436 



The Journal of Heredity 



long-bearded invaders who came from 

 middle Asia, brin}2;ing copper imple- 

 ments and spreading over the Balkans 

 and the near east until they pushed a 

 wedge clear across Europe to the 

 Atlantic. 



THE A\EKA(.li SOIJJIKK 



This painting was made for the Army 

 Medical Museum some years ago, to 

 ilhtstrate the typical American in- 

 fantryman. The height, weight and 

 chest measurements were supi)lied from 

 the statistics of the Surgeon-General's 

 oflfice. The model was a young Irish 

 regular, whose head-form and dark hair 

 and eyes are hardly typical of the 

 American Army. (Fig. 1.) 



The United States is i)erhaps m.ore ])re- 

 pondcrantly Nordic in i)()])ulation which 

 is liable to draft than any other counlry 

 actively engaged in the great war, 

 with the possible exception of Great 

 Britain. It was in t)rigin a Nordic 



colony, and more than 50^"( of its 

 residents are today native whites of 

 native parentage, almost 25% are 

 native whites of foreign or mixed 

 parentage, while but 14.5% are foreign 

 born whites. The remaining 11.1% 

 inclitde 10.7% negroes, and .4% In- 

 dians, Chinese, Japanese, and all others. 

 Thus the native whites, who arc dis- 

 tinctly and almost wholly Nordic, 

 comprise a little more than one-half 

 of the entire population, while in the 

 other half, the Nordic stock certainly 

 still holds the majority, as will be 

 later shown, so that more than three- 

 quarters of the total jiopulation is of 

 Nordic descent. Furthermore, the 

 Nordic stock consists almost entirely 

 of citizens who will hence have to 

 bear the brtmt of the war, while many 

 of the Alpine and Mediterranean im- 

 migrants have not becoine naturalized. 



A DEFECT OF THE DRAFT 



The allotment of draft quotas with- 

 out exclusion of aliens was, from the 

 eugenic point of view, a serious mis- 

 take in the draft. The result was that 

 in many of the New England com- 

 mimities, where the proportion of aliens 

 is large, an ovenvhelmingly large burden 

 was thrown on the old Anierican popu- 

 lation. Captain Eben Putnam writes 

 that in some c(mimunities it was im- 

 possible to fill the quota even when 

 e\'ery nati\-e in the district was sum- 

 moned. It would have been better to 

 base the draft quotas on the j)opulation 

 after aliens- were excluded. While the 

 old Nordics of the United States are 

 willing to bear their full share of the 

 burden of the war, and in fact will 

 bear vastly more than their share 

 without a protest, it seems more 

 statcsn^anlike to dislribiite the burden 

 as far as possible. 



The Nordic always has shown the 

 m.ost marked jnignacity. The famous 

 warriors of Sumer and Accad were 

 cxidently long-headed, tall and fair- 

 haired. Achilles and Hector arc sup- 

 l)ose(l to have been Nordics. The 

 Coths and Cauls that poured down 

 over the Ali)s and literally wijxHl the 

 Rom.an Emjiire off the map were of 

 the same ])eacc-disturbing race. 



