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At the turn of the 20th Century, rapid industrialization and urbanization led to a social upheaval,

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defined by goals for a civilization free of violence, disease, and mental ailments.

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However, the means by which this Utopian society would be attempted would include some of

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the most profound ethical violations in the history of the United States.

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The President was behind it, liberals were behind it, conservatives were behind it.

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Even the Catholic Church at one point was behind it.

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Intense growth of American industry, agricultural mechanization, and widespread immigration

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led to the first major migration away from the farms and into the city which was now expanding

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faster than adequate housing could be provided.

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The solution to the modern problems of an industrialized society required increased

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government involvement in the social sphere, a philosophy known as progressivism.

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The construct of scientific management offered a methodical means of social engineering.

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Geneticists of the age could prove, through the use of human pedigrees and their knowledge

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of plant and animal genetics, that degeneracy was an inheritable trait.

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It seemed only right that if a society free of all mental and physical ailments,

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free of violence and crime, illiteracy and foolishness, it seemed only right to end the reproductive

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capabilities of people expressing these traits.

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Eugenics was the result of an America unwilling to make social changes, an upper class

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fearful of its laboring counterparts.

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Eugenics placed the blame of a social quandary on individual races and classes

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and thus freed from culpability, the industrial, scientific, and political bearings of the time.

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Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1910.

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Charles B. Davenport along with Harry H. Laughlin, both biologists and members of The

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American Breeders Association, found the Eugenics Record Office, with financial help

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from the Carnegie Institution.

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The ERO would be the headquarters of eugenic research in the United States for

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the next 34 years.

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Using various research methods including human pedigrees, hereditary questionnaires,

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interviewing groups of special interest such as circus performers, and collecting census data,

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the ERO was able to justify the administration of eugenic laws nationwide

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including immigration and marriage restrictions, race segregation, and forced sterilization

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of criminals and other undesirables.

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The ERO, however, was not only able to justify the eugenics atrocities, but integrated them

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into popular culture to make eugenics and related terms, such as race hygiene, household words.

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Popular literature published in the 20's, often donned eugenics in their subject matter

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such as these manuals on raising a healthy family.

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Clergymen preached of the necessity for good marriages.

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Perhaps even more disturbing were the contests held at many state fairs, where awards

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were given to the fittest family. Those with the purest pedigrees and undoubtedly the most

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attractive phenotypes would receive awards such as this medal with an inscription reading,

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'Yea, I have a goodly heritage.'

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The eugenics movements spawned lots of people who were considered even in their own time,

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out on the fringe. Who even endorsed such things as euthanasia, but that was not a mainline

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part of the movement. It certainly became parts of the movement internationally,

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but not so much here in America.

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On March 9, 1907, the Indiana State Senate in a vote of 28 to 16, made history by being the first

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jurisdiction in the world to force the sterilization of citizens it deemed unfit.

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Unfit to exist, unfit to reproduce.

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Connecticut was soon to follow.

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By the time Laughlin of the ERO, had published his suggestion on how to implement legislation

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for forced human sterilization, 12 states had already put into place sterilization laws of their own.

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By 1924, 3000 socially inadequate people had been sterilized.

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That same year based on Laughlin's model, Aubrey E. Strode, drafted Virginia's Eugenical

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Sterilization Act in an attempt to rid the state of defective persons.

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It passed in Virginia's General Assembly by a landslide.

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Immediately, the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feeble-Minded, selected 17-year-old

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Carrie Buck to be the first human sterilized under the act.

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Carrie had a feeble-minded child, the result of a raping by one of her relatives, and was the

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daughter of a feeble-minded mother, Emma, already a resident on the Virginia colony.

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Carrie, purportedly carrying the genetic traits of feeble-mindedness and sexual promiscuity,

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was a fine candidate as the law stated those to be sterilized must be probable potential

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parents of socially inadequate offspring.

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Carrie's feeble-mindedness was based on a mailed disposition by Laughlin who had never met Carrie

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and her sexual promiscuity was based on the testimony of her school teacher,

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that she sent flirtatious notes to school boys.

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Carrie became the first person in Virginia to be sterilized under the new law

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on October 19, 1927.

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In the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, official deliverer of the opinion of the United States

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Supreme Court in the case of Buck v. Bell, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to

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execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent

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those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.

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Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

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Vivian, Carrie's feeble-minded daughter, received B's on her first grade report card.

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Buck v. Bell justified the sterilizations of over 8000 Virginians.

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Over the history of the United States, 33 states have enacted statutes under which 60,000

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Americans underwent compulsory sterilizations.

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To this day, Buck v. Bell has never been overruled.

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"Nazi Germany embraced the eugenics movement from the United States and just upped it in

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its efficiency."

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It should now be apparent that Germany's racial theories did not take place in a vacuum.

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Nor can the fundamental philosophies and beliefs that would eventually lead to the atrocities

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of the Nazi state be attributed solely to German authorities.

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In fact, German scientists expressed a great affinity towards the US eugenic laws.

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A young Adolph Hitler wrote positively of the US's immigration restrictions.

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More specifically, how the law refuses immigration on principle by simply excluding certain races

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from naturalization, in his book, "Mein Kampf".

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Shortly prior to mobilizing the most comprehensive eugenics legislation in modern history,

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Gerhard Wagner, head of the National Socialist Physician League, stated that America's

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eugenic policies should be used as a model for Germany to follow.

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Marie Kopp, of the American Committee on Maternal Health, proclaimed that the Nazi system

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of seeking out those to be sterilized was administered in entire fairness and was

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formulated after careful study of the California Experiment which had been responsible

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for 2500 of the 3000 involuntary sterilizations in the US prior to 1924.

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The ERO boasted on how the German statute on race hygiene read almost identical to

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Laughlin's Model Sterilization Law.

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Laughlin had such a significant impact on Nazi racial legislature that he was awarded an honorary

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degree from the University of Heidelberg.

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Laughlin thanked the university for reaffirming the common understanding of German and American

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scientists of the nature of eugenics.

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This common understanding would be translated into the law on preventing hereditarily ill progeny

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which would be responsible for over 375,000 sterilizations in the Nazi state.

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A number so impressive, one American eugenics advocate complained:

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The sterilization program of the Nazi state modeled after Laughlin's Law and other

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US eugenic theories, would be a gross prelude to the exterminations of the Holocaust.

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But even before the gas chambers were open for the racist and anti-Semitic persecutions

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we know all too well, they were opened in October 1939, for the systematic murder of the

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mentally ill citizens of Germany.

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Sadly, this practice was not faced with nearly as much stigmatism within the states

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as euthanasia had long been discussed by American eugenicists as a solution for the feeble-minded.

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"So, when people saw how eugenics can be easily be abused by the power of the state, they said

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that's it, this is a monstrous idea that we should keep a distance from."

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It is now the dawn of the 21st Century and advancements in technology and medicine

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have excelled beyond even the most ambitious of projections.

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Science that eugenicists of the 20th Century could only have dreamed of appear in our news

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every single day.

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"of stem cell research..."

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"and picking the genes of our children..."

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"Cloning of embryos for the destruction..."

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"discovered stem cells in a new place..."

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"if the embryo has a genetic disease..."

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"genetic tests..."

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Is it a danger? It's always a danger when there are technologies that can be used and abused.

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And I think the history of the eugenics movement tells us when a technology actually exists,

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people will try to use it - sometimes for reasons it was never intended to be used.

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With the mapping of the human genome, prenatal testing, implantation genetic diagnosis,

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therapeutic cloning, and stem cell therapy we find ourselves entering a promising world

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of genetic medicine. It is with this great power, however, that comes the need for even

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greater responsibility, sensitivity, and accountability.

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Humanity truly does now possess a powerful tool for good. However, we must heed the warnings

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founded by the coercive legislation and beliefs of the eugenics movement before we may venture into

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the frontier of modern genetic medicine. Tragedy may very well give way to triumph but

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how that will be recorded in the history books of tomorrow,

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will be determined by our actions today.