How Eugenics Explains Evil, Jam-Selling Quakers

Dear CF,

Today’s bit of the Eugenics Review, which you can chew on with your morning coffee (which hopefully you do not chew), links religion to race. In this section, which worries about the effects of the war on racial health (all the good germ plasm is getting itself killed by nobly fighting the good fight), the author complains that Quakers and other lazy pacifists in Great Britain who wouldn’t fight in 1915 are of the “aboriginal dark race.” It’s interesting, too, to see how they voice concerns about representation.

They should be called Quaker rolled ABORIGINAL oats.

Now a nation composed entirely of Quakers and the other Pacifist sects could not exist, and they thus are mere parasites, and have no more right to direct the policy of England than the ticks on a dog’s back have to tell the dog which way to go…. Since this element, as proved by its parliamentary representatives, predominates in Wales, Cornwall, South, West and North-west of Ireland, and in certain parts of Scotland, it seems to be the aboriginal dark race, whereas on the contrary in England and in the North-east of Ireland (where recruits are eighty per thousand), it is in a large minority.

Notice that the first half of this effectively denies their right to parliamentary representation (how dare the tail try to wag the Great British dog?) while the second half asserts that broad conclusions can be drawn from those same parliamentary representatives (who are apparently allowed to represent racially, just not politically).

PLUS! the report goes on, they are jam-selling HYPOCRITES! All they really want is for the war to continue so they can make more war-chocolate!!!

But though the Quakers and other Pacifist Nonconformists declaimed against war, they never scrupled to make millions out of khaki, chocolate, jam, etc., and it must be remembered that alien financiers and great contractors have no strong interest in bringing the war to a speedy end.

Fascinating, right? That special brand of hysteria we thought Fox News had invented has been around a long, long time.

Fondly,
M