CHAPTER 8: Blinded

Why did blindness prevention rise to the top of the eugenic agenda in the
1920s?

Because mass sterilization, sequestration, birth control and scientific
classifications of the mentally defective, socially unfit and racially inferior
were just the leading edge of the war against the weak. Eugenic crusaders
were keen to launch the next offensive: outlawing marriage to stymie procreation
by those deemed inferior. To set a medicolegal precedent that
could be broadly applied to all defectives, eugenicists rallied behind the
obviously appealing issue of blindness. Who could argue with a campaign
to prevent blindness?

Eugenicists, however, carefully added a key adjective to their cause:
hereditary. Therefore, their drive was not to reduce blindness arising from
accident or illness, but to prevent the far less common problem of "hereditary
blindness." How? By banning marriage for individuals who were blind,
or anyone with even a single case of blindness in his or her family. According
to the plan, such individuals could also be forcibly sterilized and segregated-
even if they were already married. If eugenicists could successfully
lobby for legislation to prevent hereditary blindness by prohibiting suspect
marriages, the concept of marriage restriction could then be broadened to
include all categories of the unfit. Marriage could then be denied to a wide
group of undesirables, from the feebleminded and epileptic to paupers and
the socially inadequate.

Lucien Howe was a legendary champion in the cause of better vision.
He is credited with helping preserve the eyesight of generations of
Americans. A late nineteenth-century pioneer in ophthalmology, he had
founded the Buffalo Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1876. He also aided thousands
by insisting that newborns' eyes be bathed with silver nitrate drops to
fight neonatal infection; in 1890, this practice became law in New York
State under a statute sometimes dubbed "The Howe Law." His monumen-
tal two-volume study, Muscles of the Eye (1907), became a standard in the
field. In 1918, Howe was elected president of the American Ophthalmologic
Society, and he enjoyed prestige throughout American and
European ocular medicine. For his accomplishments, he would be awarded
a gold medal by the ational Committee for the Prevention of Blindness.
Later, he helped fund the Howe Laboratory of Ophthalmology at Harvard
University. Indeed, so revered was the handlebar-mustachioed eye doctor
that the American Ophthalmological Society would create the Lucien
Howe Medal to recognize lifetime achievement in the field. I

Howe became a eugenic activist early on. He quickly rose to the executive
committee of the Eugenics Research Association, then became a member
of the International Eugenic Congress's Committee on Immigration,
and ultimately became president of the Eugenics Research Association.2 It
was Howe who led the charge to segregate, sterilize and ban marriages of
blind people and their relatives as a prelude to similar measures for people
suspected of other illnesses and handicaps.

Eugenic leaders understood their campaign was never about blindness
alone. Blindness was only the test case to usher in sweeping eugenic marriage
restrictions. Eugenicists had sought such laws since the days of
Galton, who had encouraged eugenically sound marriage and discouraged
unsound unions. Of course marriage prohibitions for cultural, religious,
economic and health reasons had flourished throughout history. In modern
times, many such traditions continued in law throughout Europe. These
mainly banned marriage to partners of certain ages, close familial relationships
and serious health conditions. But the United States, with its numerous
overlapping jurisdictions, led the world in marriage restriction laws,
based on various factors of age, kinship, race and health. For example, marriage
between whites and persons of African ancestry was criminalized in
many states, including California, Maryland and North Dakota, plus the
entire South. Montana outlawed marriage between whites and persons of
Japanese or Chinese descent. Nevada forbade unions between whites and
Malays. Several states legislated against intermarriage between whites and
Native Americans.3

Eugenicists saw America's marriage laws as ways of halting procreation
between defectives, because in addition to broad laws against race mixing,
many states prohibited marriage for anyone deemed insane, epileptic, feebleminded
or syphilitic. Delaware even crimina Iized marriage between
paupers. No wonder radical British eugenicist Robert Rentoul proudly
enumerated American state laws in his 1906 book Race Cultll1'e; Or, Race
Suicide?, commenting, "It is to these States we must look for guidance if we
wish to ... lessen the chances of children being degenerates."4

In preparing to instigate eugenic marriage legislation, Davenport circulated
a state-by-state survey in 1913. It was part of an ERO bulletin entitled
State Laws Limiting Marriage Selection Examined in the Light of Eugenics. In
1915, the Journal of Heredity, the renamed American Breeders Magazine,
published an in-depth article by U.S. Assistant Surgeon General W. C.
Rucker castigating the existing marriage laws as insufficient from a eugenic
perspective. Rucker admitted that the movement preferred "permanent
isolation of the defective classes," and continued, "neither the science of
eugenics nor public sentiment is ready for [purely eugenic marriage] legislation."
Hence, the only laws that would be viable, he suggested, would be
"strictly ... hygienic in intent."5

Enter the cause to prevent hereditary blindness.

In 1918, Howe began in earnest by compiling initial financial data from
leading agencies serving the blind, tabulating an institution-by-institution
cost per blind person. Cleveland's public school system spent $275 for each
of its 153 blind pupils. The California School for the Deaf and Blind spent
$396.90 per blind student. Maine's Workshop for the Blind topped the list,
spending $865 for each of its forty individuals.6

Adding lost wages to custodial and medical care, Howe settled on the
figure of$3.8 million as the national cost of blindness-a number he advertised
to press his point. But how many people actually suffered from hereditary
blindness? Howe knew from the outset that the number was small,
estimated at about 7 percent of the existing blind population. No one knew
for sure because so much blindness at birth was caused by problem pregnancies
or poor delivery conditions. Eugenical News reported that the 1910 census
initially counted 57,272 blind individuals in America, but then came to
learn that nearly 4,500 of these cases were erroneously recorded. After further
investigation, the Census Bureau reported that more than 90 percent
of blind people had no blind relatives at all. Indeed, of29,242 blind persons
questioned, only thirty-one replied that both parents were also blind.7

Yet Howe and the eugenics movement seized upon hereditary blindness
as their cause du jour. Howe and Laughlin contracted with a Pennsylvania
printer to publish a fifty-two-page Bibliography of Hereditary Eye Defects,
which included numerous European studies. The pages of Eugenical News
became filled with articles on hereditary blindness. One issue contained
four articles in a row on the topic. Howe became chairman of a Committee
on Hereditary Blindness within the Section on Ophthalmology of the
American Medical Association. The AMA Section committee voted to add
a geneticist-Laughlin was chosen-plus a practitioner "especially conversant
with the good and also with the bad effects of sterilization." The sterilization
expert chosen was Dr. David C. Peyton, of the Indiana Reformatory,
who had succeeded eugenic sterilization pioneer Harry Clay Sharp.8

The AMA Section committee then began a joint program with the
ERO to register family pedigrees of blind people. Four-page forms were
printed. Each bore the distinct imprimatur of the "Carnegie Institution of
Washington, Eugenics Record Office, founded by Mrs. E. H. Harriman,"
but at the top also declared official AMA cosponsorship. The subheadline
read "in cooperation with the Committee on Hereditary Blindness,
Section of Ophthalmology of the American Medical Association" and then
credited Laughlin.9

Employing careful vagueness, the forms requested "any authentic family-
record of what seem to be hereditary eye defects," and then explained
how to "plot the family pedigree-chart." Ten thousand of these forms, entitled
"Eye Defect Schedule," were printed at a cost of $91.76, half of which
was defrayed by the ERO and half by the AMA Section. They were then
mailed to America's leading institutions for the blind, as well as schools and
help organizations, such as the Cleveland School for the Blind, the Blind
Girls Home in Nashville, and the Illinois Industrial Home for the Blind.1o

Even the ERO form admitted that delivering the family members' names
could only hope to "lessen, to some extent at least, the frequency ofhereditary
blindness." But, cooperating with the request, many in the ophthalmologic
community began handing over the names of those who were blind or
related to blind people. "I am much interested in this investigation,"
Laughlin wrote to Howe, "and feel sure that under your leadership, the committee
will be able to secure many interesting first-hand pedigrees which will
not only throw light upon the manner of inheritance of the traits involved,
but will as well provide first-hand information which may be used for practical
eugenical purposes in cutting off the descent lines of individuals carrying
the potentiality for offspring with seriously handicapping eye defects."ll

The ERO now possessed yet another target list of unfit individuals.

By early 1921, ERO assistant director Howard Banker was able to
brag to Ohio State University dean George Arps, "Records [have] already
been collected of several hundred families, in which hereditary eye
defects existed .... " Banker then confided, "In spite of evident reasons for
drastic remedies, it does not seem advisable to recommend now any radical
methods .... "12

Nonetheless, the outlines of anti-blind legislation were taking shape.
Howe published a major article in the November 1919 edition of]ournal of
Heredity, entitled "The Relation of Hereditary Eye Defects to Genetics and
Eugenics." The piece was not a clinical paper, but rather a call to legislative
action. First, Howe guesstimated that the number of blind people in
America had almost doubled to 100,000 since the 1910 census. (His own
calculations of official reports from ten states, including the populous ones
of New York, Massachusetts and Ohio, reported a total of only 23,630,
indicating virtually no national increase.) Howe's article then addressed the
entire blind population as though all of the exaggerated 100,000 suffered
from a hereditary condition. Yet Howe knew that hereditary blindness constituted
just a small percentage of the total, and even that fraction was
falling fast. Because of medical and surgical advances, and as corrective
lenses became more commonplace, estimates of hereditary blindness were
constantly being reduced.13

As though his statistics and projections were authentic, Howe railed, "It
is unjust to the blind to allow them to be brought into existence simply to
lead miserable lives .... The longer we delay action to prevent this blindness,
the more difficult the problem becomes." His plan? Give blind people
and their families the option of being isolated or sterilized. "A large part, if
not all, of this misery and expense," promised Howe, "could be gradually
eradicated by sequestration or by sterilization, if the transmitter of the
defect preferred the later." Howe suggested that authorities wait to discover
a blind person, and then go back and get the rest of his family. 14

Howe's article asked colleagues to carefully study sterilization laws
applying to the feebleminded. "Where such eugenic laws have been
enacted ... [they] could be properly amended." Under Howe's plan, incarcerated
blind people would be required to labor at jobs commensurate with
their intelligence; such work would lessen their "sense of restraint." In a
final flourish, Howe asked, "What are we going to do about it? That is the
question at last forced on ophthalmologists .... "15

By 1921, the ERO and AMA Section subcommittee had drafted sweeping
legislation that pushed far beyond hereditary blindness or even general
blindness. It targeted all people with imperfect vision. Under the proposal,
any taxpayer could condemn such a person and his family as "defective."
Such a measure would, of course, apply to anyone with blurry vision or
even glasses, or any family that included someone with imperfect vision.
According to the plan, one ophthalmologist and one eugenic practitioner,
such as Laughlin, would render the official assessment. The ERO and
AMA Section subcommittee's draft law was entitled, "An Act for the Partial
Prevention of Hereditary Blindness."16

The draft law read: "When a man and woman contemplate marriage, if
a visual defect exists in one or both of the contracting parties, or in the family
of either, so apparent that any taxpayer fears that the children of such a
union are liable to become public charges, for which that taxpayer would
probably be assessed, then such taxpayer ... may apply to the County Judge
for an injunction against such a marriage." The judge would then "appoint
at least two experts to advise him concerning the probabilities of the further
transmission of the eye defect." The experts were specified as a qualified
ophthalmologist and "a person especially well versed in distinguishing
family traits which are apt to reappear .... " Upon the advice of the two
experts, the judge could then decide to prohibit any planned marriage,
which might yield "at least one child who might have more or less imperfect
vision .... "17

On January 6, 1921, the ERO distributed the draft law for review by
several dozen of its core coterie. The mailing list of names was then marked
with a plus next to those who approved, and a minus for those opposed.
The people consulted included the leading psychologists of the day, such as
Goddard, Terman, Yerkes, and Meyer. Apparently, not a few of the respondents
either wore glasses or had a family member who did. The vote was
divided. Many, such as psychologists Terman and Arps, voted in favor.
Several were undecided, but at least half of those polled were opposed. IS

Eugenicist Raymond Pearl, of Johns Hopkins University, promptly
wrote back with his objections. "It makes the primary initiatory force any
taxpayer," complained Pearl. "This opens the way at once for all sorts of
busybodies to work out personal spite by holding up peoples' marriages
pending an investigation .... Anyone who wore glasses contemplating getting
married might under the terms of the law stated easily have their
progress held up by some neighbor who wanted to make trouble .... Only
busybodies would be likely to interest themselves in taking any action
under it."19

Nonetheless, the ERO leadership sent the draft language to every fellow
of the AMA's Ophthalmology Section. The nine-page list of ophthalmologists
was similarly annotated with a plus or minus sign. Most of the
doctors did not respond. But among those who did, not surprisingly, the
yeas outpaced the nays. Dr. James Bach of Milwaukee was marked plus. Dr.
Olin Barker of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was marked plus, and was also
noted for sending in a patient's family tree. Dr. David Dennis of Erie,
Pennsylvania, was marked plus and noted for sending in three family trees.
The ophthalmologist mailing list's adjusted tally: 88 yes, 40 no.20 That level
of support was enough for the ERO.

On April 5, 1921, a New York State senator sympathetic to the eugenic
cause introduced Bill #1597. It would amend the state's Domestic Relations
Law with Howe's measure. It required "the town clerk upon the application
for a marriage license to ascertain as to any visual defects in either of
such applicants, or in a blood relative of either party .... " The clerk or any
taxpayer could then apply to the local county judge who would then
appoint either two physicians, one an ophthalmologist and the other a
eugenic doctor, or one person who could fulfill both roles. Based on their
testimony, the clerk was then empowered to prohibit the marriage.21

To lobby for the bill, Howe and other eugenicists created a special advisory
committee to the Committee to Prevent Hereditary Blindness. Howe
was hardly alone within the ophthalmologic community. His advisory committee
included some of the leading doctors in the field. The long list
included Dr. Clarence Loeb of Chicago, associate editor of the Journal of
Ophthalmology; Dr. Frank Allport of Chicago, former chairman of the
AMA's Committee on Conservation of Blindness; Dr. G. F. Libby of
Denver, author of the "Hereditary Blindness" entry in the Encyclopedia of
Ophthalmology; William Morgan of New York, president of the National
Committee for the Prevention of Blindness; Professor Victor Vaughan of
Ann Arbor, former president of the AMA's Committee of Preventive
Medicine; as well as many other vision experts.22

In September of 1921, Howe and the ERO tried to extend the advisory
committee beyond the field of ophthalmology. They sent personalized
form letters to prominent New York State doctors, judges and elected officials.
The invitations requested permission to add their names to the advisory
committee, couching membership as an honorary function. The goal
was to create the appearance of a groundswell of informed support among
the state's administrative and medical establishment for the marriage
restriction measure.23

Usually, the prominent individuals solicited were only too happy to see
their names added to prestigious letterhead advancing a good cause. Few had
any understanding of hereditary blindness or the specifics of Howe's legislative
proposal. Often, respondents stated that they knew little about the subject,
but were only too happy to join the committee. Only rarely did an
individual decline. One who did decline was Dr. H. S. Birkett, an ear, nose
and throat doctor with no knowledge of ophthalmologic health; he wrote
back, "As this seems to be associated largely with an Ophthalmologic
Committee, I would feel myself rather out of place .... I hardly think that my
name would be an appropriate one on such a Committee." ERO organizers
routinely kept track of how many eminent people joined or refused. It was all
for appearances. At one point, an ERO notation asked for "more judges."24

The ERO's sweeping anti-blindness measure did not succeed in
1921.25 But Howe refused to give up. On January 12, 1922, Howe reminded
Laughlin that the intent was to target a broad spectrum of defectives,
but beginning with known medical diseases was still the best idea. "We
tried to legislate against too many hereditary defects," Howe recounted,
"It would be better to limit the legislation to hereditary blindness, insanity,
epilepsy and possibly hereditary syphilis." Crafting such legislation
required care. Howe conceded, "The phraseology as concocted by doctors
and scientists is quite different from that which Constitutional lawyers
would have recommended."26

Howe was relentless in keeping the idea alive. Lawyers associated with
Columbia University were called upon to refine the text to pass
Constitutional muster. In one reminder letter, Howe asked Laughlin,
"Have you heard anything from our friends connected with the Law
Department of Columbia, as to what progress they have made in their
attempt to formulate that law for the prevention of hereditary blindness?
... When members of a committee are supposedly resting, that is the
time to get work out of them."27

On July 22, 1922, Howe wrote to Laughlin from his New York estate,
aptly named "Mendel Farm." Howe expressed his undying devotion to the
Mendelian cause and his still-burning determination to "hunt" those with
vision problems and subject them to eugenic countermeasures. "As today
is ... the centenary of the birth of our 'Saint' Gregor," wrote Howe with
some gaiety, "I feel like sending a word to you, to Drs. Davenport, Littleindeed
to every one of the earnest workers at Cold Spring Harbor .... If our
good old Father Mendel is still counting peas grown in the celestial garden,
he probably takes time on this anniversary, to lean over the golden bars,
and as he rubs his glasses to look down on what is being done at Cold
Spring Harbor and several other institutions like it, his mouth must stretch
into a very broad grin when he thinks how little attention was paid to him
on earth and what a big man he is now."28

Returning to the idea of hunting down the families of the visually
impaired, Howe wrote, "Can you suggest any appeal which could be made
to the State Board of Health so as to induce them to set one or two of their
field workers to hunting up other defective members of certain families
whose names appear so frequently among the pupils of schools for the
blind? ... With remembrances to Mrs. Laughlin and best wishes always."29

Laughlin replied that he too wanted to "hunt" for those with imperfect
vision. "A state survey hunting hereditary eye defects and other degeneracy,
but laying principal emphasis on eye disorders, would constitute a
splendid piece of work." Howe responded with a letter, eager as ever,
declaring that the schools could easily provide the family trees. "Probably
the director of almost every school of the blind can remember two or three
pupils from branches of the same family who are there because of albinism,
cataract, optic atrophy or some similar condition .... But," he cautioned,
"superintendents have not been trained as field workers [to trace the
extended families]."3o

Therefore, Howe again pushed for the New York State Board of Health
to undertake such a statewide hunt. Fortunately, New York State
Commissioner of Public Health Hermann M. Biggs was already a member
of Howe's advisory committee to prevent hereditary blindness. "I will ask
one or two doctors in New York or elsewhere to send letters to you for Dr.
Biggs advocating such an investigation," wrote Howe. He also offered to
personally train the state's field workers.31

An official New York State hunt for the visually impaired never
occurred. But Howe continued his pursuit of the names. In 1922, twenty of
forty-two state institutions for the blind filled out forms on a total of 2,388
individuals in their care, constituting approximately half of America's institutionalized
total. The numbers only further infuriated Howe. By his calculations,
institutionalized blind people cost taxpayers $28 to $39 per
inmate per month, higher than the feebleminded at $15.21 per month and
prison inmates at $18.93 per month. No wonder that on February 10,
1923, Howe sent a letter jointly addressed to Davenport and Laughlin suggesting
that any blindness-prevention law include a provision to imprison
the visually impaired. In a list, Howe's second point read: "If the hereditary
blind whose intended marriage has been adjudged to be dangerous, prefer
to go to prison at the expense of the taxpayer that would probably be
cheapest for the community and kindest to possible children ... and a better
protection against future defectives." Howe repeated the idea twice
more in that letter.32

In the same long February 10 letter, Howe promised to send a report
to the secretary of the AMA's Section on Ophthalmology. But he was waiting
for additional names of blind people to come in so he could forward
the latest tally. Howe also assured that he was working closely with
Columbia University law professor J. P. Chamberlain to revise the hopedfor
legislation.33

Several months later, in July of 192 3, Professor Chamberlain wrote an
article for the American Bar Association Journal advocating what he called
"repressive legislation" to restrict marriages. "The effect of the modern
doctrine of eugenics is being felt in state legislative halls," Chamberlain
began. "There is a growing tendency to segregate them [defective persons]
in colonies for their own well being and to protect society ... and along
with this repressive legislation is another trend ... legislation limiting the
rights of certain classes of persons to marry and requiring preliminary evidence
of the fitness of the parties to the ceremony." Professor Chamberlain
assured the nation's attorneys that protecting future generations was sound
public policy and within any state's police powers. Once a proper "standard
of deficiency" could be written into the statutes, marriage restriction could
be enforced against the defective as well. "The past record makes it appear
probable that the law will not lag behind medical science."34

Howe floated another attempt at legislation to prevent hereditary blindness
when on February 1, 1926, Bill #605 was introduced to the New York
State Assembly. This time, the proposal required a sworn statement from
any marriage applicants averring, "Neither myself nor, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, any of my blood relatives within the second degree
have been affected with blindness .... " No definition of blindness was
offered. Once again, the bill empowered the town clerk to prohibit the marriage,
and even made initial consultation with experts optional. Ironically,
even Howe could not craft a definition for blindness. In a letter to another
ophthalmologist, he confessed that in a conversation with a federal official,
Howe had been called upon to define the condition; both had been at a loss
for words. "He was as much in doubt as I," wrote Howe, adding, "Please tell
me what better measure you can suggest." Bill #605 was never enacted.35

But Howe continued his crusade. Even as he was pushing his anti-blindness
legislation, Howe was also orchestrating a second marriage restriction
against not just the visually impaired, but anyone judged unfit. His idea was
to require a large cash bond from any marriage applicant suspected of being
"unfit." Again, no definitions or standards were set. The couple applying for
a marriage license would be required to post a significant cash bond against
the possibility that their defective children might be a cost to the state.
Howe suggested bonds of as much as $14,000, equivalent to over $13 0,000
today.36 In other words, marriage by those declared eugenically inferior
would be made economically impossible by state law.

Howe had come up with his idea for a general marriage bond as early as
1921. At the time, Laughlin had praised Howe's concept. "Your plan for
offering bond is, I believe, a practical one," Laughlin wrote Howe on
March 30, 1921. He continued, "For one thing, it presents in very clear and
clean cut manner to the average tax-payer the problem of paying for social
inadequates from the purse of the tax payer. There is nothing like touching
the purse of the tax payer in order to arouse his interest .... " Laughlin was
pleased with the larger implications because Howe's idea represented a
"feature in future eugenical control, not only of hereditary blindness but of
hereditary defects of all sorts." Howe's bonding plan, wrote Laughlin,
would "place the responsibility for the reproduction of defectives upon the
possible parents of such." Moreover, Laughlin wrote, cash bonding would
be most useful in "border-line" cases where no one could be sure.37

Within a year, Howe was asking Columbia University's Professor
Chamberlain to draft legislative language to enforce bonding. In May of
1922, Laughlin sent yet another letter of encouragement to Howe, asserting
that should any law to "bond parents against the production of defective
children" withstand court challenge, "a great practical eugenical
principle will have been established."38

In late December of 1922, in a letter inviting Mr. and Mrs. Howe to
join the Laughlins for lunch at Cold Spring Harbor, Laughlin could not
hide his continuing enthusiasm. "The bonding principle," wrote Laughlin,
"... securing the state against the production of defectives has, I think,
great possibilities. Perhaps the greatest single amendment which can be
made to the present marriage laws for the prevention of the production of
degenerates. If you can develop the principle and secure its adoption, you
will have deserved the honor of the eugenical world. "39

Eventually, the marriage bond proposal was introduced to the New
York State Assembly as a part of Bill #605, Howe's amended anti-blindness
effort. Under the proposal, any town clerk, depending on the severity of
the suspected defectiveness, could set the bond, up to $14,000. The
amount of $14,000 represented Howe's estimate for supporting and educating
a blind child. The bond could be released once the wife turned
forty-five years of age. Eugenicists were hopeful and even published the
entire text of Bill #605 in Eugenical News. Marriage bonding legislation,
however, died in New York when Bill #605 was voted down.40

Even still, the Eugenics Record Office wove the notion into the model
eugenics legislation it distributed to the various states. In a memo,
Laughlin asserted that the principle should be viewed "in reference not
only to the blind, but also to all other types of social inadequacy (and this is
the goal sought)." He added, "If this principle were firmly established it
would doubtless become the most powerful force directed against the production
of defectives and inadequates."41

During the 1920s, while Howe was trying to establish marriage prevention
and marriage bonding, he and Laughlin were also wor1cing on a third
concept. It was known by several names and was ultimately called "interstate
deportation." Under this scheme, once a family was identified as unfit,
family members could be uprooted and deported back to the state or town
of their origin-presumably at the expense of the original locale. This
would create a financial liability for any town or state, forcing them to view
any suspected defective citizens as an intolerable expense. The plan held
open the possibility of mass interstate deportations to jurisdictions that
would simply refuse the deportees, leading to holding pens of a sort. Some
eugenicists called for "colonies." Margaret Sanger advocated "wide open
spaces" for the unfit. After all, the United States government had already set
the precedent by creating a system of reservations for Native Americans.

It was Howe's initiative for marriage prevention and bonding that
opened the door. In a review of Howe's marriage restrictions, Laughlin
wrote in the spring of 1921, "It is easy for the eugenicist to plan a step further
and to urge further development of our deportation services which
means only that the community which produces a non-supporting defective
must maintain him ... it means more inter-state deportation and
finally, within the state, deportation to counties in which defectives are
born or have citizenship or long residence."42

By late 1922, Howe and other sympathetic ophthalmologic colleagues,
along with Laughlin and the Carnegie Institution, were formulating deportation
specifics. Howe was developing a eugenic "debit and credit" system
to rank individuals. Towns, counties and states would then be charged when
their defectives moved elsewhere in the nation. "Of course our national
deportation system is based upon this theory," Laughlin acknowledged to
Howe in a December 5, 1922, letter. A few weeks later, Laughlin again
lauded a system of bonding "each state, community and family for its
own degenerates." He adding that "the matter of deportation [is] only
one other phase in the application of this greater principle. "43

Once more, bonding marriages against hereditary blindness was to be the
precedent for national deportation. "You have done a splendid service,"
Laughlin wrote Howe in March of 1925, "in directing the work of the
Committee on Prevention of Hereditary Blindness. The whole thing appeals
so strongly to me because I believe it is a step in the direction of working
out ... the matter of placing responsibility for the production of hereditary
inadequates upon families, towns, states and nations which produce them."44

Eventually, the eugenics movement developed a constellation of bonding,
financial responsibility and deportation principles which it tried to
implement based on precedents set by Howe's hereditary blindness countermeasures.
The program's goal was to create enclaves of eugenically
preferred citizens, which would be achieved when the unfit were systematically
expelled from an area. It was defective cleansing. An outline of the
measure was published as a lead essay in Eugenical News. The section headlined
"Interstate Deportation" declared, "There is now, however, a substantial
and growing movement for the inter-state and inter-town return of
charity cases and ne'er-do-wells from the host communities to the communities
which produced them."45

Setting up an argument for property confiscation, the Eugenical News
outline explained that the cost of relocation and maintenance would be
borne first by the community the family had come from, but then ultimately
by the defective family itself. "In many communities the town or the
county or the state has a legal claim upon any property of the producing
family, particularly the parents .... "46The government would have the
power to turn any family deemed unfit into a family of paupers.

The Eugenical News essay also challenged the concept of free movement
within the United States. "It remains to be seen whether an individual
inadequate can simply move in on a community and claim legal residence."
Eugenical News asked, "Is there a legal recourse, for example, in the case of
'dumping' the undesirables of one community on another, of 'exiling' or
'driving out of town' undesirable persons? Perhaps the time will come
when there will be no place where such undesirables can go, in which case
the logical place for them is the community and family where they were
produced." But in the end, after describing a thorough program of dislocation
and deportation, the article made the final result clear: "Compulsory
segregation or sterilization of potential parents of certain inadequates."47

Throughout the essay outlining the new set of eugenic responsibilities
and countermeasures, Howe was credited for his tireless efforts. One arti
cle declared, "He threw the weight of his professional experience, as an
ophthalmologist, into this particular field.... " 48

But most of Howe's most radical plans never took root, in large part
because the famed ophthalmologist died before he could complete his work.
He died on December 17, 1928, at age eighty, in his Belmont, Massachusetts,
home. The next month Eugenical News eulogized the man who had served as
president of the Eugenics Research Association until shortly before his
death. "Lucien Howe was a true gentleman, a broad scholar, and he loved his
fellow men." This statement echoed the tribute of the American Ophthalmological
Society, which adopted the following resolution: "A student of
quality, an author of distinction, a scholar in the house of scientific interpretation
and original research, Dr. Howe, a former president of this Society,
has added to its reputation and has maintained its tradition." For eight
decades, the American Ophthalmological Society has awarded the Lucien
Howe Medal for service to the profession and mankind. 49

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