“It is better for the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Eugenics is most often thought of as something Nazis did in their attempts to create a master race and eradicate the Jewish people. The Nazi’s “Final Solution” wasn’t their original plan to resolve their “Jewish question.” They evolved after attempts to force all Jews to emigrate, isolating them in ghettoes, and sterilization proved unsuccessful. It’s easy to point to Germawhohich murdered approximately 6 million Jewish men, women, and children during the Holocaust, along with other undesirables like Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals. But we shouldn’t forget that German eugenicists coordinated with American eugenicists for decades, and much of what Germany did was based on what they learned from Americans.
To be clear, Germany had its own eugenics advocates before the American influence. Wilhelm Schallmayer, for example, published a treatise on eugenics as early as 18ca, Madison Grant wrote The Passing of The Great Rin America ace in 1916. Adolph Hitler once told Grant, “your book is my Bible.”
Lothrop Stoddard published The Rising Tide Of Color Against White Supremacy in 1921. Stoddard writings were beloved by both President Warren Harding and Adolph Hitler. Stoddard testified in favor of white supremacy to Congress throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
“It is precisely the determination to get rid of white rule which seems to be spreading like wildfire over the brown world today,” — Lothrop Stoddard.
Lothrop Stoddard hated Blacks, believing them to “lack civilization,” he despised Jews, whom he believed possessed “Negro blood.” He was virulently opposed to interracial marriage, which he thought would destroy the Nordic race. Stoddard pretty much hated everyone, not of Aryian descent.
“The United States has been invaded by hordes of immigrant Alpines and Mediterraneans, not to mention Asiatic elements like Levantines and Jews. Blacks will remain savage, and crossings with the Negro are uniformly fatal.” — Lothrop Stoddard
In 1923, Stoddard was outed by Hearst International magazine as a member and secret advisor of the Ku Klux Klan. Stoddard responded by calling the publication “a radical-Jew outfit.” He continued appearing before Congress for another decade. He spent the next three years denigrating Jews, calling them an “invented race.”
“During their Egyptian sojourn and afterwards, the Jews picked up their first traces of Negro blood. It is time to] discover what blood or bloods flow through the veins of Jews.” — Lothrop Stoddard
In 1929, believing the hype about his own superiority, Lothrop Stoddard agreed to a debate with W.E.B. DuBois, already a civil rights legend and scholar, a graduate of Fisk University, and the first Black man to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard. The topic was “Shall The Negro Be Encouraged To Seek Cultural Equality?”
Wikimedia Commons
DuBois mopped the floor with Stoddard, making him a laughing stock when his views were spoken aloud. A modern-day equivalent would be the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner when Barack Obama made a mockery of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, neither man crawled into a hole and was never heard from again. Both went on to advocate white nationalism for years to come. Stoddard went on as one advisor to the Nazis; in 1939, he went to Nazi Germany, meeting with Hitler, Himmler, and others to enunciate his views.’
The 1920s white supremacist influencer beloved by president Harding – and Hitler
“I have studied with great interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.” — Adolph Hitler.
To truly understand the rise of eugenics in America, you must follow the money. America’s eugenics movement received substantial funding from American corporations and foundations. These include the Carnegie Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and dozens of other groups now thought of primarily for their good works.
The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics
These foundations, along scientists from universities including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stamford, and others, laid the groundwork for the eugenics movement in America. In 1902, Stanford University’s president, David Starr Jordan, wrote Blood of a Nation, stating all human qualities were “passed through the blood.” By 1904, the Carnegie Institution had compiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, plotting the removal of individuals, bloodlines, and whole peoples. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the German eugenics programs, including one that trained Josef Mengele before he went to Auschwitz.
Because it isn’t taught in detail in American history books, it’s hard to comprehend the role eugenics played in America, adopted by American Presidents, taught in schools, and preached from the pulpits. The movement began as early as the end of the Reconstruction era when America had to confront 4 million of the formerly enslaved now unleashed on American society.im
America tried some of the same steps as Nazi Germany when dealing with the “Negro question,” which exists as much today as after Reconstruction because systemic racism has never been rooted out, and the solution to some is never to teach, learn, or talk about it. America, including Abraham Lincoln, favored voluntary deportation of the freedmen, sending them to Liberia or Central America. Lincoln ignored Black leaders of the day until after his failed experiment of sending Blacks to Cow Island off the coast of Haiti.
Abraham Lincoln: America’s Colonizer In Chief
When America Deported Freed Enslaved People
America widely implemented sterilizing Black and brown people, the mentally ill, and those with low intelligence. The Supreme Court legalized sterilization in the 1927 Buck v. Bell decision allowing the state of Virginia to forcibly sterilize a woman against her will based on her intelligence. Prior to the decision, about 6,000 women had been forcibly sterilized; afterward, another 30,000 met that fate. Amazingly, forced sterilization has never been overturned and is still the law of the land. Eventually, 33 states had coercive sterilization laws; North Carolina finally ended its law in 1977.
“Three Generations Of Imbeciles Are Enough” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Three Generations of Imbeciles are Enough” – The Case of Buck v. Bell
The sterilization movement supported by America wasn’t limited to American shores. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations funded sterilization in India and Africa. At one point, one-third of Puerto Rican women were sterilized. America was greatly concerned about its territory and the number of brown people moving to the mainland. Birth control centers were set up across the island, performing sterilizations long before the birth control pill was available.
Testing Without Informed Consent On The Mentally Ill And Puerto Ricans
It’s no coincidence that Puerto Rico is where extensive testing of oral contraception was taken on Puerto Rican women without informed consent as they were lied to about the dangers. Their complaints about the side effects were ignored, three women died during the testing, and no autopsies were performed. Some Americans were ready to use a Nazi-like solution to end the perceived overpopulation of Puerto Rico.
“There will be, of course, American soldiers and machine guns to reduce the population. Perhaps this is the best method of solving the problem, but if the time for machine guns should ever come, where will the major responsibility lie? Sooner or later, the force of the military will be required to put down Puerto Ricans’ unruly reproduction.” — Theodore Schroeder
The crossover between prominent leaders of the women’s movement and the eugenics movement cannot be ignored. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avid fan of eugenics. She supported sterilizations in Puerto Rico and helped fund the development of the pill, partially to give women more autonomy but also to reduce specific populations. She pushed for contraception in Black communities in the South, using the Black religious community as cover.
“The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” — Margaret Sanger.
Some attribute that statement to her fears of being misinterpreted instead of announcing her intentions. When taken in context with her many other statements about eugenics, and I cannot support that conclusion.
“Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.” — Margaret Sanger.
“Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.” — Margaret Sanger.
“Every single case of inherited defect, every malformed child, every congenitally tainted human being brought into this world is of infinite importance to that poor individual; but it is of scarcely less importance to the rest of us and to all of our children who must pay in one way or another for these biological and racial mistakes.” — Margaret Sanger.
“I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan.” — Margaret Sanger.
Sanger’s Planned Parenthood was not alone among feminist groups supporting eugenics. The National Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and the National League of Women Voters were among the various state and local feminist organizations that, at some point, lobbied for eugenic reforms. Almost universally, the targets were people of color, homosexuals, and those deemed mentally incompetent. Much of the research came from California, which targeted Mexican women for sterilization. Most Americans do not know how pervasive the eugenics movement was and still is.
Most research into eugenics will tell you this phase in American history ended somewhere between the 1920s and 1940s. Here is one quote I ran across mentioning the end of the era.
“The American eugenics movement was formed during the late nineteenth century and continued as late as the 1940s. The American eugenics movement embraced negative eugenics, with the goal to eliminate undesirable genetic traits in the human race through selective breeding.”
I submit that eugenics never ended in America, as evidenced by all the existing groups that support it. FBI Director Christopher Wray deemed neo-nazi groups, skinheads, and white supremacists as the “top threat” the country faces from extremists.
“The top threat we face from [domestic violent extremists] continues to be those we identify as Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVEs), specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race” — FBI Director Christopher Wray
How can we acknowledge (which we as a nation rarely do) the existence of these groups yet deny one of the core tenets of their philosophies still lives? The theories behind eugenics are still alive, as evidenced by the comments section of any political website. Knowing where we Americans come from historically is critical to addressing those concerns today. America’s foreign policy, immigration policy, and even how we handle our water supply in towns like Flint, MI, and Jackson, MS, tell us eugenics is alive and well. In trying to condense this research, I’ve omitted more than I’ve written. I didn’t say enough about Harry Laughlin, Charles Davenport, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, or the Eugenics Record Office. I submit this story as a guide that might inspire some to dig deeper on their own. There is no short version of eugenics that gives a complete picture. Hopefully, this can be a jumping-off point.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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