392 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of the present medical laws will automatically exclude these races to a 

 sufficient extent, admitting the few who are fit. This, combined with a 

 strictly enforced five-year probation period, with deportation as the 

 penalty for any criminal conviction or for failure to qualify for citizen- 

 ship afterward, would go far toward relieving the situation. This need 

 not disqualify aliens from travel in the United States. 



The immigrant per se has no moral or social right to enter this 

 country against the will of its citizens. An enduring commonwealth 

 must of necessity guard rigidly the health of its citizens and protect 

 itself against undesirable additions from without. There was a time 

 when European immigration was free, and almost entirely of desirable 

 classes. That time has passed. The .less desirable classes are increasing 

 actually and relatively, and at the expense of the more desirable. It can 

 truthfully be said that the dregs and off-scourings of foreign lands, the 

 undesirables of whom their own nations are only too eager to purge 

 themselves, come in hosts to our shores. The policy of those advocating 

 free immigration would make this country in effect the dumping ground 

 of the world. 



Exclusion of these undesirables works no injustice to the lands from 

 which they come. A large emigration from a land usually is followed by 

 an increased birth-rate, and the net change is slightly affected, if at all.° 

 Admitting undesirables to this country will in no wise elevate the world's 

 human standard, because those undesirables will multiply as fast here 

 as in their original home, and their stock will only become extinct when 

 it ceases to perpetuate itself. High requirements for admission to this 

 country reflexly raise standards of living and education in those lands 

 from which our immigrants are drawn. This was illustrated in Italy^ 

 a few years ago when the higher requirements for admission caused an 

 enforcement of the primary education laws which were dead letters 

 before. Again, increase of a poorer class of immigration decreases the 

 number of the better class and also decreases the chances of those 

 who do come. 



The medical phases of immigration blend very quickly into the sub- 

 jects of national health protection, national eugenics and even the 

 future existence of the ideals and standard of life which we are proud 

 to call American. Conservatism and a carefully maintained medium 

 between absolute exclusion, and free immigration, certainly seems the 

 best policy. 



' Hall, Prescott. F., ' ' Eugenics, Ethics and Immigration. ' ' 



