3o8 Heredity and Eugenics 



Since 1840, this family has had a pauper record. They have been 

 in the Almshouse, the House of Refuge, the Woman's Reformatory, 

 the penitentiaries, and have received continuous aid from the town- 

 ships. They are intermarried with the other members of this group, 

 .... and with over two hundred other families. In this family 

 history are murders, a large number of illegitimacies, and of prostitutes. 

 They are generally diseased. The children die young. They live 

 by petty stealing, begging, and ash-gathering. In summer they 

 "gypsy" or travel in wagons, east or west. We hear of them in 

 Illinois about Decatur and in Ohio about Columbus. In the fall 

 they return. They have been known to live in hollow trees, on the 

 river bottoms or in empty houses. Strangely enough, they are not 

 intemperate to excess. 



Ah, that, in the hordes pressing at the gate at Ellis 

 Island, we could distinguish the John Prestons from the 

 Ben Ishmaels of the future! 



THE EUGENICS MOVEMENT 



Since the time of Plato there have not been lacking 

 persons who have urged that the human race would be 

 improved were more attention paid to marriage matings. 

 But, in recent years, these ideas have become so widespread 

 and have been urged with such vigor, as to warrant us in 

 speaking of a present eugenics movement. There are two 

 chief impulses, it seems to me, for this modern movement, 

 both world-wide. The first of these is a conviction that 

 there is a great proportional increase in feeble-mindedness 

 in its protein forms — a great spread of animalistic traits— 

 and of insanity. When a state like New York spends one- 

 seventh of its state income for the care of the insane it is 

 not strange that many of its citizens are inquiring why this 

 is and whether there is any end to the increasing proportion 

 of the state's income that must be spent in caring for those 

 who cannot aid themselves. The proportion of those who 

 are feeble-minded in such various directions as to constitute 



