Eugenics Record Office. BULLETIN No. 10A - DNA Patent Database ...

THE SCOPE OF THE COMMITTEE’S WORK. 47
sale those individuals thought to carry defective hereditary traits, and
thus at one fell stroke cut off practically all of the cacogenic varieties
of the race. On the other hand, belief in the efficiency of natural selec-
tion under existing social conditions is held by some. Between these
two extremes what effective and practicable working basis can be
found?
In the program proposed by the committee sterilization is advo-
cated only as supporting the more important feature of segregation
when the latter agency fails to function eugenically. The relation
between these two agencies is automatic, for it is proposed to sterilize
only those individuals who, by due process of law, have been declared
socially inadequate and have been committed to State custody, and are
known to possess cacogenic potentialities. The committee has assumed
that society must, at all hazards, protect its breeding stock, and it
advocates sterilization only as supplementary to the segregation feature
of the program, which is equally effective eugenically, and more effec-
tive socially.
(3) Restrictive marriage laws and customs will have but little
effect upon the socially inadequate classes. This is amply demonstrated
by Davenport in Bulletin Number Nine of the Eugenics Record Office:
“State Laws Limiting Marriage Selection Examined in the Light of
Eugenics.” For persons of sound mind and morals, but suffering from
severe hereditary handicap, these remedies will be efficacious; but
individuals are given the designation “socially inadequate’’ because,
among other reasons, they are not amenable to law and custom.
(4) The eugenic education of the public and of prospective mar-
riage mates must become an active force in American social life, else
no eugenics program looking ultimately toward cutting off the supply
of defectives or favoring fortunate marriages and high fecundity among
the favored classes can be carried out. Individuals possessed of a fine
mentality and high moral sense are amenable to law and custom and,
in a large measure, govern their conduct in consonance with the ad-
vance of scientific knowledge. The basis of progress is the growth
and diffusion of knowledge. Faith in the development of the eugenics
program is based upon faith in this principle.
For certain classes of individuals with hereditary defects, who
withal are educable and are susceptible to social influences, eugenical
education rather than compulsory segregation or sterilization appears
to be the proper method for society to employ in cutting off their lines
of descent. As an illustration of this the following is quoted from an