EUGENICS AND IMMIGRATION 



Large Amount of Bad Breeding Prevented by Medical Examination of Aliens at 



Ports of Entry — Detection of Defectives More Thorough Now 



Than Ever Before, Because of Decrease in Numbers 



Arriving.' 



Dr. L. E. Cofer 

 Assistant Surgeon General, U. S. Public Health Service, Washington, D. C. 



THE word "Eugenics" has ap- 

 peared in literature only within 

 the last ten years. It may be 

 defined in a few words as a 

 science which attempts to improve 

 the jjhysical development and mental 

 equipment of the indi\'idual in so far 

 as this may be possible by heredity. 

 The attempt to improve himian stocks 

 of all kinds during recent years has 

 taken form, so far as it relates to immi- 

 gration, in preventing unfit persons 

 from coming into the country, either by 

 Ijeing born into it or by being brought 

 into it by migration. 



In the same sense the execution, in- 

 carceration or asexualization of crim- 

 inals, or the segregation of certain other 

 classes — paupers, insane persons, idiots, 

 lepers and the like — tend to raise the 

 ciuality ((f the human stock. 



Properly speaking, however, eugenics 

 does not include so much the prevention 

 of the ]jroduction of unfit, as it does the 

 attem])t to ]jroducc the more fit. On 

 stock farms all over our country, in 

 private stables and in kennels men are 

 spending their lives in the improvement 

 of our breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, 

 dogs and swine. By selective breeding 

 it is quite possible to breed cows which 

 will yield about 12 gallons of milk ])cr 

 day, which means that a 1400 ])()un(l 

 cow will N'ield her own weight ever\' 

 two weeks. We exercise similar care and 

 thought in the development of our 

 grains, vegetables and fruits. Every 

 effort is being made to produce and 

 perpetuate those forms which com9 the 

 nearest to meeting our ideal. It is 

 therefore ]jrobabIy a just charge that 



'Address ddivcri-d ht-forc tlu' YmiiiK Men's Christian Assoiiation of Washinj^lon, D. C. 

 February 18, 1915. 

 170 



we are more careful of the breed of our 

 horses and dogs than of our children. A 

 natural question would be, then, why 

 is it that with all our efforts to improve 

 the breed of domestic animals, we have 

 neglected the breed of the most import- 

 ant of them all, that is, the human 

 animal? Why have we left the breed 

 of men altogether to chance? W^c are 

 beginning to ask ourselves these ques- 

 tions, and we are beginning slowly to 

 realize that if society had done its full 

 eugenic duty many a long line of 

 defectives and criminal descendants of 

 defectives would never have been born. 

 It is claimed by many people that we are 

 doing everything we can to encourage 

 the production of defectives, degenerate 

 and delinquent persons by the w^ay in 

 which we feed and clothe them, by the 

 way in which we increase the annual 

 sums for asylums, almshouses, prisons, 

 hos])itals, etc., in which we can confine 

 our insane, ])auixTs, habitual criminals, 

 and imlxciles, leaving them free, during 

 a part of their lives, in any event, to 

 Ijropagate their kind, and it has been 

 shown that this class of persons, if 

 given ojjportunity, is relatively more 

 prolific than the better and more useful 

 class of citizens. 



THK IDEAL OF EUGKN'KS. 



And thus we come to ask wh\- we can 

 not breed the superman, or in other 

 words we are discussing the artificial 

 breeding of mankind itself. Unfor- 

 tunately the average advocate of eugenics 

 as ai)i)lied to man is apt to consider the 

 production of superman bodies ])ara- 

 mount to the jjroduction of sui)erman 



