Sunday, October 13, 2013

Begin II

WHERE TO BEGIN

The millions of Mrs. Harriman, relict of the great railroad "promoter," assisted by other millions of Rockefeller and Carnegie, are to be devoted to sterilization of several hundred thousands of American "defectives" annually, as a matter of eugenics.

It is true that we don't yet know all that the millions of our plutocracy can do to the common folks. We see that our moneyed plutocrats can own the governments of whole states, override constitutions, maintain private armies to shoot down men, women and children, and railroad innocent men to life imprisonment for murder, or lesser crimes. And IF WE SUBMIT TO SUCH THINGS, we ought not to be surprised if they undertake to sterilize all those who are obnoxious to them.

Of course, the proposition depends much on who are to be declared "defective."

The old Spartans, with war always in view, used to destroy, at birth, boys born with decided physical weakness. Some of our present-day eugenists go farther and damn children before their birth because of parents criminally inclined. Then we have eugenic "defectives" in the insane and the incurably diseased. The proposition is not wholly without justification. But isn't there another sort of "defective," who is quite as dangerous as any but whom discussion generally overlooks, especially discussion by the senile long-haired pathologists, and long-eared college professors involved in the Harriman-Rockefeller scheme to sterilize?

A boy is born to millions. He either doesn't work, isn't useful, doesn't contribute to human happiness, is altogether a parasite, or else he works to add to his millions, with the brutal, insane greed for more and more that caused the accumulation of the inherited millions. Why isn't such THE MOST DANGEROUS "DEFECTIVE" OF ALL? Why isn't the prevention of more such progeny THE FIRST DUTY OF EUGENICS? Such "defectives" directly attack the rights, liberties, happiness, and lives of millions.

Talk about inheriting criminal tendencies. Is there a ranker case of such than the inheritance of Standard Oil criminality as evidenced in the slaughter of mothers and their babes at Ludlow?

Sterilization of hundreds of thousands of the masses, by the Harrimans and Rockefellers? LET'S FIRST TRY OUT THE "DEFECTIVENESS" OF THE SONS OF BILLIONAIRES!

Let's first sterilize where sterilization will mean something immediate, far-reaching and thorough in the way of genuine eugenics!


--Editorial, San Francisco Daily News (a William Randolph Hearst newspaper), October 14, 1915

Quoted in Edwin Black, "War Against The Weak: Eugenics And America's Campaign To Create A Master Race", p. 101-102

1 Comments:

Blogger Dana said...

Thanks! I just posted a link to this great blog entry of yours on Facebook to support a point about the time for such things coming to its end. I'm reading Black's scorching book right, now, with a couple of others of his lined up behind it.

8:33 AM  

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