Urban Sterilization 



269 



Rate of Net Annual Increase 



Division Rural Urban Total 



New England 5.0 7.3 6.8 



Middle Atlantic 10.7 9.6 10.4 



East North Central.. . 12.4 10.8 11.6 



West North Central. . . 18.1 10.1 15.8 



South Atlantic 18.9 6.0 16.0 



East South Central .. . 19.7 7.4 17.8 



West South Central... 23.9 10.2 21.6 



Mountain 21.1 10.5 17.6 



Pacific 12.6 6.6 9.8 



Total United States . 16.9 8.8 13.65 



Even though fuller returns might 

 show these calculations to be inaccu- 

 rate, Dr. Gillette points out, they are 

 all compiled on the same basis, and 

 therefore can be fairly compared, since 

 any unforeseen cause of increase or 

 decrease would affect all alike. 



It is difficult to compare the various 

 geographical divisions directly, because 

 the racial composition of the popula- 

 tion of each one is different. But the 

 difference in rates is marked. The 

 West South Central States would al- 

 most double their population in four 

 decades, by natural increase alone, 

 .while New England would require 200 

 years to do so. 



Dr. Gillette tried, by elaborate com- 

 putations, to eliminate the effect of 

 immigration and emigration in each 

 div.sion, in order to find out the stand- 

 ing of the old American stock. His 

 conclusions confirm the beliefs of the 

 most pessimistic. "Only three divi- 

 sions, all Western, add to their popula- 

 tion by means of an actual excess of 

 income over outgo of native-bom Ameri- 

 cans," he reports. Even should this 

 view turn out to be exaggerated, it is 

 certain that the population of the 

 United States is at present increasing 

 largely through immigration and the 

 high fecundity of immigrant women, 

 and that, as far as its own older stock 

 is concerned, it has ceased to progress. 



To state that this is due largely to 

 the fact that country people are mov- 

 ing to the city is by no means to solve 

 the problem, in terms of eugenics. It 

 merely shows the exact nature of the 

 problem to be solved. A solution 

 might be two-fold. 



EUGENIC REMEDIES 



1. Attempts might be made to keep 

 the rural population on the farms and 

 to encourage a movement of the su- 



perior elements (not the slum dwellers) 

 of the cities back to the country. Ef- 

 forts to improve rural conditions, eco- 

 nomic and otherwise, and to sectue a 

 more general recognition of advantages 

 of country life take on eugenic signifi- 

 cance from this point of view. 



2. The growth of great cities might 

 be accepted as a necessary evil, an 

 unavoidable feature of industrial civili- 

 zation, and direct attempts might be 

 made, through eugenic propaganda, 

 to secure a higher birth rate among the 

 superior families of the city population. 



The second method seems in many 

 ways the more practicable, since it is 

 certain that great cities have come to 

 stay, in the United States. On the 

 other hand, the first method is in many 

 ways more ideal, particularly because it 

 would not only cause more children to 

 be born, but furnish them with a suit- 

 able environment after they were born, 

 which the city cannot do. 



These suggestions involve the as- 

 sumption that the birth rate of a 

 family is directly affected by removal 

 from country to city, and vice versa. 

 It must be recognized that Dr. Gillette's 

 statistics do not prove this assumption. 

 They merely show that the country 

 has a higher rate of natural increase 

 than the city; this might be, and doubt- 

 less is, due to the interaction of a great 

 number of psychological, physiological 

 and racial factors. _ But it seems prob- 

 able that the assumption made is true; 

 that in some degree removal to the 

 city does reduce the size of a family; 

 and, contrariwise that removal to the 

 country will increase the size of a 

 family. 



If this is true, then endeavors to 

 colonize a lot of urban slum dwellers 

 in the country, as by the Salvation 

 Army and other agencies, are dysgenic, 

 to the extent that these slum dwellers 

 represent inefficiency due to inherent 

 defect. Every effort should be made 

 to reach the superior part of the popula- 

 tion, in either one or other of the two 

 ways suggested. 



In practice, the problem will un- 

 doubtedly have to be attacked by 

 eugenists in both of these ways. Dr. 

 Gillette's statistics, showing the appal- 

 ling size of the problem, ought to be a 

 stimulus to eugenic effort. 



