THE TEMPERATURE OF THE 

 MELTING POT 



(A Review) 



THERE is a general belief that the 

 melting pot is not functioning in 

 the United States and that the 

 immigrant races largely remain for- 

 eigners. Dr. Pearl assumes the con- 

 trary position and shows by an analysis 

 of the birth records for a large part of 

 the United States, including our large 

 foreign settlements, that hybridization 

 and race fusion are going on apace and 

 that a new race is being evolved here in 

 America that within the next two 

 centuries will have supplanted com- 

 pletely the relatively pure racial stocks 

 from Europe. 



"Science tries ever to peer into the 

 future, and nowhere is the desire to 

 estimate what the future has in store 

 stronger than in the case of matters 

 relating directly to human actions, 

 emotions and thoughts. This general 

 interest of man in his future social, 

 physical and mental evolution crystal- 

 lizes in a specific way for us here and 

 now in the problem of the future Ameri- 

 can civilization. Our gates have been 

 open, with some slight and on the whole 

 insignificant exceptions, to all and 

 sundry. Good, bad, and indifferent 

 people have been free to settle here, 

 and have made the fullest use of the 

 freedom. The problem is to determine 

 to what extent racial amalgamation or 

 fusion occurs." Dr. Pearl has attempt- 

 ed with the limited data available to 

 gain an insight into this problem and in 

 the course of a statistical analysis has 

 uncovered some important and hitherto 

 unsuspected facts. 



An analysis of the growth of a popu- 

 lation in an area of fixed limits leads 

 to the prediction that, "strange and 

 inconceivable as it may appear to many 

 persons, the United States is going to 

 be sometime a densely crowded country 

 where each individual, consciously or 

 unconsciously, will be challenging the 



' Review of an article "The Vitality of the Peoples of 

 Jour, of Hygiene, Vol. I., Nos. 5 and 6, Sep.-Nov., 1921 



right of every other individual to exist- 

 ence. And further, the time when this 

 pressure of population will be felt 

 definitely in this country is not far away 

 and by every present indication in less 

 than two centuries we may expect a 

 degree of pressure of population upon 

 means of subsistence which will make 

 the everyday life of everybody a dif- 

 ferent thing entirely from the prodigal- 

 ly wasteful business it now is. We shall 

 be uncomfortably close to the limit of 

 population by 2100 at a time which the 

 great grandchildren of a number of 

 persons now living will be components 

 of the population. What kind of a 

 population will that be? What ele- 

 inents now in the population will then, 

 and in the succeeding years, be the 

 dominant ones? Or, will none of the 

 racial groups now so distinct in our 

 population exist as such then, having 

 in the meantime fused and amalga- 

 mated, one with the other, till there 

 remains only a biologically homogene- 

 ous whole? These questions cannot be 

 answered positively today but present 

 tendencies and past experience can be 

 examined." 



"The United States has been, from 

 its beginning a gigantic experiment in 

 human genetics." The degree to which 

 the admittedly large mass of immi- 

 grants who have found their way to our 

 shores is being absorbed by the native 

 population and fused into a new race 

 has been a matter of much speculation 

 both in and out of print. Very little 

 definite information has been available 

 due chiefly to the lack of funds for 

 compiling existing data and to the 

 failure to collect some of the much 

 needed information. 



"Vast quantities of ink have been 

 spilled in the discussion of the 'melting 

 pot' in America. It would be unbelieve- 

 able if it were not true, in view of the 



America" by Dr. Raymond Pearl, Amer. 



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