pestilence to science, then the time will come when the soils of
America shall reach the limit of the highest productive power
possible to be permanently maintained, even by the general adoption
of the most practical scientific methods; and before that limit is
reached, if power, progress, and plenty are to continue in our
beloved country, there must be developed and enforced the law of the
survival of the fittest; otherwise there is no ultimate future for
America different from that of China, India, and Russia, the only
great agricultural countries comparable to the United States. An
enlightened humanity must grant to all the right to live, but the
reproduction and perpetuation of the unfit can never be an absolute
and inalienable right.

"Under the present laws and customs, a man may spend half his life
in the insane asylum or in the penitentiary, and still be the father
of a dozen children with degenerate tendencies. There should be no
reproduction from convicted criminals, insane persons, and other
degenerates. Thieves, grafters, bribers and bribe-takers all belong
in the same class, and it should not be left possible for them to
reproduce their kind. They are a burden upon the public which the
public must bear, but the public is under no obligation to permit
their multiplication. The children of such should never become the
parents of others. It is a crime against both the child and the
public.

"No doubt you will consider this extremely visionary, and so it is;
but unless America can see a vision somewhat like this, a population
that is doubling three or four times each century, and an area of
depleted soils that is also increasing at a rapid rate will combine
to bring our Ship of State into a current against which we may