Turner Classic Movies featured what they call “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers” the first two weeks of November. On Nov. 1, they highlighted the work of Lois Weber, a progressive, didactic, and evangelical producer, director, and actress of the early twentieth century. They showed one of her surviving movies—many early movies were made on a nitrate film base which is very flammable and eventually disintegrates—Where Are My Children?

The three female hosts introducing Where Are My Children? emphasized that the movie was about women’s rights, contraception and abortion. They were mistaken: it’s a movie about eugenics. From the narrative and imagery that Lois Weber and her husband Philip Smalley create, it is clear that in the service of eugenics birth control is only for the poor and criminal; among the elite, abortion is the murder of children who should be born and should improve society through their “good genes.” Eugenic marriage and eugenic babies are preferable and should be encouraged. When they are not, sadness and loneliness result.

American eugenics was a movement of the early twentieth century that encouraged the state enforced sterilization of those deemed unfit to bear children. It was a progressive effort, aided and abetted by science, to eliminate the lower classes. As a recent PBS American Experience program explained:

American eugenics was neither the work of fanatics, nor the product of fringe science. The goal of the movement was simple and, to its disciples, laudable: to eradicate social ills by limiting the number of those considered to be genetically “unfit” –– a group that would expand to include many immigrant groups, the poor, Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, and the “morally delinquent.” At its peak in the 1920s, the movement was in every way mainstream, packaged as a progressive quest for “healthy babies.”

The American Eugenics movement and government control over who could marry and who could have children was supported by Margaret Sanger, Helen Keller, John Harvey Kellogg (inventor of Corn Flakes) and the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1927 decision Buck v. Bell. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote “It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”

 

The Great Portals of Eternity

The movie begins with an idiosyncratic doctrine of the three kinds of children waiting to be born: children of the chance, the multitude; children marked with the “sign of the serpent”, unwanted souls, physically and morally defective, “constantly sent back”; and the “fine and sound souls” which are marked with the “approval of the Almighty.” What the movie primarily depicts, however, is that through abortion, chosen because of the social inconvenience the unborn create for their mothers, those souls approved by the Almighty are not born.

The Gates of these portals of eternity open and close as babies are born or die. The souls of the unborn appear as cherub-like angels.

 

Richard Walton, D.A.

The protagonist, Richard Walton is a prosperous and powerful district attorney, and a great believer in eugenics. When he prosecutes a philanthropic doctor for publishing information about birth control among the poor and indigent, he is convinced by the doctor’s anecdotes of illness, suicide, and violence among the lower classes. They should not be free to give birth to these souls marked with “the sign of the serpent.” The jury disagrees, however, and the doctor is found guilty.

Walton rejoices in visits from his sister, who has made a eugenic marriage; she has therefore had a baby girl approved by the Almighty. Walton is disappointed, however, that he and Edith have no children. Walton is played by Tyrone Power, the father of the great swashbuckling actor of the 1930’s and 1940’s of the same name; Edith by the elder Power’s wife, Helen Reaume—and Walton’s niece is “played” by their baby girl, Anne.

Walton’s wife Edith has an active social life and she dotes on her three little dogs. She visits a friend, Mrs. William Carlo, who is pregnant and not happy about her “very serious condition.” After hearing about an upcoming house party she’ll have to miss, Mrs. Carlo asks for some help from Edith, who takes her to see Dr. Herman Malfit, an abortion doctor. This is not a “back alley” abortionist, however, but a lucrative operation with a properly dressed nurse and a waiting room. Edith waits for Mrs. Carlo, smirking at the distress of another patient, and then takes her friend home.

She sees her husband’s sorrow, however, at their childless home and begins to think that she should give him the children he wants. In the meantime, her brother Roger comes for a visit just as her housekeeper’s daughter Lillian comes for a brief stay until she finds a job. Walton enjoys Lillian’s company around the house while Roger seduces her. Now one of the physically and morally defective souls from behind the gates of the portals of eternity has come to earth. Lillian tells Roger of her pregnancy and he gets the name of Dr. Malfit from his sister.

“This time the obliging Dr. Malfit bungled” reads the title card, as Roger puts the obviously weak Lillian in a cab to Walton’s home. She collapses in the yard and Walton carries her in to the housekeeper’s bedroom, calling for a doctor. Lillian tells her mother what happened. The doctor and Roger arrive just as the housekeeper comes from her daughter’s deathbed to accuse Roger of procuring the abortion. Walton throws Roger out of the house and comforts the housekeeper.

 

Dr. Malfit’s Revenge

Walton brings Dr. Malfit to trial for murder and his nurse testifies against him. The housekeeper attends the trial and soon leaves the Walton household. Malfit sends a letter to Edith—who now takes little interest in her dogs—threatening to expose her history if she does not convince her husband to drop the case. Malfit wants to reveal the names of all the society women who have come to his office but the judge does not permit it. Edith’s social circle, gathered at her house for tea, is relieved to read that news.

Malfit is sentenced to fifteen years hard labor in the penitentiary. Before being led off to the pen, Malfit presents Walton with his record book, in which the D.A. finds his wife’s name listed several times. Walton returns home and tells the women to leave his household, saying that he should charge them all with manslaughter. Mrs. Williams tries to protest her innocence but he shows her the record of her abortion in the ledger. She points to his wife as the one who took her to Dr. Malfit and leaves with the other women.

At last Walton asks his wife, “Where are my children?” The couple is divided in their grief. He laments the children they should have had and the loss of trust in his wife; she laments that now that she wants she children she is unable to conceive. Yet they do not separate. Another title card announces, “Throughout the years she must face the silent question—“Where are my children?”

The last, time-lapsed vignette shows the husband and wife sitting in front of the fireplace. Ghostly children play on the floor and sit on his lap, leaning on his shoulder. As time passes and his hair becomes white and a cane appears in his hand, two handsome young men and a lovely young lady enter and stand behind their parents. The couple shares a final glance and then “Finis.”

 

A Eugenic Fable

The narrative of this film, although disturbing and thought-provoking, doesn’t hold together well as an argument for eugenics or birth control, and is clearly opposed to abortion among the better classes. The doctor in the first trial is only interested in birth control for the lower classes, those in poverty and sin, and forced sterilization is never mentioned. Yet the child conceived by Roger, Edith’s brother and Lillian is one of those marked with the “sign of the serpent.” Lillian is the innocent; Roger the seducer—he is the Wolf and she is the Lamb, one title card explains. So perhaps Richard Walton hasn’t made the eugenic marriage he thinks he has with Edith, if her brother is so morally unfit.

The society women who have had all the abortions are betraying the eugenics movement; because of their selfishness, they do not contribute to the improvement of society. Where Are My Children?, although a well-produced, paced, and acted movie—Tyrone Power, Sr. is a more naturalistic actor than some silent movie stars—does not answer the main questions of eugenics: Who decides who is fit or unfit to have children? Who is able to decide the future of any child? Its contribution to the discussion of eugenic birth control and abortion in 1916 was a sad story of an unhappy marriage.