264 INBREEDING AND OUTBREEDING 



essential in the production of racial stamina is that the 

 ingredients in the Melting Pot be sound at the beginning, 

 for one does not improve the amalgam by putting in dross. 



May we consider, in conclusion, the bearing of these 

 facts upon the problem of this particular country, the 

 United States of America? The United States at one 

 time was the Mecca of the politically oppressed. Free- 

 dom-loving people of good lineage and worthy attain- 

 ments came to its shores. Now, except for temporary 

 abatement of immigration due to the world war, the 

 stream, though swelling in volume, has changed both its 

 source and the impelling cause of its flow. The early 

 settlers came from stock which had made notable contri- 

 butions to civilization. They were drawn by a desire 

 from within to carve out great names and fortunes. And 

 they have not disgraced their kin across the seas. 



This tide has ebbed, and has been succeeded by a 

 greater. Fifteen million foreign-born now live within 

 the boundaries of the nation, though nearly half have 

 never sought its citizenship. They come in increasing 

 numbers from peoples who have impressed modern civil- 

 ization but lightly. They come, not so much from inborn 

 ambition of their own, but because attracted by the in- 

 ducements of those who would exploit them for their 

 own convenience. Whether any considerable part of 

 these people are genetically undesirable, whether real 

 capacity will be discovered under the new environment, 

 no one can say. Time alone will tell. But there is a 

 thought in this connection that cannot be emphasized too 

 strongly or too often. To make this a united nation, 

 there must be an enormous amount of open racial inter- 

 mixture. The publicist and sociologist should realize 



