Baby Bonus

There is a popular tradition to the effect that the sons of clergymen usually turn out to be scamps. Yet a greater proportion of clergymen's sons are to be found in Who's Who in America than sons of any other professional or laboring class, skilled or unskilled.* Spurred by this fact, a unique form of philanthropy was suggested last week at a Manhattan luncheon of the American Eugenics Society by hearty, bearded President Dr. Clarence Gordon Campbell of the Eugenics Research Association. Briefly, what he proposed was that every clergyman be given a bonus for each baby he begets. Said he: "Any proposal to encourage breeding and to increase the progeny of the clergy by supplementing their stipend for the proper rearing of such progeny is not only a human obligation but a eugenic measure which contains the greatest promise of sustaining and increasing our most valuable racial stock."

Dr. Campbell's audience, in which were mingled the scientific and the ecclesiastic, including Lecturer-Biologist Albert Edward Wiggam and able, liberal Editor Guy Emery Shipler of The Churchman (presiding officer of the day), heard with interest this unusual scheme by which science and ecclesiasticism were to be conjoined for the improvement of the race. Treasurer Frederick Osborn of the Association promised that investigations would be made to determine the feasibility of the plan and, among other things, whether scientists and professors, as well as clergymen, deserve a bonus.

Dr. Clarence Gordon Campbell, 61. native Hoosier, is now serving his second year as President of the Association. Some 25 years ago he gave up the practice of medicine for sociological study with emphasis on biology, eugenics. He has roamed the world with a biological eye, has written many papers and books including Common Wealth (1925) in which he approached economics from a sociobiological viewpoint. Although he has but one child he delights in the fact that that child has four children and "would probably be gladder if she had six." He tramps, fences when he has time, prefers an evening of conversation to all but the most serious drama.

The Eugenics Research Association was founded in 1913. Working in conjunction with the eugenics record office of the Carnegie Institution in common headquarters at Cold Spring Harbor, L. I., its present program is: 1) to find "more accurate human measurements of all kinds"; 2) to study the intellect inheritance of the progeny of professors and clergymen.

* Statistics appearing in The Builders of America by Ellsworth Huntington, Yale social scientist, and Leon F. Whitney, eugenist, show that for every 20 clergymen one clergyman's son is listed in Who's Who, whereas the proportion for other professions is 46 to 1; for skilled labor 1,600 to 1; for unskilled labor 48,000 to 1 (figures based on 1922--23 edition of Who's Who). Famed sons of clergymen: Henry Van Dyke, William Lyon Phelps, Robert Maynard Hutchins, Otis Skinner, John Grier Hibbeii, Irving Fisher, Charles Evans Hughes.

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