Defending Master Race
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
d J CONSERVATION, CONSERVATION, and he collaborated with Southern white racists to onathan pass laws banning interracial marriage. advance praise for the efending Although most of the relevant archival ma- terials on Madison Grant have mysteriously dis- appeared over the decades since Grant’s death in 1937, Jonathan Peter Spiro has devoted many years d efending the d efending to reconstructing the hitherto concealed events of Grant’s life. His astonishing feat of detective work reveals how a founder of the Bronx Zoo wound up E UGENI writing The Passing of the Great Race (1916), the aster ace p m r eter book that the Nazis later used to justify the exter- the A historical rediscovery of a founder of the minationist policies of the Third Reich. conservation movement who was also one of the C most infamous racists in American history S, AND THE LEGA THE AND S, “Jonathan Spiro has accomplished a near-miraculous feat of scholarship, reconstructing from Scholars have labeled Madison Grant everything apparently purged primary sources the life and impact of a titan of American conservation s from “the nation’s most influential racist” to “the piro m aster greatest conservationist that ever lived.” His life whose enduring best-seller, The Passing of the Great Race, Adolph Hitler called his ‘Bible.’ illuminates early twentieth-century America as it Madison Grant’s prolific career bridged the development of wildlife and ecosystem manage- was heading toward the American Century, and his ment with that of scientific racism and eugenics early in the twentieth century. The horrific legacy is still very much with us today, from the consequences of the latter unfortunately annulled the memory of what good Grant did. Spiro speeches of immigrant-bashing politicians to the r ace elucidates not only that link, but also the largely ignored continuities between the anti-demo- international efforts to arrest climate change. This m C insightful biography shows how Grant worked side- cratic Anglo-American aristocracy and the German extermination program, the toll of which MADISON OF Y by-side with figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, became apparent only after Grant’s own passing.” aster aster Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to found the Bronx Zoo, preserve the California red- —Gray Brechin, woods, and save the American bison from extinc- author of Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin (1999) tion. In commemoration of his conservation efforts, J onathan p eter s piro the world’s tallest tree, located in northern Califor- “Jonathan Spiro’s portrait of Madison Grant is far more than a biography. Indeed, it is a fresh nia, was dedicated to Grant in 1931. is a professor of history at Castleton College in Ver- G But Madison Grant was also the leader of the portrait of two parallel and intertwined movements: racial eugenics and natural conservation. RANT mont. During the four years it took him to uncover eugenics movement in the United States. He popu- the secret life of Madison Grant, Professor Spiro As importantly, it is also an astonishing act of recovery, a deeply researched illumination of one larized the infamous notions that the blond-haired, of the twentieth century’s most enduringly significant and deeply troubling intellectuals.” blue-eyed Nordics were the “master race” and that conducted extensive research in hundreds of ar- r chives all over the United States and painstakingly the state should eliminate members of inferior races combed through the writings and correspondence —Matthew Pratt Guterl, ace who were of no value to the community. Through- of thousands of Grant’s contemporaries. Indiana University, and author of The Color of Race in America, 1900–1940 (2001) out the 1920s and 1930s, Grant’s ideas appeared in CONSERVATION, EUGENICS, AND the sermons of ministers, the pages of America’s leading magazines, and the speeches of presidents. THE LEGACY OF MADISON GRANT Grant’s behind-the-scenes machinations (and ma- nipulation of scientific data) convinced Congress JACKET DESIGN: THE DESIGNWORKS GROUP, CHARLES BROCK to enact the immigration restriction legislation of AUTHOR PHOTO: ENNIS DULING JACKET ILLUSTRATIONS (TOP TO B OT TO M ) : the 1920s that eliminated the immigration of non- BUFFALO IMAGE COURTESY OF THE L I B R A RY O F C O N G R E S S , University of Vermont Press J onathan p eter s piro Nordic races. Grant also influenced many states to LC - US Z62-39967; M A D I S O N G RANT PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY Burlington, Vermont 978-1-58465-715-6 pass coercive sterilization statutes under which tens O F T H E W I L D L I F E C ONSERVATION S O C I E T Y; G E R M A N PHRENOLOGY PHOTOGRAPH, 1932, COURTESY OF ULLSTEIN BILD/ Published by University Press of New England of thousands of Americans deemed to be unworthy THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK. Hanover and London were sterilized from the 1930s through the 1970s, www.upne.com Vermont Defending the Master Race university of vermont press Burlington, Vermont Published by University Press of New England Hanover and London Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of madison grant $EFENDINGß THEß-ASTERß2ACE jonathan peter spiro university of vermont press Published by University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766 www.upne.com © 2009 by Jonathan Peter Spiro Printed in the United States of America 54321 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Members of educational institutions and organizations wishing to photocopy any of the work for classroom use, or authors and publishers who would like to obtain permission for any of the material in the work, should contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spiro, Jonathan Peter. Defending the master race: conservation, eugenics, and the legacy of Madison Grant / Jonathan Peter Spiro. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-1-58465-715-6 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Grant, Madison, 1865–1937. 2. Grant, Madison, 1865–1937— Influence. 3. Conservationists—United States—Biography. 4. Hunters—United States—Biography. 5. Big game hunting— History. 6. Wildlife management—United States—History. 7. Zoologists—New York (State)—New York—Biography. 8. Eugenics —United States—History. 9. Racism—United States—History. 10. United States—Race relations. I. Title. ct275.g677s65 2008 305.8'00973—dc22 [b] 2008038610 Dedicated with immeasurable love and gratitude to audrey and melford spiro — the one instance where I hope that Madison Grant was right when he claimed that the sole determinants of what we become are the genes of our parents Contents Madison Grant: The Consensus ix Introduction xi part i. the evolution of scientific racism Chapter 1. Big-Game Hunter 3 Chapter 2. The Bronx Zoo 31 Chapter 3. From Conservation to Preservation 52 Chapter 4. Wildlife Management 73 Chapter 5. From Mammals to Man 88 Chapter 6. The Eugenics Creed 117 part ii. conserving the nordics Chapter 7. The Passing of the Great Race 143 Chapter 8. Grant’s Disciples 167 Chapter 9. Creating the Refuge 196 Chapter 10. Culling the Herd 234 Chapter 11. Saving the Redwoods 266 part iii. extinction Chapter 12. Nordic and Anti-Nordic 297 Chapter 13. The Empire Crumbles 328 Chapter 14. The Ever-Widening Circle: The Third Reich 355 Epilogue. The Passing of the Great Patrician 384 Appendix A: Organizations Served by Madison Grant in an Executive Capacity 391 Appendix B: The Interlocking Directorate of Wildlife Conservation 392 Appendix C: Selected Members of the Advisory Council of the ECUSA 394 Appendix D: Selected Members of the Interlocking Directorate of Scientific Racism 395 Key to Archival Collections 397 Notes 401 Works Cited 443 Index 467 Madison Grant The Consensus 1940s “The high priest of racialism in America.” Gunnar Myrdal 1950s “Intellectually the most important nativist in recent American history.” John Higham 1960s “The nation’s most influential racist.” Mark Haller 1970s “The dean of American racists.” Ethel W. Hedlin 1980s “The most famous of the new scholars of race.” Page Smith 1990s “One of the nation’s foremost racists.” Steven Selden 2000s “The great patriarch of scientific racism.” Matthew Guterl Introduction At the conclusion of World War II, the American Mili- tary Tribunal at Nuremberg indicted Major General Karl Brandt of the Waffen-SS for conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. Brandt had been Adolf Hitler’s personal physician and the most im- portant medical authority in the Third Reich. The speci- fic crimes charged in the case of United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. fell into three categories: 1. Implementing a “euthanasia” program in which the sick, the aged, the mentally ill, and the mem- bers of racial minorities were secretly executed in gas chambers. 2. Murdering concentration camp prisoners for the express purpose of collecting their skulls for research. 3. Performing medical experiments on defenseless death camp inmates against their will. These experiments involved sterilizing healthy men and women; forcing subjects to ingest lethal amounts of poison or seawater; performing muti- lating and crippling bone, muscle, and nerve oper- ations; and exposing inmates to typhus, malaria, yellow fever, mustard gas, smallpox, burning phosphorus, freezing temperature, high altitude, and epidemic jaundice. In his defense, Brandt introduced into evidence a book published in Munich in 1925 that had vigorously advo- cated and justified the elimination of inferior peoples. Brandt highlighted for the court excerpts from the book that called on the state to destroy sickly infants and ster- ilize defective adults who were of no value to the commu- nity.