The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1913-09-05
EUGENICs

OF diseased persons and compelling
the sterilization Of detectives had al
ways been universally enforced, three
fourths of The worlds greatest gent
uses would never have been born.
This is the opinion of DR.. PAUL S,
Hunter, secretary of the Colorado
state board of health, as an answer
| tC the statement of Surgeon General
Blue in which the surgeon declared
that this country must stem the pro-
lpcgation of the detectives and that the
| Wisconsin law is the correct answer.
Dr. Hunter declares that love will
laugh at laws just IS he has laughed
az locksmiths. Dr.. Hunter further
States:
Theoretically, l am heartily in IA
vor of prohibiting the marriage of all
men and women who cannot show a
clean bill of health, but it does not
Tcrk out in practice. The strongest
Parents bring forth puny children; the
:aost moral produce immoral offspring
The old joke about the minister's
SOC is founded on history.
ION the other hand, many of the
' eakest fathers and mothers, while
transferring their weaknesses such as
drunkenness, insanity, perversion and
all the traits, Surgeon General Blue
says. would be eliminated by law, also
pass on the 'devine spark that has
lighted the path of progress since time
began.
''In fact, genius, nine times out of
ten is very closely allied with i'll
health, criminality, insanity or drunk
enness. There are very few of our
greatest poetr, musicians, painters,
authors and other artists who were
not afflicted with some weakness
which was inherited from the parents
Wagner, Dean Swift and Charles
Lamb were insane; Keats and Robert
Louis Stevenson died of INHERITED
tuberculosis; Coleridge and DeQuin-
cey were opium fiends; Pope was a
dwarf, and Herbert Spencer was an
invalid. Edgar Allen Poe was ment-
ally unbalanced and an iveterate user
of drugs and drink; Goldsmith was
called the inspired idiot; Rousseau
and Oscar Wilde were moral and men
tai perverts of the lowest order.
Shakespeare was highly immoral in
that he had an illigitimate daughter
1t is hardly necessary to refer to Rob
ert Burns, for his drunkenness and
open immortality are too we'll known.
1T is true that all these ills come
down through heredity, but along
with them come that thing which has
compelled every advancement in the
world of literature, art, science and
invention. The question of why
great talent seldom accomplishes
physical health has never been ans
wered.
1.-THE present agitation over eugen-
les is not new. 1t began in Sparta
before the time of Christ, when, in
order to attain physical perfection as
race, all cripples or weak or de-
formed babies were exposed on the
mountain tops to die or receive
strength from the gods. None but
the strongest were allowed to marry.
This system produced the greatest
physical giants of history, the most
perfect animals of all time, but men,
tally the race became dwarfed; their
brains went to seed. They produced
no really great men, and distinguished
themselves only in war and feats OF
strength.
''If the plans of eugenics enthu-
siasts were carried out in the one mat
ter of prohibiting marriage of persons
who drink, sixty per cent of the Am
erican people would be old maids and
bachelors. 1t is evident from this
how long it will be before such law
becomes general.
| "And if the nation does not get a
law compelling every man and wo-
man to produce physicians certifi-
cate, it will not accomplish the desir-
ed results, for Doctors certificates
are cheap these days. Any couple in
tent upon getting married could get
fifty certificates in a day despite their
state of health, if they he'd the price
"Only by training young men into
full and complete knowledge of the
sin committed against the next gener.
alton by marrying diseased persons
can the race be strengthened. Laws
contrary to the fundamental instincts