The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-02-02
Laboratory
and Shop
BIOLOGY AND THE NEW DEAL
= BY David Ramsey

BIOLOGY AND THE NEW DEAL
In the wake of fascist developments in this
country come the pseudo-scientifc apoloeetics for
political and social reaction BIOLOGISTS ere re-
viving the discredited theory that the poor are
congenitally inferior, and that the rich rule be-
cause of their biological superiority This is the
rankest kind Of nonsense but it is being revived
as phase Of the offensive against the working
class movement
The old reactionary bromides are being recir-
culated. Mediocre persons it is asserted are hav-
ing children relief rolls while the intelligent
persons toll to support the medocrities The IN
employed are mentally inferior that is why thew
should be sterilized Doctrines such as these are
being pushed They are an important part of the
theological preparations for fascism They axe
meant to convince toiers that class stratiacation
is essentially biological and not social in origin.
Obviously if this were true, then # would not be
possible to wipe out those social factors that make
for class differences. The fascist theory of a
superior elite and the permanent and reid strait
hcation of classes is thus given scientific" sup
port that in reality it does not have
These observations come to mind after a read
ing Of Dr. Ernest A. Hootons call for "a bolocical
new DEAL He is one Of those fancy anthro-
biologists who is worried about mans destiny. That
is, he hates measures of social ameloriation"
Relief education the fight against exploitation and
representatives are "deusons" Like the Nazis
he cries out Public enemies must be DESTROYED
not reformed" The public enemies" of course
turn out to be any one who Opposes the present
social order. Being Harvard man Dr. Hooton is
not quite so blunt but the implication is quite
clear. No one will mistake his meaning when he
SAYS that Eve need a bioIogical new deal which
will segregate and sterize the anti-sociaI and the
mentally unfit"
This is the program of German fascism which
Kills mains and imprisons its opponents in the
name of "Aryan biology" In this country It is a
call for the same kind of reaction in the name
OF the biological new deal" It is important for
us to expose the fascist argument that our social
engine has stalled because natural selection has
watered the gasoline.
rs PART Of comprehensive plan to make avail
= able in the Soviet Union the writings of scholars
utilized by Marx and Engels the works of Lewis
n. Morgan, the famous American anthropoogist
are being translated into Russian and published
IN Lenngrad by the Research Association of the
Institute Of the Peoples of the North under the
central Executive Committee of the u S. S. r.
Two volumes have already appeared in transla-
lions by Professor M o. Kosven, Ancient Society,"
which was originally published in this country in
1878, and Houses and House Life of the American
Aborigines, first printed in 1881 Prefxed to the
volume of Ancient Society is Engels preface to the
fourth edition of his Origin of the Family written
IN 1881, and an introduction by j. Alkor the editor
Inc institute is now preparing for publication in
Russian translation two additional volumes in this
series Morgans League of the Iroquois and COL
lection OF letters exchanged between Morgan and
TWO Australian anthropologistS Lorimer Fison and
A. W. Hewitt which we're discovered and edited
by Professor Bernhard ]. Stern the author of Lewis
Henry Morgan Social Evolutionst