John Hamilton Tanton (February 23, 1934 – July 16, 2019) was an American ophthalmologist, white nationalist and anti-immigration activist. He was the founder and first chairman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigration organization. He was the co-founder of the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank; and NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration lobbying group. He was chairman of U.S. English and ProEnglish. He was briefly President of Zero Population Growth. He was the founder of The Social Contract Press, which published a quarterly journal of nativist and white nationalist writers called The Social Contract until Fall 2019. He founded the pro-eugenics organization Society for Genetic Education.
Early life
Tanton was born in 1934 in Detroit. In 1945, he moved with his family to a farm northeast of Bay City, Michigan, on which his mother had been raised and on which he worked.
Tanton graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Michigan State University in 1956, received an M.D. from the University of Michigan in 1960, and received an M.S. in ophthalmology from the University of Michigan in 1964.
Career
Tanton ran an ophthalmology practice in Petoskey, Michigan.
Political advocacy
Tanton was an anti-immigration activist. He was the founder and patron of many anti-immigration non-profit organizations, including ProEnglish. By 2019, six anti-immigrant groups founded by Tanton were designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Earlier in his advocacy career, he founded the Petoskey chapter of the Sierra Club, helped found the northern Michigan chapter of Planned Parenthood, and became an active member and then president of Zero Population Growth from 1975 to 1977. Unable to secure support from colleagues in groups such as Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club to limit immigration, in 1979 he founded the non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) with early support from Warren Buffett and Eugene McCarthy, with the promise that it would be "centrist/liberal in political orientation". In 1983, he co-founded U.S. English with former United States Senator S. I. Hayakawa to advocate for making English the official language of the United States.
Additionally, Tanton co-founded and was heavily involved in the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Numbers USA, the American Immigration Control Foundation, American Patrol/Voices of Citizens Together, Californians for Population Stabilization, and ProjectUSA. Donations flow through U.S. Inc., which also supports Scenic Michigan, the International Dark-Sky Association, the Foreign Policy Association's Great Decisions Series, and the Harbor Springs chapter of the North Country Trail Association. Tanton served on the Board of Population-Environment Balance.
Tanton founded the Social Contract Press in 1990. He served as its publisher. Additionally, he was the editor-in-chief of its journal, The Social Contract, since 1998. He co-authored the book The Immigrant Invasion with Wayne Lutton, which was published by the Social Contract Press in 1994.
Promotion of eugenics
According to CNN, Tanton "has openly embraced eugenics, the science of improving the genetic quality of the human population by encouraging selective breeding and at times, advocating for the sterilization of genetically undesirable groups." Tanton wrote a paper in 1975 arguing for "passive eugenics" whereby child-bearing would be restricted to those between the ages of 20 and 35. He also founded the pro-eugenics organization, the Society for Genetic Education (SAGE).
Opposition to immigration
According to Rafael Bernal of the Hill, Tanton's opposition to immigration was "on the grounds of population reduction and protection of an ethnic white majority". According to the New York Times, Tanton over time increasingly made his case against immigration in "racial terms". According to the New York Times, Tanton also said "One of my prime concerns is about the decline of folks who look like you and me ... for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that."
Resignation from U.S. English
In 1988, shortly before a referendum in Arizona to make English the state's official language, a memo written by Tanton was leaked to the media. The Arizona Republic published a 1986 memo from Tanton.