Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, persons who have been insane within 5 years previously; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously or who are affected by constitutional psychopathic inferiority or chronic alcoholism; paupers, vagrants, persons likely to become public charges; professional beggars, persons afflicted with tuberculosis or witha loathsome or contagious disease; persons who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude; polygamists, anarchists, contract laborers, prostitutes, persons not comprehended within any one of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of such a nature as to affect the ability of the alien to earn a living.EXAMINING IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORKEXAMINING IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORKFig.39.—Surgeons of the United States Public Health Service test every immigrant, physically and mentally, in order to send back any who give promise of being undesirable additions to the population. The above photograph shows how the examination of those whose condition has aroused suspicion, is conducted. The boy under the measuring bar, in the foreground, and the three immediately to the left of the desk, are examples of congenital asthenia and poor physique; two of the four were found to be dull mentally. Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service.Despite the efficiency of the U. S. Public Health Service, it is quite impossible for its small staff to examine thoroughly every immigrant, when three or four thousand arrive in a single day, as has frequently happened at Ellis Island. Under such circumstances, the medical officer must pass the immigrants with far too cursory an inspection. It is not surprising that many whose mental defects are not of an obvious nature manage to slip through; particularly if, as is charged,[146]many of the undesirables are informed that the immigrant rush is greatest in March and April, and therefore make it a point to arrive at that time, knowing the medical inspection will be so overtaxed that they will have a better chance to get by. The state hospitals of the Atlantic states are rapidly filling up with foreign-born insane.[147]Probably few of these were patently insane when they passed through the port of entry. Insanity, it must be remembered, is predominantly a disease of old age, whereas the average alien on arrival is not old. The mental weakness appears only after he has been here some years, perhaps inevitably or perhaps because he finds his environment in, say, lower Manhattan Island is much more taxing to the brain than the simple surroundings of his farm overlooking the bay of Naples.The amount of crime attributable to certain sections of the more recent immigration is relatively large. "It was frequentlystated to the members of the Immigration Commission in southern Italy that crime had greatly diminished in many communities because most of the criminals had gone to America." The amount of crime among immigrants in the United States is partly due to their age and sex distribution, partly due to their concentration in cities, partly to the bad environment from which they have sometimes come; partly to inherent racial characteristics, such as make crimes of violence frequent among the Southern Italians, crimes of gain proportionately more frequent among the Jews, and violence when drunk more a characteristic of the Slavs. No restriction of immigration can wholly eliminate the criminal tendencies, but, says Dr. Warne,[148]after balancing the two sides, "It still remains true that because of immigration we have a greater amount of pauperism and crime than would be the case if there were no immigration. It is also an indisputable fact that with a better regulation of immigration the United States would have less of these social horrors."To dwell too much on the undesirable character of part of the present immigration would be to lose perspective. Most of it consists of vigorous, industrious, ignorant peasants, induced to come here in search of a better living than they can get at home. But it is important to remember that if they come here and stay, they are pretty certain to be assimilated sooner or later. In cases superior to the average of the older population, their arrival should be welcomed if not too racially diverse; but if, as we believe the record of their achievements shows, a large part of the immigration is on the average inferior to the older population of the United States, such are eugenically a detriment to the future progress of the race. The direct biological result to be expected from the assimilation of such newcomers is the swamping of the best characteristics of the old American stock, and a diminution of the average of intelligence of the whole country.The interbreeding is too slow at present to be conspicuous, andhence its effects are little noticed. The foreigners tend to keep by themselves, to form "Little Italies," "Little Russias," transplanted Ghettoes and "foreign quarters," where they retain their native languages and customs and marry compatriots. This condition of segregation can not last forever; the process of amalgamation will be more rapid with each generation, particularly because of the preponderance of males in the newer immigration who must marry outside their own race, if they are to marry at all.The direct results of immigration that lead to intermarriage with the older population are fairly easy to outline. The indirect results, which we shall now consider, are more complex. We have dealt so far only with the effects of an immigration that is assimilated; but some immigration (that from the Orient, for example) is not assimilated; other immigration remains unassimilated for a long time. What are the eugenic consequences of an unassimilated immigration?The presence of large numbers of immigrants who do not intermarry with the older stock will, says T. N. Carver,[149]inevitably mean one of three things:1. Geographical separation of races.2. Social separation of races (as the "color line" in the South and to a large extent in the North, between Negroes and whites who yet live side by side).3. Continuous racial antagonism, frequently breaking out into race war. This third possibility has been at least threatened, by the conflict between the white and yellow races in California, and the conflict between whites and Hindus in British Columbia.None of these alternatives is attractive. The third is undesirable in every way and the first two are difficult to maintain. The first is perhaps impossible; the second is partly practicable, as is shown by the case of the Negro. One of its drawbacks is not sufficiently recognized.In a soundly-organized society, it is necessary that the roadshould be open from top to bottom and bottom to top, in order that genuine merit may get its deserts. A valuable strain which appears at the bottom of the social scale must be able to make its way to the top, receiving financial and other rewards commensurate with its value to the state, and being able to produce a number of children proportionate to its reward and its value. This is an ideal which is seldom approximated in government, but it is the advantage of a democratic form of government that it presents the open road to success, more than does an oligarchic government. That this freedom of access to all rewards that the state can give should be open to every one (and conversely that no one should be kept at the top and over-rewarded if he is unworthy) is essential to eugenics; but it is quite incompatible with the existence within the state of a number of isolated groups, some of which must inevitably and properly be considered inferior. It is certain that, at the present time in this country, no Negro can take a place in the upper ranks of society, which are and will long remain white. The fact that this situation is inevitable makes it no less unfortunate for both Negro and white races; consolation can only be found in the thought that it is less of a danger than the opposite condition would be. But this condition of class discrimination is likely to exist, to a much less extent it is true, in every city where there are foreign-born and native-born populations living side by side, and where the epithets of "Sheeny," "Dago," "Wop," "Kike," "Greaser," "Guinea," etc., testify to the feeling of the older population that it is superior.While eugenic strength in a state is promoted by variety, too great a heterogeneity offers serious social difficulties. It is essential if America is to be strong eugenically that it slow down the flood of immigrants who are not easily assimilable. At present a state of affairs is being created where class distinctions are likely to be barriers to the promotion of individual worth—and equally, of course, to the demotion of individual worthlessness.Even if an immigration is not assimilated, then, it yet has an indirect effect on eugenics. But there are other indirect effects of immigration, which are quite independent of assimilation: they inhere in the mere bulk and economic character of the immigration. The arrivals of the past few decades have been nearly all unskilled laborers. Professor Carver believes that continuous immigration which enters the ranks of labor in larger proportion and the business and professional classes in a smaller proportion than the native-born will produce the following results:1. Distribution. It will keep competition more intense among laborers and less intense among business and professional men: it will therefore raise the income of the employing classes and lower the wages of unskilled labor.2. Production. It will give a relatively low marginal productivity to a typical immigrant and make him a relatively unimportant factor in the production of wealth.3. Organization of industry. Immigrants can only be employed economically at low wages and in large gangs, because of (2).4. Agriculture. If large numbers of immigrants should go into agriculture, it will mean one of two things, probably the second:(a) Continuous subdivision of farms resulting in inefficient and wasteful application of labor and smaller crops per man, although probably larger crops per acre.(b) Development of a class of landed proprietors on the one hand and a landless agricultural proletariat on the other.It is true that the great mass of unskilled labor which has come to the United States in the last few decades has made possible the development of many industries that have furnished an increased number of good jobs to men of intelligence, but many who have made a close study of the immigration problem think that despite this, unskilled labor has been coming in altogether too large quantities. Professor Ross publishes the following illustration:"What a college man saw in a copper-mine in the Southwest gives in a nutshell the logic of low wages."The American miners, getting $2.75 a day, are abruptly displaced without a strike by a train-load of 500 raw Italiansbrought in by the company and put to work at from $1.50 to $2 a day. For the Americans there is nothing to do but to 'go down the road.' At first the Italians live on bread and beer, never wash, wear the same filthy clothes night and day, and are despised. After two or three years they want to live better, wear decent clothes, and be respected. They ask for more wages, the bosses bring in another train-load from the steerage, and the partly Americanized Italians follow the American miners 'down the road.' No wonder the estimate of government experts as to the number of our floating casual laborers ranges up to five millions!""It is claimed that the natives are not displaced" by the constant inflow of alien unskilled labor, says H. P. Fairchild,[150]but that they "are simply forced into higher occupations. Those who were formerly common laborers are now in positions of authority. While this argument holds true of individuals, its fallacy when applied to groups is obvious. There are not nearly enough places of authority to receive those who are forced out from below. The introduction of 500 Slav laborers into a community may make a demand for a dozen or a score of Americans in higher positions, but hardly for 500.""The number of unskilled workers coming in at the present time is sufficient to check decidedly the normal tendency toward an improved standard of living in many lines of industry," in the opinion of J. W. Jenks, who was a member of the Immigration Commission appointed by President Roosevelt in 1907. He alludes to the belief that instead of crowding the older workersout, the aliens merely crowd them up, and says that he himself formerly held that view; "but the figures collected by the Immigration commission, from a sufficient number of industries in different sections of the country to give general conclusions, prove beyond a doubt that in a good many cases these incoming immigrants actually drive out into other localities and into other unskilled trades large numbers of American workingmen and workingmen of the earlier immigration who do not get better positions but, rather, worse ones.... Professor Lauck, ourchief superintendent of investigators in the field, and, so far as I am aware, every single investigator in the field, before the work ended, reached the conclusion from personal observation that the tendency of the large percentage of immigration of unskilled workers is clearly to lower the standard of living in a number of industries, and the statistics of the commission support this impression. I therefore changed my earlier views."If the immigration of large quantities of unskilled labor with low standards of living tends in most cases to depress wages and lower the standard of living of the corresponding class of the old American population, the consequences would appear to be:1. The employers of labor would profit, since they would get abundant labor at low wages. If this increase in the wealth of employers led to an increase in their birth-rate, it would be an advantage. But it apparently does not. The birth-rate of the employing class is probably little restricted by financial difficulties; therefore on them immigration probably has no immediate eugenic effect.2. The American skilled laborers would profit, since there is more demand for skilled labor in industries created by unskilled immigrant labor. Would the increasing prosperity and a higher standard of living here, tend to lower the relative birth-rate of the class or not?The answer probably depends on the extent of the knowledge of birth control which has been discussed elsewhere.3. The wages and standard of living of American unskilled laborers will fall, since they are obliged directly to compete with the newcomers. It seems most likely that a fall in wages and standards is correlated with a fall in birth-rate. This case must be distinguished from cases where the wages and standardsnever were high, and where poverty is correlated with a high birth-rate. If this distinction is correct, the present immigration will tend to lower the birth-rate of American unskilled laborers.The arguments here used may appear paradoxical, and have little statistical support, but they seem to us sound and not in contradiction with any known facts. If they are valid, the effect of such immigration as the United States has been receiving is toreduce the birth-rate of the unskilled labor with little or no effect on the employers and managers of labor.Since both the character and the volume of immigration are at fault, remedial measures may be applied to either one or both of these features. It is very desirable that we have a much more stringent selection of immigrants than is made at the present time. But most of the measures which have been actually proposed and urged in recent years have been directed at a diminution of the volume, and at a change in character only by somewhat indirect and indiscriminate means.The Immigration Commission made a report to Congress on Dec. 5, 1910, in which it suggested the following possible methods of restricting the volume of immigration:1. The exclusion of those unable to read and write in some language.2. The reduction of the number of each race arriving each year to a certain percentage of the average of that race arriving during a given period of years.3. The exclusion of unskilled laborers unaccompanied by wives or families.4. Material increase in the amount of money required to be in the possession of the immigrant at the port of arrival.5. Material increase in the head tax.6. Limitation of the number of immigrants arriving annually at any port.7. The levying of the head tax so as to make a marked discrimination in favor of men with families.Eugenically, it is probable that (3) and (7), which would tend to admit only families, would be a detriment to American welfare; (1) and (2) have been the suggestions which have met with the most favor. All but one member of the commission favored (1), the literacy test, as the most feasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration, and it was enacted into law by Congress, which passed it over President Wilson's veto, in February, 1917.Records for 1914 show that "illiteracy among the total number of arrivals of each race ranged all the way from 64%for the Turkish to less than 1% for the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, the Scandinavian, and the Finnish. The Bohemian and Moravian, the German, and the Irish each had less than 5% illiterate. Races other than the Turkish, whose immigration in 1914 was more than one-third illiterate, include the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Russians, Ruthenians, Italians, Lithuanians, and Roumanians."It is frankly admitted by the proponents of this method of restriction that it will keep out some who ought to come in, and let in some who ought to be kept out. It is in some cases a test of opportunity rather than of character, but "in the belief of its advocates, it will meet the situation as disclosed by the investigation of the Immigration Commission better than any other means that human ingenuity can devise. It is believed that it would exclude more of the undesirable and fewer of the desirable immigrants than any other method of restriction."On the other hand, it is argued that the literacy test will fail of success because those who want to come will learn to read and write, which will only delay their arrival a few months without changing their real character. But the effect of such attempts will separate those who succeed from those who are too inferior to succeed, which would be an advantage of the plan rather than a defect.The second method of selection enumerated (2) above, was proposed by Rev. Sidney L. Gulick, particularly with a view to meeting the need of restriction of Asiatic immigration.[151]This immigration will be discussed shortly, but in the meantime the details of his plan may be presented."Only so many immigrants of any people should be admitted as we can Americanize. Let the maximum permissible annual immigration from any people be a definite per cent. (say five) of the sum of the American-born children of that people plus those who have become naturalized of the same people. Let this restriction be imposed only upon adult males."Taking the 1910 census as our basis, the 5% Restriction Proposal would have fixed the maximum permissible immigration of males from North and West Europe at 759,000 annually, while the actual annual immigration for the last 5 years averages but 115,000. The permissible immigration from South and East Europe would have been 189,000 annually, while the average for the last five years has been 372,000. When applied to China, the policy would have admitted 1,106 males per year, while the number admitted on the average for the last 5 years has been 1,571. The proposal would provide for the admission of 1,200 Japanese annually, here again resulting in the exclusion on the average of 1,238 males yearly during the years 1911-1915. No estimate is made here of the effect of the exclusion of males on the arrival of women and children." The percentage restriction is unsatisfactory to a eugenist, as not sufficiently discriminating.The literary restriction has been a great step forward but should be backed by the addition of such mental tests as will make it fairly certain to keep out the dull-minded as well as feeble-minded. Long division would suffice as such a test until better tests relatively unaffected by schooling can be put into operation, since it is at this point in the grades that so many dull-minded drop out of the schools.Oriental immigration is becoming an urgent problem, and it is essential that its biological, as well as its economic and sociological features be understood, if it is to be solved in a satisfactory and reasonably permanent way. In the foregoing discussion, Oriental immigration has hardly been taken into account; it must now receive particular consideration.What are the grounds, then, for forbidding the yellow races, or the races of British India, to enter the United States? The considerations urged in the past have been (1) Political: it is said that they are unable to acquire the spirit of American institutions. This is an objection which concerns eugenics only indirectly. (2) Medical: it is said that they introduce diseases, such as the oriental liver, lung and intestinal flukes, which are serious, against which Americans have never been selected,and for which no cure is known. (3) Economic: it is argued that the Oriental's lower standard of living makes it impossible for the white man to compete with him. The objection is well founded, and is indirectly of concern to eugenics, as was pointed out in a preceding section of this chapter. As eugenists we feel justified in objecting to the immigration of large bodies of unskilled Oriental labor, on the ground that they rear larger families than our stock on the same small incomes.A biological objection has also been alleged, in the possibility of interbreeding between the yellow and white races. In the past such cases have been very rare; it is authoritatively stated[152]that "there are on our whole Pacific coast not more than 20 instances of intermarriage between Americans and Japanese, and ... one might count on the fingers of both hands the number of American-Chinese marriages between San Diego and Seattle." The presence of a body of non-interbreeding immigrants is likely to produce the adverse results already discussed in the earlier part of this chapter.Eugenically, then, the immigration of any considerable number of unskilled laborers from the Orient may have undesirable direct results and is certain to have unfavorable indirect results. It should therefore be prevented, either by a continuation of the "gentlemen's agreement" now in force between the United States and Japan, and by similar agreements with other nations, or by some such non-invidious measure as that proposed by Dr. Gulick. This exclusion should not of course be applied to the intellectual classes, whose presence here would offer advantages which would outweigh the disadvantages.We have a different situation in the Philippine islands, there the yellow races have been denied admission since the United States took possession. Previously, the Chinese had been trading there for centuries, and had settled in considerable numbers almost from the time the Spaniards colonized the archipelago.At present it is estimated that there are 100,000 Chinese in the islands, and their situation was not put too strongly by A. E. Jenks, when he wrote:[153]"As to the Chinese, it does not matter much what they themselves desire; but what their descendants desire will go far toward answering the whole question of the Filipinos' volition toward assimilation, because they aretheFilipinos. To be specific: During the latter days of my residence in the Islands in 1905 Governor-General Wright one day told me that he had recently personally received from one of the most distinguished Filipinos of the time, and a member of the Insular Civil Commission, the statement that 'there was not a single prominent and dominant family among the Christianized Filipinos which did not possess Chinese blood.' The voice and will of the Filipinos of to-day is the voice and the will of these brainy, industrious, rapidly developing men whose judgment in time the world is bound to respect."This statement will be confirmed by almost any American resident in the Islands. Most of the men who have risen to prominence in the Islands are mestizos, and while in political life some of the leaders are merely Spanish metis, the financial leaders almost without exception, the captains of industry, have Chinese blood in their veins, while this class has also taken an active part in the government of the archipelago. Emilio Aguinaldo is one of the most conspicuous of the Chinese mestizos. Individual examples might be multiplied without limit; it will be sufficient to mention Bautista Lim, president of the largest tobacco firm in the islands and also a physician; his brother, formerly an insurgent general and later governor of Sampango province under the American administration; the banker Lim Hap; Faustino Lechoco, cattle king of the Philippines; Fernandez brothers, proprietors of a steamship line; Locsin and Lacson, wealthy sugar planters; Mariano Velasco, dry-goods importer; Datto Piang, the Moro warrior and chieftain; Paua,insurgent general in southern Luzon; Ricardo Gochuico, tobacco magnate. In most of these men the proportion of Chinese blood is large.Generalizing, we are justified in saying that the cross between Chinese and Filipinos produces progeny superior to the Filipinos. It must be remembered that it is not a very wide cross, the Malayans, who include most of the Filipinos, being closely related to the Chinese.It appears that even a small infusion of Chinese blood may produce long-continued favorable results, if the case of the Ilocanos is correctly described. This tribe, in Northern Luzon, furnishes perhaps the most industrious workers of any tribe in the islands; foremen and overseers of Filipinos are quite commonly found to be Ilocanos, while the members of the tribe are credited with accomplishing more steady work than any other element of the population. The current explanation of this is that they are Chinese mestizos: their coast was constantly exposed the raids of Chinese pirates, a certain number of whom settled there and took Ilocano women as wives. From these unions, the whole tribe in the course of time is thought to have benefited.[154]The history of the Chinese in the Philippines fails to corroborate the idea that he never loses his racial identity. It must be borne in mind that nearly all the Chinese in the United States are of the lowest working class, and from the vicinity of Canton; while those in the Philippines are of a higher class, and largely from the neighborhood of Amoy. They have usually married Filipino women of good families, so their offspring had exceptional advantages, and stand high in the estimation of the community. The requirement of the Spanish government was that a Chinese must embrace Christianity and become a citizen, before he could marry a Filipino. Usually he assumed his wife's name, so the children were brought up wholly as Filipinos,and considered themselves such, without cherishing any particular sentiment for the Flowery Kingdom.The biologist who studies impartially the Filipino peoples may easily conclude that the American government is making a mistake in excluding the Chinese; that the infiltration of intelligent Chinese and their intermixture with the native population would do more to raise the level of ability of the latter than a dozen generations of that compulsory education on which the government has built such high hopes.And this conclusion leads to the question whether much of the surplus population of the Orient could not profitably be diverted to regions occupied by savage and barbarian people. Chinese immigrants, mostly traders, have long been going in small numbers to many such regions and have freely intermarried with native women. It is a matter of common observation to travelers that much of the small mercantile business has passed into the hands of Chinese mestizos. As far as the first few generations, at least, the cross here seems to be productive of good results. Whether Oriental immigration should be encouraged must depend on the decision of the respective governments, and considerations other than biologic will have weight. As far as eugenics is concerned it is likely that such regions would profit by a reasonable amount of Chinese or Japanese immigration which resulted in interbreeding and not in the formation of isolated race-groups, because the superior Orientals tend to raise the level of the native population into which they marry.The question of the regulation of immigration is, as we have insisted throughout this chapter, a question of weighing the consequences. A decision must be reached in each case by asking what course will do most for the future good both of the nation and of the whole species. To talk of the sacred duty of offering an asylum to any who choose to come, is to indulge in immoral sentimentality. Even if the problem be put on the most unselfish plane possible, to ask not what will be for this country's own immediate or future benefit, but what will most benefit the world at large, it can only be concluded that the duty of the United States is to make itself strong, efficient, productive and progressive. By so doing they will be much better able to help the rest of the world than by progressively weakening themselves through failure to regulate immigration.Further, in reaching a decision on the regulation of immigration, there are numerous kinds of results to be considered: political, social, economic and biologic, among others. All these interact, and it is hard to say that one is more important than another; naturally we have limited ourselves to the biologic aspect, but not without recognizing that the other aspects exist and must be taken into account by those who are experts in those fields.Looking only at the eugenic consequences, we can not doubt that a considerable and discriminatory selection of immigrants to this country is necessary. Both directly and indirectly, the immigration of recent years appears to be diminishing the eugenic strength of the nation more than it increases it.The state would be in a stronger position eugenically (and in many other ways) if it would decrease the immigration of unskilled labor, and increase the immigration of creative and directing talent. A selective diminution of the volume of immigration would tend to have that result, because it would necessarily shut out more of the unskilled than the skilled.CHAPTER XVIWARWar always changes the composition of a nation; but this change may be either a loss or a gain. The modification of selection by war is far more manifold than the literature on the biological effects of war would lead the reader to suppose. All wars are partly eugenic and partly dysgenic; some are mainly the one, some are mainly the other. The racial effects of war occur in at least three periods:1. The period of preparation.2. The period of actual fighting.3. The period of readjustment after the war.The first division involves the effect of a standing army, which withdraws men during a part of the reproductive period and keeps most of them in a celibate career. The officers marry late if at all and show a very low birth-rate. The prolonged celibacy has in many armies led to a higher incidence of venereal diseases which prolongs the celibacy and lowers the birthrate.[155]Without extended discussion, the following considerations may be named as among those which should govern a policy of military preparedness that will safeguard, as far as possible, the eugenic interests:1. If the army is a standing one, composed of men serving long terms of enlistment, they should be of as advanced an age as is compatible with military efficiency. If a man of 35 has not married, it is probable that he will never marry, and therefore there is less loss to the race in enrolling him for military service, than is the case with a man of 20-25.2. The army (except in so far as composed of inferior men)should not foster celibacy. Short enlistments are probably the most valuable means of avoiding this evil.3. Universal conscription is much better than voluntary service, since the latter is highly selective, the former much less so. Those in regular attendance in college should receive their military training in their course as is now done.4. Officers' families should be given an additional allowance for each child. This would aid in increasing the birth-rate, which appears to be very low among army and navy officers in the United States service, and probably in that of all civilized countries.5. Every citizen owes service to his nation, in time of need, but fighting service should not be exacted if some one else could perform it better than he where he is expert in some other needed field. The recent action of England in sending to the front as subaltern officers, who were speedily killed, many highly trained technicians and young scientists and medical men who would have been much more valuable at home in connection with war measures, is an example of this mistake. Carrying the idea farther, one sees that in many nations there are certain races which are more valuable on the firing line than in industries at the rear; and it appears that they should play the part for which they are best fitted. From this point of view, the Entente allies were wholly justified in employing their Asiatic and African subjects in war. In the United States are millions of negroes who are of less value than white men in organized industry but almost as valuable as the whites, when properly led, at the front. It would appear to be sound statesmanship to enlist as many Negroes as possible in the active forces, in case of war, thus releasing a corresponding number of more skilled white workers for the industrial machine on whose efficiency success in modern warfare largely rests.The creation of the National Army in the United States, in 1917, while in most ways admirably conducted, was open to criticism in several respects, from the eugenic point of view:(a) Too many college men and men in intellectual pursuits were taken as officers, particularly in the aviation corps. Thereshould have been more men employed as officers who had demonstrated the necessary qualifications, as foremen and others accustomed to boss gangs of men.(b) The burden was thrown too heavily on the old white Americans, by the exemption of aliens, who make up a large part of the population in some states. There were communities in New England which actually could not fill their quotas, even by taking every acceptable native-born resident, so large is their alien population. The quota should have been adjusted if aliens were to be exempt.(c) The district boards were not as liberal as was desirable, in exempting from the first quota men needed in skilled work at home. The spirit of theselectivedraft was widely violated, and necessitated a complete change of method before the second quota was called by the much improved questionnaire method.It is difficult to get such mistakes as these corrected; nevertheless a nation should never lose sight of the fact that war is inevitably damaging, and that the most successful nation is the one which wins its wars with the least possible eugenic loss.Leaving the period of preparedness, we consider the period of open warfare. The reader will remember that, in an earlier chapter, we divided natural selection into (1) lethal, that which operates through differential mortality; (2) sexual, that which operates through differential mating; and (3) fecundal, that which operates through differential fecundity. Again, selection operates both in an inter-group competition and an intra-group competition. The influence of any agency on natural selection must be examined under each of these six heads. In the case of war, however, fecundal selection may be eliminated, as it is little influenced. Still another division arises from the fact that the action of selection is different during war upon the armed forces themselves and upon the population at home; and after the war, upon the nations with the various modifications that the war has left.We will consider lethal selection first. To measure the effect of the inter-group selection of the armed forces, one must compare the relative quality of the two races involved. The evidence for believing in substantial differences between races is based (a) upon their relative achievement when each is isolated, (b) upon the relative rank when the two are competing in one society, and (c) upon the relative number of original contributions to civilization each has made. Such comparisons are fatal to the sentimental equalitarianism that denies race differences. While there is, of course, a great deal of overlapping, there are, nevertheless, real average differences. To think otherwise is to discard evolution and revert to the older standpoint of "special creation."Comparison of the quality of the two sides is sometimes, of course, very difficult. One may feel little hesitation in giving a decision in the classical war of the Greeks and Persians, or the more modern case of the English and Afghans, but when considering the Franco-Prussian war, or the Russo-Japanese war, or the Boer war, or the American civil war, it is largely a matter of mere opinion, and perhaps an advantage can hardly be conceded to either side. Those who, misunderstanding the doctrine of evolution, adhere to the so-called "philosophy of force," would answer without hesitation that the side which won was,ipso facto, the better side. But such a judgment is based on numerous fallacies, and can not be indorsed in the sweeping way it is uttered. Take a concrete example:"In 1806, Prussia was defeated at the battle of Jena. According to the philosophy of force, this was because Prussia was 'inferior' and France was 'superior.' Suppose we admit for the moment that this was the case. The selection now represents the survival of the fittest, the selection which perfects the human species. But what shall we say of the battle of Leipsic? At Leipsic, in 1813, all the values were reversed; it is now France which is the 'inferior' nation.... Furthermore, a large number of the same generals and soldiers who took part in the battle of Jena also took part in the battle of Leipsic. Napoleon belonged, therefore, to a race which was superior to that of Blücher in 1806, but to an inferior race in 1813, in spite of the fact that they were the same persons and had not changedtheir nationality. As soon as we bring these assertions to the touchstone of concrete reality we see at once how untenable and even ridiculous are direct biological comparisons."[156]Without going into further detail, it is readily seen that, on the world at large, the eugenic effect of a war would be very different according as the sides differ much or little. Yet this difference in quality, however great, will have no significance, unless the superior or inferior side is in general more likely to lose fewer men. Where the difference has been considerable, as between a civilized and savage nation, it has been seldom that the superior has not triumphed with fewer losses. Victory, however, is influenced much less in these later days by the relative military efficiency of two single nations than by their success in making powerful alliances. But such alignments are by no means always associated with better quality, because (a) there is a natural tendency for the weak to unite against a strong nation, (b) to side with a group which is apparently succeeding, and (c) the alliances may be the work of one or a few individuals who happen to be in positions of power at the critical time.Modern European wars, especially the latest one, have been marked by the high quality of the combatants on both sides relative to the rest of the world. As these same races fight with pertinacity, there is a high mortality rate, so that the dysgenic result of these wars is particularly deplorable.As for the selection taking placewithineach of the struggling nations, the combatants and the non-combatants of the same age and sex must first be compared. The difference here depends largely on how the army in question was raised. Where the army is a permanent, paid force, it probably does not represent a quality above the average of the nation, except physically. When it is conscripted, it is superior physically andprobably slightly in other respects. If it is a volunteer army, its quality depends largely on whether the cause being fought for is one that appeals merely to the spirit of adventure or one that appeals to some moral principle. In the latter case, the quality may be such that the loss of a large part of the army will be peculiarly damaging to the progress of the race. This situation is more common than might be supposed, for by skillful diplomacy and journalism a cause which may be really questionable is presented to the public in a most idealistic light. But here, again, one can not always apply sweeping generalizations to individual cases. It might be supposed, for instance, that in the Confederate army the best eugenic quality was represented by the volunteers, the second best by those who stayed out until they were conscripted, and the poorest by the deserters. Yet David Starr Jordan and Harvey Ernest Jordan, who investigated the case with care, found that this was hardly true and that, due to the peculiar circumstances, the deserters were probably not as a class eugenically inferior to the volunteers.[157]Again some wars, such as that between the United States and Spain, probably develop a volunteer army made up largely of the adventurous, the nomadic, and those who have fewer ties; it would be difficult to demonstrate that they are superior to those who, having settled positions at home, or family obligations, fail to volunteer. The greatest damage appears to be done in such wars as those waged by great European nations, where the whole able-bodied male population is called out, and only those left at home who are physically or mentally unfit for fighting—but not, it appears to be thought, unfit to perpetuate the race.Even within the army of one side, lethal selection is operative. Those who are killed are by no means a haphazard sample of the whole army. Among the victims there is a disproportionate representation of those with (1) dauntless bravery, (2) recklessness, (3) stupidity. These qualities merge into each other, yet in their extremes they are widely different. However, as the nature of warfare changes with the increase of artillery,mines, bombs, and gases, and decrease of personal combat, those who fall are more and more chance victims.In addition to the killed and mortally wounded, there are many deaths from disease or from wounds which were not necessarily fatal. Probably the most selective of any of these three agencies is the variable resistance to disease and infection and the widely varying knowledge and appreciation of the need for hygienic living shown by the individual, as, for instance, by less reckless drinking of unsterilized water. But here, too, in modern warfare, this item is becoming less selective, with the advance in discipline and in organized sanitation.The efficiency of selection will be affected by the percentage that each side has sent to the front, if the combatants are either above or below the average of the population. A nation that sends all its able-bodied males forward will be affected differently from its enemy that has needed to call upon only one-half of its able-bodied men in order to win its cause.Away from the fighting lines of the contending sides, conditions that prevail are rendered more severe in many ways than in times of peace. Poverty becomes rife, and sanitation and medical treatment are commonly sacrificed under the strain. During a war, that mitigation of the action of natural selection which is so common now among civilized nations, is somewhat less effective than in times of peace. The scourge of typhus in Serbia is a recent and graphic illustration.After a war has been concluded, certain new agencies of inter-group selection arise. The result depends largely on whether the vanquished have had a superior culture brought to them, as in the case of the Philippines, or whether, on the contrary, certain diseases have been introduced, as to the natives of the New World by the Spanish conquerors and explorers, or crushing tribute has been levied, or grievous oppression such as has befallen Belgium.Sometimes the conquerors themselves have suffered severely as the result of excessive spoliation, which has produced vicious idleness and luxurious indulgence, with the ultimate effect of diminishing the birth-rate.Within the nation there may be various results. Sometimes, by the reduction of overcrowding, natural selection will be less severe. On the other hand, the loss of that part of the population which is more economically productive is a very serious loss, leading to excessive poverty with increased severity in the action of natural selection, of which some of the Southern States, during the Reconstruction period, offer a good illustration.Selection is also rendered more intense by the heavy burden of taxation, and in the very common depreciation of currency as is now felt in Russia.Sexual selection as well as lethal is affected by war in manifold ways. Considering the armed force, there is an inter-group selection, when the enemy's women are assaulted by the soldiers. While this has been an important factor in the past, it is somewhat less common now, with better army discipline and higher social ideals.Within the group, mating at the outset of a war is greatly increased by many hurried marriages. There is also alleged to be sometimes an increase of illegitimacy in the neighborhood of training camps. In each of these instances, these matings do not represent as much maturity of judgment as there would have been in times of peace, and hence give a less desirable sexual selection.In the belligerent nation at home, the number of marriageable males is of course far less than at ordinary times. It becomes important, then, to compare the quality of the non-combatants and those combatants who survive and return home, since their absence during the war period of course decreases their reproduction as compared with the non-combatants. The marked excess of women over men, both during the war and after, necessarily intensifies the selection of women and proportionately reduces that of men, since relatively fewer men will remain unmated. This excess of women is found in all classes. Among superiors there are, in addition, some women who never marry because the war has so reduced the number of suitors thought eligible.The five years' war of Paraguay with Brazil, Uruguay andArgentina (1864-1869) is perhaps the most glaring case on record[158]in recent years of the destruction of the male population of a country. Whole regiments were made up of boys of 16 or less. At the beginning of the war the population of Paraguay had been given as 1,337,437. It fell to 221,709 (28,746 men, 106,254 women, 86,079 children); it is even now probably not more than half of the estimate made at the beginning of the war. "Here in a small area has occurred a drastic case of racial ravage without parallel since the time of the Thirty Years' War." Macedonia, however, furnishes a fairly close parallel—D. S. Jordan found whole villages there in 1913 in which not a single man remained: only women and children. Conditions were not so very much better in parts of the South at the close of the Civil War, particularly in Virginia and North Carolina, where probably 40% of the young men of reproductive age died without issue. And in a few of the Northern states, such as Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts, the loss was proportionately almost as great. These were probably as good men as any country has produced, and their loss, with that of their potential offspring, undoubtedly is causing more far-reaching effects in the subsequent history of the United States than has ever been realized.In the past and still among many savage peoples, inter-group selection has been affected by the stealing of women from the vanquished. The effect of this has been very different, depending on whether these women would otherwise have been killed or spared, and also depending on the relative quality of their nation to that of their conquerors.To sum up, there are so many features of natural selection, each of which must be separately weighed and the whole then balanced, that it is a matter of extensive inquiry to determine whether a certain war has a preponderance of eugenic or dysgenic results.When the quality of the combatants is so high, compared withthe rest of the world, as during the Great War, no conceivable eugenic gains from the war can offset the losses. It is probably well within the facts to assume that the period of this war represents a decline in inherent human quality, greater than in any similar length of time in the previous history of the world.Unfortunately, it does not appear that war is becoming much less common if we consider number of combatants rather than number of wars as times goes on,[159]and it steadily tends to be more destructive. War, then, offers one of the greatest problems which the eugenist must face, for a few months of war may undo all that eugenic reforms can gain in a generation.The total abolition of war would, of course, be the ideal, but there is no possibility of this in the near future. The fighting instinct, it must be remembered, is one of the most primitive and powerful that the human mechanism contains. It was evolved in great intensity, to give man supremacy over his environment—for the great "struggle for existence" is with the environment, not with members of one's own species. Man long ago conquered the environment so successfully that he has never since had to exert himself in physical combat in this direction; but the fighting instinct remained and could not be baulked without causing uneasiness. Spurred on by a complex set of psychological and economic stimuli, man took to fighting his own kind, to a degree that no other species shows.Now contrary to what the militarist philosophers affirm, this particular sort of "struggle for existence" is not a necessity to the further progressive evolution of the race. On the contrary it more frequently reverses evolution and makes the race go backward, rather than forward.The struggle for existence which makes the race progress is principally that of the species with its environment, not that of some members of the species with others. If the latter struggle could be supplanted by the former then racial evolution would go ahead steadily without the continuous reversals that warfare now gives.William James saw, we believe, the true solution of the problem of militarism, when he wrote his famous essay onThe Moral Equivalent of War. Here is man, full of fighting instinct which will not be baulked. What is he to do? Professor James suggested that the youth of the nation be conscripted to fight the environment, thus getting the fight "out of its system" and rendering a real service to the race by constructive reclamation work, instead of slaying each other and thus turning the hands of the evolutionary clock backward.When education has given everyone the evolutionary and eugenic view of man as a species adapted to his environment, it may be possible to work out some such solution as this of James. The only immediate course of action open seems to be to seek, if possible, to diminish the frequency of war by subduing nations which start wars and, by the organization of a League to Enforce Peace; to avoid war-provoking conquests; to diminish as much as possible the disastrous effects of war when it does come, and to work for the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge which will eventually make possible the greater step, effective international organization.CHAPTER XVIIGENEALOGY AND EUGENICSScientific plant breeders to-day have learned that their success often depends on the care with which they study the genealogy of their plants.Live-stock breeders admit that their profession is on a sure scientific basis only to the extent that the genealogy of the animals used is known.Human genealogy is one of the oldest manifestations of man's intellectual activity, but until recently it has been subservient to sentimental purposes, or pursued from historical or legal motives. Biology has had no place in it.Genealogy, however, has not altogether escaped the re-examination which all sciences received after the Darwinian movement revolutionized modern thought. Numerous ways have been pointed out in which it could be brought into line with the new way of looking at man and his world. The field of genealogy has already been invaded at many points by biologists, seeking the furtherance of their own aims.It will be worth while to discuss briefly the relations between the conventional genealogy and eugenics. It may be that genealogy could become an even more valuable branch of human knowledge than it now is, if it were more closely aligned with biology. In order to test this possibility, one must inquire:(1) What is genealogy?(2) What does it now attempt to do?(3) What faults, from the eugenist's standpoint, seem to exist in present genealogical methods?(4) What additions should be made to the present methods?(5) What can be expected of it, after it is revised in accordance with the ideas of the eugenist?The answer to the first question, "What is genealogy?" maybe brief. Genealogy may be envisaged from several points. It serves history. It has a legal function, which is of more consequence abroad than in America. It has social significance, in bolstering family pride and creating a feeling of family solidarity—this is perhaps its chief office in the United States. It has, or can have, biological significance, and this in two ways: either in relation to pure science or applied science. In connection with pure science, its function is to furnish means for getting knowledge of the laws of heredity. In application, its function is to furnish a knowledge of the inherited characters of any given individual, in order to make it possible for the individual to find his place in the world and, in particular, to marry wisely. It is obvious that the use of genealogy in the applied science of eugenics is dependent on previous research by geneticists; for marriage matings which take account of heredity can not be made unless the mode of inheritance of human traits has previously been discovered.The historical, social, legal and other aspects of genealogy do not concern the present discussion. We shall discuss only the biological aspect; not only because it alone is germane to the present book, but because we consider it to have by far the greatest true value, accepting the criterion of value as that which increases the welfare of mankind. By this criterion, the historical, legal and social aspects of genealogy will be seen, with a little reflection, to be of secondary importance to its biological aspect.(2) Genealogy now is too often looked upon as an end in itself. It would be recognized as a science of much greater value to the world if it were considered not an end but a means to a far greater end than it alone can supply. It has, indeed, been contended, even by such an authority as Ottokar Lorenz, who is often called the father of modern scientific genealogy, that a knowledge of his own ancestry will tell each individual exactly what he himself is. This appears to be the basis of Lorenz's valuation of genealogy. It is a step in the right direction: but(3) The present methods of genealogy are inadequate tosupport such a claim. Its methods are still based mainly on the historical, legal and social functions. A few of the faults of method in genealogy, which the eugenist most deplores, are:(a) The information which is of most value is exactly that which genealogy ordinarily does not furnish. Dates of birth, death and marriage of an ancestor are of interest, but of limited biological importance. The facts about that ancestor which vitally concern his living descendant are the facts of his character, physical and mental; and these facts are given in very few genealogies.
Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, persons who have been insane within 5 years previously; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously or who are affected by constitutional psychopathic inferiority or chronic alcoholism; paupers, vagrants, persons likely to become public charges; professional beggars, persons afflicted with tuberculosis or witha loathsome or contagious disease; persons who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude; polygamists, anarchists, contract laborers, prostitutes, persons not comprehended within any one of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of such a nature as to affect the ability of the alien to earn a living.
Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, persons who have been insane within 5 years previously; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously or who are affected by constitutional psychopathic inferiority or chronic alcoholism; paupers, vagrants, persons likely to become public charges; professional beggars, persons afflicted with tuberculosis or witha loathsome or contagious disease; persons who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude; polygamists, anarchists, contract laborers, prostitutes, persons not comprehended within any one of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of such a nature as to affect the ability of the alien to earn a living.
EXAMINING IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORKEXAMINING IMMIGRANTS AT ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORK
Despite the efficiency of the U. S. Public Health Service, it is quite impossible for its small staff to examine thoroughly every immigrant, when three or four thousand arrive in a single day, as has frequently happened at Ellis Island. Under such circumstances, the medical officer must pass the immigrants with far too cursory an inspection. It is not surprising that many whose mental defects are not of an obvious nature manage to slip through; particularly if, as is charged,[146]many of the undesirables are informed that the immigrant rush is greatest in March and April, and therefore make it a point to arrive at that time, knowing the medical inspection will be so overtaxed that they will have a better chance to get by. The state hospitals of the Atlantic states are rapidly filling up with foreign-born insane.[147]Probably few of these were patently insane when they passed through the port of entry. Insanity, it must be remembered, is predominantly a disease of old age, whereas the average alien on arrival is not old. The mental weakness appears only after he has been here some years, perhaps inevitably or perhaps because he finds his environment in, say, lower Manhattan Island is much more taxing to the brain than the simple surroundings of his farm overlooking the bay of Naples.
The amount of crime attributable to certain sections of the more recent immigration is relatively large. "It was frequentlystated to the members of the Immigration Commission in southern Italy that crime had greatly diminished in many communities because most of the criminals had gone to America." The amount of crime among immigrants in the United States is partly due to their age and sex distribution, partly due to their concentration in cities, partly to the bad environment from which they have sometimes come; partly to inherent racial characteristics, such as make crimes of violence frequent among the Southern Italians, crimes of gain proportionately more frequent among the Jews, and violence when drunk more a characteristic of the Slavs. No restriction of immigration can wholly eliminate the criminal tendencies, but, says Dr. Warne,[148]after balancing the two sides, "It still remains true that because of immigration we have a greater amount of pauperism and crime than would be the case if there were no immigration. It is also an indisputable fact that with a better regulation of immigration the United States would have less of these social horrors."
To dwell too much on the undesirable character of part of the present immigration would be to lose perspective. Most of it consists of vigorous, industrious, ignorant peasants, induced to come here in search of a better living than they can get at home. But it is important to remember that if they come here and stay, they are pretty certain to be assimilated sooner or later. In cases superior to the average of the older population, their arrival should be welcomed if not too racially diverse; but if, as we believe the record of their achievements shows, a large part of the immigration is on the average inferior to the older population of the United States, such are eugenically a detriment to the future progress of the race. The direct biological result to be expected from the assimilation of such newcomers is the swamping of the best characteristics of the old American stock, and a diminution of the average of intelligence of the whole country.
The interbreeding is too slow at present to be conspicuous, andhence its effects are little noticed. The foreigners tend to keep by themselves, to form "Little Italies," "Little Russias," transplanted Ghettoes and "foreign quarters," where they retain their native languages and customs and marry compatriots. This condition of segregation can not last forever; the process of amalgamation will be more rapid with each generation, particularly because of the preponderance of males in the newer immigration who must marry outside their own race, if they are to marry at all.
The direct results of immigration that lead to intermarriage with the older population are fairly easy to outline. The indirect results, which we shall now consider, are more complex. We have dealt so far only with the effects of an immigration that is assimilated; but some immigration (that from the Orient, for example) is not assimilated; other immigration remains unassimilated for a long time. What are the eugenic consequences of an unassimilated immigration?
The presence of large numbers of immigrants who do not intermarry with the older stock will, says T. N. Carver,[149]inevitably mean one of three things:
1. Geographical separation of races.
2. Social separation of races (as the "color line" in the South and to a large extent in the North, between Negroes and whites who yet live side by side).
3. Continuous racial antagonism, frequently breaking out into race war. This third possibility has been at least threatened, by the conflict between the white and yellow races in California, and the conflict between whites and Hindus in British Columbia.
None of these alternatives is attractive. The third is undesirable in every way and the first two are difficult to maintain. The first is perhaps impossible; the second is partly practicable, as is shown by the case of the Negro. One of its drawbacks is not sufficiently recognized.
In a soundly-organized society, it is necessary that the roadshould be open from top to bottom and bottom to top, in order that genuine merit may get its deserts. A valuable strain which appears at the bottom of the social scale must be able to make its way to the top, receiving financial and other rewards commensurate with its value to the state, and being able to produce a number of children proportionate to its reward and its value. This is an ideal which is seldom approximated in government, but it is the advantage of a democratic form of government that it presents the open road to success, more than does an oligarchic government. That this freedom of access to all rewards that the state can give should be open to every one (and conversely that no one should be kept at the top and over-rewarded if he is unworthy) is essential to eugenics; but it is quite incompatible with the existence within the state of a number of isolated groups, some of which must inevitably and properly be considered inferior. It is certain that, at the present time in this country, no Negro can take a place in the upper ranks of society, which are and will long remain white. The fact that this situation is inevitable makes it no less unfortunate for both Negro and white races; consolation can only be found in the thought that it is less of a danger than the opposite condition would be. But this condition of class discrimination is likely to exist, to a much less extent it is true, in every city where there are foreign-born and native-born populations living side by side, and where the epithets of "Sheeny," "Dago," "Wop," "Kike," "Greaser," "Guinea," etc., testify to the feeling of the older population that it is superior.
While eugenic strength in a state is promoted by variety, too great a heterogeneity offers serious social difficulties. It is essential if America is to be strong eugenically that it slow down the flood of immigrants who are not easily assimilable. At present a state of affairs is being created where class distinctions are likely to be barriers to the promotion of individual worth—and equally, of course, to the demotion of individual worthlessness.
Even if an immigration is not assimilated, then, it yet has an indirect effect on eugenics. But there are other indirect effects of immigration, which are quite independent of assimilation: they inhere in the mere bulk and economic character of the immigration. The arrivals of the past few decades have been nearly all unskilled laborers. Professor Carver believes that continuous immigration which enters the ranks of labor in larger proportion and the business and professional classes in a smaller proportion than the native-born will produce the following results:
1. Distribution. It will keep competition more intense among laborers and less intense among business and professional men: it will therefore raise the income of the employing classes and lower the wages of unskilled labor.
2. Production. It will give a relatively low marginal productivity to a typical immigrant and make him a relatively unimportant factor in the production of wealth.
3. Organization of industry. Immigrants can only be employed economically at low wages and in large gangs, because of (2).
4. Agriculture. If large numbers of immigrants should go into agriculture, it will mean one of two things, probably the second:
(a) Continuous subdivision of farms resulting in inefficient and wasteful application of labor and smaller crops per man, although probably larger crops per acre.
(b) Development of a class of landed proprietors on the one hand and a landless agricultural proletariat on the other.
It is true that the great mass of unskilled labor which has come to the United States in the last few decades has made possible the development of many industries that have furnished an increased number of good jobs to men of intelligence, but many who have made a close study of the immigration problem think that despite this, unskilled labor has been coming in altogether too large quantities. Professor Ross publishes the following illustration:
"What a college man saw in a copper-mine in the Southwest gives in a nutshell the logic of low wages.
"The American miners, getting $2.75 a day, are abruptly displaced without a strike by a train-load of 500 raw Italiansbrought in by the company and put to work at from $1.50 to $2 a day. For the Americans there is nothing to do but to 'go down the road.' At first the Italians live on bread and beer, never wash, wear the same filthy clothes night and day, and are despised. After two or three years they want to live better, wear decent clothes, and be respected. They ask for more wages, the bosses bring in another train-load from the steerage, and the partly Americanized Italians follow the American miners 'down the road.' No wonder the estimate of government experts as to the number of our floating casual laborers ranges up to five millions!"
"It is claimed that the natives are not displaced" by the constant inflow of alien unskilled labor, says H. P. Fairchild,[150]but that they "are simply forced into higher occupations. Those who were formerly common laborers are now in positions of authority. While this argument holds true of individuals, its fallacy when applied to groups is obvious. There are not nearly enough places of authority to receive those who are forced out from below. The introduction of 500 Slav laborers into a community may make a demand for a dozen or a score of Americans in higher positions, but hardly for 500."
"The number of unskilled workers coming in at the present time is sufficient to check decidedly the normal tendency toward an improved standard of living in many lines of industry," in the opinion of J. W. Jenks, who was a member of the Immigration Commission appointed by President Roosevelt in 1907. He alludes to the belief that instead of crowding the older workersout, the aliens merely crowd them up, and says that he himself formerly held that view; "but the figures collected by the Immigration commission, from a sufficient number of industries in different sections of the country to give general conclusions, prove beyond a doubt that in a good many cases these incoming immigrants actually drive out into other localities and into other unskilled trades large numbers of American workingmen and workingmen of the earlier immigration who do not get better positions but, rather, worse ones.... Professor Lauck, ourchief superintendent of investigators in the field, and, so far as I am aware, every single investigator in the field, before the work ended, reached the conclusion from personal observation that the tendency of the large percentage of immigration of unskilled workers is clearly to lower the standard of living in a number of industries, and the statistics of the commission support this impression. I therefore changed my earlier views."
If the immigration of large quantities of unskilled labor with low standards of living tends in most cases to depress wages and lower the standard of living of the corresponding class of the old American population, the consequences would appear to be:
1. The employers of labor would profit, since they would get abundant labor at low wages. If this increase in the wealth of employers led to an increase in their birth-rate, it would be an advantage. But it apparently does not. The birth-rate of the employing class is probably little restricted by financial difficulties; therefore on them immigration probably has no immediate eugenic effect.
2. The American skilled laborers would profit, since there is more demand for skilled labor in industries created by unskilled immigrant labor. Would the increasing prosperity and a higher standard of living here, tend to lower the relative birth-rate of the class or not?
The answer probably depends on the extent of the knowledge of birth control which has been discussed elsewhere.
3. The wages and standard of living of American unskilled laborers will fall, since they are obliged directly to compete with the newcomers. It seems most likely that a fall in wages and standards is correlated with a fall in birth-rate. This case must be distinguished from cases where the wages and standardsnever were high, and where poverty is correlated with a high birth-rate. If this distinction is correct, the present immigration will tend to lower the birth-rate of American unskilled laborers.
The arguments here used may appear paradoxical, and have little statistical support, but they seem to us sound and not in contradiction with any known facts. If they are valid, the effect of such immigration as the United States has been receiving is toreduce the birth-rate of the unskilled labor with little or no effect on the employers and managers of labor.
Since both the character and the volume of immigration are at fault, remedial measures may be applied to either one or both of these features. It is very desirable that we have a much more stringent selection of immigrants than is made at the present time. But most of the measures which have been actually proposed and urged in recent years have been directed at a diminution of the volume, and at a change in character only by somewhat indirect and indiscriminate means.
The Immigration Commission made a report to Congress on Dec. 5, 1910, in which it suggested the following possible methods of restricting the volume of immigration:
1. The exclusion of those unable to read and write in some language.
2. The reduction of the number of each race arriving each year to a certain percentage of the average of that race arriving during a given period of years.
3. The exclusion of unskilled laborers unaccompanied by wives or families.
4. Material increase in the amount of money required to be in the possession of the immigrant at the port of arrival.
5. Material increase in the head tax.
6. Limitation of the number of immigrants arriving annually at any port.
7. The levying of the head tax so as to make a marked discrimination in favor of men with families.
Eugenically, it is probable that (3) and (7), which would tend to admit only families, would be a detriment to American welfare; (1) and (2) have been the suggestions which have met with the most favor. All but one member of the commission favored (1), the literacy test, as the most feasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration, and it was enacted into law by Congress, which passed it over President Wilson's veto, in February, 1917.
Records for 1914 show that "illiteracy among the total number of arrivals of each race ranged all the way from 64%for the Turkish to less than 1% for the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, the Scandinavian, and the Finnish. The Bohemian and Moravian, the German, and the Irish each had less than 5% illiterate. Races other than the Turkish, whose immigration in 1914 was more than one-third illiterate, include the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Russians, Ruthenians, Italians, Lithuanians, and Roumanians."
It is frankly admitted by the proponents of this method of restriction that it will keep out some who ought to come in, and let in some who ought to be kept out. It is in some cases a test of opportunity rather than of character, but "in the belief of its advocates, it will meet the situation as disclosed by the investigation of the Immigration Commission better than any other means that human ingenuity can devise. It is believed that it would exclude more of the undesirable and fewer of the desirable immigrants than any other method of restriction."
On the other hand, it is argued that the literacy test will fail of success because those who want to come will learn to read and write, which will only delay their arrival a few months without changing their real character. But the effect of such attempts will separate those who succeed from those who are too inferior to succeed, which would be an advantage of the plan rather than a defect.
The second method of selection enumerated (2) above, was proposed by Rev. Sidney L. Gulick, particularly with a view to meeting the need of restriction of Asiatic immigration.[151]This immigration will be discussed shortly, but in the meantime the details of his plan may be presented.
"Only so many immigrants of any people should be admitted as we can Americanize. Let the maximum permissible annual immigration from any people be a definite per cent. (say five) of the sum of the American-born children of that people plus those who have become naturalized of the same people. Let this restriction be imposed only upon adult males.
"Taking the 1910 census as our basis, the 5% Restriction Proposal would have fixed the maximum permissible immigration of males from North and West Europe at 759,000 annually, while the actual annual immigration for the last 5 years averages but 115,000. The permissible immigration from South and East Europe would have been 189,000 annually, while the average for the last five years has been 372,000. When applied to China, the policy would have admitted 1,106 males per year, while the number admitted on the average for the last 5 years has been 1,571. The proposal would provide for the admission of 1,200 Japanese annually, here again resulting in the exclusion on the average of 1,238 males yearly during the years 1911-1915. No estimate is made here of the effect of the exclusion of males on the arrival of women and children." The percentage restriction is unsatisfactory to a eugenist, as not sufficiently discriminating.
The literary restriction has been a great step forward but should be backed by the addition of such mental tests as will make it fairly certain to keep out the dull-minded as well as feeble-minded. Long division would suffice as such a test until better tests relatively unaffected by schooling can be put into operation, since it is at this point in the grades that so many dull-minded drop out of the schools.
Oriental immigration is becoming an urgent problem, and it is essential that its biological, as well as its economic and sociological features be understood, if it is to be solved in a satisfactory and reasonably permanent way. In the foregoing discussion, Oriental immigration has hardly been taken into account; it must now receive particular consideration.
What are the grounds, then, for forbidding the yellow races, or the races of British India, to enter the United States? The considerations urged in the past have been (1) Political: it is said that they are unable to acquire the spirit of American institutions. This is an objection which concerns eugenics only indirectly. (2) Medical: it is said that they introduce diseases, such as the oriental liver, lung and intestinal flukes, which are serious, against which Americans have never been selected,and for which no cure is known. (3) Economic: it is argued that the Oriental's lower standard of living makes it impossible for the white man to compete with him. The objection is well founded, and is indirectly of concern to eugenics, as was pointed out in a preceding section of this chapter. As eugenists we feel justified in objecting to the immigration of large bodies of unskilled Oriental labor, on the ground that they rear larger families than our stock on the same small incomes.
A biological objection has also been alleged, in the possibility of interbreeding between the yellow and white races. In the past such cases have been very rare; it is authoritatively stated[152]that "there are on our whole Pacific coast not more than 20 instances of intermarriage between Americans and Japanese, and ... one might count on the fingers of both hands the number of American-Chinese marriages between San Diego and Seattle." The presence of a body of non-interbreeding immigrants is likely to produce the adverse results already discussed in the earlier part of this chapter.
Eugenically, then, the immigration of any considerable number of unskilled laborers from the Orient may have undesirable direct results and is certain to have unfavorable indirect results. It should therefore be prevented, either by a continuation of the "gentlemen's agreement" now in force between the United States and Japan, and by similar agreements with other nations, or by some such non-invidious measure as that proposed by Dr. Gulick. This exclusion should not of course be applied to the intellectual classes, whose presence here would offer advantages which would outweigh the disadvantages.
We have a different situation in the Philippine islands, there the yellow races have been denied admission since the United States took possession. Previously, the Chinese had been trading there for centuries, and had settled in considerable numbers almost from the time the Spaniards colonized the archipelago.
At present it is estimated that there are 100,000 Chinese in the islands, and their situation was not put too strongly by A. E. Jenks, when he wrote:[153]
"As to the Chinese, it does not matter much what they themselves desire; but what their descendants desire will go far toward answering the whole question of the Filipinos' volition toward assimilation, because they aretheFilipinos. To be specific: During the latter days of my residence in the Islands in 1905 Governor-General Wright one day told me that he had recently personally received from one of the most distinguished Filipinos of the time, and a member of the Insular Civil Commission, the statement that 'there was not a single prominent and dominant family among the Christianized Filipinos which did not possess Chinese blood.' The voice and will of the Filipinos of to-day is the voice and the will of these brainy, industrious, rapidly developing men whose judgment in time the world is bound to respect."
This statement will be confirmed by almost any American resident in the Islands. Most of the men who have risen to prominence in the Islands are mestizos, and while in political life some of the leaders are merely Spanish metis, the financial leaders almost without exception, the captains of industry, have Chinese blood in their veins, while this class has also taken an active part in the government of the archipelago. Emilio Aguinaldo is one of the most conspicuous of the Chinese mestizos. Individual examples might be multiplied without limit; it will be sufficient to mention Bautista Lim, president of the largest tobacco firm in the islands and also a physician; his brother, formerly an insurgent general and later governor of Sampango province under the American administration; the banker Lim Hap; Faustino Lechoco, cattle king of the Philippines; Fernandez brothers, proprietors of a steamship line; Locsin and Lacson, wealthy sugar planters; Mariano Velasco, dry-goods importer; Datto Piang, the Moro warrior and chieftain; Paua,insurgent general in southern Luzon; Ricardo Gochuico, tobacco magnate. In most of these men the proportion of Chinese blood is large.
Generalizing, we are justified in saying that the cross between Chinese and Filipinos produces progeny superior to the Filipinos. It must be remembered that it is not a very wide cross, the Malayans, who include most of the Filipinos, being closely related to the Chinese.
It appears that even a small infusion of Chinese blood may produce long-continued favorable results, if the case of the Ilocanos is correctly described. This tribe, in Northern Luzon, furnishes perhaps the most industrious workers of any tribe in the islands; foremen and overseers of Filipinos are quite commonly found to be Ilocanos, while the members of the tribe are credited with accomplishing more steady work than any other element of the population. The current explanation of this is that they are Chinese mestizos: their coast was constantly exposed the raids of Chinese pirates, a certain number of whom settled there and took Ilocano women as wives. From these unions, the whole tribe in the course of time is thought to have benefited.[154]
The history of the Chinese in the Philippines fails to corroborate the idea that he never loses his racial identity. It must be borne in mind that nearly all the Chinese in the United States are of the lowest working class, and from the vicinity of Canton; while those in the Philippines are of a higher class, and largely from the neighborhood of Amoy. They have usually married Filipino women of good families, so their offspring had exceptional advantages, and stand high in the estimation of the community. The requirement of the Spanish government was that a Chinese must embrace Christianity and become a citizen, before he could marry a Filipino. Usually he assumed his wife's name, so the children were brought up wholly as Filipinos,and considered themselves such, without cherishing any particular sentiment for the Flowery Kingdom.
The biologist who studies impartially the Filipino peoples may easily conclude that the American government is making a mistake in excluding the Chinese; that the infiltration of intelligent Chinese and their intermixture with the native population would do more to raise the level of ability of the latter than a dozen generations of that compulsory education on which the government has built such high hopes.
And this conclusion leads to the question whether much of the surplus population of the Orient could not profitably be diverted to regions occupied by savage and barbarian people. Chinese immigrants, mostly traders, have long been going in small numbers to many such regions and have freely intermarried with native women. It is a matter of common observation to travelers that much of the small mercantile business has passed into the hands of Chinese mestizos. As far as the first few generations, at least, the cross here seems to be productive of good results. Whether Oriental immigration should be encouraged must depend on the decision of the respective governments, and considerations other than biologic will have weight. As far as eugenics is concerned it is likely that such regions would profit by a reasonable amount of Chinese or Japanese immigration which resulted in interbreeding and not in the formation of isolated race-groups, because the superior Orientals tend to raise the level of the native population into which they marry.
The question of the regulation of immigration is, as we have insisted throughout this chapter, a question of weighing the consequences. A decision must be reached in each case by asking what course will do most for the future good both of the nation and of the whole species. To talk of the sacred duty of offering an asylum to any who choose to come, is to indulge in immoral sentimentality. Even if the problem be put on the most unselfish plane possible, to ask not what will be for this country's own immediate or future benefit, but what will most benefit the world at large, it can only be concluded that the duty of the United States is to make itself strong, efficient, productive and progressive. By so doing they will be much better able to help the rest of the world than by progressively weakening themselves through failure to regulate immigration.
Further, in reaching a decision on the regulation of immigration, there are numerous kinds of results to be considered: political, social, economic and biologic, among others. All these interact, and it is hard to say that one is more important than another; naturally we have limited ourselves to the biologic aspect, but not without recognizing that the other aspects exist and must be taken into account by those who are experts in those fields.
Looking only at the eugenic consequences, we can not doubt that a considerable and discriminatory selection of immigrants to this country is necessary. Both directly and indirectly, the immigration of recent years appears to be diminishing the eugenic strength of the nation more than it increases it.
The state would be in a stronger position eugenically (and in many other ways) if it would decrease the immigration of unskilled labor, and increase the immigration of creative and directing talent. A selective diminution of the volume of immigration would tend to have that result, because it would necessarily shut out more of the unskilled than the skilled.
War always changes the composition of a nation; but this change may be either a loss or a gain. The modification of selection by war is far more manifold than the literature on the biological effects of war would lead the reader to suppose. All wars are partly eugenic and partly dysgenic; some are mainly the one, some are mainly the other. The racial effects of war occur in at least three periods:
1. The period of preparation.
2. The period of actual fighting.
3. The period of readjustment after the war.
The first division involves the effect of a standing army, which withdraws men during a part of the reproductive period and keeps most of them in a celibate career. The officers marry late if at all and show a very low birth-rate. The prolonged celibacy has in many armies led to a higher incidence of venereal diseases which prolongs the celibacy and lowers the birthrate.[155]Without extended discussion, the following considerations may be named as among those which should govern a policy of military preparedness that will safeguard, as far as possible, the eugenic interests:
1. If the army is a standing one, composed of men serving long terms of enlistment, they should be of as advanced an age as is compatible with military efficiency. If a man of 35 has not married, it is probable that he will never marry, and therefore there is less loss to the race in enrolling him for military service, than is the case with a man of 20-25.
2. The army (except in so far as composed of inferior men)should not foster celibacy. Short enlistments are probably the most valuable means of avoiding this evil.
3. Universal conscription is much better than voluntary service, since the latter is highly selective, the former much less so. Those in regular attendance in college should receive their military training in their course as is now done.
4. Officers' families should be given an additional allowance for each child. This would aid in increasing the birth-rate, which appears to be very low among army and navy officers in the United States service, and probably in that of all civilized countries.
5. Every citizen owes service to his nation, in time of need, but fighting service should not be exacted if some one else could perform it better than he where he is expert in some other needed field. The recent action of England in sending to the front as subaltern officers, who were speedily killed, many highly trained technicians and young scientists and medical men who would have been much more valuable at home in connection with war measures, is an example of this mistake. Carrying the idea farther, one sees that in many nations there are certain races which are more valuable on the firing line than in industries at the rear; and it appears that they should play the part for which they are best fitted. From this point of view, the Entente allies were wholly justified in employing their Asiatic and African subjects in war. In the United States are millions of negroes who are of less value than white men in organized industry but almost as valuable as the whites, when properly led, at the front. It would appear to be sound statesmanship to enlist as many Negroes as possible in the active forces, in case of war, thus releasing a corresponding number of more skilled white workers for the industrial machine on whose efficiency success in modern warfare largely rests.
The creation of the National Army in the United States, in 1917, while in most ways admirably conducted, was open to criticism in several respects, from the eugenic point of view:
(a) Too many college men and men in intellectual pursuits were taken as officers, particularly in the aviation corps. Thereshould have been more men employed as officers who had demonstrated the necessary qualifications, as foremen and others accustomed to boss gangs of men.
(b) The burden was thrown too heavily on the old white Americans, by the exemption of aliens, who make up a large part of the population in some states. There were communities in New England which actually could not fill their quotas, even by taking every acceptable native-born resident, so large is their alien population. The quota should have been adjusted if aliens were to be exempt.
(c) The district boards were not as liberal as was desirable, in exempting from the first quota men needed in skilled work at home. The spirit of theselectivedraft was widely violated, and necessitated a complete change of method before the second quota was called by the much improved questionnaire method.
It is difficult to get such mistakes as these corrected; nevertheless a nation should never lose sight of the fact that war is inevitably damaging, and that the most successful nation is the one which wins its wars with the least possible eugenic loss.
Leaving the period of preparedness, we consider the period of open warfare. The reader will remember that, in an earlier chapter, we divided natural selection into (1) lethal, that which operates through differential mortality; (2) sexual, that which operates through differential mating; and (3) fecundal, that which operates through differential fecundity. Again, selection operates both in an inter-group competition and an intra-group competition. The influence of any agency on natural selection must be examined under each of these six heads. In the case of war, however, fecundal selection may be eliminated, as it is little influenced. Still another division arises from the fact that the action of selection is different during war upon the armed forces themselves and upon the population at home; and after the war, upon the nations with the various modifications that the war has left.
We will consider lethal selection first. To measure the effect of the inter-group selection of the armed forces, one must compare the relative quality of the two races involved. The evidence for believing in substantial differences between races is based (a) upon their relative achievement when each is isolated, (b) upon the relative rank when the two are competing in one society, and (c) upon the relative number of original contributions to civilization each has made. Such comparisons are fatal to the sentimental equalitarianism that denies race differences. While there is, of course, a great deal of overlapping, there are, nevertheless, real average differences. To think otherwise is to discard evolution and revert to the older standpoint of "special creation."
Comparison of the quality of the two sides is sometimes, of course, very difficult. One may feel little hesitation in giving a decision in the classical war of the Greeks and Persians, or the more modern case of the English and Afghans, but when considering the Franco-Prussian war, or the Russo-Japanese war, or the Boer war, or the American civil war, it is largely a matter of mere opinion, and perhaps an advantage can hardly be conceded to either side. Those who, misunderstanding the doctrine of evolution, adhere to the so-called "philosophy of force," would answer without hesitation that the side which won was,ipso facto, the better side. But such a judgment is based on numerous fallacies, and can not be indorsed in the sweeping way it is uttered. Take a concrete example:
"In 1806, Prussia was defeated at the battle of Jena. According to the philosophy of force, this was because Prussia was 'inferior' and France was 'superior.' Suppose we admit for the moment that this was the case. The selection now represents the survival of the fittest, the selection which perfects the human species. But what shall we say of the battle of Leipsic? At Leipsic, in 1813, all the values were reversed; it is now France which is the 'inferior' nation.... Furthermore, a large number of the same generals and soldiers who took part in the battle of Jena also took part in the battle of Leipsic. Napoleon belonged, therefore, to a race which was superior to that of Blücher in 1806, but to an inferior race in 1813, in spite of the fact that they were the same persons and had not changedtheir nationality. As soon as we bring these assertions to the touchstone of concrete reality we see at once how untenable and even ridiculous are direct biological comparisons."[156]
Without going into further detail, it is readily seen that, on the world at large, the eugenic effect of a war would be very different according as the sides differ much or little. Yet this difference in quality, however great, will have no significance, unless the superior or inferior side is in general more likely to lose fewer men. Where the difference has been considerable, as between a civilized and savage nation, it has been seldom that the superior has not triumphed with fewer losses. Victory, however, is influenced much less in these later days by the relative military efficiency of two single nations than by their success in making powerful alliances. But such alignments are by no means always associated with better quality, because (a) there is a natural tendency for the weak to unite against a strong nation, (b) to side with a group which is apparently succeeding, and (c) the alliances may be the work of one or a few individuals who happen to be in positions of power at the critical time.
Modern European wars, especially the latest one, have been marked by the high quality of the combatants on both sides relative to the rest of the world. As these same races fight with pertinacity, there is a high mortality rate, so that the dysgenic result of these wars is particularly deplorable.
As for the selection taking placewithineach of the struggling nations, the combatants and the non-combatants of the same age and sex must first be compared. The difference here depends largely on how the army in question was raised. Where the army is a permanent, paid force, it probably does not represent a quality above the average of the nation, except physically. When it is conscripted, it is superior physically andprobably slightly in other respects. If it is a volunteer army, its quality depends largely on whether the cause being fought for is one that appeals merely to the spirit of adventure or one that appeals to some moral principle. In the latter case, the quality may be such that the loss of a large part of the army will be peculiarly damaging to the progress of the race. This situation is more common than might be supposed, for by skillful diplomacy and journalism a cause which may be really questionable is presented to the public in a most idealistic light. But here, again, one can not always apply sweeping generalizations to individual cases. It might be supposed, for instance, that in the Confederate army the best eugenic quality was represented by the volunteers, the second best by those who stayed out until they were conscripted, and the poorest by the deserters. Yet David Starr Jordan and Harvey Ernest Jordan, who investigated the case with care, found that this was hardly true and that, due to the peculiar circumstances, the deserters were probably not as a class eugenically inferior to the volunteers.[157]Again some wars, such as that between the United States and Spain, probably develop a volunteer army made up largely of the adventurous, the nomadic, and those who have fewer ties; it would be difficult to demonstrate that they are superior to those who, having settled positions at home, or family obligations, fail to volunteer. The greatest damage appears to be done in such wars as those waged by great European nations, where the whole able-bodied male population is called out, and only those left at home who are physically or mentally unfit for fighting—but not, it appears to be thought, unfit to perpetuate the race.
Even within the army of one side, lethal selection is operative. Those who are killed are by no means a haphazard sample of the whole army. Among the victims there is a disproportionate representation of those with (1) dauntless bravery, (2) recklessness, (3) stupidity. These qualities merge into each other, yet in their extremes they are widely different. However, as the nature of warfare changes with the increase of artillery,mines, bombs, and gases, and decrease of personal combat, those who fall are more and more chance victims.
In addition to the killed and mortally wounded, there are many deaths from disease or from wounds which were not necessarily fatal. Probably the most selective of any of these three agencies is the variable resistance to disease and infection and the widely varying knowledge and appreciation of the need for hygienic living shown by the individual, as, for instance, by less reckless drinking of unsterilized water. But here, too, in modern warfare, this item is becoming less selective, with the advance in discipline and in organized sanitation.
The efficiency of selection will be affected by the percentage that each side has sent to the front, if the combatants are either above or below the average of the population. A nation that sends all its able-bodied males forward will be affected differently from its enemy that has needed to call upon only one-half of its able-bodied men in order to win its cause.
Away from the fighting lines of the contending sides, conditions that prevail are rendered more severe in many ways than in times of peace. Poverty becomes rife, and sanitation and medical treatment are commonly sacrificed under the strain. During a war, that mitigation of the action of natural selection which is so common now among civilized nations, is somewhat less effective than in times of peace. The scourge of typhus in Serbia is a recent and graphic illustration.
After a war has been concluded, certain new agencies of inter-group selection arise. The result depends largely on whether the vanquished have had a superior culture brought to them, as in the case of the Philippines, or whether, on the contrary, certain diseases have been introduced, as to the natives of the New World by the Spanish conquerors and explorers, or crushing tribute has been levied, or grievous oppression such as has befallen Belgium.
Sometimes the conquerors themselves have suffered severely as the result of excessive spoliation, which has produced vicious idleness and luxurious indulgence, with the ultimate effect of diminishing the birth-rate.
Within the nation there may be various results. Sometimes, by the reduction of overcrowding, natural selection will be less severe. On the other hand, the loss of that part of the population which is more economically productive is a very serious loss, leading to excessive poverty with increased severity in the action of natural selection, of which some of the Southern States, during the Reconstruction period, offer a good illustration.
Selection is also rendered more intense by the heavy burden of taxation, and in the very common depreciation of currency as is now felt in Russia.
Sexual selection as well as lethal is affected by war in manifold ways. Considering the armed force, there is an inter-group selection, when the enemy's women are assaulted by the soldiers. While this has been an important factor in the past, it is somewhat less common now, with better army discipline and higher social ideals.
Within the group, mating at the outset of a war is greatly increased by many hurried marriages. There is also alleged to be sometimes an increase of illegitimacy in the neighborhood of training camps. In each of these instances, these matings do not represent as much maturity of judgment as there would have been in times of peace, and hence give a less desirable sexual selection.
In the belligerent nation at home, the number of marriageable males is of course far less than at ordinary times. It becomes important, then, to compare the quality of the non-combatants and those combatants who survive and return home, since their absence during the war period of course decreases their reproduction as compared with the non-combatants. The marked excess of women over men, both during the war and after, necessarily intensifies the selection of women and proportionately reduces that of men, since relatively fewer men will remain unmated. This excess of women is found in all classes. Among superiors there are, in addition, some women who never marry because the war has so reduced the number of suitors thought eligible.
The five years' war of Paraguay with Brazil, Uruguay andArgentina (1864-1869) is perhaps the most glaring case on record[158]in recent years of the destruction of the male population of a country. Whole regiments were made up of boys of 16 or less. At the beginning of the war the population of Paraguay had been given as 1,337,437. It fell to 221,709 (28,746 men, 106,254 women, 86,079 children); it is even now probably not more than half of the estimate made at the beginning of the war. "Here in a small area has occurred a drastic case of racial ravage without parallel since the time of the Thirty Years' War." Macedonia, however, furnishes a fairly close parallel—D. S. Jordan found whole villages there in 1913 in which not a single man remained: only women and children. Conditions were not so very much better in parts of the South at the close of the Civil War, particularly in Virginia and North Carolina, where probably 40% of the young men of reproductive age died without issue. And in a few of the Northern states, such as Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts, the loss was proportionately almost as great. These were probably as good men as any country has produced, and their loss, with that of their potential offspring, undoubtedly is causing more far-reaching effects in the subsequent history of the United States than has ever been realized.
In the past and still among many savage peoples, inter-group selection has been affected by the stealing of women from the vanquished. The effect of this has been very different, depending on whether these women would otherwise have been killed or spared, and also depending on the relative quality of their nation to that of their conquerors.
To sum up, there are so many features of natural selection, each of which must be separately weighed and the whole then balanced, that it is a matter of extensive inquiry to determine whether a certain war has a preponderance of eugenic or dysgenic results.
When the quality of the combatants is so high, compared withthe rest of the world, as during the Great War, no conceivable eugenic gains from the war can offset the losses. It is probably well within the facts to assume that the period of this war represents a decline in inherent human quality, greater than in any similar length of time in the previous history of the world.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that war is becoming much less common if we consider number of combatants rather than number of wars as times goes on,[159]and it steadily tends to be more destructive. War, then, offers one of the greatest problems which the eugenist must face, for a few months of war may undo all that eugenic reforms can gain in a generation.
The total abolition of war would, of course, be the ideal, but there is no possibility of this in the near future. The fighting instinct, it must be remembered, is one of the most primitive and powerful that the human mechanism contains. It was evolved in great intensity, to give man supremacy over his environment—for the great "struggle for existence" is with the environment, not with members of one's own species. Man long ago conquered the environment so successfully that he has never since had to exert himself in physical combat in this direction; but the fighting instinct remained and could not be baulked without causing uneasiness. Spurred on by a complex set of psychological and economic stimuli, man took to fighting his own kind, to a degree that no other species shows.
Now contrary to what the militarist philosophers affirm, this particular sort of "struggle for existence" is not a necessity to the further progressive evolution of the race. On the contrary it more frequently reverses evolution and makes the race go backward, rather than forward.
The struggle for existence which makes the race progress is principally that of the species with its environment, not that of some members of the species with others. If the latter struggle could be supplanted by the former then racial evolution would go ahead steadily without the continuous reversals that warfare now gives.
William James saw, we believe, the true solution of the problem of militarism, when he wrote his famous essay onThe Moral Equivalent of War. Here is man, full of fighting instinct which will not be baulked. What is he to do? Professor James suggested that the youth of the nation be conscripted to fight the environment, thus getting the fight "out of its system" and rendering a real service to the race by constructive reclamation work, instead of slaying each other and thus turning the hands of the evolutionary clock backward.
When education has given everyone the evolutionary and eugenic view of man as a species adapted to his environment, it may be possible to work out some such solution as this of James. The only immediate course of action open seems to be to seek, if possible, to diminish the frequency of war by subduing nations which start wars and, by the organization of a League to Enforce Peace; to avoid war-provoking conquests; to diminish as much as possible the disastrous effects of war when it does come, and to work for the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge which will eventually make possible the greater step, effective international organization.
Scientific plant breeders to-day have learned that their success often depends on the care with which they study the genealogy of their plants.
Live-stock breeders admit that their profession is on a sure scientific basis only to the extent that the genealogy of the animals used is known.
Human genealogy is one of the oldest manifestations of man's intellectual activity, but until recently it has been subservient to sentimental purposes, or pursued from historical or legal motives. Biology has had no place in it.
Genealogy, however, has not altogether escaped the re-examination which all sciences received after the Darwinian movement revolutionized modern thought. Numerous ways have been pointed out in which it could be brought into line with the new way of looking at man and his world. The field of genealogy has already been invaded at many points by biologists, seeking the furtherance of their own aims.
It will be worth while to discuss briefly the relations between the conventional genealogy and eugenics. It may be that genealogy could become an even more valuable branch of human knowledge than it now is, if it were more closely aligned with biology. In order to test this possibility, one must inquire:
(1) What is genealogy?
(2) What does it now attempt to do?
(3) What faults, from the eugenist's standpoint, seem to exist in present genealogical methods?
(4) What additions should be made to the present methods?
(5) What can be expected of it, after it is revised in accordance with the ideas of the eugenist?
The answer to the first question, "What is genealogy?" maybe brief. Genealogy may be envisaged from several points. It serves history. It has a legal function, which is of more consequence abroad than in America. It has social significance, in bolstering family pride and creating a feeling of family solidarity—this is perhaps its chief office in the United States. It has, or can have, biological significance, and this in two ways: either in relation to pure science or applied science. In connection with pure science, its function is to furnish means for getting knowledge of the laws of heredity. In application, its function is to furnish a knowledge of the inherited characters of any given individual, in order to make it possible for the individual to find his place in the world and, in particular, to marry wisely. It is obvious that the use of genealogy in the applied science of eugenics is dependent on previous research by geneticists; for marriage matings which take account of heredity can not be made unless the mode of inheritance of human traits has previously been discovered.
The historical, social, legal and other aspects of genealogy do not concern the present discussion. We shall discuss only the biological aspect; not only because it alone is germane to the present book, but because we consider it to have by far the greatest true value, accepting the criterion of value as that which increases the welfare of mankind. By this criterion, the historical, legal and social aspects of genealogy will be seen, with a little reflection, to be of secondary importance to its biological aspect.
(2) Genealogy now is too often looked upon as an end in itself. It would be recognized as a science of much greater value to the world if it were considered not an end but a means to a far greater end than it alone can supply. It has, indeed, been contended, even by such an authority as Ottokar Lorenz, who is often called the father of modern scientific genealogy, that a knowledge of his own ancestry will tell each individual exactly what he himself is. This appears to be the basis of Lorenz's valuation of genealogy. It is a step in the right direction: but
(3) The present methods of genealogy are inadequate tosupport such a claim. Its methods are still based mainly on the historical, legal and social functions. A few of the faults of method in genealogy, which the eugenist most deplores, are:
(a) The information which is of most value is exactly that which genealogy ordinarily does not furnish. Dates of birth, death and marriage of an ancestor are of interest, but of limited biological importance. The facts about that ancestor which vitally concern his living descendant are the facts of his character, physical and mental; and these facts are given in very few genealogies.