isa-normaladvance-1903-00044

Description:	44THE NORMAL ADVANCE.for life simply intensifies it from generation togeneration.What the sacculina is in the crab family, thepauper is in the human. He is a parasitic humanbeing, depending upon humanity for his support.He could no more exist in the open competitionof human affairs than the sacculina could, in thestruggle of crab life. He must draw his nourishment from some one who is able to compete or heperishes. As the fittest sacculina is the one thatdepends most fully upon its host, so the fittestpauper is the one that can do nothing but sneak,thieve and beg. The less he is able to help himselfthe better pauper he is.Recent studies of some of our scientific friends,and of some energetic secretaries of boards ofcharities have shown that parasitism is hereditaryin the human family. As in the crab family theoffspring of a sacculina will be other sacculina, soin the human family the offspring of a pauperwill be other paupers. We need no more expectnormal human beings from pauper parentage thannormal crabs from sacculina parentage. The samelaw holds good for man as for crab. Like begetslike is one of the deepest laws of biology. Dun-gate shows, in his account of the descendants ofMargaret the mother of criminals, how pauperism, prostitution, and crime reappear generationafter generation. Oscar M. McCulloch, tracingout the history of a pauper family of Indianapolisin a little pamphlet entitled The Tribe of Ish-meal, notes the same thing. He says in part, this:We start at some unknown date with somethirty families. They come mostly from Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Of thefirst generation of sixty-two individuals we knowof only three. In the second generation we havethe history of eighty-four. In the third generation we have the history of two hundred andeighty-three. In the fourth generation—1840-1860—we have the history of six hundred andforty-four. In the fifth generation—1860-1880—■we have the history of six hundred and seventy-five. In the sixth generation—1880-1890—wehave the history of fifty-seven. Here is a total ofseventeen hundred and fifty individuals. Ourmost complete data begins with the fourth generation and the following are valuable. We know ofone hundred and twenty-one prostitutes. Thecriminal record is very large—petty thieving, andlarcenies chiefly. There have been a number ofmurderers. The first murder committed in thiscity was in this family. Between 1868 and 1888not less than five thousand dollars has been usedfor passing these people from place to place, eachtownship trying to throw off the responsibility.The records of the city hospital show that takingout surgical cases, acute general cases, and casesoutside the city—seventy-five percent of the casestreated are from this class. The board of healthreports that the number of still born childrenfound in sinks, etc., would not be less than six perweek. The people have no occupation. Theygather swill or ashes the women beg and send thechildren around to beg. They make their eyessore with vitrol. In my own time I have seenthree generations among them. I have not time togo into details here, some loathsome, all pitiable.One evening I was called to> marry a couple. Ifound them in one small room with two beds. Inall eleven people lived in it. The bride was dressing, the groom washing. The groom offered tohaul ashes for the fee. Soon after I asked one ofthe family how they were getting along. Oh,Elisha dont live with her any more: Why ?Her husband came back and she went to him andthat made Elisha mad and he left her.All these are grim facts but they are facts andcan be verified. More, they are but thirty familiesout of a possible two hundred and fifty. The individuals already traced are over five thousandinterwoven by descent and marriage. They under-run society like devil grass. Pick one up and thewhole five thousand will be drawn up.Under ordinary conditions of freedom there isno such thing as bad heredity. Our ancestors aresound and sane to a fair degree else we shouldnever have seen the light. In the open strugglefor existence, the lineage of a pauper would he ashort one. However, into our social system havecrept conditions that make it possible for a pauperto leave a race of degenerates.
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/33785
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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