Interviewee: James Watson. James Watson discusses how eugenicists reacted to the problem of mental illness and sought to lessen the threat of the "unfit" to the United States. Here he talks about eugenicists were concerned about the increasing cost of caring for the feebleminded, because they were thought to reproduce more quickly than normal individuals. (DNAi Location: Chronicle > Threat of the Unfit > Threats > Burden of the feebleminded)

I think it was a mixture of compassion and despair, compassion that they couldn't take care of themselves, and somewhat despair that public funds were in some way going to have to support them. So it was a burden on society and I think the financial burden was in their minds, who paid for these institutions, and what particularly worried them was they thought they, the feebleminded bred even faster than other people, they were promiscuous and so one of their pamphlets, The Burden of the Feebleminded and Emma W. just had a series of illegitimate children and their idea was to put them in institutions where they couldn't have children.

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