EXCERPTS FROM "THE PROBLEMS OF THE SUBNORMAL FAMILY"
Tommy Douglas's 1933 master's thesis
"The subnormal family presents the most appalling of all family problems. Because this class tend[s] to intermarry... the second and third generations are nearly always worse than the first. The result is an ever increasing number of morons and imbeciles who continue to be a charge upon society."
"This does not include the generally low tone of morality among these people, which cannot be shown by statistics, but which is very low."
"Surely the continued policy of allowing the subnormal family to bring into the world large numbers of individuals to fill our jails and mental institutions, and to live upon charity, is one of consummate folly."
"The effects of a large indigent class, of which 20% are moral delinquents, and an even larger percentage morons, cannot but be detrimental to the community."
"[I]t will be seen that there are at least twelve women or girls who are living as prostitutes, and who are diseased . . . It is true, of course, that those infected are those of a low moral order, but not always. Sometimes men from fairly good homes, but who are working in the city, are accosted by these women and are in due course infected."
"Of the 34 moral delinquents, at least 28 are guilty of illegal parentage, or abortion."
"The presence in any school or community of a group of sexually immoral girls is bound to make for a lowering of moral standards . . . The boys included in this class often had resort to foolish but potentially fine girls, who thus became contaminated."
"The girls who have given birth to illegitimate offspring have in the main refused to part with them . . ."
"Sterilization of the mentally and physically defective has long been advocated, but only recently has it seeped into the public consciousness. From the day when Plato wrote his Republic to the present, eugenists have advanced various solutions to the problem of the defective, but sterilization seems to meet the requirements of the situation most aptly."
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