244 The Journal 
western Asia, immigration from which 
has been on the whole more of a problem, 
because of the differences in race, 
political institutions, education and 
social habits, there will not be the same 
organized reconstructive work. From 
these countries, therefore, so largely 
in the more primitive condition of 
agriculture, the forces tending to pro- 
mote emigration will be operative to a 
greater degree than before. Thus the 
great preponderance of southern and 
eastern Europeans, already the most 
striking feature in our recent immigra- 
tion, is likely to be still further increased 
after the war is over. Balancing the 
reasons for a possible decrease in our 
immigration after the war against 
those which will bring about an increase, 
the weight of probability is strongly on 
the side of a marked increase. 
INCREASE OF DISEASE 
No one who has at heart the future of 
the American race can fail to view with 
concern the probable effects of the war 
upon the physical and mental condition 
of our immigrants. The introduction 
of pestilential war diseases, such as 
cholera, typhus, typhoid fever and the 
like, is not greatly to be feared, although 
some of our medical men are already 
viewing this problem with much con- 
cern. On the other hand, the more 
subtle and much less easily detected 
venereal diseases, which are always 
rampant in great armies in war time, 
and the mental breakdowns, of which 
there are so many thousands of cases 
among the soldiers at the front, present 
another aspect of the health problem 
which is far more serious. 
The final report of Lord Sydenham’s 
Royal Commission on Social Diseases 
(cable summary, March 2, 1916) dwells 
particularly upon the effect of the war 
upon the prevalence of venereal disease, 
and looks for a far more serious condition 
of this problem after the war is over. 
Great numbers of soldiers, although 
not actually afflicted with any specific 
disease, will eventually come to the 
United States, maimed, crippled, 
wounded, enfeebled by illness or expos- 
ure, or mentally unstable. The fittest, 
of Heredity 
mentally and physically; those who in 
the past have had the initiative and the 
courage to emigrate, will be dead, at 
the prime of life, or will be needed at 
home to carry on the work of rebuilding 
and reorganization. These are the men 
whom Europe will do its utmost to keep 
at home. The least fit are most likely 
to emigrate. Many of those who, 
because of mental or physical disability, 
will find themselves least able to earn a 
living abroad, will be the very ones most 
likely to be “‘assisted”’ by relatives and 
friends in this country to ‘“‘come to 
America.”” Against the emigration of 
such persons the European governments 
will not set up any barriers. There are 
good grounds, therefore, for expecting, 
with reasonable certainty, that our 
immigration in the next few decades 
after the war will be of a lower physical 
and mental standard than it has been in 
the past. 
WAR AND THE BREED 
The question as to the probable 
effects of the war in the more distant 
future, upon the unborn generations, is 
obviously a_ difficult one. Opinions 
vary greatly in regard to it. As a 
rather extreme representative of one 
side, one may turn to Dr. David Starr 
Jordan’s latest book, whose title clearly 
indicates the message which its author 
seeks to bring, ‘““War and the Breed: - 
the Relation of War to the Downfall of 
Nations” (1915). War, as Dr. Jordan 
strikingly puts it, “impoverishes the 
breed.”” The strongest and best men 
are the ones who are killed or injured, 
and who leave few or no children. The 
weaklings live, marry and continue the 
race. The result is an inevitable im- 
poverishment of the stock. Dr. Jordan 
notes the reduction in the required 
height of French soldiers as the result 
of the Napoleonic wars and the killing 
off and wounding of the taller men. 
The French and German babies of 
1870-71, who came to be mustered as 
soldiers twenty years later, were found 
to be an inferior lot of men. And, more 
recently, as noted by Dr. Jordan in 
Science (New York), a similar condition 
has occurred in Japan. The Japanese 
