headed plea without sentiment and as after-dinner speaker he CHAP. VI lacks wit and fancy. Scandinavians care little for the social side of their labor unions. They do not warm up to the employer who treats them "right." As teachers they do not attach their pupils to them. These unsociable sons of the North do not shine as bar tenders, salesmen, canvassers, commercial travellers or life insurance solicitors. Compare now the careers of those of Irish blood in the same American city. With their Celtic imagination as a magic glass they see into the human heart and know just how to touch its strings. No one can wheedle like an Irish beggar or "blarney like an Irish ward boss. Not only do the Irish furnish stirring orators, persuasive stump-speakers, moving pleaders, and delightful after-dinner speechmakers, but they shine as salesmen, commercial travellers, foremen, executives, army officers, politicians, teachers and labor organizers. They succeed as trial lawyers because they can play upon the jury and are quick in thrust and parry. They abound in newspaper offices because their imagination enables them to keep "in touch" with their readers. If in a common environment far from their home lands these two stocks lead such different careers and make such different impressions upon impartial observers, there must be something in the "Celtic temperament." I believe that the innate mental differences between Celtic Irish and "John Bull" English or between Bretons and Normans exceed those between the Chinese of North China and the old Americans. RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN BRAIN POWER Races Differ in In Power Whatever be their differences on the affective side, no one can doubt that races differ in intellectual ability. Otherwise why tellectual should most unbiassed observers rate the Chinese intellectually above the Japanese, the Chinese of Fokien above those of Hupeh, the Indians of Peru above the Indians of Ecuador, the Senegalese above the Guinea Negroes, the North Italians above the South Italians, the Russian Jews above the Slavic Russians, the Armenians above the Kurds, the Arabs above the Turks? Some of these contrasts may be due to opportunity, stimulation or social inheritance, but surely not all. Of course every stock has wit enough to meet its conditions of existence, else it could not CHAP. VI have survived; but our morons survive without aid and it may be that some races are as far apart in capacity as the normals and the morons in our own population. Winter an Eliminator of the Unthinking The Situation of Peoples at the Moment Is no Safe HOW WINTER PUTS A PREMIUM ON BRAINS It would be strange, indeed, if races were equal in intellect. It is significant that thinking man does not develop in the humid tropics. Superior brain power appears not where Nature spreads the board but where the basis of subsistence is artificial and food getting is interrupted by winter. Among men forced off into harsh climates those would best survive who possessed the foresight and self-control to hoard stores of food to carry them thru the cold season when food was not to be collected. Those who did not foresee late-winter starvation or, foreseeing it, could not control their appetites or their laziness sufficiently to provide for meeting it, were eliminated. LUCK AND HISTORY This is not to endorse the doctrine of the intellectual superiority of all whites over the rest of humanity. This claim has some plausibility just now but it would have seemed absurd Clue to the when the Saracenic civilization reached its climax under Haroun Compara tive Brain Power of Races al-Raschid or when the Chinese flowered under the Sung dynasty. Fortune has something to do with the fate of peoples. Persians and Arabs were overwhelmed by the Mongols. The Chinese have been out of luck since the Middle Ages. The Russians were held back by their exposure to the invasions of Asiatic nomads. The Armenians have had no fair chance since they fell under the Turkish yoke. The Aryans of India long ago came on evil days. Each race, then, should be appraised according to its performance at its zenith. But on the subject of the comparative brain power of races there is nothing final to be said yet for we are on the eve of perfecting tests of mental ability and applying them on a large scale. In a few years the fog which now shrouds this question ought to be dispelled. PUBLIC POLICIES WHICH AFFECT RACE BALANCE Meanwhile we cannot dispense with judgments as to the relative worth of races because what we nationally do or refrain We Cannot from doing affects the racial opportunity for expansion. Our CHAP. VI war with Mexico in 1848 resulted in the substitution of some millions of whites for the Indians and mestizos who by this time would have filled the annexed territory if this war of aggression had never taken place. How ought an impartial spectator, say a philosophical Oriental, to regard this? When we extended our Chinese exclusion laws to the Philippine Islands, we narrowed the sphere of expansion of the yellow race in order to reserve the islands for the posterity of the Malays. This may give the Malays a greater share in the ultimate population of the globe. Is this rational? The Monroe Doctrine enables a million and a third persons mostly Indian in blood to possess Ecuador which, we are assured, could easily sustain fifty millions of people. Everybody there prays for a white immigration which, however, refuses to come so long as the country is kept in turmoil under the native element. In the hands of a European power Ecuador would provide room for the expansion of the white race and the home birth rate would not fall so rapidly. It is polite to insist that it is just as important to mankind, to have more Ecuadorians as to have more Europeans, but is it scientific? The West Coast countries of South America are worrying about Oriental immigration but they realize that they are not strong enough to exclude the Japanese and it may not be long before they will be unable to exclude the Chinese. But a large insweep of Oriental coolies would press the bulk of the Indian and the mestizo population of tropical South America to the wall, so that Asiatic blood would largely replace Indian blood in Western South America. The Indian blood is doomed unless the United States throws its weight on the side of these countries in their endeavor to bar out Oriental immigrants. If we are appealed to thus to extend the Monroe Doctrine, must not our decision rest upon some notion as to the comparative value of the Oriental races and the Indian races? The prolificacy of the Negroes in the American South is so great that, were it not largely offset by an appalling infant death rate, the colored people would soon overwhelm the whites. If health officers and social workers put forth as much effort to lower the death rate of colored children as they do to lower that of white children, this overwhelming would actually take place. Making tions as Assump to the Comparative Value of Races Our Policies May Affect Tremendously the Comopportunity of parative Races to Expand CHAP. VI Under these circumstances is it the duty of the more intelligent race to use its superior efficiency against its own expansion and in furtherance of Negro expansion? The Stupid Elements Constitute a Standing The progress of civilization makes ever-severer demands upon in a People the intelligence and if we wish our civilization to be democratic, i.e., understood and sustained by the majority, we should bar out stupid elements. However amiable the dogma that at bottom one race is as good as another, it is not only unscientific but positively mischievous at a time when the peoples are in movement and decisions are being made which share the surface and resources of the globe among the various races. Temptation to the Exploiter and the Demagogue Doctrines of Race Will Be DANGERS IN THE RECOGNITION OF RACE INEQUALITY On the other hand, recognition of the unequal value of races Inequality is fraught with great danger. Not only does it sow discord at a time when good will and the brotherly spirit were never so much needed, but it imperils the very existence of little and backward peoples. Any stigma of inferiority we cast upon a race may be made the excuse for their maltreatment and exploitation, perhaps even their extermination, by the capitalists behind the imperialistic policy of nations. Rather than let loose upon the weak this devastating greed one would cling to the majestic declaration of Paul to the Athenians: God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." 2 The conclusion of the whole matter is that what we know about the comparative value of races gives no people grounds for oppressing, dispossessing or exterminating any portion of mankind. On the other hand, we do know enough to have warrant for preferring one race to another in disposing of opportunities to expand and for discriminating among races in admitting strangers to the national society. 2 Says H. G. Wells, "I am convinced myself that there is no more evil thing in this present world than Race Prejudice; none at all. I write deliberately it is the worst single thing in life now. It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world." CHAPTER VII THE INFLUENCE OF THE GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT CHAP. VII Does En Determine the Higher Life of Society as It Does the Lower? IT is obvious that the characteristics of the immediate physical environment-climate, soil, minerals, topography, elevation, contour, waterways, rainfall, harbours, etc.- dictate the size and vironment local distribution of a population, the key industries, the basic occupations, the lines of specialization, the mode of life, the routes of migration, the channels of transportation and the character of commerce. In a word, the environment determines the general economic basis of society. Since no one disputes this, to dwell upon and illustrate it would be a waste of time. The real question is the influence of the environment upon human relations, social organization, institutions, moral and esthetic standards, the fine arts, religion and intellectual development. CLIMATE AND HUMAN ENERGY In a very marked way climate conditions social phenomena. In the tropics where food is provided the year round without labor on man's part, where frost and drouth do not afflict, where shelter and clothing are simple or even unnecessary, Nature has done so much that there is little left for man to do. Hence it is not in warm and moist climes that man has mounted to civilization. The natives of the tropics have the reputation of being indolent and untrustworthy, mañana folk. Only where Nature requires man to exert himself for a living has he developed the energy and enterprise necessary for any signal achievement. In the polar regions, on the other hand, where there can be no stock-raising, agriculture, or mining, where the food basis is extremely narrow and the woods, fibres, clays and metals we rely on are not to be had, where life is an eternal struggle with cold, darkness and famine, culture remains low and society does not advance beyond the rudimentary stage. No wonder, then, that it is in the intermediate climes that we come upon energy, ambition, self-reliance, industry and thrift. In the temperate |