Jordan: War's Aftermath 



405 



If the investigators e\'er imagined 

 that they could get even a rough 

 measurement of the biological effects 

 of the war, they were soon undeceived. 

 The problem was found to be very 

 complicated, even in the favorable 

 localities chosen, and they had to 

 content themselves with getting "ap- 

 proximate results by less direct 

 methods." The data on which their 

 conclusions are based are opinions, 

 almost as much as facts, and were 

 thus secured: 



"We took advantage of every oppor- 

 tunity to interview representative men, 

 and especially veterans of the war, on 

 the question at issue. From hundreds 

 of these, valuable information was 

 gleaned. These conversations were 

 crystallized into a set of thirty proposi- 

 tions which were one after another to 

 be tested. These propositions, usually 

 in the words of some thinking veteran, 

 were put into the form of a questionnaire 

 and sent broadcast over the South to the 

 surviving Confederate officers and other 

 men of intelligence, for comment and 

 criticism." 



It will be possible in this review only 

 to touch on the propositions of the 

 greatest importance, from a eugenic 

 point of view. It was found that the 

 leading young mien of the South, from a 

 social point of view, were mostly 

 members of select companies of militia, 

 at the outbreak of the war; and these 

 were the first to enlist. The loss of 

 life among them was naturally greater 

 than among those who entered the 

 war near its conclusion. "The flower 

 of the people went into the war at the 

 beginning, and of these a large part 

 died before the end." Those who did 

 not fight until conscripted, late in the 

 struggle, were on the average inferior 

 to the volunteers, both in physical and 

 moral qualities. But as the mortality 

 was lower among them than among the 

 superior volunteers, who entered the 

 war earlier, the deterioration in the 

 average quality of the race was in- 

 creased to the same extent. The de- 

 serters, and those who took to the hills 

 to avoid conscription, also survived to 

 multiply. "The result of this was that 

 the men of the highest character and 



quality bore the brunt of the war and 

 lost more heavily than men of inferior 

 quality. This produced a change in 

 the balance of society by reducing the 

 percentage of the better types without a 

 corresponding reduction of the less 

 desirable types; a condition which was 

 projected into the next generation 

 because the inferiors lived to have 

 progeny and the others did not." 



HALF OF BEST BLOOD LOST 



It is admitted that the above con- 

 clusion may be a little too general and 

 sweeping, but there is reason to believe 

 that a half, perhaps considerably more, 

 of the "best blood" of the South was 

 lost in the war. As to just how good 

 this blood was that was lost, there is no 

 accurate means of judging. 



In addition to the loss of men, the 

 birth-rate was likewise affected through 

 changes in the condition of the women. 

 "Widows of soldiers suffered great 

 hardships and most of them never 

 remarried; the death-rate among them 

 was unusually high for the first ten or 

 fifteen years after the war. The sweet- 

 hearts of many a victim of the war never 

 married ; with the elevation of the middle 

 class and the lack of men of their own 

 class many girls of the aristocracy 

 married men beneath them in station." 

 The result stated in the last clause, the 

 authors admit, "is far from a racially 

 unmitigated evil, regarded in a broad 

 and democratic sense," but on the whole 

 the effect of the facts outlined in this 

 paragraph was still further to decrease 

 the production of superior children, 

 in the years following 1865. 



When they tried to decide how far, 

 if at all, the present population of the 

 South is inferior to that of antebellum 

 days, the investigators naturally found 

 their way paved with difficulties. There 

 is some reason to believe, it appears, 

 that the farming class is as good as 

 ever. Perhaps "the class of men at- 

 tending courts does not measure up in 

 intelligence or ideals with those before 

 the war." It is thought that "the 

 public men of the South do not measure 

 up to those of old times," but this 

 condition to a certain extent prevails 

 through the nation. It is admitted that 



