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Charles GoetheCharles M. Goethe (1875 – 1966) was an entrepreneur, land developer, philanthropist, conservationist, founder of the Eugenics Society of Northern California, and a native and lifelong resident of Sacramento, California. Goethe (pronounced "Gay-tee") wrote admiringly of Californias Forty-Niners and the States giant redwood trees. Goethe also recommended compulsory sterilization of the 'socially unfit', opposed immigration, and praised German scientists who used a comprehensive sterilization program to 'purify' the Aryan race before the outbreak of World War II. Goethe also funded anti-Asian campaigns, praised the Nazis before and after World War II, and practiced discrimination in his business dealings, refusing to sell real estate to Mexicans and Asians. Goethe believed that a variety of social successes (wealth, leadership, intellectual discoveries) and social problems (poverty, illegitimacy, crime and mental illness) could be traced to inherited biological attributes associated with 'racial temperament'. Working with the Human Betterment Foundation in Pasadena, California, and the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, Goethe lobbied the State to restrict immigration from Mexico and carry out involuntary sterilizations of mostly poor women, defined as 'feeble-minded' or 'socially inadequate' by medical authorities between 1909 and the 1960s. When Goethe died, California State University, Sacramento received the largest share of his $24 million estate. The University dedicated the Goethe Arboretum to him in 1961 and attempted to name a new science building after him in 1965, but that effort was rebuffed by students and teachers. CSUS treated Goethe with the reverence of a founding father, appointed him chairman of the University's advisory board, and organized an elaborate gala and 'national recognition day' to mark his 90th birthday in 1965, when he received letters of appreciation—solicited by his friends at CSUS—from the president of the Nature Conservancy, then-Governor Edmund G. Brown, and then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. As a result, in 1963, Goethe changed his will to make CSUS his primary beneficiary, bequeathing his residence, eugenics library, papers, and $640,000 to the University. In Sacramento, during Goethes life, the advocacy of eugenics—the social philosophy of attempting to "improve" the human population by artificial selection—was considered a progressive issue. Though it was opposed by many scientists who thought the understanding of human heredity was too shallow to create solid policy, and by religious leaders who opposed birth control of any form, it was not considered to be as radical as it is today in the years after the Holocaust. Around 20,000 patients in California state psychiatric hospitals were sterilized with minimal or non-existent consent given between 1909 and 1950, when the law went into general disuse before its repeal in the 1960s. A favorable report by Human Betterment Foundation workers (E.S. Gosney and Paul B. Popenoe) touting the results of the sterilizations in California was published in the late 1920s, which in turn was often cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified their mass-sterilizations by pointing at the United States as their inspiration. Controversy has recently erupted over the naming of the Goethe Arboretum, located on the north end of the University campus. Derek Hamilton, a History student at CSUS, has started an online petition advocating a name change for the arboretum, contending Goethe's racist views no longer reflect the values of the University. Goethes own writings, along with a history of eugenics, have been assembled to help the current University community decide what to do in light of his lifelong dedication to eugenics and support of racist causes. Goethe's last recorded donation was to a white supremacist group. External Links Goethe, Charles Goethe, Charles Goethe, Charles
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