Despite the appeal of Goddard's book to eugenicists, not everyone was persuaded by his findings. One 1912 review in the British newspaper Guardian was particularly scathing in challenging the book's hereditarian bias. In the review, the anonymous author pointed out that "One wonders, with effect how, with the most careful inquiry, anyone could obtain a diagnosis of true feeble-mindedness for past generations. The author lays stress on the point that the two branches of the family did not differ in point of environment except insofar as the difference was due to their own difference in character. But he does not allow for the facts: (1) that the original feeble-minded son was illegitimate and therefore in quite a different position from the respectable normals and (2) that this difference in environment is handed on just as much as the physical heredity is handed on and goes far to determine the subsequent intermarriages. He also talks lightheartedly of sterilization, as though the only objections to it were "sentimental" and not founded upon a rational perception of the extreme danger to society involved in treating human beings after such a fashion."
Sadly, this particular reviewer was very much in the minority concerning the potential danger of using Goddard's book to highlight the dangers of people with "inferior" genes. Most other newspapers, especially in the U.S.., hailed the book as a "natural object lesson in heredity" that highlighted the risks of unrestricted breeding. One editorial published on November 21, 1912 gave the panicked observation that feeble-minded individuals were multiplying at "twice the rate of the general population" and that they might eventually dominate society as a result.
But what really made Goddard's Kallikak study so appealing to different political factions was how it could provide ammunition for a variety of different political crusades. Vice crusaders agitating about prostitution and assorted other "immoral practices" could (and did) argue that feeble-mindednesst could lead women to gravitate or be forced into lives of prostitution and that such women needed to be protected for their own safety. Though Goddard himself insisted that there wasn't enough available data to prove that feeble-minded women were prone to "professional vice", other pundits, many citing Goddard's book, called for crackdowns on the red light districts found in most cities.
On the other hand, pundits railing against the dangers of immigration also invoked Goddard's study to show that potential immigrants needed to be carefully screened to keep out feeble-minded candidates. Not only would it prevent them from turning to crime in the U.S. but would also prevent them from contributing their own inferior genes to America's melting pot. Almost inevitably, Goddard himself set up an intelligence testing office at Ellis Island just a year after his study came out. His immigration study results, released in 1917, declared that as much as eighty percent of all immigrants. particularly immigrants from specific ethic groups, met his criteria for feeble-mindedness. That Goddard himself later revised this to forty percent did little to curb the calls for more stringent immigration laws to keep these "undesirables" out, not to mention establishing quotas that would remain in place for decades afterward.
As for whether Goddard's study helped bolster the case for compulsory sterilization of people like Deborah Kallikak, that seems harder to establish. Though sterilization laws were already on the books in some parts of the U.S. (Indiana had one as early as 1907), they certainly became more popular in the years following the publication of Goddard's book. Ironically, Goddard himself was much more moderate in his own proposed solution for dealing with people he considered to be feeble-minded. While he advocated keeping them in institutions where they could be trained to do simple work, sterilization was widely seen as a much more effective (not to mention cheaper) alternative.
This led many overzealous medical doctors to begin sterilizing people they considered to be feeble-minded, often without any form of informed consent and with only shaky legal justification. One prominent sterilization advocate was Dr. Albert Priddy, long-time director of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded. Though sterilization wouldn't become legal in Virginia until 1924, Priddy had already conducted hundreds of sterilizations by them, often based on his own harsh eugenics beliefs This included sterilizing women he regarded as being "immoral" for being "too forward" (one underage girl was sterilized because she was in the habit of "talking to the little boys"). It hardly seems surprising that Priddy often invoked Goddard's research to justify his actions, even when this got him into trouble as families began fighting back.
All of which led to the egregious Carrie Buck case and what Albert Priddy would regard as his greatest legal victory. Buck, who had become an inmate at the Virginia State Colony in 1924, was deemed to be mentally unfit, largely due to her "unrestrained" behaviour with the opposite sex and giving birth to an illegitimate child. Using intelligence tests which would be considered completely spurious by modern standards, Buck, her mother, and her young daughter Vivian were all deemed to be mentally unfit and, as a result, ideal candidates for sterilization and a perfect test case for more stringent sterilization laws.
Priddy was certainly in fine form when testifying during Carrie Buck's initial trial in fighting the sterilization order and the later case before the Supreme Court as he presented his evidence . Many of the most prominent eugenicists of the day also testified. Add in the fact that Carrie Buck's own mediocre lawyer (who failed to call a single witness on her behalf) and the the final verdict was no surprise to anyone. All of which led to the appalling Buck vs Bell Supreme Court decision of 1927 in which Oliver Wendell Holmes, then associate justice of the Court concluded publicly that "three generations of idiots are enough."
Ironically, Goddard's Kallikak study wasn't introduced as evidence at the trial, largely because Goddard himself had come to accept that the study was obsolete due to the many scientific errors that had been made. This included many of the same points raised by that anonymous Guardian reviewer in 1912 as well as questions concerning the actual paternity of Martin Kallikak Junior. To Goddard's credit, he was often horrified at how his research was being used by eugenicists and he dedicated much of his remaining life to reforming special education for intellectually disabled children as well as recognizing the role that environment played in mental development. He died in 1957 with much of his early eugenics research being largely forgotten.
But while the end of World War II and the horrendous example of Nazi persecution helped doom the eugenics movement worldwide, the existing laws concerning sterilization remained on the books for decades afterward. Though the rationale was often changed, the end result was still the same and thousands continued to be sterilized well into the 1980s. For that matter, compulsory sterilization continues to be seen in other countries, usually directed against minority groups lacking the resources to fight back.
Though the "Kallikak" name still crops up at times in news stories and opinion pieces as a byword for "white trash" (including being the name of an ill-considered situation comedy in 1977), it has been largely forgotten except as a warning about he dangers of this kind of research and easily such research can be used to promote misinformation. It is a warning that remains relevant even today.
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