“The most caring thing a mother with a large family can do is to kill her child.” -- Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood
Corpus Christi, TX – The late Mrs. Janet Frey Harte, the wife of the former co-owner of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Edward H. Harte, has long been promoted as a “philanthropist” by the well off bon ton class that orbited her social world in South Texas. But in hushed, respected circles where she lurked in the shadows of controversial organizations, some who caught a glimpse of her belief system whisperingly uttered the tag “humanitarian eugenicist.” [Note: The latter are two terms – philanthropist and eugenicist -- we shall return to address more fully in this article.]
Mrs. Janet Frey Harte died on February 23, 1999 at Spohn Shoreline Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas. It is contradictory that she – a PRO-CHOICE advocate and proponent of eugenics -- passed away in this Catholic-oriented faith-based hospital in a way, a hospital whose Catholic leadership (just a few years before), had taken a pro-active, antagonistic stance against abortion. A few years before her death, then Bishop Rene Gracida had begun to posture Catholics and their following against what he called the secular-humanistic culture of “Abortion on Demand” – a culture legitimized by the case Rove. Vs Wade.
The bishop cited above – Gracida -- had even researched medieval law and found a versatile diktat to justify ex-communicating a young Hispanic director of a Woman’s Clinic – Rachel Vargas – in Corpus Christi during the summer of 1990.
Who was she? Ms. Vargas, after earning her degree and getting some job experience, had moved to Corpus Christi. She was a native of Robstown, Texas – a community that is over 90 percent Hispanic and had one of the highest poverty rates in the region. The city also had a long history of being tagged negative stigmas by many a writer of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. She had been lured into enrolling by the florid eugenics rhetoric of the affluent bon ton of South Texas who were entertaining themselves with that movement.
The excommunication (and an excommucation is very rare and even murderers have not been penalized by the church to that extent) sent a booming and resounding message to other Catholics under the sway of Bishop Gracida’s authority. Ms. Vargas, who had recently climbed up somewhat economically from a low-income barrio to a middle class job, and out of the South Texas Patron’s System’s yoke, was frozen as a target not by just any ordinary head, but by a bishop who at the time was being hounded by media agents and so-called “money-hungry” lawyers questioning his ability to deal seriously with the conduct of many of his clergymen and lay curate (not all accused of pedophile acts against the young were priests but also laypersons) and who was being pressured by some parishioners under his grasp to solve the growing crisis.
Ms. Vargas standing in the community, besieged via a marketing blueprint, seemed to have been opportunely carved as the most scathing figure. She was hued as the most repulsive example of the modern spiritual ills. “Those associated with the illustrious caliber of the Janet Hartes and the Amanda Stukenbergs (i.e., CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Texas) and the Anne Armstrongs (former Ambassador to Great Britain) of these world watched the theater from afar, Bishop Gracida executing his agenda,” a local Hispanic Attorney remembered. “On one corner, you had the Janet Hartes who were the authentic foes of the Bishop’s spiritual rhetoric (yet he informally functioned as their umbrella of security. It was reflected in his regular routine when he socialized convivially with them), and on the other hand you had Ms. Vargas (the expedient target of the times), a gal that they seemed to be staring down at from their elevated balcony, and could be advantageously sacrificed so the bishop could put on a good show before the media.”
DID BISHOP GRACIDA PROVIDE AN UMBRELLA OF SECURITY FOR JANET HARTE?
“Had Bishop Gracida been providing an umbrella of security for the affluent bon ton of the area as he ventured to stamp out the agenda of abortions, his heat-maddening messages were covered nationally and even internationally?”; “Was it a fussy denunciation?” – these were some questions floating in the community. With every media interview, he lifted his accusations onto a prefigured plane of uncompromising proportions. He scrounged medieval canons to legitimize what critics called “his witch hunt.” He propelled the vim and vigor of his inner zealot to reverse the currents of media scrutiny on the church he led. Keep in mind that the highly publicized pedophile accusations against clergymen were still on the daily calendar of television coverage.
With his adroit, consummate skill Gracida had managed to puff out his elevated inner wrath on a humble barrio young woman: Ms. Rachel Vargas – the awful myths long promoted by the Caller-Times resurfaced. “In more ways than one the Bishop was aware about some of the eugenics proponents of the bon ton of Corpus Christi and about the harsh belief system so rampant in the gilded ranches of Kleberg County about the moral character of most minorities. Many a portion of the pretentious elite shunned the Rachel Vargas-es of this world and yet continued quietly dabbling with the furtive pseudo-science of eugenics at the Sierra Club and at Environmental Conferences. To the fanatic ones, the Rachel Vargas-es of this world were victims of parental interbreeding over the years,” a Texas A&M-Kingsville Professor quipped.
Despite the church’s crisis and the excommunicaiton of Ms. Vargas, to iterate, Bishop Gracida kept Janet Harte (and other fixated with eugenics under his umbrella of refuge) and in his close-knit orbit of personal friends, knowing she was the co-founder of Planned Parenthood of South Texas. She co-founded it in 1950s. Yet at her death, in 1999 the local Corpus Christi Times and many a religious leader (who were the recipients of her financial generosity) described her as a “humanitarian” and “philanthropist”; but those who were in the receiving end on her wrath were left out. The Caller-Times wrote: “Recollections of her (Janet Harte’s) warmth and reverence for human life were threaded through the many prayers and reflections spoken during the service and afterward in the reception hall.” Was the mentioned a true representation of her life? No.
Gracida’s agenda of “selective targeting” was effective – functional for those in the establishment who used daily impression management techniques to cloak their dark side. It made good politics (in that he had not targeted someone of the caliber of Janet Harte or Anne Armstrong or even someone of the caliber of modern day Dr. Hall [Duerr], (wife of James Duerr that is evolved as a run-off candidate for U.S. Representative in the Republican Party in this year of 2010). This type of “selective politics” could now be used to negotiate deals. Also, Edward Harte (husband to Janet Harte) – felt safe and joined his wife as an advisory member to a national eugenicist and anti-immigrant organization known as Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform. That same year, he sold the Caller-Times to Scripps News.
WAS RACHEL VARGAS’ EXCOMMUNICATION TO SHROUD THE SCANDALS OF THE CHURCH?
But the contradiction lingered. Bishop Garcia wrote to Ms.Vargas in his letter: ''Your cooperation in procuring abortions is a sin against God and humanity and against the law of the Roman Catholic Church,” Ms. Vargas made a public statement at the time: ''I have been severed from my mother church. It is very painful. My parents, brothers and sisters are closer to the church (referring to St. Anthony’s in Robstown, Texas) than me. It has caused them a lot of suffering.''
Was this a political and marketing plan plotted from the beginning to posture the fraught Catholic Church in a new light? Bishop Gracida’s agenda (was clearly bias against minorities and the working class) yet was adopted at a massive scale. It swayed a captive audience to the polls -- i.e., for Conservative Republicans. Gracida would even rise to the rank of being head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in New York. Republican powerbrokers did lobby and offer their services to Gracida to stealthily do damage control via tort reform moves. The Catholic Church to some degree was now politically shielded. A new spin as to why the church was being prosecuted was introduced by “spin doctors”: “It is under attack by ‘money hungry’ lawyers representing their so-called injured clients.”
Gracida, five years later, himself would go on to be accused of helping a priest (Rev. Jesus Gonzalez) escape to his homeland of Spain, a priest who was accused of drugging and molesting four young Hispanic boys in Mathis, Texas. Despite the crisis, he continued to sit on boards in the borough with the well-heeled bon ton of Corpus Christi and on other organizations of South Texas. He continued to orbit the burg of so-called “humanitarian eugenicists” that were evidently immune from his original censure due to their functionally sacrosanct social class positions and lucrative bank accounts. But who could nudge Gracida’s reins? The Attorney General of Texas would try, but not be up to snuff due to secreted antagonism from higher-ups.
Some Civil Rights leaders hinted that the brunt of the messages by Bishop Gracida were intended to sway many a Catholic – especially, Democrat Hispanics in the area and other Catholics in the nation to vote Republican. LULAC’s Joe Ortiz, a Civil Rights Leader said: “I feel that the masses of young females who were victims of the Planned Parenthood structure were further victimized.” The so-called “liberal humanists” not only became targets at his shooting gallery, but most Hispanic Democrats in office.
“What was wrong with this picture?” – this was a re-occurring question. Hispanic politicians in office were targeted, yet the “institutional experiments” dealing with eugenics done publically before the Bishop’s full view (by some of the ‘wild eye’ groups in the area) were never really challenged by him. The latter continued to operate as respectable organizations. Gracida’s deal was more of a ‘blame the victim’ witch-hunt. In short, all his targets (or for the most part) especially political or community leaders had been Hispanics – in short, those public servants more conditioned to the historical abuses of the patron system.
Some Civil Rights leaders in retrospect yelp about their obliviousness: “How come then-Bishop Gracida was not censured by a religious entity for being a guilty party – that is, guilty by association?’” A probable reason (cited by many): he was working closely with many powercrats residing deep inside the establishment.
In a nutshell: Janet Harte – had escaped the wrath and censure of the times. After all, her husband owned the only major newspaper in the area from the 1960s until the late 1980s. She was a powerful lady that a bishop would not even give a “slap in the hand” censure? Behind close-doors the Bishop claimed that the reason was that she was not Catholic. “If then-Bishop Gracida had launched a long and relentless battle against the practice of abortion, how could he not bar the common foe (Ms. Harte, the founder of Planned Parenthood of South Texas) from the premises of the Catholic Church? Where were the Bishop’s true depths of his dedication against spiritual corruption?” – these questions linger to this day.
WHAT WAS HER BACKGROUND?
Mrs. Harte was born October 13, 1923, at Hanover, New Hampshire. Professor Albert W. Frey was her father, who was a noted marketing specialist at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. This is the environment where Mrs. Harte picked up sly marketing techniques to conceal both her future activism with eugenics and endeavors with population control. Her mother was Anne Slade Frey, who loved the arts and who was a musician, painter, and ceramist.
Mrs. Janet Frey Harte, during her adolescence, had relocated with her parents to Vienna, Austria. There she attended school and in that socio-political climate was obviously influenced by the eugenics movement of the times. It was pre-World War II Vienna, the native homeland of Adolf Hitler cheering on their iconic native that had risen to great political heights in history.
Mrs. Harte then returned to America – gradually evolving into an adult with a special view of the planet. She, later would, without reservation, express her obsession with population control – especially when it came to minorities and the poor and the homeless.
Mr. Harte in some circles was given an endearing label to describe her – a “humanitarian eugenicist.” On the other hand, she became known by some critics as the “South Texas Margret Sanger” (Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood). Many of her so-called “charitable contributions” would be labeled by future detractors, who re-visited her life, as “diabolic charity.”
Planned Parenthood -- a main beneficiary of Ms. Harte’s “charity” -- is the largest provider of abortions: surgical, medical and chemical. One report explains: "Every two minutes a baby dies somewhere in a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in the US. In 2006, there were 289,750 abortions at Planned Parenthood; in other words, a little over a quarter of a millions babies died. 5,000 babies per week die at Planned Parenthood."
“How can something that sounds so altruistic like “humanitarian eugenics – something that strives to improve the species, to leave an inheritance of love to future generations be so politically incorrect in our modern times?”; “How can something that promises good health, high intelligence and noble character – at least to those who are the beneficiaries of its kindness, be so twisted?” – these were some questions that hinted at some so equally “demonic” by the critics?
“The problem,” it would be later discovered, “with this idea is that those who do not meet the standards of being ‘fit for breeding’ must be eliminated – or prevented from spreading their ‘tainted’ genetic code to the next generation.” There had been over the years in South Texas, a passionate attempt by Ms. Harte to manipulate (via her activism and generous donations to individuals and organizations dedicated to this purpose) the population by means of human genetics and population control methods. She turned to John Tanton, a “white nativist” doctor from Michigan, who became her mentor, for direction. She began to bestride, according to many a prominent critic, a fine line between ethical and unethical, moral and immoral.
Not only would the Southern Poverty Law Center label Mrs. Harte’s mentor (Dr. John Tanton) and the organization he founded -- Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform -- as “hate”; but other persons and organizations such as Walter L. Cronkite (famous pioneer broadcast journalist for CBS Evening News), Linda Chavez (conservative commentator) and the Wall Street Journal would become critics of Tanton and his organizations such as FAIR.
“Morals,” professors of philosophy and ethics have pointed out, “are something that develop innately and naturally – our definitions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Ethics requires a greater sense of reasoning. Morals come from within; ethics, from external references such as impressionable persons, society, parents, religion and so forth.”
A critic stated: “While Mrs. Harte (by way of her involvement in Planned Parenthood and FAIR and with Dr. John Tanton and environmental stabilizationalists) had in her heart and soul “good intentions” to strengthen future generations, her goals failed to take into consideration the rights that her actions would violate – especially Latinos and Blacks and the poor in South Texas.” Mrs. Harte tried to cloak herself in the thick of the civil rights movement that was glowing at the time – wooing civil rights leaders such as Hector P. Garcia (Founder of the American G.I. Forum) and other Black leaders. “Why would she posture herself in this manner?” – some critics have tried to answer this question. “Could she have been following the blueprint left by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) to court minority leaders?”
WHAT DID THE FOUNDER OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD WANT TO ACCOMPLISH WITH MINORITIES, IMMIGRANTS AND THE POOR?
Statements exist made by the original founder of Planned Parenthood in America (Ms. Sanger) that address the aim intended for ethnic minorities in American: "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population… if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members. We will get a few Black ministers to put an end to that notion." This citation can be found in Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon.
“Mrs. Harte,” as one pillar of the community put it, “put her money where her mouth is – i.e., to control the human race by means of controlling reproduction. What could be so wrong in her eyes as stabilizing population and identifying ‘deficient’ family trees and subjecting them to family planning or sterilization or to a concentrated dosage of birth control? Did she use unethical actions to try to do her part in accomplishing her goal?” – how many were the lingering questions. Her views were very closely aligned with Margaret Sanger’s (founder of Planned Parenthood). Ms. Sanger, in her book, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people, explained her logic and ultimate rationale for executing the agenda of the Planned Parenthood movement and its charged eugenics plan: “(They are)...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born."
Mrs. Harte arrived in Corpus Christi during the l950s. A few years later she became involved with the homeless shelter and some of its activities. But there remains a pungent anti-breeding note in many of her contributions. The Rev. Ed Seeger, director of Corpus Christi Metro Ministries (at the time), became acquainted with the Hartes, especially Mrs. Harte who formed a close interest in her role with the agency. In the late 1990s, the couple would donate more over $1 million to Metro Ministries.
Rev. Seeger recalled that when he first relocated from Houston to Corpus Christi in the 1980s. Mrs. Harte called him to share what he called “a deep concern for human life in its most significant dimensions" – in one phrase: the birth control program for the homeless.
Rev. Seeger would softly share some of his dealing with Mrs. Harte at her funeral service. He recalled how Mrs. Harte, upon meeting her, promptly changed the tête-à-tête toward an assessment of family-planning services in Corpus Christi – especially for the homeless.
Rev. Seeger had been courted into her cause. He agreed to take her generous donations allocated for family-planning and disease-prevention programs within the homeless population. The Caller-Times reported briefly on this event: “In short, he (Rev. Seeger) said, he needed about $140 to buy two cases of condoms…Harte wrote a check on the spot. She believed in the cause, Seeger said, and she wasn't a person to hesitate when she supported something.”
WHO WAS MRS. HARTE’S IDOL AND MENTOR – A “WHITE SUPREMACIST”?
Mrs. Harte’s beliefs in reference to population control of certain “deprived” sectors of society and in reference to humanitarian eugenics were reinforced by her idol: a man by the name of Dr. John Tanton, a medical doctor that founded various organizations and printed a couple of publications. Mrs. Harte copy-edited many of Tanton’s publications and even read them to crowds every opportunity she had. She became an advisory board member (along with her husband Edward Harte) in one of his infamous organizations known as Federation of Americans for Immigrant Reform (FAIR for short). What did Dr. Tanton have to say about population control and eugenics?
So as to be objective, doctoral candidate Jose Villarreal, a professional researcher was commissioned by El Defenzor, to travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan to examine the John Tanton files – Tanton, to reiterate, is the founder of Federation of American for Immigrant Reform and various other organizations. Villarreal reported: “The Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan is a modest place, more like a small city library than a research institution. But buried away in over a dozen or so boxes are the papers of John Tanton, a retired Michigan ophthalmologist.” Villarreal added: “The papers record more than two decades of correspondence from the founder of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and a set of other nativist groups. They contain controversial views about Tanton's beliefs. They also demonstrate beyond a doubt, that FAIR, on whose board of directors that John Tanton still sits and records that both is main board (and advisory board members such as Ed Harte and his late wife – Janet Harte) -- were well informed of Tanton's views and activities.”
The cited Tanton files record where John Tanton introduced key board members and advisors and consultants to the president of the Pioneer Fund. But what do Tanton's letters have to tell the readers of our publication? Tanton has been connected to extreme racist and racialist ideas that go beyond the pale of the normative acceptance in our modern society. The founder of FAIR in one of his letters doubts the proper "educability" of Latinos can occur, admonishing “whites” that they will be “out-bred” by both Latinos and Afro-Americans. In his publications (many proof-read by Janet Harte) published a number of white nationalist authors – and these, beyond a doubt record that the founder of FAIR has been knitted with those at the heart of the “white power” and “white nationalist” landscape.
The letters of FAIR’s founder record that he had warm dialogues with leaders not only in the “white nationalist” movements, but with Holocaust deniers and former Klan lawyers. His letters record his lengthy discussion with “white supremacist” groups attempting to arrive at and promote "race betterment." A year and a half before Mrs. Harte passed on, i.e., in 1997, FAIR’s founder called a meeting at a private club with a range of parties he had corresponded.
FAIR’s founder also brought pseudo-scientists and radical professors via an elemental funder to pay for the air time of radical anti-Semitic activists. As he put it: “(Our goal is) to give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life." He also suggested that the FAIR board confer and dialogue about the anti-Semitic theories and on the bio-social culture of the Jews. His letters also record how he wanted to ban Asian immigration; and that he supported an uncompromising anti-Semite leader whose pro-Nazi American Coalition of Patriotic Societies was indicted for sedition in 1942.
But what attracted many like Janet Harte to Tanton as early as the late 1960s and 1970s that had an obsession with eugenics, the "pseudo-science of breeding” a better human race that was utterly discredited by the Nazis. Tranton and some of his followers went as far as to investigate if Michigan had laws allowing forced sterilization. He went on to found Planned Parenthood clinics in Michigan just as Ms. Harte had done in South Texas. Now three decades later, he is still fretting about “less intelligent" and “culturally disadvantaged” people being allowed to have children. He writes in one of his letters: "Modern medicine and social programs are eroding the human gene pool."
JANET HARTE’S MENTOR -- JOHN TANTON -- ON THE U.S. CONSTITUTION – “It's A Document Based on Bond of Blood & Ethnicity”?
“Nations and their cultures,” he has suggested on numerous occasions, “are largely determined by biology — race.” In a Nov. 13, 1994, letter to white nationalist columnist Lawrence Auster, a regular correspondent, Tanton suggested that the Declaration of Independence was actually a document based on the "bond of blood and ethnicity — nationhood." Almost a year earlier, in a Dec. 10, 1993, letter to Garrett Hardin, a controversial ecology professor, he said: "I've come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that." On Jan. 26, 1996, he wrote Roy Beck, head of the immigration restrictionist group NumbersUSA (and then an employee of Tanton's foundation U.S. Inc.), questioning whether Latinos were capable of governing California.
FAIR’s founder said in his letter to Beck referring to the changing demographics in California public schools: “(I wonder) whether the minorities who are going to inherit California (85% of the lower-grade school children are now 'minorities' — demography is destiny) can run an advanced society?”
Tanton defended racial quotas imposed on immigrants. In a Nov. 3, 1995, memo to FAIR boss Dan Stein and the entire FAIR board of advisors (including Mr. and Mrs. Harte), Tanton defended the infamous "White Australia" policy that restricted non-white immigration into that country from 1901 to 1973. He claimed it was not “bigoted” nor ethnocentric, but sheltered native-born labor (the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act outlawed racial quotas in Australia).
FAIR’S FOUNDER AND FAIR’S STAFF TO THE DISTRIBUTION OF LITERATURE BY “WHITE NATIONALISTS” HARPING ON RACE, INTELLIGENCE AND EUGENICS:
In spite of the seedy past of senior John B. Trevor Sr. (who founded the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies and was an advisor to the Anti-Catholic, Christian Crusade of Billy James Hargis), Tanton sent his unpublished autobiography to numerous friends and advisors of FAIR On November 21, 2001, Tanton wrote to FAIR board member Donald Collins. In a cover letter, Tanton told Collins that the work of Trevor — who distributed pro-Nazi propaganda, had creatively come up with plans to squash uprisings of “Jewish subversives,” and piercingly believed there was a diabolical plot by Jews to control America. He believed that Trevor’s work should serve FAIR as "a guidepost to what we must follow again this time."
Over the years, his most intimate friend on the “white nationalist” vista seems to have been Jared Taylor, the man who began printing American Renaissance. Taylor was a racist and ran a pseudo-scientific publication zooming meticulously on race, intelligence and eugenics, in 1990. ("When blacks are left entirely to their own devices," Taylor wrote in its pages a few years ago, "Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.")
The founder of FAIR promoted Taylor's efforts repeatedly. On Dec. 15, 1994, he wrote a friend to suggest that he read Taylor's 1992 book. More remarkably, on Jan. 24, 1991, he wrote to the then-president of the Pioneer Fund, Harry Weyher, about Taylor's American Renaissance effort. And as recently as April 20, 1998, Tanton wrote to several FAIR employees, including Dan Stein, to ensure that they were receiving American Renaissance mailings: "I write to encourage keeping track of those on our same side of the issue, but who are nonetheless our competitors for dollars and members." (The underlining was in Tanton's original letter.)
Tanton also corresponded for years with the late Sam Francis, a one-time Washington Times columnist who was fired after details of a racist speech he gave at an American Renaissance conference became public. From 1999 until his death in 2005, Francis edited the crudely racist and nativist Citizens Informer, the tabloid published by the “white supremacist” Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), an organization that says it "oppose[s] all efforts to mix the races of mankind."
On June 26, 1996, Tanton wrote to Sam Dickson — a Georgia lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan, written for and been on the editorial advisory board of Holocaust denial publications, to thank him for a good time during a visit by Tanton and his wife. "The next time I'm in Atlanta," Tanton mentioned to Dickson, "I hope to take one of your 'politically incorrect' tours."
On June 17, 1998, Tanton wrote to Stan Hess, who was then a member of the CCC, about Hess' proposal to open a FAIR office in California (the letter was copied to Stein). The letter reiterated how Tanton had "presented" Hess' concept to the FAIR board. Hess incarcerated later that year for burning a Mexican flag at an Alabama CCC gathering that was attended by an “unrobed” Klansman. Hess would go on in 1999 to assist in structuring the neofascist American Friends of the British National Party and, afterward, to become California state leader of a faction headed by neo-Nazi and former Klan leader David Duke.
On Sept. 18, 1996, FAIR’s founder scribbled a note to now-deceased California multimillionaire Robert K. Graham, a eugenicist who founded a sperm bank to amass the semen of Nobel Prize-winning scientists: "Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less? Who is going to break the bad news [to less intelligent individuals], and how will it be implemented?"
HAS TANTON AND HIS ORGANIZATION – FAIR – BEEN TINTED UNJUSTLY WITH THE BRUSH OF RACISM?
After starting his own eugenicist group, the Society for Genetic Education in 1996, he wrote to Graham, the California eugenicist, to talk about public relations approaches. In early September of 1996, letter, Tanton explained how his new faction's website "emphasized mankind's use of eugenic principles on plants and the lower animals as a way to condition the public to the idea of genetic manipulation, and raise the question of its application to the human race." Elaborating, he added: "We report ways [eugenics] is currently being done, but under the term genetics rather than eugenics."
Throughout its history, the United States has been subjected to intermittent occurrences of chauvinistic ethnocentrism, livid responses to streams of immigrants who are perceived by some means as poles apart than "real" Americans. At different times, these have been aimed at Catholics, Jews, Asians, blacks and others. They have characteristically been tightened by racist labels. The newcomers are portrayed as dim-witted, repulsive, untrustworthy, diseased and other things.
Today, no one disputes the offensive bigotry of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in South Texas (in cities such as Sinton, Texas and in Kleberg County), which grew on the strength of hating Hispanics, Blacks, and Jews. In like manner the nativist causes from the “Know-Nothings” of the 1840s, that perceived German Catholics as treacherous subverters of the American Republic, to the ethnocentric demonization of Mexican "wetbacks" during the 20th century.
But John Tanton and his Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have repeatedly claimed that they are singular, that FAIR and its founder are not allied to the bizarre ethnocentrism of the past. Their critics, according to Tanton and his followers, are simply painting them with the brush of racism to undeservedly transfer derision on their ideological position.
As the Bentley Library files show, that is far from factual.
WHAT PHILANTHROPY DID MRS. HARTE REALY LEAVE FOR MINORITIES, THE HOMELESS, MINORIES, IMMIGRANTS AND THE POOR?
Mrs. Harte’s story (and her close affiliation to Dr. John Tanton) demonstrates that in the present times, humanitarian and/or the stark Hitler-type eugenics, is far from having disappeared. The influence of her father’s marketing background helped her to encourage others to practice it under different names.
Mrs. Harte’s father – Professor Albert W. Frey – was a former dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Business and a former president of the American Marketing Association. He even wrote a book on business marketing techniques and consulted huge pharmaceutical corporations on how to optimize the sale of their drugs.
Mrs. Harte’s father (Professor Frey) got his degree from Dartmouth College and was a professor at the Amos Tuck School of Business there from 1920 until the early 1960s and also served as assistant dean from 1930 to the late 1930s.
“Mrs. Harte attended the Oakwood School, Poughkeepsie, New York, and graduated from
Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, where she was a scholarship student,” Scripps News reported. “Following her graduation she taught in a rural school near Bennington during a wartime teacher shortage. Later she worked in New York City as a secretary to the Bennington board of trustees.”
In the late 1940s she married Edward H. Harte, who was also a Dartmouth graduate whom she had formed a liking during his college years.
The couple resided for a short time in Hanover, New Hampshire; Claremont, New Hampshire; Kansas City, Missouri; Snyder, Texas; and San Angelo, Tex. They had progressively made their way to her husband’s state and place of orientation.
Edward Harte was the son of Houston Harte that went on to acquire various papers throughout the state (via the Harte-Hankes empire) including the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the San Antonio Express. Edward was assigned and given control of the Caller-Times. His brother Houston was given license over the San Antonio Express.
Janet Harte moved with him to Corpus Christi in 1956. Immediately upon arriving she took up the cause of promoting population control; and set out to form Planned Parenthood of South Texas. She resided in Corpus Christi for the rest of her days, but also had a home in Maine where she escaped with her family during the summer.
Mrs. Harte, after seeing her mentor – John Tanton -- failing to convert his first environmental and zero population growth groups to his anti-immigration agenda (it is believed), firmly commiteted to be a disciple of his cause. Tanton went on to found the Washington, D.C.-based FAIR in 1979. He was the chairman for eight years and his loyal hanger-on. She had enrolled not only a member but as his personal copy-editor for his publications.
Tanton used his brain child -- FAIR and it's publications -- to blame both Latinos and immigrants as the cause of environmental, population, and economic problems. Recently, the chairman of Edward Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University, the research data of Larry McKinney, PH.D, was quoted to fuel the anti-Latino and Anti-immigration sentiments. FAIR cited this predisposited academecian, "Population growth has taken a toll on the Rio Grande, which is no longer strong enough to reach the sea... So much of the Rio Grande river is being used to accommodate population growth that Larry McKinney commented, 'It’s hardly even a river anymore. It’s more a managed irrigation ditch.'"
Dr. McKinney’s statements have added the necessary “fuel to the fire” to inspire regional organizations in South Texas that share “like minded” agendas to dabble in a joint venture to validate the charged psuedo-science of eugenics as a popular craze. The marketing craze cloaked under the heading of “Sex & Environment Tour” aims to reinforce an anti-Latino and anti-“Large Family” plan in South Texas. For instance, the Sierra Club teamed up with Planned Parenthood for the "Sex and the Environment Tour". Claiming that the impact of large families (couples that are hallowed with high fertility rates) have had a negative impact on the environment. The “Sex & Environment Tour” targeted students at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and the region. Their call to action? “There should be ‘fewer children.’” They claimed that research by universities show families should have only “two children” and that there should be both state and federal laws to penalize large families. This "tour" focused on college campuses.
THE JANET HARTE ACTIVISM AWARD – How Her Agenda Lives On Through An Organization Structure Known as FAIR:
After her death in 1999, Ms. Harte left a sizeable contribution in her will to the Federation of Americans for Immigrant Reform (FAIR) and Planned Parenthood of South Texas. In the last decade FAIR has activated an award known as the JANET HARTE ACTIVISM AWARD. It is awarded to individuals who do extremely well in championing the core agenda of FAIR.
One website – www.sourcewatch.org – reports that Janet Harte’s son -- Christopher M. Harte – has served as Director for the Center for the Community Interest (an organization co-founded by the infamous Dr. John Tanton according to Web Right). Their website goes on to note: "As a leading advocate for urban quality-of-life and safe-streets measures, CCI's goal is to make communities and neighborhoods safe places to live and raise children and to make the public spaces of our cities secure and inviting places for all by helping to identify common sense, balanced solutions to crime and quality-of-life problems and to defend those policies against unreasonable legal attacks."
Christopher M. Harte is also a Former Director of the National Audubon Society. This society is one of the oldest and most elitist of American conservation groups. It has been a mainstay of Rockefeller Republicans. It also has a fastidious obsession with Third World birth rates, advocating ruthless population control measures.
SourceWatch.Org also reports that Christopher M. Harte "is a private equity investor and former publisher of the Akron Beacon Journal and the Portland Press Herald. He is a director of three public companies: Harte-Hanks, Geokinetics and Crown Resources.” He is also a director or general partner in many private companies and partnerships.
Finally, where is retired Bishop Gracida now – after having survived several scandals, from charges of having “misappropriated” funds of the Kenedy Foundation to helping priests molesting kids escape the country? Gracida, in a public access show, stated he had retired to the KENEDY RANCH (flanking the ANNE ARMSTRONG RANCH -- She was the former Ambassador to Great Britain and an intimate friend of the late Janet Harte.
HOW CAN “CHARITY” CONTINUE TO CONTRIBUTE TO ANTI-LATINO VIOLENCE?
A few months ago the leader of the Minutemen American Defense organization, Shawna Forde (who has been a National Media Spokesperson for John Tanton’s FAIR organization), and Jason Eugene (the organization's director of field operations), and Albert Robert Gaxiola (a local guide) invaded the home of an Hispanic Family on May 30th of 2009. They shot 10-year old Brisenia Flores twice in the head. They proceeded -- fatally shooting her father – Raul; and attempted to murder her mother Gina. But the mom (after being shot) managed to wriggle to the kitchen and loaded a handgun and fought back.
Shawna Forde (who was seen as a perfect candidate for the JANET HARTE ACTIVISM AWARD) was arrested by the FBI on June 12 at the American Border Patrol ranch owned by Glenn Spencer. He launched off in talk radio raving about "too many Mexicans taking over Los Angeles" and about "a conspiracy by Mexicans to take over the US Southwest." Mr. Spencer, of the American Border Patrol (ABP), after the incident tried to dissociate himself from Ms. Forde. ABP was another organization both inspired and funded by FAIR’s founder -- John Tanton.
After she was apprehended, it was unveiled that Ms. Forde had been a national television spokesperson for FAIR – the same FAIR where Ed Harte, former owner of the Caller-Times is serving as an advisory board member.
Gina Flores, after her frightening ordeal, told police that Shawna Forde was hollering orders to the other Minutemen in her house and talking to others on a walkie-talkie. They also had an immense network of anti-Mexican/anti-Immigrant sympatizers.
The FBI has reported that violence related to hate crimes against Mexican immigrants and the Latino population in general has risen exponentially in the last decade. There is both a graspable reason why this has occurred.
El Defenzor has also been reporting on these “hate crimes” since the year 2000 -- the rising of the Minutemen vigilante movement and other anti-Latino and pro-eugenics organzations such as FAIR, but it was on no account suspected there were links here locally (e.g., such as the former owners of the CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER-TIMES) to these alarming associations.
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