206 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1209 



Such data as we have for births and deaths 

 indicate a similar situation. Our hirth rate 

 is probably about 25 per 1,000 and the 

 death rate for the entire country not far 

 from 15 per 1,000. The difference between 

 the birth rate and the death rate, the rate 

 of natural increase, is about 10 per 1,000 

 or 1 per cent, annually. The rate is much 

 the same as we found for England and 

 Wales in the year before the war. No one 

 phould find fault with a rate of natural in- 

 crease of 1 per cent, per year. The popula- 

 tion problem of France would be consid- 

 ered on a fair way to solution if that coun- 

 try could maintain for a period of years a 

 rate corresponding to even one half of that 

 ;which we now enjoy in the United States. 

 The difficulty with our American situa- 

 tion is that we have been satisfied with a 

 gross showing. We have not looked under- 

 neath the surface to observe the varying 

 tendency in the several groups of the popu- 

 lation and in the several sections of the 

 pountry. The marked increase in our total 

 population is in large measure the result 

 pi. two factors: (1) immigration and (2) 

 a high rate of increase in the foreign bom 

 rather than in our native stock. This is 

 phown by the constantly decreasing pro- 

 portion which the native whites of native 

 parentage form of the total white popula- 

 tion^^ In 1870, for example, this group 

 formed 67.8 per cent, of the total white 

 population in the United States, while in 

 1910 it had decreased to 60.5 per cent. 

 The proportion of the foreign stock corre- 

 spondingly increased during these forty 

 years. These figures are accentuated if we 

 turn to certain areas of the country. Thus, 

 in the New England states the proportion 

 pf the native white stock decreased from 

 ^2.3 per cent, of the total white population 

 ,in 1890 to 40.3 per cent, in 1910. In the 



12 Thirteentli Census of tte TJnited States, Vol. 1, 

 Population: General Report and Analysis. 



iliddle Atlantic states the native white 

 stock decreased from 51.8 in 1890 to 44.8 

 in 1910. In these important areas the na- 

 tive stock is playing an ever smaller part 

 in the composition of the total population. 

 In fact a very definite tendency toward 

 depopulation has already fastened itself 

 upon a large part of the native stock of the 

 country. 



There has been a marked and continu- 

 ous reduction in the birth rate in the 

 iUnited States for a period of years. In the 

 absence of comprehensive birth statistics 

 such as are available for European coun- 

 tries, we must turn to other sources which 

 are clearly indicative of the changes which 

 have occurred in the birth rate. We may 

 use, for example, the number of children 

 under 5, per thousand women in the child- 

 bearing ages, namely, fifteen to forty-four 

 years inclusive. Professor Willcox in a re- 

 cent paper has shown that this proportion 

 has decreased about 50 per cent, in the 

 course of the last hundred years. At the 

 beginning of the century there were 976 

 children under five for every 1,000 women 

 between the ages of fifteen to forty-four 

 years, whereas in 1910 the number was 

 only 508 per thousand women at these ages. 

 During the 60 years between 1850 and 

 1910 the number of children under five, per 

 thousand women at the childbearing ages, 

 decreased in the United States by 191 or 

 at an average of 32 in each decade. The 

 rate of decline in the recent decades has 

 been so rapid that Professor Willcox^^ sug- 

 gests amusedly that if it were continued 

 over a period of a century and a half, 

 which is a comparatively short time in the 

 life of a nation, there would be no children 

 at all at the end of that time. 



13 Willeox, "Walter P., ' ' Nature and Significance 

 of the Changes in the Birth and Death Bates in 

 Recent Years," Quarterly Publications, American 

 Statistical Association, Boston, March, 1916, p. 1. 



