476 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



indix-iduals probably were the bearers of very little germplasm that 

 we are nationally not better off without. 



Eugenically, the weak point in the present application of immi- 

 gration laws is that criteria for exclusion are phenotypic in nature 

 rather than genot3^ic, and consequently much bad germplasm comes 

 through our gates hidden from the view of inspectors because the 

 bearers are heterozygous, wearing a cloak of desirability over undesir- 

 able traits. 



It is not enough to lift the eyehd of a prospective parent of Ameri- 

 can citizens to discover whether he has some kind of an eye-disease or 

 to count the contents of his purse to see if he can pay his own way. 

 The official ought to know if eye-disease runs in the immigrant's family 

 and whether he comes from a race of people which, through chronic 

 shiftlessness or lack of initiative, have always carried light purses. 



In selecting horses for a stock-farm an expert horseman might rely 

 to a considerable extent upon his judgment of horseflesh based upon 

 inspection alone, but the wise breeder does more than take the chances 

 of an ordinary horse trader. He wants to be assured of the pedigree 

 of his prospective stock. It is to be hoped that the time will come 

 when we, as a nation, will rise above the hazardous methods of the 

 horse trader in selecting from the foreign applicants who knock at our 

 portals, and that we will exercise a more fundamental discrimination 

 than such a haphazard method affords, by demanding a knowledge of 

 the germplasm of these candidates for citizenship, as displayed in 

 their pedigrees. 



This may possibly be accomplished by having trained inspectors 

 located abroad in the communities from which our immigrants come, 

 whose duty it shall be to look up the ancestry of prospective applicants 

 and to stamp desirable ones with approval. The national expense 

 of such a program of genealogical inspection would be far less than 

 the maintenance of introduced defectives, in fact it would greatly 

 decrease the number of defectives in the country. At the present 

 time this country is spending over one hundred million dollars a year 

 on defectives alone, and each year sees this amount increased. 



The United States Department of Agriculture already has field 

 agents scouring every land for desirable animals and plants to intro- 

 duce into this country, as well as stringent laws to prevent the importa- 

 tion of dangerous weeds, parasites, and organisms of various kinds. 

 Is the inspection and supervision of human blood less important ? 



