AMERICA 



handicaps to physical and mental development, and spiritual 

 atrophy. 



(1) Race Admixture. Prof. E. A. Ross says: "As one 

 traverses the gamut that leads from farms to towns, from 

 towns to cities and from little cities to big, the proportion of 

 American stock steadily diminishes, while the foreign stock 

 increases its representation until in the great cities it consti- 

 tutes three-fourths or even four-fifths of the population." * 

 The time was when the vast majority of the immigrants to 

 America's shores were Teutons. But in recent years, especially 

 during the years when the cities have enjoyed their most 

 phenomenal growth, the bulk of the immigrants have come 

 from nations not of Teutonic origin. Naturally, if the 

 Teutonic group of nations belong to the first class, most of the 

 other nations and races must be farther down in the scale of 

 civilization. So inevitably an inferior admixture in American 

 metropolitan life lowers the type of the composite individual 

 that represents Urban America. Therefore, the great question 

 of the Urban half of America is, whether from the crucible 

 of time a citizenship will emerge which will have within it 

 the possibilities of a higher development than are found 

 among purely homogeneous peoples. America is conducting 

 experiments today that have a most vital bearing on the his- 

 tory of civilization. If in God's good time it is shown that a 

 superior people assimilating less superior peoples drops to 

 lower levels, then, for a time, at least, the American nation will 

 be obliged to play a less important role in world affairs. 



(2) Inefficient Government. No less an authority than 

 James Bryce says American municipal governments are fail- 

 ures. Possibly the best governed cities of the world are the 

 cities of the German Empire. It is a matter of record that 

 there are fifteen hundred towns and villages in Germany that 

 derive sufficient revenue from the land they own to exempt 

 the citizens from all local taxes. One-third of these are so 

 fortunate that they are able to declare annual dividends of 

 from $20 to $100 to the citizens. Two fundamental facts 



1 See The Century, New York, December, 1913, p. 229. 



II 



