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The Omaha Sunday
f '. .' vi':
Alene Houck and Charles
Flynn, the Eugenie Babies,
Pledged to Eugenic Marriages
by Their Parents, and Who Will Probably
Find That the Government Will Have Made
Their Matrimonial Path Easy by the Time
They Have Grown Up.
By Mme. Selma Huldrlcksen,
Th Famous Norwegian Psychologist and Fomlnis
two recent experiments In eugenlo
marriages have challenged the at
tention of the world. Eugeniats
throughout the earth are considering the
results these Instances present of
honest, earnest attempts to serve ths
cause of race betterment.
The ocean, tossing up the frail body of
a woman on the beach of the New Eng
land town, Nantucket, afforded a spec
tacle startling even to representatives of
science. For Jessie Dana, grandnlece of -the
American poet, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, by suicide, bad proclaimed
her failure. "
In Drooklyn two would-be eugenlo
parents have asked the court for a sepa
ration. The pair, Dr. and Mrs. Charles
E. Weber, are childless. Again written
over against a sincere experiment Is
-Failure."
Are eugenlsts discouraged by these sig
nal failures? No. The first to essay the
working out of a truth are always suf
ferers, are in a degree. Indeed, victims.
The pioneers In a new country die of the
pangs of hunger or In the fangs of wild
beasts. The first squad of men to storm
a trench know that they will perish.
Theirs Is the glory of providing a bridge
on which 'other soldiers will charge to
victory. , '
So she who sleeps beneath the rude
wooden slab on which Is written "Little
Camrade'' has served a purpose. Bhe has
sacrificed to science, for by her suicide
she shed a light upon the workings dltfl-'
cultiea in the way of the practise of
eugenics. To remedy we must' first see
what Is to be remedied. The young wife
who drowned herself because tie thought
she could not rear well her baby by her
act held aloft a torch shedding a lurid
light upon the great field of eugenics.
Mrs. Anne V.'eber's statement In couVt
that she refused to bear children because
her husband had not enough money to
properly bring up and educate them, was
a practical aspect of a practical problem.
Vivacity is added to the sltuatelon by the
story that when Mrs. Weber asked her
father, who is wealthy, to execute a bond
that be would provide for and educate
the children she might bear he slapped
her lace. Shrlnging modesty it not, it
appears, confined to our sex.
What You'll Eat
IF you are of average weight, height, and
appetite and live to be seventy-five you
will bsve eaten (fifty-four tons of solid
food and fifty-three tons of liquid. That
is about 1,300 times your own weight
Jf you were to stack the bread you will
have consumed in this number of years
the pile would equal a fair-sized building.
The amount of butter you will have used
on this bread would come to a ton and a
quarter. If you are a lover of bacon and
were to stretch that which you have eatsn
I marriagei ha v challenged the at- Mfca in human annals fo"r 111 . ' . , ?
In a statement un paral
lelled in human annals tot
Its personal detachment from
the subject of the young
widower, Edmund Trow
bridge Dana, professor of
philosophy and logic la the
University of Mlnnestoa,
said of his wife's departure from
plane:
of his wife's departure from this pane:
"Our life together has been a beautiful
comradeship, and has now had a tre
mendously tragic but beautiful end. For
Mrs. Dana bringing up a child was a
religion. She had the strongest sense of
duty in regard to the making of a human
life and consciousness, combined with
what Is rarer, a sense of the enormous im
portance of environment, all external cir
cumstances as air, food and persons.
Like Neltszche, ehe had a contempt tor
mediocrity. The baby must be brought
up not merely well enough, but in the
best possible way.
"She had everything planned to a sclen
tlflo nicety, and when after toiling the
baby's bottles the carbonate of aoda left
a little sediment inside it was a very
serious natter to hec likewise when
ehtf would scrub the rubber nipple with
a boiled brush and a hair came out of the
brush and stuck to the rubber she would
make a big matter of it. Worry over
these details sent her into moods of
melancholia, Bhe was too weak physical
ly, and too temperamental to make a
rood mother. Her Ideals were beyond
her power ,and now I believe that she
was firmly convinced that she would
never be well enough to bring up the boy
right. That ehe took her life under the
circumstancee was a beautiful act."
Ho "The Little Comrade" removed her
self from her son's life path. The year
old son. named in honor of OeGorge Her
from the subject the young widower, Ed
nard Sbaw, has been left In charge of
an uncle and aunt at White Plains. The
young father will go back to his profes
sorship at Minneapolis.
To sentimentalists It is a sad Story.
But what does it mean to sclenceT
Simply that eugenics is right, that it is
scientifically sound, and that it will event
ually be accepted and generally practised.
That Jessie Dana died, self slain, at twenty-nine
merely shows her own errors in
the practise of eugenics. The big truth,
spread where all may see ,by the failure
of the Danas and the Wnbers, is that a
pair, however saalous and public-spirited,
may not practise eugenics with any hope
Before You Die
out in single slices four miles would be
the length. Five tons of fish and 12,000
eggs would stand to your credit, while the
normal cheese eater would easily have con
sumed 400 pounds.
The vegetables you will have eaten would
fill a train three miles long. . You will
have consumed some 10.000 pounds of
sugar and 1.500 pounds of salt If you are
a smoker you will have used about a halt
ton of tobjoo in pipes and wm nav
smoked 1.000,000 cigarettes.
la a iUtemeut untmral- t III
of success alone. They must have
belp of the State. The noble plan
the Improvement of the human race must
be under government controL
The couple who contract a eugenlo mar
riage should be wards of the State. Their
progeny should be its wards.
' Conditions that permit a eugenio
mother to be literally worried to death,
as was the case with Jessie Dana, should
be abolished. That mother who earnest
ly destres to lend herself to race im
provement should enjoy freedom from de
vitalizing care.
There should be absolute censorship
of the eugenlo marriage. From the mo
ment a man and a woman announce their
intent to form a eugenio union they
should have the aid of the government
First in the matter of a medical exami
nation. Had Mrs. Dana secured before
ber marriage the advice of a conscien
tious physician, concerned not merely for
tier health, but taking a broadly racial
view of the matter, she might have re
ceived the advice to abstain from mater
nity, even from marriage. In the eyes
of medical science she might have seemed
unfit for the task of motherhood., Had
it discovered incurable neurosis it would
have forbidden the marriage, and the roll
of the world's tragedies would have been
lessened by one. Governments should
establish a bureau of medical examina
tion. One of the examiners should be a
skilled neuroglst and psychologist, who
would detect unfavorable symptoms that
might escape the attention of the man
who concentrates upon merely physical
aspects.
.Granted that the couple satisfactorily
pass this examination they should receive
assurance that th State would be the
guardians of their young, in case of need.
That the father is wealthy should not pro
elude thin governmental promise, for in
the event of the loss of fortune the as
surance would be of Immeasurable benefit
s:
to the mother, for it would rid her uitnd
of care and her body of the toxins of
worry. The government should formally
accept the responsibility of rearing the
child in physical comfort and guarantee
it an education, in the event of the pov
erty or death of the parents. For exam-
pie. that graceful and beautiful pair, Ed'
ward Shawn and Ruth Ht Denis, artists,
both, should be freed from such anxiety.
But this la not enough. It has made
the way easy for the birth of a healthy. .
bappy child, healthy because its parents
sre healthy, happy because the mother's
mind has no such guests as the spectre
of fear for the little one's future. Yet
government supervision should continue
after birth.
There should be house-to-house visits
Cpyrlsht IBIS, by the Star Corona?,
'
Bee
and minis
(rations en tatlvea
of the gov
e r n ment
competent to .
give advice
about the
care ot the '
child. Had '
some a u c h .
h o usehold
inspector for
the - govern-
. ment paid
Mrs. Dana a
visit once a
month the distraught little woman would
. not have magnified the importance of that
carbonate of soda sediment or the hair
from the scrubbing brush And she would
have been taught how to eliminate both.
In Australia there la such government
inspection of households, an agency that
reduces the death rate by a considerable
percentage and that Increases appreci
ably efficiency. Holland is looking to the
improvement of the rsce in -the same per
sonal manner. Counsel about how to
bathe the baby, how to feed and clothe
him, and the' place and manner of his
sleep would not be resented by parents
who before the child's birth have made
him. In that sense, the ward ot the gov
ernment Oraal Rrltsin Wlvfct -
J
A Woman Scientist Explains
That Couples Who Sacrifice
Old Fashioned Love for the
Good of the State Must
Logically Make Up Their
Minds to Allow the State to Censor
Every Detail of Their Marriage,
Jessie Dana, the Grand Niece of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Who Killed Herself
Because She Thought She Had Failed as a Eugenic Mother
Edward Shawn nd Ruth St Denis, Whose Eugenic Mar
nage Is Being Watched with Interest by All
Students of Eugenics.
In case of emergency, too. the parents
ahould have the privilege of summoning
government aid in the form of govern
ment physicians or nurses. All the ac
cumulated wisdom of the nation In re
gard to child rearing should be at the
command of the eugenic mother.
The government should have super
vision, also of the child's education. The
parenta would have the privilege of sug
gestion and of tonference with govern
ment officials in regard to the little one's
welfare, but in matters which the aood
ahould 1S ,nVOhe4 th So'ernmeTt
Hi U deemel best, to take
the child from its parents and rear It
Thu0.rdint0 th" f0rnf. standard,
f0"?03?111 "Pervislon would be
vf ltK,.,,J,cal elusion by ser-
in tl9 Ch wd :hen rown 10 maturity
ties. ' 0Te"ment actlvi-
MTil?.Cnl!!ord child- Product of actentlflo
parenthood, would then thus repay the
government for its guardianship. I foresee
y 1 navy recruited from such
"government berths filled more
efficiently because ot that law. The term
of service should be compulsory tor only
a comparat vely brief timS. After the ex-
li B th4t term " '"'a b Active.
Love marriages without regard for lliese
for parenthood might still go on. But
nePage
cx pi)
- M' , (
hy
their progen;woufdVer,OU8!?' UkeB-
in the sTate rTK"Ld..ba nelWe factors
hope wou d be In fh.ernment Vrlde
nf fh- ..De ln the censored children
of the parent. ce,nBore children
r,rf. fr.rfnu wno. havlna: coma to Ita
to the great wJlr 'lre t0 contrt,nte
I.. u reat of race bettemmnt-
race betterment"
"i"11 "tlstered
aclentino parenthood.
as specimens ot
exnecfd T'V,- "1 "ucn re
Pivnn . J V mouck snd Charles
J ; 'ed fou'. ho. themselve. eugenta
oanies, have been pledged to a eueenia
ZTX: by thelr n'oth"" BrhTtta.
tney grow up enough to marry, men and
omen win probably have ' accepted
utUprVtloa 111 n detailenf rna
Kill-' "d ' theM two W hav?