Every well regulated state of antiquity eliminated defectives in the interest of the group, and of the future. What more effective means of social preservation could be imagined than some measure through whose operation the defective classes in society would be eliminated, and the social structure, bulwarked by stalwart manhood and womanhood, made proof against the ravages of time. How serious a thing is the propagation of defect! Murder is a crime, punishable by death, yet a murderer merely eliminates one unit from the social group. The destruction of this one life may cause sorrow; it may deprive society of a valued member; but it is, after all, a comparatively insignificant offense. The perpetuation of hereditary defect is infinitely worse than murder. Consider, for example, a marriage, sanctioned by church and state, between two persons both having in their blood hereditary feeble-mindedness. Investigations of thousands of feeble-minded families show that, in such a case, every one of the offspring may be and probably will be feeble-minded--a curse to himself and a burden to society. Pauperism, crime, social dependence, vice, all follow in the train of mental defect, and the mentally defective parents hand on for untold generations their taint--sometimes in more, sometimes in less virulent form, but always bringing into the world beings not only incapable of caring for themselves, but fatally capable of handing on their defect to the future. The murderer robs society; the mentally defective parent curses society, both in the present and in the future, with the taint of degeneracy. The murderer takes away a life; but the feeble-minded parent passes on to the future the seeds of racial decay. The first step in Eugenics progress--the elimination of defect by preventing the procreation of defectives--is easily stated, and may be almost as easily attained. The price of six battleships ($50,000,000) would probably provide homes for all of the seriously defective men, women and children now at large in the United States. Thus could the scum of society be removed, and a source of social contamination be effectively regulated. Yet with tens of thousands of defectives, freely propagating their kind, we continue to build battleships, fondly believing that rifled cannon and steel armor plate will prove sufficient for national defense. This is but a part, and by far the least important part, of the eugenic programme. The elimination of defect prevents degeneracy, but does not insure the physical normality, mental capacity, aggressiveness, concentration, sympathy and vision of the Super Man. While the elimination of defect is imperative, it is after all only the first step toward the creation of positive qualities.