Page 135 - Dragon Flood

is in front of a map of Germany, surrounded by the flags of nations which had enacted
similar legislation. The flags on the left, of which the top one is for the United States,
indicate nations that had enacted similar legislation. The flags on the right and bottom were
of nations considering such legislation.

Does it surprise you that America was a world leader in the field of Eugenics, and that her
government had passed laws, and established clinics, to both promote and enforce the
principles of Eugenics. I would not be surprised to hear that you were taught nothing about
the forced sterilization of Americans who were deemed unfit for breeding in your history
lessons.

American Eugenics Clinic Bulletin Board

The various posters on this board read:

• This light flashes every 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds $100 of your money goes for
the care of persons with bad heredity, such as the insane, feeble-minded, criminals,
& other defectives.

• This light flashes every 16 seconds. Every 16 seconds a person is born in the United
States.

• This light flashes every 7-1/2 minutes. Every 7-1/2 minutes a high grade person is
born in the United States that will have the ability to do creative work& be fit for
leadership. About 4% of Americans come within this class.

This last statement in particular, reveals the close correlation between the tenets of
Eugenics and the mind of the propagandist. It was believed by both that only a small
minority were fit to be leaders of mankind. Eugenics spread rapidly throughout the United
States prior to World War II.

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The U.S. Supreme Court
ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought
unfit. Although compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights,
Buck v. Bell was never overturned, and Virginia did not repeal its sterilization law until
1974. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when