: 1913), pp. vii, 101-110, 116-117.

  55. Goddard, pp. 18, 29-30, 103.

  56. Goddard, p. 53. Author’s interview with James H. Wallace, Jr., director of Photographic Services at the Smithsonian Institution.

  57. Goddard, p. 16.

  58. Goddard, p. 84.

  59. Goddard, p. 109.

  60. Goddard, pp. 105-106, 118.

  61. Wolf, p. 195. Author’s interview with Merriam-Webster Corporation.

  62. Letter, Henry H. Goddard to Charles B. Davenport, 25 July 1912, APS B:D27 Davenport — Goddard, Henry H. #4.

  63. Henry H. Goddard, “Mental Tests and the Immigrant,” The Journal of Delinquency, vol. II, no. 5 (September 1917), pp. 243-244. Goddard, The Kallikaks, p. 79.

  64. Goddard, “Mental Tests and the Immigrant,” pp. 249, 266-267.

  65. “Mental Differences,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), pp. 51-52. “News and Notes,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), p. 52.

  66. “Measuring Mentality,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), p. 59. “The Municipal Psychopathic Clinic,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), p. 55.

  67. “Negro Efficiency,” Eugenical News, vol. I, (1916), p. 79.

  68. Arthur H. Estabrook, “National Conference of Charities and Corrections,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), pp. 42-43.

  69. “The Binet Test in Court,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), p. 55.

  70. “Record Blank for Point Scale,” Eugenical News, vol. 1 (1916), p. 56. “Autobiography of Robert Means Yerkes,” in Carl Murchison, ed., History of Psychology in Autobiography (Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 1930), pp. 381-407. “Officers and Committee List of the Eugenics Research Association,January 1927”: Truman: ERA Membership Records.

  71. Daniel J. Kevles, “Testing the Army’s Intelligence: Psychologists and the Military in World War I,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 55, Issue 3 (Dec., 1968), p. 567-568, 571, 573. RobertM. Yerkes and Clarence S. Yoakum, Army Mental Tests, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1926), p. 2.

  72. Carl C. Brigham, A Study of American Intelligence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1923), p. xxii. Examination Alpha, Test 8: Information- cited in Brigham, p. 29 and Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995), p. 66. See United States Historical Census Data Browser at fisher.lib.virginia.edulcensus/; Internet, for details on rural population.

  73. Brigham, p. 29 and Paul, p. 66.

  74. Brigham, pp. 48, 50.

  75. Brigham, p. xxii. Raymond E. Fancher, The Intelligence Men: Makers of the IQ Controversy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985), pp. 139, 140.

  76. Robert M. Yerkes, Memoirs of the National Academy of Science, (Washington D.C.: National Academy of Science, 1921), p. 790-791. Brigham, p. 152.

  77. Fancher, pp. 102-103, 140. Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., s.v. “Mental Retardation.”

  78. “News and Notes,” Eugenical News, Vol. II (1917), p. 24.

  79. Eugenics Research Association, Active Membership Accession List (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Eugenics Research Association, 1922): Truman, ERA Membership Records. Brigham, pp. v-vii, xvii-xviii.

  80. Brigham, pp. 174, 178, 180.

  81. Brigham, p. 192.

  82. Brigham, pp. 182, 210.

  83. Nicholas Lemann, The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), p. 30-32.

  84. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918 (New York: NAACP, 1919; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969) pp. 45, 70.

  85. Kevles, “Testing the Army’s Intelligence: Psychologists and the Military in World War I,” pp. 576-577, 578.

  86. Walter Lippmann, “The Mental Age of Americans,” New Republic 32, no. 415 (November 15, 1922). Walter Lippmann, “The Mental Age of Americans,” New Republic 32 no. 417 (November 29,1922). Lewis M. Terman, “The Great Conspiracy or the Impulse Imperious of Intelligence Testers, Psychoanalyzed and Exposed by Mr. Lippmann,” New Republic 33 (December 27, 1922). Also see Ezekiel Cheever, School Issues (Baltimore: Warwick & York, Inc., 1924).

  87. Henry H. Goddard, “Feeblemindedness: A Question of Definition,” Journal of Psycho-Asthenics, vol. 33 (1928), p. 224.

  88. Goddard, “Feeblemindedness: A Question of Definition,” pp. 223, 224.

  89. Carl C. Brigham, “Intelligence Tests of Im
migrant Groups,” Psychological Review, Vol. 37 (1929), p. 165.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1. The Race Betterment Foundation, Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Betterment (Battle Creek, MI: The Race Betterment Foundation, 1914), p. xi. Kellogg Company, “Kellogg’s Company History” at www.thekelloggcompany.co.uk. “Race Betterment Foundation and the Eugenics Registry,” Organized Eugenics, (New Haven, CT: American Eugenics Society), 1931, p. 51. Also see “Brief Notes Made at Conference Held in Sacramento at the Request of the State Board of Control to Consider the Problem of Feeblemindedness, Insanity, and Epilepsy in Relation to Crime, Poverty and Inefficiency,” unpublished manuscript, p. 5: California State Archives, Berkeley PD 72/227C: Box 5.

  2. Proceedings, First National Conference on Race Betterment, pp. 431, 433, 447. Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1995), p. 9.

  3. Charles B. Davenport, “The Importance to the State of Eugenic Investigation,” Proceedings, First National Conference p. 452.

  4. Harry H. Laughlin, “Calculations on the Working Out of a Proposed Program of Sterilization,” Proceedings, First National Conference on Race Betterment, p. 478.

  5. Laughlin, p. 484, 490.

  6. Professor Irving Fisher, “A Reply,” Official Proceedings of the Second National Conference on Race Betterment (Battle Creek, MI: The Race Betterment Foundation, 1915), p. 68.

  7. Eugenics Record Office, First Meeting of the Board of Scientific Directors, unpublished manuscript, circa December 1912: APS BD27-Harriman, Mrs. E. H. #1. Johns Hopkins University, Chronology of the Life of William Henry Welch at www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu.

  8. First Meeting of the Board of Scientific Directors.

  9. Letter, Alexander Graham Bell to Charles B. Davenport, 27 December 1912: Truman C-2-3:3.

  10. Eugenics Research Association, Officers and Committee List of the Eugenics Research Association — January 1927 (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Eugenics Research Association, 1927): Truman, ERA Membership Records. Eugenics Research Association, Active Membership Accession List (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Eugenics Research Association, 1922): Truman, ERA Membership Records.