by Edwin Black
* * *
While human genetics was becoming established in America, eugenics did not die out. It became quiet and careful. The American Eugenics Society inherited the residuum of the movement.
The AES assumed primacy in organized eugenics in the late thirties. It established a relationship with the Carnegie Institution just as the ERO was being dismantled. In 1939, Carnegie awarded the AES its first grant of $5,000 for genetic research. Additional grants in 1941 allowed the AES to help establish the Department of Medical Genetics at what became Wake Forest Medical School, the first such medical genetic chair in the United States. The Eugenics Research Association’s vice president, William Allan, was chosen to lead the new department. Allan had previously studied eugenic defects of people in the Appalachians, and now he would head the new $50,000 project funded by Carnegie. Writing in Eugenical News, Allan urged county-based “Family Record Offices” in North Carolina to assist in identifying the unfit and screening marriages. Such record offices would integrate marriage records and birth and death registries with family information going back more than a century. The undertaking could be implemented easily, he stated, because, “We already have a small army of men, our County Health Officers.” Allan himself was experienced in assembling family pedigrees.38
When Allan suddenly died two years later, fellow eugenicist C. Nash Herndon took over. Herndon advocated forced sterilization. Emulating the technique of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Herndon’s Department of Medical Genetics provided what he called the “genetic work-ups and medical affidavits” for the county to sterilize dozens of it citizens. Blacks were mainly targeted. He described the campaign in a 1943 university report: “This project consists of a gradual, but systematic effort to eliminate certain genetically unfit strains from the local population. About thirty operations for sterilization have been performed. “39
Writing in Eugenical News years after he joined the Wake Forest staff, Herndon also urged genetic counseling to encourage the fit to marry the fit. In addition, he called for educational efforts for the feebleminded to be reduced, declaring “It is of course an obvious waste of time to attempt to teach calculus to a moron.” Under Herndon, Wake Forest Medical School became one of America’s premier genetic research establishments. In late 2002, the Winston-Salem Journal published a five-part investigation of North Carolina’s eugenics program and the university’s involvement. The newspaper quoted the record of one woman who in 1945 pleaded with the eugenics board: “I don’t want it. I don’t approve of it, sir. I don’t want a sterilize operation…. Let me go horne, see if I get along all right. Have mercy on me and let me do that.” A shocked Wake Forest Medical School announced an internal investigation to discover the extent of the school’s connection to North Carolina’s eugenics program. In February of 2003, some two months after the articles ran, a spokesman told this reporter that the university still did not understand the historical facts or context of eugenics, but was determined to be thorough in its investigation.40
The AES was making some progress launching human genetic programs like the one at Wake Forest, but when America went to war, the nation’s priorities dramatically changed. By 1942, the AES had virtually disbanded. Its office closed, and its papers were shipped to the horne of Eugenical News editor Maurice Bigelow. The publication continued during the war years, but circulation dwindled to just three hundred.41
After the war, it took Frederick Osborn to salvage the organization. He became president of the AES in 1946. Osborn was a former president of the Eugenics Research Association and the nephew of eugenic raceologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, who was cofounder of the AES and president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics. The younger Osborn was determined to continue the eugenics movement, but under the name of “genetics.” Constantly introspective about eugenics’ calamitous past, Osborn wondered why “the other organizations set up in this country under eminent sponsorship have long since disappeared…. Was it because… some of the early eugenicists placed a false and distasteful emphasis on race and social class?… Was it because of the emotional reaction to Hitler’s excesses and his misuse of the word ‘eugenics’? Or did it go deeper.”42 He concluded that the public was not ready to cope with eugenic ideals, especially in the absence of irrefutable science.
In 1947 the remnant board of directors unanimously agreed, “The time was not right for aggressive eugenic propaganda.” Instead, the AES continued quietly soliciting financial grants from such organizations as the Dodge Foundation, the Rockefeller-funded Population Council, and the Draper Fund. The purpose: proliferate genetics as a legitimate study of human heredity.43
During the fifties, Osborn took extraordinary pains to never utter a provocative eugenic word. In a typical 1959 speech on genetics at Hunter College, Osborn was explicit, “We are not speaking here of any manipulation of the genes to produce a superior race. This would require a knowledge of human genetics we do not at present possess, and changes in our social mores which would be presently unacceptable.” He merely insisted, “Medical genetics has recently become an accepted field of study; the larger medical schools are developing departments of human genetics and setting up heredity counseling clinics.”44
At the same time, Osborn and his colleagues were searching for a new socially palatable definition of eugenics that would promote the same ideals under a new mantle. One Osborn cohort, Frank Lorimer, wrote Osborn, “Personally, I would redefine ‘eugenics’ to include concern with all conditions affecting the life prospects of new human beings at birth.” He added the caveat, “This is a matter of strategy rather than ideology.”45
The AES knew that reestablishing eugenics was an uphill battle. Osborn’s draft address for the 1959 board of directors meeting outlined an ambitious campaign of behind-the-scenes genetic counseling, birth control, and university-based medical genetic programs. At the same time, Osborn conceded that the movement’s history was too scurrilous to gain public support. “Lacking a scientific base,” wrote Osborn, “the eugenics movement was taken over successfully by various special interests. The upper social classes assumed that they were genetically superior and that eugenics justified their continuing position. People who thought they belonged to a superior race assumed that the purpose of eugenics was to further their interests…. The worst in all these movements found their climax under Hitler who combined them for political motives. It is no wonder that for a long time afterwards eugenics had few followers among thoughtful people.” But, he concluded, “With the close of World War II, genetics had made great advances and a real science of human genetics was coming into being…. Eugenics is at last taking a practical and effective form.”46 For Osborn, eugenics and genetics were still synonymous.
Osborn’s warnings notwithstanding, some AES members were eager to resume their former propaganda campaigns against the unfit. “The Society is torn,” one member wrote Osborn. “Is it to be a ‘scientific’ society or is it to be a ‘missionary’ or ‘educational’ society?”47
In 1961, geneticist Sheldon Reed wrote to an AES official, “It seems to me that there is considerable schizophrenic confusion as to whether eugenics exists or not.” He wondered if perhaps “the society should disband.” Reed added defiantly that the AES should cast off any guilt about the Holocaust. “My final point,” Reed declared, “is concerned with the allocation of guilt for the murder of the Jews. Was this crime really abetted by the eugenics ideal? One should remember that the Jews and other minorities have been murdered for thousands of years and I suspect that motives have been similar on all occasions, namely robbery with murder as the method of choice in disposing of the dispossessed individuals…. I do not wish to make Charles Davenport my scapegoat for this, as seems to be the fashion these days. As far as I can see, the motives behind the liquidation of the Jews were not eugenic, not genocide… but just plain homicidal robbery.”48
But Osborn felt, “We have to take into account that Europeans under Hitler suffered almost a trauma
tic experience.” He had already cautioned, “We must not put out anything that would upset the best of the scientists.” On another occasion, he warned, “This question of how to make selection an effective force is the crux of any eugenics program. It is completely irrelevant to get involved in red herrings regarding ‘breeding of supermen.’” To dampen his colleagues’ ardor, Osborn constantly reminded AES members, “The purpose of eugenics is not to breed some… superior being, but to provide conditions… for each succeeding generation to be genetically better qualified do deal with its environment.”49 Such remarks were made even as the AES continued to promote the gradual development of a superior race, albeit under the guise of genetic counseling and human genetics and with the full participation of hard science.
Eschewing high-profile agitation, Osborn insisted that only quiet work with scientists could accomplish the goal. In a candid 1965 letter, he wrote, “I started hopefully on this course thirty-five years ago and some day would be glad to tell you all of the steps we took-the work we did, the conferences we held, and the money we put into the then Eugenical News-about $30,000 a year, to propagandize eugenics. It got us no where, probably because we did not have the backing of the scientific world.”50
That same year, after numerous genetic counseling and human heredity programs had been established, Osborn was able to confidently write to Paul Popenoe, “The term medical genetics has taken the place of the term negative eugenics.” Keeping a low profile had paid off. On April 12, 1965, Osborn wrote a colleague at Duke University somewhat triumphantly, “We have struggled for years to rid the word eugenics of all racial and social connotations and have finally been successful with most scientists, if not with the public.”51
Indeed, by 1967, Osborn’s society had become a behind-the-scenes advisor for other major foundations seeking to grant monies to genetic research. Even the National Institutes of Health sought their advice in parceling out major multiyear grants for what was called “demographic-genetics.” By 1968, a pathologist at Dartmouth Medical School was asking the Carnegie Institution ifhe could access the ERO’s trait records on New Englanders for his “medical genetics project.”52
During the sixties, seventies and eighties, the racist old guard of eugenics and human genetics died out, bequeathing its science to a new and enlightened generation of men and women. Many entities changed their names. For example, the Human Betterment League of North Carolina changed its name to the Human Genetics League of North Carolina in 1984. In Britain there were name changes as well. The Annals of Eugenics became the Annals of Human Genetics and is now a distinguished and purely scientific publication. The University College of London’s Galton Chair of Eugenics became the Chair of Genetics. The university’s Galton Eugenics Laboratory became the Galton Laboratory of the Department of Genetics. The Eugenics Society changed its name to the Galton Institute.53
In 1954, Eugenical News changed its name to Eugenics Quarterly and was renamed again in 1969 to Social Biology. Later the AES renamed itself the Society for the Study of Social Biology. As of March 2003, both the organization and its publication are operating out of university professors’ offices. Social Biology editors and the leaders of the society are aware of their society’s history, but are as far from eugenic thought as anyone could be. The group is now researching genuine demographic and biological trends. Professor S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Social Biology’s associate editor as of March 2003, denounced eugenics and his journal’s legacy during an interview with this reporter. “You couldn’t find anyone better to run this society,” he insisted. “I carry a potentially lethal genetic disorder. Plus, I’m a Jew. I would be the exact target of any eugenics campaign. I hate what eugenics and the Nazis stood for.”54
The American Genetic Association, formerly the American Breeders Association, also continues today. As of March 2003, it was headquartered out of a scientist’s home office in Buckeystown, Maryland. In the 1950s, the American Genetic Association still listed its three main endeavors at the top of its letterhead: “Eugenics-Heredity-Breeding.” As of 2003, most of the organization’s early twentieth-century papers were in storage. As of early 2003, AGA leaders knew little of the association’s past. But the group still publishes Journal of Heredity. Once a font of eugenic diatribe, it is now a completely different journal with a different and enlightened mission. Its editor as of March 2003, Stephen O’Brien, is a distinguished government geneticist who has been featured in documentaries for his efforts to help develop countermeasures to fight plague-like diseases.55
Planned Parenthood went on to promote intelligent birth control and family planning for people everywhere, regardless of race or ethnic background. It condemns its eugenic legacy and copes with the dark side of its founder, Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood exists in a community of other population-control groups, such as the Population Council and the Population Reference Bureau, many of which sprang from eugenics.56
Cold Spring Harbor stands today as the spiritual epicenter of human genetic progress. Following the war, it devoted itself to enlightened human genetics and became a destination for the best genetic scientists in the world. In the summer of 1948, a visionary young geneticist named James Watson studied there. He returned in 1953 to give the first public presentation on the DNA double helix, which he had codiscovered with Francis Crick. Watson became director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1968, and president in 1994. In February of 2003, the lab hosted an international celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the double helix.57
The world is now filled with dedicated genetic scientists devoted to helping improve all mankind. They fight against genetic diseases, help couples bear better children, investigate desperately-needed drugs, and work to unlock the secrets of heredity for the benefit of all people without regard to race or ethnicity. Every day, more eager scientists join their ranks, determined to make a contribution to mankind. Genetics has become a glitter word in the daily media. Most of the twenty-first century’s genetic warriors are unschooled in the history of eugenics. Most are completely divorced from any wisp of eugenic thought.
Few if any are aware that in their noble battle against the mysteries and challenges of human heredity, they have inherited the spoils of the war against the weak.
CHAPTER 21
Newgenics
What now? The short answer is nobody knows. The world will not discover the latest human genetic trends in books like this one, but rather in the morning paper and on the evening news. Almost as soon as any author’s page is typed, genetic advances redefine the realities, the language and the timelines. By creep and by leap, the world will be alternately shocked and lulled-and then shocked again-to learn how rapidly humanity and nature are changing.
Today’s headline is tomorrow’s footnote. In 1978, Louise Brown became the world’s first test-tube baby and a braver new world shuddered. Since then, in vitro fertilization has become common reproductive therapy. In 1997, Dolly the cloned Scottish sheep captured cover stories and stirred acrimonious debate across the world. Shortly after that, several cows were cloned in Japan, but the news merely flashed across CNN as a fleeting text report behind the comical headline “Udderly Amazing.” In 1998, the Chinese government launched a program to clone its pandas. Shortly thereafter, Spanish authorities approved cloning of a bucardo, a recently extinct mountain goat. In 2000, Virginia scientists cloned five pigs. Entire menageries are in various stages of being cloned, from monkeys to mastodons to family pets.1
Human clones are next. In late 2001, when editors were discussing this book, the experts insisted we were decades away from the first human clone. As chapters were being submitted, the prediction of “decades” shortened to “years.” By the end of 2002, those same experts were debating whether any of several competing scientists had already successfully created the first cloned babies. There is no shortage of willing donors or parents, nor rumors to supply the field. Legislation enacted in several coun
tries cannot address the international dimensions of the where, who and how of impregnation, gestation and conception itself2
Predictions and timelines are little more than well-intentioned self-delusion. However, this much is certain: a precocious new genetic age has arrived. This genetic age, morphing at high velocity, can barely be comprehended by a world that doesn’t even speak the language of genetic engineering. Certainly, the latest developments continuously flood a spectrum of scientific journals and symposia, prominent and obscure. Yet few can keep up with the moral, legal and technological implications, especially since much of the information is so technical.
At the same time, the consequences of genetic advance are obscured by hype and conspiratorial clamors. Adding more fog, human genetics is now in many ways dominated by capital investment, and many revelations are subject to the eighteen-month initial secrecy of patent applications, the protracted strictures of Wall Street financing and the permanence of corporate nondisclosure agreements. Many areas of human science are now trade secrets. Twentieth-century corporate philanthropy has given way to twenty-first-century corporate profits. Information is often controlled by public relations officers and patent attorneys. It takes a profoundly trained professional eye and a clear mind to separate fact from fantasy and blessings from menaces.
No one should fear the benefits of human reengineering that can obliterate terrible diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs. The list is long and genetic researchers are constantly laboring toward the next breakthrough. Every such medical advance is a long overdue miracle. Society should welcome corrective genetic therapies and improvements that will enhance life and better mankind.
Yet humanity should also be wary of a world where people are once again defined and divided by their genetic identities. If that happens, science-based discrimination and the desire for a master race may resurrect. This time it would be different. In the twenty-first century it will not be race, religion or nationality, but economics that determines which among us will dominate and thrive. Globalization and market forces will replace racist ideology and group prejudice to fashion mankind’s coming genetic class destiny. If there is a new war against the weak it will not be about color, but about money. National emblems would bow to corporate logos.