The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-04-25
GF0RGE B. CHANDLER
 TALKS ON EUGENICS
incidentally Says State Should Give Men Equality of OppOr-
 tunity
Eugenics May Be Retarded If It Is Made Cult of Mistaken
 Enthusiasts

Hartford, April 25-Former Repre- sentative George B. Chandler of Rocky Hill delivered an interesting address before the Connecticut Con gress of Mothers yesterday, the subject 'eEugenics.''
 sIn his address MT. Chandler pointed out that 'eugenics'' is scientific race culture and an attempt to apply to the raising of human beings some Of the principles applied by Luther Burbank to plants and which stock breeders have for years been applying to the lower animal kingdom It has been carried on unconsciously among civil ianS and strong races, he said, for nu- numb bered centuries but as a science it is barely born
 ''If mistaken enthusiasts and short cut reformers adopt 1t and try to make a cult of it, said MT. Chandler, 'it may be retarded and become a by word; but if 1t remains where is now is, in the hands of the scientific and investigatfve temperanents 1t aEVfl have possibilities. I know that higher forms of men and women may be bred just as fancy dogs blooded stock and rare plants can be developed; but the laws governing the process. the facts upon which the science must rest and the measures of public policy which may contribute to the desired results are largely unco1Iected or 'unforrnulat- ed''
 The universal races congress which aJ y, the first international eI1genicS con- zress a year later, MT. Chandler said, mark the formal beginnings of the movement.
 He continued: '.It is always safe to nut on ones mental brake when in- vestigating a new subject Cranks are bred by letting oneself go. am frank to say, however, that see greater hope of social regeneration through scientific eugenics than from
 alI fGff e now in the public eye. In the lorfg run, [ know of no other way to pro- duce a good race except by breeding it''
 Men have made political capital for nearly century and a half, he said, by procIairning "the stock fa.fsehood that all men are created equal They are not created equal and they never will be Some families are Infinitely more efficient, more honorable, and more 1ikable than other families. So are some races more efficient. honor able and likabae than other races.''
 So, too, he said, some races are able to govern themselves wisely and well while others are incompetent to es- tablish any civil organization worthy of the name.
 '+Our problen,' he continued, 'Is not to make men equal because we can't do it; it is to give them equality of opportunity which in time we may appreciate. We must realize that the race may be improved in two ways. First, young people may be induced to use more intelligence in mating. This is the positive side of the problem It is one of education and a long, slow process. The second ways to improve the race is by prevention. This is the negative side of the question. Certain individuals are unfit to reproduce themselves. Science tells us this in falf1b1y. Society can step in and pro- tect itself by sterilizing or segregating them as it has in the case of 1epersI from early times. ConnecttcutHs ster- gently enacted in Indiana, Washing Jersey and New York are a start in action wait on public sentiment.
 '"The side of the question that es- pecially appeals to me, however, is it's bearing upon what believe to be the false philosophy of state aid now in the air-this tendency to unload prob 1erns of the family upon the comn1u- nifty. I believe it means social stag nation and racial death. It seems al- most provfdential that at this june ture science should come forward re- establishing the family as the primary cell of society. Society and the state can help to improve the environment by making clean cities, good schools, wholesome housing, just laws and safe and sanitary conditions of labor. They can go a long way in creating the conditions in which children grow up and men and women toll. But the very moment they absorb the func- tfons of the family or individual decay