THE CHARTS

Last Home of Millard Kallikak.Esther, Daughter of “Daddy” Kallikak.

Last Home of Millard Kallikak.

Esther, Daughter of “Daddy” Kallikak.

Martin Jr.’s third child was James (Chart II), who went away, and we know nothing about him.

Martin Jr.’s fourth child, “Old Sal” (Chart IV), was feeble-minded and she married a feeble-minded man. Two of their children are undetermined, but one of these had at least one feeble-minded grandchild; the other, an alcoholic man, had three feeble-minded grandchildren, one of whom is in the Training School at Vineland. She is thus a cousin of Deborah—a fact not known until this study was made. The two other children of Old Sal were feeble-minded, married feeble-minded wives, and had large families of defective children and grandchildren, as will be seen in the chart.

The fifth child of Martin Jr. was Jemima (Chart V), feeble-minded and sexually immoral. She lived with a feeble-minded man named Horser, to whom she was supposed to have been married. Of her five children, three are known to have been feeble-minded, two are undetermined. From these again, have come a large number of feeble-minded children and grandchildren. Jemima had an illegitimate son by a man who was high in the Nation’s offices. This son married a feeble-minded girl and they had feeble-minded children, and grandchildren.

The sixth child of Martin Jr., known as “Old Moll”(Chart VI), was feeble-minded, alcoholic, epileptic, and sexually immoral. She had three illegitimate children who were sent to the almshouse, and from there bound out to neighboring farmers. One of these turned out normal, one was feeble-minded, and the other undetermined. Neither of the two older ones had any children. The third child, a daughter, was tubercular, but nothing is known of her descendants, except that there were several children and grandchildren.

The seventh child of Martin Jr. was a daughter, Sylvia (Chart VII), who seemed to be a normal woman. She was taken very young by a good family who brought her up carefully. She later married a normal man. Although we have marked her normal, she was always peculiar. All her children and grandchildren were either normal or are undetermined.

The youngest child of Martin Jr. who lived to grow up was Amy Jones, also normal. (Chart VIII.) She, too, was taken into a good family and married a normal man, and lived to be very old. Two of Amy’s children died in infancy. Of two others, one was normal and one feeble-minded. This latter married a normal man and had one feeble-minded and immoral daughter; five other children are undetermined.

We now return to Martin Jr.’s oldest son, Millard(Chart IX), to take up the story of his descendants, of whom our girl Deborah is one.

Millard married Althea Haight about 1830. They had fifteen children born in the following years: 1830, 1831, 1832, 1834, 1836, 1838, 1840, 1841, 1843, 1845, 1847, 1849, 1851, 1854, 1856. The mother died in 1857. This mother, Althea Haight, was feeble-minded. That she came from a feeble-minded family is evidenced by the fact that she had at least one feeble-minded brother, while of her mother it was said that the “devil himself could not live with her.” The feeble-minded brother had six children, of whom three are known to have been feeble-minded. He had seven grandchildren who were feeble-minded, and no less than nine feeble-minded great-grandchildren. (These are not shown on the chart.)

The oldest child of Millard and Althea was a daughter who grew up a feeble-minded and immoral woman. She had several husbands, but only one of her children lived to be old enough to marry. This one, a daughter of illegitimate birth, married a man of good family who was a confirmed alcoholic. Their children are all undetermined, except one who was normal.

The second child of Millard, a daughter, was a bad character. We know of one illegitimate and feeble-minded son who married a feeble-minded and immoralgirl. They had four children, but all died in infancy. This wife was also the mother of an illegitimate son, who was feeble-minded and sexually immoral.

The third child of Millard was Justin (Chart IX, section E), the grandfather of our Deborah. His family we shall discuss later.

According to Mendelian expectation, all of the children of Millard Kallikak and Althea Haight should have been feeble-minded, because the parents were such. The facts, so far as known, confirm this expectation, with the exception of the fourth child, a daughter, who was taken into a good family and grew up apparently a normal woman. She married a normal man and they had one son who was normal. He married a normal woman and they have two children, a boy and girl, who are normal and above average intelligence.

The fifth child was Albert, feeble-minded, who died at twenty-five, unmarried.

The sixth child was Warren, who had four children, three of whom were feeble-minded and of very doubtful morality. Each of the three had feeble-minded children. One of these, Guss by name, was specially loose and much mixed in his marital relations.

Ruins of Mountain Hut built by Martin Kallikak Jr. 1805.Site of Mountain Home of Millard Kallikak, where Fifteen of His Children were Born.

Ruins of Mountain Hut built by Martin Kallikak Jr. 1805.

Site of Mountain Home of Millard Kallikak, where Fifteen of His Children were Born.

The seventh child was Lavinia, who died unmarried at the age of thirty-nine. She had been brought upin a good family and never manifested any of those characteristics that indicate feeble-mindedness.

The eighth was Cordelia, who died at nine; condition unknown.

The ninth was Prince, who died at four years.

The tenth was Paula, feeble-minded; married and had four children. Her husband and children are undetermined.

Then comes Gregory, the eleventh, who was feeble-minded and alcoholic. He married an alcoholic and syphilitic woman, mentality difficult to determine. They had seven children, of whom two were feeble-minded, syphilitic, alcoholic, and sexually immoral. One died of delirium tremens, the other of alcoholism, leaving a long line of descendants. The other children died young, except one daughter who has a feeble-minded grandchild who cannot speak.

The twelfth child was Harriet, feeble-minded, twice married, but without children.

The thirteenth, Sanders, who was drowned as a young man, was feeble-minded and sexually immoral.

The fourteenth was Thomas, feeble-minded, alcoholic, and sexually immoral. He died from over self-indulgence. He was married and had a daughter, but her condition as well as her mother’s is unknown.

The last child was Joseph, feeble-minded. He married his first cousin, Eva Haight, who was also feeble-minded. They had five children, two dying in infancy, and the rest feeble-minded. Of their nineteen grandchildren, five died in infancy, one is undetermined, and the remaining thirteen are all feeble-minded.

Millard Kallikak married for his second wife a normal woman, a sister of a man of prominence. She was, however, of marked peculiarity. By her, he had three children; two died in infancy. The one who grew to manhood was alcoholic and syphilitic. He ran off with the wife of his nephew, who was about his own age. His mental condition is undetermined. He was killed by an accident a few years later.

We now return to the third born of this family, Justin Kallikak, the grandfather of our Deborah (Chart IX, section E). He was feeble-minded, alcoholic, and sexually immoral. He married Eunice Barrah, who belonged to a family of dull mentality. Her mother and paternal grandfather were feeble-minded, and the grandfather had a brother that was feeble-minded. That brother had at least six descendants who were feeble-minded. The father, also, had a brother feeble-minded who had eleven children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who were feeble-minded. (Not shown).

The children of Deborah’s grandparents, Justin and Eunice, were as follows: first, Martha, the mother of our Deborah, whose story has already been partly told. This woman is supposed to have had three illegitimate children before Deborah was born. They died in infancy. The next younger half sister of Deborah was placed out by a charitable organization when very young. From their records we learn that in five years she had been tried in thirteen different families and by all found impossible. In one of these she set the barn on fire. When found by our field worker, she had grown to be a girl of twenty, pretty, graceful, but of low mentality. She had already followed the instinct implanted in her by her mother, and was on the point of giving birth to an illegitimate child. She was sent to a hospital. The child died, and then the girl was placed permanently in a home for feeble-minded. An own brother of this girl was placed out in a private family. When a little under sixteen, his foster mother died and her husband married again. Thus the boy was turned adrift. Having been well trained, and being naturally of an agreeable disposition, he easily found employment. Bad company, however, soon led to his discharge. He has now drifted into one of our big cities. It requires no prophet to predict his future.

The last family of half brothers and sisters of Deborah are, at present, living with the mother and her second husband. The oldest three of these are distinctly feeble-minded. Between them and the two younger children there was a stillbirth and a miscarriage. The little ones appear normal and test normal for their ages, but there is good reason to believe that they will develop the same defect as they grow older.

Besides the mother of Deborah, Justin and Eunice had ten other children, of whom six died in infancy. One of the daughters, Margaret, was taken by a good family when a very small child. When she was about thirteen, she visited her parents for a few weeks. While her mother was away at work, her father, who was a drunken brute, committed incest with her. When the fact became known in her adopted home, she was placed in the almshouse. The child born there soon died, and she was again received into the family where she formerly lived. The care with which she was surrounded prevented her from becoming a vicious woman. Although of dull mentality, she was a good and cheerful worker. When about thirty-five, she married a respectable workingman but has had no children by him.

Another daughter, Abigail, feeble-minded, married a feeble-minded man by whom she had two feeble-mindedchildren, besides a third that died in infancy. She later married a normal man.

The next child of Justin and Eunice was Beede, who is feeble-minded. He married a girl who left him before their child was born. He lives at present with a very low, immoral woman.

The youngest child of Justin and Eunice was a son, Gaston, feeble-minded and a horse thief; he removed to a distant town where he married. He has one child; mentality of both mother and child undetermined.

This is the ghastly story of the descendants of Martin Kallikak Sr., from the nameless feeble-minded girl.

Although Martin himself paid no further attention to the girl nor her child, society has had to pay the heavy price of all the evil he engendered.

Martin Sr., on leaving the Revolutionary Army, straightened up and married a respectable girl of good family, and through that union has come another line of descendants of radically different character. These now number four hundred and ninety-six in direct descent. All of them are normal people. Three men only have been found among them who were somewhat degenerate, but they were not defective. Two of these were alcoholic, and the other sexually loose.

All of the legitimate children of Martin Sr. marriedinto the best families in their state, the descendants of colonial governors, signers of the Declaration of Independence, soldiers and even the founders of a great university. Indeed, in this family and its collateral branches, we find nothing but good representative citizenship. There are doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. They have scattered over the United States and are prominent in their communities wherever they have gone. Half a dozen towns in New Jersey are named from the families into which Martin’s descendants have married. There have been no feeble-minded among them; no illegitimate children; no immoral women; only one man was sexually loose. There has been no epilepsy, no criminals, no keepers of houses of prostitution. Only fifteen children have died in infancy. There has been one “insane,” a case of religious mania, perhaps inherited, but not from the Kallikak side. The appetite for strong drink has been present here and there in this family from the beginning. It was in Martin Sr., and was cultivated at a time when such practices were common everywhere. But while the other branch of the family has had twenty-four victims of habitual drunkenness, this side scores only two.

The charts of these two families follow.

Chart Ishows the line of descent of the Kallikak family from their first colonial ancestor. It was Martin who divided it into a bad branch on one hand and a good branch on the other. Each of these branches is traced through the line of the eldest son down to a person of the present generation. On the bad side it ends with Deborah Kallikak, an inmate of the Training School at Vineland, on the good side with the son of a prominent and wealthy citizen of the same family name, now resident of another State.

Chart IIshows the children of Martin Sr. by his wife and by the nameless feeble-minded girl, and also the children of Martin Jr.

Then follow Charts III to IX and A to K, giving in detail each of these two branches, the upper series being the normal family, the descendants of Martin Kallikak Sr. through his wife: the lower is the bad family, his descendants through the nameless feeble-minded girl who was not his wife.

Individuals are represented by squares and circles, the squares being males, the circles, females. Black squares and circles (with a white “F”) mean feeble-minded individuals; N means normal persons.

The clear squares or circles indicate that the mentality of the person is undetermined.

“d. inf.” means died in infancy.

A horizontal or slightly oblique line connects persons who are mated. Unless otherwise indicated, they are supposed to have been legally married.

The symbols dependent from the same horizontal line are for brothers and sisters.

A vertical line connecting this horizontal line with an individual or with a line connecting two individuals, indicates the parent or parents of the fraternity.

Letters placed around the symbol for an individual are as follows: A—Alcoholic, meaning decidedly intemperate, a drunkard; B—Blind; C—Criminalistic; D—Deaf; E—Epileptic; I—Insane; Sy—Syphilitic; Sx—Sexually immoral; T—Tuberculous.

A short vertical line dependent from the horizontal fraternity line indicates a child whose sex is unknown. An F at the end of the line indicates that such child was feeble-minded.

N? or F? indicates that the individual has not been definitely determined, but, considering all the data, it is concluded that on the whole, the person was probably normal or feeble-minded, as the letter signifies.

A small d. followed by a numeral means died at that age; b. means born, usually followed by the date.

A single figure below a symbol indicates that the symbol stands for more than one individual—the number denoted by the figure,e.g.a circle with a “4” below it, indicates that there were four girls in that fraternity, represented by that one symbol.

The Hand indicates the child that is in the Institution at Vineland, whose family history is the subject of the chart.

A black horizontal line under a symbol indicates that that individual was in some public institution at state expense.

The fact that the parents were not married is indicated either by the expression “unmarried” or by the word “illegitimate,” placed near the symbol for the child.

Transcriber’s Note: Many apologies, but the chart images have not been made available in this e-reader version of the book. They may be viewed in the full HTML version at the Project Gutenberg website.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart I.

Chart I.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart II.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart II.

N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart A.Chart B.

Chart A.

Chart B.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart III.

Chart III.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart C.

Chart C.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IV.Section A.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart IV.Section A.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart D.

Chart D.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IV.Section B.

Chart IV.Section B.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart E.

Chart E.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart V.Section A.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart V.Section A.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart F.

Chart F.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart V.Section B.Chart VI.

Chart V.Section B.Chart VI.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart G.

Chart G.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart VII.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart VII.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart H.

Chart H.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart VIII.

Chart VIII.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart I.

Chart I.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IX.Section A.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart IX.Section A.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart J.

Chart J.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IX.Section B.

Chart IX.Section B.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart K.

Chart K.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IX.Section C.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart IX.Section C.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IX.Section D.

Chart IX.Section D.

If you're reading this on a device which supports links and images, you can click this thumbnail for an image of the full chartChart IX.Section E.N = Normal. F = Feeble-minded. Sx = Sexually immoral. A = Alcoholic. I = Insane. Sy = Syphilitic. C = Criminalistic. D = Deaf. d. inf. = died in infancy. T = Tuberculous. Hand points to child in Vineland Institution. For further explanation see pp.33-35.

Chart IX.Section E.

The foregoing charts and text tell a story as instructive as it is amazing. We have here a family of good English blood of the middle class, settling upon the original land purchased from the proprietors of the state in Colonial times, and throughout four generations maintaining a reputation for honor and respectability of which they are justly proud. Then a scion of this family, in an unguarded moment, steps aside from the paths of rectitude and with the help of a feeble-minded girl, starts a line of mental defectives that is truly appalling. After this mistake, he returns to the traditions of his family, marries a woman of his own quality, and through her carries on a line of respectability equal to that of his ancestors.

We thus have two series from two different mothers but the same father. These extend for six generations. Both lines live out their lives in practically the same region and in the same environment, except in so far as they themselves, because of their different characters, changed that environment. Indeed, so close are theythat in one case, a defective man on the bad side of the family was found in the employ of a family on the normal side and, although they are of the same name, neither suspects any relationship.

We thus have a natural experiment of remarkable value to the sociologist and the student of heredity. That we are dealing with a problem of true heredity, no one can doubt, for, although of the descendants of Martin Kallikak Jr. many married into feeble-minded families and thus brought in more bad blood, yet Martin Jr. himself married a normal woman, thus demonstrating that the defect is transmitted through the father, at least in this generation. Moreover, the Kallikak family traits appear continually even down to the present generation, and there are many qualities that are alike in both the good and the bad families, thus showing the strength and persistence of the ancestral stock.

The reader will recall the famous story of the Jukes family published by Richard L. Dugdale in 1877, a startling array of criminals, paupers, and diseased persons, more or less related to each other and extending over seven generations.

Dr. Winship has undertaken to compare this family with the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, and fromthis comparison to draw certain conclusions. It is a striking comparison, but unfortunately not as conclusive as we need in these days. The two families were utterly independent, of different ancestral stock, reared in different communities, even in different States, and under utterly different environment.

The one, starting from a strong, religious, and highly educated ancestor, has maintained those traits and traditions down to the present day and with remarkable results; the other, starting without any of these advantages, and under an entirely different environment, has resulted in the opposite kind of descendants.

It is not possible to convince the euthenist (who holds that environment is the sole factor) that, had the children of Jonathan Edwards and the children of “Old Max” changed places, the results would not have been such as to show that it was a question of environment and not of heredity. And he cites to us the fact that many children of highly developed parents degenerate and become paupers and criminals, while on the other hand, some children born of lowly and even criminal parents take the opposite course and become respectable and useful citizens.

In as far as the children of “Old Max” were of normal mentality, it is not possible to say what mightnot have become of them, had they had good training and environment.

Fortunately for the cause of science, the Kallikak family, in the persons of Martin Kallikak Jr. and his descendants, are not open to this argument. They were feeble-minded, and no amount of education or good environment can change a feeble-minded individual into a normal one, any more than it can change a red-haired stock into a black-haired stock. The striking fact of the enormous proportion of feeble-minded individuals in the descendants of Martin Kallikak Jr. and the total absence of such in the descendants of his half brothers and sisters is conclusive on this point. Clearly it was not environment that has made that good family. They made their environment; and their own good blood, with the good blood in the families into which they married, told.

So far as the Jukes family is concerned, there is nothing that proves the hereditary character of any of the crime, pauperism, or prostitution that was found. The most that one can say is that if such a family is allowed to go on and develop in its own way unmolested, it is pretty certain not to improve, but rather to propagate its own kind and fill the world with degenerates of one form or another. The formerly much discussedquestion of the hereditary character of crime received no solution from the Jukes family, but in the light of present-day knowledge of the sciences of criminology and biology, there is every reason to conclude that criminals are made and not born. The best material out of which to make criminals, and perhaps the material from which they are most frequently made, is feeble-mindedness.

The reader must remember that the type of feeble-mindedness of which we are speaking is the one to which Deborah belongs, that is, to the high grade, or moron. All the facts go to show that this type of people makes up a large percentage of our criminals. We may arguea priorithat such would be the case. Here we have a group who, when children in school, cannot learn the things that are given them to learn, because through their mental defect, they are incapable of mastering abstractions. They never learn to read sufficiently well to make reading pleasurable or of practical use to them. The same is true of number work. Under our compulsory school system and our present courses of study, we compel these children to go to school, and attempt to teach them the three R’s, and even higher subjects. Thus they worry along through a few grades until they are fourteen years old and then leave school,not having learned anything of value or that can help them to make even a meager living in the world. They are then turned out inevitably dependent upon others. A few have relatives who take care of them, see that they learn to do something which perhaps will help in their support, and then these relatives supplement this with enough to insure them a living.

A great majority, however, having no such interested or capable relatives, become at once a direct burden upon society. These divide according to temperament into two groups. Those who are phlegmatic, sluggish, indolent, simply lie down and would starve to death, if some one did not help them. When they come to the attention of our charitable organizations, they are picked up and sent to the almshouse, if they cannot be made to work. The other type is of the nervous, excitable, irritable kind who try to make a living, and not being able to do it by a fair day’s work and honest wages, attempt to succeed through dishonest methods. “Fraud is the force of weak natures.” These become the criminal type. The kind of criminality into which they fall seems to depend largely upon their environment. If they are associated with vicious but intelligent people, they become the dupes for carrying out any of the hazardous schemes that their more intelligentassociates plan for them. Because of their stupidity, they are very apt to be caught quickly and sent to the reformatory or prison. If they are girls, one of the easiest things for them to fall into is a life of prostitution, because they have natural instincts with no power of control and no intelligence to understand the wiles and schemes of the white slaver, the cadet, or the individual seducer. All this, we say, is what is to be expected. These are the people of good outward appearance, but of low intelligence, who pass through school without acquiring any efficiency, then go out into the world and must inevitably fall into some such life as we have pictured.

Let us now turn to our public institutions. These have not yet been sufficiently investigated, nor have we adequate statistics to show what percentage of their inmates is actually feeble-minded. But even casual observation of our almshouse population shows the majority to be of decidedly low mentality, while careful tests would undoubtedly increase this percentage very materially.

In our insane hospitals may also be found a group of people whom the physicians will tell you are only partially demented. The fact is they properly belong in an institution for feeble-minded, rather than in onefor the insane, and have gotten into the latter because an unenlightened public does not recognize the difference between a person who has lost his mind and one who never had one.

In regard to criminality, we now have enough studies to make us certain that at least 25 per cent of this class is feeble-minded. One hundred admissions to the Rahway Reformatory, taken in order of admission, show at least 26 per cent of them distinctly feeble-minded, with the certainty that the percentage would be much higher if we included the border-line cases.

An investigation of one hundred of the Juvenile Court children in the Detention Home of the City of Newark showed that 67 per cent of them were distinctly feeble-minded. From this estimate are excluded children who are yet too young for us to know definitely whether the case is one of arrested development. This point once determined would unquestionably swell the percentage of defect.

An examination of fifty-six girls from a Massachusetts reformatory, but out on probation, showed that fifty-two of them were distinctly feeble-minded. This was partially a selected group, the basis being their troublesomeness; they were girls who could not be made to stay in the homes that were found for them, nor to doreasonable and sensible things in those homes, which fact, of itself, pointed toward feeble-mindedness.

The foregoing are figures based on actual test examinations as to mental capacity. If we accept the estimates of the mental condition of the inmates made by the superintendents of reformatories and penal institutions, we get sometimes a vastly higher percentage;e.g.the Superintendent of the Elmira Reformatory estimates that at least 40 per cent of his inmates are mental defectives.

Indeed, it would not be surprising if careful examination of the inmates of these institutions should show that even 50 per cent of them are distinctly feeble-minded.

In regard to prostitutes, we have no reliable figures. The groups of delinquent girls to which we have already referred included among the numbers several that were already known as prostitutes. A simple observation of persons who are leading this sort of life will satisfy any one who is familiar with feeble-mindedness that a large percentage of them actually are defective mentally. So we have, as is claimed, partly from statistical studies and partly from careful observation, abundant evidence of the truth of our claim that criminality is often made out of feeble-mindedness.

Mr. Winship in his comparison of the Jukes and Edwards families has strengthened our claim in this respect. In all environments and under all conditions, he shows the latter family blossoming out into distinguished citizens, not primarily through anything from without but through the imperious force within. Since we may conclude that none of the Edwards family, who are described by Dr. Winship, were feeble-minded, therefore none of them became criminals or prostitutes. But here again his argument is inconclusive because he does not tell us of all the descendants.

With equal safety it may be surmised that many of the Jukes family (perhaps the original stock, indeed) were feeble-minded and therefore easily lapsed into the kind of lives that they are said to have lived.

In the good branch of the Kallikak family there were no criminals. There were not many in the other side, but there were some, and, had their environment been different, no one who is familiar with feeble-minded persons, their characteristics and tendencies, would doubt that a large percentage of them might have become criminal. Lombroso’s famous criminal types, in so far as they were types, may have been types of feeble-mindedness on which criminality was grafted by the circumstances of their environment.

Such facts as those revealed by the Kallikak family drive us almost irresistibly to the conclusion that before we can settle our problems of criminality and pauperism and all the rest of the social problems that are taxing our time and money, the first and fundamental step should be to decide upon the mental capacity of the persons who make up these groups. We must separate, as sharply as possible, those persons who are weak-minded, and therefore irresponsible, from intelligent criminals. Both our method of treatment and our attitude towards crime will be changed when we discover what part of this delinquency is due to irresponsibility.

If the Jukes family were of normal intelligence, a change of environment would have worked wonders and would have saved society from the horrible blot. But if they were feeble-minded, then no amount of good environment could have made them anything else than feeble-minded. Schools and colleges were not for them, rather a segregation which would have prevented them from falling into evil and from procreating their kind, so avoiding the transmitting of their defects and delinquencies to succeeding generations.

Thus where the Jukes-Edwards comparison is weak and the argument inconclusive, the twofold Kallikak family is strong and the argument convincing.

Environment does indeed receive some support from three cases in our chart. OnChart II, two children of Martin Jr. and Rhoda were normal, while all the rest were feeble-minded. It is true that here one parent was normal, and we have the right to expect some normal children. At the same time, these were the two children that were adopted into good families and brought up under good surroundings. They proved to be normal and their descendants normal. Again, onChart IX-a, we have one child of two feeble-minded parents who proves to be normal—the only one among the children. This child was also taken into a good family and brought up carefully. Another sister (Chart IX-b) was also taken into a good family and, while not determined, yet “showed none of the traits that are usually indicative of feeble-mindedness.” It may be claimed that environment is responsible for this good result. It is certainly significant that the only children in these families that were normal, or at least better than the rest, were brought up in good families.

However, it would seem to be rather dangerous to base any very positive hope on environment in the light of these charts, taken as a whole. There are too many other possible explanations of the anomaly,e.g.these cases may have been high-grade morons, who, to the untrained person, would seem so nearly normal, that at this late day it would be impossible to find any one who would remember their traits well enough to enable us to classify them as morons.

We must not forget that, onChart IX-e, we also have the daughter of Justin taken into a good family and carefully brought up, but in spite of all that, she proved to be feeble-minded. The same is probably true of Deborah’s half brother.

We have claimed that criminality resulting from feeble-mindedness is mainly a matter of environment, yet it must be acknowledged that there are wide differences in temperament and that, while this one branch of the Kallikak family was mentally defective, there was no strong tendency in it towards that which our laws recognize as criminality. In other families there is, without doubt, a much greater tendency to crime, so that the lack of criminals in this particular case, far from detracting from our argument, really strengthens it. It must be recognized that there is much more liability of criminals resulting from mental defectiveness in certain families than in others, probably because of difference in the strength of some instincts.

This difference in temperament is perhaps nowherebetter brought out than in the grandparents of Deborah. The grandfather belonging to the Kallikak family had the temperament and characteristics of that family, which, while they did not lead him into positive criminality of high degree, nevertheless did make him a bad man of a positive type, a drunkard, a sex pervert, and all that goes to make up a bad character.

On the other hand, his wife and her family were simply stupid, with none of the pronounced tendencies to evil that were shown in the Kallikak family. They were not vicious, nor given over to bad practices of any sort. But they were inefficient, without power to get on in the world, and they transmitted these qualities to their descendants.

Thus, of the children of this pair, the grandparents of Deborah, the sons have been active and positive in their lives, the one being a horse thief, the other a sexual pervert, having the alcoholic tendency of his father, while the daughters are quieter and more passive. Their dullness, however, does not amount to imbecility. Deborah’s mother herself was of a high type of moron, with a certain quality which carried with it an element of refinement. Her sister was the passive victim of her father’s incestuous practice and later married a normal man. Another sister was twice married, the first timethrough the agency of the good woman who attended to the legalizing of Deborah’s mother’s alliances, the last time, the man, being normal, attended to this himself. He was old and only wanted a housekeeper, and this woman, having been strictly raised in an excellent family, was famous as a cook, so this arrangement seemed to him best. None of these sisters ever objected to the marriage ceremony when the matter was attended to for them, but they never seem to have thought of it as necessary when living with any man.

The stupid helplessness of Deborah’s mother in regard to her own impulses is shown by the facts of her life. Her first child had for its father a farm hand; the father of the second and third (twins) was a common laborer on the railroad. Deborah’s father was a young fellow, normal indeed, but loose in his morals, who, along with others, kept company with the mother while she was out at service. After Deborah’s birth in the almshouse, the mother had been taken with her child into a good family. Even in this guarded position, she was sought out by a feeble-minded man of low habits. Every possible means was employed to separate the pair, but without effect. Her mistress then insisted that they marry, and herself attended to all the details. After Deborah’s mother had borne this mantwo children, the pair went to live on the farm of an unmarried man possessing some property, but little intelligence. The husband was an imbecile who had never provided for his wife. She was still pretty, almost girlish—the farmer was good-looking, and soon the two were openly living together and the husband had left. As the facts became known, there was considerable protest in the neighborhood, but no active steps were taken until two or three children had been born. Finally, a number of leading citizens, headed by the good woman before alluded to, took the matter up in earnest. They found the husband and persuaded him to allow them to get him a divorce. Then they compelled the farmer to marry the woman. He agreed, on condition that the children which were not his should be sent away. It was at this juncture that Deborah was brought to the Training School.

In visiting the mother in her present home and in talking with her over different phases of her past life, several things are evident; there has been no malice in her life nor voluntary reaction against social order, but simply a blind following of impulse which never rose to objective consciousness. Her life has utterly lacked coördination—there has been no reasoning from cause to effect, no learning of any lesson. Shehas never known shame; in a word, she has never struggled and never suffered. Her husband is a selfish, sullen, penurious person who gives his wife but little money, so that she often resorts to selling soap and other things among her neighbors to have something to spend. At times she works hard in the field as a farm hand, so that it cannot be wondered at that her house is neglected and her children unkempt. Her philosophy of life is the philosophy of the animal. There is no complaining, no irritation at the inequalities of fate. Sickness, pain, childbirth, death—she accepts them all with the same equanimity as she accepts the opportunity of putting a new dress and a gay ribbon on herself and children and going to a Sunday School picnic. There is no rising to the comprehension of the possibilities which life offers or of directing circumstances to a definite, higher end. She has a certain fondness for her children, but is incapable of real solicitude for them. She speaks of those who were placed in homes and is glad to see their pictures, and has a sense of their belonging to her, but it is faint, remote, and in no way bound up with her life. She is utterly helpless to protect her older daughters, now on the verge of womanhood, from the dangers that beset them, or to inculcate in them any ideas which would lead to self-controlor to the directing of their lives in an orderly manner.

The same lack is strikingly shown, if we turn our attention to the question of alcoholism in this family. We learn from a responsible member of the good branch of the family that the appetite for alcoholic stimulants has been strong in the past in this family and that several members in recent generations have been more or less addicted to its use. Only two have actually allowed it to get the better of them to the extent that they became incapacitated. Both were physicians. In the other branch, however, with the weakened mentality, we find twenty-four victims of this habit so pronounced that they were public nuisances. We have taken no account of the much larger number who were also addicted to its use, but who did not become so bad as to be considered alcoholic in our category.

Thus we see that the normal mentality of the good branch of the family was able to cope successfully with this intense thirst, while the weakened mentality on the other side was unable to escape, and many fell victims to this appalling habit.

It is such facts as these, taken as we find them, not only in this family but in many of the other families whose records we are soon to publish, that lead us tothe conclusion that drunkenness is, to a certain extent at least, the result of feeble-mindedness and that one way to reduce drunkenness is first to determine the mentally defective people, and save them from the environment which would lead them into this abuse.

Again, eight of the descendants of the degenerate Kallikak branch were keepers of houses of ill fame, and that in spite of the fact that they mostly lived in a rural community where such places do not flourish as they do in large cities.

In short, whereas in the Jukes-Edwards comparison we have no sound basis for argument, because the families were utterly different and separate, in the Kallikak family the conclusion seems thoroughly logical. We have, as it were, a natural experiment with a normal branch with which to compare our defective side. We have the one ancestor giving us a line of normal people that shows thoroughly good all the way down the generations, with the exception of the one man who was sexually loose and the two who gave way to the appetite for strong drink.

This is our norm, our standard, our demonstration of what the Kallikak blood is when kept pure, or mingled with blood as good as its own.

Over against this we have the bad side, the blood ofthe same ancestor contaminated by that of the nameless feeble-minded girl.

From this comparison the conclusion is inevitable that all this degeneracy has come as the result of the defective mentality and bad blood having been brought into the normal family of good blood, first from the nameless feeble-minded girl and later by additional contaminations from other sources.

The biologist could hardly plan and carry out a more rigid experiment or one from which the conclusions would follow more inevitably.

Although the foregoing facts, figures, and charts show conclusively the difference between good heredity and bad and the result of introducing mental deficiency into the family blood, yet because it is so difficult actually to appreciate the situation, because facts and figures do not have flesh and blood reality in them, we give in this chapter a few cases, graphically written up by our field worker, to show the differences in the types of people on the two sides of the family. These are only a few of the many, but are fairly typical of the condition of things that was found throughout the investigation. On the bad side we have the type of family which the social worker meets continually and which makes most of our social problems. A study of it will help to account for the conviction we have that no amount of work in the slums or removing the slums from our cities will ever be successful until we take care of those who make the slums what they are. Unless the two lines of work go on together, either one is bound to be futile in itself. If all of the slum districtsof our cities were removed to-morrow and model tenements built in their places, we would still have slums in a week’s time, because we have these mentally defective people who can never be taught to live otherwise than as they have been living. Not until we take care of this class and see to it that their lives are guided by intelligent people, shall we remove these sores from our social life.

There are Kallikak families all about us. They are multiplying at twice the rate of the general population, and not until we recognize this fact, and work on this basis, will we begin to solve these social problems.

The following pictures from life have been prepared by our field worker, Miss Elizabeth S. Kite, and besides giving an idea of the family, they will also show something of her method, and enable the reader to judge of the reliability of the data.

On one of the coldest days in winter the field worker visited the street in a city slum where three sons of Joseph (Chart IX, section D) live. She had previously tested several of the children of these families in the public school and found them, in amiability of character and general mentality, strikingly like our own Deborah, lacking, however, her vitality. There wasno fire in their eyes, but a languid dreamy look, which was partly due, no doubt, to unwholesome city environment. In one house she found the family group—six human beings, two cats, and two dogs—huddled in a small back room around a cook stove, the only fire in the house. In this room were accumulated all the paraphernalia of living. A boy of eleven, who had been tested in the school previously, was standing by the fire with a swollen face. He had been kept home on this account. In a rocking-chair, a little girl of twelve was holding a pale-faced, emaciated baby. In the corner two boys were openly exposing themselves. The mother was making her toilet by the aid of a comb and basin of water, set on the hearth of the stove; a pot and kettle were on top. The entrance of the field worker caused no commotion of any kind. The boy with the swollen face looked up and smiled, the mother smiled and went on with her toilet, the girl with the baby smiled, the boys in the corner paid no attention. A chair was finally cleared off and she sat down, while everybody smiled. She learned that the husband made a dollar a day and that the girl next older than the child of twelve was married and had a baby. Another younger girl was at school, the family having been at last able to provide her with shoes. The girl of twelveshould have been at school, according to the law, but when one saw her face, one realized it made no difference. She was pretty, with olive complexion and dark, languid eyes, but there was no mind there. Stagnation was the word written in large characters over everything. Benumbed by this display of human degeneracy, the field worker went out into the icy street.

A short distance farther on, she came to the home of another brother. The hideous picture that presented itself as the door opened to her knock was one never to be forgotten. In the first home, the type was no lower than moron. One felt that when winter was over and spring had come, the family would expand into a certain expression of life—but here, no such outlook was possible, for the woman at the head of this house was an imbecile. In one arm she held a frightful looking baby, while she had another by the hand. Vermin were visible all over her. In the room were a few chairs and a bed, the latter without any washable covering and filthy beyond description. There was no fire, and both mother and babies were thinly clad. They did not shiver, however, nor seem to mind. The oldest girl, a vulgar, repulsive creature of fifteen, cameinto the room and stood looking at the stranger. She had somehow managed to live. All the rest of the children, except the two that the mother was carrying, had died in infancy.

The following is a story of Guss, whose position will be found onChart IX, section A.

When young, he married a normal girl who belonged to a decent family, but had no education. After a few months the mother of our Deborah came to visit them. She was then a young girl, ready to associate with any man who would look at her. The two behaved so badly that the wife turned her out. This was the first knowledge the wife had of the character of her husband. She lived with him ten years or more. In that time he did not average three months’ work out of twelve, so she had, practically, to support him and her ever increasing family. She knew that he was untrue to her, but there was no way to prove it. At last she seemed to grasp the situation. She began to believe that there was something wrong with him mentally,—wrong with the whole family,—so she decided to leave him. She took her six living children, rented another house and turned him adrift. He went at once to live with a feeble-minded girl belonging to a low-grade family ofthe neighborhood. Soon after this girl’s child was born he left her, becoming promiscuous in his relations. At one time, he and two of his cousins spent the best part of two days and nights in a tree to elude the police, who were searching for them and another man, all of whom had been accused by a girl then in confinement. When the other man was caught and made to marry the girl, they came down.

In 1904, this scion of the Kallikak family, Guss, went off with a gypsy camp and was married to one of the women. For some time he stayed with the camp, following them into another State. In the neighborhood where they located, a murder was committed which was fastened upon the gypsies and finally settled upon him. A great sensation was raised in the papers about it. He was arrested, but finally cleared of the charge, though not until he was effectually cured of his love for gypsy life.

In 1907,—and here comes the most infamous part of the story,—a minister married Guss to his own first cousin, a woman of questionable character. The witnesses were Guss’s sister and her husband. Every one concerned, except the minister, knew that around the corner, in a little street, so near that at certain hours of the day the shadow of the church spire under whichthey were standing fell upon it, was a house in which Guss’s lawful wife was living and working to support his children. The minister, too, might have known, had he taken the least trouble, and thus have been spared the ignominy of uniting two such beings with this travesty of the blessing of heaven. Soon after their union, this couple ceased to live together—Guss going off with another woman and his wife with another man.

The field worker was not able to locate Guss, but she found that a minister farther up the State had, in 1910, married his late wife to the man with whom she was living. The couple, however, had gotten wind that some one was looking for them, so when the field worker arrived, she found that they had moved on, leaving no address.

The following story shows the continuation of these conditions into the next generation:—

It was considered desirable to see the illegitimate son of Guss, who had been born to the feeble-minded girl after Guss had been turned adrift by his lawful wife. This child had had, when young, a severe attack of scarlet fever which deprived him of his hearing. He had been admitted into a home for deaf children, but the mother had taken him out. It was learned thatthis girl had married her own cousin and that the pair were living on the outskirts of a country town, with this deaf boy and four of their own children.

Arrived at this place, the field worker first sought the school where these children were supposed to go, hoping to obtain some light on the question of their mentality and also to learn their school record. She found that they so seldom attended school that the teacher could give very little information regarding them. By dint of persistent inquiry, the family was discovered living in the back shed of a dilapidated country tenement.

It was a bitter, cold day in February and about eleven in the morning when the field worker knocked at the door. Used as she was to sights of misery and degradation, she was hardly prepared for the spectacle within. The father, a strong, healthy, broad-shouldered man, was sitting helplessly in a corner. The mother, a pretty woman still, with remnants of ragged garments drawn about her, sat in a chair, the picture of despondency. Three children, scantily clad and with shoes that would barely hold together, stood about with drooping jaws and the unmistakable look of the feeble-minded. Another child, neither more intelligent nor better clad, was attempting to wash a few greasydishes in cold water. The deaf boy was nowhere to be seen. On being urgently requested, the mother went out of the room to get him, for he was not yet out of bed. In a few moments she returned. The boy with her wore an old suit that evidently was made to do service by night as well as by day. A glance sufficed to establish his mentality, which was low. The whole family was a living demonstration of the futility of trying to make desirable citizens from defective stock through making and enforcing compulsory education laws. Here were children who seldom went to school because they seldom had shoes, but when they went, had neither will nor power to learn anything out of books. The father himself, though strong and vigorous, showed by his face that he had only a child’s mentality. The mother in her filth and rags was also a child. In this house of abject poverty, only one sure prospect was ahead, that it would produce more feeble-minded children with which to clog the wheels of human progress. The laws of the country will not permit children ten years old to marry. Why should they permit it when the mentality is only ten? These and similar questions kept ringing through the field worker’s mind as she made her way laboriously over the frozen road to the station.

Early in the course of this investigation, it had been learned that the father of Deborah’s mother had come, when a young man, to the prosperous rural community where his daughter was living at the time of our investigation. The informant could not say whence he had come, but the name of a person was given who was supposed to know. Many fruitless attempts to find this person were made before the object was attained. When at last discovered, she turned out to be an elderly lady of refinement and culture. Strangely enough, long afterwards it was learned that she was connected with the good side of the Kallikak family, but was all unconscious of the relationship which existed between it and the degenerate branch. She was delighted to go back in memory and recall impressions made on her mind in youth.

She had been raised in B——, a town at the foot of a mountain chain upon whose top the grandfather of Deborah’s grandfather, Martin Kallikak Jr., had always lived. When she was a little girl, he was a very old man. She remembered being taken to drive, when a child, and seeing the old hut on the mountain, where he lived with his strange daughters, “Old Moll,” “Old Sal,” and Jemima. The dilapidated dwelling, with its windows bulging with rags, formed a picture she hadnever forgotten. There were in her mind floating memories of great scandals connected with these women and their lonely mountain hut. The father went by the name of the “Old Horror,” and as she remembered him, he was always unwashed and drunk. At election time, he never failed to appear in somebody’s cast-off clothing, ready to vote, for the price of a drink, the donor’s ticket.

This information, coming when it did, seemed amazing and carried with it the probability of establishing the certainty of defect transmitted through five generations. But the town in question was remote and the probability of finding any living person able to give accurate information seemed so slight that nothing further was done in this direction for many months.

Back to Index Next