Imbeciles

by Adam Cohen

  In the years: Mary L. Dudziak, “Oliver Wendell Holmes as a Eugenic Reformer: Rhetoric in the Writing of Constitutional Law,” Iowa Law Review 71 (1986): 836.

  a new governor took office in Mississippi: Edward J. Larson, Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 116–18.

  William Faulkner: Cleanth Brooks, William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963), 4; Michael Gresset, A Faulkner Chronology (Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 1985), 27.

  The sterilization movement gained greater force: Philip R. Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 88.

  By that year: Robert Cynkar, “Buck v. Bell: ‘Felt Necessities’ v. Fundamental Values?,” Columbia Law Review 81 (1981): 1454.

  In states where the church “could mobilize sufficiently”: Randall Hansen and Desmond King, Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth-Century North America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 122.

  In New Jersey: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 88–89.

  New Jersey, however: Ibid.; Hansen and King, Sterilized by the State, 130.

  One leading eugenicist: Marouf A. Hasian Jr., The Rhetoric of Eugenics in Anglo-American Thought (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 109.

  In Colorado: Hansen and King, Sterilized by the State, 128–29, 132.

  “there would not be so many fools”: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 89.

  the number of eugenic sterilizations increased: Ibid., 96.

  The “clearing house” model: Ibid., 98; Albert Priddy to Harry Laughlin, Oct. 14, 1924, box 11, Central Virginia Training Center Papers, Library of Virginia.

  “Mississippi appendectomies”: Leuchtenburg, Supreme Court Reborn, 16.

  Ten years after the court’s ruling: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 96.

  Many tried to have children: Paul A. Lombardo, “Eugenic Sterilization in Virginia: Aubrey Strode and the Case of Buck v. Bell” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1982), 254.

  “It was as routine”: Robert Reinhold, “Mass Sterilization Law Protested,” Lawrence Journal-World, Feb. 24, 1980.

  European countries began to adopt: Diane Paul and Hamish Spencer, “Did Eugenics Rest on an Elementary Mistake?,” in Thinking About Evolution: Historical, Philosophical, and Political Perspectives, ed. Rama S. Singh et al. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) 112.

  An American medical researcher: Marie Kopp, “Eugenic Sterilization Laws in Europe,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Sept. 1937), 499–504; Garland Allen, “‘Culling the Herd’: Eugenics and the Conservation Movement in the United States, 1900–1940” (2013) Biology Faculty Publications Paper 6, http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/bio_facpubs/6, 39n89.

  Nazi Germany adopted: Paul A. Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 202.

  The Nazis also established: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 107–8; Stefan Kuhl, The Nazi Connection (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 54.

  “Germany learned from the United States”: Lombardo, Three Generations, 203.

  Otto Wagener: Kuhl, Nazi Connection, 37.

  The law authorized sterilization: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 107.

  sterilization against Jews and people of partial Jewish background: Ibid. 109; Kuhl, Nazi Connection, 126n62; Hansen and King, Sterilized by the State, 150; Edwin Black, War Against the Weak (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 407–8.

  “In a judgment”: Black, War Against the Weak, 405–9.

  Judgment at Nuremberg: Judgment at Nuremberg, dir. Stanley Kramer, perf. Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, and Maximillian Schell, Roxlom Films, 1961; Abby Mann, Judgment at Nuremberg (New York: New Directions Books, 2002), 30; Leuchtenburg, Supreme Court Reborn, 17.

  Strode’s account began in 1921: Aubrey Strode to Dr. Don Preston Peters, July 19, 1939, box 29, Aubrey Strode Papers, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia (hereafter cited as Strode Papers); Lombardo, “Eugenic Sterilization in Virginia,” 106n14.

  He then told the State Hospital Board: Strode to Peters, July 19, 1939.

  Many states were carrying out: Strode to Peters, July 19, 1939; Harry Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (Chicago: Psychopathic Library of the Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922), 445–52 (“Model Eugenical Sterilization Law”); Dorr, Segregation’s Science, 128.

  Strode’s advice delayed: Strode to Peters, July 19, 1939.

  “this matter would justify”: Aubrey Strode to W. Pendleton Sandridge Jr., undated, box 92, Strode Papers.

  “wheel of social progress”: Lombardo, Three Generations, 208.

  “the immense financial burden”: Steven Noll, “The Sterilization of Willie Mallory,” in “Bad” Mothers: The Politics of Blame in Twentieth-Century America, ed. Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 42.

  “Now is the time”: Leuchtenburg, Supreme Court Reborn, 16.

  On September 11, 1933: W. I. Prichard, “History—Lynchburg Training School and Hospital, Pt. II,” Mental Health in Virginia 11 (Autumn 1960), 29.

  On December 9, 1934: Lombardo, Three Generations, 208.

  Strode’s reference to sterilization: Lombardo, “Eugenic Sterilization in Virginia,” 260–61. In addition to his Virginia Social Science Association address, Strode’s papers contain a copy of a letter to the editor of the Literary Digest defending eugenic sterilization laws, ibid., 259. It is difficult to assign much weight to the letter, however, since it was never published, and it is not clear it was ever actually sent, ibid., 259n58.

  “I knew him as a boy”: Lombardo, Three Generations, 234.

  On May 17, 1946: Lombardo, “Eugenic Sterilization in Virginia,” 249–50.

  “known for his interest”: “Judge Aubrey E. Strode,” New York Times, May 18, 1946.

  Laughlin’s study was published: Harry Laughlin, The Legal Status of Eugenical Sterilization: History and Analysis of Litigation Under the Virginia Sterilization Statute, Which Led to a Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States Upholding the Statute (Chicago: Chicago Municipal Court, 1930), 5.

  Laughlin ended his study: Ibid., 62–77, 81.

  “last line of defense”: Harry Laughlin, “The Eugenical Aspects of Deportation,” 27, box C-4-6, Harry H. Laughlin Papers, Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO (hereafter cited as Laughlin Papers); Desmond King, In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 117.

  “Substitute Aryan for Nordic”: Kuhl, Nazi Connection, 74.

  He wrote to the publisher: Harry Laughlin to R. V. Coleman, Nov. 25, 1935, box C-2-1, Laughlin Papers.

  In 1937, Laughlin made his last great effort: Harry Laughlin to Edward B. Greene, Mar. 16, 1937, box C-2-1:8, Laughlin Papers; Mark Haller, American Eugenics: Heredity and Social Thought, 1870–1930 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), 152.

  Bureau of Eugenics: Lombardo, Three Generations, 196–97.

  Laughlin also tried: Garland E. Allen, “The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910–1940: An Essay in Institutional History,” Osiris 2 (1986): 249.

  “a permanent and complete pedigree record”: Nancy Ordover, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 228n67.

  Raymond Pearl: Melissa Hendricks, “Raymond Pearl’s ‘Mingled Mess,’” Johns Hopkins Magazine, Apr. 2006, available at http://pages.jh.edu/~jhumag/0406web/pearl.html.

  “largely become a mingled mess”: Ha
nsen and King, Sterilized by the State, 187; Raymond Pearl, “The Biology of Superiority,” American Mercury (Nov. 1927), 260.

  Albert Johnson was replaced: Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Congressman Dickstein Elected Chairman of the United States House of Representatives Immigration Committee,” Dec. 16, 1931.

  Laughlin’s career: Frances Janet Hassencahl, “Harry H. Laughlin: ‘Expert Eugenics Agent’ for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 1921 to 1931” (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1970), 327.

  John Merriam: Ibid., 329; Reilly, Surgical Solution, 68–69.

  Merriam also reprimanded Laughlin: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 68–69.

  The committee concluded: Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 331.

  He corresponded regularly: Paul Lombardo, “‘The American Breed’: Nazi Eugenics and the Origins of the Pioneer Fund,” Albany Law Review 65 (2002): 760.

  Laughlin ran regular reports: Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 341–42; Allen, “Eugenics Record Office,” 252–53.

  Sterilization Act of 1933: Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 116.

  Laughlin published the new law: Lombardo, Three Generations, 202, 336.

  “To one versed”: “Eugenical Sterilization in Germany,” Eugenical News 18, no. 5 (Sept.–Oct. 1933): 90, cited in Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 340.

  An inveterate newspaper clipper: “Hindenburg Asked to Save Reich Jews: 500,000 Are Facing ‘Certain Extermination,’ American Congress Declares,” New York Times, Aug. 16, 1933, box E-1-4, Laughlin Papers.

  “In the new Germany”: Dr. C. Thomalia, “The Sterilization Law in Germany,” Eugenical News 19, no. 6 (Nov.—Dec. 1934): 137, quoted in Walter Berns, “Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law?,” Western Political Quarterly 6, no. 4 (Dec. 1953): 772; Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 58; Karl Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933–1939 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1990) 106–7.

  “Whether we like it or not”: Harry Laughlin to Madison Grant, Nov. 19, 1932, box C-2-1, Laughlin Papers.

  In his report: “Relaxing Quotas for Exiles Fought,” New York Times, May 4, 1934; Jonathan Peter Spiro, Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2009), 369; Reilly, Surgical Solution, 69.

  If Carnegie were to “arise”: Hyman Achinstein to Director of the Dept. of Eugenics of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, n.d., box C-2-1, Laughlin Papers.

  John Merriam appointed a new visiting committee: Allen, “Eugenics Record Office,” 251.

  The new committee’s report: Report of the Advisory Committee on the Eugenics Record Office, box C-2-2, Laughlin Papers; Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 332–34.

  “a messiah attitude”: Lombardo, Three Generations, 205.

  The committee called for the office: Report of the Advisory Committee on the Eugenics Record Office, 5; Allen, “Eugenics Record Office,” 252; Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 332–34.

  Congress for Population Science: Kuhl, Nazi Connection, 32–33.

  Campbell gave his own remarks: “U.S. Eugenist Hails Nazi Racial Policy,” New York Times, Aug. 29, 1935; Stefan Kuhl, “The Cooperation of German Racial Hygienists and American Eugenicists Before and After 1933,” in The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 139; “Praise of Nazis,” Time, Sept. 9, 1935.

  In May 1936: Carl Schneider to Harry Laughlin, May 16, 1936, box E-1-3-8, Laughlin Papers; Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 351; Lombardo, Three Generations, 211–12.

  The university was marking: Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 351; Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin, 2006), 16.

  With German universities: Allen, “Eugenics Record Office,” 253.

  “deep gratitude”: Harry Laughlin to Carl Schneider, May 28, 1936, box E-1-3-8, Laughlin Papers.

  Pioneer Fund: Lombardo, “‘American Breed,’” 798, 800; Sheila Faith Weiss, The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 275.

  Laughlin was having seizures: Allen, “Eugenics Record Office,” 254.

  Vannevar Bush: G. Pascal Zachary, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (New York: Free Press, 1997), 93.

  He wanted to stay: Ibid., 90; Julian M. Pleasants, Buncombe Bob: The Life and Times of Robert Rice Reynolds (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 167.

  renamed the Genetics Record Office: Zachary, Endless Frontier, 90.

  “These almost unbelievable facts”: Mrs. Shepard Krech, “Maternity, the Family, and the Future,” Eugenical News 28 (June 1943): 22, quoted in Berns, “Due Process of Law?,” 773.

  An internal memo: Albert Blakeslee, “Memorandum Regarding Mail Addressed to the Genetics Record Office (Formerly Eugenics Record Office),” https://www.dnalc.org/view/11599-Albert-F-Blakeslee-memo-about-procedures-for-answering-mail-after-closure-of-the-Eugenics-Record-Office.html.

  Laughlin’s personal mail: Ibid.

  “eventually the world”: Harry Laughlin, “Cosmopolitanism in America,” 15, box E-1-1, Laughlin Papers.

  He devoted his final days: Hassencahl, “Expert Eugenics Agent,” 356.

  On January 26, 1943: Allen, “Eugenics Record Office,” 254; “Harry Laughlin,” Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University, https://library.truman.edu/manuscripts/laughlinbio.asp.

  “a deep self-beneficial groove”: William James to Henry James, July 5, 1876, quoted in G. Edward White, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Law and Inner Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 89.

  “I wrote and delivered”: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to Harold Laski, May 12, 1927, in Holmes-Laski Letters, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953) 2:942

  Sacco and Vanzetti’s lawyers: Liva Baker, The Justice from Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of Oliver Wendell Holmes (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 605–11.

  “I think it a less evil”: Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 470 (1928); Baker, Justice from Beacon Hill, 617.

  As he entered his late eighties: Baker, Justice from Beacon Hill, 618.

  It was a great blow: Sheldon Novick, Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), 367.

  “the principle of free thought”: United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644, 654–55 (1929) (Holmes, J., dissenting).

  He was stepping down: Novick, Honorable Justice, 375.

  “It’s all very remote”: Ibid., 376.

  The headline hailed Holmes: “Justice Holmes Succumbs to Pneumonia at Age of 93,” New York Times, Mar. 6, 1935.

  A prisoner facing sterilization: Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 536–38 (1942).

  These “conspicuously artificial lines”: Id. at 540–42; Howard Ball, The Supreme Court in the Intimate Lives of Americans: Birth, Sex, Marriage, Childrearing, and Death (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 43.

  Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone: Skinner, 316 U.S. at 545–46 (Stone, C. J., concurring).

  “limits to the extent”: Id. at 546–47.

  “I thought that this kind”: Lombardo, Three Generations, 232; transcript of conversations between Justice William O. Douglas and Professor Walter F. Murphy, cassette7b, http://www .princeton.edu/~mudd/finding_aids/douglas/douglas7b.html.

  “involuntary sterilization is not always unconstitutional”: Vaughn v. Ruoff, 253 F.3d 1124, 1129 (Eighth Cir. 2001).

  In the post-Skinner, post–World War II years: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 1
35.

  As late as 1958: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 158.

  From 1965 to 1979: Lombardo, Three Generations, 249, 347n56.

  In 1974 the legislature repealed: Ibid., 250.

  The colony performed two sterilizations in 1978: Reilly, Surgical Solution, 158.

  Oregon was among the last holdouts: Julie Sullivan, “State of Oregon Will Admit Sterilization Past,” The Oregonian, Nov. 15, 2002; The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics, ed. Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola, and S. Laurel Weldon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 221.

  By the end of the twentieth century: Leuchtenburg, Supreme Court Reborn, 15; Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 244n15.

  That number included at least 7,450: “Virginia Governor Apologizes for Eugenics Law,” USA Today, May 2, 2002; Stern, Eugenic Nation, 244n15. Gregory Michael Dorr, Segregation’s Science: Eugenics and Society in Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 135; Leuchtenburg, Supreme Court Reborn, 16; Reinhold, “Mass Sterilization Law Protested”; Ben A. Franklin, “Teen-Ager’s Sterilization an Issue Decades Later,” New York Times, Mar. 7, 1980.

  California’s nation-leading numbers: Paul Lombardo, A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 101; Peter Irons, “Forced Sterilizations: A Stain on California,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16, 2003.

  “I see people with babies”: Kim Severson, “Thousands Sterilized, a State Weighs Restitution,” New York Times, Dec. 9, 2011.

  coercing female prisoners: Hunter Schwarz, “Following Reports of Forced Sterilization of Female Prison Inmates, California Passes Ban,” Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2014.

  sterilization of women on public assistance: Sean Sullivan, “Arizona GOP Official Resigns After Controversial Comments,” Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2014.

  sterilization part of plea negotiations: Sheila Burke, “Attorneys: Sterilizations Were Part of Plea Deal Talks,” Associated Press, Mar. 28, 2015.