War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, Expanded Edition by Edwin Black
Authors: Edwin Black
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policy also mirrored the Nazi approach of the day. Page 56 of the report states, “If exile, or ‘encouraged emigration,’ or ‘dumping’ were no longer possible” due to the large numbers to be internally deported, American states that “now permit the production of certain types of human defectives and inadequates would be compelled to consider more seriously a practical means for the reduction of their supply.”
Compelled? How? Reciprocal legislation between states was envisioned.
When the limit of re-absorption of the deported masses was reached, special “population control” measures were to be undertaken. Five measures were cited: 1) Migration Control “to enforce deportation”; 2) Marriage Restriction; 3) Sterilization; 4) Segregation and Incarceration “for the prevention of their living again in their handicapped offspring in the next generation,” which would necessitate confinement camps; and 5) Euthanasia. Laughlin explained, “In some communities ‘mercy death’ has been advocated in certain extreme cases … but the modern American state has not yet worked out ‘due process of law’ nor has it yet decided on who should sit in judgment.” The final report added, “The legality and protection finally found in the eugenical sterilization laws after twenty years of experimental legislation gives some hope that a similarly sound basis for euthanasia might be worked out … for states or communities which desire it.”
Reciprocal “treaties” would be engineered with like-minded eugenic advocates in the legislatures of Connecticut and alien-recipient states using the robust interstate cooperation model perfected during the quest to achieve mass sterilization. To that end, on page 66, in a section headed “Needed Researches,” project 8 “Euthanasia—Mercy Death,” the task was set forth: “Compile and analyze all past and existing statues of all nations which bear upon the subject.”
Euthanasia had been the holy grail of eugenics since the movement’s inception at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1906, the first state euthanasia law was introduced in the Ohio legislature, but defeated. A leading eugenicist described the proposal as Ohio’s attempt to “murder certain persons suffering from incurable disease.” Iowa considered a similar measure. In 1911, the leading pioneer eugenicists, supported by the US Department of Agriculture, the American Breeders Association, and the Carnegie Institution, met to propound a battle plan to create a master race—a race of white, blond, blue-eyed Americans devoid of “undesirables.”
Point eight of the Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeders Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population specified “euthanasia.” Of course, euthanasia was merely a euphemism—actually a misnomer. Eugenicists did not see euthanasia as a “merciful killing” of those in pain, but rather a “painless killing” of people deemed unworthy of life. The method most whispered about, and publicly denied, but never out of mind, was a “lethal chamber” utilizing gas. Laughlin became a strident advocate for such killing from the outset. Indeed, advocacy for eugenicide was widespread and ceaseless in the eugenic literature and echoed in the formal proposals of various state welfare officials across the country.
Among the many ancestral states long under particular scrutiny for their Appalachians and freed slaves were Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina. These were to receive thousands of Connecticut’s deportees. If the notion spread, similar deportation policies would be adopted by other states.
The plan took its first step with mass registration of nearly all 2,190 citizens of the town of Rocky Hill, Connecticut. About half of them were fingerprinted.
But the mass deportations, recipient-state incarceration camps,
Compelled? How? Reciprocal legislation between states was envisioned.
When the limit of re-absorption of the deported masses was reached, special “population control” measures were to be undertaken. Five measures were cited: 1) Migration Control “to enforce deportation”; 2) Marriage Restriction; 3) Sterilization; 4) Segregation and Incarceration “for the prevention of their living again in their handicapped offspring in the next generation,” which would necessitate confinement camps; and 5) Euthanasia. Laughlin explained, “In some communities ‘mercy death’ has been advocated in certain extreme cases … but the modern American state has not yet worked out ‘due process of law’ nor has it yet decided on who should sit in judgment.” The final report added, “The legality and protection finally found in the eugenical sterilization laws after twenty years of experimental legislation gives some hope that a similarly sound basis for euthanasia might be worked out … for states or communities which desire it.”
Reciprocal “treaties” would be engineered with like-minded eugenic advocates in the legislatures of Connecticut and alien-recipient states using the robust interstate cooperation model perfected during the quest to achieve mass sterilization. To that end, on page 66, in a section headed “Needed Researches,” project 8 “Euthanasia—Mercy Death,” the task was set forth: “Compile and analyze all past and existing statues of all nations which bear upon the subject.”
Euthanasia had been the holy grail of eugenics since the movement’s inception at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1906, the first state euthanasia law was introduced in the Ohio legislature, but defeated. A leading eugenicist described the proposal as Ohio’s attempt to “murder certain persons suffering from incurable disease.” Iowa considered a similar measure. In 1911, the leading pioneer eugenicists, supported by the US Department of Agriculture, the American Breeders Association, and the Carnegie Institution, met to propound a battle plan to create a master race—a race of white, blond, blue-eyed Americans devoid of “undesirables.”
Point eight of the Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeders Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population specified “euthanasia.” Of course, euthanasia was merely a euphemism—actually a misnomer. Eugenicists did not see euthanasia as a “merciful killing” of those in pain, but rather a “painless killing” of people deemed unworthy of life. The method most whispered about, and publicly denied, but never out of mind, was a “lethal chamber” utilizing gas. Laughlin became a strident advocate for such killing from the outset. Indeed, advocacy for eugenicide was widespread and ceaseless in the eugenic literature and echoed in the formal proposals of various state welfare officials across the country.
Among the many ancestral states long under particular scrutiny for their Appalachians and freed slaves were Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina. These were to receive thousands of Connecticut’s deportees. If the notion spread, similar deportation policies would be adopted by other states.
The plan took its first step with mass registration of nearly all 2,190 citizens of the town of Rocky Hill, Connecticut. About half of them were fingerprinted.
But the mass deportations, recipient-state incarceration camps,
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