Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1913-10-23
Laws of EugeniCS Are Often Put
Out of Joint.
The Divine Spark Sometimes G2rings
From Seemingly RuinOus Corci-
tions, Says Secretary Of Colo
rado State Board OF Health.

Denver, Golf such q law as that
recently passed in Wisconsin, forbid
ding the marriage of diseased persons
and compelling the sterilization of de-
fectiVes, had always been enforced
| three-fourths Of the worlds greatest
! geniuses would never have been born!
! This was the opinion expressed by
| Dr.. Paul S. Hunter, secretary of the
| Colorado state board Of health, as an
! answer to the statement of Surgeon
| General Blue in which the surgeon de-
cared this country must stem the
| propagation of detectives and that the
| Wisconsin law is the correct answer
| Doctor Hunter declares that love will
| laugh at laws just as he has laughed
! at locksmiths. Following is Doctor
| Hunters statement:
Theoretically, l am heartily in
| favor Of prohibiting the marriage of
| all men and women who cannot show
clean bill of health, but it does
not work out in practice. The strong
| est parents bring forth puny children;
/ the most moral produce immoral off
| spring. The old joke about the minis
| ter's son is founded on history.
On the other hand, many Of the
| weakest 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 divine 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 poets, musician, painters,
authors and other artists who were
not afflicted with some weakness
which was inherited from parents.
Wagner, Dean Swift and Charles
Lamb were insane; Keats and Robert
Louise Stevenson died of inherited tu-
berculOsis; Coleridge and De Quincy
were opium fends; Pope was a dwarf,
and Herbert Spencer was an invalid;
Edgar Allen Poe was mentally unbal-
anced and an inveterate user of drugs
and drink; Goldsmith was called the
inspiring idiot: Rousseau and Oscar
Wilde were mentally and physically
unsound: Shakespeare was highly i'm
moral also Il is hardly necessary to
refer TO Byron and Robert Burns. for
their immortality is too well known
1t is true that all these ills come
| down through heredity, but along with
them comes that thing which has COM
PEELED every advancement in the
world of literature. art, science and
invention. The question of why great
talent seldom accompanies physical
health has never been answered.
The present agitation over eugenics
is not new. 1t began in Sparta before
the time of Christ, when, in order to
attain physical perfection as a race,
al imperfect babies were exposed on
the mountain tops 10 die or receive
strength from the gods. None but the
| strongest we're allowed TO marry This
system produced the greatest physical
giants OF history, the most perfect ami
mails Of all time, but mentally 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.