The Hubris of Eugenics

“We know very little about race betterment as yet, but we do know some things of significance. We do know that heredity is a force which set limits to all our activities, and which, if entirely neglected, leads to decay and ruin in the nation. We have got far enough to recognize that there are certain human beings who are absolutely unfit and who could be prevented from a continuation of their kind. We do know it is important that a superior stock should not be swallowed up and lost by a more rapid increase of the inferior stock.”

-Richard T. Ely, The World War and Leadership in a Democracy, p. 115, 1918

“There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, “dizzy with success”, to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will.”

-F.A. Hayek, The Pretense of Knowledge, Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 11, 1974

This is a book review of Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, by Adam Cohen.

The tragedy of the eugenics movement in the United States is often overshadowed by the horrors of the related Nazi efforts, hallmarked by their attempts at creating a perfect race through eugenics and racial cleansing. We have forgotten, to some degree, the extent and success of the eugenics movements in the United States. Though it pales in comparison to the Nazis it remains a tragic chapter in United States history. Lost amidst much of this history is the occasionally discussed, but rarely deeply, Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell. Adam Cohen brings to our attention this overlooked Supreme Court case in great detail while simultaneously exposing the success of the movement.

Cohen describes the eugenics social movement (a combination of two Greek words meaning “good” and “origin”) through the history and circumstances of Buck v. Bell and Carrie Buck, the woman at the center, which gave constitutional endorsement to the enactment of sterilization laws in 28 states by 1931.

Cohen takes us through the legal case by focusing on the major players involved, Carrie Buck, the victim of the law, Albert Priddy, the director of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded which detained Carrie Buck, Harry Laughlin, the expert and eugenics advocate, Aubrey Strode, the talented lawyer with no discernible preference for eugenics, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the preeminent jurist of the era who’s short nasty elitist opinion paved the way for sterilization nationwide; giving new energy to a waning movement that had lost time and again in the state courts. His line “three generation of imbiciles are enough,” served as a rally cry and pithy declaration of the supposed need of such policies.

Each individual is given two chapters, one outlining the general circumstances that brought them to the case, this often includes details relevant to the broader eugenics movement though not necessarily the legal case, often diverting away from the titular character for pages at a time. The second chapter focused more on the relevant events, the interaction with the legals system, their positions, efforts, and contributions that made them relevant. This organization was creative and though difficult for easy recall of specific details, presented the story and background in an interesting fashion. All the characters received two chapters in a row except Carrie Buck, who bookends the chapters for the other major characters, her chapters began and closed the biographical section. This was an enjoyable aesthetic, a symmetry in the presentation which delivered a greater emotional impact as the book concluded.

Though eugenics did not begin with Buck, nor did it end with her, her history, family, life, and even future were essential to making the case for the eugenicist running the show. Carrie Buck was raised by the Dobbes family, who also raised Carrie’s child when Carrie was placed into the state hospital. Carrie was admitted with little evidence she deserved to be there, the standards were biased against behaviors found unsuitable for the time but were not indicators or sure signs of mental illness or low mental capacity. Carrie’s unplanned pregnancy, the result of rape not promiscuity, was taken as evidence of a feeble mind. The circumstances of the pregnancy were hidden from view, and it is quite likely institutionalizing Carrie Buck was a way to sweep the scandal under the rug since the Dobbes’s nephew was the implicated rapist. This abuse of position was a betrayal of Carrie Buck and her unborn child, it deprived her time with her child and eventually prevented her from having more children after she married years later, something she claimed to desire in later interviews.

Her mother, never a consistent presence in her life before she arrived at the state hospital, was already institutionalized on similar grounds, though her life appeared more tumoltuous, having several children with varied fathers. At 17, Carrie was in the closest proximity to her mother, Emma Buck, she had been since age four.

The history of eugenics, and the widespread adoption of said policies though not universal, is laden with tales such as Carrie Buck. Her particular story highlights the error of hubris and Cohen illustrates this well. Cohen’s description of the incompetence of her attorney, Irving Whitehead — who previously sat on the hospital board he was suing —demonstrated the prejudicial nature of this entire saga, especially at the trial level. He also casts legitimate doubt on the State hospital’s efforts to justify sterilization as a solution to perceived social ills. They described an infant as below average in intelligence something incredulous even today, they ignored favorable evidence of Buck’s intelligence, as well as the curious circumstances of her arrival. All of this is well told by Cohen illustrating a narrative of power disparities between the respective parties, a theme of the book.

Cohen argues the purpose of law and justice is to even power disparities, to serve those who are disadvantaged in their relative power structure (p.14). This theme rings loudest when discussing Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Holmes wrote the opinion of the court supported by all other justices but one. His personal ethos is described as one dedicated to power disparities, and the legislative process was the vehicle for enacting the will of the powerful onto the few. Holmes was a great beneficiary of a powerful family, his father achieved notoriety as a physician and was born into one of Boston’s elite families.

Cohen describes both Holmes’s personal journey and background, that of a thrice wounded Civil War veteran to a practicing attorney, professor, and then Justice on two benches, in order to demonstrate his developed sense of bitterness, his dedication to the laws of nature as the ultimate moral code, and his embracing of eugenics. A view he eventually turned into an opinion of the Court. Holmes gloated that eventually one gets to say what he thinks, indicating his endorsement of the law, both judicially and personally. For Holmes and many like him, the distance between evolutionary forces and moral right was narrow.

Holmes’s view was that “the dominant forces of the community” have the right to dominate. The legislative power was the expression of that right and the judiciary should not stand athwart the will of legislatures but in rare circumstances. Cohen notes one of those rare circumstances was protections for free speech, a position he did not always hold. Unmentioned by Cohen was the influence of his mentor on Holmes’s judicial attitudes, both at the law firm and Harvard, James Bradley Thayer. Thayer believed that due process claims should pass constitutional muster unless the unconstitutionality was “so clear that it is not open to rational question.” This rational question review advocated by Thayer was turned into a dissent by Holmes in the 1905 case Lochner v. New York, the same dissent that said the Constitution does not “endorse Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics.”

Which brings me to the first critique of Cohen’s book, in his effort to deliver the intellectual founding of eugenics Cohen suggests that Herbert Spencer was at the least an intellectual predecessor of the eugenics movement. Cohen writes that Spencer preferred a “violent sorting” eliminating “nature’s failures” and those who “those who not energetic enough to maintain itself must die.” Cohen wrote that Spencer applied a brutal law of nature approach, quoting Spencer as saying that “If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and its is best they should die.” Spencer did indeed say this but included an important qualifier before his descriptive accounting of evolutionary forces, the first sentence reads, “Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated.” What Spencer believed was not in a normative standard of survival of the fittest but a positive accounting which strips the term “fit” of normative implications associated with bare naturalism (p 45). In this context Spencer suggests kind regard and relief given voluntarily are good and do not undermine social processes.

Perhaps Oliver Wendell Holmes and other eugenicists read Spencer according to their preferred interpretation that the strong may prey upon the weak, but the descriptive interpretation of Spencer is had a broader meaning. As George Smith points out, if “survival of the fittest” is simply a positive account of nature, then the conditions would alter who survives. Spencer’s concern was not about charitable feelings toward the less fortunate or weak, but that government processes would introduce unintended consequences including conditions which exacerbated undesired characteristics, both predatory and otherwise detrimental to social system. Spencer was also a sociologist and a Lamarkian, meaning he believed that characteristics obtained through use or disuse could be passed down. Hence an endorsement of charitable actions was acceptable, which could pass down pro-social behavior, but a concern that government intervention would short circuit these processes was worrisome and instead could encourage characteristics that would ultimately undermine human thriving.

One can say this is wrong without attributing the worst motives. Indeed Lamarkian evolution has been almost entirely debunked, with some interesting exceptions. He was at least wrong in those regards, and some of his conclusions may be similarly flawed, but this is a far cry from trying to eliminate the feeble minded as many eugenicists attempted. The term social Darwinism was largely an attack from intellectual rivals not a movement.

Similar discussion of social Darwinism by Cohen appear to be erroneous. Attributing such an approach to Justice George Sutherland and his mentor Karl G. Maesar appear unsupported, in particular since Maesar disagreed with Spencer. According to A. Le Grande Richards, Maesar saw Spencer as an important philosopher but left him off his curriculum for education due to Spencer’s materialist views, which Maesar believed ran afoul revealed truth. Unwilling to include Spencer in curriculum on education due to evolutionary beliefs hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement of Spencer’s theories (p. 247, 262–63, 277).

The attempt to tie Herbert Spencer to eugenics appears to be more than the evidence supports. The connection, if any, is distant. Spencer did not appear to endorse interventionist policies such as those held by Laughlin, Holmes, and Priddy, and appeared supportive of efforts to care for the less fortunate on a voluntary basis. If these are the roots of eugenics then the apple did indeed fall far from the tree.

Yet despite these objections, and a few not worth highlighting in detail, the book is worth the read, especially for the uninitiated. For many, including lawyers, Buck v. Bell sits in the background without much attention, but it has never been overturned and the impacts were tangible; the sterilized were in the tens of thousands. It rings a warning against hubris and condescension — perhaps you aren’t as wise as you believe. Eugenicist thought themselves capable of fashioning humans according to principles of science toward progress. The real fruits were not so sweet.

Those who find themselves unaware of this case and era in United States history would do well to pick up a copy of this book, this case deserves a noterity similar to Plessy v. Furgeson. As Cohen writes in his introduction, “There will always be differences of opinion over which rulings should be on a list of worst decisions, and how they must be ranked. But there can be no doubt that Buck v. Bell must have a prominent place.” (p. 10)

James Devereaux is an attorney and graduate of William & Mary School of Law. Much of his writing can be found at The Foundation for Economic Education. All views his own.