222 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



Tenna, Canton Graubunden, may become a focus of hemo- 

 philia in this country. On the other hand, the exclusion of 

 one Hungarian family of my acquaintance would have de- 

 prived American Universities of three of their best scientific 

 professors. The fact is that no race per se, whether Slovak, 

 Ruthenian, Turk or Chinese, is dangerous and none undesir- 

 able; but only those individuals whose somatic traits or ger- 

 minal determiners are, from the standpoint of our social Ufe, 

 bad. While all somatically defective may well be excluded 

 at once, it is, within limits, hazardous to admit any person 

 permanently to this country because he has no undesirable 

 somatic trait — for no one transmits to his progeny his somatic 

 traits but rather the determiners in his germ plasm. The 

 proper way to classify immigrants for admission or rejection 

 is on the basis of the probable performance of their germ 

 plasm. In other words, immigrants are desirable who are of 

 ''good blood"; undesirable who are of ''bad blood." 



Since "blood" cannot be judged by inspection of the in- 

 dividual what practicable method remains for separating the 

 sheep from the goats? Experience indicates the one best 

 way. Before any one person is admitted to citizenship let 

 something be learned concerning his family history and his 

 personal history on the other side of the ocean. How can 

 this be done? By means of field workers performing a serv- 

 ice similar to that which they are doing in this country, 

 visiting the relatives of the person in question and learning 

 his personal and family history. Is this feasible? Govern- 

 ments might interpose an objection, but it seems probable 

 that the matter could be put before them so that they would 

 not. Experience indicates that few families approached in 

 the proper spirit would decline to give information. It is 

 then only a matter of money to pay for the required studies. 

 How much money? It appears that about 200,000 declara- 

 tions of intention to become naturalized are filed annually in 



