IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT 



Europe, cannot even by the most liberal interpre- 

 tation be said to represent the best strains of the 

 varied racial stocks from which they have sprung. 



They are in large proportion confessedly 

 inferior representatives of their races. 



There is much evidence to show that they even 

 include large numbers of defectives, who, owing 

 to their alien tongues and habits, can with great 

 difficulty be properly adjudged by the immigrant 

 officials and denied admission in accordance with 

 the laws that are intended to prevent the coming 

 of the notoriously unfit. 



The Greatest Migration in History 



But even if it were supposed that a large ma- 

 jority of newcomers are really representatives of 

 the best of their alien racial strains, their coming 

 in such numbers would still make them objects of 

 solicitude to the student of heredity. 



The American race of to-day has been built up 

 along certain lines not only of physical, but of 

 mental and moral development that have adapted 

 it'for a social and political environment that is far 

 different from that from which many of these 

 aliens come. Transplantation to the new environ- 

 ment may have a certain effect on the immigrants, 

 just as transplantation to the soil of California has 

 had its effect on large numbers of plants brought 

 from the Tropics. 



[235] 



