Oscar Riddle, Davenport's Eugenics creed was as follows: "I believe in striving to raise the human race to the highest plane of social organization, of cooperative work and of effective endeavor." "I believe that I am the trustee of the germ plasm that I carry; that this has been passed on to me through thousands of generations before me; and that I betray the trust if (that germ plasm being good) I so act as to jeopardize it, with its excellent possibilities, or, from motives of personal convenience, to unduly limit offspring." "I believe that, having made our choice in marriage carefully, we, the married pair, should seek to have 4 to 6 children in order that our carefully selected germ plasm shall be reproduced in adequate degree and that this preferred stock shall not be swamped by that less carefully selected." "I believe in such a selection of immigrants as shall not tend to adulterate our national germ plasm with socially unfit traits." "I believe in repressing my instincts when to follow them would injure the next generation." References Further reading Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, (New York / London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003) Elof Axel Carlson, "Times of triumph, Times of Doubt, science and the battle for the public trust", (Cold Spring Harbor; Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2006) External links "Biographical Memoir of Charles Benedict Davenport" by Oscar Riddle via this page on the website of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Charles Davenport at www.pbs.org International Eugenics Davenport, Charles Benedict Davenport, Charles Benedict Harvard College alumni American science writers Davenport, Charles Benedict Fellows of the American Statistical Association Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Deaths from pneumonia in New York (state) 19th-century American writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American biologists People from Brooklyn Heights