Lothrop Stoddard | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Theodore Lothrop Stoddard June 29, 1883 Brookline,Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | May 1, 1950(1950-05-01) (aged 66) Washington, D.C., United States |
| Alma mater | |
| Organizations | |
| Notable work | The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920) |
| Other political affiliations | Ku Klux Klan |
| Board member of | American Birth Control League |
| Father | John Lawson Stoddard |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| Unit | Signal corps |
| Battles / wars | Philippine–American War |
Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American historian, journalist, political scientist and white supremacist. Stoddard wrote several books which advocatedeugenics,white supremacy,Nordicism, andscientific racism, includingThe Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920). He advocated aracial hierarchy which he believed needed to be preserved throughanti-miscegenation laws. Stoddard's books were once widely read both inside and outside the United States.
He was a member of theKu Klux Klan, where his books were recommended reading.[1][2][3][4] He was also a member of theAmerican Eugenics Society[5] as well as a founding member and board member of theAmerican Birth Control League, which would later become thePlanned Parenthood Federation of America.[6]
Stoddard's work influenced theNazi government of Germany. His bookThe Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man (1922) may have introduced the termUntermensch (the German translation of "Under-man") intoNazi discussions of race. He traveled as a journalist in Germany during the first months ofWorld War II, during which he received preferential treatment for interviews with Nazi officials and met briefly withAdolf Hitler.[7] After the war, Stoddard's writing faded from popularity.
Stoddard was born inBrookline, Massachusetts, the son ofJohn Lawson Stoddard, a prominent writer and lecturer, and his wife Mary H. Stoddard.[8] In 1900 he enlisted in theUnited States Army to fight in thePhilippine–American War and was commissioned to thesignal corps. Following his military stint, Stoddard attendedHarvard College, graduatingmagna cum laude in 1905, and studied law atBoston University until 1908. Stoddard received a Ph.D. inHistory fromHarvard University in 1914.[9]
Stoddard was a member of theAmerican Historical Association, theAmerican Political Science Association, and theAcademy of Political Science.[10]
In 1923, an exposé byHearst's International revealed that Stoddard was a member of theKu Klux Klan (KKK), and had been acting as a consultant to the organization. A letter from the KKK to members had praisedThe Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy in explicitly racial terms. Stoddard privately dismissed the Hearst magazine as a "radical-Jew outfit".[1]
Stoddard wrote many books, most of them related to race and civilization. He wrote primarily on the alleged dangers posed by "colored" peoples to white civilization. Many of his books and articles wereracialist and described what he saw as the peril of nonwhiteimmigration. He develops this theme inThe Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy originally published in 1920[11][12] with an introduction byMadison Grant.[13] He presents a view of the world situation pertaining to race and focusing concern on the coming population explosion among thenon-white peoples of the world and the way in which "white world-supremacy" was being lessened in the wake ofWorld War I and the collapse ofcolonialism.[page needed] In the book, Stoddard blames theethnocentrism of the German "Teutonic imperialists" for the outbreak of World War I.[11][non-primary source needed] PresidentWarren G. Harding mentioned the book during a 1921 speech in Birmingham, Alabama, saying that America's race problem was only the beginning of what would soon become a worldwide race problem.[13]
Stoddard argued that race and heredity were the guiding factors of history and civilization and that the elimination or absorption of the "white" race by "colored" races would result in the destruction ofWestern civilization. Like Madison Grant inThe Passing of the Great Race, Stoddard divided the white race into three main divisions: "Nordic", "Alpine", and "Mediterranean". He considered all three to be of good stock and far above the quality of the colored races, but argued that the "Nordic" was the greatest of the three, and needed to be preserved by way of eugenics. He considered most Jews to be racially "Asiatic" and argued for restricting Jewish immigration because he considered them a threat to Nordic racial purity in the US. He warned that the United States was being "invaded by hordes of immigrant Alpines andMediterraneans, not to mention Asiatic elements like Levantines and Jews."[14][15][16] Stoddard's racist beliefs were especially hostile toblack people. He claimed that they were fundamentally different from other groups, they had no civilizations of their own, and had contributed nothing to the world. Stoddard opposedmiscegenation, and said that "crossings with the negro are uniformly fatal".[1]
InThe Revolt Against Civilization (1922), Stoddard put forward the idea that civilization places a growing burden on individuals, which leads to a growing underclass of individuals who cannot keep up and a "ground-swell of revolt".[17] Stoddard advocated immigration restriction andbirth control legislation to reduce the numbers of the underclass and promoted the reproduction of members of the middle and upper classes. Stoddard was one of several eugenicists who sat on the board of theAmerican Birth Control League.[18]
The Nazi Party's chief racial theoristAlfred Rosenberg appropriated the racial termUntermensch from the German version of Stoddard's 1922 bookThe Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man. The German title wasDer Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen (1925).[19]
In 1929, Stoddard debatedAfrican American historianW.E.B. Du Bois on white supremacy and its assertion of the natural inferiority of colored races.[20][21] The debate, organized by the Chicago Forum Council, was billed as "One of the greatest debates ever held".[13] Du Bois argued in the affirmative to the question "Shall the Negro be encouraged to seek cultural equality? Has the Negro the same intellectual possibilities as other races?"[22] Du Bois knew the racism would be unintentionally funny onstage; as he wrote to Fred Atkins Moore, the event's organizer, SenatorJ. Thomas Heflin "would be a scream" in a debate.[13]
The transcript records Stoddard saying: "'The more enlightened men of southern white America ... are doing their best to see that separation shall not mean discrimination; that if the Negroes have separate schools, they shall be good schools; that if they have separate train accommodations, they shall have good accommodations.' [laughter]."
Du Bois, in responding to Stoddard, said the reason for the audience laughter was that he had never journeyed underJim Crow restrictions. "We have," Du Bois told him and the mixed audience.[13]
This moment was reported inThe Chicago Defender's headline: "DuBois Shatters Stoddard’s Cultural Theories in Debate; Thousands Jam Hall ... Cheered As He Proves Race Equality."The Afro-American reported: "5,000 Cheer W.E.B. DuBois, Laugh at Lothrop Stoddard."[13]
Between 1939 and 1940, Stoddard spent four months as a journalist for theNorth American Newspaper Alliance in Nazi Germany. He received preferential treatment from Nazi officials compared to other journalists. An example was theReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda's insisting thatNBC'sMax Jordan andCBS'sWilliam Shirer use Stoddard to interview the captain of theBremen.[7][23]
Stoddard wrote a memoir,Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today (1940), about his experiences in Germany. Among other events, the book describes interviews with such figures asHeinrich Himmler,Robert Ley andFritz Sauckel, as well as a brief meeting withAdolf Hitler.[7] Stoddard visited theHereditary Health Court inCharlottenburg, an appeals court that decided whether Germans would be sterilized. After observing several dysgenics trials at the court, Stoddard asserted that the eugenics legislation was "being administered with strict regard for its provisions and that, if anything, judgments were almost too conservative" and that the law was "weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way."[7][24]
After World War II, Stoddard's theories were deemed too closely aligned with those of the Nazis and therefore he suffered a large drop in popularity.[25] His death fromcancer in 1950 went almost entirely unreported despite his previously broad readership and influence.[26]
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Additionally, Stoddard wrote several articles forThe Saturday Evening Post.[29][30][31]
The 1920s exalted cyclops of Massachusetts Provisional Klan No. 1
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