Mike Anton's finely researched piece on the involuntary sterilizations at the state mental hospital in Pueblo since 1928 (RMN - November 21, 1999) merits a response.

Some six years ago, my curiosity touched concerning that bizarre early 20th century attempt at a biological utopia called eugenics' and looking for a new research focus for my anthropology teaching, I went to a local historian here in Denver for advice as to how one might research the stirrings of this movement in Colorado. His response - that there was none - somewhat irritated what might be referred to as my built-in-manure-detector. After all, that now forgotten movement rid the country of `feeblemindedness', crime, alcoholism, prostitution and a host of other social ills through the magical procedure of snipping the vas deferens or the fallopian tubes, was a national phenomenon in the earlier part of this century.

My historian friend's statement was not exactly false. What is true is that unlike some 30 states in the USA, Colorado never did pass legislation legalizing the eugenic sterilization of mentally, physically handicapped or just plain poor people. But it was not for lack of trying nor for that matter, for lack of an active and organized eugenics movement within the state.

1. Four times (1908, 1913, 1925, 1928) eugenics bills were introduced - the last time being in 1928. Although 3 of the 4 times, the bills never made it out of committee, in 1928, one year after eugenics received the national blessing of a US Supreme Court decision (May 2, 1927 Buck vs. Bell Decision), a eugenics bill passed both houses of the legislature. It was vetoed by the governor only after intense public pressure, most of it coming from Catholic circles (the Knights of Columbus, Denver Catholic Register) in particular.
2. A eugenics movement did exist, was centered in the medical community and enjoyed the participation of some of the state's most famous early 20th century physicians: Mary Bates and Minnie C.T. Love of Denver, Richard Corwin who ran CF&I's industrial health clinic in Pueblo for 48 years and Hubert Work, who ran a private Pueblo insane asylum in Pueblo and later rose to become the Secretary of the Interior under Herbert Hoover. The Colorado Medical Society had a special committee to agitate for eugenic legislation and its medical journal for years had a special section entirely dedicated to eugenic developments and propaganda throughout the country. There were eugenics club' chapters in Boulder and Greeley. The Colorado Women's Clubs, so active in so many social endeavors were usually supportive and lectures supporting eugenics were heard regularly at Greeley's Unitarian Church - one of the bastions not of conservatism but of liberalism within the state.
3. In 1913, Colorado's four eugenic musketeers (Bates, Love, Corwin and Work) organized a eugenic baby show (they were common in that period) after which they announced the formation of a national eugenics organization to be based in Denver. In that great tradition of making Denver `a world class city' they hoped to win support for this proposal from national eugenics' leaders. However, they had not prepared the groundwork sufficiently. In an exchange of correspondence between to of the nation's leading eugenics advocates - biologist Charles Davenport of the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor NY and Stanford University President David Starr Jordan - the two reject the Denver offer out of hand.

This background might add some perspective on Anton's strange tale of a hospital superintendent who, with an explicit written statement in hand by the state's attorney general not to perform eugenic sterilization, proceeds to do so anyway, and continues to authorize such surgeries until he retires some 30 years later in an underhanded and patently illegal manner. It is interesting to speculate as to why he proceeded. Anton's article makes it clear that the man was an ardent in eugenics supporter. But he needed political support and obviously had enough to confidence to ok the sterilizations for 30 years.. He also played on the ambiguity of the law, i.e.. while there was no law authorizing eugenic sterilization, there was no law forbidding it either - a point he argued in the 1950s suit filed against him by one of the victims. Possibly the underhanded, illicit manner he performed these surgeries was very likely building on an extralegal tradition that might have gone on in Colorado - as it did in the rest of the country - for years and not just in the Pueblo asylum?

>Anton's research could be more than just an effort at exposing a dark secret of Colorado's history. Perhaps it can be the spring board for the future as well: a worthy testimony to the victims of these state crimes would be a movement in Colorado to overturn Buck vs. Bell - the Supreme Court Decision still in force which provides the legal framework for eugenics in America and under whose umbrella - Frank Zimmerman and many others like him - flourished.

Rob Prince/Denver

November 24, 1999

Rob Prince teaches Culture and Biology in 20th Century America (a course on eugenics) at Metropolitan State College of Denver. His web site is http://clem.mscd.edu/~princer

Note: the above commentary was not published by the Rocky Mountain News.

Buck vs. Bell US Supreme Court Decision