Journal of Social Hygiene, January, 1922 [Excerpts]
Vol. VIII
by The American Social Hygiene Association
370 Seventh Avenue, New York
Contents:
• Editorial Announcement
• Education in Sex and Heredity: A Practical Program, by Henry M. Grant
• A Study of Specialized Courts Dealing with Sex Delinquency, II. The Misdemeanants' Division of the Philadelphia Municipal Court, by George E. Worthington and Ruth Topping
• Book Reviews
• Abstracts of Periodical Literature
• Note and Comment
• Social Hygiene Bibliography
• Contributors to This Issue
• "Now It Can Be Told"
• Book Reviews:
o Reid. The Prevention of Venereal Disease
o Galloway. The Father and His Boy
• Abstracts of Periodical Literature:
o Stoops. The Will and the Instinct of Sex.
o Darwin. The Aims and Methods of Eugenical Societies.
o Robinson. Control of Venereally Diseased Persons in Interstate Commerce
• Note and Comment:
o Annual Report of Interdepartmental Board
o The Eastern European Red Cross Conference on Venereal Diseases
o The Western European Red Cross Conference on Venereal Diseases
The Will and the Instinct of Sex. By John Dashiell Stoops, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. xxxii, No. 1, October, 1921.
As volition, reason, and individuality have developed in man, there has been a tendency to conquer or at least to control the instincts. In plants and animals, where none of these qualities exists, the sole objective of sex is the perpetuation of life. To them, sex is entirely unconscious. In man, however, sex consciousness has resulted in a deep sense of shame. Man, through reason, directs the channels through which the sex instinct expresses itself, but the sex drive itself is independent of reason. Its suppression by will is only an illusion, for, submerged below the level of conscious motives, it becomes the subconscious nucleus of a separate disorganizing personality.
With the development of the inner life of man, the drive of the sex instinct came into open conflict with the will. This dissociation of the will from the drive of sex diabolized both the sex instinct and the institution of the family. By demoralizing the family it destroyed the normal objective of the sex drive. It disorganized the very process of the will itself, for will, to be effective, must have something of the power and immediacy of instinct and emotion.
The emotion of sex is the voice of a unit larger than the individual. It is the voice of the race. It should be recognized by the individual. The drives of sex and parenthood must be regarded as entering into the very basis of the will. The moralization of the drive of sex restores to the will one of its main sources of power and one of its chief social objectives, which it lost in medieval times. A recognition of the ideal of sex will result in a positive development in which our instincts and emotions and desires will be organized in a system of objective ends. The facts of experience, such as sensations, images, and ideas, are always organized, more or less completely, into wholes by the various instinctive drives. It is within such a drive or whole that every sustained process of volition must function, and sex is one of the dominant drives of the race in the individual mind. The drives, the creative patterns, of life are in the instincts, and the will must find its ends and its motive powers in the instincts. The sex instinct has its unity of pattern, and volition can find a durable end only within the instinctive pattern which nature provides.
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The Aims and Methods of Eugenical Societies. By Leonard Darwin. Science, Vol. liv, No. 1397, October 7, 1921.
Eugenic societies should strive for three things: (1) to make the public realize more fully what a potent influence heredity has on the race; (2) to try to ascertain and make known the rules by which the individual ought to regulate his own conduct in regard to parenthood in accordance with the laws of heredity in so far as they are now surely known; and (3) to determine the action which the state should take to stimulate and enforce conduct productive of racial progress, and to advocate a line of advance.
To accomplish the first purpose, it is necessary to spread a general knowledge of the laws of heredity. In doing this, there is the difficulty of breaking through the barriers of ignorance. Men uninformed of the facts of eugenics are prejudiced against believing that all men are not equal by birth. Great care should be taken to indicate that, though experience in the stock-yard enables eugenists to understand the laws of natural inheritance, yet reliance on these laws carries with it no implication whatever that the methods of the animal breeder ought to be introduced into human society. Those who regard the efforts of eugenists with distrust, should be eager to advocate the teaching of biology, since it is through biology that eugenic errors will be detected.
The second of the main lines is concerned with the rules by which an individual can guide his conduct in all matters relating to racial progress. The question of birth control brings up a number of ethical, racial, and economic factors. Even when approached calmly and scientifically, it is difficult to arrive at precise conclusions. For instance, it is quite possible that two individuals whose families were characterized by some degree of ill health, would, because of strong will power and high moral sense, obey any self-denying ordinance in regard to marriage. That would mean that there is a danger of losing the characteristic of high moral caliber from the race. This aspect must indeed be regarded by the eugenist.
In regard to the part of the state in the eugenic plan, there is much to be considered. Legislative reforms can seldom be effectively promoted unless they are sanctioned by public opinion and likewise eugenical societies would be wise to avoid taking action in regard to legislation unless proposed nearly unanimously. Legislation of general application producing beneficial racial effects includes certain taxation reforms. Taxation should fall less heavily on those burdened with families. Practical steps should be taken to lessen the fertility of habitual criminals and of the grossly unfit generally.
Progress on eugenic lines will make mankind become continually nobler, happier, and healthier. Those who imagine it is the aim of eugenical societies to make man a stronger animal or a better beast of burden are utterly ignorant of the meaning of the eugenical ideal.
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NOTE AND COMMENT
ANNUAL REPORT OF INTERDEPARTMENTAL BOARD.
The report submitted by Thomas A. Storey, retiring executive secretary of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, for the year of 1920–21, contains many items of more than casual interest. One of the most striking facts brought out is the cost of venereal diseases, directly and indirectly. They cost the nation, through wage losses alone, $54,000,000, annually. The cost of the diseases to the army was estimated at $15,000,000 in a single year. Army and navy commanders, quoted in the report, credit the Social Hygiene Board with a large influence in reducing the venereal rate in 1920. The venereal disease rate in the army is said to be the best on record.
The report indicates that the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board has cooperated in the several phases of venereal-disease control. With the help of the law, 75 red-light districts have been shut down completely. In an effort to establish a measure of venereal-disease control, the sum of $2,450,000 was apportioned among the 48 states. These funds of the last four years, matched by state appropriations, have been devoted to supplying free salvarsan, free treatment centers, informational publicity, and repressive measures.
Forty institutions are cooperating with the Board in training teachers in social hygiene, in order to educate coming generations accurately and adequately. The Board has also expended much effort in developing the medical phases of venereal-disease control. The leading scientific schools are lending their men and laboratories to the cause. Forty-three separate researches are occupied on the unsolved medical problems.
Active members of the Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board are Edward Clifford, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, J. M. Wainwright, Assistant Secretary of War, Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Surgeon General M. W. Ireland of the Army, Surgeon General E. R. Stitt of the Navy, and Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming of the Public Health Service. Dr. T. A. Storey, of the College of the City of New York, formerly chief inspector of the New York State military training commission, was executive secretary over the period covered by the report. He has been succeeded lately in that position by Dr. Valeria H. Parker, an active figure in the social-hygiene work of the National League of Women Voters, the National Women's Christian Temperance Union, the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teachers Associations, and the American Social Hygiene Association.
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THE EASTERN EUROPEAN RED CROSS CONFERENCE ON VENEREAL DISEASES.
Prague was the center to which all the eastern European countries sent delegates for the meeting beginning December 5, 1921. The countries participating were Austria, Bulgaria, Czecho-Slovakia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Roumania, Serbia, and Yugo-Slavia.
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THE WESTERN EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON VENEREAL DISEASES.
This Conference, also promoted by the League of Red Cross Societies, was held at the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, December 14, 1921. The countries sending delegates were: Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.
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OCTOBER, 1921, ISSUES WANTED
Owing to the widespread demand from scientific and other educational institutions for copies of Vol. VII, No. 4, SOCIAL HYGIENE (October, 1921), the entire issue is exhausted. The Association would be glad to have copies returned by those members and subscribers who feel that they can spare them, in order that this demand from reference sources may be supplied.
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OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION
Honorary President
Charles W. Eliot
Honorary Vice-Presidents
Miss Jane Addams
Newton D. Baker
R. Fulton Cutting
James Cardinal Gibbons [Deceased]
O. Edward Janney, M.D.
David Starr Jordan
Julius Rosenwald
William H. Welch, M.D.
President: Hermann M. Biggs, M.D.
Vice-Presidents
John J. Eagan
William S. Keller
John H. Stokes, M.D.
Ray Lyman Wilbur, M.D.
Treasurer
Jerome D. Greene
Secretary
Donald R. Hooker, M.D.
Board of Directors
Thomas M. Balliet
Maurice A. Bigelow
Hugh Cabot, M.D.
John M. Cooper
Mrs. Henry D. Dakin
Williams A. Evans, M.D.
Livingston Farrand, M.D.
Raymond B. Fosdick
Henry James
Edward L. Keyes, Jr., M.D.
Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw
James Pedersen, M.D.
Rockwell H. Potter
Roscoe Pound
George D. Pratt
Frederick F. Russell, M.D.
William F. Snow, M.D.
Mrs. Anna Garlin Specer
Walter T. Sumner
C.E.A. Winslow
Hugh H. Young, M.D.
Executive Committee
Edward L. Keyes, Jr., M.D.
Maurice A. Bigelow
Mrs. Henry D. Dakin
Raymond B. Fosdick
Henry James
George D. Pratt
William F. Snow, M.D.
President and Secretary, ex officio
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CONTENTS OF RECENT ISSUES
January, 1921
What Venereal Diseases Cost the Community, by Charles J. MacAlister
The Essential Sociological Equipment of Workers with Delinquents, by Arthur J. Todd
The Social Hygiene Program of the Army, by Percy M. Ashburn
The American Negro and Social Hygiene, by Charles W. Roman
The American Negro and Social Hygiene, by Charles W. Roman, Former President, National Medical Association
Health and longevity, within certain limitations, are purchasable commodities. All may buy who are willing and able to meet the terms. In a large measure this is also true of morals. Standards of health and moral ideals are mutually complementary and measurably determined by heredity and environment. Morbidity and mortality are deeply influenced by conduct, and yet the conduct of an individual or a group cannot always be inferred from the incidence of disease, nor can the status of morals be determined by a registered death-rate. The American negro has been so influenced by his heredity and so hampered by his environment that it is difficult to determine the measure of his responsibilities, especially in matters of morals and health.
This discussion is confined to social-hygiene problems as they find peculiar development among the colored people. In such a study it is difficult to establish indisputable facts, which, of course, increases the fallibility of any deductions or explanations that may be offered. I shall therefore stay within the limits of my personal experiences and professional observations.
About twenty-five years ago I was rudely shocked by the arrest and conviction of an old colored physician upon the charge of procuring an abortion. I had known the old man for many years and had regarded him as an exceptionally well-balanced and upright individual, with strong personal opinions and independent standards of conduct. He was seriously pious and earnestly altruistic. I had never thought of this man in connection with crime. The evidence brought out at the trial showed him to be a victim of circumstances rather than an intentional criminal, and he got off with a light sentence. Popular sympathy, in which I joined, favored him.
The old doctor returned from the penitentiary neither repentant nor humiliated. The arguments with which he justified his conduct in the face of my reproof shocked and astonished me, but aroused in me an interest in sex matters that has gathered momentum with years. This old black man, with the incitement and collusion of both the prospective parents and their friends, interrupted the course of gestation in a white woman, and felt no sense of guilt. All of the participants were equally free from compunctions of conscience. I was interested and puzzled. It took me a long time to find a satisfactory explanation of the conduct of these people.
My final conclusion was that human reason has not yet devised a code which harmonizes individual interests with social welfare. Here is the heart, not only of the sex problem, but of the social and economic troubles that have alternately caused and defeated revolutions since history began. Conduct and convention deviate to the breaking point, then mix up and start all over again in the same directions, to repeat indefinitely the vicious circle. The times are ripe for resetting the landmarks of convention and restating the standards of social morality. It is the duty of all good citizens not only to take a hand in this work but to study and inform themselves that they may intelligently help others. Thoughtful colored people are very much at sea just now both in religion and in morals. The spirit of intolerance and extremism so manifest in all phases of our socio-economic life today is particularly pernicious among colored people. There is danger of losing the landmarks in the attempt to reset them. The necessary inhibitions of civilization may be destroyed in the effort to establish freedom, and self-determination may end in anarchy instead of democracy.
The emotionality of the colored man's religion has often militated against its practicality; that is, his moral practices have not conformed to his spiritual professions. Judge Stevens, of Winston-Salem, told me that in investigating the life-history of Negro criminals, he was surprised to note that he seldom found an adult who was not or had not been a member of the church. The actual fact of this failure of the Negro church to influence the moral conduct of its members would probably explain many phases of the racial problem. It unfortunately conforms also to what the colored man believes of his white brother. I am quite sure that some religious missionaries of the white race would be surprised to know the opinions that illiterate colored people have of "white folks' religion." How clearly each sees the mote in the other's eye!
The mysteries thrown about religion often darken the counsels of practical wisdom. This undesirable condition becomes a social calamity when pathology is used to interpret the ways of Providence and disease is regarded as a moral agent for the protection of the innocent. Nature is inexorable and without sympathy, but she is also fair and without prejudice. She respects only obedience and intelligence, having no mercy on ignorance nor sympathy for innocence. Social hygiene is inextricably bound up with the sex relations, and the so-called "venereal diseases," by their frequency and destructiveness, make not only our most interesting and perplexing health problems but our most complicated and discouraging moral questions.
Available statistics indicate a higher venereal rate among colored Americans than among white. This statement is subject to many qualifications and reservations. The figures are undoubtedly tinged with prejudice. Comparisons to be just should be made with similar grades and classes, and the statistics should be gathered under like circumstances. This was seldom or never done, not even in the army. (The colored physicians within and without the army are unanimous in their testimony of unfairness to colored soldiers in health and administrative matters.1 [1. A striking illustration of this kind of reasoning is to be found in a recent number of a reputable medical journal (American Journal of Opthalmology, Vol. iv, No. 1) in which some comparative anatomical generalizations are made concerning the structure of the nasal canal. The conclusions are based upon the examination of 15 white individuals and 9 colored individuals. The youngest one of the whites was 23 years old, the youngest of the colored was 65. The oldest white was 67; the oldest colored, 90. The combined age of the nine Negroes was 652, while that of the fifteen whites was 629, making the average for the whites a little less than 42 years; for the colored a little more than 72 years. When we consider the well-known changes that time brings in the structure of the face, the unsoundness of any comparative data which ignore these changes must at once be apparent.]) But when all is said and done the higher incidence must be admitted. The colored people need to be convinced of the facts and their importance. This duty, of course, falls primarily upon the colored medical men, who see the facts and appreciate the situation. But they need both encouragement and help. There are some very essential facts of the race situation that seem to be ignored, suppressed, or unknown by one side or the other in practically all of the discussions of the color problem in this country. The venereal-disease incidence is not sufficiently understood by the colored people. Yet the prevalence of venereal diseases bears a demonstrable relationship to the average intelligence of a community. And the rate among colored people shows an unvarying relationship to that of the whites for the same community; highest where highest among whites and lowest where lowest among whites. The frequent co-existence of the tubercular bacillus and Spirochaeta pallida is another condition found among colored people to which the rank and file of the medical profession are not fully alive.
One of the purposes of social hygiene is to "advocate the highest standards of private and public morality." This is a phase of the work of which the colored people stand particularly in need. The home is not only the first and most important social unit, but it is the basis of civilization. Sexual promiscuity is in direct antagonism to the home. The heritages of slavery and the handicaps of race prejudice have played havoc with the home life of the colored people. This is the steepest grade on the long and weary road from serfdom to citizenship. Here is the race's weakest point. The slum life of the city and the poverty and illiteracy of the country are cunning and dangerous enemies to the personal purity and self-restraint of good homes. The abolition of the open saloon and the red-light district has been a Godsend to the Negro home. It has been truthfully said: "What can most be depended on to stand against the alluring circumstances of a tempting occasion are fixed principles and fixed habits of thought and character. These are the effects of rearing and of lifelong education rather than of sporadic efforts spent on adults." Next to the home the public school is the most available and effective teacher and guardian of individual and public morals. Here again the neglect of schools for colored children creates a distinct gap in the chain of defenses against a lower social morality.
Health problems begin with the souls and not with the bodies of men. Tried by the standards of aspiration and self-help, the colored people qualify as a deserving group for social reenforcement. The colored woman resents the promiscuity of the colored man and hopes for the dawn of a better day. Nor is the colored man completely unresponsive to the single-standard appeals. He usually recognizes the injustice of prostitution. Not only are the colored people deserving of help, but they are worth saving. Competent army medical authority, after an exhaustive investigation, concludes that "the Negro seems to have more stable nerves, has better eyes, and metabolizes better. Thus in many respects the uninfected colored troops show themselves to be constitutionally better physiological machines than the white men."
Reproduction is as important to society as nutrition is to the individual; for social continuity depends upon the succession of individual lives as individual bodies depend upon cell life and reproduction. Social health, therefore, requires not only the structural integrity and normal functioning of the individuals composing the group, but the ability and willingness upon the part of those individuals to produce offspring fit to succeed them.
The scarcity of children among educated colored people is one of the striking phases of the social-hygiene problem as it affects the race. The fact of this scarcity is too patent to need proof. What is the explanation? Is it physical, mental, moral or environmental? My opinion, based on personal observation, thought, and experience, is that all four factors enter into the problem, but that environment is the most important. The moral status of the colored people has been greatly influenced by the handicaps of racial prejudice. In private practice I have frequently heard intelligent and upright colored women say they would rather die than to bring children into the world to suffer what they had suffered. Infanticide and abortion, those gruesome American vices, are not unknown in the social life of colored America. On the other hand the doctrines of birth control are finding many devotees among intelligent colored people. I recall very vividly a case of mine where four successive full-term stillbirths were followed by a self-induced abortion that ended fatally. What advice should have been given this young and apparently healthy mother? Society has no right to unsex people, nor to force unwilling parenthood upon any one. Instruct such women intellectually and morally and leave them the freedom and responsibility of a decision.
Health not only comprehends the physical integrity of our bodies and the normal cooperative functioning of their organs, but our moral practices and our spiritual aims. Beliefs and hopes lie within the connotations of health. A man must be before he can be anything. The right to live may be conceded, but the ability to do so must be asserted, demonstrated, proved. When the returns are all in, moral purpose is quite as important in matters of health as physical stamina. All of this the Negro sees as through a glass darkly, and feels as a strange and not understood activating motive.
Inertia is more dangerous to reform that opposition. A voice crying in the wilderness is typical of a teacher of a new doctrine. Heedlessness precedes opposition as opposition presages interest. The bulk of our colored population forms a fertile field for social-hygiene work. Not only does the awakening racial consciousness of these people render propitious the present time for spreading the principles of social hygiene, but any common effort in a good cause will tend to lessen the acuteness of those growing angularities of racial differences that bode no good to the republic. The believers in human brotherhood have never been able to formulate a workable definition of their doctrine. The nearest approach to a workable formula is the ethical equivalent to the mathematical axiom, "things equal to the same thing are equal to each other." People who will work for the same ends will work for each other. If the social order is not to collapse, the whole of civilization must be infused with spiritual values and goals. It is not only a moral privilege but a patriotic duty to strengthen the ideals of social purity and widen the horizon of social justice among all elements of our population during this period of reconstruction and change.
The colored people are now at that stage of racial evolution where the blandishments of personal appeal outweigh the influence of rational argument. Reading is not general enough for effective missionary efforts by the printed word. But if the lines of policy are wisely laid, the race presents a peculiarly inviting field for the operation of the forces of social betterment -- a field at once accessible and responsive, where personality is at a premium and adaptability means success
Galahad, Knight Who Perished: A Poem to All Crusaders Against the International and Interstate Traffic in Young Girls
Galahad ... soldier that perished ... ages ago,
Our hearts are breaking with shame, our tears overflow.
Galahad ... knight who perished ... awaken again,
Teach us to fight for immaculate ways among men.
Soldiers fantastic, we pray to the star of the sea,
We pray to the mother of God that the bound may be free.
Rose-crowned lady from heaven, give us thy grace,
Help us the intricate, desperate battle to face
Till the leer of the trader is seen nevermore in the land,
Till we bring every maid of the age to one sheltering hand.
Ah, they are priceless, the pale and the ivory and red!
Breathless we gaze on the curls of each glorious head!
Arm them with strength mediaeval, thy marvelous dower,
Blast now their tempters, shelter their steps with thy power.
Leave not life's fairest to perish -- strangers to thee,
Let not the weakest be shipwrecked, oh, star of the sea!
[By permission of the Macmillan Company, from The Congo and Other Poems, by Vachel Lindsay.]
I well remember how the vision of the veritable existence of the World Mother first dawned upon me many years ago. I think I was privileged to see Her, however faintly, not only as an ideal, or even as One in the succession of Personifications of the Mother Aspect of Deity, but also as a wondrous living Being, the Exquisite Jewel in the Hierarchy of Earth's Adepts, the World Mother for this epoch, the Star of the Sea, as She is severally named....
Thus I have come to believe, even to know, that there is such a wondrous and glorious Being on our Earth as the World Mother... I have also learned that She ever seeks human agents and human helpers who will serve in Her name and endeavour to live in Her presence. Whilst women especially represent Her, She also needs men of honour to be her knights, ever ready to fight for the weak and the exploited and to guard with knightly loyalty all women and children, as true knights should. Unhappily, men tend to forget the ideals of chivalry, save those who are still knightly in their nature....
On one other memorable occasion an Angel Teacher opened my consciousness into some realisation of the present holder of the Office of World Mother, who is Mary, the mother of Jesus...
"She sends this message through the Brotherhood to men:-"In the Name of Him whom long ago I bore, I come to your aid. I have taken every woman into my heart, to hold there a part of her that through it I may help her in her time of need.
"Uplift the women of your race till all are seen as queens, and to such queens let every man be as a king, that each may honour each, seeing the other's royalty. Let every home, however small, become a court, every son a knight, every child a page. Let all treat all with chivalry, honouring in each their royal parentage, their kingly birth; for there is royal blood in every man; all are the children of the KING."
-- The Spiritual Significance of Motherhood, by Geoffrey Hodson
Vachel Lindsay is what I would call a village genius, as naïve as a child. He came from Springfield, Illinois, and his mother was a kind of a theosophist. The boy was looked on, even from his earliest days, as the people around Springfield said, as being half-cracked, which he definitely was. He had a couple of early notions about poetry, three or four, which are kind of unique and kind of fun. One of them was that poetry is, or should be, like a circus act. It should be what he called the “higher vaudeville.” He himself read his poems for a period of ten or twelve years to the largest audiences that have ever been in this country for poetry. Everybody was absolutely wild about him. He used to insist that anybody who came to his poetry readings would show a book of his own collected poems at the door so that they would have the text, because, along side the text were written instructions to the audience who would join in certain passages. He was like a poetical revivalist. And he would turn his readings and his public performances into tent shows, carnivals, which combined about one-half religious fervor and the other half the enthusiasm of the carny baker, carnival barker. But they were supposed to be great fun.
The American public tired of them after a while. After he had made such a success doing this sort of thing he fell from favor, but he had committed his life to going around giving readings. He didn’t have any other means of livelihood. His audiences continued to dwindle. He’d been a fad for a while, and the audiences got smaller and smaller and smaller, and finally he didn’t have any livelihood from it at all. He was engaged in a tragic love affair with another American poet named Sara Teasdale. What happens to Vachel Lindsay, at the age of fifty-two, after his vogue passed, his vogue of the village genius and the revivalist carnival poet, what happened was that he went back to the house where he was born in Springfield and swallowed a bottle of Lysol and died this hideous, agonizing death by his own hand. It’s funny, isn’t it, how these ecstatic, ebullient types always end up as suicides or alcoholics or come to some kind of tragic end. I’ve heard Vachel Lindsay spoken of as a precursor of Dylan Thomas, and in some ways indeed he was. He had the same kind of naïve, enthusiastic sense of mission. He was a great public performer. At his height he got the highest prices for public readings of anybody up until the time of Dylan Thomas. He burned out quickly. He was demoralized by his personal life. He felt betrayed by his public. And in the end he had no personal resources to draw on.
But he is what I would characterize as a hell of a lot of fun as a poet. He wrote far too much. He was really completely uncritical of his own work. He didn’t know what was good or what was bad. He wrote easily. He wrote in very heavy rhythmical cadences. He wrote poems that are so odd and so crazy and so naïve that you wouldn’t believe them unless you saw them, but in a few they catch the accent of the American ballyhoo, the carnival, the circus atmosphere, where native types or folk legends are caught up and made, not only larger than life, but into something like a display by P.T. Barnum. But he was completely undiscriminating. For Vachel Lindsay, it didn’t make any difference to him whether he mythologized Abraham Lincoln or Johnny Appleseed or Mary Pickford. It was all the same to him. If he got going on one of these figures, they were all just part of his sideshow. So therefore there is an enormous lot of waste and enormous lot of undistinguished stuff, but the best of it is really inimitable.
He was an absolute child, all the way up until the age of fifty-two, when he died. This is his idea, for example, of a Negro minister giving sermons. And Lindsay has this marvelous capacity, which a poet really ought to have, of really throwing himself, in his own way, into the subject. This is Vachel Lindsay’s idea put into the mouth of a Negro preacher. This is called “When Peter Jackson Preached in the Old Church.” Here’s the circus-style Vachel Lindsay.When Peter Jackson Preached in the Old Church
[To be sung to the tune of the old negro spiritual “Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.”]
Peter Jackson was a-preaching
And the house was still as snow.
He whispered of repentance
And the lights were dim and low
And were almost out
When he gave the first shout:
“Arise, arise,
Cry out your eyes.”
And we mourned all our terrible sins away.
Clean, clean away.
Then we marched around, around,
And sang with a wonderful sound: --
“Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.
Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.”
And we fell by the altar
And fell by the aisle,
And found our Savior
In just a little while,
We all found Jesus at the break of the day,
We all found Jesus at the break of the day.
Blessed Jesus,
Blessed Jesus.
-- Classes on Modern Poets and the Art of Poetry, by James Dickey
Is “Stigma” Removable?, by Ada E. Sheffield
Colony Care for Isolation and Dependent Cases, by Charles Bernstein
The Work of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, 1919–20, by Thomas A. Storey
April, 1921
The Responsibilities of Religious Leaders in Sex Education, by Thomas W. Galloway
A New Emphasis in Social Hygiene Education, by Harry A. Wembridge
The Status of Sex Education in Public Educational Institutions, by Vivian H. Harris
A Psychological Study of Motion Pictures in Relation to Venereal Disease Campaigns, by Karl S. Lashley and John B. Watson
July, 1921
The Distribution of Wealth as a Eugenist Sees It, by Roswell H. Johnson
The Distribution of Wealth as a Eugenist Sees It, by Roswell Hill Johnson, M.S.1 [The author desires to acknowledge the cooperation of Mr. Kenneth M. Gould in the preparation of this paper.], Professor of Geology, School of Mines, University of Pittsburgh
No issues are more significant for the future well-being of the human race or bulk larger in the public mind today than those which involve the continuance of our present modes of distribution of wealth. This is conceded by every thoughtful person wherever his sympathies or judgments may lie in regard to points of controversy. To the extent to which the existing method of distribution can be held to contain the salt of soundness in respect to the maximum development of personality, as far as scientific criteria can be applied thereto, the rationally minded must concede its desirability and formulate their social policies accordingly.
The two outstanding problems are:
1. To what extent is economic status correlated with desirable germinal qualities?
2. To what extent is racial contribution correlated with economic status?
The first of these, of course, assumes the essential validity of modern theories of the inheritance of moral and mental traits. The second resolves itself into three distinct problems, those respectively of (a) viability, (b) nuptiality, (c) fecundity, all of which are factors in determining the total contribution of a given stock to the social population.
The attack on these two most vital lines of investigation [is] greatly hampered and obscured by unscientific thinking and romanticizing. It is a fundamental psychological law that we prefer conclusions that are pleasurable, and unconsciously conceal from ourselves the disagreeable, especially where it involves defects in our own personalities. Hence arises the reluctance of mediocrity to admit the existence or importance of variable germinal qualities. This is a vice peculiarly characteristic of a political democracy like the United States, wherein a strong equalitarian prejudice has existed almost from the beginning of our national experiment and has become, in fact, a fixed tradition.
But let us analyze vigorously the biological aspects of the present economic system, and then examine the few instances where quantitative observations of the problem have been made and correlations of some sort measured.
The competitive economic world, in several important ways, is selective of superior ability. It will not do, of course, to press these suggestions too far, nor is it claimed that the same factors operate universally or with equal intensity or justice to all concerned. But they are certainly present in some degree and may even be called the rule in the industrial and business world today.
1. The search for employees is selective. In the civil service, federal, state, and municipal, and increasingly in the private commercial world the passage of competitive examinations is a requirement for employment. This is a highly desirable tendency worthy of extension and the examination content should be psychologically studied and improved. But even where the examination method is not in use, executives have almost universally recognized the necessity of some principles of selection in employment. Frequently the independent judgment of others is called for and compared. The possession of diplomas and honors of various kinds is a distinct factor in many professional and technological pursuits; and in almost every occupation the previous positions held and salaries received are inquired into. All of these factors act selectively to sift the wheat from the chaff.
2. Promotion is selective. Whether it be for the purpose of holding men, or to promote the morale of organizations, or to stimulate to greater or more consistent production, or simply as the reward of proved merit in the special qualities needed in a given industry or business, promotion recognizes superior ability. There is of course the element of "pull" which frequently enters in. Some will perhaps feel that the business world is so permeated with this that actual merit seldom gets its deserts. Making due allowances here, it is, however, often the case that even the so-called "pull" is based upon superiority of some sort -- family connections, possession of tact or other desirable social qualities, having won the admiration of judges whose opinion is highly respected, aggressiveness, etc. The defeated are naturally wont to attribute the success of the winner to favoritism. The star scholar is always "teacher's pet" in the minds of the laggards.
3. Regularity of employment is another element which attaches in some measure to superior germinal qualities. This is not to deny the possibility of temporary or even prolonged unemployment due to misfortune or economic depression. But the superior workman is ordinarily not the first to be dropped in such periods of stress. Neither is he subject to other types of interferences which are concomitant with physical, mental, or emotional deficiency. He is less liable to protracted illness, on account of better personal hygiene. He is less frequently in trouble with the law through arrest and imprisonment. He is not handicapped by habits of inebriety or drug addiction which render him temporarily inefficient or jobless. He is, of course, seldom constitutionally psychopathic, the victim of an instability which makes his relations with himself or his fellowmen difficult.
4. The process of choosing one's profession or occupation involves a considerable degree of judgment of one's fitness for the opportunities in a particular calling. This is no mean type of ability in those who have been especially successful in finding a congenial vocation which calls forth their best knowledge, energy, and satisfaction for the greatest return.
5. Superiority is likewise manifested by the avoidance of unwise investments and the choice of wise ones. This obviously plays a large part in the stability of accumulations of capital of any size. All persons who have cash are subject to the blandishments of salesmen efficient in the promotion of their own products or investments. To criticize them shrewdly and resist those that are unreliable is necessary where money is to be retained. This is a mark of calm and well-informed judgment.
A few compilations of data bearing on the subject of correlation between desirable germinal qualities and economic status have been made. As yet this is a but slightly cultivated field, but one that deserves the best efforts of sociological, psychological, and eugenic investigators. The following examples are illustrative:
1. Paterson1 [Donald G. Paterson, School and Society, vol. vii, No. 160, pp. 84-89, Jan. 19, 1918.] made a mental survey of the school population of a Kansas town of 2,500 inhabitants using Pintner's Mental Survey Scale. The town is a railroad center and is divided into an east and a west side by the railroad. East of the tracks are the homes of the laboring class, mostly railway trainmen and shop mechanics. West of the tracks live the business and professional classes. The results for the east side school and for the west side school were calculated and presented separately. Using the percentile method, the median indices for the six grades of the east side school ranged from 32 to 52.5 with the median index for all the children at 56, while those for the corresponding grades in the west side school ranged from 49 to 70, and the median for all children was 59. When the grades were distributed into five classes of ability (dull, backward, normal, bright, very bright), the distribution among children of the laboring classes was markedly skewed toward the left (lower grades of mentality), while the curve of the children of the business and professional classes was skewed to the right. The writer states that the tests involved in this study are not objective measures of "beliefs, customs, or political, religious, and educational traditions," but are rather measures of native endowment, relatively uninfluenced by social and economic forces. He contends, therefore, that the inferior mental ability of children found in poor social surroundings is not due to the social factors involved, but to the mental inferiority of the parent stocks.
2. Kornhauser2 [Arthur H. Kornhauser, Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 157-164, October, 1918.] made a comparative study of the financial standing of parents as indicated by possession of telephones (a significant index of economic status) and the intelligence of their children. One thousand school children chosen at random were distributed into three divisions: (a) Retarded -- those whose actual grade in school was one year or more under the theoretically normal grade, assuming regular promotion of one whole grade each year from the age of six on. (b) Normal -- those who were at grade, (c) Advanced -- those whose actual grade was one year or more above normal. The distribution was as follows: retarded, 29 per cent; normal, 52.5 per cent; advanced, 18.5 per cent. The families of the same thousand children were subscribers to telephone service in the following proportion: families of the retarded children, 56 telephones, or 19.3 per cent (of the total telephones); normal, 168, or 32 per cent; advanced, 92, or 49.7 per cent. By the simple association formula of Yule, the positive coefficient of correlation between this intelligence of school children and the possession of telephones by their families was found to be .61. Evidently a real association exists in this case between school standing and economic standing.
3. Scott3 [Walter Dill Scott, "The Scientific Selection of Salesmen," Advertising and Selling, Oct., Nov., Dec., 1915.] describes tests conducted by large tobacco and silk concerns upon the efficiency of their salesmen and employees. In the case of the silk firm, 26 employees, well-known to at least three of the bosses, were rated in numerical order by five bosses, following a personal interview of each employee by each boss. The men were then ranked according to their average output and corresponding value to the firm. The two rankings gave a positive correlation of .88, while the coefficients between the rankings of the various bosses ranged between .57 and .91, four of the five being over .8. This high correlation shows that ability as measured by impartial judges has its reflection in efficiency. That efficiency is appreciated and financially rewarded by the average industrial concern is generally true.
4. The Civic Club of Pittsburgh, an organization interested in all forms of social welfare, has for a number of years had a committee, of which I have had the privilege of being chairman, whose object is to secure scholarships for poor students of exceptional ability who would not otherwise be able to continue their education. This is a distinctly eugenic aim and it is highly desirable that no aspiring young man or woman of native talent should be deprived of the opportunity of proper training owing to adventitious financial circumstances or the humbleness of his origin. But the results so far have been meager because in fact it develops that the most promising students go to college, owing to the higher incidence of ability in families that are able to send their children. Interviews with teachers and pupils also reveal the fact that it is very infrequent that a brilliant student in grammar school fails to enter high school. It is well known that in high school and college those who graduate average greatly superior in record to those who drop out before graduation.
From these studies the conclusions may be drawn that there is some positive correlation between ability and income. That correlation is naturally most marked within a particular occupation group. It is less obvious between occupations. This is one of the many facts which makes a better and more scientific type of vocational guidance important, even imperative, in the near future.
In the past many factors of privilege or prejudice have existed which acted to interfere with the normal tendency of intellectual ability to find its proper level and secure its just reward. Many of these have already disappeared or are fast disappearing in our modern civilized nations, and I believe we may confidently expect that as time goes on there will be found fewer and fewer of such obstacles to the unhampered movement of talent and genius to positions of power and leadership in society.
For instance, the institutions of royalty, nobility, and caste are passing. The wars and revolutions of the past decade have probably set the seal of doom upon hereditary monarchy, and the privilege of the nobility has distinctly lost ground in the majority of Western constitutional governments.
The prejudice against the trades or commerce or against humble origins independent of ability, while still strong in some nations has, especially as the result of the war, shown a rapid decline.
Taxation is becoming increasingly graduated to the economic capacity of the individual. All varieties of income, estate, and inheritance taxes contribute to this general effect.
Unfair trade practices are being increasingly called in question, both by the arousal of public opinion against them and by governmental interference.
Unfair discrimination in the choice of advancement of personnel is still not rare, of course, but there are signs that public opinion is less indifferent to it than formerly, especially in the political field.
Finally, positive elements are helping to extend the incidence of opportunity and to graduate it more surely to negative capacities. Of these, the free public library is of first importance. Those who voluntarily profit by the public library system are obviously the most deserving from the standpoint of ability. Recent tendencies in education are also in the direction of greater adaptation to the distribution of intelligence in the general population. The growth of the mental testing movement in the schools is one phase of this, which, with the increase of competitive scholarships makes the inequitable holding back of talent less common.
Granted then that the evidence, meager as it is, at least favors the hypothesis that desirable germinal qualities are correlated to some extent with economic status, what are the implications of this assumption upon the problem of racial contribution?
In the first place, better economic status indubitably increases viability -- whether this is an environmental or hereditary fact is beside the point. The effect upon both the vitality and longevity is there and can be measured. Numerous studies of infant mortality have proved that a child's chances of survival beyond the fatal first year of life increase in almost direct proportion to family income within the lower income groups. The significance of this for the race stream is that a greater percentage of children in better economic status attain to maturity and become capable of reproduction.
As to the relation of financial condition to nuptiality, or the ratio of marriages per 1000 persons of all ages a given year, less can be predicated. Probably a higher financial status has little net effect upon the age of marriage. If anything, it tends to defer marriage, because the whole influence of education and the habits of forethought and calculated self-interest among the upper classes make for delay. Financial ability alone, of course, might be expected, other things being equal, to hasten and facilitate marriage, but unfortunately increasing standards more than counteract this possible effect.
There is likely, however, to be a helpful selective effect through the action of preferential mating. The young men and women of better financial status are sought for these reasons as well as for other qualities. Eligibility with those of a similar financial level is thus enhanced. This feature has been thought by some to be wholly an evil. It is only an evil when out of balance with other characteristics in the individual case.
When we come to a consideration of the birth-rate, the influence of economic status is a commonplace. Where, as in the United States, efficient means of birth control are known only to the well-informed and are prevented, because of legal interferences from widespread dissemination in the lower classes, birth-rate is almost inevitably correlated positively with ignorance, which is in turn a function of poverty. Where on the other hand, efficient means of birth control are widely known and no legal prohibitions exist, this correlation is reduced, because the naturally inhibiting effects of poverty on fecundity then have a chance to make themselves felt.
A third possibility which should appeal to those of a scientific mind who have in the past withheld their approval from the movement for birth control would be the setting up of moderate legal restrictions on birth control information, coupled with a eugenic birth control society which should concern itself with distributing information and approved devices to married couples of inferior germinal qualities. Of course, the basis of selection would have to be esoteric, the ostensible reasons being those advanced on a purely sentimental basis by the existing birth control societies. I believe the lower-class Negro and the illiterate white birth-rates could be greatly reduced by such a system. The result would not be, as some analyze the situation, the substitution of complete knowledge for complete ignorance. If we compare the facts of the present status with the proposed one, we find that with the exception of the fraction of the population among which religious prohibitions operate, the great majority of the population is now using some sort of birth deterrents, generally ineffective and often harmful, in lieu of the desired more efficient means. The present rigidity of control is based on the desire to keep the more efficient means under control.
What then are the specific recommendations that the eugenist might make looking toward a juster adaptation of economic conditions to native ability and the encouragement of a more eugenic distribution of racial contribution?
1. With respect to taxation, it should be recognized that there is a point above which incomes do not add to the desire nor the financial capacity for having children. Below that point, on the other hand, prudent parents will voluntarily have fewer children than they would be willing to have if their incomes warranted. The incidence of taxation, from the eugenic point of view, should be limited to those fortunes which rise above this point; in other words the biologically excessive wealth should be taxed. It is obvious that this dividing line is higher than the exemptions allowed by our present income tax law, which places the heaviest burden upon the salaried and professional classes which constitute in the large a very desirable portion of the population. To compensate for the loss in revenue here, a steeper gradation of inheritance taxes above the biologically excessive point would be possible. Exemption from taxation of all future bond issues should be abolished.
2. Proceeding on the principles outlined before, the removal of the present restrictions on the legality of sale and dissemination of literature, oral information, and means of efficient birth control are desirable. But safeguards are needed against the abuse of such freedom and should be provided by the continued restriction of commercial advertising or public exhibition of such means as previously suggested, coupled with an active propagation of such information and distribution of approved means to the eugenically inferior. It is of course true that not all eugenists are agreed upon the best racial policy to be followed in regard to birth control. Here, at least, is a suggested one..
3. Legislation to promote fair play in business, prohibition of fraudulent methods, and education to a higher level of business ethics.
4. Sound vocational guidance, involving systematic mental measurements of all school children, the extension of continuation schools, trade testing and individual analysis, and free facilities for such service to older persons. More discriminating personnel work in business and industry generally.
5. Special educational opportunities for those especially fitted to profit by them, as opposed to the mistaken attitude of equality in present school ideals.
6. Support and extension of the free public library system.
7. Support of scientific laboratories, (a) for the benefit of inventors with technical ability but limited capital; (b) for those discovered to be peculiarly apt as scientific investigators.
8. Opposition to all social factors interfering with or postponing the marriage of superiors. Among such factors are graduate fellowships with inadequate stipends; educational isolation of the sexes in men's and women's colleges; over-elaborate standards of living and invidious display in expenditure; and too prolonged education for admission to the learned professions.