January 21, 1996

A secret war against the poor

The papers and letters of America's leading eugenicists reveal that, from the start, population control was no humanitarian mission

By Mary Meehan

Frederick Osborn, the key American eugenics strategist, displayed his usual shrewdness in 1974. "Birth control and abortion," he wrote, "are turning out to be" major eugenic steps. But if "they had been advanced for eugenic reasons," he added, that "would have retarded or stopped their acceptance."

Osborn thought this showed the wisdom of the 1972 decision to change the name of the American Eugenics Society to a more academic-sounding Society for the Study of Social Biology. That organization still exists and publishes the journal Social Biology. Some recent board members, such as bioethicist Daniel Callahan, have deeply influenced public policy.

The Osborn notes, found in his papers at the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia, help explain the deep influence of eugenics -- the effort to breed a "better" human race -- on population control.

Before World War II, the American eugenics movement had many links with racism, compulsory sterilization and even Nazi eugenics. Its historical record was, in fact, a major reason for the name change. While some observers say Osborn successfully pursued "reform eugenics," others dispute that claim. Osborn's own papers show a long collaboration with Wickliffe Draper, a textile heir who wanted to send black Americans back to Africa. Osborn thought that scheme impractical, but did not object to it in principle.

Other manuscript collections, in places ranging from Princeton and Harvard universities to the National Archives, also offer valuable insights into eugenics and its effects on population policy. They show a need to rewrite the history of population control, which too often is described as a purely humanitarian venture. Both economic self-interest and eugenics, the archives show, have enormous influence on population policy.

Contemporary eugenicists are discreet about their intentions and even about their membership in the eugenics group. When asked about their membership, they generally say that they don't remember it; that they were never very active in the group; or that it's now a strictly scientific organization.

Michael Teitelbaum, currently a vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, was president of the Society for the Study of Social Biology from 1984-1990. He has claimed, "I have nothing to do with eugenics; I have no interest in eugenics; and the society has no interest in eugenics." In an interview last June, he suggested that the current Society for the Study of Social Biology "simply is the inheritor of the journal," Social Biology, which "doesn't publish anything on eugenics. . . . If you want to tar the organization by impugning its history, I suppose you can do that, but I think it's not a reputable thing to do."

Yet, a 1969 letter in the American Eugenics Society collection in Philadelphia indicates that Teitelbaum himself belonged to the society before its name was changed. Moreover, in announcing the society's name change in 1973, Social Biology declared that this "does not coincide with any change of its interests or policies." Although usually avoiding the word "eugenics," Social Biology still publishes many articles on eugenics topics.

Reducing birthrates

Frederick Osborn (1889-1981), an officer of the American Eugenics Society/SSSB for more than 30 years, promoted eugenics through his many connections in the great private foundations and the mega-wealthy Rockefeller family. He helped John D. Rockefeller III establish the Population Council in 1952, served as the council's first administrator and was on its board of trustees for many years.

Convinced that reducing the birthrate of the poor and uneducated would help improve the human race, Osborn used the Population Council to spread birth control to such people. The council supported abortifacient research as early as 1954, when abortion was still illegal.

On Jan. 12, 1966, Osborn wrote a fellow eugenicist about the council's work in developing new methods of birth control such as intrauterine devices (IUDs). "We have felt this could be done far more effectively," Osborn wrote, "in the name of the Population Council than in the name of eugenics. . . . Personally, I think it is the most important practical eugenic measure ever taken."

In a March 5, 1969, letter to Rockefeller, Osborn made a similar statement: "The best hope of improving the genetic qualities of the race lies in the universal extension of effective and easy means of birth control."

Osborn's good friend and eugenics colleague, Frank Notestein of Princeton University, succeeded him as president of the Population Council. Notestein's papers at Princeton show that he wanted to manipulate entire nations -- poor nations -- so they would drastically lower their birthrates and modernize their economies.

In 1971 notes, he said that social change does not come about through "an explicit and overt attack on the central value structure." Instead, he suggested, it happens through "an initial and progressively effective subversion obtained by the expansion of an existing minority tendency until it comes to be the central core position."

Someone who "wants to get rid of the extended family," Notestein added, "does not start by legislating against that holy of holies." Instead: "You strengthen the special mobility [apparently meaning young couples' moving away from their older relatives] by appealing to other values and the mobility atrophies the family."

While Notestein claimed to be working for the welfare of people in poor nations, he clearly had U.S. interests in mind. During World War II, his Office of Population Research conducted demographic work for the State Department. Notestein also took part in secret post-war planning by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a private group with major influence on public policy.

According to an index of the CFR studies, they included discussion of India and the Philippines as examples of "colonial overpopulation" and consideration of "policy toward areas of heavy population pressure."

The CFR project also emphasized U.S. access to raw materials in the poor nations -- an issue of great interest to many wealthy businessmen who belonged to CFR. Two of them, Hugh Moore and William H. Draper Jr., were to become major population-control activists. Moore and Draper believed that population control in poor nations could help prevent instability there -- and thus fight communism and maintain U.S. access to raw materials.

A wealthy colleague, Lammot du Pont Copeland, made this point in a Feb. 1, 1960, letter inviting key people to a Moore-Draper meeting to raise money for population control. Suggesting that poverty is aggravated by rapid population increase, Copeland added, "With the communists capitalizing on this situation, we in the industrialized West are threatened with the loss of raw materials essential to our way of life -- and in fact vital to our defense."

Moore and Draper established the Population Crisis Committee to lobby for government involvement in population control. Their organization still exists, under the newer name of Population Action International, and still lobbies among the elites in Washington.

The elites apparently are easy to influence. In a Sept. 23, 1969, letter, Hugh Moore recalled his recruitment of former Sen. Kenneth Keating, R-N.Y., as chairman of the Population Crisis Committee. "The senator knew nothing about population problems at that point," Moore said. "But I told him not to worry. I would get him the best men in the field to write his speeches." q

Meehan, who writes from Maryland, has done extensive research on eugenics in many archives

Advice: 'Weaken' the Church

Population controller Hugh Moore relied heavily on his aide, T.O. Griessemer. In a Jan. 5, 1965, strategy memo to his boss, Griessemer suggested: "Weaken and divide the opposition to a sound U.S. population policy, the major source of which still is the Catholic Church." Referring to "an incipient revolution within the Catholic Church with regard to birth control," Griessemer said that "we should encourage the rebels."

Moore and others did that, and were generally pleased with the results. In a Sept. 20, 1969, letter to William H. Draper Jr., Moore boasted that "we have pretty well won the battle with the old men in the Vatican."

In the same letter, however, Moore doubted that voluntary methods of birth control "can do the job in time to save civilization." He suggested: "Involuntary birth control would have to be approached step by step, perhaps starting in the United States by wiping out the tax benefits accorded parents of large families. . . And go on from there!" -- Mary Meehan

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Quotations of Hugh Moore, Lammot du Pont Copeland, and T. O. Griessemer are from documents in the Hugh Moore Fund Collection, Princeton University; the quotation of Frank Notestein is from the Frank W. Notestein Papers, Princeton University. Used by permission of the Princeton University Libraries, Princeton, N.J.

Quotations of Frederick Osborn are from the Frederick Osborn Papers and the American Eugenics Society Papers at the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, Pa., and are used by permission of that library.

Many thanks to staff members of both libraries for their courteous and professional assistance.

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JAN. 21 headlines (special Roe vs. Wade issue):

State legislatures make pro-life progress in 1995

Why don't pro-life voters get any respect?

Debating the pro-life plank (editorial)

Shepherd of the unborn (profile of retired Bishop George Lynch)

The bottom line is life (profile of pro-life printing company)

When name-calling kills (interview with William Brennan, author of "Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives")