Eugenic Child

That nation, whose intelligent and healthy inhabitants intermarry to produce abundant children, will be a better nation. Thus, the essence of eugenics.

Mrs. Grace Mailhouse Burnham, attractive at 37, considered herself capable of being a better-than-average mother. Her husband, a retired distiller associated with the soap firm of B. T. Babbitt in Manhattan, died four years ago leaving her childless. Quietly she selected "a young man of good family and good character with the proper eugenic background'' to be the father of her child. "There was nothing which approached promiscuity" in their relationship, she said. The young man, after performing his function as eugenic husband, quietly stepped out of her life. A fortnight ago at the Lying-in Hospital in Manhattan she gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Vera (truth). Last week an enterprising reporter of the New York World, unabashed by Mrs. Burnham's admonition ("This is not the sort of thing you would want to put in a newspaper"), gave her story to the world.

Mrs. Burnham scouted the idea of romance with the young man, said she does not intend to marry him or anyone else. She has wealth, will rear Vera in the name of eugenics. Mrs. Burnham's relatives and father, Dr. Max Mailhouse of New Haven, Conn., were reported to be "harmonious with the situation." Professor Ellsworth Huntington of Yale, geographer, whose hobby is eugenics, said: "From a purely scientific standpoint, it was the correct thing for her [Mrs. Burnham] to do, although there is some doubt that it was best from a social standpoint." The public, shocked at the thought of the unknown-unmarried-young-man-father, debated whether Vera would some day be made unhappy by whispering schoolfellows and whether she would become actress, author, businesswomen, scientist or recluse.