The Question of Personal Liberty.—It must be admitted that there is a reluctance on the part of many even thoughtful individuals to the application of methods which savor in any way of restraint. An objection not infrequently urged by such persons against the application of certain eugenic principles is that they demand an unwarranted curtailment of personal liberty.
To those who hoist the flag of personal liberty, it may fairly be asked, how much personal liberty does the syphilitic accord his doomed and suffering wife and children, or how much personal liberty is the portion of the offspring of feeble-minded parents? Or, what quota of personal liberty will accrue to the ill-fated descendants of the epileptic, the habitual drunkard or criminal, the gross moral pervert, the congenially deaf and dumb, or to even the progeny which may result from the union of two well-established tubercular strains?
We do not hesitate to send the pick of our stalwart healthy manhood to war to be slaughtered by the thousands and tens of thousands when an affront is offered to an abstraction which we term our national honor, and, sublimely unconscious of the irony of it all, we throw ourselves into a well-nigh hysterical frenzy of protest when it is proposed to stop the breeding of defectives by infringing to a certain extent on their personal liberties.
Society has already found it necessary to suppress certain individuals and yet we hear little complaint about loss of personal liberty in such cases. But if it is necessary to restrain the man who would steal a purse or a horse, is it not still more urgent to restrain one who would poison the blood of a whole family or even of an entire stock for generations? Surely there can be but one answer; society owes it to itself as a matter of self-preservation to enforce the restraint of persons infected with certain types of disease and of individuals possessing highly undesirable inheritable traits, so that perpetuation of such defects is impossible.
Education of Women in Eugenics Needed.—One of the most crying needs of the present is the awakening and educating of women to the significance of the known facts. For they are perhaps the greatest sufferers, and once informed, as a mere matter of safety if for no other reason, they will see the necessity of demanding a clean bill of health on the part of their prospective mates. Furthermore in the last analysis woman is the decisive factor in race betterment, for it is she who says the final yea or nay which decides marriage and thus determines in large measure the qualities which will be possessed by her children. Above all, young women must come to realize that the fast or dissipated young man, no matter how interestingly or romantically he may be depicted by the writer of fiction, is in reality unsound physically, and is an actual and serious danger to his future wife and children.
Much Yet to Be Done.—But plain as is our duty regarding the application of facts already known, when we consider that the student of heredity has made only a beginning, it is equally evident that he must be urged on in his quest for new facts, and the establishment of new principles. There is imperative need to carry on proper experiments with plants and animals, to collect necessary data regarding man, and for what is scarcely less important, the publication of the facts already acquired so that the public may be guided aright.
Just at present it is of the utmost importance to secure more trustworthy statistics in order that we may intelligently go about instituting suitable restrictive measures for undesirable human strains. We must know the exact number and kinds of feeble-minded, epileptic and insane in our population, and we must have more insight into the personal status and pedigrees of our delinquents and criminals. For purposes of rational procedure such information is indispensable. Much can be done by hospitals, “homes” and penal institutions by determining and recording more accurately all obtainable facts regarding the ancestry of their charges. Moreover, in such states as Wisconsin, where the state hospitals for the insane have each an “after-care-agent,” the duties of such officers might well include the collection of more adequate data regarding the hereditary aspects of their patient’s condition. And lastly, if in every census, whether state or national, it were made an important part of the work to secure accurate vital statistics, particularly as they pertain to human heredity, the contribution toward enabling us ultimately to purge the blood of our nation of certain forms of suffering, degeneracy and crime would be inestimably great.
A Working Program.—And now after reviewing at some length various aspects of man’s hereditary and congenital endowment, the important question arises as to whether it is possible, with the knowledge at present available, to go ahead with a practical program which will insure to the child of the future its right of rights, that of being well-born. When one considers the matter it is evident that much can be done at once. Most of the needs set forth in the preceding paragraph can clearly be met in a fair degree by instituting the procedures indicated.
One of the obvious duties in a restrictive way that confronts us right at the start is the care and control of the feeble-minded and of the defective delinquent in such a way as to prevent procreation. Much help can be given also through intelligent agitation for the establishment of colonies for epileptics and the higher grades of feeble-minded which can be made in considerable measure self-supporting. A given colony must, of course, be for one sex alone. Much can be done, furthermore, by putting into operation, both in and out of institutions, effective systems of registering births and deaths together with accompanying facts which may prove of eugenical significance.
Again, we should more surely identify and exclude undesirable immigrants and also undertake thoroughgoing investigations to determine which races we can not profitably assimilate into our own blood.