The rising tide of firm conviction in the minds of present day
sociologists, that the fertility of the unfit is menacing the stability
of the whole social superstructure, is forcing many to advocate more
drastic measures for the salvation of the race. Weinhold seriously
proposed the annual mutilation of a certain portion of the children of
the popular classes. Mr. Henry M. Boies, the most enlightened analyst of
the problem of the unfit, in his exhaustive work "Prisoners and
Paupers," urges the necessity of effectively controlling the fecundity
of the degenerate classes, and he points to surgery, and life-long
incarceration as the solution of the problem. Dr. McKim, in an
exhaustive work on "Heredity and Human Progress," after declaring that
he is profoundly convinced of the inefficiency of the measures which we
bring to bear against the weakness and depravity of our race, ventures
to plead for the remedy which alone, as he believes, can hold back the
advancing tide of disintegration. He states his remedy thus:--"The roll
then, of those whom our plan would eliminate, consists of the following
classes of individuals coming under the absolute control of the
State:--idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, habitual drunkards and insane
criminals, the larger number of murderers, nocturnal house-breakers,
such criminals whatever their offence as might through their
constitutional organization appear very dangerous, and finally,
criminals who might be adjudged incorrigible. Each individual of these
classes would undergo thorough examination, and only by due process of
law would his life be taken from him. The painless extinction of these
lives would present no practical difficulty--in carbonic acid gas we
have an agent which would instantaneously fulfil the need."

These briefly are some of the remedies which have been advocated and in
part applied for the protection of the race from degeneracy. I quote