Eugenics has already accomplished what no other movement has ever accomplished: it has created the spirit that gave birth to the thought of men's responsibility, and it has taught us that the female of the race has rights. We can now speak without fear; the light is no longer hidden.
Women must realize, however, that they have contributed, and continue to contribute, to race degeneracy. We hear and read much about the double standard of morals. As long as woman are willing to marry their daughters to reformed rakes, providing they have money
and social position, so long shall we have a double standard. So long as young society women go into hysterics over pedigreed dogs and horses and then marry men reeking in filthy unfitness for parenthood, mothers cannot expect any other standard of morals. So long as one marriage in twelve ends in divorce, the ethics of the female need enlightenment. We shall not get another standard of morals until women themselves demand it and insist on it. If they lend themselves to breaking down the conspiracy of silence, the women may solve the marriage problem by refusing to marry rakes.
We need a more liberal construction of the intent of eugenics in order to clarify the obtuse minds so that its propaganda of education may be easily and justly comprehended.
There is no field for speculation in the analysis of right living. It conforms to the law of cause and effect. It is positively concrete in substance. A recital of the life history of Jonathan Edwards, in comparison with that of the celebrated "Jukes" family, emphasises this assumption with a degree of positiveness that is tragic in its significance.
Jonathan Edwards was born in England in Queen Elizabeth's time. He was a clergyman and he lived an upright life. So did his wife. His son came to the United States, to Hartford, Connecticut, and became an honorable merchant. His son, in turn, also became a merchant, upright and honored. His son, again, became a minister, and so honored was he that Harvard University conferred two degrees on him on the same day; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This learned man again had a son, and he became a minister. Jonathan Edwards was his name.
Now let us see, in 1900, what this one family, started by a man in England who lived an upright life and gave that heritage to his children, produced: 1,394 descendants of this man have been traced and identified; 295 were college graduates; 13 were college presidents; 65 were professors; 60 were physicians; 108 were clergymen; 101 were lawyers; 30 were judges; 1 was Vice-President of the United States; 75 were Army and Navy
officers; 60 were prominent authors; 16 were railroad and steamship presidents; and in the entire record not one has been convicted of a crime.
Twelve hundred descendants have been traced from the one man who founded the "Jukes" family. This record covers a period of seventy-five years; out of these, 310 were professional paupers, who spent an aggregate of two thousand three hundred years in poorhouses; 50 were evil women; 7 were murderers; 60 were habitual thieves; and 130 were common criminals.
It has been estimated that this one family was an economic loss to the state, measured in terms of potential usefulness wasted; costs of prosecution; expenses of maintenance in jails, hospitals and asylums; and of private loss through thefts, and robberies, of $1,300,000 in seventy-five years, or more than $1,000 for each member of the family.