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American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities,told the Commission in 1980:Within the Colonies, and later the States, communitymores recognized indolence as a prime evil. Becausepopular perceptions equated disability with inability,existence of a disability appeared reason enough to deny aperson the right to participate in societal life. 35In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, acceptanceof the purported science of eugenics resultedin the view that people with disabilities were aburden to be regarded as a menace. The AmericanCoalition of Citizens with Disabilities has summarizedthis history in a brief submitted to the UnitedStates Supreme Court: 36Th[e] stark history is. . .of the regime of segregationand degradation which by force of state statute deemedretarded people to be "unfit for citizenship." 37 In everystate in inexorable fashion handicapped persons werelegislatively declared a "menace to the happiness. . .of thecommunity," 38 "unfitted for companionship with otherchildren," 39 a "blight on mankind" 40 whose very"presence" 41 in the community was "detrimental tonormal" people. 42Official policy was to "purge society" 43 of these "antisocialbeings," 44 to "segregate [them] from the world," 45so that they "not. . .be returned to society" 46 since a"defect. . .wounds our citizenry a thousand times morethan any plague." 47 Disabled persons simply did not havessF. Bowe, An Overview Paper on Civil Rights Issues ofHandicapped Americans: Public Policy Implications, in U.S. Commissionon Civil Rights, Civil Rights Issues of HandicappedAmericans: Public Policy Implications 7, 9 (1980).38Amicus Curiae brief for the American Coalition of Citizenswith Disabilities, Bowen v. Am. Hosp. Ass'n, 476 U.S. 610 (1986).The text of footnotes 37 through 58 are reprinted as theyappeared in the brief.371920 Miss. Laws 294, ch. 210, §17.381919 Ala. Acts 739, No. 568, §7.391909 Wash. Laws 260, tit. I, subch. 6, §2.40Report of the Vermont School for the Feeble-Minded 17-18(1916).41Report of the Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded 21(1910).42California Board of Charities and Corrections, First BiennialReport 41 (1905).43Wisconsin Board of Control, Biennial Report 321 (1898).44Report of the Commission on Segregation, Care and Treatmentof Feeble-Minded and Epileptic Persons in Pennsylvania 43Minded Youth 14 (1914).46First Biennial Report of the Board of Commissioners ofNebraska Institutions 10 (1915).47Fourth Biennial Report of the Board of Trustees of the UtahState Training School 3 (1938).48Fourth Biennial Report of the South Dakota Commission forSegregation and Control of the Feeble-Minded 3 (1932).(1913).45Thirty-Sixth Annual Report of the Indiana School for Feeble-the "rights and liberties of normal people." 48 The Districtof Columbia Board of Charity urged Congress, and itagreed, to authorize putting handicapped people awaysince they were "not much above the animal." 49 Handicappedpeople were "not far removed from the brute," 50not quite persons, but "by-products of unfinished humanity"51 who were to be segregated for the benefit "ofsociety," 52 "to relieve society of the 'heavy economic andmoral losses arising from the existence at large of theseunfortunate persons.' " 53 It was important to find a "wayof getting rid of these kinds of cases." 54 Governmentreports labeled handicapped people "a parasitic predatoryclass," 55 a "danger to the race," 56 "a blight and amisfortune both to themselves and to the public" 57 whoserole "in discounting social progress is by far the mostpotent influence for evil under which society is strugglingtoday." 58As Justice Thurgood Marshall noted:Fueled by the rising tide of Social Darwinism, the"science" of eugenics, and the extreme xenophobia ofthose years, leading medical authorities and others beganto portray the "feebleminded" as a "menace to society andcivilization. . .responsible in large degree for many, if notall, of our social problems." 59Attitudes toward individuals with a disabilitywere harsh. One article in the Massachusetts MedicalSociety magazine in 1912 stated that "[t]he socialand economic burdens of uncomplicated feeble-mindednessare only too well known. The feeble-mindedare a parasitic, predatory class, never capable of self49District of Columbia Appropriations Bills: Hearings Before theComm. on Appropriations, 67th Cong., 2d Sess. 96 (Jan. 13, 15,1932).50Mental Defectives in Virginia: Special Report of the Board ofCharities and Corrections to the General Assembly of 2926, at 20.51Baldwin, The Causes, Prevention and Care of Feeble-MindedChildren, in Proceedings of the Texas Conference of Charities andCorrections at Its Second Annual Meeting 87 (1912).s2See, e.g., 1919 Ga. Laws 379, No. 373, §3.531915 Tex. Gen. Laws 143, ch. 90, §§1,2.54Connecticut School for Imbeciles: Hearings on H.B. No. 644Before the Joint Standing Committee on Humane Institutions 20(typed transcript, Feb. 25, 1915) (statement of Mr. Kerner ofWaterbury).55Report of the Vermont School for Feeble-Minded Children17-18 (1916).56Report of the Legislative Visiting Committee, Wise. Sen. J. 263(48th Leg. Sess.).57Thirteenth Biennial Report of the Kansas School for Feeble-Minded Youth 12 (1906).58Mental Defectives in Indiana: Third Report of the Committeeon Mental Defectives 6 (1922).59City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432,461-62 (1985) (Marshall, J., concurring) (quoting H. Goddard,The Possibilities of Research as Applied to the Prevention ofFeeblemindedness, in Proceedings of the National Conference ofCharities and Correction 307 (1915)).24