The following article comes from Wooden Skulls by Ion Moța (1902-1937). Wooden Skulls is a collection of Ion Moța’s thoughts and articles published in 1936. Later reprints include his will and last testimony.

Letter To “Good Youth”

“On June 8, 1935, she was ordained by M.S. King Carol II to be ‘youth day.’

“And it really was:

“Day of joy and celebration for you, guards, falcons, pre-military, scouts;

“Day of humiliation and unfair offense for us, the legionary youth and the student youth of the Universities, who were excluded from the “youth day” celebrations.

“So, for you and for us, June 8 was and remains: our day, bright for some, dark for others.

“Neither some nor others will forget it.

“But I’m not writing to you to spoil us here—we the lost and plagued young people, excluded from ‘our day’—with the great masters who want to split the soul of a generation in two. This robbery, which started long ago, since the first year of the national youth movements, from 1922, will follow its tragic path: we are taught to fight for the ideal of the Romanian revival and we stand ready to die in front of the enemies of this revival. As I was before. We don’t even ask for your help in this battle in which no one enters called but only pushed by a secret and holy inner fire: the dream of a Romanian Romania, speedy and moral, freed from the Jewish yoke and from the yoke of immorality and laziness.

“But I am writing to you because I and my comrades are of the same stock as you; we are raised in the same troubled Romanian homes, we have the same poor parents, we are part of the same young generation with the same historical mission and we are all destined to the same dark future of slavery under the fist of the foreigner ruling the country today. This separation of souls from you is not easy for us, a separation that those who urge you to renounce and avoid us, the nationalist youth, want to fulfill. It would be a sin not to do everything to show you the painful path that, without realizing it, you are being pushed on: the path of trying to break the unity and strength of a generation in order to kill them in the possible phase of fulfilling its great historical mission: the mission of Romanianization and spiritual resurrection of Romania.

“We are not calling you to do politics because we don’t either, as politics is understood today. But we want the entire Romanian youth to know their duty well, to have a free chest for the bubbling ideal, not to be shackled and disoriented, not to be forced to love the foreign enemy and master, finally, not to be urged towards pompous goals but empty of soulful and Romanian content. We want to see the entire youth freed from the suspicious tutelage of those who ruled and still rule the country, leaving it a prey to foreigners and degrading its soul.

“So here’s why I’m writing to you: it’s not easy for us to leave you without a little defense against the sneaky and cunning attack against your mental health.

“I am writing to you so that, after reading these fraternal lines, you may ask yourself if those—who, by picking on us, categorized you as the only ‘good youth’—did not thereby bring you a serious offense.

“What is our sinner?

“What is your goal?

“Our sinner who led us to so many sacrifices, to so many comrades killed by the gendarmes, to so many prisons beaten by tens of thousands of young people, to so many offenses of which the one on June 8, 1935 may be the most serious, but it is neither the first nor the last,—this sin of ours is only as follows: We believe that the foreigners and especially the Jews, who are becoming more and more masters of our country Romanians, constitute a mortal danger for our future. And we demand the removal of this danger. And we also believe that the moral decay of today must be ended by a total resurrection of the Romanian soul, so that tomorrow bravery, honestly rewarded work, Christian morality and soul order will rule instead of betrayal, venality and the selfish debauchery of today’s materialistic and pagan age.

“We don’t want anything else, we didn’t fight for anything else and weren’t fighting, braving the ordeal of all the offenses, all the injustices and so many sacrifices.

“This is the ‘sin of the legionnaire,’ the sin of the nationalist youth, a sin that the Jews, the Jews and their people, cannot forgive us. For this sin, we are considered a source of infection for the youth, from which they must be protected as from rabies.

“What is your goal? I am not talking about your inner goal, of each one. He cannot be other than the goal shown above, than “‘sinner of the legionnaire.’ But I am talking about the goal pursued by these youth organizations of yours, often without you realizing it. What ideal, what mission is given to your youth? Physical education, orderly life on the march and command, with uniforms, stars, emblems, with discipline and military spirit, are these a sufficient ideal? The glorification of the King, the determination to stand guard at the defense of the country’s borders, the exaltation of willpower and the spirit of collectivity, are all these enough to constitute the great and exclusive mission of a generation of today’s times? No one has anything to say against these targets of your activity. However, when they limit themselves only to that and ignore the other great commandments of the mission of today’s youth and especially ignore the fight for the kneeling of the foreign ruler within the country, then your goal is not only unfulfilling, but it is even an obstacle to the fulfillment of the great mission of your generation.

“Are you being told, there in your camps, about the Jews and the mortal danger that lies in our future because of their ever-increasing rule? Nothing is being said to you! On the contrary, you are educated in a cosmopolitan spirit, you are often put in platoons next to Jews and it is said (e.g. in the scouts’ laws) that it is not allowed to make distinctions ‘by faith,’ that is by nationality. Under the pretext of not hating the minorities, you are forced to desert the first mission of your generation: restoring Romanians to the rights violated by the foreigner who became the master in our country.

“More than that. Sometimes you are even told that all the inhabitants of the country are Romanians. In a famous, but astonishing speech, weren’t you told that above everyone’s faith—Christians or non-Christians—stands the ethnic unity of whole Romania, and that we must worship ‘for the unique soul of the Romanian people’ regardless of Christian or non-Christian faith?

“I mean; we were told, of course not to us, but to you: the Jew is Romanian like you, he is from the same ethnic unit, he shares the same ‘Romanian ethnic soul,’ so leave him alone. Or in the best case, you are told: it is inhuman to persecute the minorities, so respect them and be friends even with the minorities who are enemies and destroyers of your own future. As if defending yourself is the same as persecuting.

“Even if certain prudent people will temper this ‘national education’ that is being given to you with time, however, by the fact that you are kept inactive and away from the heroic struggle of Romanian disenslavement, this inactivity is an attack against the Romanian victory and resurrection that we all dreamed of, including you.

“And it cannot be said that—if your activity, of the youth of O.E.T.R., guards, falcons, pre-military or scouts, they ignore the main mission of the young generation: emancipation from the foreigner inside the country—however your activity, even limited, is good because the other mission, the fight against foreigners, you can fulfill in other organizations, alongside us, for example.

“June 8, 1935 is enough to prove the chasm that is trying to be dug between us, the exclusive character of O.E.T.R. That’s why June 8 is not allowed to be the day of other youth than yours.

“See your goal. You have seen who our sinner is.

“And now, after we have done our duty to get closer to you brothers in order to clarify and warn you that the dishonor of desertion from the duty of your generation is waiting for you, let’s let time fulfill its purpose, let each one take the path that his conscience and soul push him.

“We remain on our old bloody and rocky road, full of pitfalls, but bravely overcoming them in the ascent to the heights; towards the height of the Romanian revival and the collapse of the alienated rule of today. This path is hard, it has no pleasures and easy satisfactions, and its joys are not easily earned, without dangers and without sacrifices.

“On this path, however, we have a brave Captain, the unerring guide to tomorrow’s total victory, and we are aware that we are serving the great mission of the Romanian youth. And our brotherhood and good will unite us in a spiritual elevation and in a block of strength which, to be sure of all the enemies, is sufficient to overcome any adversities and to avenge any crimes that will be attempted against the Romanian victory.

“What about you? Are you going to be satisfied only with drums and marching bands, uniforms and marching cadences, all these external forms showing a deep and living soul content, without them being the expression of an inner and hot ideal?

“What satisfaction can the uniforms and the formal order give you, if they are not enlivened by the consciousness of a high mission, if this formal order will not bring reconciliation with your own Romanian aspirations, if these formal frames are not an opportunity to manifest the youthful elan from your young breasts?

“And what will your soul say when in the future as in the past—in the future more than in the past—you will have to be only the polite and silent spectators of the tragic struggle of the nationalist youth: absent from our sacrifices, absent from the victories and pains of your brothers? What’s more; you will have to listen, discipline, those who will mock us, lying to you and you will have to be friends or more benevolent with all aliens who have become leaders of the country, you will have to be respectful to the Jews, the Jews and their people. against your own future, against your blood brothers.

“In those moments will not something die in you?

“ION I. MOŢA Bucharest, June 8, 1935”

“Italy, Serbia and Dalmatia” was originally published in Il Popolo d'Italia, on April 6th, 1915—six weeks before Italy entered World War I on the side of the Entente. At the time, Mussolini was still transitioning from revolutionary socialism toward irredentism. In the piece, he addresses the Adriatic question and Italian irredentism during the ongoing war. Interestingly, Mussolini took a moderate approach instead of advocating for the entirety of the Dalmatian coast, show casing his political acumen.

Fifth Column Library has taken the liberty to translate this article from the original Italian to English for our readers to enjoy.

Italy, Serbia and Dalmatia

“At the first National Assembly of the Leagues of Revolutionary Action (Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria), the following agenda was voted on in regards to the question of irredentism:

‘The National Congress of Revolutionary Interventionists, discussing irredentism, believes that the problems of nationality must be radically resolved also for ideal reasons of justice and freedom for which the subject peoples must acquire the right to belong to those collectivities from which they are sprouted, also because the resolution of these problems is in the interest of the social revolution insofar as it clears the path from any element of confusion between the various social classes.’

“This order of the day is a declaration of principle that falls perfectly within the orbit of socialist idealities, but abstracts from it any practical or territorial delimitation of Italian irredentism. Italian irredentism is not specified and determined. Remember that during the gathering two currents emerged: one that wanted to limit itself to an ideal affirmation, the other that wanted — in addition to an ideal affirmation — to specify the meaning and scope of Italian irredentism in a geographical and historical and therefore political sense. I supported this latter category of ideas.

“‘It is fine’—I thought and I still think—‘to affirm that problems of nationality must be solved for ideal reasons, for justice and freedom,’ but that is not enough. The problem presents itself in concrete terms. Our ‘irredentism’ does not cross certain boundaries, which for other irredentists do not exist. Irredentism can slip into imperialist nationalism. How far does our ‘irredentism’ go? Here is the question I posed to the ‘Fascists’ summoned at Milan. A question that had no answer, but which is very topical today, due to the controversy over possession of the Dalmatian coast. If we do not want to be confused with the nationalists, if we do not want to take on positive or negative responsibilities, then we need to put forward our own point of view.

“The polemics over the Dalmatian question are not ‘academic’ as they say. They are too passionate. Nor are they premature. We need the regime of neutrality—at least—to discuss and evaluate the problems which the war will have to solve! About the possession of Dalmatia, two theses are in open contrast: the Russian thesis or, rather, the Pan-Slavist thesis, which would like to assign the entire Dalmatian coast to the Greater Serbia of tomorrow; and the thesis of the Italian nationalists who claim for Italy the domination of the whole Dalmatian coast. We are neither one nor the other. That Serbia has the right of access to the sea, nobody will dispute. Serbia yearns for the sea. It was not for nothing that the Serbian knights galloped their horses into the Adriatic when they arrived there, after a week of forced marches.

“Denying Serbia the sea would be an act of arrogance, an absolutely unpolitical act that would have very damaging consequences for Italy. Having liquidated one enemy, Austria-Hungary, we would immediately create another. When it is said that Serbia has a right to the sea, what we mean is that Serbia must have a portion of the sea coast sufficient for the needs of its present and future economy.

“The arguments that the Italian nationalists bring forth to block Serbia from the Dalmatian Adriatic are not convincing to us. The arguments of military nature are unrealistic. It will be a long time before Serbia—exhausted from three wars—can afford the luxury of building any kind of effective navy.

“On the other hand, in an eventual Italian-Serbian treaty of agreement, it could be stipulated that Serbia would be obliged to not create a navy. Of course, such an imposition—which would convert the Adriatic into an exclusively Italian ‘military lake’—should be adequately compensated. In any case, the more or less wide presence of Serbia on the Adriatic should not arouse military concerns.

“There remains then the question of Italian identity. This is a delicate and controversial subject. Authors are cited, the histories of Rome and Venice are consulted, geologists are even invoked, to attest whether or not Dalmatia is Italian. It is necessary to proceed here with discretion and restraint, keeping our distance from dangerous imperialist infatuations. The ‘hunger for square kilometers’ has already given us unpleasant surprises. Let’s take advantage of the hard experience of the past, so as not to fall back into temptation and error.

“It is true that the Italians in Dalmatia represent more than the mere 3% expressed in the highly-manipulated Austrian census, but the higher percentage of Italians is not, in itself, sufficient to claim exclusive possession of all of Dalmatia.

“What would we say if the Germans claimed dominion over the whole of Veneto, just because there are small pockets of German-speaking populations who for centuries have lived in the plateau of the Seven Communes? And why—if the principle that everything that geographically belongs to Italy must “politically” belong to Italy holds true—why do we not also fight against England and France for Malta and Corsica?

“Like all principles, that of nationality should not be understood and practiced in an ‘absolute’ sense but in a relative one. For this reason we cannot expect to annex the ‘whole’ of Dalmatia just because the people on the coast speak Italian, especially if such an annexation were to create a state of enmity between Italy and Serbia and thus the Slavic world.

“Should we therefore sacrifice the surviving Italian spirit of Dalmatia and forever abandon to rampant Slavicization those cities dear to the heart of every Italian like Zara, Sebenico, Spalato and Ragusa?

“No! On the contrary! We believe that its Italian culture must be saved and safeguarded. But to do this is it necessary to ‘conquer’ Dalmatia militarily and politically? We think not, at least not until the contrary is proven.

“We think that the linguistic and cultural Italianity of Dalmatia can and should be guaranteed and preserved by a peaceful and open agreement between Italy and Serbia. If for reasons of a strategic nature this agreement also leads to a more or less extensive possession of the Dalmatian coast and archipelago by Italy, there is nothing to object to, especially with regard to the archipelago; but if, by this possession, we were to create a Serbo-Croatian irredentism and arouse the hostility of the Slavs in the Dalmatian hinterland and — more importantly! — in the Istrian hinterland, it would be better to forego it and to limit ourselves to demanding from Serbia the defense of Italian culture in Dalmatia from the assaults of a forced Slavicization by the government.

“Our point of view is this: the possession of Dalmatia (archipelago and coast) must be the subject of negotiations and an Italian-Serbian agreement. Such an agreement is very plausible if the two extreme theses are avoided: the Pan-Slavist one and the Nationalist one. The Italian cities of the Dalmatian coast must constitute the support points for our future penetration and economic and cultural expansion into Greater Serbia and the Balkans. But to achieve these objectives, to make the Balkans an outlet and a market for Italian industry, it is necessary to follow a firm and fair policy; one which is neither weak nor oppressive.”

“Appeal to the Nation” was originally a short radio address and phonograph recording by Adolf Hitler, delivered on July 15th, 1932, during the intense campaign for the German Reichstag elections (held on July 31st, 1932).

Fifth Column Library has translated the original broadcast and created an English transcript for our readers to learn the vision of Germany’s Führer.

Hear the original German broadcast of “Appeal to the Nation” by Adolf Hitler.

Appeal to the Nation

“Fate has allotted those in power today more than thirteen years to be tested and proven.

“But they hand down their own worst sentence, in that they themselves confess to the failure of their efforts by the type of propaganda they use today. Once it was their desire to govern Germany better in the future than in the past, and they are forced to observe that the only real product of their attempts at government is that Germany and the German Volk are still alive.

“In the November days of ‘18 [1918], they solemnly pledged to lead our Volk and in
particular the German worker into a better economic future. Today, after they have had nearly fourteen years to keep their promise, they cannot cite a single German professional group as witness for the quality of their actions.

“The German peasant has become impoverished; the mittelstand is ruined; the social hopes of many millions of people are destroyed; one third of all German men and women of working age is unemployed and thus without income; the Reich, the communities, and the Länder (German term for federal states) are over indebted; finances are in a muddle across the board; and all the coffers are empty!

“What more could they possibly have destroyed? The worst thing, though, is the destruction of the faith in our Volk, the elimination of all hopes and all confidence. In thirteen years they have not succeeded in mobilizing in any way the powers slumbering in our Volk; on the contrary!

“Out of their fear of the awakening of the nation, they have played people off against one another: the city against the country, the salaried workers against the civil servants, those who work with their hands against those who work with their brains, the Bavarians against the Prussians, the Catholics against the Protestants, and so forth, and vice versa.

“The activism of our race was entirely consumed at home; outwardly, only fantasies remained: fantastic hopes of a cultural conscience, a law of nations, a
world conscience, ambassador conferences, the League of Nations, the second Internationale, the third Internationale, proletarian solidarity, etc.—and the world treated us accordingly.

“Thus Germany has slowly disintegrated, and only a madman can still hope that those forces which first caused this disintegration might now bring about the resurrection. If the present parties seriously want to save Germany, why have they not done so already? Had they wanted to save Germany, why has it not happened? Had the men of these parties honestly intended to do so, then their programs must have been bad. If, however, their programs were right, then either their desire cannot have been sincere, or they must have been too ignorant or too weak.

“Now, after thirteen years, after they have destroyed everything in Germany, the time has finally arrived for their own elimination. Whether or not today’s parliamentary parties exist or not is of no consequence; what is, however, necessary is that the German nation be prevented from falling completely into ruin.

“Therefore it is a duty to vanquish these parties, for in order to secure their own existence, they must tear the nation apart over and over again. For years they have persuaded the German worker into believing that he alone could save himself. Fooled the peasant for years by claiming that only his organization would help him.

“The mittelstand (middle class) was to be snatched from the jaws of ruin by parties of the mittelstand; the economy by the parties of business. The Catholic was forced to
seek his refuge with the Center, the Protestant with the Christian Socialist People’s Service. In the end even the house owners had their own political representation, just as did the tenants, the salaried workers, and the civil servants.

“However, these attempts at breaking the nation down into classes, ranks, professions, and confessions and at leading it piece by piece to the economic good fortune of the future have now failed completely.

“Even on the day our National Socialist Movement was founded, we were already governed by the conviction that the fate of the German individual is inseparably bound up with the fate of the entire nation. When Germany disintegrates, the worker will not flourish in social good fortune and neither will the entrepreneur; the peasant will not save himself then; nor will the mittelstand.

“No, the ruin of the Reich, the disintegration of the nation, means the ruin and the disintegration of all! Not a single confession and not a single German tribe will be able to escape sharing the same lot. Even on the day our National Socialist Movement was founded, we had already long been certain that it was not the proletariat which would be victor over the bourgeoisie, and not the bourgeoisie which would be victor over the proletariat, but that international big finance must ultimately become the sole victor over both. And that is what has come to pass!

“Recognizing this disintegration, thirteen years ago I took a handful of people and formed a new movement which in its very name is to be a proclamation of the new Volksgemeinschaft (folk community). There is no such thing as socialism which does not have the power of the spirit at its disposal; no such thing as social good fortune which is not protected by—and even finds its prerequisite in—the power of a nation.

“And there is no such thing as a nation—and thus no such thing as nationalism—if the army of millions who work with their intellects are not joined by the army of millions who work with their fists, the army of millions of peasants. As long as Nationalism and Socialism march as separate ideas, they will be defeated by the united forces of their opponents. On that day when both ideas are molten into one, they will become invincible!

“And who will deny that, in a time when everything in Germany is falling apart and degenerating, when everything in the business world and political life is reaching a standstill or coming to an end, a single organization has experienced an enormous and miraculous upturn?

“With seven men I began this task of German unification thirteen years ago, and today over thirteen million are standing in our ranks. However, it is not the number that counts, but its inner value!

“Thirteen million people of all professions and ranks—thirteen million workers, peasants, and intellectuals; thirteen million Catholics and Protestants; members of all German Länder and tribes—have formed an inseparable alliance. And thirteen million have recognized that the future of all lies only in the joint struggle and the joint successes of all. Millions of peasants have now realized that the important thing is not that they comprehend the necessity of their own existence; rather, it is necessary to enlighten the other professions and walks of life as to the German peasant, and to win them for his cause.

“And millions of workers have similarly realized today that, in spite of all the theories, their future lies not in some ‘Internationale’ but in the realization on the part of their other Volksgenossen (national comrade) that, without German peasants and German workers, there simply is no German power. And millions of bourgeois intellectuals, too, have come to the realization of how insignificant their own illusions are if the masses of millions comprising the rest of the Volk do not finally comprehend the importance of the German intellectual class.

“Thirteen years ago we National Socialists were mocked and derided—today our opponents’ laughter has turned to tears! A faithful community of people has arisen which will gradually overcome the prejudices of class madness and the arrogance of rank. A faithful community of people which is resolved to take up the fight for the preservation of our race, not because it is made up of Bavarians or Prussians or men from Württemberg or Saxony; not because they are Catholics or Protestants, workers or civil servants, bourgeois or salaried workers, etc., but because all of them are Germans.

“Within this feeling of inseparable solidarity, mutual respect has grown, and from this respect has come an understanding, and from this understanding the tremendous power which moves us all. We National Socialists thus march into every election with the single commitment that we will, the following day, once more take up our work for the inner reorganization of our body politic. For we are not fighting merely for the mandates or the ministerial posts, but rather for the German individual, whom we wish to and shall join together once more to inseparably share a single common destiny.

“The Almighty, Who has allowed us in the past to rise from seven men to thirteen million in thirteen years, will further allow these thirteen million to once become a German Volk. It is in this Volk that we believe, for this Volk we fight; and if necessary, it is to this Volk that we are willing, as the thousands of comrades before us, to commit ourselves body and soul.

“If the nation does its duty, then the day will come which restores to us: one
Reich in honor and freedom—work and bread!”

The following essay was published in the fourth issue of Der Angriff, dated July 25th, 1927 where Goebbels calls for Germans to rise up.

We Demand

“The German people is an enslaved people. Under international law, it is lower than the worst Negro colony in the Congo. One has taken all sovereign rights from us. We are just good enough that international capital allows us to fill its money sacks with interest payments. That and only that is the result of a centuries-long history of heroism. Have we deserved it? No, and no again!

“Therefore we demand that a struggle against this condition of shame and misery begin, and that the men in whose hands we put our fate must use every means to break the chains of slavery.

“Three million people lack work and sustenance. The officials, it is true, work to conceal the misery. They speak of measures and silver linings. Things are getting steadily better for them, and steadily worse for us. The illusion of freedom, peace and prosperity that we were promised when we wanted to take our fate in our own hands is vanishing. Only complete collapse of our people can follow from these irresponsible policies.

“Thus we demand the right of work and a decent living for every working German.

“While the front soldier was fighting in the trenches to defend his fatherland, some Eastern Jewish profiteer robbed him of hearth and home. The Jew lives in the palaces and the proletarian, the front soldier, lives in holes that do not deserve to be called ‘homes.’ That is neither necessary nor unavoidable, but rather an injustice that cries out to the heavens. A government that stands by and does nothing is useless and must vanish, the sooner the better.

“Therefore we demand homes for German soldiers and workers. If there is not enough money to build them, drive the foreigners out so that Germans can live on German soil.

“Our people is growing, others diminishing. It will mean the end of our history if a cowardly and lazy policy takes from us the posterity that will one day be called to fulfill our historical mission.

“Therefore we demand land on which to grow the grain that will feed our children.

“While we dreamed and chased strange and unreachable fantasies, others stole our property. Today some say this was an act of God. Not so. Money was transferred from the pockets of the poor to the pockets of the rich. That is cheating, shameless, vile cheating!

“A government presides over this misery that in the interests of peace and order one cannot really discuss. We leave it to others to judge whether it represents Germany’s interests or those of our capitalist tormenters.

“We however demand a government of national labor, statesmen who are men and whose aim is the creation of a German state.

“These days anyone has the right to speak in Germany—the Jew, the Frenchman, the Englishman, the League of Nations, the conscience of the world, and the Devil knows who else. Everyone but the German worker. He has to shut up and work. Every four years he elects a new set of torturers, and everything stays the same. That is unjust and treasonous. We need tolerate it no longer. We have the right to demand that only Germans who build this state may speak, those whose fate is bound to the fate of their fatherland.

“Therefore we demand the destruction of the system of exploitation! Up with the German worker’s state!

“Germany for the Germans!”

The following article is the full pamphlet written by Nesta Webster and available to download from Fifth Column Library’s Telegram archive.

The Need for Fascism in Great Britain is a short political pamphlet written by Nesta Webster in 1926. In it, she argues that Britain faces a grave threat from socialism and Bolshevism, which she claims are part of a broader revolutionary movement undermining national stability and traditional values.

Webster asserts that parliamentary democracy is too weak to counter these forces and proposes fascism as a necessary alternative. She presents fascism as a strong, centralized system capable of restoring order, preserving British identity, and defending the nation against ideological subversion.

The pamphlet reflects Webster’s broader belief in hidden truths and her support for authoritarian solutions to what she saw as civilizational decline. It was used as propaganda to promote fascist organization and sentiment in Britain during the interwar period.

The Need For Fascism In Great Britain

During the seven years that I have been engaged in propaganda work against Socialism and Bolshevism. I have spoken or written for nearly every organization existing for that purpose and so far I have always declined to join any with one exception, because I felt I could be more use as an independent unit trying to help each in turn. My great hope throughout has always been, however, that the various societies, all working for practically the same purpose, would agree, not to amalgamation which I believe would be fatal, but to some plan of co-operation by which overlapping would be avoided, as also the multiplication of appeals for subscriptions. Some central clearing house for information and distribution would reduce expenses and at the same time add to the efficiency of our propaganda. The Socialists have this notably in the form of the Labour Research Department to which all Socialist groups and individuals can apply, and which serves also to feed the Constitutional press with misrepresentations. We have nothing on these lines.

The result of seven years experience is therefore to convince me that it is no use working any longer for these societies in general; I see no hope of co-operation between them in the interests of the common cause. The two movements which seem to me to be the most alive and the most disinterested are the “Patriot,” a paper devoted entirely to exposing the subversive movements, and the British Fascists, the only disciplined organization formed to combat the “Reds” and I believe that if we could bring about some co-operation between them it would lead to great results. The Fascists want subscriptions as much, and even more, than other societies, yet subscriptions are not the first consideration with them. There are no figureheads amongst them, I believe that to a man and to a woman they are all enthusiasts. That is why, AT THE END OF SEVEN YEARS I DEFINITELY TAKE MY STAND WITH THE BRITISH FASCISTS.

The Appeal of Fascism.

The great thing of which British Fascism can boast is that it has got Youth on its side, it has succeeded as no other movement has done in capturing the imagination of the young men and young women of the country. Fascism alone has been able to rally youth in large numbers to its standard.

What is the appeal that Fascism makes to Youth? I think it is that it gives young people something to do. It provides a practical and exhilarating programme; it asks for service, self-sacrifice and courage. In its recognition of the possibility that events may lead to a fight it adds an element of excitement. That is why its numbers are so much larger than those of other societies.

What then is Fascism?

In its spirit it is nothing new, nothing peculiar to Italy, but a perfectly normal and natural phenomenon. As most people know to-day, when the germs of disease invade the human body, certain healthy cells, the white cells in the blood known as the phagocytes, rise and attack the invaders. In this process they show no mercy. They do not say:

“We must deal gently with these microbes; we must not irritate them, but try to win them over.”

No. They fight and slay them and by this process the body is preserved from destruction.

Fascists are the phagocytes of the State.

The Causes of Revolution.

Fascism is only a new name given lo a very old thing. For if we consider the lessons of history we shall notice that when a country is invaded by the virus of the social revolution, now known as Bolshevism—also a very old thing under a new name, once it was known as Jacobinism—when once a country is thus invaded one of two things must happen.

1. If the population is virile, that is to say if the phagocytes are active!—resistance at once makes itself felt, as in England in 1793 when the British mob chased the British Jacobin over the housetops, or, if the Government is weak, resistance may take the form of organized counter-revolution, as in Italy and Spain to-day.

2. But if the population is wanting in energy, the revolution can succeed. Nothing is more erroneous than to suppose that revolution is more likely to break out in an inflammable nation. Quite the contrary. Apathy and fatalism are the best grounds for it to work on. It was because in France and in Russia the peasants were fatalists, resigned to their lot and sheep-like, that a determined minority was able to establish its domination over them. It is true that in France a few attempts at resistance were made, notably in La Vendee where the peasants armed themselves and marched in defense of church and monarchy. The rising in La Vendee has been well described by a modern French historian as the only spontaneous and popular rising of the Revolution. Unfortunately by the time it was organized things had gone too far and the Terror suppressed all resistance. Then reaction momentarily manifested itself in the White Terror that followed on the fall of the Jacobins.

This is what must always happen. As surely as the day follows night a Red Terror is always followed by a White Terror. It is the inevitable sequel. Violence begets violence. This is what happened in France and again in Hungary, when the “Move,” or Awakening Magyar avenged in blood the bloody regime of Bela Kun. Once terrorism has been established reaction can only take the form of vengeance.

The Prevention of Revolution.

What, then, is the moral?

To organize in time and so avert both a Red Terror and White.

This is what Italy did—and this is why she has set a lesson to the world.

Italy under the weak guidance of Giolitti was trembling on the brink of Bolshevism. A determined minority directed from abroad was attempting to establish its domination over a proud and high-spirited people. We cannot doubt that if Mussolini had not arisen and Bolshevism had momentarily triumphed in Italy the reaction would have been terrible and seas of blood would have been shed on both sides. So Fascismo saved Italy both from the Red Terror and the White.

The genius of Mussolini was to know not only how to quell the spirit of revolution, but how to discipline the counter-revolution, to rally all the virile and patriotic elements under the banner of Fascismo—of patriotism ready to fight and die for Italy.

The Fascisti have been reproached for violence. Of course violence was at first inevitable. You cannot check the career of a mad clog down a village street without some degree of violence, and when peaceful citizens were molested and houses were being burnt down to the cry of “Viva Lenin!” castor oil was after all a mild retort. Besides there were unruly elements among the Fascisti who could not at once be controlled. Before long, however, Fascismo was able to establish not only an orderly but a constructive and progressive system.

Counter Intimidation.

But although Fascism has put an end to acts of futile violence, nevertheless it has made itself feared. This was absolutely essential. The essence of Bolshevism is terrorism, and the only antidote to Terrorism is wholesome fear. Some system of counter-intimidation was absolutely necessary. It is still necessary. Just because Mussolini did not carry out a reign of Terror, because he allowed some of the disruptive elements to remain at work in the country;—the Communist paper “Unita” continued publication under Fascism and the Communist leader Bombacci was left at large-just because of this, measures had to be maintained in order to prevent the incendiaries fanning up again the flames of revolution. And besides this we must remember that Bolshevism is still rampant throughout Europe, and Italy cannot afford yet to relax discipline. Yes, counter-intimidation has been organized in Italy. Would to God it were the same here!

It will be said: “We have no need of Fascism in Great Britain.” England will not go the way of Italy. But is she not already going the way of Italy before Fascism, and the way of France, the way of Russia before their revolutions? The same apathy is apparent amongst the general public, the same weakness in the Government and the same determination on the part of a cunning and unscrupulous minority.

Our Socialist-Conservative Party.

Of course, if the Government were strong there would be no need of Fascism. After the last Election it seemed as if this might be so, as if at last we had a Government that could be relied on to slay the dragon of Bolshevism and Fascism could put up the shutters. But as the months went by these hopes faded. Instead of the huge Conservative majority we imagined we had secured we found that a section of this was not Conservative at all. This is particularly the case with the younger members in the House of Commons, who, instead of standing up for Conservative principles seem to devote all their energies to proving they are not “reactionaries.” They live in dread of being thought “reactionary” and to avoid this make continual concessions to Socialism, so much so that Ramsay Macdonald was able to claim them as Socialists in embryo. On April 18, 1925, he said in a speech at Penzance:

“There is a large section of the Tory party, especially the young Tories, who are men of very great promise . . . the old reactionary machine Tories—that is to say the Conservatives who have remained true to their principles! “have more trouble with the young Tories than they have even with us.”

And Ramsay Macdonald went on to envisage the time when “the partition between us and them will be so thin that they might as well break it down and come over to the Socialists' camp.”

What are we to say of men who, returned to Parliament mainly on the anti-Socialist vote so betray the trust placed in them as to arouse such expectations? I am not aware that any official repudiation of Ramsay MacDonald's view was forthcoming. The fact is that the leaders of the Conservative Party seem far more concerned in winning the good opinion of the Opposition than in retaining that of their own supporters. They do not appear to mind being suspected of Socialist leanings—some, perhaps, less from lack of principle than from muddled thinking. They simply do not know what Socialism is and imagine it to be the same thing as social reform. The Prime Minister himself has admitted his ignorance on this point. In an interview published in the Morning Post on May 19, 1924, Mr. Baldwin is reported as saying:

“Every future government must be Socialistic in the sense in which our grandfathers used the word. Personally I don’t know what Socialism means.” (Many Italics)

If Mr. Baldwin does not know what Socialism means how can he fight against it? And what does he mean by referring to “the sense in which our grandfathers used the word”? Our grandfathers used it in precisely the same sense as we use it now, as a system entailing the destruction of private property and enterprise and the control of all industry by the State. The great Lord Shaftesbury, who can surely be classed as a grandfather, spoke of Socialism as a plague deep-seated and rancorous, and saw it clearly as the great enemy of social reform.

In recognizing the limitations of Mr. Baldwin nothing, however, would be more fatal than to play into the hands of his rival, Lord Birkenhead. This “first-class brain” has shown itself amenable to belief in the integrity of the Socialist leaders as his simple minded chief. Thus, after declaring in his Election speeches that the Socialist government had been a “nightmare government” and that “one foolish speech, one dishonest speech after another” had been made by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald as Premier,1 Lord Birkenhead proceeded, after the Election, to acknowledge “the debt of gratitude owed to those who, placed in power suddenly, became the trustees of the majestic fabric of the British Empire, and of whom he would say, plainly and frankly, that . . . they were not unworthy trustees of the British Empire. When he said this he had in mind men of the calibre of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Snowden and Mr. Thomas.”2

Indeed Lord Birkenhead went on to assure his hears that a return to the form of government which had proven “a nightmare” was inevitable in the future. They had had in Australia “To face the possibilities of Labour Governments. We shall have in my humble judgment,” he said, “a similar experience here . . . As sure as day follows the night, a change of Government will come. Our duty therefore as Conservatives, is to prepare ourselves for that change of government and postpone its coming as long as we can.” Rousing words indeed for electors who has just put out all their strength to make a so-called Labour Government for ever impossible!

If a British general had declared, the day after the victory of the Marne, that Belgium had endured a German invasion and that we must face “a similar experience” sooner or later, out duty as Englishmen being therefore to prepare for the time when the Germans would occupy these islands, he would certainly have been relieved of his command. But not such penalty attends the defeatist utterances of a politician, who, once in power, can commit his party to any policy he pleases. The Petain attitude of “ils ne passeront pas!” is wholly lacking to our present rulers, whose main preoccupation seems to be to keep on good terms with what they believe to be the coming power, of alternatively to retain their hold on the country by stealing the Socialists’ thunder. Nothing could be more mistaken than to imagine that such a policy will win them votes. If the country wants Socialism it will go for it to the Socialist Party; it will not accept it secondhand from the Conservatives. The only way the Conservative Party can retain its hold on the country is to stand firm on the principles of Conservatism.

The Right to Criticize.

There are people who say we have no right to criticize the Government. This might be so if the British Government we’re an autocracy. The principle of “ours not to reason why, ours not to make reply” is all very well under the leadership of a trusted dictator; it is absurd in a democracy where we have a government elected by the people. If we, the thinking and educative elements in the electorate, are to say “our Party, or our leaders, right or wrong” and to follow them blindly whenever they may lead us how can we blame ignorant miners for following Cook blindly? We know that it is this mistaken loyalty which is destroying sane Trade Unionism and shall we commit the same error? We have been given brains and it is our duty as citizens of a free country to think for ourselves.

Face Facts at Once.

Let us face the facts of the situation. Everywhere the present Government by its weakness is losing its supporters. Everywhere people are saying: “We will never vote for the Conservatives again.” The danger is that at the next General Election the Socialist may get in owing to the anti-Socialists in our of disgust with Conservatives Party will be to play into the hands of those very elements in the Party who are the cause of its disintegration.

Consider then what may happen if at a future Election, owing to Conservatives abstaining from voting, a Socialist government is again returned to power. Either it will this time have a majority in the House and be able to impose Socialism on the country by constitutional means with the inevitable result of ruin and misery that has attended all previous Socialist experiments, or it will be in a minority as before and unable tp pass Socialist legislation. What then if a resort is made to force and a General Strike is called in co-operation with the trade union leaders? None of the organization which saved the country last May would be brought into being, for the Government would be the allies of the revolutionaries.

It is not good saying there is no danger of this. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has himself admitted the utility of the Parliamentary General Strike, that is, the General Strike for enforcing Socialist legislation. And during the last strike we saw how this would be managed. The T.U.C., as everyone will remember, demanded to be given the control of food supplies. The Government, by a miracle, saw the trap and refused to allow this. But a Socialist Government would agree. It could not refuse. Eight months before the General Strike the Daily Herald, official organ of the Labour Party, definitely stated that the “Trade Unions and Co-operative Societies are the proper people to see the feeding of all working members of the community” (Sept. 25th, 1925)—those whom the Socialists are pleased to regard as non-workers presumably to remain unfed!—and Ramsay MacDonald in a letter to the Times (October 5th, 1925) intimated that it was the General Council of the Trade Union Congress which should be trusted “to secure the conduct of the essential public services when such are threatened with dislocation by industrial action.” So the same men who called the strike in order to paralyze the life of the country were to have the whole provisioning of the nation placed their control! By this method all registers to the demands of the T.U.C., concerted with its Moscow allies, could have been starved into submission in a week! It is idle to say this could not happen, this is what the leaders of the Labor Party had planned and what they would do if they were in power. The army, navy and all the forces of law and order being under the control—the control of a legally constituted government—the situation could then only be saved by unconstitutional action, by a rising against the government, in a world—civil war.

Do not let us be deluded by the differences amongst the Socialists into believing that the so-called moderates would put up any opposition to the designs of the Communists. If, as Robert Williams once said, “Bolshevism is Socialism with the courage of its opinions,” then conversely “Socialism is Bolshevism without the courage of its opinions,” and is bound to give way to the bolder elements. That is why Communism is increasing. Mr. Baldwin himself recently recognized the danger it now presents when he was reported as saying to a Conservative deputation that “during the next two years this country would find itself waging an increasingly bitter war against the Communists which might be expected to culminate in 1928.” (Daily Mail, Dec. 15, 1926). This is the prospect we have to face and for which we must prepare.

Militant Fascism—The Salvation of the British Empire.

it is not impossible then that Fascism may have to play in this country the same part that Fascismo played in Italy. If under a Socialist government England is reduced to ruin and misery by Socialist legislation or to chaos by a General Strike the result will be civil war and patriots will have to organize themselves into a fighting force. England will not submit meekly as France and Russia submitted; we shall fight—and I believe we shall win. This is where Fascism will come in. If that social order on which all our prosperity and our very existence as a nation depends, is overthrown by a Socialist Government it may be that we shall see a momentary eclipse of parliamentary institutions and the installation of a dictatorship as in Italy.

It is said that England will not stand a dictatorship. But will she not hail a dictatorship of patriots that will free her from the dictatorship of a red minority? Have we not already a bad taste of what the dictatorship of the other side would mean when we endured the humiliating experience of seeing food vans going about London labelled “By permissions of T.U.C.”? And the Press! The great powerful press of Great Britain, closed down in a day by an organization calling itself “Natsopa,”3 headed by one Issacs!

And if the General Strike was broken, had the tyranny of the trade unions ceased? Has it not continued throughout the coal strike, preventing men returning to work, threatening, victimizing, intimidating?

The Policy of Intimidation.

Fear, has not that been the principal weapon here, as elsewhere? At the beginning of the French Revolution Mirabeau, the great demagogue, expressed in one sentence the psychology of terrorism, which, in reality, is just the same as the German policy of frightfulness in war. Mirabeau said to the people: “You have nothing to fear from the aristocrats, they do not burn, they do not pillage, they do not assassinate—what harm can they do?” And the moral is: “Stand in then with those who do burn, who do pillage and who do assassinate, and you will have nothing to fear!” It is this feeling that has driven countless waverers not only amongst working men but amongst the intelligentsia into the enemy’s camp. They imagine that by throwing in their lot with the Socialists now they will save their skins if revolution comes. If they knew a little more of history they would realize the folly of this delusion. For in every revolution those who have helped to prepare it are the first to be swept away by the tide and no one can tell beforehand which faction will triumph once the existing order is overthrown.

Is it this same fear that has hitherto paralyzed to Government? Have our politicians allowed themselves to be intimidated either by threats of open violence or by the fear of that occult power at work behind the scenes of world revolution? If this is not so why have they shown so much indulgence to the Communist Party which is supposed only to number 12,000 and so little sympathy with the British Fascists who number approximately 200,000? Is is because the Fascists do not threaten violence, and there is at present no counter-intimidation to Communist terrorism?

Let us realize that we are at war. No army can march to victory unless some penalty attaches to incompetence, still more to desertion. The armies of the French Revolution owed their efficiency less to revolutionary ardour than to the fact that they had the perambulating guillotine behind them, and the general who surrendered got it, very literally in the neck.

There is not guillotine behind the Conservative Party! No penalty attaches to desertion or the betrayal of principles. Why should not Fascism, whilst remaining constitutional and law abiding supply this element of wholesome fear? Why should we not make ourselves a force to be reckoned with? Already Fascism has put fear into the hearts of the enemy. At the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain in June 1925 one of the delegates observed: “I believe that the Fascists in this country are quite capable of doing the same here as they have done in Italy and other parts of Europe” and the Fascist Women’s Units were held up as an example of efficiency to Communists. No other anti-Socialist organization was mentioned in the discussion. It is the name of Fascist that inspires respect!

Let Fascists then stick to their name! That name stands for a policy that cannot be expressed by any other word. Patriots, loyalists, all sorts of other names have been tried but they have never brought the following that has rallied to the name of Fascist. Patriotism and loyalty may be expressed in various ways such as fighting for one’s country against an alien foe. Fascism stands for a form of patriotism designed to meet a particular emergency—disintegration from within. In one word it compromises a whole programme—organized and disciplined counter revolution by means of active and if necessary militant patriotism and counter intimidation as a preparation for constructive and progressive social reforms.

There need be no question of imitating Italy. Imitation, as Emerson said, is suicide—as much nationally as individually. British Fascism will not model itself slavishly on the Italian pattern and follow the example of the Communists by taking its instructions from abroad, it must be an essentially national movement, suited to the needs and character of our race.

The Ideal of British Fascism.

This being so British Fascism has very definite tasks to perform. It must keep up the spirit of patriotism and combat everywhere the attempts to undermine our national traditions.

Already by means of the Fascist Children’s Clubs it is providing an antidote to the antipatriotic and anti-religious teaching of the Red Sunday Schools. It can co-operate with Patriot in the work of enlightening the public. If we could only raise the money for a central bureau of information for arming propagandists with really scientific knowledge of Socialism I believe we could sweep the country.

Then Fascism has already ensured free speech. Only six years go, in October 1921, a meeting of the British Empire Union with Sir Ernest Wild in the Chair was broken up by the Communists, the Union Jack was torn to pieces and Lord Derby was driven from the hall. Fascism has changed all that. It is to the wholesome fear inspired by the British Fascists that we now owe the liberty to hold patriotic meetings in peace.

As to the future, I would urge that Fascists should refrain from provocative acts but should train themselves in discipline and in patience for the time when they may be called upon to fight. At the next General Election let us concentrate on ensuring a hearing for those parliamentary candidates who show courage and stand by us now. Let no politicians think they they can disparage the Fascists in time of peace and that when the fight begins Fascists will rush to their defense. Let them further realize that if ever this country is thrown into the chaos of revolution through their cowardice or treachery they shall answer for it to the outraged patriots on whom the task of restoring order will devolve.

If only all those disgruntled elements throughout the country who now content themselves with grumbling at the weakness of the government would rally to the standard of Fascism and do some practical work instead of talking I believe that British Fascism would become in a short time a formidable body, a power to be reckoned with, a power that no Government could afford to ignore.

It is often said: “Where shall we find our Mussolini?” Here again it seems to me a mistake to imagine that British Fascism must necessarily develop along exactly the same lines as Fascismo. We have always had our own way of doing things and we shall evolve our own form of Fascism. Of course, if Heaven sends us the man we need, as Italy was sent the man she needed, we shall hail him with thanksgiving, but I think the one leader, the great popular hero, is less essential to us than to Italians. It may be then that instead of a one-man dictatorship we shall have the leadership of a group of patriots. There was no Mussolini in the General Strike, but there was organization and leadership, moreover the same spirit prevailed throughout the country and won the day. What was that spirit? The British Spirit! Above all the spirit of British Youth! And that spirit is unconquerable!

This article presents the full text of “Eugenics” by Irving Fisher, a widely discussed early 20th-century work on heredity, population theory, and social science. As a historical primary source, it reflects the intellectual frameworks and assumptions of its time and is provided here for archival and academic reference.

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EUGENICS

By IRVING FISHER, Ph.D.

Professor of Political Economy, Yale University Member Board of Scientific Directors, Eugenics Record Office

I HAVE SOMETIMES SAID THAT EUGENICS IS HYGIENE RAISED TO THE HIGHEST POWER.

It is a comparatively new movement, but one which is sweeping over the world with wonderful rapidity, and taking hold o f the emotions of mankind in a way that no other movement has ever done, or has deserved to do.

FIRST OF ALL,

what is eugenics? Eugenics, as the Greek derivation of the word shows, means the science of right breeding. The word was invented by Sir Francis Galton, of England, to express his ideal founding a world movement to improve the human race. It was, of course, a colossal ambition, and, at first almost everybody scoffed. Even today there are comparatively few who realize how immediately practical is this dream of Sir Francis Galton’s.

EUGENICS DOES NOT MEAN,

as many people at first thought, anything like the old Spartan practice of infanticide. The Spartans tried to develop a strong, physical race according to their ideals, and they succeeded, but they did it in a cruel fashion by ruthlessly exposing children when born. Infanticide has been practiced in many of the barbarous countries of the world, and when eugenics was proposed, many people very naturally imagined this was what it meant. But it does not. Nor does eugenics propose to do violence in any other way to any humanitarian or Christian effort. Eugenics does not mean, as some have imagined, compulsory or government-made marriages. Some people have thought that eugenics was some half baked scheme to breed the human race as we breed domestic animals, and to make a race of pug-noses or blond hair or blue eyes or any other fancy that some master of ceremonies should conceive. Nor does it mean a reduction in the proportion of love marriages. On the contrary, it means an increase of such marriages. Just as soon as men and women come to see and admire, as in ancient Greece, the ideal of physical perfection they will fall in love on that basis, as nature always intended that they should . There will be less interference with love marriages through ambition to acquire property or title.

Eugenics is simply an application of modern science to improve the human race. “But,” says the skeptic, “that will take millions of years!” Nevertheless, I reassert that it is easily practical to alter and improve the human race and to do so in a very short time.

THIS IS THE NEW OPTIMISM OF EUGENICS…

and it is based on solid evidence. Until recently no one realized how fast the race could improve if it would. Even Galton himself, when he first proposed eugenics, was under the impression that we inherit from our ancestors in a way which would make possible improvement extremely slow. He put forward as a theory (what we now know to be incorrect) that each child gets half of its nature from its parents, one quarter from its grandparents, one-eighth from its great grandparents, one sixteenth from its great great grandparents, and so on indefinitely back, the sum total of those fractions being, when added up to infinity, just unity or the whole inheritance. Instead of such a relation holding true, however, we know that a child inherits something from both parents in relation to every character of body or mind, and that the something which it inherits from its mother, as by its mother inherited from one (not both) of its mother’s parents, and likewise the something which it inherited from the father, was inherited from one (not both) of the father’s parents, and so on in two streams on either side, from each parent backward. Thus each individual today is in respect to any one characteristic (such for example as eye-color) simply a combination of two beings in any previous generation. One generation back, it is the two parents from whom he gets his eye-color; two generations back it is two out of its four grand parents and not the other two at all; three generations back, it is two of its great grandparents and not the other side at all. Consequently, if you can carry back your inheritance to some one who came over in the Mayflower, the chances are a thousand to one, that you did not inherit any given character, such as eye-color, from that ancestor at all. In fact, you may have absolutely nothing in mind or body which came from him. The marvelous laws of inheritance are now being fairly well explained and understood. They were discovered first by a priest named Mendel, in the year l869. But when he gave his discovery to the world, he found the world was blind and deaf, as it often is to new discoveries, and it waited until the beginning of the twentieth century, when Devries and other scientists re-discovered the Mendelian principle, which today is the foundation stone of the science of heredity and eugenics.

WE CAN BEST UNDERSTAND MENDEL’S LAWS…

by taking a few concrete cases. The first case is that of an Andalusian fowl. We shall consider the two species, pure bred black and pure bred white and confine ourselves to observing the inheritance of the single characteristic, color. Of course, as long as the black mate only with the black their children will be black and as long as the white mate with white the children will be white. But if a white mates with a black, the children will not be either black or white, but blue. All will be blue. But the most interesting facts appear in the next generation when these hybrid blue fowls mate with black or the white or with each other. The original of the cross between the white and the black is an entirely new color, blue, which may be considered a sort amalgam of black and white. But a cross between the blue and the black will not be any new color, but will be either black or blue—and the chances are even. That is, in the long run about half of the children of blue and black parents will be blue and half will be black. None of the children will be white. So also crossing the blue with the white will result in half of the children being blue and half white. Still more curious is the result of mating blue with blue. One might imagine that in this case all the children would be blue, but only half will be blue, while a quarter will be black and a quarter white.

THESE LAWS SEEM STRANGE…

but at bottom they are simply the familiar laws of chance, the laws which rule heads and tails in coin tossing. Two parents are like two baskets or bundles of traits from which the child takes its traits at random. In the wonderful play of Maeterlinck’s, called the “Blue bird,” we are taken to the “land before birth,” where the children are waiting to be born, having selected their parents to be. Of course, this is only a pleasant fancy, like the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes to children to choose good grand parents, but it is a useful fancy which will help us to understand the laws of heredity. The child of the Andalusian fowl takes its color from its two parents on the same principle as a lottery in which it would take two beans, white or black as the case might be, from each of two baskets. Every individual is a sort of basket containing two beans, as it were. It took one of these two beans from each parent and will give one to each child.

WITH THIS PICTURE OF A BEAN LOTTERY…

before us it is very easy to understood how the colors of Andalusian fowls are inherited. When two black fowls mate the offspring must be black, because in this case each parent basket contains a pair of black beans so to speak, so that the child taking one black bean from each basket will necessarily have a black pair. For the same reason the child of two white fowls must be white. But when a black and white fowl mate the child takes a white bean from one parent and a black from the other, its own color being a resultant or amalgam of, the two, which in the case of the Andalusian fowl makes blue. Since every such hybrid child has this same combination of a white and a black bean all of these hybrids are alike. All are blue. It is important to remember that this hybrid blue is only a sort of mechanical mixture of black and white, and that the black and white are still separate beans, as it were.

BUT NOW SUPPOSE A HYBRID OR BLUE FOWL…

to mate with a white. This means that the child takes from the white parent or basket one of the two white beans and from the blue parent or basket one of the two beans of which one is white and the other black; the bean taken from the first or white basket must be white, but that taken from the second or blue or hybrid basket may be either white or black. It is a lottery with an even chance of drawing white or black. In the long run half of the children will draw white and half black. Those which draw the white will, since they also drew white from the other parent, be wholly white, but those which drew the black will be blue, since they will have one black and one white bean. We see too that the white child is just as truly white as though it had not had a hybrid parent, for of the two elements or beans which the hybrid carried, the black one was left behind untaken. We see that the blue child is a hybrid exactly like its hybrid parent, and not any new kind of cross between the blue and the white. In short, the children of a blue and white are either the one or the other, and not a mixture. In the same way if a blue mates with a black, half of the children will be black and half blue.

FINALLY WE COME TO THE MATING OF A B LUE WITH A BLUE.

Here the lottery is to pick a bean from two baskets, each basket containing a white and a black bean. When at random one is taken from either of these two baskets there is an even chance that the bean from the father is white or black and an even chance that the bean from the mother is white or black.

NOW, what is the chance that the child draws a white bean from both baskets? Evidently it is one chance in four; for there are four ways equally probable in which you can take these beans, viz.:

1. black from the father basket and black from the mother,

2. white from the father and white from the mother,

3. white from the father and black from the mother,

4. black from the father and white from the mother.

SO the children could draw both white once in four times, both black once in four, and a white and a black in the other two cases. And that is why from two blue Andalusian fowls, on the average you will have one-quarter of the children black, one quarter white, and the other two-quarters, blue. Again let us stop to emphasize the fact that the black children of these hybrids are just as pure blooded as their black grandparent, and will mate with other pure-blooded black in exactly the same way as though there had never been any white in their ancestor. The white strain has been left behind, or been “bred out.”

WE HAVE SPOKEN OF ONE CHARACTER…

or characteristic—color. The same laws apply to other characters. Often different characters are inherited quite independently of one another. Each of us is a basket or bundle of very many qualities, each quality being a little compartment of the basket with two beans in it. There is, as it were, a pair of beans for every unit trait, whether that trait relates to color, to musical ability, or to any one of hundreds of other kinds.

TO SUMMARIZE THE LAWS OF INHERITANCE…

of the unit character called color in Andalusian fowl, we have really six ways in which we can consider the mating of the three colored fowls (black, white, blue):

1. black may mate with black, in which case all the offspring will be black,

2. white may mate with white in which case all the offspring will be white,

3. a black may mate with a white, in which case the offspring will all be blue—a hybrid containing both black and blue elements,

4. blue may mate with a black, in which case half the offspring will be pure bred black, and half hybrid blue,

5. a blue may mate with a white, in which case half the offspring will be white and half blue,

6. blue may mate with blue in which case a quarter of the offspring will be white, a quarter black and a half blue.

These results are the fundamental laws of Mendel. But the results are not always as clear as in the case of the Andalusian fowl. In that case the hybrids were not like either parent, but were a new color, blue, so that they were labeled at once and recognizable—as hybrids—but this is not generally the case. Take, for instance, guinea pigs. What will be the result of mating an “albino” white with a black guinea pig? Quite exactly the same principle applies as in the case of Andalusian fowl, but the principle is not as clear to see. All the offspring are hybrid, but they will not be blue: they will be black. They will look like the black parent, but they are different. The black color predominates; i.e. black is “dominant” over white, while the white recedes out of sight, or is “recessive.” This hybrid black guinea pig is like the hybrid blue Andalusian fowl. It is a hybrid, a combination of white and black, but in the guinea pig the black covers up the white so that nothing in the color reveals the fact that it is a hybrid. Now if the hybrid black offspring of these black and white guinea pigs mate with each other, the result will follow exactly the same Mendelian law as applied to the Andalusian fowl. But this will not be so clear, because now we have two kinds of black instead of a black and a blue. One child in four will be white like the grandparent. One child in four will be pure bred black like the grandparent, and two out of the four will be hybrid black. SO to the eye we shall simply have, out of four children, one white and three black. But those three black are not all alike. One is a thoroughbred and two are half-breeds.

BUT HOW THEN ARE WE TO DISTINGUISH…

between the one pure bred black, the thoroughbred, and the two blacks that are hybrids so that we can be sure which is which? The only way they can be distinguished is to wait to see what their offspring will be in the next succeeding generations. The one that is a thoroughbred will behave like a thoroughbred. For in stance, if mated with white they will have nothing but black children. But if one that is hybrid black mate with one that is white only half of the children will be white; these white children reveal the fact that their black parent was a half breed. Then we can put a tag on that black parent. If proper tags are put on the blacks so as to distinguish between the pure blooded and the half blooded—say a blue tag on the hybrids and a black on the thoroughbreds,—we shall get exactly the same results as described in the case of the Andalusian fowl, in the six cases mentioned. The same principles apply to qualities of guinea pigs other than color. Thus if a long-haired guinea pig mates with a short-haired guinea pig, all the offspring will be short-haired, because short hair is dominant over long hair. Again if a smooth coated guinea pig mates with a rough coated one the result will be rough coated, be cause a rough coat is dominant over a smooth coat.

By means of this Mendelian law it is thus possible to predict what will happen in various cases, not only for animals but for plants, and not only for the lower animals but for man himself. Mendel made his experiments mostly with plants. He took garden peas, twenty-two varieties. He crossed them and he found that when he crossed a wrinkled pea with a smooth pea all the children were smooth, but they were hybrids. They did not show any difference from one of the two parents. They showed a difference from the others, but they were hybrids nevertheless. They were not really thoroughbred smooth peas, but they were hybrid smooth peas. Then he mated these hybrid smooth peas with each other and the peas in the next generation were one-quarter wrinkled and three-quarters smooth, but he discovered that of those three- quarters only one-quarter was really smooth in the sense that it would breed true ever after. The others were hybrids and bred just like their parents. Again he took peas which were tall and mated them with pea s that were dwarfed and he found that all the children were tall.

In other words, the character of being smooth was dominant and the character of being wrinkled was recessive, while like wise the character of being tall was dominant and the character of being dwarf was recessive.

Again he took peas according to the color of the flower those that had purple, flowers and those that had white flowers, and he found that purple was dominant over white. When the two were crossed the children would be all purple, but hybrid purple. If these hybrid purples were mated with each other, he found that one-quarter of the next generation would show white a gain according to the Mendelian law; one-quarter would be thoroughbred purple, and one-half would be hybrid purple. And so he worked with a number of other varieties of peas and other plants.

THE VARIOUS CHARACTERS OF ROUGH OR SMOOTH,

long haired or short haired, white or black, etc., are inherited independently of one another. That is to say, the child takes from the mystic baskets one pair of beans relative to color, an other relative to hair length, another relative to coat, and so on, so that it may be, for instance, long haired and rough coated, long haired and smooth coated, short haired and rough coated, or short haired and smooth coated .

This independent inheritance does not always hold true. Sometimes two traits always go together or always avoid each other. Again, a particular trait may be dominant to another trait but recessive to a third, or dominant in the male and recessive in the female. Each case must be studied by itself, but when the rule is found it can be depended on and used to predict what will happen in other like cases.

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THESE LAWS ARE A CURIOUS MIXTURE…

of chance and certainty. In certain circumstances, as we have seen, we can predict with certainty that the offspring will be black, white, blue, or whatever the case may be. In other circumstances we can only state what the chances are. But these chances can be definitely stated as one in two, one in four or whatever it may be, and where there are large numbers of offspring this amounts to a practical certainty that definite proportions will have this or that color or other characteristics.

Evidently such definite knowledge can be made useful, and it has been made useful in England. Professor Biffen has created, to order as it were, in accordance with specifications drawn up officially, certain new and valuable species of wheat. This he did by crossing existing species so as to get “hybrids” without the undesirable qualities and with the desirable ones. One species of wheat is resistant to “rust,” another has a stout stalk, another is beardless, another bears a large number of grains on a stalk, another a large yield per acre, but until Professor Biffen created it, no species possessed all these possibilities. By successive crossing of the existing species, however, he finally obtained species possessing all of these desirable qualities. Moreover, the desirable qualities were permanent because the other or undesirable qualities had been “bred out.”

THE SAME MENDELIAN PRINCIPLES…

undoubtedly apply to the human race, although as yet only a few traits have been carefully studied. Eye color is one of these. Imagine a marriage of a thoroughbred, black-eyed Italian with a thorough bred, blue-eyed Irish. What will be the result? All the children will be black-eyed, black being dominant over blue; but these black eyes are not the genuine article that the Italian parent possessed. They are a blend, and it is only because the black element dominates over or conceals the blue element that we cannot see on the surface that there is any blue there. But it may come out in the next generation; for, if these half blooded individuals marry among themselves one-quarter of their children on the average will be blue-eyed. The other three- quarters will be black-eyed, but only one-quarter will be “really and truly” black eyed, i.e., black-eyed like the Italian. The remaining half are hybrid black, like the parents. It is only a sort of imitation black, so to speak.

The appearance of blue eyes in the second generation is the long observed but formerly mysterious “atavism,” or reversion to the grandparent.

NEXT, SUPPOSE THE CHILDREN OF AN ITALIAN AND AN IRISH PARENT…

intermarry with pure bred Italians. We immediately know what will be the result. All the children will be black-eyed, but among a large number only half will be thoroughbred black-eyed. The other half will be “imitation” black-eyed. The case is just like the mating of hybrid black guinea pigs with thoroughbred black guinea pigs, or of the blue fowl with the black. Similarly if the Irish-Italian hybrids marry with pure Irish, half the offspring will be blue- eyed and half will be hybrid black-eyed.

Black eyes are “dominant” over blue eyes because the black color is due to a pigment while the blue color is due to the absence of this pigment. In general a quality which is due to the presence of some positive element is dominant over a quality due to the absence of that element. A child inheriting from a blue eyed person simply draws a blank from that side in the lottery.

THE CASE OF SKIN COLOR…

in human beings is more complicated. The skin color of an African is, according to the findings of Doctor Davenport, not a unit character but due to four factors. Without going into detailed explanations it follows, and the facts seem to substantiate the conclusion, that…

1. the children (mulattos) of a white and a black parent have two color factors; and will all be of the same color midway between the colors of the parents;

2. the children of two mulattos will still be mulatto;

3. the offspring (quadroon) of a mulatto and a white will have one color factor and will all be alike midway between the parents, thus bringing us to a unit character.

4. The children of two quadroons will be quadroons;

5. the children (octoroons) of a quadroon and a white will be all quadroon color but getting this color from only one side and drawing a blank as it were from the other side, they will be quite different from the true quadroons so that

6. of the children of two octoroons, one-quarter will be white, one-quarter quadroons and a half octoroons, like the parents;

7. of the Children of octoroons and white half will be octoroon and half will be white.

It is to be noted that when a white octoroon appears the black element has disappeared completely so that there is no danger of its reappearance in later generations from marriage with Caucasians. This does not mean, however, that all negro characteristics such as wooly hair , flat noses or thick lips, will disappear.

BUT, YOU SAY, WHAT HAS ALL THIS TO DO WITH EUGENICS,

and what difference does it make whether eye color or even skin color is one thing or another? It makes very little difference, indeed, but there are certain qualities that are exceedingly important. There are certain qualities which rank as defective. Feeble mindedness is a lack of a very important character. Suppose now that a normal or “strong minded” person, if we may use that term as distinct from feeble-minded, marries a feeble-minded person. Assuming that the “strong minded” person is a “thoroughbred,” all of the children will be apparently normal. None will be feeble-minded. “Strong mindedness” is dominant over weak mindedness. Yet all these children that seem to be perfectly normal lack something in their bodies. This deficiency is simply covered up but can crop out in later generations. If two of these hybrids between the weak-minded and the strong-minded marry each other, one quarter of the children will be feeble-minded, one-quarter thoroughbred strong-minded and the remaining half, though apparently strong-minded, will carry the taint in them just as their parents did. They are half-breeds. On the other hand, if two feeble-minded people marry, all o f the children will be feeble minded. Certainly we can and ought to forbid and prevent such marriages.

But feeble-mindedness is a recessive quality, so that if the feeble-minded marry only with normal individuals the feeble mindedness does not blight the next generation, and if these apparently normal children of such marriages take pains to marry only really normal individuals, avoiding not only the feeble minded but even those like themselves who have feeble-mindedness on one side of their family tree, there will be no feeble mindedness cropping out in future generations. The same observations apply to deaf mutism and some other defects.

BUT NOT ALL HUMAN ABNORMALTIES ARE RECESSIVE.

Thus Huntington’s chorea is dominant, so that every child of the unfortunate victim of this malady will contract it when it reaches the right age. Marriages Of such people should, therefore, never be allowed, even with normal individuals.

But when we propose to restrict marriages or mating of those unfit to marry, people are apt to say, “That is a dream. It can’t be done.” But it can be done and it has been done. Every one has heard of the cretins in Switzerland. They are a kind of idiot who are short in stature and afflicted in all cases with goitre in the neck. Of course, many people have goitre who are not cretins, but there is no cretin who has not goitre. These cretins are peculiarly a feeble-minded people. They are common still in many towns of Switzerland; they are loathsome objects, helpless as children, with silly smiles, unable to take care of themselves in even the simplest toilet ways, and have to be looked after like domestic animals, or even more closely.

A GENTLEMAN VERY MUCH INTERESTED IN EUGENICS…

visited Aosta, in Italy, just outside of Switzerland once in l900 and again in l910. In l 900 he found many of these creatures among the beggars in the streets, in the asylum, in the home, in the orphan asylum—everywhere he ran across these awful apologies for human beings. But in l9l0 he found only one! What had happened? Simply that a few resolute intelligent reformers had changed the entire situation. An isolation institution, or rather two institutions, one for the men and the other for the women, were established. In these the best care of the inmates was taken as long as they lived, and they do not live long. But pains were taken to see that by no possibility could marriage or mating of those people take place. They forfeited any such rights in return for the care that they received from the State.

Thus is it possible to apply the laws of heredity as laid down by Mendel in a thoroughly practical way and to get results immediately in one short generation. It seems, and it is, a colossal task to change average human nature one iota. Yet in the light of modern eugenics we could make a new human race in a hundred years if only people in positions of power and influence would wake up to the paramount importance of what eugenics me ans. And this could be done quietly and simply without violence to existing ideas of what is right and proper. It could be done by segregation of the sexes for defectives, feeble-minded, idiots, epileptics, insane, etc. By this kind of isolation, we can save the blood stream of our race from a tremendous amount of needless contamination.

And it is being done. The growing tendency to put defectives in institutions, though originally with no such object, will have the effect of reducing the transmission of defects, especially when it is recognized that the sexes must be separated and that the inmates should be kept at the institution through the reproductive period of life.

STERILIZATION IS ALSO A MEANS…

which may be advantageously applied in extreme cases. Sensible marriage laws if backed by an enlightened public opinion can add much. Every State should have a eugenics board authorized to pass on doubtful cases. But eugenic laws should be enacted only after approval by those who possess technical knowledge on this subject, such as Doctor Davenport. Otherwise we are in danger of foolish, needless and even harmful legislation.

FEW PEOPLE…

have any idea, unless they have looked into the pedigrees of some of these people, what awful contamination can be saved the race by a wise application of eugenics. There is a family called “the Jukes,” all descended from a thriftless fisherman, born in 1720. About twelve hundred of these descendants have been traced in 75 years. Of these, 310 were professional paupers who spent an aggregate of years 2,300 in poorhouses, 50 were prostitutes, 7 murderers, 60 habitual thieves and l30 common criminals. Dugdale, who compiled these facts, estimated that the “Juke” family cost the Government over $ l,000 for each member of the family. Similarly the “Tribe of Ishmael,” numbering 1.692 individuals in six generations, has produced 12 known prostitutes and has bred hundreds of petty thieves, vagrants and murderers. Compare the descendants of that family with the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, who was born in the same period (1703) and who has had about the same number of descendants (1,394 traced up to l900). Out of those descendants, something like half have been public men or men of great distinction and good influence in the world; 295 were college graduates, about l00 were clergymen or missionaries, over 100 were lawyers, 80 held public office, 75 were officers in the army or navy, 60 were eminent writers, 30 were judges, I3 were college presidents. A similar example is afforded in the Darwin family, of which, by the way, Galton was a member. There can be no doubt that human heredity plays a large role in human character.

A striking example of the contrast between good and bad heredity is afforded by two sets o f descendants from the same man. An English soldier, a well endowed man, married twice. His first wife was feeble-minded, his second , a normal woman. Records of the descendants show a taint of feeble-mindedness running through the children of the first marriage and none whatever among the children of the second.

THE SUBJECT OF EUGENICS IS INTIMATELY RELATED TO HYGIENE.

Some people have thought that hygiene is opposed to eugenics, and in truth this may in many cases be true. Misapplied hygiene is likely to be injurious to the race. I was astonished at the ignorance of a university president with whom I conversed some years ago. He was very enthusiastic over hygiene and what it can do. He said, “I know of a girl who had many ailments and disabilities. She had a surgical operation to remedy one difficulty and special treatment to remedy others, so that finally she was so repaired and improved as to be made over into quite a respectable human being, and now she is married. Just think what a wonderful thing that is.” Well the truth was such a result is greatly to be deplored. The hygiene was misapplied. This girl was really defective, and the pity of it is that her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren are likely to have a certain percentage of defects. The lives of the insane of this country have been prolonged about eight years by hygiene. To a certain extent this prolongation ha s done harm because the insane have been allowed to breed. In Connecticut there was a half-witted woman in an asylum, and a farmer near by, who was also half-witted but was not in the asylum, asked to marry her. The keeper of the institution actually did not know any better than to say, “Why, of course, I will be glad to get rid of her support.” And so they married, and in the course of another generation, both of them came back to the institution with seven idiotic children! When the superintendent got rid of the woman’s support it was a “penny wise and pound foolish” economy.

But hygiene need not interfere with and may supplement eugenics. Eugenics is simply the hygiene of future generations.

There are two special points of contact between hygiene and eugenics which ought to be mentioned. One is in relation to alcohol. Experiments with hens and with guinea pigs have shown that merely inhaling fumes of alcohol spoils the germ plasm and a large percentage of the children of the animals that have been affected by alcohol have been deformed. The chickens and the guinea pigs that come from alcoholic ancestry will be, according to the Mendelian laws, deformed. Now we cannot experiment with human beings, but we can observe (and Forel, in Switzerland, and others have made observations which, if they do not prove, certainly make it reasonably certain to any fair minded man or woman) that the alcoholic taint can and does affect the germ plasm of which future generations are made. It is unreasonable to infer that any unhygienic habits, even had diet, may to some extent disturb the germ plasm.

THE OTHER POINT OF CONTACT…

between hygiene and eugenics is called social hygiene. One of the two great diseases associated with immorality is inherited and the other may also blight the child’s health, especially as to eye sight. It is an awful thing to think that any human being can take the responsibility or run the risk of cursing future generations. Half of the infantile congenital blindness of the world today comes about in this way. I knew of a young man who married and had one normal child. But the second child was born blind. His doctor explained it to him, that not all who thought themselves cured of this disease which he had contracted as a young man are really cured. As to that disease one can never be sure whether he is cured or not. In talking to young men on this subject, I find that the best appeal to them is the eugenic appeal. It does not always work to tell a young man to refrain from immorality be cause of the danger to himself. He may take that as a “dare.” Besides it does not put the subject on a sufficiently high plane. It must be explained to him that it is wrong and it must be explained to him why it is wrong. Now it is fundamentally wrong be cause he carries within his body the germ plasm of which he is the custodian for future generations. It does not belong to him. It is not for him to risk or to injure. It is something that he carries in trust; it is something he must guard as the most precious possession possible. He must be on the side of morality because that is being on the side of the human race. It is easy to get a young man interested in the white slave traffic and to get him interested to fight the white slave traffic. As soon as he is interested enough he begins to see that he cannot be on both sides at once. If he wants to fight the underworld he must not become a traitor to the side for which he is fighting, and patronizing the underworld is disloyalty of the rankest kind,—the disloyalty to his own family, his own home, as well as to the institution of the family and the home. I say to young men, “When you are married men you expect to be faithful and true. You would not respect your father if he were not faithful to your mother. Carry this a step farther $ when you a reengaged, and even be fore you are engaged, you should hold it as a matter of honor and of true fidelity to be just as faithful as after you are married. Another step: before you are engaged, you owe it to the girl you are going to get engaged to, to do for her what you would expect her to do for you, namely, to bring to her a pure body. You may not know who she is. but she is now living somewhere and reserving herself for you.” It is easy to get young men to see that the double standard is false and that only the true and old fashioned ten commandment morality is right.

THIS LEADS ME TO SAY THAT EUGENICS IS A WONDERFUL TOUCHSTONE.

I believe eugenics will be in the future the essential foundation of ethics. Today, ethics is purely empirical. We teach at the mother’s knee certain things to be right and certain things to be wrong, and they generally are right and wrong respectively. And yet we cannot explain why they are right and wrong. When the children ask us “Why?” we usually put them off by saving “Because it is right,” or we put young men off by metaphysics and say, “Because of the categorical imperative,” as Kant expressed it. But this does not satisfy, and the failure to satisfy is one reason for immorality in the world. There is not yet an accepted scientific foundation for right and wrong. I verily believe that eugenics is going to supply such a foundation. Some people say they don’t think eugenics is right; they don’t think it is right to talk about these things; they don’t think that it is right to try to interfere with marriage. There are many things these people don’t think is right because they have a false and conventional standard. But the time will come when, instead of asking whether eugenics is right or wrong according to some false conventional standard, we shall ask ourselves whether these conventional standards are right or wrong according to the standard of eugenics, the highest standard there is.

AND SO IT WILL SOME DAY COME ABOUT…

that we shall realize the dream of the founder of this science, Sir Francis Galton, and will link up eugenics with religion. A generation ago much was said of the conflict between science and religion; and it is a curious fact that a t first religion frowned on new scientific discoveries. It frowned on the discovery of the rotundity of the earth, o f the motion of the earth, of the geological periods of evolution according to Darwin, and of a great many other things. Some o f the greatest saints in science, like Galileo and Bruno, were imprisoned and tortured be cause they would not prostitute their love of truth for the conventional religion of the day. Now I was fearful at first that we should have another unpleasant spectacle of a conflict between conventional religion and this new science of eugenics, and if you will watch the news papers as I have been watching them during the last year, you will see occasional evidences of that today. One of the evidences of it came to me some years a go when David Starr Jordan, President of Leland Stanford University, and I both spoke before the New York Peace Society. We talked about the relation of eugenics to war. President Jordan showed that war was non-eugenic and therefore wrong. War is wrong today because it takes the very best young men who ought to be the fathers of the next generation and makes them targets for the bullets of our neighbors. War is thus a cause of degeneration. The Napoleonic Wars were largely responsible, President Jordan thought, for the reduction in stature of the French. The tall men were sent to war.

AFTER WE HAD FINISHED…

our presentation of the subject a clergyman got up and said, “I disagree with the gentlemen who have spoken; men and women are not bred like sheep.” This clergyman condemned at once the ideas we stood for because he had a narrow theological dogma that was impeding in his brain the reception of a new idea. But I am glad to note that such men are exceptional today. There is no conflict in evidence, except in very rare cases, between science and eugenics. On the contrary, for once in the history of the world, religion is accepting with open arms this eugenics as a new ally for morality. Dean Sumner was one of the first to link up religion with eugenics when he proclaimed in Chicago that in his church there would thereafter be no marriages solemnized unless the contracting parties should come prepared with statements from physicians showing that they were fit to be parents of the human race. Since he did that, hundreds of clergymen and scores of clerical bodies and scientific bodies have passed resolutions favoring such a measure.

SOME PEOPLE ALTOGETHER MISS THE POINT OF THIS RELIGIOUS SANCTION

of eugenic marriages. It is not that it will prevent any persons from getting married who wish to outrage eugenic laws. They can easily find plenty of places where they can get married without medical certificates. But the fact that religion approves of eugenic marriages and disapproves of non-eugenic marriages will reform public opinion and ultimately make unsuitable marriages as incident as incest is today. This public opinion when it is full grown will not be simply a dull and lazy approval of eugenics, but a religious fervor. We shall make of eugenics the biggest pillar of the church, and eugenics will become embedded in the religion of the future. It shall happen hereafter that instead of conflicts between science and religion, these two great human interests will be marching together, hand in hand.

A special thank you to of American Archvillain for contributing to Fifth Column Edition of There IS a Jewish World Plot, JEWS SAY SO!

William Dudley Pelley (1890-1965) had achieved wealth and wide public recognition as a best-selling American novelist, journalist, short story and screenwriter well ahead of the economic crash of 1929. His continued success seemed sure when, in 1928, a spiritual awakening dramatically altered his worldview and career trajectory.

By 1933, adjacent to the rise of Hitler in Europe, Pelley launched the first overtly fascistic American nativist order, The Silver Legion or Silver Shirts. The Legion adopted occult symbolism and mystical rites allegedly channeled by Pelley from his spirit guides.

Pelley had witnessed the carnage of the Russian Revolution as a YMCA scout in Siberia. He had been reliably advised while in-country that the whole bloody affair was Jewish to the core. In the years that followed he found this same revolutionary clique making moves on international finance, gaining control of mass media and influence in the government of his own Christian America. Through friends in passport control, the federal immigration department and, eventually, the halls of Congress, Pelley began to compile evidence.

In light of these revelations, the coming of the Great Depression and the rise to power of Franklin Roosevelt and his socialist circle, the curtain was pulled back. Pelley saw on the world’s horizon a great battle between good and evil, a struggle of Biblical proportions with the very survival of White Western Civilization at stake.

Pelley postured his Legionnaires as Knights in Silver Armor aligned against the dark forces who would drain the lifeblood, along with the wealth, of his beloved nation. He used his publishing experience to expose the culprits in the magazine Liberation and through tracts such as the one you hold in your hand, now a century hence.

Among the thousands of indictments of World Jewry published by Pelley throughout the 1930s, two pages from the Feb. 3, 1934 issue of Liberation are the most notorious, titled “Did Benjamin Franklin Say this about the Hebrews?” Reprinted hundreds of times and translated into a dozen languages, this piece is better known as the Benjamin Franklin Prophecy, being an alleged warning issued to our Founding Fathers against the inclusion of Jews in American affairs.

The message is convincing and effective as propaganda in the same way as The Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion. Whether authentic or invented, the claims put forward are a bit too on the nose to avoid.

Pelley was called before the first House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1940 by Chairman Martin Dies. Pelley expressed to the assembly that, so long as their focus remain rooting out Communism, the work of his Silver Legion was done. True to his word, Pelley made the public announcement and dissolved the group’s corporation.

He was a perpetual thorn in the side of Roosevelt and his Jewish comrades. When they finally got the war they wanted, the most outspoken of their critics were charged with sedition. Pelley was at the top of the list. He caught a federal sentence and spent seven and a half years in prison, released in 1950 to resume publishing his spiritual texts.

The political phase of his career hardly amounted to a racket, as nearly always accused by his detractors. What dues, donations and subscriptions he brought in were inevitably turned back into a flood of publications, amounting to millions of pages distributed each year. If it was easy money he sought, he should have stayed in Hollywood where he made plenty. He reinvented himself as a Crusader after a Calling which even his fiercest opponents saw as genuine. Eccentric perhaps, but nonetheless genuine. Weigh his words on their own merit.

New from Fifth Column Library

There IS a Jewish World Plot, JEWS SAY SO!

Featuring a Foreword from Ardito and an Introduction by Vance Pollock.

Award-winning novelist and Hollywood screenwriter, William Dudley Pelley, had an astonishing 1928 spiritual awakening which further created one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures of the 20th-century. Pelley famous, or rather infamous, for his prose and interest in unconventional topics, was the first figure in America to create a quasi Fascist/National Socialist organization with overt Christian ideology. His Silver Legion of America was the first of its kind, modeling itself on the NSDAP while establishing a unique concept he deemed the “Christian Commonwealth.”

At its height, the Silver Legion had more than 20,000 members and had chapters located in more than 10 states. Pelley and his organization became so influential that the federal government created the Dies Committee to investigate them for “un-American” activities while ignoring clear evidence of foreign influences from other organizations opposed to the Silver Legion. This book goes explains the ordeal that Pelley had to go through under the Dies Committee while adding key evidence that it was all an organized attack on real American Patriots.

• Author: Pelley Publishers (William Dudley Pelley)

• Book Year: 2026

• Genre: Political

• Publisher: Fifth Column Library

• Page Count: 118

Hardcover: $21
Paperback: $15

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Saturday Blockbuster

Blood Covenant by Truth Nuke Media

The New Way in conjunction with Fifth Column Library is screening films relevant to our struggle each Saturday night at 8 pm EST.

This week we’re featuring Blood Covenant by Truth Nuke Media. Blood Covenant is a documentary that weaves together both the theology and history of the Christian Identity movement in the United States.

Introduction: 00:00:10
Chapter 1: The Adamic Race 00:04:12
Chapter 2: The Race of Cain 00:15:06
Chapter 3: Genesis of the Movement 00:35:13
Chapter 4: The Lost Tribes 00:45:59
Chapter 5: Racial Holy War 01:20:09
Chapter 6: The New Covenant 01:46:12

Total runtime: 2 hours.