HUMAN CONSERVATION 249 



Eugenically, the weak point in the present applica- 

 tion of immigration laws is that criteria for exclusion 

 are phenotypic in nature rather than genotypic, and 

 consequently much bad germplasm comes through 

 our gates hidden from the view of inspectors because 

 the bearers are heterozygous, wearing a cloak of 

 desirability over undesirable traits. 



It is not enough to lift the eyelid of a prospective 

 parent of American citizens to discover whether he 

 has some kind of an eye-disease or to count the 

 contents of his purse to see if he can pay his own 

 way. The official ought to know if eye-disease runs 

 in the immigrant's family and whether he comes from 

 a race of people which, through chronic shiftlessness 

 or lack of initiative, have always carried light purses. 



In selecting horses for a stock-farm an expert 

 horseman might rely to a considerable extent upon 

 his judgment of horseflesh based upon inspection 

 alone, but the wise breeder does more than take the 

 chances of an ordinary horse trader. He wants to 

 be assured of the pedigree of his prospective stock. 

 It is to be hoped that the time will come when we, 

 as a nation, will rise above the hazardous methods of 

 the horse trader in selecting from the foreign appli- 

 cants who knock at our portals, and that we will 

 exercise a more fundamental discrimination than 

 such a haphazard method affords, by demanding a 

 knowledge of the germplasm of these candidates for 

 citizenship, as displayed in their pedigrees. 



This may possibly be accomplished by having 

 trained inspectors located abroad in the communi- 



