IS EUGENICS HALF-BAKED 443 



they receive. On the other hand, though the message we bear may be of 

 the utmost interest and importance, if the messenger introduces himself by 

 slapping Mr. Garcia in the face, both the message and the messenger may 

 very well find themselves in the street. Furthermore, if Mr. Garcia happens 

 to be a Spanish gentleman, it is quite likely that he will not get much inspira- 

 tion out of a dispatch delivered to him in impeccable Chinese. 



This does not, by any means represent a complete resume of the possibili- 

 ties of garbling in transit the messages of men and of angels. It gives us, 

 however, ample food for thought in the time available. What in the way of 

 message-deliverers have we eugenicists proved ourselves to be? 



In the matter of intelligibility of our language, in lucidity of interpreta- 

 tion, I question whether eugenics and eugenists have even come within 

 hailing distance of Mr. Garcia. People do not get very much stirred up 

 about something they have no comprehension of. Eugenics differs from 

 the cults in being rather over-burdened with an array of facts that, due to 

 a number of causes, are often made to appear somewhat conflicting. It is a 

 consolation that eugenics does not need to stoop to "propaganda," the 

 building up of a half-truth or no truth at all, by ballyhoo and suggestion, 

 until it looks like an Eleventh Commandment. Nevertheless this does not 

 absolve us from giving most earnest thought to an intelligent presentation 

 of the facts on which we base our views. At the present time, more than it 

 needs additional research, eugenics needs lucid interpretation, even in 

 words of one syllable. The whole basis of genetic research and of eugenic 

 application is, after all, contained in the simple scriptural adage, "By their 

 fruits shall ye know them." It was the more or less unconscious applica- 

 tion of this principle, that gave us our domesticated plants and animals 

 long before Mendel was born. There is nothing especially complicated in 

 the concept of the progeny test. It is only a step beyond this to the basic 

 concepts of genes, segregation, etc. I submit that as far as these basic facts 

 are concerned, there is essential unity of mind on the part of all geneticists 

 and eugenists. Speculation on such matters as the ultimate philosophical 

 implications of the structure of genes and of the possibility of altering them 

 at some future time does not enter. If we ever do reach the point where we 

 can make defective genes over, there will be plenty of them to work on. To 

 borrow experience from another field, typhoid and diphtheria immuniza- 

 tion have been widely and successfully adopted. Our ignorance regarding 

 the mechanism of immunization is almost as profound as our ignorance 

 of gene structure. The use of sera and antitoxins is purely a pragmatic 

 affair: they work. Physicians let them work while they fight about how. 

 We must do the same with genes if eugenics is not to prove a tragic might- 

 have-been. 



