1750-17991.881800-18494.071850-18695.911870-18798.10J. A. Hill[124]found, from the 1910 census figures, that one in eight of the native-born wives is childless, as compared with one in five among the Negroes, one in nineteen among the foreign born. Childlessness of American wives is therefore a considerable, although not a preponderant factor, in this decline of the birth rate.Dr. Hill further found that from 10 marriages, in various stocks, the following numbers of children could be expected:Native-born women27Negro-born women31English-born women34Russian-born women54French Canada-born women56Polish-born women62The women of the old American stock are on the whole more sterile or, if not sterile, less fecund, than other women in the United States. Why?In answer, various physiological causes are often alleged. It is said that the dissemination of venereal diseases has caused an increase of sterility; that luxurious living lowers fecundity, and so on. It is impossible to take the time to analyze the many explanations of this sort which have been offered, and which are familiar to the reader; we must content ourselves with saying that evidence of a great many kinds, largely statistical and, in our opinion, reliable, indicates that physiological causes play a minor part in the decrease of the birth-rate.[125]Or, plainly, women no longer bear as many children, because they don't want to.This accords with Dr. Cattel's inquiry of 461 American men of science; in 285 cases it was stated that the family was voluntarily limited, the cause being given as health in 133 cases, expense in 98 cases, and various in 54 cases. Sidney Webb's investigation among "intellectuals" in London showed an even greater proportion of voluntary limitation. The exhaustive investigation of the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics leaves little room for doubt that in England the decline in the birth-rate began about 1876-78, when the trial of Charles Bradlaugh and the Theosophist leader, Mrs. Annie Besant, on the charge of circulating "neo-Malthusian" literature, focusedpublic attention on the possibility of birth control, and gradually brought a knowledge of the means of contraception within reach of many. In the United States statistics are lacking, but medical men and others in a position to form opinions generally agree that the limitation of births has been steadily increasing for the last few decades; and with the propaganda at present going on, it is pretty sure to increase much more rapidly during the next decade or two.Some instructive results can be drawn, in this connection, from a study of the families of Methodist clergymen in the United States.[126]Although 98 out of every hundred of them marry, and they marry early, the birth-rate is not high. Its distribution is presented in the accompanying graph (Fig. 38). It is evident that they have tended to standardize the two-child family which is so much in evidence among college professors and educated classes generally, all over the world. The presence of a considerable number of large families raises the average number of surviving children of prominent Methodists to 3.12.And in so explaining the cause of the declining birth-rate among native-born Americans, we have also found the principal reason for thedifferentialnature of the decline in the nation at large, which is the feature that alarms the eugenist. The more intelligent and well-to-do part of the population has been able to get and use the needed information, and limit its birth-rate; the poor and ignorant has been less able to do so, and their rate of increase has therefore been more natural in a large percentage of cases.It is not surprising, therefore, that many eugenists should have advocated wider dissemination of the knowledge of means of limiting births, with the idea that if this practice were extendedto the lower classes, their birth-rate would decrease just the same as has that of the upper classes, and the alarming differential rate would therefore be abolished.FAMILIES OF PROMINENT METHODISTSFAMILIES OF PROMINENT METHODISTSFig.38.—The heavy line shows the distribution of families of prominent Methodists (mostly clergymen) who married only once. Eleven percent had no surviving children and nearly half of the families consisted of two children or less. The dotted line shows the families of those who were twice married. It would naturally be expected that two women would bear considerably more children than one woman, but as an average fact it appears that a second wife means the addition of only half a child to the minister's family. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the birth-rate in these families is determined more by the desire of the parents (based on economic grounds) than on the natural fecundity of the women. In other words, the number of children is limited to the number whom the minister can afford to bring up on his inadequate salary.Against this it might be argued that the desired result will never be wholly attained, because the most effective means of birth control involve some expense, and because their effective use presupposes a certain amount of foresight and self-control which is not always found among the lower strata of society.Despite certain dangers accompanying a widespread dissemination of the knowledge of how to limit births, it seems to be the opinion of most eugenists that if free access to such information be not permitted that at least such knowledge ought to be given in many families, where it would be to the advantage of society that fewer children be produced. Such a step, of course, must be taken on the individual responsibility of a doctor, nurse or other social worker. A propaganda has arisen during recent years, in the United States, for the repeal of all laws which prohibit giving knowledge about and selling contraceptives. Whether or not it succeeds in changing the law it will, like the Bradlaugh-Besant episode, spread contraception widely. This propaganda is based largely on social and economic grounds, and is sometimes unscientific in its methods and avowed aims. But whatever its nature may be, there seems little reason (judging from analogy in European countries) to believe that it can be stopped.The "infant mortality movement" also has an effect here which is rarely recognized. It is a stock argument of birth control propagandists that a high birth-rate means a high rate of infant mortality; but A. O. Powys has demonstrated that cause and effect are to some extent reversed in this statement, and that it is equally true that a high rate of infant mortality means a high birth-rate, in a section of the population where birth control is not practiced. The explanation is the familiar fact that conception takes place less often in nursing mothers. But if a child dies early or is bottle-fed, a new conception is likely to occur much sooner than would otherwise be the case. By reducing infant mortality and teaching mothers to feed their babies naturally, the infant mortality movement is thereby reducing the birth-rate in the poorer part of the population, a eugenic service which to some extent offsets the dysgenic results that, as we shall show in the last chapter, follow the "Save the Babies" propaganda.With the spread of the birth control and infant mortality movements one may therefore look forward to some diminution of the differential element in the birth-rate, together with a further decline in that birth-rate as a whole.Such a situation, which seems to us almost a certainty within the next decade or two, will not change the duty of eugenics, on which we have been insisting in this chapter and, to a large extent, throughout the present book. It will be just as necessary as ever that the families which are, and have been in the past, of the greatest benefit and value to the country, have a higher birth-rate. The greatest task of eugenics, as we see it, will still be to find means by which the birth-rate among such families can be increased. This increase in the birth-rate among superior people must depend largely on a change in public sentiment. Such a change may be brought about in many ways. The authority of religion may be invoked, as it is by the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches[127]whose communicants are constantly taught that fecundity is a virtue and voluntary sterility a sin. Unfortunately their appeal fails to make proper discriminations. Whatever may be the theological reasons for such an attitude on the part of the churches, its practical eugenic significance is clear enough.Nothing can be more certain than that, if present conditions continue, Roman Catholics will soon be in an overwhelming preponderance in the eastern United States, because of the differential birth-rate, if for no other reason; and that the Mormon population will steadily gain ground in the west. Similarly, it is alleged that the population of France is gradually assuming the characteristics of the Breton race, because thatrace is the notably fecund section of the population, while nearly all the other components of the nation are committing race suicide (although not so rapidly as is the old white stock in New England). Again, the rôle of religion in eugenics is shown in China, where ancestor worship leads to a desire for children, and makes it a disgrace to be childless. A process analogous to natural selection applies to religions much as it does to races; and if the Chinese religion, with its requirement of a high birth-rate, and the present-day American Protestant form of the Christian religion, with its lack of eugenic teaching, should come into direct competition, under equal conditions of environment, it is obvious that the Chinese form would be the eventual survivor, just because its adherents would steadily increase and those of its rival would as steadily decrease. Such a situation may seem fanciful; yet the leaders of every church may well consider whether the religion which they preach is calculated to fill all the needs of its adherents, if it is silent on the subject of eugenics.The influence of economic factors on the birth-rate is marked. The child, under modern urban conditions, is not an economic asset, as he was on the farm in earlier days. He is an economic liability instead. And with the constant rise of the standard of living, with the increase of taxation, the child steadily becomes more of a liability. Many married people desire children, or more children, but feel that they can not have them without sacrificing something that they are unwilling to sacrifice.Analysis of this increase in the cost of children, reveals not less than five main elements which deserve attention from eugenists.1. It costs more to clothe children than it used to. Not only does clothing of a given quality cost more now than it did a decade or two ago, but there are more fabrics and designs available, and many of these, while attractive, are costly and not durable. Compliance to fashion has increasingly made itself felt in the clothing of the child.2. It costs more to feed them than it used to. Not only has food for everyone increased in price, but the standards for feeding children have been raised. Once children were expected to be content with plain fare; now it is more frequently the custom to give them just what the rest of the family eats.3. The cost of medical attention has increased. All demand more of the doctors now than they did in the last generation. The doctors are able to do more than they formerly could, and particularly for his children, every man wants the best that he can possibly afford. Hence medical attendance for a child is constantly becoming more costly, because more frequent; and further, the amount of money which parents spend on medical attendance for their children usually increases with any increase in their income.4. The cost of domestic labor is greater. Most kinds of domestic service have more than doubled in price within the memory of relatively young people. Moreover, it is gradually being realized that a high standard is desirable in selecting a nurse for children. As a fact, a children's nurse ought to have much greater qualifications than the nurse whose duty is to care for sick adults. If a mother is obliged to delegate part of the work of bringing up her children to some other woman, she is beginning to recognize that this substitute mother should have superior ability; and the teachers of subconscious psychology have emphasized the importance of giving a child only the best possible intellectual surroundings. Ignorant nursemaids are unwillingly tolerated, and as the number of competent assistants for mothers is very small, the cost is correspondingly high. An increase in the number of persons trained for such work is to be anticipated, but it is likely that the demand for them will grow even more rapidly; hence there is no reason to expect that competent domestic help will become any less costly than it is now.5. The standards of education have risen steadily. There is perhaps no other feature which has tended more to limit families. Conscientious parents have often determined to have no more children than they could afford to educate in the best possible way. This meant at least a college education, and frequently has led to one and two-child families. It is a motive of birthcontrol which calls for condemnation. The old idea of valuable mental discipline for all kinds of mental work to be gained from protracted difficult formal education is now rejected by educational psychologists, but its prevalence in the popular mind serves to make "higher education" still something of a fetish, from which marvelous results, not capable of precise comprehension, are anticipated. We do not disparage the value of a college education, in saying that parents should not attach such importance to it as to lead them to limit their family to the number to whom they can give 20 years of education without pecuniary compensation.The effect of these various factors in the increasing cost of children is to decrease fecundity not so much on the basis of income of parents, as on the basis of their standards. The prudent, conscientious parent is therefore the one most affected, and the reduction in births is greatest in that class, where eugenics is most loth to see it.The remedy appears to be a change in public opinion which will result in a truer idea of values. Some readjustments in family budgets are called for, which will discriminate more clearly between expenditure that is worth while, and that which is not. Without depriving his children of the best medical attention and education, one may eliminate those invidious sources of expense which benefit neither the children nor anyone else,—overdressing, for instance. A simplification of life would not only enable superior people to have larger families, but would often be an advantage to the children already born.On the other hand, the fact that higher standards in a population lead to fewer children suggests a valuable means of reducing the birth-rate of the inferior. Raise their low standards of living and they will reduce their own fertility voluntarily (the birth control movement furnishing them with the possibility). All educational work in the slums therefore is likely to have a valuable though indirect eugenic outcome. The poor foreign-speaking areas in large cities, where immigrants live huddled together in squalor, should be broken up. As these people are given new ideas of comfort, and as their children are educatedin American ways of living, there is every reason to expect a decline in their birth-rate, similar to that which has taken place among the native-born during the past generation.This elevation of standards in the lower classes will be accomplished without any particular exertion from eugenists; there are many agencies at work in this field, although they rarely realize the result of their work which we have just pointed out.But to effect a discriminating change in the standards of the more intelligent and better educated classes calls for a real effort on the part of all those who have the welfare of society at heart. The difficulties are great enough and the obstacles are evident enough; it is more encouraging to look at the other side, and to see evidences that the public is awakening. The events of every month show that the ideals of eugenics are filtering through the public mind more rapidly than some of us, a decade ago, felt justified in expecting. There is a growing recognition of the danger of bad breeding; a growing recognition in some quarters at least of the need for more children from the superior part of the population; a growing outcry against the excessive standards of luxury that are making children themselves luxuries. The number of those who call themselves eugenists, or who are in sympathy with the aims of eugenics, is increasing every year, as is evidenced by the growth of such an organization as the American Genetic Association. Legislators show an eager desire to pass measures that as they (too often wrongly) believe will have a eugenic result. Most colleges and universities are teaching the principles of heredity, and a great many of them add definite instruction in the principles of eugenics. Although the ultimate aim of eugenics—to raise the level of the whole human race—is perhaps as great an undertaking as the human mind can conceive, the American nation shows distinct signs of a willingness to grapple with it. And this book will have failed in its purpose, if it has not convinced the reader that means are available for attacking the problem at many points, and that immediate progress is not a mere dream.One of the first necessary steps is a change in educationalmethods to give greater emphasis to parenthood. And this change, it is a great pleasure to be able to say, is being made in many places. The public schools are gradually beginning to teach mothercraft, under various guises, in many cities and the School of Practical Arts, Columbia Univ., gives a course in the "Physical Care of the Infant." Public and private institutions are beginning to recognize, what has long been ignored, that parenthood is one of the functions of men and women, toward which their education should be directed. Every such step will tend, we believe, to increase the birth-rate among the superior classes of the community; every such step is therefore, indirectly if not directly, a gain for eugenics; for, as we have emphasized time and again, a change in public opinion, to recognize parenthood as a beautiful and desirable thing, is one of the first desiderata of the eugenics program.The introduction of domestic science and its rapid spread are very gratifying, yet there are serious shortcomings, as rather too vigorously set forth by A. E. Hamilton:"There are rows of little gas stoves over which prospective wives conduct culinary chemical experiments. There are courses in biology, something of physiology and hygiene, the art of interior decoration and the science of washing clothes. There is text-book sociology and sometimes lectures on heredity or eugenics. But the smile of incredulity as to my seriousness when I asked a Professor in the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School [a college of Practical Arts for Women], 'Where are the babies?' is typical. Babies were impossible. They would interfere with the curriculum, there was no time for practice with babies, and besides, where could they be got, and how could they be taken care of? The students were altogether too busy with calories, balanced rations, and the history of medieval art."Perhaps the time is not so far distant when babies will be considered an integral part of a girl's curriculum. If educators begin systematically to educate the emotions as well as the intellect, they will have taken a long step toward increasing the birth-rate of the superior. The next step will be to correlate income more truly with ability in such a way as to make it possiblefor superior young parents to afford children earlier. The child ought, if eugenically desirable, to be made an asset rather than a liability; if this can not be done, the parents should at least not be penalized for having children. In this chapter, emphasis has been laid on the need for a change in public opinion; in future chapters some economic and social reforms will be suggested, which it is believed would tend to make superior parents feel willing to have more children.The education of public opinion which, acting through the many agencies named, will gradually bring about an increase in the birth-rate of superior people, will not be speedy; but it has begun. The writers, therefore, feel justified in thinking, not solely as a matter of optimistic affirmation, but because of the evidence available, that the race suicide now taking place in the old American stock will soon reach its lowest limit, and that thereafter the birth-rate in that particular stock will slowly rise. If it does, and if, as seems probable, the birth-rate in some inferior sections of the American population at the same time falls from its present level, a change in the racial composition of the nation will take place, which, judged by past history, is bound to be of great eugenic value.CHAPTER XIVTHE COLOR LINE"A young white woman, a graduate of a great university of the far North, where Negroes are seldom seen, resented it most indignantly when she was threatened with social ostracism in a city farther South with a large Negro population because she insisted upon receiving upon terms of social equality a Negro man who had been her classmate.[128]"The incident seems trivial. But the phenomenon back of it, the "color line," is so far-reaching that it deserves careful examination.As the incident suggests, the color line is not a universal phenomenon. The Germans appear to have little aversion to receiving Negroes—in Germany—on terms of equality. These same Germans, when brought face to face with the question in their colonies, or in the southern United States, quickly change their attitude. Similarly a Negro in Great Britain labors under much less disadvantage than he does among the British inhabitants of Australia or South Africa.The color line therefore exists only as the result of race experience. This fact alone is sufficient to suggest that one should not dismiss it lightly as the outgrowth of bigotry. Is is not perhaps a social adaptation with survival value?The purpose of this chapter is to analyze society's "unconscious reasoning" which has led to the establishment of a color line—to the denial of social equality—wherever the white[129]andblack races have long been in contact during recent history; and to see whether this discrimination appears to be justified by eugenics.J. M. Mecklin[130]summarizes society's logic as follows:"When society permits the free social intercourse of two young persons of similar training and interests, it tacitly gives its consent to the possible legitimate results of such relations, namely, marriage. But marriage is not a matter that concerns the contracting parties alone; it is social in its origin and from society come its sanctions. It is society's legitimatised method for the perpetuation of the race in the larger and inclusive sense of a continuous racial type which shall be the bearer of a continuous and progressive civilization. There are, however, within the community, two racial groups of such widely divergent physical and psychic characteristics that the blending of the two destroys the purity of the type of both and introduces confusion—the result of the blend is a mongrel. The preservation of the unbroken, self-conscious existence of the white or dominant ethnic group is synonymous with the preservation of all that has meaning and inspiration in its past and hope for its future. It forbids by law, therefore, or by the equally effective social taboo, anything that would tend to contaminate the purity of its stock or jeopardize the integrity of its social heritage."It is needless to say that the "social mind" does not consciously go through any such process of reasoning, before it draws a color line. The social mind rarely even attempts to justify its conclusions. It merely holds a general attitude of superiority, which in many cases appears to be nothing more than a feeling that another race isdifferent.In what way different?The difference between the white race and the black (or any other race) might consist of two elements: (1) differences in heredity—biological differences; (2) differences in traditions, environment, customs—social differences, in short. A critical inquirer would want to know which kind of difference was greater, for he would at once see that the second kind mightbe removed by education and other social forces, while the first kind would be substantially permanent.It is not difficult to find persons of prominence who will assert that all the differences between white and Negro are differences of a social nature, that the differences of a physical nature are negligible, and that if the Negro is "given a chance" the significant differences will disappear. This attitude permeates the public school system of northern states. A recent report on the condition of Negro pupils in the New York City public schools professes to give "few, perhaps no, recommendations that would not apply to the children of other races. Where the application is more true in regard to colored children, it seems largely to be because of this lack of equal justice in the cases of their parents. Race weakness appears but this could easily be balanced by the same or similar weakness in other races. Given an education carefully adapted to his needs and a fair chance for employment, the normal child of any race will succeed, unless the burden of wrong home conditions lies too heavily upon him."[131]As the writer does not define what she means by "succeed," one is obliged to guess at what she means: Her anthropology is apparently similar to that of Franz Boas of Columbia University, who has said that, "No proof can be given of any material inferiority of the Negro race;—without doubt the bulk of the individuals composing the race are equal in mental aptitude to the bulk of our own people."If such a statement is wholly true, the color line can hardly be justified, but must be regarded, as it is now the case sometimes, as merely the expression of prejudice and ignorance. If the only differences between white and black, which can not be removed by education, are of no real significance,—a chocolate hue of skin, a certain kinkiness of hair, and so on,—then logically the white race should remove the handicaps which lack ofeducation and bad environment have placed on the Negro, and receive him on terms of perfect equality, in business, in politics, and in marriage.The proposition needs only to be stated in this frank form, to arouse an instinctive protest on the part of most Americans. Yet it has been urged in an almost equally frank form by many writers, from the days of the abolitionists to the present, and it seems to be the logical consequence of the position adopted by such anthropologists as Professor Boas, and by the educators and others who proclaim that there are no significant differences between the Negro and the white, except such as are due to social conditions and which, therefore, can be removed.But what are these social differences, which it is the custom to dismiss in such a light-hearted way? Are they not based on fundamental incompatibilities of racial temperament, which in turn are based on differences in heredity? Modern sociologists for the main part have no illusions as to the ease with which these differences in racial tradition and custom can be removed.The social heritage of the Negro has been described at great length and often with little regard for fact, by hundreds of writers. Only a glance can be given the subject here, but it may profitably be asked what the Negro did when he was left to himself in Africa."The most striking feature of the African Negro is the low forms of social organization, the lack of industrial and political cooperation, and consequently the almost entire absence of social and national self-consciousness. This rather than intellectual inferiority explains the lack of social sympathy, the presence of such barbarous institutions as cannibalism and slavery, the low position of woman, inefficiency in the industrial and mechanical arts, the low type of group morals, rudimentary art-sense, lack of race-pride and self-assertiveness, and in intellectual and religious life largely synonymous with fetishism and sorcery."[132]An elementary knowledge of the history of Africa, or the more recent and much-quoted example of Haiti, is sufficient to provethat the Negro's own social heritage is at a level far below that of the whites among whom he is living in the United States. No matter how much one may admire some of the Negro's individual traits, one must admit that his development of group traits is primitive, and suggests a mental development which is also primitive.If the number of original contributions which it has made to the world's civilization is any fair criterion of the relative value of a race, then the Negro race must be placed very near zero on the scale.[133]The following historical considerations suggest that in comparison with some other races the Negro race is germinally lacking in the higher developments of intelligence:1. That the Negro race in Africa has never, by its own initiative, risen much above barbarism, although it has been exposed to a considerable range of environments and has had abundant time in which to bring to expression any inherited traits it may possess.2. That when transplanted to a new environment—say, Haiti—and left to its own resources, the Negro race has shown the same inability to rise; it has there, indeed, lost most of what it had acquired from the superior civilization of the French.3. That when placed side by side with the white race, the Negro race again fails to come up to their standard, or indeed to come anywhere near it. It is often alleged that this third test is an unfair one; that the social heritage of slavery must be eliminated before the Negro can be expected to show his true worth. But contrast his career in and after slavery with that of the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were slaves, but slaves of good stock. They quickly rose to be the real rulers of the country. Again, compare the record of the Greek slaves in the Roman republic and empire or that of the Jews under Islam. Without pushing these analogies too far, is not one forced to concludethat the Negro lacks in his germ-plasm excellence of some qualities which the white races possess, and which are essential for success in competition with the civilizations of the white races at the present day?If so, it must be admitted not only that the Negro isdifferentfrom the white, but that he is in the large eugenicallyinferiorto the white.This conclusion is based on the relative achievements of the race; it must be tested by the more precise methods of the anthropological laboratory. Satisfactory studies of the Negro should be much more numerous, but there are a few informative ones. Physical characters are first to be considered.As a result of the careful measurement of many skulls, Karl Pearson[134]has come to the following conclusions:"There is for the best ascertainable characters a continuous relationship from the European skull, through prehistoric European, prehistoric Egyptian, Congo-Gaboon Negroes to Zulus and Kafirs."The indication is that of a long differentiated evolution, in which the Negro lies nearer to the common stem than the European; he is nearer to the childhood of man."This does not prove any mental inferiority: there is little or no relation between conformation of skull and mental qualities, and it is a great mistake to make hasty inferences from physical to mental traits. Bean and Mall have made studies directly on the brain, but it is not possible to draw any sure conclusions from their work. A. Hrdlička found physical differences between the two races, but did not study traits of any particular eugenic significance.On the whole, the studies of physical anthropologists offer little of interest for the present purpose. Studies of mental traits are more to the point, but are unfortunately vitiated in many cases by the fact that no distinction was made between full-blood Negroes and mulattoes, although the presence of white blood must necessarily have a marked influence on the traits under consideration. If the investigations are discountedwhen necessary for this reason, it appears that in the more elementary mental processes the two races are approximately equal. White and "colored" children in the Washington, D. C., schools ranked equally well in memory; the colored children were found to be somewhat the more sensitive to heat.[135]Summing up the available evidence, G. O. Ferguson concludes that "in the so-called lower traits there is no great difference between the Negro and the white. In motor capacity there is probably no appreciable racial difference. In sense capacity, in perceptive and discriminative ability, there is likewise a practical equality."This is what one would,a priori, probably expect. But it is on the "higher" mental functions that race progress largely depends, and the Negro must be judged eugenically mainly by his showing in these higher functions. One of the first studies in this line is that of M. J. Mayo,[136]who summarizes it as follows:"The median age of white pupils at the time of entering high school in the city of New York is 14 years 6 months: of colored pupils 15 years 1 month—a difference of 7 months. The average deviation for whites is 9 months; for colored 15 months. Twenty-seven per cent of the whites are as old as the median age of the colored or older."Colored pupils remain in school a greater length of time than do the whites. For the case studied [150 white and 150 colored], the average time spent in high school for white pupils was 3.8 terms; for colored 4.5 terms. About 28% of the whites attain the average time of attendance for colored."Considering the entire scholastic record, the median mark of the 150 white pupils is 66; of the 150 colored pupils 62; a difference of 4%. The average deviation of white pupils is 7; of colored 6.5. Twenty-nine per cent. of the colored pupils reach or surpass the median mark of the whites."The white pupils have a higher average standing in all subjects ... the colored pupils are about ¾ as efficient as the whites in the pursuit of high school studies."This whole investigation is probably much too favorable to the Negro race, first because Negro high school pupils represent a more careful selection than do the white pupils; but most of all because no distinction was made between Negroes and mulattoes.B. A. Phillips, studying the public elementary schools of Philadelphia, found[137]that the percentage of retardation in the colored schools ranged from 72.8 to 58.2, while the percentage of retardation in the districts which contained the schools ranged from 45.1 to 33.3. The average percentage of retardation for the city as a whole was 40.3. Each of the colored schools had a greater percentage of retardation than any of the white schools, even those composed almost entirely of foreigners, and in those schools attended by both white and colored pupils the percentage of retardation on the whole varied directly with the percentage of colored pupils in attendance.These facts might be interpreted in several ways. It might be that the curriculum was not well adapted to the colored children, or that they came from bad home environments, or that they differed in age, etc. Dr. Phillips accordingly undertook to get further light on the cause of retardation of the colored pupils by applying Binet tests to white and colored children of the same chronological age and home conditions, and found "a difference in the acceleration between the two races of 31% in favor of the white boys, 25% in favor of the white girls, 28% in favor of the white pupils with boys and girls combined."A. C. Strong, using the Binet-Simon tests, found[138]colored school children of Columbia, S. C., considerably less intelligent than white children.W. H. Pyle made an extensive test[139]of 408 colored pupils inMissouri public schools and compared them with white pupils. He concludes: "In general the marks indicating mental ability of the Negro are about two-thirds those of the whites.... In the substitution, controlled association, and Ebbinghaus tests, the Negroes are less than half as good as the whites. In free association and the ink-blot tests they are nearly as good. In quickness of perception and discrimination and in reaction, the Negroes equal or excel the whites.""Perhaps the most important question that arises in connection with the results of these mental tests is: How far is ability to pass them dependent on environmental conditions? Our tests show certain specific differences between Negroes and whites. What these differences would have been had the Negroes been subject to the same environmental influences as the whites, it is difficult to say. The results obtained by separating the Negroes into two social groups would lead one to think that the conditions of life under which the negroes live might account for the lower mentality of the Negroes. On the other hand, it may be that the Negroes living under better social conditions are of better stock. They may have more white blood in them."The most careful study yet made of the relative intelligence of Negroes and whites is that of G. O. Ferguson, Jr.,[140]on 486 white and 421 colored pupils in the schools of Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Newport News, Va. Tests were employed which required the use of the "higher" functions, and as far as possible (mainly on the basis of skin-color) the amount of white blood in the colored pupils was determined. Four classes were made: full-blood Negro, ¾ Negro, ½ Negro (mulatto) and ¼ Negro (quadroon). It was found that "the pure Negroes scored 69.2% as high as the whites; that the ¾ pure Negroes scored 73.2% as high as the whites; that the mulattoes scored 81.2% as high as the whites; and that the quadroons obtained 91.8% of the white score." This confirms the belief of many observers that the ability of a colored man is proportionate to the amount of white blood he has.Summarizing a large body of evidence, Dr. Ferguson concludes that "the intellectual performance of the general colored population is approximately 75% as efficient as that of the whites," but that pure Negroes have only 60% of white intellectual efficiency, and that even this figure is probably too high. "It seems as though the white type has attained a higher level of development, based upon the common elementary capacities, which the Negro has not reached to the same degree." "All of the experimental work which has been done has pointed to the same general conclusion."This is a conclusion of much definiteness and value, but it does not go as far as one might wish, for the deeper racial differences of impulse and inhibition, which are at present incapable of precise measurement, are likewise of great importance. And it is the common opinion that the Negro differs in such traits even more than in intellect proper. He is said to be lacking in that aggressive competitiveness which has been responsible for so much of the achievement of the Nordic race; it is alleged that his sexual impulses are strongly developed and inhibitions lacking; that he has "an instability of character, involving a lack of foresight, an improvidence, a lack of persistence, small power of serious initiative, a tendency to be content with immediate satisfactions." He appears to be more gregarious but less apt at organization than most races.The significance of these differences depends largely on whether they are germinal, or merely the results of social tradition. In favor of the view that they are in large part racial and hereditary, is the fact that they persist in all environments. They are found, as Professor Mecklin says, "Only at the lower level of instinct, impulse and temperament, and do not, therefore, admit of clear definition because they are overlaid in the case of every individual with a mental superstructure gotten from the social heritage which may vary widely in the case of members of the same race. That they do persist, however, is evidenced in the case of the Negroes subjected to the very different types of civilization in Haiti, Santo Domingo, the United States, and Jamaica. In each of these cases a completebreak has been made with the social traditions of Africa and different civilizations have been substituted, and yet in temperament and character the Negro in all these countries is essentially the same. The so-called 'reversion to type' often pointed out in the Negro is in reality but the recrudescence of fundamental, unchanged race traits upon the partial breakdown of the social heritage or the Negro's failure successfully to appropriate it."Again, as Professor Ferguson points out, the experimental tests above cited may be thought to give some support to the idea that the emotional characteristics of the Negro are really inherent. "Strong and changing emotions, an improvident character and a tendency to immoral conduct are not unallied," he explains; "They are all rooted in uncontrolled impulse. And a factor which may tend to produce all three is a deficient development of the more purely intellectual capacities. Where the implications of the ideas are not apprehended, where thought is not lively and fertile, where meanings and consequences are not grasped, the need for the control of impulse will not be felt. And the demonstrable deficiency of the Negro in intellectual traits may involve the dynamic deficiencies which common opinion claims to exist."There are other racial and heritable differences of much importance, which are given too little recognition—namely, the differences of disease resistance. Here one can speak unhesitatingly of a real inferiority in respect to the environment of North America.As was pointed out in the chapter on Natural Selection, the Negro has been subjected to lethal selection for centuries by the Negro diseases, the diseases of tropical Africa, of which malaria and yellow fever are the most conspicuous examples. The Negro is strongly resistant to these and can live where the white man dies. The white man, on the other hand, has his own diseases, of which tuberculosis is an excellent example. Compared with the Negro, he is relatively resistant to phthisis and will survive where the Negro dies.When the two races are living side by side, it is obvious that each is proving a menace to the other, by acting as a disseminatorof infection. The white man kills the Negro with tuberculosis and typhoid fever. In North America the Negro can not kill the white man with malaria or yellow fever, to any great extent, because these diseases do not flourish here. But the Negro has brought some other diseases here and given them to the white race; elephantiasis is one example, but the most conspicuous is hookworm, the extent and seriousness of which have only recently been realized.In the New England states the average expectation of life, at birth, is 50.6 years for native white males, 34.1 years for Negro males. For native white females it is 54.2 years and for Negro females 37.7 years, according to the Bureau of the Census (1916). These very considerable differences can not be wholly explained away by the fact that the Negro is crowded into parts of the cities where the sanitation is worst. They indicate that the Negro is out of his environment. In tropical Africa, to which the Negro is adapted by many centuries of natural selection, his expectation of life might be much longer than that of the white man. In the United States he is much less "fit," in the Darwinian sense.In rural districts of the South, according to C. W. Stiles, the annual typhoid death rate per 100,000 population is:WhitesNegroesMales37.475.3Females27.456.3These figures again show, not alone the greater intelligence of the white in matters of hygiene, but probably also the greater inherent resistance of the white to a disease which has been attacking him for many centuries. Biologically, North America is a white man's country, not a Negro's country, and those who are considering the Negro problem must remember that natural selection has not ceased acting on man.From the foregoing different kinds of evidence, we feel justified in concluding that the Negro race differs greatly from the white race, mentally as well as physically, and that in many respects it may be said to be inferior, when tested by the requirements of modern civilization and progress, with particular reference to North America.We return now to the question of intermarriage. What is to be expected from the union of these diverse streams of descent?The best answer would be to study and measure the mulattoes and their posterity, in as many ways as possible. No one has ever done this. It is the custom to make no distinction whatever between mulatto and Negro, in the United States, and thus the whole problem is beclouded.There is some evidence from life insurance and medical sources, that the mulatto stands above the Negro but below the white in respect to his health. There is considerable evidence that he occupies the same relation in the intellectual world; it is a matter of general observation that nearly all the leaders of the Negro race in the United States are not Negroes but mulattoes.Without going into detail, we feel perfectly safe in drawing this conclusion: that in general the white race loses and the Negro gains from miscegenation.This applies, of course, only to the germinal nature. Taking into consideration the present social conditions in America, it is doubtful whether either race gains. But if social conditions be eliminated for the moment, biologists may believe that intermarriage between the white and Negro races represents, on the whole, an advance for the Negro; and that it represents for the white race a distinct loss.If eugenics is to be thought of solely in terms of the white race, there can be no hesitation about rendering a verdict. We must unhesitatingly condemn miscegenation.But there are those who declare that it is small and mean to take such a narrow view of the evolution of the race. They would have America open its doors indiscriminately to immigration, holding it a virtue to sacrifice one's self permanently for someone else's temporary happiness; they would equally have the white race sacrifice itself for the Negro, by allowing a mingling of the two blood-streams. That, it is alleged, is the true way to elevate the Negro.The question may well be considered from that point of view,even though the validity of such a point of view is not admitted.To ensure racial and social progress, nothing will take the place of leadership, of genius. A race of nothing but mediocrities will stand still, or very nearly so; but a race of mediocrities with a good supply of men of exceptional ability and energy at the top, will make progress in discovery, invention and organization, which is generally recognized as progressive evolution.If the level of the white race be lowered, it will hurt that race and be of little help to the Negro. If the white race be kept at such a level that its productivity of men of talent will be at a maximum, everyone will progress; for the Negro benefits just as the white does from every forward step in science and art, in industry and politics.Remembering that the white race in America is nine times as numerous as the black race, we conclude that it would be desirable to encourage amalgamation of the two races only in case the average of mulattoes is superior to the average of the whites. No one can seriously maintain that this supposition is true. Biologically, therefore, there is no reason to think that an increase in the number of mulattoes is desirable.There is a curious argument in circulation, which points out that mulattoes are almost always the offspring of Negro mothers and white fathers, not of Negro fathers and white mothers. Therefore, it is said, production of mulattoes does not mean at all a decrease in the number of white births, but merely substitutes a number of mulatto births for an equivalent number of pure Negro births. It is therefore alleged that the production of mulattoes is in the long run a benefit, elevating the Negro race without impairing the white race.But this argument assumes that most mulatto births are illegitimate,—a condition which eugenists do not sanction, because it tends to disintegrate the family. Rather than such a condition, the legitimate production of pure-blood Negroes is preferable, even though they be inferior in individual ability to the illegitimate mulattoes offered as a substitute. There are not at the present time enough desirable white fathers in thecountry. If desirable ones are set aside to produce mulattoes, it would be a great loss to the nation; while if the mulattoes are the offspring of eugenically undesirable white fathers, then the product is not likely to be anything America wants.From whatever standpoint we take, we see nothing good to be said for miscegenation.[141]We have discussed the problem as a particular one between the blacks and whites but the argument will hold good when applied to any two races between which the differences are so marked that one may be considered decidedly inferior to the other.Society,—white society,—long ago reached the instinctive conclusion, which seems to us a correct one, that it must put a ban on intermarriage between two such races. It has given expression to this feeling by passing laws to prohibit miscegenation in 22 states, while six other states prohibit it in their constitutions. There are thus 22 states which have attempted legally to prevent intermarriage of the white and black race. While in 20 states there is no law on the subject, it is needless to say that popular feeling about it is almost uniform, and that the legislators of New England for instance would refuse to give their daughters in marriage to Negroes, even though they might the day before have voted down a proposed law to prohibit intermarriage on the ground that it was an expression of race prejudice.In a majority of the states which have no legislation of this kind, bills have been introduced during the last two or three years, and have been defeated through the energetic interference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization of which Oswald Garrison Villard ischairman of the Board of Directors and W. E. B. DuBois, a brilliant mulatto, is Director of Publicity and Research. As this association represents a very large part of the more intelligent Negro public opinion, its attitude deserves careful consideration. It is set forth summarily in a letter[142]which was addressed to legislators in various states, as follows:"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People earnestly protests against the bill forbidding intermarriage between the races, not because the Association advocates intermarriage, which it does not, but primarily because whenever such laws have been enacted they have become a menace to the whole institution of matrimony, leading directly to concubinage, bastardy, and the degradation of the Negro woman. No man-made law can stop the union of the races. If intermarriage be wrong, its prevention is best left to public opinion and to nature, which wreaks its own fearful punishments on those who transgress its laws and sin against it. We oppose the proposed statute in the language of William Lloyd Garrison in 1843, in his successful campaign for the repeal of a similar law in Massachusetts: 'Because it is not the province, and does not belong to the power of any legislative assembly, in a republican government, to decide on the complexional affinity of those who choose to be united together in wedlock; and it may as rationally decree that corpulent and lean, tall and short, strong and weak persons shall not be married to each other as that there must be an agreement in the complexion of the parties.'"We oppose it for the physical reason that to prohibit such intermarriage would be publicly to acknowledge that black blood is a physical taint, something no self-respecting colored man and woman can be asked to admit. We oppose it for the moral reason that all such laws leave the colored girl absolutely helpless before the lust of the white man, without the power to compel the seducer to marry. The statistics of intermarriage in thosestates where it is permitted show this happens so infrequently as to make the whole matter of legislation unnecessary. Both races are practically in complete agreement on this question, for colored people marry colored people, and white marry whites, the exceptions being few. We earnestly urge upon you an unfavorable report on this bill."Legislation on the subject of marriage is clearly inside the province of government. That such an argument as is quoted from William Lloyd Garrison can still be circulated in the United States and apparently carry weight, is sufficient cause for one to feel pessimistic over the spread of the scientific spirit in this nation. Suffice it to say that on this point the National Association is a century behind the times.The following policy seems to us to be in accordance with modern science, and yet meet all the legitimate arguments of the National Association. We will state our attitude as definitely as possible:1. We hold that it is to the interests of the United States, for the reasons given in this chapter, to prevent further Negro-white amalgamation.2. The taboo of public opinion is not sufficient in all cases to prevent intermarriage, and should be supplemented by law, particularly as the United States have of late years received many white immigrants from other countries (e. g., Italy) where the taboo is weak because the problem has never been pressing.3. But to prevent intermarriage is only a small part of the solution, since most mulattoes come from extramarital miscegenation. The only solution of this, which is compatible with the requirements of eugenics, is not that oflaissez faire, suggested by the National Association, but an extension of the taboo, and an extension of the laws, to prohibit all sexual intercourse between the two races.Four states (Louisiana, Nevada, South Dakota and Alabama) have already attempted to gain this end by law. We believe it to be highly desirable that such laws should be enacted and enforced by all states. A necessary preliminary would be to standardize the laws all over the Union, particularly with a viewto agreement on what a "Negro" legally is; for in some states the legislation applies to one who is one-sixteenth, or even less, Negro in descent, while in other states it appears to refer only to full-blood or, at the most, half-blood individuals.Such legislation, and what is more important, such public opinion, leading to a cessation of Negro-white amalgamation, we believe to be in the interests of national eugenics, and to further the welfare of both of the races involved. Miscegenation can only lead to unhappiness under present social conditions and must, we believe, underanysocial conditions be biologically wrong.We favor, therefore, the support of the taboo which society has placed on these mixed marriages, as well as any legal action which can practicably be taken to make miscegenation between white and black impossible. Justice requires that the Negro race be treated as kindly and considerately as possible, with every economic and political concession that is consistent with the continued welfare of the nation. Such social equality and intercourse as might lead to marriage are not compatible with this welfare.CHAPTER XVIMMIGRATIONThere are now in the United States some 14,000,000 foreign-born persons, together with other millions of the sons and daughters of foreigners who although born on American soil have as yet been little assimilated to Americanism. This great body of aliens, representing perhaps a fifth of the population, is not a pool to be absorbed, but a continuous, inflowing stream, which until the outbreak of the Great War was steadily increasing in volume, and of which the fountain-head is so inexhaustible as to appal the imagination. From the beginning of the century, the inflow averaged little less than a million a year, and while about one-fifth of this represented a temporary migration, four-fifths of it meant a permanent addition to the population of the New World.The character of this stream will inevitably determine to a large extent the future of the American nation. The direct biological results, in race mixture, are important enough, although not easy to define. The indirect results, which are probably of no less importance to eugenics, are so hard to follow that some students of the problem do not even realize their existence.The ancestors of all white Americans, of course, were immigrants not so very many generations ago. But the earlier immigration was relatively homogeneous and stringently selected by the dangers of the voyage, the hardships of life in a new country, and the equality of opportunity where free competition drove the unfit to the wall. There were few people of eminence in the families that came to colonize North America, but there was a high average of sturdy virtues, and a good deal of ability, particularly in the Puritan and Huguenot invasions and in a part of that of Virginia.In the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, thenumber of these "patriots and founders" was greatly increased by the arrival of immigrants of similar racial stocks from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, and to a less extent from the other countries of northern and western Europe. These arrivals added strength to the United States, particularly as a large part of them settled on farms.This stream of immigration gradually dried up, but was succeeded by a flood from a new source,—southern and eastern Europe. Italians, Slavs, Poles, Magyars, East European Hebrews, Finns, Portuguese, Greeks, Roumanians and representatives of many other small nationalities began to seek fortunes in America. The earlier immigration had been made up largely of those who sought escape from religious or political tyranny and came to settle permanent homes. The newer immigration was made up, on the whole, of those who frankly sought wealth. The difference in the reason for coming could not fail to mean a difference in selection of the immigrants, quite apart from the change in the races.Last of all began an immigration of Levantines, of Syrians, Armenians, and other inhabitants of Asiatic Turkey. Beyond this region lie the great nations of Asia, "oversaturated" with population. So far there has been little more than the threat of their overflow, but the threat is certain to become a reality within a few years unless prevented by legal restriction.The eugenic results of immigration are partly indirect and partly direct. Direct results follow if the newcomers are assimilated,—a word which we shall use rather narrowly to mean that free intermarriage takes place between them and all parts of the older population. We shall discuss the direct results first, the nature of which depends largely on whether the newcomers are racially homogeneous with the population already in the country.If they are like, the old and new will blend without difficulty. The effects of the immigration then depend on whether the immigrants are better or worse in average quality than the older residents. If as good or better, they are valuable additions; if inferior they are biologically a detriment.But if the new arrivals are different, if they represent a different subspecies ofHomo sapiens, the question is more serious, for it involves the problem of crossing races which are biologically more or less distinct. Genetics can throw some light on this problem.Waiving for the moment all question as to the relative quality of two distinct races, what results are to be expected from crossing? It (1) gives an increase of vigor which diminishes in later generations and (2) produces recombination of characters.The first result may be disregarded, for the various races of man are probably already much mixed, and too closely related, to give rise to much hybrid vigor in crosses.The second result will be favorable or unfavorable, depending on the characters which go into the cross; and it is not possible to predict the result in human matings, because the various racial characters are so ill known. It is, therefore, not worth while here to discuss at length genetic theory. In general it may be said that some valuable characters are likely to disappear, as the result of such crosses, and less desirable ones to take their place. The great bulk of the population resulting from such racial crosses is likely to be more or less mongrel in nature. Finally, some individuals will appear who combine the good characters of the two races, without the bad ones.The net result will therefore probably be some distinct gain, but a greater loss. There is danger that complex and valuable traits of a race will be broken down in the process of hybridization, and that it will take a long time to bring them together again. The old view that racial crosses lead fatally to race degeneration is no longer tenable, but the view recently advanced, that crosses are advantageous, seems equally hasty. W. E. Castle has cited the Pitcairn Islanders and the Boer-Hottentot mulattoes of South Africa as evidence that wide crosses are productive of no evil results. These cases may be admitted to show that such a hybrid race may be physically healthy, but in respect of mental traits they hardly do more than suggest the conclusion we advanced in our chapter on the Color Line,—that such miscegenation is an advantage to the inferior race and a disadvantage to the superior one.On the whole, we believe wide racial crosses should be looked upon with suspicion by eugenists.The colonizers of North America mostly belonged to the Nordic race.[143]The earlier immigrants to the United States,—roughly, those who came here before the Civil War,—belonged mostly to the same stock, and therefore mixed with the early settlers without difficulty. The advantages of this immigration were offset by no impairment of racial homogeneity.But the more recent immigration belongs mostly to other races, principally the Mediterranean and Alpine. Even if these immigrants were superior on the average to the older population, it is clear that their assimilation would not be an unmixed blessing, for the evil of crossbreeding would partly offset the advantage of the addition of valuable new traits. If, on the other hand, the average of the new immigration is inferior in quality, or in so far as it is inferior in quality, it is evident that it must represent biologically an almost unmixed evil; it not only brings in new undesirable traits, but injures the desirable ones already here.E. A. Ross has attempted to predict some of the changes that will take place in the population of the United States, as a result of the immigration of the last half-century.[144]"It is reasonable," he thinks, "to expect an early falling off in the frequency of good looks in the American people." A diminution of stature, a depreciation of morality, an increase in gross fecundity, and a considerable lowering of the level of average natural ability are among other results that he considers probable. Not only are the races represented in the later immigration in many cases inferior in average ability to the earlier immigrant races, but America does not get the best, or even a representative selection,[145]from the races which are now contributing to her population."Europe retains most of her brains, but sends multitudes of the common and sub-common. There is little sign of an intellectual element among the Magyars, Russians, South Slavs, Italians, Greeks or Portuguese" who are now arriving. "This does not hold, however, for currents created by race discrimination or oppression. The Armenian, Syrian, Finnish and Russo-Hebrew streams seemrepresentative, and the first wave of Hebrews out of Russia in the eighties was superior."While the earlier immigration brought a liberal amount of intelligence and ability, the later immigration (roughly, that of the last half century) seems to have brought distinctly less. It is at present principally an immigration of unskilled labor, of vigorous, ignorant peasants. Some of this is "promoted" by agents of transportation companies and others who stand to gain by stirring up the population of a country village in Russia or Hungary, excite the illiterate peasants by stories of great wealth and freedom to be gained in the New World, provide the immigrant with a ticket to New York and start him for Ellis Island. Naturally, such immigration is predominantly male. On the whole, females make up one-third of the recent inflow, but among some races—Greeks, Italians and Roumanians, for example—only one-fifth.In amount of inherent ability these immigrants are not only less highly endowed than is desirable, but they furnish, despite weeding out, altogether too large a proportion of the "three D's"—defectives, delinquents and dependents. In the single year 1914 more than 33,000 would-be immigrants were turned back, about half of them because likely to become public charges. The immigration law of 1907, amended in 1910, 1913 and 1917, excludes the following classes of aliens from admission into the United States:
J. A. Hill[124]found, from the 1910 census figures, that one in eight of the native-born wives is childless, as compared with one in five among the Negroes, one in nineteen among the foreign born. Childlessness of American wives is therefore a considerable, although not a preponderant factor, in this decline of the birth rate.
Dr. Hill further found that from 10 marriages, in various stocks, the following numbers of children could be expected:
The women of the old American stock are on the whole more sterile or, if not sterile, less fecund, than other women in the United States. Why?
In answer, various physiological causes are often alleged. It is said that the dissemination of venereal diseases has caused an increase of sterility; that luxurious living lowers fecundity, and so on. It is impossible to take the time to analyze the many explanations of this sort which have been offered, and which are familiar to the reader; we must content ourselves with saying that evidence of a great many kinds, largely statistical and, in our opinion, reliable, indicates that physiological causes play a minor part in the decrease of the birth-rate.[125]
Or, plainly, women no longer bear as many children, because they don't want to.
This accords with Dr. Cattel's inquiry of 461 American men of science; in 285 cases it was stated that the family was voluntarily limited, the cause being given as health in 133 cases, expense in 98 cases, and various in 54 cases. Sidney Webb's investigation among "intellectuals" in London showed an even greater proportion of voluntary limitation. The exhaustive investigation of the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics leaves little room for doubt that in England the decline in the birth-rate began about 1876-78, when the trial of Charles Bradlaugh and the Theosophist leader, Mrs. Annie Besant, on the charge of circulating "neo-Malthusian" literature, focusedpublic attention on the possibility of birth control, and gradually brought a knowledge of the means of contraception within reach of many. In the United States statistics are lacking, but medical men and others in a position to form opinions generally agree that the limitation of births has been steadily increasing for the last few decades; and with the propaganda at present going on, it is pretty sure to increase much more rapidly during the next decade or two.
Some instructive results can be drawn, in this connection, from a study of the families of Methodist clergymen in the United States.[126]Although 98 out of every hundred of them marry, and they marry early, the birth-rate is not high. Its distribution is presented in the accompanying graph (Fig. 38). It is evident that they have tended to standardize the two-child family which is so much in evidence among college professors and educated classes generally, all over the world. The presence of a considerable number of large families raises the average number of surviving children of prominent Methodists to 3.12.
And in so explaining the cause of the declining birth-rate among native-born Americans, we have also found the principal reason for thedifferentialnature of the decline in the nation at large, which is the feature that alarms the eugenist. The more intelligent and well-to-do part of the population has been able to get and use the needed information, and limit its birth-rate; the poor and ignorant has been less able to do so, and their rate of increase has therefore been more natural in a large percentage of cases.
It is not surprising, therefore, that many eugenists should have advocated wider dissemination of the knowledge of means of limiting births, with the idea that if this practice were extendedto the lower classes, their birth-rate would decrease just the same as has that of the upper classes, and the alarming differential rate would therefore be abolished.
FAMILIES OF PROMINENT METHODISTSFAMILIES OF PROMINENT METHODISTS
Against this it might be argued that the desired result will never be wholly attained, because the most effective means of birth control involve some expense, and because their effective use presupposes a certain amount of foresight and self-control which is not always found among the lower strata of society.
Despite certain dangers accompanying a widespread dissemination of the knowledge of how to limit births, it seems to be the opinion of most eugenists that if free access to such information be not permitted that at least such knowledge ought to be given in many families, where it would be to the advantage of society that fewer children be produced. Such a step, of course, must be taken on the individual responsibility of a doctor, nurse or other social worker. A propaganda has arisen during recent years, in the United States, for the repeal of all laws which prohibit giving knowledge about and selling contraceptives. Whether or not it succeeds in changing the law it will, like the Bradlaugh-Besant episode, spread contraception widely. This propaganda is based largely on social and economic grounds, and is sometimes unscientific in its methods and avowed aims. But whatever its nature may be, there seems little reason (judging from analogy in European countries) to believe that it can be stopped.
The "infant mortality movement" also has an effect here which is rarely recognized. It is a stock argument of birth control propagandists that a high birth-rate means a high rate of infant mortality; but A. O. Powys has demonstrated that cause and effect are to some extent reversed in this statement, and that it is equally true that a high rate of infant mortality means a high birth-rate, in a section of the population where birth control is not practiced. The explanation is the familiar fact that conception takes place less often in nursing mothers. But if a child dies early or is bottle-fed, a new conception is likely to occur much sooner than would otherwise be the case. By reducing infant mortality and teaching mothers to feed their babies naturally, the infant mortality movement is thereby reducing the birth-rate in the poorer part of the population, a eugenic service which to some extent offsets the dysgenic results that, as we shall show in the last chapter, follow the "Save the Babies" propaganda.
With the spread of the birth control and infant mortality movements one may therefore look forward to some diminution of the differential element in the birth-rate, together with a further decline in that birth-rate as a whole.
Such a situation, which seems to us almost a certainty within the next decade or two, will not change the duty of eugenics, on which we have been insisting in this chapter and, to a large extent, throughout the present book. It will be just as necessary as ever that the families which are, and have been in the past, of the greatest benefit and value to the country, have a higher birth-rate. The greatest task of eugenics, as we see it, will still be to find means by which the birth-rate among such families can be increased. This increase in the birth-rate among superior people must depend largely on a change in public sentiment. Such a change may be brought about in many ways. The authority of religion may be invoked, as it is by the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches[127]whose communicants are constantly taught that fecundity is a virtue and voluntary sterility a sin. Unfortunately their appeal fails to make proper discriminations. Whatever may be the theological reasons for such an attitude on the part of the churches, its practical eugenic significance is clear enough.
Nothing can be more certain than that, if present conditions continue, Roman Catholics will soon be in an overwhelming preponderance in the eastern United States, because of the differential birth-rate, if for no other reason; and that the Mormon population will steadily gain ground in the west. Similarly, it is alleged that the population of France is gradually assuming the characteristics of the Breton race, because thatrace is the notably fecund section of the population, while nearly all the other components of the nation are committing race suicide (although not so rapidly as is the old white stock in New England). Again, the rôle of religion in eugenics is shown in China, where ancestor worship leads to a desire for children, and makes it a disgrace to be childless. A process analogous to natural selection applies to religions much as it does to races; and if the Chinese religion, with its requirement of a high birth-rate, and the present-day American Protestant form of the Christian religion, with its lack of eugenic teaching, should come into direct competition, under equal conditions of environment, it is obvious that the Chinese form would be the eventual survivor, just because its adherents would steadily increase and those of its rival would as steadily decrease. Such a situation may seem fanciful; yet the leaders of every church may well consider whether the religion which they preach is calculated to fill all the needs of its adherents, if it is silent on the subject of eugenics.
The influence of economic factors on the birth-rate is marked. The child, under modern urban conditions, is not an economic asset, as he was on the farm in earlier days. He is an economic liability instead. And with the constant rise of the standard of living, with the increase of taxation, the child steadily becomes more of a liability. Many married people desire children, or more children, but feel that they can not have them without sacrificing something that they are unwilling to sacrifice.
Analysis of this increase in the cost of children, reveals not less than five main elements which deserve attention from eugenists.
1. It costs more to clothe children than it used to. Not only does clothing of a given quality cost more now than it did a decade or two ago, but there are more fabrics and designs available, and many of these, while attractive, are costly and not durable. Compliance to fashion has increasingly made itself felt in the clothing of the child.
2. It costs more to feed them than it used to. Not only has food for everyone increased in price, but the standards for feeding children have been raised. Once children were expected to be content with plain fare; now it is more frequently the custom to give them just what the rest of the family eats.
3. The cost of medical attention has increased. All demand more of the doctors now than they did in the last generation. The doctors are able to do more than they formerly could, and particularly for his children, every man wants the best that he can possibly afford. Hence medical attendance for a child is constantly becoming more costly, because more frequent; and further, the amount of money which parents spend on medical attendance for their children usually increases with any increase in their income.
4. The cost of domestic labor is greater. Most kinds of domestic service have more than doubled in price within the memory of relatively young people. Moreover, it is gradually being realized that a high standard is desirable in selecting a nurse for children. As a fact, a children's nurse ought to have much greater qualifications than the nurse whose duty is to care for sick adults. If a mother is obliged to delegate part of the work of bringing up her children to some other woman, she is beginning to recognize that this substitute mother should have superior ability; and the teachers of subconscious psychology have emphasized the importance of giving a child only the best possible intellectual surroundings. Ignorant nursemaids are unwillingly tolerated, and as the number of competent assistants for mothers is very small, the cost is correspondingly high. An increase in the number of persons trained for such work is to be anticipated, but it is likely that the demand for them will grow even more rapidly; hence there is no reason to expect that competent domestic help will become any less costly than it is now.
5. The standards of education have risen steadily. There is perhaps no other feature which has tended more to limit families. Conscientious parents have often determined to have no more children than they could afford to educate in the best possible way. This meant at least a college education, and frequently has led to one and two-child families. It is a motive of birthcontrol which calls for condemnation. The old idea of valuable mental discipline for all kinds of mental work to be gained from protracted difficult formal education is now rejected by educational psychologists, but its prevalence in the popular mind serves to make "higher education" still something of a fetish, from which marvelous results, not capable of precise comprehension, are anticipated. We do not disparage the value of a college education, in saying that parents should not attach such importance to it as to lead them to limit their family to the number to whom they can give 20 years of education without pecuniary compensation.
The effect of these various factors in the increasing cost of children is to decrease fecundity not so much on the basis of income of parents, as on the basis of their standards. The prudent, conscientious parent is therefore the one most affected, and the reduction in births is greatest in that class, where eugenics is most loth to see it.
The remedy appears to be a change in public opinion which will result in a truer idea of values. Some readjustments in family budgets are called for, which will discriminate more clearly between expenditure that is worth while, and that which is not. Without depriving his children of the best medical attention and education, one may eliminate those invidious sources of expense which benefit neither the children nor anyone else,—overdressing, for instance. A simplification of life would not only enable superior people to have larger families, but would often be an advantage to the children already born.
On the other hand, the fact that higher standards in a population lead to fewer children suggests a valuable means of reducing the birth-rate of the inferior. Raise their low standards of living and they will reduce their own fertility voluntarily (the birth control movement furnishing them with the possibility). All educational work in the slums therefore is likely to have a valuable though indirect eugenic outcome. The poor foreign-speaking areas in large cities, where immigrants live huddled together in squalor, should be broken up. As these people are given new ideas of comfort, and as their children are educatedin American ways of living, there is every reason to expect a decline in their birth-rate, similar to that which has taken place among the native-born during the past generation.
This elevation of standards in the lower classes will be accomplished without any particular exertion from eugenists; there are many agencies at work in this field, although they rarely realize the result of their work which we have just pointed out.
But to effect a discriminating change in the standards of the more intelligent and better educated classes calls for a real effort on the part of all those who have the welfare of society at heart. The difficulties are great enough and the obstacles are evident enough; it is more encouraging to look at the other side, and to see evidences that the public is awakening. The events of every month show that the ideals of eugenics are filtering through the public mind more rapidly than some of us, a decade ago, felt justified in expecting. There is a growing recognition of the danger of bad breeding; a growing recognition in some quarters at least of the need for more children from the superior part of the population; a growing outcry against the excessive standards of luxury that are making children themselves luxuries. The number of those who call themselves eugenists, or who are in sympathy with the aims of eugenics, is increasing every year, as is evidenced by the growth of such an organization as the American Genetic Association. Legislators show an eager desire to pass measures that as they (too often wrongly) believe will have a eugenic result. Most colleges and universities are teaching the principles of heredity, and a great many of them add definite instruction in the principles of eugenics. Although the ultimate aim of eugenics—to raise the level of the whole human race—is perhaps as great an undertaking as the human mind can conceive, the American nation shows distinct signs of a willingness to grapple with it. And this book will have failed in its purpose, if it has not convinced the reader that means are available for attacking the problem at many points, and that immediate progress is not a mere dream.
One of the first necessary steps is a change in educationalmethods to give greater emphasis to parenthood. And this change, it is a great pleasure to be able to say, is being made in many places. The public schools are gradually beginning to teach mothercraft, under various guises, in many cities and the School of Practical Arts, Columbia Univ., gives a course in the "Physical Care of the Infant." Public and private institutions are beginning to recognize, what has long been ignored, that parenthood is one of the functions of men and women, toward which their education should be directed. Every such step will tend, we believe, to increase the birth-rate among the superior classes of the community; every such step is therefore, indirectly if not directly, a gain for eugenics; for, as we have emphasized time and again, a change in public opinion, to recognize parenthood as a beautiful and desirable thing, is one of the first desiderata of the eugenics program.
The introduction of domestic science and its rapid spread are very gratifying, yet there are serious shortcomings, as rather too vigorously set forth by A. E. Hamilton:
"There are rows of little gas stoves over which prospective wives conduct culinary chemical experiments. There are courses in biology, something of physiology and hygiene, the art of interior decoration and the science of washing clothes. There is text-book sociology and sometimes lectures on heredity or eugenics. But the smile of incredulity as to my seriousness when I asked a Professor in the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School [a college of Practical Arts for Women], 'Where are the babies?' is typical. Babies were impossible. They would interfere with the curriculum, there was no time for practice with babies, and besides, where could they be got, and how could they be taken care of? The students were altogether too busy with calories, balanced rations, and the history of medieval art."
Perhaps the time is not so far distant when babies will be considered an integral part of a girl's curriculum. If educators begin systematically to educate the emotions as well as the intellect, they will have taken a long step toward increasing the birth-rate of the superior. The next step will be to correlate income more truly with ability in such a way as to make it possiblefor superior young parents to afford children earlier. The child ought, if eugenically desirable, to be made an asset rather than a liability; if this can not be done, the parents should at least not be penalized for having children. In this chapter, emphasis has been laid on the need for a change in public opinion; in future chapters some economic and social reforms will be suggested, which it is believed would tend to make superior parents feel willing to have more children.
The education of public opinion which, acting through the many agencies named, will gradually bring about an increase in the birth-rate of superior people, will not be speedy; but it has begun. The writers, therefore, feel justified in thinking, not solely as a matter of optimistic affirmation, but because of the evidence available, that the race suicide now taking place in the old American stock will soon reach its lowest limit, and that thereafter the birth-rate in that particular stock will slowly rise. If it does, and if, as seems probable, the birth-rate in some inferior sections of the American population at the same time falls from its present level, a change in the racial composition of the nation will take place, which, judged by past history, is bound to be of great eugenic value.
"A young white woman, a graduate of a great university of the far North, where Negroes are seldom seen, resented it most indignantly when she was threatened with social ostracism in a city farther South with a large Negro population because she insisted upon receiving upon terms of social equality a Negro man who had been her classmate.[128]"
The incident seems trivial. But the phenomenon back of it, the "color line," is so far-reaching that it deserves careful examination.
As the incident suggests, the color line is not a universal phenomenon. The Germans appear to have little aversion to receiving Negroes—in Germany—on terms of equality. These same Germans, when brought face to face with the question in their colonies, or in the southern United States, quickly change their attitude. Similarly a Negro in Great Britain labors under much less disadvantage than he does among the British inhabitants of Australia or South Africa.
The color line therefore exists only as the result of race experience. This fact alone is sufficient to suggest that one should not dismiss it lightly as the outgrowth of bigotry. Is is not perhaps a social adaptation with survival value?
The purpose of this chapter is to analyze society's "unconscious reasoning" which has led to the establishment of a color line—to the denial of social equality—wherever the white[129]andblack races have long been in contact during recent history; and to see whether this discrimination appears to be justified by eugenics.
J. M. Mecklin[130]summarizes society's logic as follows:
"When society permits the free social intercourse of two young persons of similar training and interests, it tacitly gives its consent to the possible legitimate results of such relations, namely, marriage. But marriage is not a matter that concerns the contracting parties alone; it is social in its origin and from society come its sanctions. It is society's legitimatised method for the perpetuation of the race in the larger and inclusive sense of a continuous racial type which shall be the bearer of a continuous and progressive civilization. There are, however, within the community, two racial groups of such widely divergent physical and psychic characteristics that the blending of the two destroys the purity of the type of both and introduces confusion—the result of the blend is a mongrel. The preservation of the unbroken, self-conscious existence of the white or dominant ethnic group is synonymous with the preservation of all that has meaning and inspiration in its past and hope for its future. It forbids by law, therefore, or by the equally effective social taboo, anything that would tend to contaminate the purity of its stock or jeopardize the integrity of its social heritage."
It is needless to say that the "social mind" does not consciously go through any such process of reasoning, before it draws a color line. The social mind rarely even attempts to justify its conclusions. It merely holds a general attitude of superiority, which in many cases appears to be nothing more than a feeling that another race isdifferent.
In what way different?
The difference between the white race and the black (or any other race) might consist of two elements: (1) differences in heredity—biological differences; (2) differences in traditions, environment, customs—social differences, in short. A critical inquirer would want to know which kind of difference was greater, for he would at once see that the second kind mightbe removed by education and other social forces, while the first kind would be substantially permanent.
It is not difficult to find persons of prominence who will assert that all the differences between white and Negro are differences of a social nature, that the differences of a physical nature are negligible, and that if the Negro is "given a chance" the significant differences will disappear. This attitude permeates the public school system of northern states. A recent report on the condition of Negro pupils in the New York City public schools professes to give "few, perhaps no, recommendations that would not apply to the children of other races. Where the application is more true in regard to colored children, it seems largely to be because of this lack of equal justice in the cases of their parents. Race weakness appears but this could easily be balanced by the same or similar weakness in other races. Given an education carefully adapted to his needs and a fair chance for employment, the normal child of any race will succeed, unless the burden of wrong home conditions lies too heavily upon him."[131]
As the writer does not define what she means by "succeed," one is obliged to guess at what she means: Her anthropology is apparently similar to that of Franz Boas of Columbia University, who has said that, "No proof can be given of any material inferiority of the Negro race;—without doubt the bulk of the individuals composing the race are equal in mental aptitude to the bulk of our own people."
If such a statement is wholly true, the color line can hardly be justified, but must be regarded, as it is now the case sometimes, as merely the expression of prejudice and ignorance. If the only differences between white and black, which can not be removed by education, are of no real significance,—a chocolate hue of skin, a certain kinkiness of hair, and so on,—then logically the white race should remove the handicaps which lack ofeducation and bad environment have placed on the Negro, and receive him on terms of perfect equality, in business, in politics, and in marriage.
The proposition needs only to be stated in this frank form, to arouse an instinctive protest on the part of most Americans. Yet it has been urged in an almost equally frank form by many writers, from the days of the abolitionists to the present, and it seems to be the logical consequence of the position adopted by such anthropologists as Professor Boas, and by the educators and others who proclaim that there are no significant differences between the Negro and the white, except such as are due to social conditions and which, therefore, can be removed.
But what are these social differences, which it is the custom to dismiss in such a light-hearted way? Are they not based on fundamental incompatibilities of racial temperament, which in turn are based on differences in heredity? Modern sociologists for the main part have no illusions as to the ease with which these differences in racial tradition and custom can be removed.
The social heritage of the Negro has been described at great length and often with little regard for fact, by hundreds of writers. Only a glance can be given the subject here, but it may profitably be asked what the Negro did when he was left to himself in Africa.
"The most striking feature of the African Negro is the low forms of social organization, the lack of industrial and political cooperation, and consequently the almost entire absence of social and national self-consciousness. This rather than intellectual inferiority explains the lack of social sympathy, the presence of such barbarous institutions as cannibalism and slavery, the low position of woman, inefficiency in the industrial and mechanical arts, the low type of group morals, rudimentary art-sense, lack of race-pride and self-assertiveness, and in intellectual and religious life largely synonymous with fetishism and sorcery."[132]
An elementary knowledge of the history of Africa, or the more recent and much-quoted example of Haiti, is sufficient to provethat the Negro's own social heritage is at a level far below that of the whites among whom he is living in the United States. No matter how much one may admire some of the Negro's individual traits, one must admit that his development of group traits is primitive, and suggests a mental development which is also primitive.
If the number of original contributions which it has made to the world's civilization is any fair criterion of the relative value of a race, then the Negro race must be placed very near zero on the scale.[133]
The following historical considerations suggest that in comparison with some other races the Negro race is germinally lacking in the higher developments of intelligence:
1. That the Negro race in Africa has never, by its own initiative, risen much above barbarism, although it has been exposed to a considerable range of environments and has had abundant time in which to bring to expression any inherited traits it may possess.
2. That when transplanted to a new environment—say, Haiti—and left to its own resources, the Negro race has shown the same inability to rise; it has there, indeed, lost most of what it had acquired from the superior civilization of the French.
3. That when placed side by side with the white race, the Negro race again fails to come up to their standard, or indeed to come anywhere near it. It is often alleged that this third test is an unfair one; that the social heritage of slavery must be eliminated before the Negro can be expected to show his true worth. But contrast his career in and after slavery with that of the Mamelukes of Egypt, who were slaves, but slaves of good stock. They quickly rose to be the real rulers of the country. Again, compare the record of the Greek slaves in the Roman republic and empire or that of the Jews under Islam. Without pushing these analogies too far, is not one forced to concludethat the Negro lacks in his germ-plasm excellence of some qualities which the white races possess, and which are essential for success in competition with the civilizations of the white races at the present day?
If so, it must be admitted not only that the Negro isdifferentfrom the white, but that he is in the large eugenicallyinferiorto the white.
This conclusion is based on the relative achievements of the race; it must be tested by the more precise methods of the anthropological laboratory. Satisfactory studies of the Negro should be much more numerous, but there are a few informative ones. Physical characters are first to be considered.
As a result of the careful measurement of many skulls, Karl Pearson[134]has come to the following conclusions:
"There is for the best ascertainable characters a continuous relationship from the European skull, through prehistoric European, prehistoric Egyptian, Congo-Gaboon Negroes to Zulus and Kafirs.
"The indication is that of a long differentiated evolution, in which the Negro lies nearer to the common stem than the European; he is nearer to the childhood of man."
This does not prove any mental inferiority: there is little or no relation between conformation of skull and mental qualities, and it is a great mistake to make hasty inferences from physical to mental traits. Bean and Mall have made studies directly on the brain, but it is not possible to draw any sure conclusions from their work. A. Hrdlička found physical differences between the two races, but did not study traits of any particular eugenic significance.
On the whole, the studies of physical anthropologists offer little of interest for the present purpose. Studies of mental traits are more to the point, but are unfortunately vitiated in many cases by the fact that no distinction was made between full-blood Negroes and mulattoes, although the presence of white blood must necessarily have a marked influence on the traits under consideration. If the investigations are discountedwhen necessary for this reason, it appears that in the more elementary mental processes the two races are approximately equal. White and "colored" children in the Washington, D. C., schools ranked equally well in memory; the colored children were found to be somewhat the more sensitive to heat.[135]Summing up the available evidence, G. O. Ferguson concludes that "in the so-called lower traits there is no great difference between the Negro and the white. In motor capacity there is probably no appreciable racial difference. In sense capacity, in perceptive and discriminative ability, there is likewise a practical equality."
This is what one would,a priori, probably expect. But it is on the "higher" mental functions that race progress largely depends, and the Negro must be judged eugenically mainly by his showing in these higher functions. One of the first studies in this line is that of M. J. Mayo,[136]who summarizes it as follows:
"The median age of white pupils at the time of entering high school in the city of New York is 14 years 6 months: of colored pupils 15 years 1 month—a difference of 7 months. The average deviation for whites is 9 months; for colored 15 months. Twenty-seven per cent of the whites are as old as the median age of the colored or older.
"Colored pupils remain in school a greater length of time than do the whites. For the case studied [150 white and 150 colored], the average time spent in high school for white pupils was 3.8 terms; for colored 4.5 terms. About 28% of the whites attain the average time of attendance for colored.
"Considering the entire scholastic record, the median mark of the 150 white pupils is 66; of the 150 colored pupils 62; a difference of 4%. The average deviation of white pupils is 7; of colored 6.5. Twenty-nine per cent. of the colored pupils reach or surpass the median mark of the whites.
"The white pupils have a higher average standing in all subjects ... the colored pupils are about ¾ as efficient as the whites in the pursuit of high school studies."
This whole investigation is probably much too favorable to the Negro race, first because Negro high school pupils represent a more careful selection than do the white pupils; but most of all because no distinction was made between Negroes and mulattoes.
B. A. Phillips, studying the public elementary schools of Philadelphia, found[137]that the percentage of retardation in the colored schools ranged from 72.8 to 58.2, while the percentage of retardation in the districts which contained the schools ranged from 45.1 to 33.3. The average percentage of retardation for the city as a whole was 40.3. Each of the colored schools had a greater percentage of retardation than any of the white schools, even those composed almost entirely of foreigners, and in those schools attended by both white and colored pupils the percentage of retardation on the whole varied directly with the percentage of colored pupils in attendance.
These facts might be interpreted in several ways. It might be that the curriculum was not well adapted to the colored children, or that they came from bad home environments, or that they differed in age, etc. Dr. Phillips accordingly undertook to get further light on the cause of retardation of the colored pupils by applying Binet tests to white and colored children of the same chronological age and home conditions, and found "a difference in the acceleration between the two races of 31% in favor of the white boys, 25% in favor of the white girls, 28% in favor of the white pupils with boys and girls combined."
A. C. Strong, using the Binet-Simon tests, found[138]colored school children of Columbia, S. C., considerably less intelligent than white children.
W. H. Pyle made an extensive test[139]of 408 colored pupils inMissouri public schools and compared them with white pupils. He concludes: "In general the marks indicating mental ability of the Negro are about two-thirds those of the whites.... In the substitution, controlled association, and Ebbinghaus tests, the Negroes are less than half as good as the whites. In free association and the ink-blot tests they are nearly as good. In quickness of perception and discrimination and in reaction, the Negroes equal or excel the whites."
"Perhaps the most important question that arises in connection with the results of these mental tests is: How far is ability to pass them dependent on environmental conditions? Our tests show certain specific differences between Negroes and whites. What these differences would have been had the Negroes been subject to the same environmental influences as the whites, it is difficult to say. The results obtained by separating the Negroes into two social groups would lead one to think that the conditions of life under which the negroes live might account for the lower mentality of the Negroes. On the other hand, it may be that the Negroes living under better social conditions are of better stock. They may have more white blood in them."
The most careful study yet made of the relative intelligence of Negroes and whites is that of G. O. Ferguson, Jr.,[140]on 486 white and 421 colored pupils in the schools of Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Newport News, Va. Tests were employed which required the use of the "higher" functions, and as far as possible (mainly on the basis of skin-color) the amount of white blood in the colored pupils was determined. Four classes were made: full-blood Negro, ¾ Negro, ½ Negro (mulatto) and ¼ Negro (quadroon). It was found that "the pure Negroes scored 69.2% as high as the whites; that the ¾ pure Negroes scored 73.2% as high as the whites; that the mulattoes scored 81.2% as high as the whites; and that the quadroons obtained 91.8% of the white score." This confirms the belief of many observers that the ability of a colored man is proportionate to the amount of white blood he has.
Summarizing a large body of evidence, Dr. Ferguson concludes that "the intellectual performance of the general colored population is approximately 75% as efficient as that of the whites," but that pure Negroes have only 60% of white intellectual efficiency, and that even this figure is probably too high. "It seems as though the white type has attained a higher level of development, based upon the common elementary capacities, which the Negro has not reached to the same degree." "All of the experimental work which has been done has pointed to the same general conclusion."
This is a conclusion of much definiteness and value, but it does not go as far as one might wish, for the deeper racial differences of impulse and inhibition, which are at present incapable of precise measurement, are likewise of great importance. And it is the common opinion that the Negro differs in such traits even more than in intellect proper. He is said to be lacking in that aggressive competitiveness which has been responsible for so much of the achievement of the Nordic race; it is alleged that his sexual impulses are strongly developed and inhibitions lacking; that he has "an instability of character, involving a lack of foresight, an improvidence, a lack of persistence, small power of serious initiative, a tendency to be content with immediate satisfactions." He appears to be more gregarious but less apt at organization than most races.
The significance of these differences depends largely on whether they are germinal, or merely the results of social tradition. In favor of the view that they are in large part racial and hereditary, is the fact that they persist in all environments. They are found, as Professor Mecklin says, "Only at the lower level of instinct, impulse and temperament, and do not, therefore, admit of clear definition because they are overlaid in the case of every individual with a mental superstructure gotten from the social heritage which may vary widely in the case of members of the same race. That they do persist, however, is evidenced in the case of the Negroes subjected to the very different types of civilization in Haiti, Santo Domingo, the United States, and Jamaica. In each of these cases a completebreak has been made with the social traditions of Africa and different civilizations have been substituted, and yet in temperament and character the Negro in all these countries is essentially the same. The so-called 'reversion to type' often pointed out in the Negro is in reality but the recrudescence of fundamental, unchanged race traits upon the partial breakdown of the social heritage or the Negro's failure successfully to appropriate it."
Again, as Professor Ferguson points out, the experimental tests above cited may be thought to give some support to the idea that the emotional characteristics of the Negro are really inherent. "Strong and changing emotions, an improvident character and a tendency to immoral conduct are not unallied," he explains; "They are all rooted in uncontrolled impulse. And a factor which may tend to produce all three is a deficient development of the more purely intellectual capacities. Where the implications of the ideas are not apprehended, where thought is not lively and fertile, where meanings and consequences are not grasped, the need for the control of impulse will not be felt. And the demonstrable deficiency of the Negro in intellectual traits may involve the dynamic deficiencies which common opinion claims to exist."
There are other racial and heritable differences of much importance, which are given too little recognition—namely, the differences of disease resistance. Here one can speak unhesitatingly of a real inferiority in respect to the environment of North America.
As was pointed out in the chapter on Natural Selection, the Negro has been subjected to lethal selection for centuries by the Negro diseases, the diseases of tropical Africa, of which malaria and yellow fever are the most conspicuous examples. The Negro is strongly resistant to these and can live where the white man dies. The white man, on the other hand, has his own diseases, of which tuberculosis is an excellent example. Compared with the Negro, he is relatively resistant to phthisis and will survive where the Negro dies.
When the two races are living side by side, it is obvious that each is proving a menace to the other, by acting as a disseminatorof infection. The white man kills the Negro with tuberculosis and typhoid fever. In North America the Negro can not kill the white man with malaria or yellow fever, to any great extent, because these diseases do not flourish here. But the Negro has brought some other diseases here and given them to the white race; elephantiasis is one example, but the most conspicuous is hookworm, the extent and seriousness of which have only recently been realized.
In the New England states the average expectation of life, at birth, is 50.6 years for native white males, 34.1 years for Negro males. For native white females it is 54.2 years and for Negro females 37.7 years, according to the Bureau of the Census (1916). These very considerable differences can not be wholly explained away by the fact that the Negro is crowded into parts of the cities where the sanitation is worst. They indicate that the Negro is out of his environment. In tropical Africa, to which the Negro is adapted by many centuries of natural selection, his expectation of life might be much longer than that of the white man. In the United States he is much less "fit," in the Darwinian sense.
In rural districts of the South, according to C. W. Stiles, the annual typhoid death rate per 100,000 population is:
These figures again show, not alone the greater intelligence of the white in matters of hygiene, but probably also the greater inherent resistance of the white to a disease which has been attacking him for many centuries. Biologically, North America is a white man's country, not a Negro's country, and those who are considering the Negro problem must remember that natural selection has not ceased acting on man.
From the foregoing different kinds of evidence, we feel justified in concluding that the Negro race differs greatly from the white race, mentally as well as physically, and that in many respects it may be said to be inferior, when tested by the requirements of modern civilization and progress, with particular reference to North America.
We return now to the question of intermarriage. What is to be expected from the union of these diverse streams of descent?
The best answer would be to study and measure the mulattoes and their posterity, in as many ways as possible. No one has ever done this. It is the custom to make no distinction whatever between mulatto and Negro, in the United States, and thus the whole problem is beclouded.
There is some evidence from life insurance and medical sources, that the mulatto stands above the Negro but below the white in respect to his health. There is considerable evidence that he occupies the same relation in the intellectual world; it is a matter of general observation that nearly all the leaders of the Negro race in the United States are not Negroes but mulattoes.
Without going into detail, we feel perfectly safe in drawing this conclusion: that in general the white race loses and the Negro gains from miscegenation.
This applies, of course, only to the germinal nature. Taking into consideration the present social conditions in America, it is doubtful whether either race gains. But if social conditions be eliminated for the moment, biologists may believe that intermarriage between the white and Negro races represents, on the whole, an advance for the Negro; and that it represents for the white race a distinct loss.
If eugenics is to be thought of solely in terms of the white race, there can be no hesitation about rendering a verdict. We must unhesitatingly condemn miscegenation.
But there are those who declare that it is small and mean to take such a narrow view of the evolution of the race. They would have America open its doors indiscriminately to immigration, holding it a virtue to sacrifice one's self permanently for someone else's temporary happiness; they would equally have the white race sacrifice itself for the Negro, by allowing a mingling of the two blood-streams. That, it is alleged, is the true way to elevate the Negro.
The question may well be considered from that point of view,even though the validity of such a point of view is not admitted.
To ensure racial and social progress, nothing will take the place of leadership, of genius. A race of nothing but mediocrities will stand still, or very nearly so; but a race of mediocrities with a good supply of men of exceptional ability and energy at the top, will make progress in discovery, invention and organization, which is generally recognized as progressive evolution.
If the level of the white race be lowered, it will hurt that race and be of little help to the Negro. If the white race be kept at such a level that its productivity of men of talent will be at a maximum, everyone will progress; for the Negro benefits just as the white does from every forward step in science and art, in industry and politics.
Remembering that the white race in America is nine times as numerous as the black race, we conclude that it would be desirable to encourage amalgamation of the two races only in case the average of mulattoes is superior to the average of the whites. No one can seriously maintain that this supposition is true. Biologically, therefore, there is no reason to think that an increase in the number of mulattoes is desirable.
There is a curious argument in circulation, which points out that mulattoes are almost always the offspring of Negro mothers and white fathers, not of Negro fathers and white mothers. Therefore, it is said, production of mulattoes does not mean at all a decrease in the number of white births, but merely substitutes a number of mulatto births for an equivalent number of pure Negro births. It is therefore alleged that the production of mulattoes is in the long run a benefit, elevating the Negro race without impairing the white race.
But this argument assumes that most mulatto births are illegitimate,—a condition which eugenists do not sanction, because it tends to disintegrate the family. Rather than such a condition, the legitimate production of pure-blood Negroes is preferable, even though they be inferior in individual ability to the illegitimate mulattoes offered as a substitute. There are not at the present time enough desirable white fathers in thecountry. If desirable ones are set aside to produce mulattoes, it would be a great loss to the nation; while if the mulattoes are the offspring of eugenically undesirable white fathers, then the product is not likely to be anything America wants.
From whatever standpoint we take, we see nothing good to be said for miscegenation.[141]We have discussed the problem as a particular one between the blacks and whites but the argument will hold good when applied to any two races between which the differences are so marked that one may be considered decidedly inferior to the other.
Society,—white society,—long ago reached the instinctive conclusion, which seems to us a correct one, that it must put a ban on intermarriage between two such races. It has given expression to this feeling by passing laws to prohibit miscegenation in 22 states, while six other states prohibit it in their constitutions. There are thus 22 states which have attempted legally to prevent intermarriage of the white and black race. While in 20 states there is no law on the subject, it is needless to say that popular feeling about it is almost uniform, and that the legislators of New England for instance would refuse to give their daughters in marriage to Negroes, even though they might the day before have voted down a proposed law to prohibit intermarriage on the ground that it was an expression of race prejudice.
In a majority of the states which have no legislation of this kind, bills have been introduced during the last two or three years, and have been defeated through the energetic interference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization of which Oswald Garrison Villard ischairman of the Board of Directors and W. E. B. DuBois, a brilliant mulatto, is Director of Publicity and Research. As this association represents a very large part of the more intelligent Negro public opinion, its attitude deserves careful consideration. It is set forth summarily in a letter[142]which was addressed to legislators in various states, as follows:
"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People earnestly protests against the bill forbidding intermarriage between the races, not because the Association advocates intermarriage, which it does not, but primarily because whenever such laws have been enacted they have become a menace to the whole institution of matrimony, leading directly to concubinage, bastardy, and the degradation of the Negro woman. No man-made law can stop the union of the races. If intermarriage be wrong, its prevention is best left to public opinion and to nature, which wreaks its own fearful punishments on those who transgress its laws and sin against it. We oppose the proposed statute in the language of William Lloyd Garrison in 1843, in his successful campaign for the repeal of a similar law in Massachusetts: 'Because it is not the province, and does not belong to the power of any legislative assembly, in a republican government, to decide on the complexional affinity of those who choose to be united together in wedlock; and it may as rationally decree that corpulent and lean, tall and short, strong and weak persons shall not be married to each other as that there must be an agreement in the complexion of the parties.'
"We oppose it for the physical reason that to prohibit such intermarriage would be publicly to acknowledge that black blood is a physical taint, something no self-respecting colored man and woman can be asked to admit. We oppose it for the moral reason that all such laws leave the colored girl absolutely helpless before the lust of the white man, without the power to compel the seducer to marry. The statistics of intermarriage in thosestates where it is permitted show this happens so infrequently as to make the whole matter of legislation unnecessary. Both races are practically in complete agreement on this question, for colored people marry colored people, and white marry whites, the exceptions being few. We earnestly urge upon you an unfavorable report on this bill."
Legislation on the subject of marriage is clearly inside the province of government. That such an argument as is quoted from William Lloyd Garrison can still be circulated in the United States and apparently carry weight, is sufficient cause for one to feel pessimistic over the spread of the scientific spirit in this nation. Suffice it to say that on this point the National Association is a century behind the times.
The following policy seems to us to be in accordance with modern science, and yet meet all the legitimate arguments of the National Association. We will state our attitude as definitely as possible:
1. We hold that it is to the interests of the United States, for the reasons given in this chapter, to prevent further Negro-white amalgamation.
2. The taboo of public opinion is not sufficient in all cases to prevent intermarriage, and should be supplemented by law, particularly as the United States have of late years received many white immigrants from other countries (e. g., Italy) where the taboo is weak because the problem has never been pressing.
3. But to prevent intermarriage is only a small part of the solution, since most mulattoes come from extramarital miscegenation. The only solution of this, which is compatible with the requirements of eugenics, is not that oflaissez faire, suggested by the National Association, but an extension of the taboo, and an extension of the laws, to prohibit all sexual intercourse between the two races.
Four states (Louisiana, Nevada, South Dakota and Alabama) have already attempted to gain this end by law. We believe it to be highly desirable that such laws should be enacted and enforced by all states. A necessary preliminary would be to standardize the laws all over the Union, particularly with a viewto agreement on what a "Negro" legally is; for in some states the legislation applies to one who is one-sixteenth, or even less, Negro in descent, while in other states it appears to refer only to full-blood or, at the most, half-blood individuals.
Such legislation, and what is more important, such public opinion, leading to a cessation of Negro-white amalgamation, we believe to be in the interests of national eugenics, and to further the welfare of both of the races involved. Miscegenation can only lead to unhappiness under present social conditions and must, we believe, underanysocial conditions be biologically wrong.
We favor, therefore, the support of the taboo which society has placed on these mixed marriages, as well as any legal action which can practicably be taken to make miscegenation between white and black impossible. Justice requires that the Negro race be treated as kindly and considerately as possible, with every economic and political concession that is consistent with the continued welfare of the nation. Such social equality and intercourse as might lead to marriage are not compatible with this welfare.
There are now in the United States some 14,000,000 foreign-born persons, together with other millions of the sons and daughters of foreigners who although born on American soil have as yet been little assimilated to Americanism. This great body of aliens, representing perhaps a fifth of the population, is not a pool to be absorbed, but a continuous, inflowing stream, which until the outbreak of the Great War was steadily increasing in volume, and of which the fountain-head is so inexhaustible as to appal the imagination. From the beginning of the century, the inflow averaged little less than a million a year, and while about one-fifth of this represented a temporary migration, four-fifths of it meant a permanent addition to the population of the New World.
The character of this stream will inevitably determine to a large extent the future of the American nation. The direct biological results, in race mixture, are important enough, although not easy to define. The indirect results, which are probably of no less importance to eugenics, are so hard to follow that some students of the problem do not even realize their existence.
The ancestors of all white Americans, of course, were immigrants not so very many generations ago. But the earlier immigration was relatively homogeneous and stringently selected by the dangers of the voyage, the hardships of life in a new country, and the equality of opportunity where free competition drove the unfit to the wall. There were few people of eminence in the families that came to colonize North America, but there was a high average of sturdy virtues, and a good deal of ability, particularly in the Puritan and Huguenot invasions and in a part of that of Virginia.
In the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, thenumber of these "patriots and founders" was greatly increased by the arrival of immigrants of similar racial stocks from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, and to a less extent from the other countries of northern and western Europe. These arrivals added strength to the United States, particularly as a large part of them settled on farms.
This stream of immigration gradually dried up, but was succeeded by a flood from a new source,—southern and eastern Europe. Italians, Slavs, Poles, Magyars, East European Hebrews, Finns, Portuguese, Greeks, Roumanians and representatives of many other small nationalities began to seek fortunes in America. The earlier immigration had been made up largely of those who sought escape from religious or political tyranny and came to settle permanent homes. The newer immigration was made up, on the whole, of those who frankly sought wealth. The difference in the reason for coming could not fail to mean a difference in selection of the immigrants, quite apart from the change in the races.
Last of all began an immigration of Levantines, of Syrians, Armenians, and other inhabitants of Asiatic Turkey. Beyond this region lie the great nations of Asia, "oversaturated" with population. So far there has been little more than the threat of their overflow, but the threat is certain to become a reality within a few years unless prevented by legal restriction.
The eugenic results of immigration are partly indirect and partly direct. Direct results follow if the newcomers are assimilated,—a word which we shall use rather narrowly to mean that free intermarriage takes place between them and all parts of the older population. We shall discuss the direct results first, the nature of which depends largely on whether the newcomers are racially homogeneous with the population already in the country.
If they are like, the old and new will blend without difficulty. The effects of the immigration then depend on whether the immigrants are better or worse in average quality than the older residents. If as good or better, they are valuable additions; if inferior they are biologically a detriment.
But if the new arrivals are different, if they represent a different subspecies ofHomo sapiens, the question is more serious, for it involves the problem of crossing races which are biologically more or less distinct. Genetics can throw some light on this problem.
Waiving for the moment all question as to the relative quality of two distinct races, what results are to be expected from crossing? It (1) gives an increase of vigor which diminishes in later generations and (2) produces recombination of characters.
The first result may be disregarded, for the various races of man are probably already much mixed, and too closely related, to give rise to much hybrid vigor in crosses.
The second result will be favorable or unfavorable, depending on the characters which go into the cross; and it is not possible to predict the result in human matings, because the various racial characters are so ill known. It is, therefore, not worth while here to discuss at length genetic theory. In general it may be said that some valuable characters are likely to disappear, as the result of such crosses, and less desirable ones to take their place. The great bulk of the population resulting from such racial crosses is likely to be more or less mongrel in nature. Finally, some individuals will appear who combine the good characters of the two races, without the bad ones.
The net result will therefore probably be some distinct gain, but a greater loss. There is danger that complex and valuable traits of a race will be broken down in the process of hybridization, and that it will take a long time to bring them together again. The old view that racial crosses lead fatally to race degeneration is no longer tenable, but the view recently advanced, that crosses are advantageous, seems equally hasty. W. E. Castle has cited the Pitcairn Islanders and the Boer-Hottentot mulattoes of South Africa as evidence that wide crosses are productive of no evil results. These cases may be admitted to show that such a hybrid race may be physically healthy, but in respect of mental traits they hardly do more than suggest the conclusion we advanced in our chapter on the Color Line,—that such miscegenation is an advantage to the inferior race and a disadvantage to the superior one.
On the whole, we believe wide racial crosses should be looked upon with suspicion by eugenists.
The colonizers of North America mostly belonged to the Nordic race.[143]The earlier immigrants to the United States,—roughly, those who came here before the Civil War,—belonged mostly to the same stock, and therefore mixed with the early settlers without difficulty. The advantages of this immigration were offset by no impairment of racial homogeneity.
But the more recent immigration belongs mostly to other races, principally the Mediterranean and Alpine. Even if these immigrants were superior on the average to the older population, it is clear that their assimilation would not be an unmixed blessing, for the evil of crossbreeding would partly offset the advantage of the addition of valuable new traits. If, on the other hand, the average of the new immigration is inferior in quality, or in so far as it is inferior in quality, it is evident that it must represent biologically an almost unmixed evil; it not only brings in new undesirable traits, but injures the desirable ones already here.
E. A. Ross has attempted to predict some of the changes that will take place in the population of the United States, as a result of the immigration of the last half-century.[144]"It is reasonable," he thinks, "to expect an early falling off in the frequency of good looks in the American people." A diminution of stature, a depreciation of morality, an increase in gross fecundity, and a considerable lowering of the level of average natural ability are among other results that he considers probable. Not only are the races represented in the later immigration in many cases inferior in average ability to the earlier immigrant races, but America does not get the best, or even a representative selection,[145]from the races which are now contributing to her population."Europe retains most of her brains, but sends multitudes of the common and sub-common. There is little sign of an intellectual element among the Magyars, Russians, South Slavs, Italians, Greeks or Portuguese" who are now arriving. "This does not hold, however, for currents created by race discrimination or oppression. The Armenian, Syrian, Finnish and Russo-Hebrew streams seemrepresentative, and the first wave of Hebrews out of Russia in the eighties was superior."
While the earlier immigration brought a liberal amount of intelligence and ability, the later immigration (roughly, that of the last half century) seems to have brought distinctly less. It is at present principally an immigration of unskilled labor, of vigorous, ignorant peasants. Some of this is "promoted" by agents of transportation companies and others who stand to gain by stirring up the population of a country village in Russia or Hungary, excite the illiterate peasants by stories of great wealth and freedom to be gained in the New World, provide the immigrant with a ticket to New York and start him for Ellis Island. Naturally, such immigration is predominantly male. On the whole, females make up one-third of the recent inflow, but among some races—Greeks, Italians and Roumanians, for example—only one-fifth.
In amount of inherent ability these immigrants are not only less highly endowed than is desirable, but they furnish, despite weeding out, altogether too large a proportion of the "three D's"—defectives, delinquents and dependents. In the single year 1914 more than 33,000 would-be immigrants were turned back, about half of them because likely to become public charges. The immigration law of 1907, amended in 1910, 1913 and 1917, excludes the following classes of aliens from admission into the United States: