Ohio's Many Imbeciles.

New York Times 100 years ago today, September 25, 1912:
State Institutions Crowded — Sterilization Is Urged.
Special to The New York Times.
    COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept 24.— Alarmed by the increase in the number of imbeciles in Ohio, Allen W. Thurman, President of the State Board of Administration, declared to-day that if a law for sterilization was not passed the State would be bankrupt within ten years by the expense of caring for the weak-minded.
    The danger of present marriage laws was brought forcibly to Mr. Thurman's attention when a family of six idiots, 7 to 16 years, was transferred to the State Institution from the Brown County Children's Home.
    "We must start at once to keep down the propagation of the human race by imbeciles," he said. "The State's only institution for them is taxed to its capacity, and we have over one hundred now who should be cared for there. The imbecile institution is the beginning and the penitentiary the ending. We must curb the growth of imbeciles to stop the increase in the number of criminals, and the only way to do this is through a law for sterilization."