RACIAL ELEMENT IN NATIONAL VITALITY 333 



For it does not skip a generation, and affects ordinarily half of the chil- 

 dren of any affected parent. The vitality of Greenwich, Connecticut, 

 like Suffolk County, Long Island, was formerly measurably affected by 

 the presence in many of the old stock of that town of this racial 

 characteristic. 



Hemophilia, likewise, is, or was, a striking cause of death in certain 

 localities, like a town of Sullivan County, Pennsylvania. It occurs in 

 males chiefly, rarely in females, except in the case of the marriage of 

 two persons who belong to the same race; and it ordinarily alternates 

 in its appearance in the generations. It is an ordinarily sex-limited 

 character. Its high frequency is due to the fact that persons with this 

 trait settled in Sullivan County and have left descendants there. 



It might appear from what I have said above that heredity has to do 

 only with diseases or unfortunate mental conditions, but for every 

 liability to disease there is resistance, and for every mental defect or 

 wealmess there is mental strength; and heredity has just as much to 

 do with the reappearance of these strong characters in the offspring. I 

 have laid most stress upon diseases, simply because we think so much 

 in terms of them. 



Now, in this brief address, I have alluded to instances merely where 

 the death rate depends on the presence in the community of a dispro- 

 portion of persons belonging to races that show immunity or suscepti- 

 bility to particular diseases. I think it can not be doubted that most 

 causes of death have, at least, an hereditary factor, and so we may draw 

 the conclusion that the morbidity and the mortality of any community 

 or commonwealth is to a large extent determined by the racial ele- 

 ments present there of general or specific resistance or liability to mor- 

 bific agencies. 



Finally, statistics tend to cover over causes. Indeed the statistical 

 method abandons as hopeless the attempt to analyze causes and deals 

 only with results. But what we are interested in is, after all, causes; 

 and so far as possible the causes should be isolated and studied sep- 

 arately and, in this paper, I have laid stress on the importance of the 

 racial element as a cause of variations in national vitality. 



EFFECT OF THE WAR UPON THE EATE FOR CAPITAL 



By CHARLES A. CONANT 



NEW YOEK CITY 



THE most obvious effect of the European war in the field of finance 

 is the rise in the rate of return upon capital. This is the natural 

 result of the great destruction of wealth by the contending armies, which 

 will have to be financed from savings which would otherwise be applied 

 in meeting the usual annual demand for the extension and improve- 

 ment of railway and industrial plants. It is evident, from the reports 



