Writing "The Rich Fool and the Race Scientist" this morning about the relationship between William Earl Dodge Stokes and Charles Davenport, and I am very, very happy with what I'm coming up with.

I had forgotten that Stokes begins "The Right to Be Well Born" with an analysis of how his novel (and extremely wrong) theory of sex control in horse breeding explained why there are so many goddamned "Sissies and Tomboys" gadding about these days (he was writing in 1917).

Stokes had floated an earlier version of that theory to Davenport in a letter and Davenport had tried to gently steer him away from it. No luck! Stokes was all in on his wacky sex control beliefs, and no nattering from the preeminent race scientist of the day would dissuade him.

Davenport had to be gentle about it, because he likely wanted some of Stokes's wealth. The book was an embarrassing mess, but Davenport contrived to have it favorably reviewed in his newsletter, an endorsement that wound up embarrassing Davenport and the eugenics movement.

Ironically, Stokes's wealth was vastly exaggerated and, when he died in 1927, his debtors laid so many claims to his estate that he wound up leaving no money to Davenport and the human eugenics movement at all.