practically pure, the others have less of the European race blood and their inferiority corresponds to the degree of race mixture." 15 The French departments showing the highest birthrate are those in which the percentage of long heads is greatest; those showing the lowest, the reverse. All that can be said of most of the disharmonies cited by Lapouge is that they are departures from an esthetic standard preferred by him. His statement with reference to the asymmetry of the uterus is very significant if true. The only difficulty is that other observers do not seem to substantiate his position and that it is rendered very doubtful by certain historical facts shortly to be mentioned. Another source of information is the physical record of the Negroes and mulattoes who enlisted in the Union army at the time of the Civil War. Weight of Brain of White and Colored Soldiers It seems difficult to draw any conclusions as to inferiority or superiority of the mulatto from this table based as it is on only a very few cases, yet some have not hesitated to claim that it shows his marked intellectual superiority. Dr. Gould found among the soldiers the following differ ences: 15 LAPOUGE, G. V. о. с., р. 184. 16 HUNT, S. B. The Negro as a Soldier, Anthropological Review, vii, p. 1869. On these figures Dr. Hoffman comments: "We have, therefore, the contrast of the mulatto being physically and perhaps morally the inferior of the pure blooded negro, while intellectually he is the superior." 18 In considering these statements we must recognize that there has been little effort made to get detailed and accurate information on the questions involved and that possibly certain differences in social conditions may account for the varying results. It is worth while to note that the number of Negro-White cross-breeds in the country today cannot be far short of the whole number counted as Negroes at the close of the Civil War, or from onefourth to one-third of the total. The teachers in our schools do not find marked differences between the fullbloods and the mixed. The leaders of the Negroes in America like Booker Washington and W. E. B. DuBois are mixed-bloods while others like Kelly Miller and R. R. Moton are pure Negroes. Whenever we are told that a people of mixed white and Negro blood must perish from earth let us not forget that across Africa in the Sudan and down the East Coast there are untold millions of people of just that descent. Such facts as Johnston calls attention to are often overlooked: "The Negro was soon followed up in his appropriation of Africa by the Caucasian of an already negrified Mediter 17 GOULD, B. A. Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers. 18 HOFFMAN, F. L. Race Traits and Tendencies, p. 186. ranean type: Libyans wandered across the Sahara, dispossessed the red-skinned pygmies of western Nigeria, absorbed some of the Forest Negroes, and formed such hybrid stocks as the Songhai, Mandingo, Fula, and Nyamnyam, Hamites (Egyptian and Gala) occupied Egypt from Arabia and pushed westwards across the Libyan Desert, mingling freely with long-legged or short-legged and prognathous Negroes, and thus called into existence mixed races like the Tibbu, Nubian, Ethiopian, Masai, Andorobo, Hima, Gala, Somali, and Danakil. ... "There has been much infiltration of Caucasian blood from Europe and western Asia in more recent, historic times. Pre-Islamic Arabs undoubtedly were connected with and settled in Southeast Africa perhaps more than two thousand years ago. They must have taken to themselves concubines from the South African Negroes, and these last - possibly not yet 'Bantu' in speech may have already created the Hottentot hybrid with the Bushman in Southwest Africa. Then from A. D. 1000 onwards came many Arabs, Persians, Baluchis, and Hindus to the East African coast. From out the mingling of all these elements in different degrees arose the African peoples of today, very few of which are without some tinge of Caucasian blood due to the White man's persistent invasion of Africa from - let us say - 12,000 в. с. to the present day." 19 The fact is wherever we turn on earth, explain it as we may, that evidences of uniformity of descent are only found in outlying, remote and rather inaccessible regions and that nowhere under such conditions has any great civilization developed. On the contrary, whenever we turn to the great nations of the world we find every indication of race mixtures far exceeding the popular belief of the people themselves. Whatever the future may disclose there is now no evidence worthy of credence to show that the intermarriage of even the most widely separated races results in physically inferior offspring. This statement is by no means to be interpreted that the fusion of the races is always wise or desirable. Whether favored or not, whether prohibited by law or not, it is taking place. Endless statements could be cited either for or against the action. Because of the strong feeling in America against the marriage of whites and Japanese the following statement attributed to Professor Baelz, a German physician at the Tokyo University, is worthy of notice. 19 JOHNSTON, Η. Η. о. с., pp. 29-30. "On this question I may speak with a certain degree of authority, having been the first, and in fact up to this day the only scientist, who has made a special study of the comparison of the physical qualities of the Japanese and European races. Besides, as a physician in Tokyo during thirty years, I have had the opportunity of examining an unusually large number of (Eurasians), and I have paid particular attention to them. The result of my observations is that they are a healthy set of people, and I do not hesitate to say that no one of the common arguments against them is supported by science. They are on the average well built, and show no tendency to organic disease more than Europeans or Japanese do. This is the more remarkable as many of them grow up under unfavorable circumstances, the father often having left them with little money to the care of a mother who has no authority over them. This is a particularly important point if the moral qualities are considered. In Europe too, we know that abandoned illegitimate children very often turn out badly, and a fair comparison must take that into serious consideration. To make quite sure about the intellectual and moral qualities of the (Eurasian), I have asked the opinion of the man who is more than any other qualified to give an authoritative judgment - Mr. Heinrich, director of the School of the Morning Star. He has had in his classes, side by side, Europeans, Japanese, and almost all the male half-breeds in Tokyo. His opinion is, that if properly brought up and well-looked after, the half-breeds are morally, and intellectually in no way inferior to the children of both races. As a rule they are taller and more robust than the Japanese, and in every branch of learning they are fully up to the standard of their fellow-scholars." 20 The attempt to build a biological foundation for the walls of race prejudice has been most unsuccessful, it seems to me. In the opinion of the Whites a Negro is a Negro, and a mulatto is a Negro, but biologically he is not. The Jews are persecuted and repressed in Europe and are discriminated against in America in many ways but their social inferiority is not the result of physical or mental inferiority. Biologists warn us that there is no reason to anticipate the production of a superior type by crossing two species. They forget that this has happened more than once in the history of animal breeding, and they forget further that domestic animals are specialized as human races are not. Moreover, there may be social advantages even if the biological results are unimportant. In America there seem to be but two solutions to our great race problem. The one is amalgamation. The other is a caste system much like that of India with its denial of opportunity to the lower castes, the consequent destruction of democracy, and the downfall of Christianity as now understood at least. Can there be enduring peace unless 20 LAWTON, L. The Empires of the East, Vol. II, p. 772 ff. |