406 



The Journal of Heredity 



"after the war the best of the middle 

 class — ^farm managers and commercial 

 men — rose to equality with the remnants 

 of the old aristocracy," but the state- 

 ment that "the Civil War destroyed 

 the cream and stirred up the dregs" met 

 with much disapjjroval, and leads the 

 investigators to say, "There is probably 

 more than a grain of truth in the 

 assertion that the 'poor whites' of the 

 South have never had justice done 

 them. They are much better raw 

 material than is generally supposed." 



On the whole, however, and making 

 due allowances for many qualifying and 

 compensating factors, "The men who 

 got themselves killed were the better 

 men." 



The authors made an attempt to find 

 whether environmental factors could be 

 charged with part of the blame for the 

 South's present condition. If the lack 

 of great men, or the lowering of ideals, 

 were due to faulty education, or the 

 influx of "carpet-baggers" from the 

 North after the war, or emigration, 

 whisky, or cousin-marriages, then war 

 could to that extent be acquitted of 

 reversing selection and deteriorating 

 the race. It was admitted that some 

 or all of these factors might play a part, 

 but emigration was the only one which 

 seemed to deserv^e much consideration, 

 and that appears to have affected only 

 limited regions. 



Again, it was .suggested that although 

 the strong fell first in battle, the weak 

 fell first in camp; so that the balance 

 remained about the same. Even if 

 considerable weight be granted this 

 circumstance, the loss of strong men, 

 who could ill be spared, remains. 



SOME BENEFITS SEEN 



Some social and economic benefits 

 from the war are suggested. "The 

 South is the better by far for the spread 

 of education, for the willingness to work, 

 for the loss of slavery, for the main- 

 tenance of the Union, and for the 

 development of business. But for the 



* The words of a Confederate officer. 



war, as war, there was no redeeming 

 feature, no benefit to any one, not one 

 word to be said,"^ was the la.st of the 

 propositions submitted to the sur\avors ; 

 and it seems to have won the assent of 

 a large number of them. 



"In conclusion," the authors say, 

 "we are impressed that with respect 

 to the eugenic aspect of the Civil War 

 we are dealing with matters insuscept- 

 ible of precise determination. Many 

 factors united to work an apparently 

 racial effect; these factors are so intri- 

 cately and reciprocally interrelated as 

 to preclude definite isolation and tracing 

 of the complete effects of any one. 

 The patent results are thus more or 

 less matters of environment as well as of 

 differences in germ-plasm, of euthenics as 

 well as eugenics. ... A just weigh- 

 ing of all this evidence, however, leaves a 

 decided balance in favor of grave racial 

 hurt in consequence of war, and this 

 certainty is cimiulative, becoming more 

 definite with the consideration of each 

 new area. Each of the other baneful 

 influences associated with the problem, 

 social, cultural and economic devasta- 

 tion, emigration, pensions, etc., is never- 

 theless the direct consequence of war 

 and should be debited to it. Moreover, 

 e\'en granting that the South and the 

 country as a whole are, relative to ante- 

 bellum days, no poorer racially in 

 consequence of the war — an assumption 

 no one can maintain in the face of the 

 enormous waste of one million splendid 

 souls — it is further certain that, coidd 

 we have had the inspiring presence and 

 wise counsel of these martyrs and their 

 potential offspring, the country would 

 now be immeasurably better off in a yet 

 higher average of physical, mental and 

 moral stamina. In brief, the theoretical 

 argument for reversed selection seems 

 beyond question. The actual facts 

 concerning our Civil War and the events 

 which followed yield no direct covmter- 

 vailing evidence. We must, therefore, 

 decide that the war has seriously im- 

 poverished this country of its best 

 human values." 



