Effective II

In 1905, both houses of Pennsylvania's legislature finally passed an "Act for the Prevention of Idiocy." The bill mandated that if the trustees and surgeons of the state's several institutions caring for feebleminded children determined "procreation is inadvisable," then the surgeon could "perform such operation for the prevention of procreation as shall be decided safest and most effective."

Pennsylvania Governor Samuel Pennypacker's veto message denounced the very idea: "It is plain that the safest and most effective method of preventing procreation would be to cut the heads off the inmates," wrote Pennypacker, adding, "and such authority is given by the bill to this staff of scientific experts…. Scientists, like all other men whose experiences have been limited to one pursuit… sometimes need to be restrained. Men of high scientific attainments are prone… to lose sight of broad principles outside their domain…. To permit such an operation would be to inflict cruelty upon a helpless class… which the state has undertaken to protect." Governor Pennypacker ended his incisive veto with five words: "The bill is not approved." No effort was made to override.

--Edwin Black, "War Against The Weak: Eugenics And America's Campaign To Create A Master Race", p. 66