The Pioneer Fund was the primary financial sponsor of Proposition 187 on the California ballot. They have an extended legacy of sponsoring similar legislation over the past 57 years of their existence. The agenda that they are attempting to advance is one of fascism, repression and racism. Linkage of their past goals and ideals to their present visions for the future of America can go a long way toward stopping them in their tracks.
Note: The comments contained in braces [ ] are those of the editor. Some typographical errors in the original article have been corrected for ease of comprehension.
Fund Backs Controversial Study of "Racial Betterment"
by Grace LichtensteinA private trust fund based in New York has for more than 20 years supported highly controversial research by a dozen scientists who believe that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites.
The Pioneer Fund, a tax-exempt foundation incorporated in 1937 for the express purpose of research into "racial betterment," was worth more than $2 million, according to its 1975 Internal Revenue Service return. Yet several officers of the leading geneticists profession- al organization say they never heard of it. A month-long study of the Pioneer Fund's activities by The New York Times shows it has given at least $179,000 over the last 10 years to Dr. William B. Shockley, a leading proponent of the theory that whites are inher- ently more intelligent than blacks.
The money was paid through Stanford University, where professor Shockley was a Nobel Prize-winning professor of engineering science, as well as through his own personal foundation - a customary method of foundation disbursement.
Another major beneficiary is Dr. Arthur R. Jensen, an educational psychologist at the University of California, whose article in 1969 theorizing that intelligence was hereditary touched off a furor over the value of compensatory education for disadvantaged black students.
Some Others Who Got Grants
Dr. Travis Osborn of the University of Georgia, Dr. Frank C. J. McGurk and Dr. Audrey Shuey are other well-known researchers in the same area who got Pioneer grants.
Two researchers known to few specialists in the genetics field, Dr. Roger Pearson and Dr. Ralph Scott, also got substantial grants, which they declined to discuss. Neither man is a geneticist.
Theories of racial inferiority pursued by Pioneer's staff of researchers have been widely discredited in recent years. Some data developed by Cyril Burt, a British scientist, which had underpinned the theory, are now alleged by leading geneticists to be without scientific value.
In addition, at least one major association of professional geneticists has publicly decried the use of what it regards as questionable material on heredity and race to buttress political positions.
However, Burke Judd, former secretary of the Genetics Society of America, and Hope Punnett, secretary of the American Society of Human Genetics, said that in principle they were in favor of any legitimate genetics research, even when it encompasses what some feel is an extreme point of view.
"If you really believe in open research you've got to let these people do their 'research' and then let the rest of us question it," said Dr. Punnett. She said she did not take either Dr. Jensen or Dr. Shockley "too seriously" because she did not think they had developed good scientific information to support their theories.
Some Are Embarrassed
Other colleges that have accepted Pioneer grants for "eugenics and heredity" include the University of California at Berkeley, University of Georgia, University of Southern Mississippi, Randolph-Macon College, Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology and the University of Northern Iowa.
High officials of the last two schools said hey now were embarrassed by the grants. They asked to remain anonymous, on the ground that criticism by them would suggest interference with academic freedom.
It is not known whether Pioneer financed research in fields other than heredity and eugenics.
Spokesmen at all the schools who knew about the grants said they did not know the Pioneer Fun had been chartered for research into "racial betterment." Nor did those scientists who The Times was able to reach who would answer questions.
A spokesman for the University of California at Berkeley said its records showed no Pioneer Fund grants to Dr. Jensen, although it did accept a Pioneer grant for a political science professor. Dr. Jensen confirmed that some of his grants came through the university.
In each case the university, or another foundation, was named as recipient of the grants, although the actual work was done by a specific professor in residence. This is common practice in grant-giving everywhere.
However, in at least one school, Northern Iowa, the professor, Dr. Ralph Scott, used some of the money not only for research but for anti-busing, anti-school integration seminars in such off-campus places as Louisville, (KY) and Boston (MA), according to the school's grants administrator.
Question of Tax Exemption
"This might put the fund's tax-exempt status in jeopardy," an Internal Revenue Service spokesman said when asked about general rules applying to funds such as Pioneer.
Under Federal law, such funds remain tax-exempt as long as "no substantial part of the activity" is "carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation."
"You're in a very sticky area," the I.R.S. spokesman replied when asked about the definition of propaganda. Pioneer Fund is currently in a tax- exempt category applying to groups exclusively charitable, religious, testing and educational. Although it has been a major "banker" in the financing of research on race and genetics, Pioneer's chief executive will not talk to reporters. Nor will some of the scientists who take its money acknowledge their connection with Pioneer. The president of Pioneer Fund is Harry F. Weyher [pronounced like "wire"], a lawyer whose office at 299 Park Avenue also is the fund's office. Questioned by telephone about Pioneer, Mr. Weyher said, "It's a client." Then he added, "I'm not going to talk to you any more," and hung up.
Mr. Weyher, several directors and the fund's founder have had long-standing connections with conservative causes or political candidates, although no one has suggested that the conservatives in question shared their interest in eugenics and heredity research.
The founder, Wickliffe [Preston] Draper, a 1913 graduate of Harvard who died in 1972, was the reclusive heir to a Massachusetts textile-machinery fortune, according to published accounts.
Two Committees Supported
In the 1950's and 1960's Mr. Draper supported two now-defunct committees that gave grants for genetics research. Mr. Weyher was his lawyer. The committee members included Representative Francis E. Walter, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC]; Henry E. Garrett, an educator known for his belief in the genetic inferiority of blacks, and Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi.
When it was disclosed in 1960 that Richard Arens, staff director for the Un-American Activities Committee, was also a paid consultant to the Draper- financed committees, Mr. Arens was forced to leave his Congressional job.
In 1960 published reports quoted some leading American geneticists as saying they had turned down requests from Mr. Draper to do research into theories of racial inferiority among blacks.
Mr. Weyher, in a newspaper interview at the time, said Mr. Draper had already sponsored a book on restricting immigration and another on the intelligence of blacks by Dr. Shuey, a retired professor at Randolph- Macon Woman's College.
Mr. Draper also gave money to right wing political candidates, including the late Representative Donald Bruce [Republican] of Indiana, and the late Representative Walter, as well as to conservative lobbying organiza- tions such as the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.
When Mr. Draper died his estate turned over $1.4 million to the Pioneer Fund. Among two men listed as directors of Pioneer in 1975, the most recent year for which Internal Revenue Service records are available, is John B. Trevor, [Jr.] of New York, [whose father was] a founder of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, adviser to Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade and author of an article on South Africa that appeared in The Citizen, the publication of the White Citizens' Councils.
Testifying against more liberal immigration laws in 1965, Mr. Trevor warned against "a conglomeration of racial and ethnic elements" that he said led to "a serious culture decline."
The other Pioneer director [in 1975] is Thomas F. Ellis of Raleigh, N.C., manager of [Senator] Jesse Helm's 1972 campaign for Senator and an impor- tant backer of Ronald Reagan's 1976 Presidential campaign.
Pioneer-sponsored research in eugenics, a movement devoted to improving the human species through control of hereditary factors in mating, and dysgenics the study of trends in population leading to the deterioration of hered- itary , is a subject of much dispute in the genetics field.
An 'Inescapable Opinion'
Dr. Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, has for years been collecting material on eugenics and dysgenics research. He said in a telephone inter- view a few days ago from his home in Palo Alto, Calif., that he had reached "the inescapable opinion that a major cause of American Negroes' intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin."
This, he continued, "is not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in environment," such as better schools, jobs or living con- ditions.
He said he was "very grateful" for Pioneer's grants. A spokesman for Stan- ford said that $179,000 over 10 years to Dr. Shockley from Pioneer sounded correct, although the school did not have an exact dollar figure.
The views of Dr. Shockley and Dr. Jensen and their supporters, have come under attack recently from, among other sources, the Genetics Society of America, a leading professional organization. In July 1976 it published a statement of its committee on genetics, race and intelligence that was endorsed by nearly 1,400 members.
"In our views there is no convincing evidence as to whether there is or is not an appreciable genetic difference in intelligence between races," it said.
"Well designed research... may yield valid and socially useful results and should not be discouraged. We feel that geneticists can and must also speak out against the misuse of genetics for political purposes and the drawing of social conclusions from inadequate data."
Genetics and Busing
When informed about Dr. Scott's activities on busing at Northern Iowa, Professor Judd said it sounded contrary to normal academic practices for an educational, tax-exempt foundation to finance genetics research linked to the school-busing controversy. "But I don't have enough information," he added.
According to Northern Iowa officials, Dr. Scott is studying "forced busing and its relationship to genetic aspects of educability." In this context he sent a graduate student to Mississippi and held seminars on busing, according to sources at the university.
Dr. Scott, a professor of education, refused to comment on his research and to say whether its results had been published anywhere.
Roger Pearson, a British-educated economist who has been the beneficiary of two Pioneer grants for work while he was dean at Montana Tech, also refused to talk about his research.
Such nonresponses are unusual in the field of academic research openly sponsored by tax-exempt foundations. Standford, for example, has a policy stating that "findings and conclusions" of research supported by outside grants "should be available for scrutiny and criticism.
Dr. Pearson, who served for the 1974-1975 academic year as dean at Montana Tech before leaving by mutual consent in a disagreement over educational goals, got $60,000 from Pioneer while he was there.
Montana Tech officials said they had no idea that he apparently was the same man who some years ago edited Western Destiny, a journal with many pro-South Africa, anti-Communist and anti-racial mixing articles and who wrote a number of pamphlets for the conservative-oriented Noontide Press such as "Eugenics and Race" and "Early Civilizations of the Nordic Race."
How many goals of Hitler's Third Reich are mentioned in this article?
Wickliffe Preston Draper, the founder of The Pioneer Fund, is the epitome of an American Hitler in the guise of a philanthropic and well educated millionaire. His family owned Draper Corporation, in Hopedale, MA and both North and South Carolina and he was a staunch anti-Union activist from the early days of Sacco and Vanzetti Trial in Dedham, MA only 30 miles from his hometown of Hopedale, MA in the heart of the Blackstone Valley which was the home of the Industrial Revolution. He was also among the most ardent and vehement racists and anti-civil rights advocates in the history of this cause from as early as the 1930's and perhaps earlier. His hatred of the United Nations, liberals, and his dislike for anyone who participated in the Nye Committees of the 1930's which attempted to punish so-called "war profiteering" by the DuPonts, led to Draper's deliberate persecution of Alger T. Hiss between 1948 and 1951 with the assistance of his cohort in racism, eugenics and white supremacy, Nathaniel Weyl, who is still alive today.
Draper's vitriolic hatred for President John F. Kennedy was epitomized by his direct financial sponsorship of several publications that led the character assassination attacks on him during the 1950's when he was a Senator from Massachusetts. These included Human Events, Right magazine, Noontide Press, The American Mercury and comparable rightist publications ostensibly owned and operated by The Liberty Lobby or affiliates, the foremost racist, proto-fascist and anti-Semitic organization that has ever existed in a Democracy. Only a Democracy could be brought to its knees by the sinister forces of fascism, operating under the protection of the First Amendment to the Constitution. This is a very sad commentary on our times and on the foibles of our once magnificent system of egalitarian democracy.
The Draper attacks and assaults on President Kennedy intensified even more during the 1960's when he was President and culminated in the final character assassination in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
The Draper family, in 1967 became the largest shareholder in Rockwell-Standard, which later became Rockwell International, one of the two largest defense contractors in the entire universe along with the Lockheed Corp. of Marietta, GA which is championed by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Rockwell bought out the failing Draper Corporation, a manufacturer of textile loom machinery and equipment just before the acceleration of military activity in Vietnam and shortly before the Draper Corporation was liquidated by Rockwell as a bankrupt concern in the late 1970's. Rockets, missiles and warplanes are apparently a much easier place to make money than in the arena of textile loom equipment and textile machinery. Neither Kennedy's opposition to the Cost Plus Fixed Fee method of compensating defense contractors nor the CIA's opposition to the National Intelligence Estimates of March 22, 1963 called NIE 11-4-63 stood in the way of the plans for the future of this country as defined and designed by those in the Draper- Rockwell coalition which reached its culmination during their merger.
Draper's fascist-inspired vitriolic hatred of Communism and anything liberal led to his support of McCarthyism and the activities of HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee for over a decade. In the spirit of Dr. Josef Goebbels, he and his close associate at The Pioneer Fund, Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, actually created and then championed the "involuntary sterilization movement in America" the so-called "Buck vs. Bell" Supreme Court case which was favorably reviewed by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. It led directly to the involuntary sterilization of over 75,000 human beings between 1924 and 1972 in the approximately 24 states which passed similar laws at the behest and encouragement of The Pioneer Fund. Sound familiar? But the first major achievement of his work and that of Herr Laughlin, was when Hitler and Goebbels invited Laughlin to receive an honorary degree for his work in passing "The Model Eugenics Laws in America". Hitler used the Draper-inspired American Eugenics Model to pass the law which will go down in infamy as the Nuremberg Laws: "On the Prevention of Hereditarily Ill Progeny" - the so-called Holocaust Laws. Are you beginning to get the picture here? Are you willing to put your actions and money where your realistic concerns are?
The last time that Immigration laws were severely tightened was the 1924 Immigration Act which was accomplished, in my opinion, in direct anticipa- tion of the coming unrest in Europe during the 1930's and 1940's. These laws kept may legitimate refugees, all targeted for elimination by the Third Reich, from ever reaching a safe haven in the United States. The precisely identical intentions are at work today with this renewed emphasis on "Proposition 187", which is intended to become "The Model Anti-Immigration Legislation in America" and for the rest of the world. When a Rwanda or Zaire-style deliberately initiated crisis occurs in Bosnia-Herzegovina or elsewhere in the world, the intention of the sponsors of "Proposition 187" is to prevent those refugees targeted for "ethnic extinction" from ever reaching a safe haven in American or anywhere else in the free world for that matter. This is a very real and serious concern and every American who recognizes the true intentions of Proposition 187 should oppose it with their last breath and their last ounce of strength before it is too late.
Critiques and comments are solicited to our email address:
pioneer@ids.com
Additional research assistance from anyone with experience in either manual or computer assisted research techniques is desperately needed as well. It would involve primarily digging into old newspaper archives which have been put on microfilm like the NY Times and The Washington Post as well as research into other manuscripts and generally available published literature in most major university or large city public libraries.