Forgotten Stories of the Eugenic Age #4, Part 2: The Black Stork Rises: Dr. Haiselden’s Celebrity and Public Controversy
[Forgotten Stories of the Eugenic Age is a blog series exploring the lesser-known ways that eugenics affected and engaged American lives during the first half of the twentieth century.]
[This is a continuation of Part 1.]
One of Dr. Harry Haiselden's refrains when defending his behavior in the Baby Bollinger case was that doctors everywhere routinely decided to let hopeless defectives die; he only wanted to illuminate the practice for the public. Yet, the doctor seemed to desire the spotlight not only for eugenic medicine but also for himself.
After the Baby Bollinger case entered the news, Haiselden was invited to speak at social clubs, improvement societies, and professional organizations. On November 29, 1915, not two weeks after the baby's death, he gave a speech about the case and "defective" children generally in between the second and third acts of a controversial race improvement play called “The Unborn.” In early December, he addressed the Chicago Physicians, Dentists, and Pharmacists Association, where he reaffirmed his actions in the Bollinger case and expressed his commitment to sterilization of the unfit, including all those who had been confined to an institution for the "feebleminded" for more than one year.
In an acknowledgement of Dr. Haiselden’s rising celebrity and a demonstration of the cultural reach of the Baby Bollinger case, the January 10, 1916, edition of the Los Angeles Times “Pen Points” column, consisting of a series of pithy observations by the staff, included the following: “Dr. Haiselden has been summoned to New York to study a ‘defective’ case and to be the guest of honor at the opening of a play. It looks as if in allowing the Bollinger baby case to become public the doctor was foolish like a fox”—meaning, not very foolish at all.
Haiselden's growing visibility intensified public discourse over the Baby Bollinger case. Biologists, doctors, eugenists, clergymen, lawyers, and lay persons wrote letters to the editor in droves, and newspapers began to solicit and publish compilations of these letters in long features under titles like “Was the Doctor Right?” and “Does Humanity Demand the Saving of Defective Babies?”
Letters in Support
Those who wrote in support of the doctor raised several common arguments. One major contention was that in deciding not to operate, Haiselden was merely acting as an objective agent of science. It was authoritative, factual science that decreed the baby should not live, and one cannot question the dictates of science. Others maintained that the autonomy of a doctor in caring for a patient is inviolable. No other person has the right to interfere in a doctor’s work.
Many more commentators took a direct eugenic approach: Haiselden did the right thing in limiting the number of parasitic “degenerates” who would pollute the national stock and drain public resources. All such babies should be put to death upon birth. After all (in a disturbingly distorted echo of Dr. John Dill Robertson's testimony before the coroner's jury), weak babies in ancient Sparta were unsentimentally exposed to the elements to die.
Some earnestly argued that if we can approve of sterilization of feebleminded individuals, then surely we can approve of the elimination of unfit babies. The well-known eugenist Irving Fisher wrote that the idea is only shocking because it is new. In time, he said, we will grow accustomed to such extreme preventive action. In a letter to the editor, Charles Davenport, the famous head of the Eugenics Record Office, described death as “one of Nature’s greatest racial blessings.”* A few supporters recalled neighbors or acquaintances with disabilities that they believed were prime candidates to receive this “blessing.”
With similar conclusions but a softer approach, some letter writers argued it would be a mercy to let babies with disabilities die rather than to allow them to experience a lifetime of “pain, shame, humiliation, and distress.” If we can be kind enough to put down injured or abnormal animals, they said, then certainly we can muster the same kindness for defective human babies.
Still others doubted that Baby Bollinger could have claimed the labels of "human" or "alive." As biologist Raymond Pearl wrote, "[T]his infant could never develop into anything even approaching a normal human being.” The editor of the London Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, said, "I do not consider that the child ever really lived.”
A number of individuals tried to pinpoint the general conditions under which Haiselden’s measures would be acceptable. They distinguished between physically and mentally “defective” children. The former might still contribute something to society and should be permitted to live, but the latter are a useless drain, they said. An additional demarcation was that Dr. Haiselden hadn’t actually killed the baby; he had merely permitted nature to take its inevitable course. Since not operating was not a deliberate action but the absence of an action, he could not be blamed for "nature fulfill[ing] its own destiny." Death or life would be nature's decision. (They did not acknowledge that there is never more than one possible outcome for a baby left without basic care over the course of several days.)
Another common approach for supporters was to dodge the issue of the rightness of Haiselden’s actions. They expressed a lack of comfort with the idea that a single man, even if a doctor, could make the decision to withhold life from another individual, even though they agreed with the results. Some expressed disapproval of Dr. Haiselden for “making such a public ado about the matter.” Several opined that the treatment of the baby and babies like him was hardly worth discussing. Instead, the public should turn its attention to things that matter, like war or abortion.
An additional category of responses in affirmation were purportedly—though judging by their contents, rather doubtfully—sent from children with disabilities who with wide-eyed innocence lamented their unfortunate lives. Haiselden reported that he had received a letter from a young girl that read:
Just a line from a little crippled girl, thanking you for not letting that baby live. . . We can’t play like other children. We are in every one’s road but mother’s and her poor heart aches with ours. We are just a curiosity for people to gaze at. Tell Mrs. Bollinger she is a grand, good mother, and her baby is an angel in a beautiful place—heaven. Why do people want to keep me and that little baby out of heaven? I remain your little invalid, ready to go to heaven at any time.
The most sympathetic writers were mothers and fathers who loved their children with severe disabilities, but who struggled to take care of them and didn’t know where to turn for assistance. They felt that it might have been better for their children to have died at birth than to condemn them to abuse in asylums, or to spend their own lives in fear of what would happen to their children when they died. (Interestingly, Dr. Haiselden himself frequently spoke out against the terrible conditions in asylums and institutions for the care of persons with disabilities.)
But the most striking letters by far were written by other doctors who had the power to practice Haiselden's ideals. Dr. William Rausch, Jr. of Albany, New York wrote that in the cases of babies with severe inherited disability, he believed it was “humane to cut off their future suffering by one means or another, preferably ‘forgetting’ to tie the cord” so they would hemorrhage. Dr. David Monash of Northwestern University Medical School admitted to having done just that in a few cases. Dr. Charles Sumner Bacon of the University of Illinois took issue with Rausch’s recommendation, countering that he found that particular method of infanticide to be “unreliable.” He wrote, “The usual methods of killing a new-born are by smothering, strangulating, or dividing.”
Letters in Opposition
Letters in opposition to Haiselden’s actions also followed common themes, though newspapers published them less frequently. Although we do not know the exact proportion of viewpoints expressed in the letters submitted to the media, the Independent estimated that they had received four times as many letters supporting Haiselden than condemning him.
Many opponents argued that only God could give or take away life, so Haiselden was assuming a power to which he had no right. (Haiselden’s supporters tended to respond that God wouldn't mind too much.) Others referenced a different higher power—the courts—as the only earthly decider over life and death. They cited the fifth amendment of the Constitution: No one can be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. Certainly, a single doctor neither elected nor appointed had the authority to order life or death. Said noted social worker Jane Addams, “Under no circumstances has any human being the right to pass judgment of death for unfitness on any other human being. Only one thing will justify such presumption: the course of the law in punishing a murderer.”
Others focused on the duty of a doctor to treat the sick and prolong life, not end it. By not doing everything in his power to save the baby, Haiselden was violating the dictates of his profession. One letter said that doctors who are “eugenist-enthusiasts” should be forced to declare their beliefs and let patients decide whether to patron their services. Few would want to leave their health in the hands of a doctor who might believe they would be better off dead.
Some heralded great “defectives” of the past who had contributed much to society, naming Helen Keller, John Milton, Lord Byron, Robert Louis Stevenson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Napoleon, Emperor Wilhelm, and ancient Greek orator Demosthenes as examples. These individuals overcame their challenges and developed “greater capacities in other respects.” Wrote P. Smith, “Who knows but what this babe—deformed and malformed as it is said to have been—might have possessed some gift that would have added a little mite to the world’s spiritual or intellectual heritage?” (For her part, Helen Keller submitted a letter to the New Republic in support of Haiselden, writing, “The toleration of such anomalies [as Baby Bollinger] tends to lessen the sacredness in which normal life is held.”)
A few letter-writers stated that they taught, treated, or worked with people with disabilities and found them equally deserving of life, rights, and benefits as individuals who did not have disabilities. Others said that regardless of the severity of an initial diagnosis, with treatment, patients might do better than was initially anticipated. In addition, new treatments and therapies were constantly being discovered that might help once-hopeless cases.
Many were concerned that the doctor’s actions would set a bad precedent for future cases. Though the Bollinger case may have appeared straightforward to some, where would we draw the line between fit and unfit, normal and subnormal? The possibility for abuse was enormous.
Doctors critical of Haiselden wrote that they had been trained to treat patients, relieve suffering, and extend life. They were not equipped to judge the worthiness of an infant’s continued existence, and had no desire to become executioners. Wrote Dr. James J. Walsh:
The physician has assumed the exercise of a power that is not his. Doctors have the care of life, not death. Physicians are educated to care for the health of their patients, but so far at least as I know we have no courses in our medical colleges as yet which teach how to judge when a patient’s life may be of no service to the community so as to let him or her die properly. Some of us physicians may thank God that we are not yet the licensed executioners of the unfit for the community, and some of us know how fallacious our judgments are even with regard to the few things we know.
The Black Stork
While public discussion eventually waned, Haiselden remained determined to share his beliefs with a broader audience. He co-wrote and starred as himself in a 1917 propaganda movie derived from the Bollinger case called The Black Stork. The Sheriott Pictures Corporation, which produced the film, frantically objected to the “propaganda” label, preferring the interpretation that the film was a "living document" intended to teach "moral cleanliness." Despite its stated aims, the moral authorities challenged the film because its subject matter was seen as risqué and threatened to revoke the license of any theater that showed it.
In the film, a mother gives birth to a baby that the doctor (played by Haiselden) labels as physically, mentally, and morally defective. The doctor suggests to the mother that she allow her baby to die, but the mother is unsure. She falls asleep and dreams about what would happen if the baby lived. The baby grows up to be a violent criminal who returns to the hospital and murders the doctor for allowing him to live a miserable life. The mother awakens and tells the doctor that she agrees to allow the child to pass away. The doctor looks on as the child’s soul leaves its body and enters the arms of an awaiting Jesus Christ.
The film was not well received. Variety reported, “Not in many moons has a feature film received such a panning in the Chicago dailies as was given ‘The Black Stork.’”
Chicago Daily Tribune movie critic Mae Tinée wrote of the “nauseating display”:
The production has not even the saving grace of being a good picture. It is amateurishly acted. . . and the photography is bad. It has no elements to attract either the thinking or the sensation seekers and is as pleasant to look at as a running store. Itself a hopeless defective, it should have been mercifully throttled at birth.
The Billboard said of the film in its review:
The Black Stork is a sickening excuse to drag before the camera all of the deteriorated humanity which the defective hospitals could pour into five reels. It is a gagging nauseating exposition of the results of uncurbed licentiousness, in a story told with a smear of science as a prop. It is not a sex-lure film; it is a mere cataloguing of the pitiable mess of human dregs which is left, crawling, crippled and criminal, after the fire has burned out.
While the film was widely mocked, Haiselden's ideas continued to have serious consequences. Only a couple of months after the film opened in theaters, the doctor contacted the media once more to announce that he planned to let another three “defective” babies die.
[To be concluded with Part 3.]
*It is worth noting that “race” in this context does not refer to the racial categories as we consider them today, but to the “human race” or even the “American race.”
A video clip of The Black Stork:
Sources:
1. “The Black Stork.” Billboard, 29.7: 61. Feb. 17, 1917.
2. “Black Stork Feature.” Billboard, 29.16: 56, Apr. 21, 1917.
3. “Black Stork Panned.” Variety, 46.6: 28, Apr. 6, 1917.
4. “Crippled Girl Writes, Upholding Dr. Haiselden in Bollinger Case.” Washington Post, Nov. 23, 1915.
5. “Defeats Cardinal Farley: Injunction Permits Production of an Objectionable Play.” New York Times, Nov. 30, 1915.
6. “Defective Babe Dies as Decreed.” New York Times, Nov. 18, 1915.
7. “Does Humanity Demand the Saving of Defective Babies?” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 17, 1915.
8. “Dr. Haiselden Praised by Bent and Crippled.” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 22, 1915.
9. Keller, Helen. “Physicians’ Juries for Defective Babies,” New Republic, Dec. 18, 1915. Accessed via the Disability History Museum. http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=3209.
10. “Judge Scully Assails Dr. Harry J. Haiselden.” Chicago Daily Tribune, Jul. 28, 1916.
11. “Many Defectives Included Among World’s Greatest Men and Women.” Washington Post, Nov. 18, 1915.
12. “Most Doctors Let a Defective Live.” New York Times, Nov. 21, 1915.
13. “Moving Pictures: Comm. Bell Bans Three.” Variety, 48.6: 16, Apr. 20, 1917.
14. “Pen Points.” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 10, 1916.
15. “Right and Wrong in the Case of the Baby Who Was Allowed to Die.” Current Opinion, Vol. L, No. 1, Jan. 1916.
16. “Surgeon Lets Little Child Die When Knife Could Have Saved It.” Washington Post, Nov. 18, 1915.
17. Tinée, Mae. “It Is Cheap, Sickening, Unnecessary: ‘The Black Stork.’” Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr. 2, 1917.
18. “Was the Doctor Right?: Some Independent Opinions.” Independent . . . Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, 85.350: 23, Jan. 3, 1916.
Previously on Biopolitical Times: