Roswell H. Johnson

There are now in the United States some 14,000,000 foreign-born persons, together with other millions of the sons and daughters of foreigners who although born on American soil have as yet been little assimilated to Americanism. This great body of aliens, representing perhaps a fifth of the population, is not a pool to be absorbed, but a continuous, inflowing stream, which until the outbreak of the Great War was steadily increasing in volume, and of which the fountain-head is so inexhaustible as to appal the imagination. From the beginning of the century, the inflow averaged little less than a million a year, and while about one-fifth of this represented a temporary migration, four-fifths of it meant a permanent addition to the population of the New World.

The character of this stream will inevitably determine to a large extent the future of the American nation. The direct biological results, in race mixture, are important enough, although not easy to define. The indirect results, which are probably of no less importance to eugenics, are so hard to follow that some students of the problem do not even realize their existence.

The ancestors of all white Americans, of course, were immigrants not so very many generations ago. But the earlier immigration was relatively homogeneous and stringently selected by the dangers of the voyage, the hardships of life in a new country, and the equality of opportunity where free competition drove the unfit to the wall. There were few people of eminence in the families that came to colonize North America, but there was a high average of sturdy virtues, and a good deal of ability, particularly in the Puritan and Huguenot invasions and in a part of that of Virginia.

In the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, the number of these "patriots and founders" was greatly increased by the arrival of immigrants of similar racial stocks from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, and to a less extent from the other countries of northern and western Europe. These arrivals added strength to the United States, particularly as a large part of them settled on farms.

This stream of immigration gradually dried up, but was succeeded by a flood from a new source,—southern and eastern Europe. Italians, Slavs, Poles, Magyars, East European Hebrews, Finns, Portuguese, Greeks, Roumanians and representatives of many other small nationalities began to seek fortunes in America. The earlier immigration had been made up largely of those who sought escape from religious or political tyranny and came to settle permanent homes. The newer immigration was made up, on the whole, of those who frankly sought wealth. The difference in the reason for coming could not fail to mean a difference in selection of the immigrants, quite apart from the change in the races.

Last of all began an immigration of Levantines, of Syrians, Armenians, and other inhabitants of Asiatic Turkey. Beyond this region lie the great nations of Asia, "oversaturated" with population. So far there has been little more than the threat of their overflow, but the threat is certain to become a reality within a few years unless prevented by legal restriction.

The eugenic results of immigration are partly indirect and partly direct. Direct results follow if the newcomers are assimilated,—a word which we shall use rather narrowly to mean that free intermarriage takes place between them and all parts of the older population. We shall discuss the direct results first, the nature of which depends largely on whether the newcomers are racially homogeneous with the population already in the country.

If they are like, the old and new will blend without difficulty. The effects of the immigration then depend on whether the immigrants are better or worse in average quality than the older residents. If as good or better, they are valuable additions; if inferior they are biologically a detriment.

But if the new arrivals are different, if they represent a different subspecies of Homo sapiens, the question is more serious, for it involves the problem of crossing races which are biologically more or less distinct. Genetics can throw some light on this problem.

Waiving for the moment all question as to the relative quality of two distinct races, what results are to be expected from crossing? It (1) gives an increase of vigor which diminishes in later generations and (2) produces recombination of characters.

The first result may be disregarded, for the various races of man are probably already much mixed, and too closely related, to give rise to much hybrid vigor in crosses.

The second result will be favorable or unfavorable, depending on the characters which go into the cross; and it is not possible to predict the result in human matings, because the various racial characters are so ill known. It is, therefore, not worth while here to discuss at length genetic theory. In general it may be said that some valuable characters are likely to disappear, as the result of such crosses, and less desirable ones to take their place. The great bulk of the population resulting from such racial crosses is likely to be more or less mongrel in nature. Finally, some individuals will appear who combine the good characters of the two races, without the bad ones.

The net result will therefore probably be some distinct gain, but a greater loss. There is danger that complex and valuable traits of a race will be broken down in the process of hybridization, and that it will take a long time to bring them together again. The old view that racial crosses lead fatally to race degeneration is no longer tenable, but the view recently advanced, that crosses are advantageous, seems equally hasty. W. E. Castle has cited the Pitcairn Islanders and the Boer-Hottentot mulattoes of South Africa as evidence that wide crosses are productive of no evil results. These cases may be admitted to show that such a hybrid race may be physically healthy, but in respect of mental traits they hardly do more than suggest the conclusion we advanced in our chapter on the Color Line,—that such miscegenation is an advantage to the inferior race and a disadvantage to the superior one.

On the whole, we believe wide racial crosses should be looked upon with suspicion by eugenists.

The colonizers of North America mostly belonged to the Nordic race.[143] The earlier immigrants to the United States,—roughly, those who came here before the Civil War,—belonged mostly to the same stock, and therefore mixed with the early settlers without difficulty. The advantages of this immigration were offset by no impairment of racial homogeneity.

But the more recent immigration belongs mostly to other races, principally the Mediterranean and Alpine. Even if these immigrants were superior on the average to the older population, it is clear that their assimilation would not be an unmixed blessing, for the evil of crossbreeding would partly offset the advantage of the addition of valuable new traits. If, on the other hand, the average of the new immigration is inferior in quality, or in so far as it is inferior in quality, it is evident that it must represent biologically an almost unmixed evil; it not only brings in new undesirable traits, but injures the desirable ones already here.

E. A. Ross has attempted to predict some of the changes that will take place in the population of the United States, as a result of the immigration of the last half-century.[144] "It is reasonable," he thinks, "to expect an early falling off in the frequency of good looks in the American people." A diminution of stature, a depreciation of morality, an increase in gross fecundity, and a considerable lowering of the level of average natural ability are among other results that he considers probable. Not only are the races represented in the later immigration in many cases inferior in average ability to the earlier immigrant races, but America does not get the best, or even a representative selection,[145] from the races which are now contributing to her population. "Europe retains most of her brains, but sends multitudes of the common and sub-common. There is little sign of an intellectual element among the Magyars, Russians, South Slavs, Italians, Greeks or Portuguese" who are now arriving. "This does not hold, however, for currents created by race discrimination or oppression. The Armenian, Syrian, Finnish and Russo-Hebrew streams seem representative, and the first wave of Hebrews out of Russia in the eighties was superior."

While the earlier immigration brought a liberal amount of intelligence and ability, the later immigration (roughly, that of the last half century) seems to have brought distinctly less. It is at present principally an immigration of unskilled labor, of vigorous, ignorant peasants. Some of this is "promoted" by agents of transportation companies and others who stand to gain by stirring up the population of a country village in Russia or Hungary, excite the illiterate peasants by stories of great wealth and freedom to be gained in the New World, provide the immigrant with a ticket to New York and start him for Ellis Island. Naturally, such immigration is predominantly male. On the whole, females make up one-third of the recent inflow, but among some races—Greeks, Italians and Roumanians, for example—only one-fifth.

In amount of inherent ability these immigrants are not only less highly endowed than is desirable, but they furnish, despite weeding out, altogether too large a proportion of the "three D's"—defectives, delinquents and dependents. In the single year 1914 more than 33,000 would-be immigrants were turned back, about half of them because likely to become public charges. The immigration law of 1907, amended in 1910, 1913 and 1917, excludes the following classes of aliens from admission into the United States:

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 with a 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.

Fig. 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 frequently stated 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, and hence 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 road should 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 Italians brought 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 workers out, 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, our chief 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 standards never 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 to reduce 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 are the Filipinos. 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.