The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1899-10-07
RACE UEGENERATION.

RACE UEGENERAIION.
The following editorial which ap
peared in Sundays OregOnian ie
worthy of consideration by all think
ing people:
Evolution has been put into mans
hands, but how is be discharging the
duty? When nature was working
alone, or with the almost passive help
of gravity and heat, plant and brute,
her eye was single to advancement.
cruel only TO be kin1, she picked out
the good aud sound for survival and
sent the patterns marred in making
into oblivion. But mai seems W be
different. Co operation stood him in
good stead while be was getting ON
hts fect, but now he carries IL to such
extremes that the prospect may well
excite alarm. In our desire to pro-
t.st the weak and lift up the falleL, we
have set in motion forces that eeem
certain to enfeeble the coming genera
tions.
In tho October Forum, Professor
Fetter, of Stanford university, enuu-
crates some of the retrograde move
ments in augurated or accelerated by
the present scientific and philanthro
activity. Among savage races 10
weakling infant can long survive.
With US he is nourished to maturity
and encouraged to reproduce his kind.
The poor and inefficient were once
swept of by famine and pestiience;
now They are saved to increase their
families. The diseased and defOrmeu. |
deaf and blind, who were once suffered |
to 90 their way TO negIect and deatn,
now marry and propagate. Sprcta
cled children are sights no longer un
usual, mutes and feeble-minded are BE-
ginning to form colonies, whole com
muuities become pauperized through
heredisy and systematic charity, and
the skill of the dentist prepares Us for
the advent of the tootbless man.
Then there are wider social move.
ments. War used to carry of tie
weak ones. They fell in single COM
bat. Now it is the soundest only that
are chosen to be killed in battle,
withdrawn from family fruitfulne 80
and untitled for private pursuits, while
the weak are # at home to multiply.
Marriages have come to be rarely
b .sed on physical fitness. TIE
eligible are not the healthy, but the
educated. the rich, the respectfully
born, the socially eminent. The poor
have large families, whose opportunity
of lucrative toll is restricted. Child
rem of wellto-do will not work, partly
because such labor as was once per-
formed by them is done by machines
and through complex division of
labor, and partly because society looks
With disapproval upon menial tasks.
The amelioration of woman's lot has
ibis unforeseen effect, that the active
md intelligent are Withdrawn from
domestic life into business or profes
lion, leaving the Office of child-bear-
ing to the mediocre and inferior. /,
Why, then, does the death rate con-
'inue- to decrease, and the general
,ealth apparently improve?. Simply
because, as Professor Fetter believes.
We are now at the point where the !
Immediate benefits are at the maxi i,
mum. The evil results do not yet ap ,
,ear, but must nevertheless, grow at
IN increasing rate unles counteracting ,
Influences are put into operation. ,
These he does not suggest, EXCERPT ,
o hint in vague way at "better |
avs" and 'sounder Methods" for ex
Imple, ''if for the old brutal ilimina- :
ion of the unfit to be substituted a ra ;
ional and scientific process of selec- l
ion." This means, of course, that t,
oclety must somehow limit the op- :
of its diseased and imperfect
members to procreate their kind. We
re reminded of the health officer in :
me of the interior cities of New York, {
Vho has devoted his life to system
# medical license under which unfit
andidates for matrimony shall, upon
be rejected; and OF the
law, on somewhat similar
ines, offered not long ago in a popu. :.
ist Dakota legislature.
Professor Fetter is wise enough to
epend altogether, as the first thing !,
o do and the only thing feasible for
ONE time, upon enlightenment of =
ublic opinion. Once society comes
D understand fully the certainty with !.
'hich it is moving on to slow suicide.
1ough applied science and pbilan- v
'ophy will not relax their activity,
,e discerning and conscientious will T
'rbear 20 leave their posterity leg =
" OF deformity, weakness and pain. q
nd for the rest laws and tie heavier
-essnre Of custom can be invoked.
ature will not be cheated. In the "
Id she will claim her own. All the
isery and death averted by this care =
the unfit ls not cast out, but only
,stponed. The poor wretch whose
ie is saved now amid acclaim
all observers, bequeaths linger- II
g death to his unhappy posterity to o.
10 third and iftieth generation. To Z
lthold the debt incurred by crime and OF
norance now is to pile up heavy If
ore against the day of reckoning. T
Whatsoever people seweth, that IL
Ills 1t also reap.
FACE AND INDEPENDENCE. ~
"Surrender or die" seems to be the M