264 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
types of the white and colored races in the United States; also 
that the class of white men who have intercourse with col red 
women are, as a rule, of an inferior type.”” Those familiar with 
the life and ways of negroes and mulattoes especially in our 
cities where the mulattoes are relatively abundant will be in- 
clined to agree that the facts stated by Hoffman represent more 
nearly the typical kinds of black-white matings that occur and 
have occurred since the Civil War, than the theories of Reuter 
as to how they might have occurred. If there is enough ability 
in the selected negro stock to account for the superiority of the 
mulatto when mated with ordinary white parentage we should 
certainly find a considerable number of cases in which both black 
parents were of a superior type and who would be expected to 
produce offspring at least the equal of the better mulattoes. 
Pure blacks of proven native ability of high order are in fact 
rare. The fact that mulattoes, despite their relatively inferior 
white parentage, are in all countries, superior to the blacks, is 
strongly indicative of a marked difference in the average in- 
tellectual capacity of the two races. 
It is scarcely necessary to point out that the intellectual 
superiority of the mulatto over the negro affords no sufficient 
ground for advocating the amalgamation of the negro and white 
races. If the mulatto has a better mind than the negro, he is 
apparently inferior to him in physique and is inferior in every way 
to the whites. Any system of cross breeding which means the 
substitution of mulatto for white children cannot be viewed as 
anything but a serious menace. It is to be condemned, not only 
from the biological standpoint, but because it would lead to social 
and moral deterioration. To say that negro-white crosses are 
undesirable on biological grounds, however, is not to assert that 
race crossing is bad per se. If races are on the same level of 
inherent physical and intellectual endowment their fusion may 
produce a very desirable combination of qualities and might 
give rise to a diversity of traits which would be socially valuable. 
We have insufficient grounds for condemning crosses of races or 
peoples per se, but only those crosses which substitute an inter- 
