258�Liberal Racism: The Eugenic Ghost in the Fascist Machine�Darwinism, if at all.

Darwinism was a fixation of intellectuals and�academics. The so-called robber

barons generally lacked formal education. To the�extent they grounded their
worldview in�anything, it�was in Christian ethics and the writings of Adam Smith.
Moreover,�they believed that capitalism was good for the poor. Yet
selective�quotations and sweeping generalizations#usually infused with�Marxist
cliches#rendered the robber barons ersatz fascists.23�A few historians have dealt
with these conundmms by labeling thi�progressives "reform Darwinists." Reform
Darwinists were the only�real Darwinians as we understand the term today. Almost
all the�leading progressive intellectuals interpreted Darwinian theory as 2�writ
to "interfere" with human natural selection. Even progressives�with no ostensible
ties to eugenics worked closely with champions�of the cause. There was simply no
significant stigma against racist�eugenics in progressive circles.2<�Perhaps an
even better indication of how little modem popular�conceptions jibe with the
historical reality during this period is the�Ku Klux Klan. For decades the Klan
has stood as the most obvious�candidate for an American brand of fascism. That
makes quite a bit�of sense. The right-wing label, on the other hand, isn't nearly
as�clean a fit. The Klan of the Progressive Era was not the same Klan�that arose
after the Civil War. Rather, it was a collection of looselv�independent
organizations spread across the United States. What�united them, besides their
name and absurd getups, was that they�were all inspired by the film The Birth of a
Nation. They were, in�fact, a "creepy fan subculture" of the film. Founded the
week of the�film's release in 1915, the second Klan was certainly racist, but
not�much more than the society in general. Of course, this is less a defense of
the Klan�than an indictment of the society that�produced it.�For years the
conventional view among scholars and laymen alike�was that the Klan was rural and
fundamentalist. The tmth is it was�often quite cosmopolitan and modem, thriving in
cities like New�York and Chicago. In many communities the Klan focused on the
reform of local govemment�and on maintaining social values. It was�often the
principal extralegal enforcer of Prohibition, the consummate progressive�"reform."
"These Klansmen," writes Jesse Walker�in an illuminating survey of the latest
scholarship, "were more likely�to flog you for bootlegging or breaking your
marriage vows than for�being black or Jewish."2<�When modem liberals try to
explain away the Klan membership�of prominent Democrats#most frequently West
Virginia senator�Robert Byrd#they cough up a few cliches about how good
liberals�"Wolved" from their southem racial "conservatism." But the Klan of�the
1920s was often seen as reformist and modem, and it had a close�relationship with
some progressive elements in the Democratic�Partv. The young Harry Tmman as well
as the future Supreme Court�justice Hugo Black were members. In 1924, at the
famous "Klanbake"�Dei3nocratic convention, the KKK rallied around the future
senator�William McAdoo, Woodrow Wilson's secretary of the treasury (and�son-in-
law), a key architect ofWilson's war socialism, and a
staunch�Prohibitionist.�Indeed, the modem institution of academic tenure was
largely carved out by progressive�academia's solidarity with E. A. Ross, the
author of the "race suicide" thesis.27�Simultaneously one of America's leading
sociologists,�economists, and "raceologists," Ross was the quintessential
refonn�Darwinist. He fi�that various races were at different stages of
evolution.�Africans and South Americans were still close to savages.
Other�races#mostly Asians#might be more "advanced" but had slid into�evolutionary
degeneration. Ross believed that America faced similar�degeneration through
immigration, intermarriage, and the refusal of�the state to impose sweeping
eugenic reforms. In 1914 he wrote:�It is telling that while we constantly hear
about America's racist�past and our need to redeem ourselves via racial quotas,
slavery reparations, and�other overtures toward "historically oppressed
groups,"�it is rare indeed that anyone mentions the founders of American
libsralism. Again,�when liberals are the historical villains,�the crime is�laid at
the feet of America itself. The crime is considered proof of�America's
conservative past. When conservatives sin, the sin is conservatism's alone.�But
never is liberalism itself to blame.�Consider the infamous Tuskegee experiments,
where poor black�men were allegedly infected with syphilis without their
knowledge�and then monitored for years. In the common telling, the episode is�an
example of southem racism and American backwardness. In�some versions, black men
were even deliberately infected with�syphilis as part of some kind of embryonic
genocidal program. In�fact, the Tuskegee experiments were approved and supported
by�well-meaning health professionals who saw nothing wrong or racist�with playing
God. As the University of Chicago's Richard Shweder�writes, the "study emerged out
of a liberal progressive public health�movement concemed about the health and
wellbeing of the AfricanAmerican population."�Ifmcism played a part, as it
undoubtedly�did,�it was the racism ofliberals, not conservatives. But that's not
how the�story is told.�Fm not saying that people who once called themselves
progressives were racist and�therefore those who call themselves�progressives
today are racist, too. Rather, the point is that the edifice of
contemporary�liberalism stands on a foundation of assumptions and�ideas integral
to the larger fascist moment. Contemporary liberals,�who may be the kindest and
most racially tolerant people in the�worid, nonetheless choose to live in a house
of distinctly fascist�architecture. Liberal ignorance of this fact renders this
fascist foundation neither�intangible nor irrelevant. Rather, it
underscores�the�success of these ideas, precisely because they go
unquestioned.�The sreatest asset liberalism has in arguments about racism,
se?�ism, and the role of govemment generally is the implicit assumption�that
liberalism's intentions are better and more high-minded than�conservatism's.
Liberals think with their hearts, conservatives with�their heads, goes the cliche.
But if you take liberalism's history into�account, it's clear this is an unfair
advantage, an intellectual stolen�base. Liberals may be right or wrong about a
given policy, but the assumption that�they are automatically arguing from the more
virtuous�position is mbbish.�What is today called liberalism stands, domestically,
on three�?s: suDnort for the welfare state, abortion, and identity
politics.�Obviously, this is a cmde formulation. Abortion, for example, could�be
lumped into identity politics, as feminism is one of the creeds extolling the�iron
cage of identity. Or one could say that "sexual liberty" is a better term
than�abortion. But I don't think any fair-minded�reader would dispute that these
three categories nearly cover the vast�bulk of the liberal agenda#or at least
describe the core of liberal�passions#today.�In the remainder of this chapter, I
propose to look at each area,�starting with the least obvious#and perhaps least
important#to see�how the progressive urge to reengineer society from the bottom
up�manifests itself in these three pillars of liberalism today.�THE WELFARE
STATE�Wliat is the welfare state? The plain meaning is fairly obvious: a social
safety�net, a system by which the govemment can address economic inequalities,
presumably�for the betterment of the�whole society, with special emphasis on the
least fortunate. The term, and to a�significant degree the concept, begins with
Bismarck's Pmssia.�
Bismarck's Wohlfahrtsstaat included everything from guaranteed�
pensions and other forms of "social insurance" to a whole constellation of
labor�reforms. This "state socialism," as we've seen, was an�enormous inspiration
to progressives, socialists, and social democrats in Britain�and America, and, of
course, in Germany.�But there were at least two important differences
between�America and Prussia. First, America was a democratic republic with�a firm
constitution designed to protect minorities (albeit imperfectly)�against the
tyranny of the majority. Second, Germans already constituted a "racial�nation."
American progressives were fmstrated by th(�first point because they were envious
ofthe second. The progressives�believed that, in the words of Justice Holmes, the
aim of law and sc�cial policy was to "build a race." Our democracy, with its
inconvenient checks and�balances, including a diverse population, made�such a
project difficult. Nonetheless, progressive social policy#the�granite foundation
of today's welfare state#was from the outset�dedicated to solving this
"problem."�The American welfare state, in other words, was in important respects a
eugenic racial�project from the outset. The progressive�authors of welfare state
socialism were interested not in protecting the�weak from the ravages of
capitalism, as modem liberals would have�it, but in weeding out the weak and
unfit, and thereby preserving and�strengthening the Anglo-Saxon character of the
American racial�community. ^�Ross was a showman, but his ideas fit squarely within
the woridview of progressive�economics, on both sides of the Atlantic,�Consider
the debate over the minimum wage. The controversy centered on what to do�about
what Sidney Webb called the "unemployable class." It was Webb's belief, shared�by
many of the progressive�economists affiliated with the American Economic
Association, that�establishing a minimum wage above the value ofthe
unemployables'�worth would lock them out of the market, accelerating their
elimination as a class.�This is essentially the modem
conservative�argument�against the minimum wage, and even today, when
conservatives�make it, they are accused of#you guessed it#social Darwinism.�But
for the progressives at the dawn of the fascist moment, this was�an argument for
it. "Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate�parasites," Webb observed, "the
most minous to the community is to�allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage
eamers."30�Ross put it succinctly: "The Coolie cannot outdo the American,�but he
can underlive him." Since the inferior races were content to�live closer to a
filthy state ofnature than the Nordic man, the savages�did not require a civilized
wage. Hence if you raised minimum�wages to a civilized level, employers wouldn't
hire such miscreants�in preference to "fitter" specimens, making them less likely
to reproduce and, if�necessary, easier targets for forced sterilization.
Royal�Meeker, a Princeton economist and adviser to Woodrow Wilson, explained:
"Better that�the state should support the inefficient wholly�and prevent the
multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompe�tence and unthrift, enabling
them to bring forth more oftheir kind."31�Arguments like these tum modem liberal
rationales for welfare state�wage supports completely on their head.�Few better
epitomized the intemational nature of this progressivesocialist-
nationalist�consensus than the University of Wisconsin�economist John R.
Commoi�Fhese estimates didn't even include�blacks and other "inferior" races, whom
he considered irredeemable,�save perhaps through intermamage with Aryans. Black
inferiority�was the main reason this champion of the labor movement felt slavery
was justified.33�such as the Davis-Bacon Act, reflect the racial animus of the
progressives. The act�was passed�in�1931 in order to prevent poor black laborers
from "taking" jobs from�whites. Its authors were honest about it, and it was
passed explicitly�for that reason; the comparatively narrow issue of cheap black
labor�was set against the backdrop of the vestigial progressive effort to�maintain
white supremacy.�By requiring that contractors on federal�projects pay "prevailing
wages" and use union labor, the act would�lock black workers out of federal jobs
projects. Today the DavisBacon Act is as sacred�to many labor movement liberals as
Roe v.�Wade is to feminists. Indeed, as Mickey Kaus has observed, devotion�to
Davis-Bacon is more intense today than it was thirty years ago,�when self-
described neoliberals considered it a hallmark of outdated�interest-group
liberalism.�Perhaps the only unifying political view held by virtually all
eugenicists was that�capitalism was dysgenic�, In a sense, Germany had
been�waiting for eugenics to arrive in order to give a sciendfic rationale to�the
deep Romantic yeamings in its culture.�Nietzsche himself had pointed the way. In
1880 he wrote, "The�tendency must be towards the rendering extinct of the
wretched, the�Reproduction, Nietzsche argued, needed�[no longer] suffers." "The
extinction of many types of people is just�as desirable as any form
ofreproduction." Marriage itself, Nietzsche�^<��argued, must be more scmpulously
regulated by the state. "Go�through the towns and ask yourselves whether these
people should�reproduce! Let them go to their whores!"35�It's almost impossible to
talk about the "influence" of eugenic�thought on Nazi public policy, since the
Nazis conceived of eugenics as the goal of all public policy. One of the last
things Hitler�ever�committed to paper was his wish that Germany stay loyal to its
race�laws. Everything#marriage, medicine, employment, wages#was�informed by
notions of race hygiene and the eugenic economics pioneered by British and
American socialists and progressives.�As in�America, marriage licenses were a
vital tool for eugenic screening.�Marriages viewed as "undesirable to the whole
national community"�were forbidden. Meanwhile, subsidies, travel allowances,
bonuses,�and the like were doled out to favored racial classes. Forced
sterilizations became a standard tool of statecraft.36�As we'll see, the Nazis co-
opted independent religious and other�charities under the auspices of the state.
During their rise to power�they constructed an altemative charitable
infrastmcture, offering social services the state couldn't provide. When the
Nazis�finally took�over, they methodically replaced the traditional infrastmcture
of the�state and churches with a Nazi monopoly on charity.�But the more relevant
aspect of the Nazi welfare state was how it�geared itself entirely toward building
a racially defined national�community. While it used the standard leftist rhetoric
of guilt and�obligation typically invoked to justify govemment aid for the
needy�and unfortunate, it excluded anyone who wasn't a "national comrade" This
points to the unique evil of Nazism. Unlike Italian�Fascism, which had less use
for eugenics than America or Germany,�Nazism was defined as racial socialism.
Everything for the race,�nothing for those outside it, was the central ethos of
Nazism's mission and appea�One last point about the interplay of eugenics and the
welfare�state. In both Germany and America, eugenics gained currency because of
the larger faith in "public health" World War�I and the great�influenza epidemic
drafted the medical profession into the ranks of�social planners as much as any
other. For doctors promoted to the�rank of physicians to the body politic, the
Hippocratic oath lost�influence. ihe American medical joumal Military Surgeon
stated�matter-of-factly, "The consideration of human life often becomes�quite
secondary ... The medical officer has become more absorbed�in the general than the
particular, and the life and limb of the individual, while of great importance,
are secondary to measures pro�bono publico [for the public good]."3^�s.
Prohibition was the premier illustration of�how closely American progressives
linked moral and physica:�health, and many Nazis looked favorably upon the
American effort.�both sides of the Atlantic, it was commonplace to call
"defectives"�and other groups who took more than they gave "cancers on the
body�politic" r�But the Holocaust should not blind us to less significant but
more�directlv relevant repercussions of Progressive Era ideas that have escaped
the light of scrutiny. The architects of the New Deal, the Fair�Deal, and the
Great Society all inherited and built upon the progressive welfare state. And they
did this in explicit terms, citing such�prominent race builders as Theodore
Roosevelt and Woodrow�Wilson as their inspirations. Obviously, the deliberate
racist intent in�many of these policies was not shared by subsequent generations
of�liberals. But that didn't erase the racial content of the policies themselves.
The Davis-Bacon Act still hurts low-wage blacks, for example. FDR's labor and
agricultural policies threw millions�of blacks�out of work and off their land. The
great migration of AfricanAmericans to northem cities was in no small part a
result of the�success of progressive policies. Black leaders didn't call the
Naticmal�Recovery Administration, or NRA., the "Negro Run Around" for�nothing.�In
the previous chapter I noted that liberals cling to the myth of�the New Deal out
of religious devotion to the idea of the all-caring�God-state. Something similar
is at work in the liberal devotion to the�Great Society. The rationales for the
Great Society are almost always�suffused with racial guilt and what could only be
described as a religious faith in the state's redemptive power. In his book
White�Guilt,�Shelby Steele tells of an encounter with a self-described
"architect"�of the Great Society. "Damn it, we saved this country!" the
man�barked. "This country was about to blow up. There were riots everywhere. You
can stand there now in hindsight and criticize, but we�had to keep the country
together, my friend."38 Moreover, added the�LBJer,
you should have seen how grateful blacks were when these�programs were rolled
out.�Well, the first claim is a falsehood, and the second is damning.�While the
civil rights acts were obviously great successes, liberals�hardly stopped at
equality before the law. The Great Society's racial�meddling#often under various
other guises#yielded one setback�after another. Crime soared because of the Great
Society and the attitudes of which it partook. In 1960 the total number of
murders�was�lower than it had been in 1930,1940, and 1950 despite a
population�explosion. In the decade after the Great Society, the murder rate
effectively doubled. Black-on-black crime soared in particular. Riots�exploded on
LBJ's watch, often with the subtle encouragement of�Great Society liberals who
rewarded such behavior. Out-of-wedlock�births among blacks skyrocketed.
Economically, as Thomas Sowell�has cataloged, the biggest drop in black poverty
took place during�the two decades before the Great Society.39 In the 1970s, when
the�impdct of Great Society programs was fully realized, the trend of�black
economic improvement stopped almost entirely.�But the facts are of secondary
importance. Liberals have fallen in love with the idea behind the�racial welfare
state. They've absorbed the Marxist and fascist coniptilon of "the system" as
racist and cormpt and therefore�in constant need of state intervention. In
particular, as Steele notes, they've�convinced themselves that support for such
programs is proof of�their own moral worth. Blacks were "grateful" to white
liberals;�therefore, white liberals aren't racist. We retum once again to the
use�ofpolitics to demonize those who fall outside the consensus#that
is,�conservatives#and to anoint those within it. Whites who oppose the�racial
spoils system are racists. Blacks who oppose it are self-hating�race
traitors.�Usually white liberals will simply opt to support black liberals�who
make such charges, rather than make them themselves. But occasionally they will
step up and do so. Maureen Dowd, for example,�writes that it is "impossible not to
be disgusted" with blacks such as�Clarence Thomas. According to Dowd, the Supreme
Court justice�hates himself for "his own great historic ingratitude" to white
liberals or has been "driven barking mad" by it. Take your pick. Steele�summarizes
the racism of this sort of thinking: "[W]e'll throw you a�bone like affirmative
action if you'll just let us reduce you to your�race so we can take moral
authority for 'helping' you. When they�called you a nigger back in the days of
segregation, at least they�didn't ask you to be grateful."40�ABORTION�Margaret
Sanger, whose American Birth Control League became�Planned Parenthood, was the
founding mother of the birth control�movement. She is today considered a liberal
saint, a founder ofmodem feminism, and one of the leading lights of the
progressive pantheon. Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood proclaims, "I stand
by�Margaret Sanger's side," leading "the organization that carries on�Sanger's
legacy." Planned Parenthood's first black president, Faye�Wattleton#My. magazine's
Woman of the Year in 1989#said that�she was "proud" to be "walking in the
footsteps of Margaret�she was "proud" to be "walking in the footsteps of
Margaret�Sanger"41 Planned Parenthood gives out annual Maggie Awards�to
individuals and organizations who advance Sanger's cause.�Recipients are a Who's
Who of liberal icons, from the novelist Joha�Irving to the producers of NBC's West
Wing. What Sanger's liberal�admirers are eager to downplay is that she was a
thoroughgoing�racist who subscribed completely to the views of E. A. Ross and�A
member of the Women's Committee of the�New York Socialist Party, she participated
in all the usual protests�and demonstrations. In 1912 she started writing what
amounted to a�sex-advice column for the New York Call, dubbed "What Every
Giri�Should Know" The overriding theme of her columns was the importance of
contraception.�cist#Sanger became the nation's first "birth control martyr"
when�she was arrested for handing out condoms in 1917. In order to escape�a
subsequent arrest for violating obscenity laws, she went to�England, where she
fell under the thrall of Havelock Ellis, a sex theorist and ardent advocate of
forced sterilization. She also�had an affair with H. G. Wells, the self-avowed
champion of "liberal fascism"�Her marriage fell apart early, and one of her
children#whom she admitted to neglecting#died of pneumonia at age four.
Indeed,�she always acknowledged that she wasn't right for family life,
admitting�she was not a "fit person for love or home or children or anything�which
needs attention or consideration"4�Under the banner of "reproductive freedom,"
Sanger subscribed to�nearly all of the eugenic views discussed above. She sought
to ban�reproduction of the unfit and regulate reproduction for everybody�else. She
scoffed at the soft approach of the "positive" eugenicists,�deriding it as mere
"cradle competition" between the fit and the unfit. "More children from the fit,
less from the unfit#that�is the chief�issue of birth control," she frankly wrote
in her 1922 book The Pivot�of Civiliwtion. (Tb�A fair-minded person cannot read
Sanger's books, articles, and�pamphlets today without finding similarities not
only to Nazi eugenics but to the dark dystopias of the feminist imagination found
in�such allegories as Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale.45 As editor�1926 Sanger
proudly gave a speech to a KKK rally in Silver Lake,�NlNv Jersey.�One of Sanger's
closest friends and influential colleagues was the�white supremacist Lothrop
Stoddard, author of The Rising Tide of�emacy. In�Sanger's genius was to advance
Ross's campaign for social control by hitching the racist-eugenic campaign to
sexual pleasure and�female liberation. In her "Code to Stop Overproduction of
Children,"�published in 1934, she decreed that "no woman shall have a legal�right
to bear a child without a pennit... no permit shall be valid for�more than one
child."47 But Sanger couched this fascistic agenda in�the argument that
"liberated" women wouldn't mind such measures�because they don't really want large
families in the first place. In a�trope that would be echoed by later feminists
such as Betty Friedan,�she argued that motherhood itself was a socially imposed
constraint�"ifthe liberty of women. It was a form of what Marxists called
false�consciousness to want a large family.�Sanger believed#prophetically
enough#that if women conceived of sex as first and foremost a pleasurable
experience�rather�than a procreative act, they would embrace birth control as a
necessary tool for their own personal gratification. She brilliantly used the�with
a collectivist scheme but were in fact "speaking truth to power,"�