Government Healthcare Eugenics

Joseph DeJarnette's Lesson for Today


The DeJarnette Sanitarium is an empty shell today.

If government controlled healthcare does not give you second thoughts, take a trip back in history to the establishment of Western State Hospital. Indeed it could be argued that in its early days under Dr. Francis T. Stribling, the institution delivered quality care and even went so far as to teach the patients skills so that they effectively created a sheltered community. Their farm provided food and workshops inside the hospital allowed residents to learn and work in trades. The Nineteenth Century Western State would no doubt impress us as being a forward thinking and caring environment.

But all that would change as a new idea came out of the Academy, the 'science' of Eugenics. This social philosophy gained support in the Universities during the 1920's. Eugenics, rooted in a Darwinian view of man, taught that certain portions of humanity were 'undesirable' and should be discouraged from reproducing themselves. Follow the writings of Adolph Hitler from the same period and a disturbing similarity appears.

Eugenics left the classroom and became the policy of the State of Virginia in the 1930's. It had strong supporters such as Dr. Walter A. Plecker, registrar, Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1912-46, Dr. Harvey E. Jordan, dean of medicine, University of Virginia, and Dr. Joseph S. DeJarnette who became the director of Western State Hospital from 1906-43. Western State became a warehouse and DeJarnette created a new and seperate sanitarium for treating middle-class patients [shown above]. The poor and minorities were deprived of the most basic rights and thousands endured forced sterilizations.

In the infamous case of Carrie Buck, DeJarnette tetified before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Virginia’s sterilization policy. His testimony convinced the court to uphold the Racial Integrity Law of 1924. Ms. Buck, had sued to prevent a sterilization.

In all, 8300 people were sterilized by government decree. It was said that DeJarnette ran the hospital 'like a dictator.' Indeed, his career seems reminiscent of that of a dictator in Europe intent on perfecting the Master Race.

1. History of Western State and DeJarnette Center [click to read] from the News Virginian.

2. Western State Reinvented [click to read] from NBC 29.

3. Phil Writes More [click to read] on the history of Virginia Eugenics.

The frightening question: "How could decent people do such horrible things?" can be asked of Nazis... and Virginians, to a degree as well. When respectable people in the academy present a theory as some sort of step forward and it becomes widely accepted as something "good," though it contradicts such core concepts as Imagio Deo, who among us is equipped to recognize it and stand against it?