172 



The Journal of Heredity 



prospects of finding safe courses and 

 maintaining our civilization, unless we 

 drift too far before beginning to take 

 thought of agriculture. Painting "The 

 Man With The Hoe" inspired an 

 eloquent protest in verse, but literary 

 powers of projection need also to be 

 used constructiA'ely. Not indignation 

 over past "wrongs" or primitive limi- 

 tations, but a spirit of clear intelligence 

 and practical human interest needs to 

 be inspired, if we are to find the way out. 



THK TOLL OF CITY LIFE 



Food to maintain our cities is not 

 the chief concern. Urban populations 

 are transitory, even if supplied with 

 food. Withdrawing the rural popula- 

 tion is worse than destroying the city, 

 because the life of the nation is in the 

 country. Families seldom last more 

 than two or three generations under 

 urban conditions. The lowest birth- 

 rate is in well-to-do urban families. 

 If only the weaker and less capable were 

 eliminated, a beneficial eugenic func- 

 tion could be claimed for the city, but 

 even the best stocks deteriorate in the 

 urban environment. The rich and 

 "middle-class" families are eliminated 

 even more rapidly than the poor. Thus 

 the natural rule of survival of the 

 fittest does not apply in urban selec- 

 titm. Putting all the presentable 

 }'oung women on the stage and choos- 

 ing the strong, alert, prepossessing 

 young men to serve the public as retail 

 tobacconists or haberdashers' assist- 

 ants may be good business, but cer- 

 tainly it is not in the interest of the 

 nation and the race! Eugenic regula- 

 tion of urban employment may be 

 far ahead, but with an enlightened 

 public sentiment able-bodied and right- 

 minded young jnen would be shamed 

 from spending the years of vigorous 

 }'outh in work that can be done by old 

 men or cripples. "Our boys are mad 

 with the city," and many urban 

 "industries" are spreading this coii- 

 tagious insanity. 



War is condemned for reasons of 

 eugenics, because (lie strong men are 

 taken and tJie weak left at home, but 

 the city destroys whole families. TIk- 



process of selection and elimination is 

 repeated in each generation — iiright 

 boys from the country becoming suc- 

 cessful merchants, wealthy bankers, 

 or great captains of industry, but 

 usually leaving few descendants, and 

 these in artificial environments of 

 wealth, luxury and parasitism. Urban 

 employers prefer boys and girls from 

 the country, as being more responsible, 

 resourceful and adaptive. The recent 

 arrivals prosper, while the mass of 

 urban populations is crowded gradually 

 into the discard. Continual drafting 

 of the more capable stocks to the city 

 is a process of adverse selection, leading 

 ine\itably to deteriorati(m of the race 

 and to decay of civilization. "For it 

 has been heretofore always the case 

 that men under the influence of ci\'ili- 

 zation, though at first improving, after- 

 ward degenerate." Agriculture is the 

 root of civilization, and the plant 

 dies when the root decays. 



Urban conditions no doul)t are the 

 more destructive because our northern 

 races arc not accustomed to cities, 

 which came late into Europe, through 

 the Oriental contacts of the Greeks 

 and Romans. Only the Jews, with 

 their strong family and religious or- 

 ganization, have been able to sustain 

 through the centuries an urban 

 existence. Preference for cities may 

 be traced back to the Oriental idea 

 that labor is a curse, and money the 

 chief blessing, to buy leisure, luxury 

 and social stiinding. Primiti\'e defects 

 of human character become dominant 

 again in cities, the family organization 

 of society is dissolved, and we are back 

 in barbarism. Greed, vanity and 

 display are the social growths of urban 

 soils, that bear the poisoned fruits of 

 envy, liatred and revolt. Ostentation 

 is the A'eritable seed of anarch>'. The 

 barber gets a "close-up on society" 

 at th2 horse-show, and is reads- to 

 throw bombs. 



Cily pvi)p\v, of course, are not all 

 urbanized, or to the same extent. 

 Some are country-life enthusiasts, with 

 zeal intensified by a sense of pri\ation. 

 The h()|)i' of being able to li\'e in the 

 countr\- is (he mainspring ol m.my 



