544 
eugenic propaganda must, therefore, be 
preceded by such economic and social 
changes as will make it economically 
and socially possible for young married 
people to have children; and it seems 
probable that a restriction of the volume 
of unskilled labor arriving in this coun- 
try would be one of those changes. 
Dr. Warne devotes two chapters to 
the argument that better distribution 
of immigrants, which is sometimes pro- 
posed as a panacea, would in reality 
produce little result. Apparently he 
would hardly go even as far as President 
Roosevelt who said that “distribution 
is a palliative, notacure.’’ Then, feel- 
ing sure that a considerable restriction 
of the inflow is desirable, he takes up 
the discussion of how this is to be se- 
cured. 
The Immigration Commission ap- 
pointed by President Roosevelt in 1907 
made a report to Congress on December 
5, 1910, in which it declared in favor of 
restriction and suggested the following 
possible methods: 
1. The exclusion of those unable to 
read or write in some language. 
2. The reduction of the number of 
each race arriving each year to a certain 
percentage of the average of that race 
arriving during a given period of years. 
3. The exclusion of unskilled laborers 
unaccompanied by wives or families. 
3. The limitation of the number of 
immigrants arriving annually at any 
port. 
5. Material increase in the amount 
of money required to be in the posses- 
sion of the immigrant at the port of 
arrival. 
6. Material increase of the head tax. 
7. The levying of the head tax so as 
to make a marked discrimination in 
favor of men with families. 
Eugenically, it is doubtful whether 
(3) and (7), which would tend to admit 
only families, would be a gain or a detri- 
ment to the welfare of the race. (1) 
and (2) have been the suggestions which 
have aroused the most controversy. 
All but one member of the commission 
favored (1), the literacy test, as the most 
feasible single method of restricting 
undesirable immigration and, as readers 
know, three attempts to enact it into a 
The Journal of Heredity 
law have been made, but have been 
defeated by the vetoes of President 
Cleveland, Taft and Wilson. The 
measure is now pending before Con- 
gress again. Dr. Warne’s enumeration 
of the influences for it and against it is 
enlightening and interesting. 
PREVALENCE OF ILLITERACY 
Records for 1914 show that “‘illit- 
eracy among the total number of 
arrivals of each race ranged all the way 
from 64% for the Turkish to less than 
1% for the English, the Scotch, the 
Welsh, the Scandinavian and the Fin- 
nish. The Bohemian and Moravian, 
the German, and the Irish each had 
less than 5% illiterate. Races other 
than the Turkish, whose immigration 
in 1914 was more than one-third illit- 
erate, include the Dalmatians, Bos- 
nians, and Herzegovinians; Russian 
Ruthenians, Italians, Lithuanians, and 
Roumanians.”’ 
To bar these illiterates, Elihu Root 
said, would be an advantage because 
‘the coming of great numbers of people 
who are wholly illiterate and who have 
to take, of course, the lowest rate of 
wages, whose minds are not open to 
the ordinary opportunities for bettering 
their condition, does tend to break 
down the American standard of wages, 
and to compel American workmen, 
whether they be born here or be a part 
of the 9,000,000 who have come in since 
the war with Spain, to compete with a 
standard of wages and a standard of 
living that they ought not to be re- 
quired to compete with.”’ 
It will, Dr. Warne admits, keep out 
some who ought to come in, and let in 
some who ought to be kept out. It is, 
he grants, a test of opportunity rather 
than of character. It is not claimed to 
be perfect, or to be a test of the real 
character of the immigrant. 
‘‘The literacy test is simply and 
solely a restrictive test and is proposed 
as such. In the belief of its advocates, 
it will meet the situation as disclosed 
by the investigation of the Immigration 
Commission better than any other 
means that human ingenuity can devise. 
It is believed that it would exclude 
more of the undesirable and a less 
