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The Origin And Nature Of Our Institutional Models

From: Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded
Creator: Wolf Wolfensberger (author)
Date: January 10, 1969
Publisher: President's Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C.
Source: Available at selected libraries

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The peak of the indictment of the retardate was reached between 1908 and 1915, and was embodied in three important documents:

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1. The 1908 British Royal Commission Report, which became very influential in this country: "The evidence points unmistakenly to the fact that mentally defective children often have immoral tendencies; that they are greatly lacking in self-control; and moreover are peculiar open to suggestion, so that they are at the mercy of bad companions."

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"Many competent observers are of the opinion that if the constantly or recurring fatuous and irresponsible crimes and offenses of mentally defective persons are to be prevented, long and continuous detention is necessary. The experience of the prison authorities fully confirms this opinion. From the earliest age, when they appear before the magistrates as children on remand or as juvenile offenders, until and throughout the adult period of their lives, the mentally defective, at first reprimanded and returned to their parents, then convicted and subjected to a short sentence and returned to their parents, and then later continually sentenced and resentenced and returned to their parents or friends until, for crimes of greater gravity, they pass through the convict prisons, are treated, as this reiterated evidence shows, without hope and without purpose, and in such a way as to allow them to become habitual delinquents of the worst type and to propogate a feeble-minded progeny which may become criminal like themselves. This, as has been said, is an evil of the very greatest magnitude.' The absolute and urgent necessity of coping with it is undeniable" (Royal Commission Report of 1908, quoted in Davies, 1923).

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2. Fernald (1912) wrote a damning indictment of the retarded for his famous address on "The Burden of Feeble-Mindedness," a burden he had earlier (1893, p. 213) called "disgusting."

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3. Bullard (1910) wrote an incredible diatribe about the particular immorality and menace of retarded women.

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In weighing the influence of some of the indictors quoted in preceding and subsequent sections, let the reader be reminded that the following 25 persons had been, or became, presidents of what is now the American Association on Mental Deficiency: Wilbur, Stewart, Powell, Fish, Knight, Carson, Rogers, Kerlin, Osborne, Wilmarth, Barr, Dunlap, Johnson, Polglase, Murdoch, Smith, Bullard, Goddard, Emerick, Watkins, and Anderson; Bernstein, Fernald, Johnstone, and Wallace held the presidency twice. Johnson had also been president of the National Conference on Charities and Correction, as well as its general secretary for many years. This latter organization was perhaps the major vehicle of the indictment, since it was a major forum for indictment speeches and papers, and since it encompassed those professionals most intimately concerned with social processes, such as social workers, sociologists, legal and law enforcement personnel, psychiatrists, psychologists, public health and immigration workers, and officials from all levels of government.

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Dehumanizing and Brutalizing Elements of the Indictment. The indictment contained some ominous notes. Streeter (1915, p. 340) said: "... in feeble-mindedness lies the tap root of most of our social problems; the only effective radical way to deal with these problems, is to strike at this tap root with the strong ax of prevention." Sarr (1902a; 1902b), a very influential past president of what is now the American Association on Mental Deficiency, issued an "Imperative Call of Our Present to Our Future," followed by an address entitled "The Imbecile and Epileptic Versus the Taxpayer and the Community." The title of a book by Crookshank in 1924 was enough to drive a shudder down anyone's spine: "The Mongol in Our Midst."

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Where we, today, speak of combatting mental retardation, as in the President's Panel "National Plan To Combat Mental Retardation," phrases with menacing overtones were used in the alarmist period, as when Johnson (1898, p. 471) spoke of "stamping out" idiocy and imbecility. That this was more than a figure of speech became clear 2 years later, when he stated: "I do not think that, to prevent the propagation of this class it is necessary to kill them off or to resort to the knife; but, if it is necessary, it should be done" (Johnson, 1901, pp. 410-411). Alexander Johnson, past president of the National Conference on Charities and Correction, and of what is now the American Association on Mental Deficiency, was one of the most influential figures in the social action field of the era.

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One gentleman from Massachusetts, in 1885, was reported to have called for the same solution to the problem of feeble-mindedness as that which had been "applied theoretically and also practically to the Indian question" (Conf. on Charities and Correction, 1888, p. 396), and Taft (1918, p. 545) ominously referred to a "... final . . . solution . . . ", a term that would come into its full meaning 20 years later.

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In any society that places high value on intelligence and achievement, there is probably a predisposition to brutalize and dehumanize the inadequate deviant. When the deviant is seen as not only inadequate but also as a menace, latent dehumanization becomes overt. It therefore does not surprise us that during the alarmist period the retardate was dehumanized in both word and deed.

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