War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, Expanded Edition (28 page)

Some key eugenicists believed birth control was an admirable first step until more coercive measures could be imposed. However, other leaders felt Sanger’s approach was a lamentable half-measure that sent the wrong message. A telling editorial in
Eugenical News
declared that the leaders of American eugenics would be willing to grant Sanger’s crusade “hearty support” if only she would drop her opposition to larger families for the fit, and “advocate differential fecundity [reproductive rates] on the basis of natural worth.”
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In other words, Sanger’s insistence on birth control for all women, even women of so-called good families, made her movement unpalatable to the male-dominated eugenics establishment. But on this point she would not yield. In many ways this alienated her from eugenics’ highest echelons. Even still, Sanger continued to drape herself in the flag of mainstream eugenics, keeping as many major eugenic leaders as close as possible, and pressing others to join her.

Typical was her attempt on October 6,1921, to coax eugenicist Henry Osborn, president of the New York’s Museum of Natural History, to join ranks with the First American Birth Control Conference. “We are most anxious to have you become affiliated with this group and to have your permission to add your name to the Conference Committee.” When he did not reply, Sanger sent a duplicate letter five days later. Her answer came on October 21, not from Osborn, but from Davenport. Davenport, who vigorously opposed Sanger’s efforts, replied that Osborn “believes that a certain amount of ‘birth control’ should properly be exercised by the white race, as it is by many of the so-called savage races. I imagine, however, that he is less interested in the statistical reduction in the size of the family than he is in bringing about a qualitative result by which the defective strains should have, on the average, very small families and the efficient strains, of different social levels, should have relatively larger families.” Davenport declined on Osborn’s behalf, adding, “Propaganda for birth control at this time may well do more harm than good and he is unwilling to associate himself with the forthcoming Birth Control Conference … [since] there is grave doubt whether it will work out the advancement of the race.”
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Sanger kept trying. On February 11, 1925, she wrote directly to Davenport, inviting him to become a vice president of the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference. Within forty-eight hours, America’s cardinal eugenicist sharply declined. “As to any official connection on my part with the conference as vice president, or officially recognized participant or supporter, that is, for reasons which I have already expressed to you in early letters, not possible. For one thing, the confusion of eugenics (which in its application to humans is qualitative) with birth control (which as set forth by most of its propagandists, is quantitative) is, or was considerable and the association of the director of the Eugenics Record Office with the Birth Control Conference would only serve to confuse the distinction. I trust, therefore, you will appreciate my reasons for not wishing to appear as a supporter of the Birth Control League or of the conference.”
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Not willing to take no for an answer, Sanger immediately wrote to Laughlin at Cold Spring Harbor, asking him to join a roundtable discussion at the conference. Among the conference topics devoted to eugenics was a daylong session entitled, “Sterilization, Crime, Eugenics, Biological Fertility and Sterility.” Irving Fisher was considering participating, and by mentioning Fisher’s name, Sanger hoped to entice Laughlin. When Laughlin did not reply immediately, Sanger sent him a second letter at the Carnegie Institution in Washington on March 23, and then a third to Cold Spring Harbor on March 24. Fisher finally accepted and then wired as much to Laughlin, who then also accepted for the afternoon portion of the eugenic program.
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Ironically, during one of the conference’s sparsely attended administrative sessions, when Sanger was undoubtedly absent, conservative eugenic theorist Roswell Johnson took the floor to quickly usher through a special “eugenic” resolution advocating larger families for the fit. It was exactly what Sanger opposed.
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Johnson, coauthor of the widely used textbook
Applied Eugenics,
introduced the resolution and marshaled a majority from the slight attendance while Sanger’s main organizers were presumably out of earshot. It read:
“Resolved,
that this Conference believes that persons whose progeny give promise of being of decided value to the community should be encouraged to bear as large families, properly spaced, as they feel they feasibly can.” Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic energetically pounced on the resolution.
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Outraged, Sanger immediately repudiated the resolution-unconcerned with whether or not she alienated her allies in the mainstream eugenics movement. “It is my belief,” she declared in the next available volume of
Birth Control Review,
“that the so-called ‘eugenic’ resolution, passed at the final session of the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference, has created a lamentable confusion…. It was interpreted by the press as indicating that we believed we could actually increase the size of families among the ‘superior’ classes by passing resolutions recommending larger families. “
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Despite the public row, Sanger continued to push for a merger with the Eugenics Research Association. The ERA had considered affiliation, but eventually declined. “For the time being … [the organization] would not seek formal affiliation with the Birth Control Conference.”
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Yet the overlap between Sanger’s organizations and the most extreme eugenic bodies continued. The American Eugenics Society, founded in 1922, was the key advocacy and propaganda wing of the movement. Its board of directors, which included Davenport and Laughlin, also included two men who served on Sanger’s organizational and conference boards, University of Michigan president Clarence C. Little and racist author Henry Pratt Fairchild. Moreover, the American Eugenics Society’s advisory council included a number of men who also served in official capacities with Sanger’s various organizations, including Harvard sociologist Edward East, psychologist Adolf Meyer, and Rockefeller Foundation medical director William Welch.
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Therefore, it was only natural that the issue of merger continued to resurface, especially since Sanger’s conferences and her publication,
Birth Control Review,
continued to trumpet the classic eugenic cause, often in the most caustic language. For example, a February 1924 birth control conference in Syracuse featured a paper entitled “Birth Control as Viewed by a Sociologist.” The speech argued, “We need a eugenic program and by that I mean a program that seeks to improve the quality of our population, to make a stronger, brainier, and better race of men and women. This will require an effort to increase the number of superior and diminish that of the inferior and the weakling…. It is quite important that we cut down on the now large numbers of the unfit-the physical, mental and moral sub-normals.” This speech was quickly reprinted in the May 1924 issue of
Birth Control Review,
with the eugenic remarks highlighted in a special subsection headlined “Eugenics and Birth Control.”
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In the December 1924
Birth Control Review,
another typical article, this one by eugenicist John C. Duvall, was simply titled “The Purpose of Eugenics.” In a section subtitled “Dangerous Human Pests,” Duvall explained, “We therefore actually subsidize the propagation of the Jukes and thousands of others of their kind through the promiscuous dispensation of charitable relief, thereby allowing these classes of degenerates to poison society with their unbridled prolific scum, so that at the present time there are about one-half million of this type receiving attention in publicly maintained institutions, while thousands of others are at large to the detriment of our finer elements.” The article added thoughts about eradicating such a problem. “It is interesting to note that there is no hesitation to interfere with the course of nature when we desire to eliminate or prevent a superfluity of rodents, insects or other pests; but when it comes to the elimination of the immeasurably more dangerous human pest, we blindly adhere to the inconsistent dogmatic doctrine that man has a perfect right to control all nature with the exception of himself.”
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It was the second time that year that Sanger’s magazine had published virtually the same phrases declaring lower classes to be more dangerous than rats and bugs.
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Such denunciations were commonplace in
Birth Control Review.

No wonder then that in 1928, leaders of the American Eugenics Society began to suggest that its own monthly publication of eugenic proselytism,
Eugenics,
merge with Sanger’s
Birth Control Review.
Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society and a Sanger ally, wrote Davenport on April 3, 1928, “It would be an excellent thing if both the American Birth Control League and the American Eugenics Society used the same magazine as their official organ, especially since they were both interested so much in the same problems.” Whitney took the liberty of meeting with Sanger on the question, and reported to colleagues, “She felt very strongly about eugenics and seemed to see the whole problem of birth control as a eugenical problem.” As to combining their publications, he added, “Mrs. Sanger took very kindly to the idea and seemed to be as enthusiastic about it as I was.”
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But most of the eugenics movement’s senior personalities recoiled at the notion. Furious letters began to fly across the eugenics community. On April 13, Paul Popenoe, who headed up California’s Human Betterment Society, reviewed the Whitney letter with racial theorist Madison Grant, who happened to be traveling in Los Angeles. The next day, his agitation obvious, Popenoe wrote Grant a letter marked
“Confidential”
at the top. “I have been considerably disquieted by the letter you showed me yesterday, suggesting a working alliance between the American Eugenics Society and the American Birth Control League. In my judgment we have everything to lose and nothing to gain by such an arrangement…. The latter society … is controlled by a group that has been brought up on agitation and emotional appeal instead of on research and education. WIth this group, we would take on a large quantity of ready-made enemies which it has accumulated, and we would gain allies who, while believing that they are eugenists, really have no conception of what eugenics is…. “
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Popenoe reminded Grant that Sanger had personally repudiated the Johnson Resolution in favor of larger faInilies. “If it is desirable for us to make a campaign in favor of contraception,” stressed Popenoe in condescending terms, “we are abundantly able to do so on our own account, without enrolling a lot of sob sisters, grandstand players, and anarchists to help us. We had a lunatic fringe in the eugenics movement in the early days; we have been trying for 20 years to get rid of it and have finally done so. Let’s not take on another fringe of any kind as an ornament. This letter is not for publication, but I have no objection to your showing it to Mr. Whitney or any other official of the American Eugenics Society…. “
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Grant dashed off an urgent missive to Whitney the next day, making clear, “I am definitely opposed to any connection with them…. When we organized the Eugenics Society, it was decided that we could keep clear of Birth Control, as it was a feminist movement and would bring a lot of unnecessary enemies…. I am pretty sure that Dr. Davenport and Prof. Osborn would agree with me that we had better go our own way indefinitely.” Grant copied Davenport.
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Davenport was traveling when the letters started flying. On his return, he immediately began to rally the movement’s leading figures against any “alliance with Mrs. Sanger.” Davenport emphasized his feelings in a letter to Whitney. “Mrs. Sanger is a charming woman,” he began, “and I have no doubt about the seriousness of her effort to do good. I have no doubt, also, that she may feel very strongly about eugenics. I have very grave doubts whether she has any clear idea of what eugenics is…. We have attached to the word, eugenics, the names of Mrs. E. H. Harriman and Andrew Carnegie-persons with an unsullied personal reputation, whose names connote good judgment and great means. Such valued associations have given to the word, eugenics, great social value and it is that which various organizations want to seize.”
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He continued, “Now comes along Mrs. Sanger who feels that birth control does not taste in the mouth so well as eugenics and she thinks that birth control is the same as eugenics, and eugenics is birth control, and she would, naturally, seize with avidity a proposal that we should blend birth control and eugenics in some way, such as the proposed [joint] magazine…. The whole birth control movement seems to me a quagmire, out of which eugenics should keep.”
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Davenport concluded with a clear threat to steer clear of any merger talk, or else. “I am interested in the work of the American Eugenics Society,” he stated, “but I am more interested in preserving the connotation of eugenics unsullied and I should feel that if the Eugenics Society tied up with the birth control movement that it would be necessary for the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Institution of Washington to withdraw its moral support.”
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But the idea of a merger between eugenic and birth control groups never subsided. By the 1930s, both movements had fragmented into numerous competing and overlapping entities-many with similar names. Sanger herself had resigned from the American Birth Control League to spearhead other national birth control organizations. In 1933, when the Depression financially crippled many eugenics organizations, a union was again suggested. This time the idea was to merge the American Birth Control League and the American Eugenics Society precisely because the concept of a birth control organization now free of Sanger’s strong will-but flush with funds-was attractive. But as all learned, no organization associated with birth control, whether or not Sanger was still associated with it, could be free from the presence of the birth control movement’s founder.