To be fair to Tesla, and to history, this was pretty normal at the time. The Supreme Court even endorsed it: in fact, they didn't even just endorse it, it was appatently so important that they ruled in 1927 in Buck vs Bell that sterilization of the unfit did not violated due process (what!?).[1]

It took generations of education, whatever you want to call it, to change our collective minds.

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell