WAR, IMMIGRATION, EUGENICS 
Third Report of the Committee on Immigration, American Genetic Association 
ALEXANDER E. Cance, Amherst, Mass. 
IrRvING Fisher, New Haven, Conn. 
Prescotr F. Hatt, Boston, Mass., Chairman 
Ropert DeC. Warp, Cambridge, Mass., Secretary 
the American Genetic Association 
herewith submits its third report. 
There is one vacancy in the 
membership of the committee, Prof. 
James A. Field having resigned. 
A crisis has been reached in our 
immigration policy. The war has, for 
the moment, very largely reduced the 
flow of aliens to our shores. For the 
first time in many decades we have 
breathing space. On the other hand, 
the effects of the war upon the peoples 
from which our future immigration will 
come are likely to be far-reaching. This 
fact will, after the war is over, bring us 
face to face with many new and difficult 
problems which need careful considera- 
tion at the present time. We must 
think clearly, decide wisely and act 
quickly. We need new immigration 
legislation. We need it at once. 
There are two aspects of immigration 
after the war which concern us at this 
moment. One is the probable future 
volume of immigration. The other 
is its probable mental and physical 
character. 
The demoralization of industry; the 
breaking-up of homes; the greatly 
ig | NHE Committee on Immigration of 
increased burdens of taxation; the desire. 
to fly from the horrors of future wars; 
the widespread misery and hopelessness; 
the return to the United States of aliens 
who went home to fight and who will 
bring back with them many of their 
countrymen who have never been here— 
these and other causes will operate to 
bring us an increase in immigration 
which seems likely to surpass anything 
that we have ever known. Already 
plans are being made by foreign com- 
panies for the establishment of new 
steamship lines to bring emigrants 
from Europe and Asia to the United 
States as soon as the war is over. 
Prof. J. W. Jenks has pointed out that 
recent wars have usually resulted in a 
large and almost immediate increase in 
emigration from the European countries 
which were at war. 
WHY MANY WILL NOT COME 
On the other hand, there will be 
tendencies which may operate to cut 
down emigration from certain European 
countries. An enormous amount of 
constructive work will have to be done 
in the general rehabilitation of what the 
war will have damaged or destroyed. 
Immense numbers of skilled and also 
of unskilled workmen will be needed for 
these enterprises. Owing to the thin- 
ning of the ranks of the most efficient 
laborers, by death or by injury, during 
the war, wages of some classes of work- 
men may rise, but whether the impover- 
ished nations of Europe will be able to 
compete in any general way with our 
American wages, and thus keep their 
people at home, yet remains to be seen. 
Again, it is not unlikely that some of the 
European governments will take steps 
to discourage, to check, perhaps even 
for a time to prohibit emigration. The 
work of reconstruction will go on most 
actively and most effectively in the 
countries of northern and _ western 
Europe, where the state and industry 
are well organized, and where the plans 
for reorganization will be carefully 
prepared. It is, therefore, from these 
same countries, from which we have in 
the past received our all-round “‘best’’ 
immigrants, that we are likely to see 
the greatest falling off in immigration. 
On the other hand, in the countries of 
southern and eastern Europe and of 
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