460Appendix.Wagenen. PRELIMINARY REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE
EUGENIC SECTION OF THE AMERICAN BREEDERS’ ASSOCIA
TION TO STUDY AND TO REPORT ON THE BEST PRACTICAL
MEANS FOR CUTTING OFF THE DEFECTIVE GERM-PLASM
IN THE HUMAN POPULATION.
By Bleecker Van Wagenen, Chairman of Committee.
1.—History of the American Breeders Association, Eugenics Section, and
Committee on Defective Germ-plasm.
The American Breeders Association was organized in 1903 for the
purpose of bringing together practical breeders, experimenters, investigators,
and teachers interested in the subject of breeding, for the advancement of
the science of genetics. Its headquarters are in Washington, D. C., and
its President is the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of the Department of Agri
culture, and member of the President’s Cabinet. The association has three
sections : plants, animals, and Eugenics. The Eugenics Section has now
ten research committees, each comprised of eminent specialists, as follows :—
Committee on Heredity of Feeble-mindedness.
Committee on Heredity of Insanity.
Committee on Heredity of Epilepsy.
Committee on Heredity of Criminality.
Committee on Heredity of Deafmutism.
Committee on Heredity of Eye Defects.
Committee on Immigration.
Committee on Sterilization and other means of Eliminating Defective
Germ-plasm.
Committee on Genealogy.
Committee on Inheritance of Mental Traits.
The Eugenics Record Office, located at Cold Spring Harbor, New York,
under the direction of Dr. C. B. Davenport, of the Carnegie Station for
Experimental Evolution, is closely affiliated with the Eugenics Section.
The purposes of this office, of which Prof. H. H. Laughlin is Superin
tendent, are :
1. To serve as a clearing house for data on human heredity.
2. To build up an index of the American population, recording families,
traits, and their geographical distribution, with special reference to
super-normal and sub-normal traits.
3. To train field workers expert in gathering data of Eugenic import.
4. To maintain a field force actively engaged in collecting such data.
