by Janet Levy, American Thinker:
Nazi Germany wasn’t the first nation to be enamored with racial purity and a master race.
It was America.
Proponents of eugenics gained immense influence here in the early 20th century. They hoped to incarcerate millions of “unfit” Americans in colonies, forbid them from marrying, or forcibly sterilize them so that, within several generations, only white Nordics would remain. For them, this was ultimately a global enterprise.
Historian and prolific author Edwin Black chronicles this dark phase of American history in his extensively researched book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. He charts how dubious scientific studies gained support and led to forced sterilizations, segregation, marriage prohibitions, and immigration restrictions for targeted populations.
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The book was published in 2003; an expanded version emerged in 2012. Black writes that the material he gathered could have resulted in a standalone book for each chapter. Indeed, his detailing of the American programs alone – the first chapter describes a sheriff sweeping up Appalachian hillbillies for sterilization – makes one shudder at the casual cruelty. And his presentation of the eugenicists behind the programs and the billionaires who supported them makes one wonder if they were any different from the Nazis.
The idea of improving humans by weeding out the worst and the science underpinning it were of British origin. Indeed, 19th-century British scientist Sir Francis Galton coined the term ‘eugenics,’ in which the EU (Greek for good) later acquired a dystopian dimension. But it was in the U.S. that its practice began, backed by the fortunes of the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Harrimans, and other billionaires. It also enjoyed support from the Department of Agriculture.
Charles Davenport, a devotee of Galton and Gregor Mendel and then head of the Carnegie Institution, joined forces with animal breeders and seed experts to set up the American Breeders Association in 1903. This organization, with the full support of the American government, was the first to pursue eugenic research. Davenport also established the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) in 1910, with a $10,000 donation from the widow of E.H. Harriman. The ERO soon became “the epicenter of the American eugenics movement.”
From 1903 to 1910, however, the ABA identified the most defective and undesirable Americans, 10% of the population by its estimate. Forced sterilization gained favor as a means of eventually eliminating criminals, the mentally disturbed, and even the poor (deemed genetically prone to laziness).
In 1907, Indiana became the first jurisdiction in the world to legislate forced sterilization for these populations. In 1909, Washington mandated sterilization of habitual criminals and rapists; Connecticut legislated for sterilization of the feebleminded and insane at two asylums; and California, too, legislated sterilization of state convicts and residents of a children’s home for the feebleminded. Nevada, New Jersey, and New York followed suit a few years later, allowing sterilization of similar groups. Some states did not spare drunkards and epileptics.
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