The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-01
Eugeniics
By DIR. FRANKeCRANE

TUGENICS is the name of that science F. which seeks to improve the human race. by 9ntelligent breeding.
 It only needs to be stated, proof is unneces- |sary, it is so self-evident, that there is no science so important as this.
 We are making 9 great to-do these days about the rights of children, their right to be freed from hard labor, their right to schooling and to decent food; but their most mandatory right is their right to be well born. A child damned into the world with scrofula, syphilis, lunacy or some other internal handicap, may we'll cry out to heaven against the criminal negligence of the society that, for it's own indifference or selfish pleasure, loaded him with the cross of life.
 Our sympathy with unfortunate ones, our building of hospitals for their protection, shows itself to be but maudlin, when we dare not sternly remove the cause which produces them.
 Marriage and the intimacies thereof we hold to be sacred. The creation of human beings we screen behind the seven veils of sentiment We still act upon the world-old lie that innocence and ignorance mean the same thing.
 To be very sure, we shall never endure that the mysteries of love shall be made common and trampled under foot, nor that the high divinity of marriage be coarsened into cal- culating materialism; but why can we not see that reverence is not necessarily stupidity! Ignorance is not the mother of devotion. A well informed, intelligent, clear-headed wom- an can be just as pure and as capable of exalted emotion as an empty-pated fool. The very first duty of the state is to tn- struct youth in the knowledge of their own bodies.s They find out the facts in any event, and often at how terrible a price! They should be taught the facts, by competent adults, under circumstances devoid of the glamour of sin and secrecy.
 Physicians now are glad to give some of their time gratis to charitable hospital work. Why could they not give some of their time to teaching the youth of the public schools the fundamental laws of their being?
 Once a week children are brought to Sun day school to learn of Moses and the prophets, which is good thing to do; but would it not be an infinitely better thing to do to instruct them once week in that matter which spells life or death, happiness or tragedy, to human kind?
 Those who are convinced upon this sub- feet do not advocate iany law, for in the present darkness of the general mind law would be useless. They urge intelligent, tact ful agitation until the public shall come to see the vital need of eugenics,
 Cupid has proved in the past sad bun rIer." saws Scott Nearing, "whose mistakes and failures grimaee from every page of our divorce court records" For all that, he is q dear god to the human heart, and it is not proposed to banish him, but to take the bandage from his eyes and to have him, while ibeipg as active as ever, do better work. Scientific formulae will never take the place of holding hands in the moonlight as moile! of mating, and the superlative idiocy of lovers will be always blessed; but while that idiOcy that is the enthusiasm of healthy mind is divine, that idiocy thatsscannot steer away from the bringing of defective offspring into the world is far reaching curse, and 2 crime worse than murder.