298 



ThK JOIRNAL OF HEREDITY 



clearly the defects in our present immi- 

 gration law in the matter of the admis- 

 sion and deportation of alien mental 

 defectives, and suggests the amend- 

 ments necessary to improve existing 

 conditions. Many of these pro])osed 

 changes, this Committee is glad to note, 

 have been adopted by the Committee 

 on Immigration of the United States 

 Senate, and are included in the Immi- 

 gration Bill which has been reported 

 to the Senate. Dr. E. K. Sprague, of 

 the U. S. Public Health Service, has 

 estimated that jjrobably only 5% of 

 mentally defective aliens who come to 

 our shores have been detected, and 

 about 25 Tf of those who are or who will 

 become insane. This Committee is 

 entirely in accord with Dr. T. W. Sal- 

 mon, also of the U. S. Public Health 

 Service, and now Director of Special 

 Studies of the National Committee for 

 Mental Hygiene, when he says: "There 

 is no reason for the acceptance of a 

 single insane or mentally undesirable 

 alien except inability to detenninc his 

 condition. This does not require re- 

 striction of immigration, but a sensible 

 selection of individual immigrants, in 

 the interest of our own country and 

 wholly without reference to the interests 

 of foreign countries or foreign steam- 

 ship companies." 



SENTIMENT BEING AROUSED. 



Each year brings increasing evidence 

 that those who are most concerned 

 about the maintenance and the improve- 

 ment of the jjhysieal and mental well- 

 being of our race are turning more and 

 more to the regulation of immigration 

 as one of the most obvious means of 

 accom[)lishing their ]jurposc. Thus, in 

 the Report of the Committee to Study and 

 Report on the Best Practical Means of 

 Cutting off the Defective Ccrm-Plasm in 

 the American Population (iuigenics 

 Record Office, Bulletin No. lOB, 1914) 

 we note the following: "The Federal 

 Government must co-operate with the 

 states to the extent of excluding from 

 America immigrants who are jjotential 

 parents and who are by nature endowed 

 with traits of less value thaii the better 

 90% of our existing breeding stock." 

 "The Federal Government 

 which has control of immigration owes 



it ... to the American people on 

 biological grounds to exclude from the 

 country this degenerate breeding stock." 

 A serious situation which arises from 

 the non-enforcement of the law for 

 reasons of "sentiment" and of "human- 

 ity" deserves attention. No one who is 

 not acquainted with existing conditions 

 can possibh' realize how strong, how 

 steady and how effective is the "pull" 

 which is exerted by the families and the 

 friends of aliens who by the laws of the 

 United States ought clearly to be 

 debarred, to have those aliens landed. 

 The steamship companies; the societies 

 to which the alien's relatives belong; 

 sentimental but woefully misguided 

 "jjhilanthropists," and Senators and 

 Congressmen who are trying to please 

 th?ir foreign-born constituents — all 

 these interests unite to bring pressure 

 to bear upon the immigration officials to 

 whom appeals are referred. Obviously, 

 the oftener such appealed cases are 

 admitted, the more lax does the pre- 

 liminary inspector tend to become, and 

 the less frequently do the Boards of 

 Special Inquiry, in the first instance, 

 recommend deportation. Those who 

 want our incoming aliens to be sane and 

 sound and fit ought to stand behind 

 every honest immigration official who 

 docs his duty well; and ought to sec to 

 it that there is no relaxation in the 

 enforcement of our laws, to the detri- 

 ment of the race. Fomier Immigration 

 Commissioner Williams well said: "We 

 are not called upon to endanger the 

 future of our country or its institutions 

 for the sake of the distressed of other 

 countries, however much their condi- 

 tion may arouse our sympathy. The 

 time has come when it is necessary to 

 ])ut aside false sentimentality in dealing 

 with the question of immigration . . . 

 and in determining what additional 

 immigrants we shall receive to remember 

 that our first duty is to our own 

 country." Another has stated the case 

 thus: "These (immigration) authori- 

 ties should be made to understand that 

 in their attem])ts to be kind to the immi- 

 )^rant they may be cruel when they helj) 

 to fasten u]X)n this country a never 

 ending burden of the care of a mentally 

 defecti\e strain for wliich we as a people 

 are in no way responsible." 



