the growing belief that crime comes largely from the subnormal has created a more or less definite demand for the isolation of the moron before the commission of crime and for the sterilization of certain misfits, especially after conviction. both of these methods are very drastic, and while society must and will adopt any way that seems to be necessary to protect itself, still before accepting such drastic remedies it should be very clear that the danger is sufficiently great to justify the means, that the desired result will follow and that no other means will bring about the end.
in this discussion it should be remembered that the mental classification of children and grown-ups is only in its infancy, that much that is freely stated is still in the realm of theory, and that time and patience in making investigations and classifying facts are most important in arriving at correct results.
the really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. the great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions. this depends on how broad is the class included in the normal. there are no sharp divisions anywhere; above, the normal shades imperceptibly into those of unusual intelligence, and below it fades just as gradually into the sub-normal. while defectives are more apt to commit crimes, in the main this is because their environment is too hard for their machine.
the sub-normal are probably more tractable and less disposed to the emotions that lead to criminal acts than are the more intelligent. their crimes are especially noticed because they seem to be without any serious motive and often shockingly brutal. city life most readily uncovers the sub-normal. this is true because the strain is far greater in the city than the country. there are exceptions to this rule, particularly those portions of the country that are barren and unproductive territory into which the venturesome and obvious unfits are drawn.
the prisons are not the only places which are inhabited by the sub-normal and the misfit. the hardest and most disagreeable and most poorly paid labor is largely done by this class of people. very few people of superior intelligence and education do manual labor and the more disagreeable the manual labor, the more certain it is that the job is done by the sub-normal and the misfit. a large part of the farm labor, the odd jobs and common labor in small towns, the cheaper labor on railroads, in factories and all industrial plants is given to this sort of men. in the country and small village, where life is easy, this class seldom makes trouble and is hardly known. these men and women easily and naturally fall into a place in the industry and society of the village and are often among the most useful members.
a general examination of all men to discover the defective and the sub-normal, coupled with a demand that all such be sent to some place of confinement, would meet with such a protest from all classes seriously affected as to end not only the demand but the further agitation of the subject. any such law, if carried out, would not only seriously increase the cost of all industry, but in many instances would make it impossible to carry it on. it is hardly conceivable that above the idiot, society shall make examinations and tests and confine or sterilize large classes of people who have not yet developed anti-social tendencies, but who on account of feeble intellects might sometime commit crime.
the world has ample data at hand to show more humane and at the same time much cheaper ways, even methods that will yield a profit. these ways have been abundantly illustrated by history and can be witnessed in operation every day.
england was repeatedly conquered and settled by brigands and misfits. when her people grew more homogeneous and orderly she sent her anti-social to new zealand and to virginia. in new zealand with its opportunities these outcasts and their descendants prospered and were as orderly and conventional as the english society that banished them for england's good. the colonies in virginia with access to land and a chance to make homes for themselves established a social order and formed communities more prosperous than the ones that sent them out. many of their descendants are now successful and important members of every western state.
in fact, most of the european immigrants who have settled in the united states were the poor and the outcast, the misfits of european countries. with better opportunities and a chance to build up homes in a new land, their descendants are at least the equals of those who stayed behind. the growth and development of the united states westward from the atlantic seaboard has been effected by the poorer and less intelligent, but often the more venturesome, who constantly turned west to get cheaper land and a better chance. the residents of these western states compare very favorably with those who still reside in the sections of the country which these pioneers left behind. it cannot be shown that the less intelligent have criminal natures. all that can be shown is that they have a poorer equipment to meet the stress and strain of life. to make most of this class safe, all that is needed is fairer conditions and an easier environment. if society could only recover from the obsession that what is necessary to regulate man is plenty of prisons and harder punishments, it would be fairly easy and infinitely cheaper to improve the environment from which crime springs than to visit vengeance on the victim.
the effect of education is very great. many a subnormal and backward person has been educated so he could take a place in life that those with a much greater natural ability could not fill.
beyond the segregation of the imbecile, the insane and those who have committed crime, it is dangerous to go. the course of preventing crime lies in the other direction, better opportunity and an easier life.
it has grown to be a commonplace in the discussion of crime to speak of isolation and sterilization as the proper treatment of the criminal and defective. this is generally done without any clear understanding of the laws of heredity.
the laws of the transmission from parent to child of traits and tendencies are not yet well enough known to justify any attempt to interfere with the function of life, except in the case of the idiotic. it is plain that crime cannot be inherited. certain defects in the brain and nervous system can be and are inherited. no brain or nervous system is perfect, so the problem is one of the incapacity which causes the maladjustment. crime results from defective heredity when applied to the environment. it comes from the inability of the machine to make the necessary adjustments of life. the making of the criminal is largely a question of his fortune or misfortune in the environment where he is placed. it is absurd to say that one inherits the tendency to rob or rape or burglarize or kill. he may inherit an unstable organization that in certain hostile environments will lead him to any of these crimes. for that matter all men inherit the organization that will bring these results if the environment is sufficiently hard. society may in many ways place too high a value on human life. still we punish men who place too low a value on the lives of others, and the state should be very slow to destroy life or the capacity for life.
there is much to learn, much to explain about the mysterious workings of heredity, before man can undertake to say that he has the wisdom or justice to choose the ones who should be the bearers of life to the future.
it is most common to find in the same family various degrees of intelligence. now and then a man of such high powers and faculties is born that he is regarded by scientists as a "sport" who defies all known laws in his origin. often one person in a family is of commanding strength, while the rest are commonplace.
the insanity and disease that afflict many men of genius is well known. grasset in his book the semi-insane and the semi-responsible has given a long list of eminent names. many great authors have depicted insanity in their most gifted characters. genius is frequently an indication of insanity. it is a wide departure from the normal.
the obscure and lowly origin of many of the world's greatest men seems to point to the fact that nature has methods that man cannot comprehend and with which it is not wise for him to interfere. the fact is that genius, or even great strength or ability in the parent, is by no means sure to be handed down. in fact, it is very rare indeed that such unusual traits persist. that sterilization should follow as a punishment for sex crimes is without any sort of logic except that sterilization relates to sex. the whole idea is born of the hatred or loathing of certain crimes.
generalizations have been made from a few poorly authenticated cases, and these generalizations have gone far beyond anything that the evidence can justify. it does not follow that because the father and son have black hair, or the mother and daughter have blue eyes, or that their mannerisms are similar, that inheritance is responsible for character, much less for crime. certain things are clearly traceable to heredity. other things may be the result of association or what to us must still be accident.
often the fact is pointed out that great progress has been made in the culture of plants and the breeding of animals. this is true. no intelligent farmer to-day would think of raising any but the best stock. he takes pains with the breeding of his cattle. if he wants rich milk and butter, he breeds jerseys or guernseys. if he wants a larger quantity of milk and a fair beef animal, he breeds holsteins. if he wants beef only, perhaps he raises durhams. at any rate he knows what he wants and breeds that kind. similarly the horse-raiser will breed for race horses or dray horses as the case may be, and the system works with almost mechanical certainty. he gets what he wants and would never think of raising scrubs and taking a chance on results. the effect of selective breeding and culture is beyond dispute, and to many it seems obvious that all that is needed to perfect the human race and wipe out misery and crime is to supervise human breeding in the same way, so that the species may be controlled.
at first glance this seems to be the logical thing to do, especially as the effects of heredity can no more be doubted in man than in animals. still there are important questions to be asked and grave dangers to be encountered. when we say that the well-bred berkshire hog is better than the "razor-back," we mean that it will produce more meat for food. in other words the hog is better for man. if we were to ask which would be the better, if the hog were to be considered, the answer would probably be the "razor-back." the fact that the food consumed by the berkshire produces a large quantity of fat, makes him unfitted to live if he were living for his own sake. turn both hogs out to run wild, and the "razor-back" will live and the berkshire die. nature will make her selection and adapt the hog to his environment. the berkshire will produce more lard, but it will not run so fast; it has no more brains and cannot adapt what it has so well to the preservation of life. the same thing is doubtless true of other animals and likewise of plant life. the jersey cow would not survive in a natural state. she gives too much milk and for too long a time. man has made of her a milk-machine. turn all thoroughbred horses out on the plains to shift for themselves, and they would either die or gradually be modified until they were adapted to the free and wild life of the plains. this would not be so good for man, but would be better for the horses. in plants and animals, man can by selection breed or cultivate any characteristics that he may choose, but he cannot produce a horse which is both a draft horse and a running horse; he cannot produce cattle that are the best both for milk and beef. he is urged to try scientific breeding on the human race. how would he have man changed? would he experiment for more intellect, or a bigger and stronger physique? would he breed for art and civilization or would he breed for strength and physical endurance? what qualities are desirable for the human race? this would be a very hard question even to entrust to a popular vote. while the capacity of cattle to produce milk can be increased, cattle cannot increase their own capacity or improve their own quality. this can be done only by the slow and patient processes of nature in the line of adapting the animal to its environment. the rapid change that is to come about by breeding must be directed and controlled by man. the cattle have nothing to say about the process. no doubt a higher order of beings who could control man might, and perhaps would change him by selective mating. how they would change him would depend on the use they wished to make of him, not on what the man himself would like to do. the contemplation of a higher order of beings experimenting with the human race is not a pleasant one for intelligent men.
can we imagine men, through government, forcibly experimenting with each other? who would settle the kind of man that was to be evolved or the specific changes that would be required? or, what was to be done and how? who could prophesy what man would be like when he should be made over in the likeness of something else? who are the people with the breadth and tolerance and infinite wisdom, in whose hands it would be safe to place the remodeling of man? it is hard to conceive that it can be seriously considered.
nature in her own way is a eugenist. by her slow processes she is continually wiping out the unfit and adapting man to the environment where he must live. perhaps by saving too many of the unfit man is more or less interfering with the processes of nature, and it may be that the interference with her method of work is bad. but nature is mindful of this tendency and if it is not in accordance with the profoundest laws of being, nature will have her way in spite of man's meddling. any change that can be brought about by selective mating must come by natural processes aided by the education of each individual through a closer study of the origin and evolution of life. this must leave everyone free to do his own selecting, rather than to trust it to the state. society can do much toward giving man an environment which will more or less be adjusted to his heredity. to give him a heredity that will conform to his environment is quite another thing and probably must be kept practically free from the theories, vagaries and experiments of man. it would seem so absurd and dangerous as not to be worth discussing except for the fact that the movement, both for sterilizing and some degree of control of mating has already gone far in some of the states. there is no limit that fanaticism or hatred will respect.
no doubt the popular opinion that in some way crime and pauperism are inherited has been strengthened by the literature concerning the family that has been given the name of "the jukes." the first extensive study of this family was made by richard l. dugdale, who was connected with the new york prison association. it was first published in 1877 and may almost be regarded as the "uncle tom's cabin" of the scientific study of crime in america.
mr. dugdale was evidently a careful student, an honest investigator and a humane man. strange to say, deductions have been freely and carelessly made from his book, which the investigations do not warrant, and against which he carefully cautioned the reader. no one can examine mr. dugdale's book without being impressed with the quiet unassuming modesty and worth of the author, and yet in the hands of those who have so often carelessly and unscientifically generalized from his studies, it has possibly brought more harm than good.
the book covers investigations made by dugdale between 1850 and 1870, a period in which little was known about the laws that govern inheritance, and necessarily, much evidence was pure hearsay without the data of careful investigation at hand. the case, however, does show a surprising number of criminals, paupers, harlots and misfits, descending from their original ancestor. from time to time further investigation has brought the history of the family down to 1918.
the ancestor with whom the investigation begins was born some time between 1720 and 1740. in the report the original is called "max." he has been described as a "hunter and fisher," "a hard drinker," "not fond of work," fairly intelligent and leaving no record of crime. he probably left behind a large family, some of whom were legitimate and some illegitimate. the family came from a barren, rocky, lake region in new york and several generations grew up in the vicinity. the only industry was rough work like quarrying stone, logging and the like. later a manufacturing plant was located in the region. the jukes early got a bad name in the small community. even when they wanted to find employment it was hard to get a job. they were socially ostracized and individually boycotted. the region was poor, and for the most part the family grew up in poverty. often several members of a family lived in one room and slept on the floor indiscriminately, regardless of sex. for several generations few of them wandered far from the ancestral home. the locality was one that naturally came to be the resort of the poor and the outcast; these are always driven to the cheapest and most barren land. whether the community was related by blood or not, the residents would almost inevitably be of the same class. rich people cluster closely together for association and fellowship. the poor and wretched do the same. common observation in city and country shows that this is inevitable. it comes from deeper and more fundamental laws than human statutes. it is born of the gregarious instinct and fostered and developed by economic law.
in the main, lax habits grow from surroundings and association. the tendency of all human beings is to revert to the primal. it is only association that keeps the individual units up to the tension that civilization expects and demands. every community shows many examples of this inevitable tendency. nature is constant; civilization spasmodic. especially with sex relations, conditions are the chief factor. nature knows little or nothing of the regulations fixed by society and custom. poverty and wretchedness reach outward through a community and by association between the old and the young pass down the generations. nothing but a complete change of environment can counteract the inevitable tendency. when social classes arise and the cleavage is clear and established, no great effort is made by the superior members to aid the inferior. in fact they are almost invariably left to themselves. poverty and wretchedness are not transmitted in the blood, but in the environment.
it is not many years since physicians and communities believed that tuberculosis was inherited. in all communities there were instances of this dread disease spreading out through families and down the generations. it required the sacrifice of many lives and the careful investigation of scientists to discover that tuberculosis was the result of germs, generally accompanied by an impoverished system. these germs were transferred by close association and lack of sanitary conditions. it is as easy to transmit shiftlessness, idleness and lax habits as disease.
dugdale's figures of delinquency in the jukes family are doubtless much too high. a large percentage of facts was gained from gossip and hearsay about those long since dead. the details show that many crimes charged were not even proved, others were evidently not crimes, and in any small community suspicion would rest upon a member of this family who was accused. then too, the poor in court and out have a hard time defending themselves. they are frequently convicted when accused. the evidence in regard to the subnormal and defective is still less satisfactory. without close examination and thorough tests, illiteracy generally passes as subnormality. very few of the subjects were submitted to a careful test. it is at least probable that this family was not much different from the other families who lived in like circumstances in the community.
dugdale's original examination covered 709 cases out of about 1200 that were supposed to be living at the time. of this number, 180 are put down as having received institutional and outdoor relief. the criminals and offenders are put down at 140. habitual thieves convicted and unconvicted are listed at 60. common prostitutes are put down at 50.
after dugdale's investigation the family, from industrial and other conditions, became scattered and spread out over many states. a record has lately been made of the descendants of this family, the later record showing much improvement in the stock. this must be due to environment. it seems fairly certain that with time and opportunity, it will not much longer be a marked family.
quite aside from the history, it seems certain that no results such as shown by dugdale could have followed from inheritance. defectiveness is a recessive factor; normality a dominant one. if such were not true, this would be a world of feeble-minded. if the mendelian law held good in this regard, from a union of a defective and a normal person, three out of four would be normal, but as a matter of fact, the percentage of normal is no doubt much greater. it is only when both father and mother are feeble-minded that feeble-mindedness is sure to show in the offspring. with the modern care of this sort of defectives, the chance of breeding is growing rapidly less.
the kallikak family is cited as another illustration showing the possible inheritance of criminality and poverty through a defective strain. this family, so far as shown, makes it still clearer that what some authors have charged to heredity is simply due to environment. these investigations do not show the need of controlling birth but do prove the necessity of improving environment. it is not possible to speak with certainty as to heredity and environment. the thorough investigation of these two factors which make up life is still in its infancy, but scientists are working out the problem, and we may be confident that with the right attitude toward crime, a remedy will be found for such cases as result from environment.
