Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, November 02, 1913, ATLANTA, Image 59

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A Husband -WANTED atONCE- A Wife. New York Scientists Offer Money Prizes to Any Man or Woman Who Fulfills Their Ideas of Soundness of Body and Mind and Who Will Agree to Marry Each Other and Make a Practical Test of Eugenics SCIENCE has found the laws of Nature which enable us to grow bigger and belter beef cattle, horses and poultry and more attractive, delicious and perfect fruits, vegetables and flowers. The secrets of the animal and vegetable world hold true for human beings. Eugenics is the name of the special science which aims at the development and improvement of the human race. Science has now arrived at the point where it desires to make practical experiments in breeding improved human beings—in scientifically mating men and women who have especially high qualities of body and mind in the hope of producing children which will be still finer specimens than their parents. Is there any reader of this page who would like to be the father or the mother of the eugenic baby which scientists are eagerly waiting for? What Science Hopes to Do A MOST interesting proposition is now put before the people of America. It is to find a man and woman, practically perfect, who ■will marry with the object of pro ducing eugenically perfect children in accordance with the precepts of the new science of eugenics. Eugenics, a term derived from the Greek word “eugenos,” meaning “well born.’’ is, it is scarcely necessary to explain, the science of breeding a tine race. This science has lately come to occupy a foremost place in the minds of social reformers as well as of scientists on account of the alarm ing growth of feeble-mindedness and the wide-spread signs of physical de generacy seen in the great centres of population of the world. The proposition now under discus ' sion is a preliminary experiment in eugenic 'science in America. The Medical Review of Reviews of New York, representing a committee of well-known scientists and social re formers. offers prizes to the eugeni cally perfect man and woman who will marry after they have been ap proved by the committed! A prize of SSOO will be given to the ideal man and woman when they are selected and marry, and a second of SSOO will be given when the first child •' is horn. Scientists and Social Leaders Interested. The author of this project is Fred erick 11. Robinson, publisher of the Medical Review of Reviews. He is a leading member of the Sociological Fund Committee, founded by this publication, and his fellow member are Norman llapgood. chairman: Eugene Brieux, Mrs. Charlotte Per kins Gilman, Rev. John Haynes Holmes. Dr. Frederic C. Howe, Mrs. Charles H. Israels. Dr. Abraham Jacobi. Dr. E. Helen Knight, Mrs. Frederick Nathan, Dr. William H. Robinson. Mrs. William K. i ander bilt, Sr.; Dr. James P. Warbasse, Ella Wheeler Wileox and Dr. Ira S. Wile. It is not yet certain that all these distinguished persons approve all the details of the project, but that will be no bar to its execution. The actual selection of the successful can didates will be made by a jury of men and women doctors. This newspaper will be pleased to assist z in carrying out this interesting project. All our men and women readers who are eligible for the con test and wish to enter it may send theis. photographs to this newspaper stating their name, address, age. weight, physical measurements, con dition of their health, color of their complexion and hair and so forth. They must be free from all bodily de fects and all disease, inherited or acquired. . The scientists will no doubt require that the ancestors of the successful candidates shall have been strong and healthy. They<should at. least be able to prove that thei. - parents and grand parents were physically sound and free from constitutional disease, de fect or abnormality. Qualifications of the Ideal Parent. The photographs and information will be promptly turned over to the committee. The candidates must, of course, be prepared to furnish what ever further information is required by the committee. The candidates should be reason ably young. The ideal age for mar riage has been defined by some eugenic authorities as between twen ty-live and thirty years for a woman and between thirty and thirty-five for a num. Physical comeliness will be given due consideration, but this will not be ti beauty contest in any ordinary sense. First consideration will be given to rhe physical health and measurements of the candidates, since it is established as a general rule that when these factors, which in elude brain and nervous system, are good, then tile mental and moral de velopment of the individual will be good. Certainly the committee will take care that the successful candi dates have a good mental equipment, a good moral character and a good family history. , Some criticism ha- already been aimed at the sehenti because it ap pears to disregard the beautiful senti ment of love ami make the marriage of a man mid woman subject to the cold-blooded calculations of a body of scientists. This objection is an- swered by Mr. Robiuson. He points out that the selected candidates must meet one another and desire to marry. This, he thinks, is equivalent to saying that they are in love with one another. Scientists have argued that love in the best sense is a natural affinity between the germ plasm of two individuals of opposite sex. In the present state of eugenic science it must be admitted that there are many views of nearly equal authority as to how it should be ap plied and how far it tshould be car died. Thus the proposal to prevent feeble-minded persons from having children finds many distinguished ad vocates and also many opponents. The proposal to mate selected persons of tine physique must also be the subject of strong controversy. The idea behind the plan under discussion is that persons of fine physique should be mated in order that their good qualities may be pre served and intensified in their descendants. To this it may be ob jected that if all finely endowed per sons marry one another the inferior ones will be left to create a race of degenerates. This objection, however, does not affect the ultimate aim of eugenics, which is to create a fine race. With this every good citizen must agree, and it follows that he must support any plan to encourage a finely en dowed individual to marry early and leave descendants possessing his or her qualities. We can look over the genealogical records of the world and see how the fine qualities of one individual have been transmitted and reproduced for hundreds of years during almost countless generations. Dr. Charles B. Davenport, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, a leading American expert in heredity, has traced the descendants of Eliza beth Tuttle, a Massachusetts woman of great beauty and brilliant attain ments, who married in 166". From her have descended over thirty Americans of high intellectual gifts including Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, General U. S. Grant, Presi dent Cleveland, Chief Justice Waite and Winston Churchill, the American author. Society’s Burden of Bad Marriages. Strange to say, Elizabeth Tuttle had distinctly criminal traits, but, her husband being a man of good char acter, her fine qualities have pre dominated in her descendants. On the other hand, science can put ips finger on one feeble-minded in dividual of a few generations past and show that he has left hundreds, perhaps thousands, of defective de scendants who are a constantly grow ing burden and menace to society. There is, for instance, the notorious case of Ada Juke, a feeble-minded woman living in New York State, who, in three generations, left forty nine feeble-minded and criminalistic descendants as a burden to the com munity. Her sister Bell left a similar heritage. At the present day their defective defendants are said to number thousands. The good qualities of some dead individual, fortunately preserved be cause he made a suitable marriage, are responsible for the most valuable men and women in public life throughout the world. We can find whole families in which all the mem bers giro exceptionally tall or very handsome or remarkable for intel lectual activity. An interesting case, is that of Mr-. Mary Washington Bond Morosini She is a great-great-granddaughter of Samuel Washington, tile elder brother of George Washington, and a great great-grandniece of our first Presi dent. Mrs. Morosini counts in her ancestral stock, not. only the Wash ington family, but practically all the best families of Colonial Virginia, a stock of fine physical and mental en dowments who married usually in their own class. (’owing of good old English stock and reared in llie free life and favor able conditions of old Virginia, these ancestor’ should, according to the laws of eugenics, produce children of exceptional gifts and attra. liveness. This law is well exemplified in Mr* Mary Washington Bond Morosini. Never has a more finely deevloped specimen of American womanhood been seen. She has a superbly developer SSOO for Your Wedding Gift SSOO for Your First Baby Send In Your Name and Photograph to the Editor To the Editor: IN the experiment in eugenics which the Medical Re view of Reviews Sociological Fund desires to make there will be no discrimination against any appli cant. The lists are open to any man or woman who is willing to be examined physically and mentally and to facilitate us in searching his or her ancestry for physical or mental blemishes. u<«»oh //' \ //■ / -X ■ ~ ‘ IP W-i wSw' MWBt\ B-. r' Mb - srW ptv w \ ...MIL. wW i A A. msKIS LIWWS physique, a beautiful face, a ruddy, yet delicate complexion, and blond hair, verging upon red. She embodies the best traits of the old English and Virginia stocks. She is a woman whom the eugenists would select to perpetuate the American type. Her , husband, Mr. Morosini, comes from an old Italian family and represents a distinctly Italian type. This is a union which many of the eugenists would not approve, as husband and wire represent such very different types. They have one little girl who is of attractive appearance. Many European aristocratic fami lies offer good opportunities for eugenic study, as the family records have been kept for so many Jears. A remarkable ease is that of the Countess of Warwick, the former English society leader who now de votes herself to philanthropic work. Lady Warwick and all her four sisters are remarkable for personal beauty and fine physique. The sisters are the Duchess of Sutherland, the Countess of Westmoreland, Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox and Lady Angela Forbes. They arc all very tall and of the same physical type. Their qualities have evidently been inherited through their mother, since two of the sisters had one father and three of them another. This predominant physical type has in variably been transmitted to the chil dren and grandchildren of the five sisters. This fine,type has been preserved, because the individuals belonging to it were of the wealthy classes and able to marry early with all condi tions favorable. The eugenists tell us that when such individuals are found among the poorer classes of soetety they should be encouraged to marry . t :■ suitable uge and raise families. It wop;,; clearly be possible to breed a race of giants by selecting parents of great height in whose families this has been a marked Copyright. 1913, b We welcome the wide publicity of this ncwspapci making known the needs of science in this matter; and any names of your readers, accompanied with photo graphs and statements of their qualifications in mind and body, we shall be glad to have turned over to us as applicants for the reward we have offered. FREDERICK H. ROBINSON. President Medical Review of Reviews Sociological Fund. trail for several generations. We might, perhaps, breed a race of men averaging over seven feet in height by matching the Russian giant Ivan Machnow, who is 7 feet 9 inches high, with one of the many giantesses now before the circus-going public. Scientists assure us that these ex ceptional giants are victims of a dis ease, and therefore it is not desirable to perpetuate the type. Nevertheless, great stature is within certain limits an advantage, and most people think that it adds to a man’s attractive ness. There is a former New York policeman named Archibald Taggart who stands over fl feet 5W inches, who is one of six brothers and five sisters, among whom all the men are well over six feet. Eugenic science assures us that if these men should mate with correspondingly tall women who have inherited this trait their descendants would tend to be • as tall as themselves. There is, in fact, a vast mass of evidence indicating that fine quali ties of mind ami body may he trans mitted and intensified by inheritance, and that undesirable qualifies may be similarly transmitter! or perhaps eliminated. It has been eloquently pointed out by the leading American eugenist. Dr. Davenport, that the qualities of our most valuable men. such ns the late William James, Benjamin Alt man and hundreds of others, are lost through the lack of a suitable mat iug. while tin' number of inefficient persons brought into existence through unfit mating continues to in crease. The number of defective per sons born in this country, according to Dr. Davenport, Is literally appall ing. "It Is a reproach to our intelli gence,' says Dr. Davenport in his latest work, "that we. as a people, proud in other respects of our con trol of Nature, should have to sup y the Star Company. Great Britain Rli H ■ : <>v port about half a million insane, feeble-minded, epileptic, blind and deaf, eighty thousand prisoners and one hundred thousand paupers at a cost of over $100,000,000 per year. A new plague that rendered four per cent of our population, chiefly at the most productive age, not mere ly incompetent, but a burden, cost ing $100,000,000 yearly to support, would instantly attract universal at tention. But that we have become so used io crime, disease and degeneracy we take them as necessary evils.” Eugenic experts seek to lay down rules as to who are tit to marry, who should wait until they are certain that ancestral defects will not de velop. who should be prevented alto gether from marrying, how good traits may be preserved, and how bad ones may be eliminated. They say they have proved that ■ the transcendent ability of one indi vidual may. by suitable mating, be transmitted for unnumbered genera tions. while, by an nufit mating it may be entirely lost to the world. Those who feel that they have beauty, talent and other tine qualities are now urged Io transmit them to posterity and save them to the world. They are asked to do so under the vigilant eyes of science anil under conditions that will be extremely in structive to the whole world. This is a remarkable opportunity Io lie useful to mankind. All readers of this page—any man or any woman—who would like to be selected as five husband or the wife in the eugenic marriage may send in a photograph, with name and ad dress and brief description of their condition of health and such other facts as they r»ay desire to state. This should be mailed to EUGENIC MARRIAGE. P. O. BOX 208, NEW YORK CITY ights Reserved. =o' f|| liLq M 4 ■" ■.W. IA wb. ® " ! ’ ?z ' 'M/M. .. ■ ." ■; fl * -7 >i gr ■' r J ■r I ’ Op [jp 1 B„. ‘oa»,S a C V r I 'li s r~~ ■ I ? Is; - ■ wWsW I i [ -Wt ■. f *'« ’I- ? V s < ; 'v-X ; - ■**■ I 1 1-' 7 I I I— nJ It Would Be Possible to Breed a Race of Giants Over Seven beet High by Mating This Russian Giant Ivan Machnow, Seven Feet and Nine Inches High, with a Woman of Similar Proportions. > The Lovely Mrs. Mary Wasbr tp ton Bond Morosini, a Descenc'.'..v of George Washington’s Brother and the Best Families of Ok! Vir ginia, Who Would Be Chosen by Eugenists as an Ideal Mother of American Stock. And the Countess of Warwick, with Two of Her Children, an Ideal English Mother, One of Five Sisters Who Have All In herited Beauty and Fine Physical Development and Transmitted These Qualities to Their Children