In this letter, the American inventor of the telephone argues that the new Eugenics Record Office should devote efforts to studying the inheritance of desirable traits (eugenics) rather than focusing exlcuisvely on undesirable traits (cacogenics).
431.
American Breeders Association - Eugenics Section
David Starr Jordan, Chairman
C.B. Davenport, Secretary
Eugenics Record Office
H.H. Laughlin, Superintendent
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N.Y.
Copy.
1912, December 27.
Dr. Charles Davenport,
Eugenics Record Office,
Cold Spring Harbor, L.I.
Dear Dr. Davenport,
You have started a great work, of vast importance to the people of the United States and to the world, by the establishment of the Eugenics Record Office; and I can assure you of my hearty co-operation as one of the Board of Scientific Directors.
Many thanks for your notes of the first meeting at the Carnegie Institution, December 12, which have just been received.
I understand that your object in submitting a revised statement of the aims of the Eugenics Record Office is to invite suggestions before placing the statement in permanent form.
In my opinion it is much improved over the original draft presented at the Meeting, and you will doubtless be able to improve it still further after hearing from the different members of the board.
My own suggestions are embodied in the following tentative draft, which may or may not be of assistance to you - I send them for what they are worth;-
1. To promote researches in Eugenics that shall be of utility to the human race. Including;-
The study of America's most effective blood lines, and the methods of securing the proportional preponderance and increase of the best strains.
The study of the origin and best methods of improving the strains
