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E3h/M* TO Pbponfc of L!ihanif Kbbv
QUyl BE IQi viita THE uUWliit l/OP|
Some of the Young Men and Women Who Are Willing
to Marry Each Other to Assist in the Experiment of
Scientifically Breeding Better Human Beings
THE eugenic marriage prizes announced in this
newspaper have already excited keen interest
among our readers throughout the country and
an evident desire to assist in carrying out the plans
of science.
The Medical Review of Reviews of New York, act
ing on behalf of a committee of well-known scientists
and social workers, has offered prizes to the eugeni
cally perfect man and woman who will marry after
they have been approved by the committee.
A prize of SSOO will be given to the ideal man and
■woman when they marry and a further prize of SSOO
when their first baby is born.
This newspaper will gladly receive photographs
of all young men and women who desire to compete for
these prizes. Photographs should be accompanied
by names, addresses, physical measurements, weight,
condition of health, health 6f ancestors on both sides,
and any other information the parties may desire to
give. Photographs and information will be turned
over to the committee of scients.
The committe regrets that it is quite unable to re
turn photographs on account of the great number sent
in.
Those who expect to win the prizes should be in
perfect health, of attractive appearance and good
physical proportions. They should be prepared to
show that all their ancestors for at least two genera
tions past have been similarly blessed by nature.
They must be willing to answer all questions put to
them by the committee.
The committee can only give the prizes to a man
and woman who are perfectly willing to marry one
another
Already we have received large numbers of letters
from handsome young men and women who wish to
aid in this scientific plan to improve the race. The
photographs of several of them are reproduced on
this page. The names of the young women are with
held for the present, in order that they may not be
subjected to inconvenient publicity. Communications
intended for them will be received and turned over
to the committee.
Eugenic science is now engaging the attention of
the best men in the medical and other scientific fields
who are Impressed by the widespread evidences of
degeneracy among the population, by the growth of
feeble-mindedness, pauperism and crime, and by the
alarming decrease of vitality shown among the most
useful members of the community after middle age.
It is asserted that by wisely regulated eugenic mar
riages we could eliminate many of these defects in
future generations, remedy the greatest miseries of
society and create a better race. A large mass of
facts has already been accumulated by eugenic
science, showing how certain defects are perpetuated
by unwise marriages and how’ fine qualities are trans
mitted to children by eugenic marriages.
Most of us know in a vague way that certain
family characteristics are inherited.. We know, for
instance, that one family is remarkable for tall men
and that many members of another family die in
early middle age of apoplexy. But few people know
anything about the laws by which these characteris
tics are handed down.
The science of heredity, which is bound up with
eugenics, has worked out the exact manner in
which some of our most important characteristics,
such as color of hair, eyes, etc., are handed down.
Every man is made up of what are called unit char
acters inherited from his ancestors. These characters
are independent of one another, and are combined in
a sort of mosaic. A man may inherit many char
acters from one ancestor or only one character. He
is not strictly speaking made up from his parents but
from the ancestral germ cells from w'hich those
parents were created. Hence he may be very unlike
his parents, but he must be like some of his ancestors.
In every germ cell there are elements called “de
terminers,” which determine the subsequent develop
ment of all the organs and characteristics of the
offspring. These determiners are contained in mi
nute granules in the centre of the cell called
“chromosomes.” The male and female cells play an
equal part in carrying determiners.
But if determiners from the male wer» added to
determiners from the female in
fertilization, the number of de
terminers would double at each
generation. To avoid this na
ture eliminates half the chromo
somes from each germ cell be
fore it unites with another gertp
cell in fertilization. The germ
cell then contains chromosomes
that are entire’y of maternal or
paternal origin.
Then this cell unites with the
cell of another individual. Next
one chromosome from each cell
unites with one from the other.
The chromosomes may each
bring a determiner leading to
the same trait, or only the chro
mosome from one parent may
have it. When two determiners
produce the same trait, the
child’s trait is said to be duplex.
When only one determiner pro
duces a trait, the child is sim
plex. Thus when a man from a
family showing musical ability
marries a woman from a family
without that trait, the children
will be simplex as far as that
’“SXV.TomSw. a«e to presence or . e.r-
In the germ
the absence. Thus brown eyes are due to the pre
ence of a determiner to strong coloring and gray
two in four simplex, and one in four will not ha e
the character at all (nulliplex)., n t
Difference in sex is due to the fact that some of
the cells of the male have an odd chromosome calL
an X chromosome. When this kind ot ce l ent r
into'union with another germ cell, the off
snrinc is female. It now appears to be entirely a
matter of accident in the human race whether a male
or female child develops and beyond the power of
science to control the result. irxcr
Most of us have had occasion to notice strtkl “ g
peculiarities that have occurred in several genera
E of the same family. There are such remark
able hereditary peculiarities as extra toes, webbed
fingers and odd-colored eyes.
It is very well established that the tendency to
have twjns runs in families. This tendency, if it were
considered desirable, might be cultivated by selec
tive marriages. It has been cultivated even among
some species of domestic animals, which originally
had only one young at a time.
Professor C. B. Davenport, of the Carnegie Institu
tion, states that the Dorset race of sheep is char
acterized by a tendency to bear twins. Breeders se
lect sheep of twin breeding families to breed from
and, consequently, this characteristic, very useful
among food animals, is becoming more and more com
mon.
There are many cases of families, well-known in
public life and society, who show the twinning ten
dency. Mrs. Ogden Mills, the prominent New York so
ciety leader, is a twin, her sister being Mrs. Cavendish
Bentinck, of London. Mrs. Mills has had twin daugh
ters, who are now the Countess of Granard and Mrs.
Henry Carnegie Phipps.
It is evident that the twinning capacity is heredi
tary in Mrs. Mills’s family and there is the further
peculiarity that the twins are usually girls.
Very curious results arise from the rule that a trait
may be due to the presence of a determiner in the
germ cell or to the absence of it. For instance,
long hair in Angora goats, sheep or guinea pigs is
not due to a factor producing long hair, but rather
to the absence of the determiner that stops growth
in short-haired animals. One can only conclude
whether a character is due to a determiner or to its
absence by noting the effects of breeding from in
dividuals with the same trait. If all offspring are like
the parents in respect to a trait, the trait is probably
a negative one. But if the offspring are very diverse,
the trait is probably due to a positive determiner and
the germ cells of the parents are of two kinds; some
with and some without the determiner.
We are dependent on internal forces checking
growth for all that makes us human. For instance, if
there were no check to bodily growth, we should
grow out of all human resemblance. If there were no
check to the development of our stomachs, we should
be nothing but vast stomachs, eating up all the food
on earth.
■Curious to say, a valuable quality in a man may be
due to the absence of normal determiners in his
heredity. It is pretty well established that genius in
many cases is associated with the absence of normal
determiners. The absence of these permits the ab
normal development of some one trait.
The science of heredity as sketched here involves
very intricate mathematical calculations and it is
rarely that all the factors required can be known in
studying human beings. Nevertheless, the science is
able to forecast certain probabilities with reasonable
certainty.
Thus it can say that the marriage of two persons
with a serious defect will, in all reasonable prob
ability produce all defective offspring; that the mar
riage of a defective of a not very bad type with a
normal person will produce mainly normal offspring;
that the marriage of two persons of normal stock will
produce all normal offspring and so on.
There is always a possibility that the defect of an
ancestor may be carried by the germ cells but the
more generations that have passed without its ap
pearance the more improbable does that appearance
become.
Eugenic science teaches that no man having a
serious defect in his heredity should marry a woman
with the same defect. If he marries a normal woman
the defect will disappear in some of his descendants
at least and if each generation obeys the same eugenic
rule, the defect will in time disappear entirely.
To avoid the perpetuation of defects we should en
courage persons of families widely separated by dis
tance and ancestry to marry. It is better for a man
born in New York to marrj’ a girl born in California
than a girl born in New York.
The most serious hereditary ailments known in this
country are traceable to small country communities,
where people have married others of the same an-
The Twin Brother* A mid B Married. A Had Four Sons of- * r
Whom Two Were Twin*. The Single Sons nnd One of the ■■ JL A ~L-
Twin Sons Married and All Three Hnd Twin Children. B Mar- / g M fl'B I /'
ried and Hnd a Single Son,but That Son's Children Were Twins, I w’ 1— *d| JUr I ■ ]
Showing That He Carried the Twinning Tendency In His \ H JI JI T Jg '
Hereditary Mnke-l p. This Case la Cited in “Heredity in I 11 I! \I X. ■ J
Kelation to Eugenics,” by Professor C. B. I •—J* g— I "■ ■
Davenport, Director of the Cold Spring — ————-” ** I
Harbor Experimental Evolution Station. I 7
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cestry for several generations, thus aggravating the
defect. Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the distinguished
scientist and inventor of the telephone, finds that the
very numerous deaf mutes of Martha’s Vineyard,
Mass., and other groups of deaf mutes who have
never been near Martha’s Vineyard, ‘‘trace up" to the
blood of James Skiff.
A genealogist has traced the "bleeder's disease”
from a man named Hannant, who came from Norfolk,
England, whose progeny settled in Sullivan County,
New Hampshire, and created there a colony of
bleeders. This colony, by emigration, has started new
colonies in Minnesota, South Dakota and California.
Even students of crime have traced the disturbing
element of a large area, to a single focal point. The
notorious Jukes family have been traced back to a
man named Max living in Central New York, in the
early part of the Nineteenth Century, whose defective
and criminal descendants have increased by thousands
and are now spread all over the Eastern and Middle
States.
The extraordinary collection of criminals and de
generates known as "the Tribe of Ishmael" of Central
Indiana, can all be traced back to a single individual.
Diagram Showing How Twins Run in Families.
The progenitor of this tribe was one Ben Ishmael, who
was in Kentucky in 1790, and later went to Indiana.
His three sons married three sisters from a pauper
family. Pauperism is recognized as a hereditary dis
ease by eugenic science.
They had nineteen children that survived to adult
life, sixty grandchildren and thirty great-grandchildren
living in 1888.
The Ishmaelites have been in the almshouses, the
house of refuge, the woman’s reformatory, the peniten
taries and have received continuous aid from the
townships. They intermarry regularly with other de
fectives. In their family are murderers and criminals
of every class. They are generally diseased. The
children die young. They live by petty stealing, begg
ing and ash-gathering. With all their faults they are
not alcoholic.
From this case we see that one defective man may
in time leave an enormous burden upon the communi
ty. The evil that men do lives after them, but the
Miss Anna S—, of
Philadelphia (and
Two Other Pho
tographs of This
Attractive Appli
cant for Eugenic
Honors Are Shown
in the Right Hand
Column of This
Page.)
- J
■ N I
i I
MwA ***>-,, 1 / ■ 1 I
IF only half of the new inventions
which are constantly coming into
use really did well the things
they were intended to do, this world
would be a far more efficient place
to live, work and play in than it
now is. But the fact remains that
inventors are patenting and manu
facturers placing on the market
every year thousands of devices
which lack practical utility in the
most fundamental particulars.
Whether this is due to inventors
undertaking to evolve things with
which they have had no practical
experience or to some other cause
is still to be explained, but the fact
remains that many of their attempts
Copyright. 1913, by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.
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The Stupid Mistakes Many Inventors Make
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Harry
Baright,
of the
Army.
other statement of the poet that tne good they do dies
with them is not correct or scientific.
It is equally possible to trace the good qualities that
have been distributed from one individual throughout
the country. The original Herreshoff, who settled in
Bristol, R .1., had a remarkable mechanical genius,
which has shown itself in his descendants, who have
built-the beautiful yachts that have enabled us to hold
the America's Cup year after year in spite of all
England's efforts to recapture it.
In four generations the Herreshoffs have produced
nine boat builders of extraordinary ability, showing
clearly that this kind of talent is inherited. In the
youngest generation, which consists only of childreh,
one, a girl of fourteen, has shown marked boat-build
ing ability. Eight other members of the family have
shown mechanical talent apart from boat building, and
five have been clever musicians.
The extraordinary ability that marked the Lee fam
ily from the earliest days of Colonial Virginia down to
Gen. Robert E. Lee, is traceable to the original set
tler, Richard Lee. It is believed that the importance
which Virginia assumed in the revolutionary period
was principally due to the great numbers of descend
ants which this man left.
The vigorous physique and other fine qualities
to supply us with useful things are
little short of ridiculous in the way
they fail to achieve their purpose.
You will find in many homes large
wash pitchers of blue enameled sheet
steel, which are popular because
they are likely to prove cheaper in
the end than three or four of china.
Now, the handle on these pitchers
is of such shai«e nnd so placed that
it strains one's wrists to use the
pitcher when the latter is full. The
accompanying basin of the same ma
terial is an unconscious discovery
of the theoretically correct curve for
turbine blades—for water poured in
at the centre at maximum velocity
emerges all around the rim at min
imum rate. However useful this
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// ■/ Miss Rose E—, of New York.
Mi sa shown by the old families
E(j na of Kentucky ' are largely
L traceable to John Preston,
o f’ of Londonberry, Ireland,
Long Island. t , here
eighteenth century. It has
already been shown in these columns how one New
England woman of the seventeenth century, Eliza
beth Tuttle, has left no less than thirty-one descend
ants of the first Importance in American public life,
including two Presidents. :
These cases are very important as showing that
one person, possessing fine mental or physical quali
ties, may by a suitable eugenic marriage, transmit
these qualities to scores of descendants in a few
generations and thus be the means of materially im
proving the whole nation.
Those who feel that they. have beauty, talent and
other fine qualities are now urged to transmit them
to posterity and save them to the world. They are
asked to do so under the vigilant eyes of science and
under conditions that will be extremely instructive to
the whole world.
All readers of this page—any man or any woman—
who would like to be selected as the husband or the
wife in the eugenic marriage may send in a photo
' graph, with name and address and brief description
of their condition of health and such other facts as
they may desires to state.. This should be mailed to
EUGENIC MARRIAGE.
P. O. BOX 203,
NEW YORK CITY.
principle may be in a turbine, it
seriously Interferes with the effi
ciency of a wasli bowl.
Another inventor’s stupidity is re
vealed in a gallon enameled sheet
iron pot, which has its handle of
circular cross-section and outline
fixed as near as possible to the upper,
rim. so that when the pot is full of
boiling water one is sure of being
scalded when lifting it with one hand
without a "holder.”
Look at your china teapot. Nine
times out of ten the tea, instead o'
pouring from the spout, runs down
tlie underside and dribbles all over
the table.
An expensive cut-glass syrup jug
shows an equally serious defect. The
may be
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MISS ANNA S~ IN
TRAINED NURSE UNIFORM
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MISS ANNA
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silver lid, which is supposed to it
off the golden stream, fails compii ,o
ly in this mission and is always sticky
outside.
The architects plan houses with in
sufficient space for bedsteads and
tables, doors that open the wrong
way, and closets that necessitate
twice as many steps to reach them
as should be necessary. The tool
makers turn out axes that stick in
the tree and hammers that are badly
balanced; the machine builder makes
machines that have to be taken apart
in order to get out the piece that
needs replacing or adjusting most
frequently, or in which the “breaking,
piece” is the most expensive part.