IMMIGRATION AND THE AMERICAN RACE 593 



mixed with Celtic elements, forms the rural population of the United 

 States, while the greater portion of the population of the larger and 

 largest cities is composed of the new immigration. It is a bold assump- 

 tion that the United States is a " melting-pot " in which all the races 

 of Europe are fused to a new race. A general intermixture of the old 

 and the new immigrants can take place only in the large cities while the 

 rural population, the backbone of the nation, will not be appreciably 

 affected. This mixed city population will not persist for any length of 

 time. It is a generally recognized fact that city populations have much 

 less vitality than the agricultural classes. But the surprisingly rapid 

 rate at which families in the cities die out was not known until the 

 remarkable observations of Hansen, Ammon and others were made 

 public. 



In modern times the causes which contribute to the rapid destruc- 

 tion of the city population are much more potent than in the past. The 

 cities are generally much larger and it is certain that the healthfulness 

 of a city decreases as its size increases. It is true that sanitary meas- 

 ures are much more efficient than in former times, but it is also true 

 that the destructive influences have grown in strength and new ones 

 have appeared. The modern factory work, the poor housing conditions 

 of the lower classes, tend to destroy life and weaken vitality. Eace 

 suicide is practised especially in the cities, while it is almost unknown 

 among the country population. The struggle for existence is much 

 severer in the cities; marriages are fewer; the mortality of children is 

 greater. Prostitution, the curse of large cities, is an enemy to marriage 

 and tends to shorten and destroy life by transmitting and spreading 

 venereal diseases. To all this we must add the attractions of city life, 

 the chase after pleasure, the constant excitement, the nervous strain, 

 which are all hostile to the vitality of families. 17 Another cause of the 

 rapid extinction of the city population lies in the very mixture of so 

 many races. There is a biological law that hybrids do not tend to 

 reproduce their kind. The fecundity of such a mixed population is 

 appreciably lower than that of a pure race. Lapouge found that in 

 those regions of France where the brachycephalic Alpine race has pre- 

 served a comparative purity the birth rate is much higher than in the 

 districts where the race is greatly mixed with Teutonic blood. In the 

 latter regions the birth rate is actually decreasing. 18 



It is evident that the lower classes, living under less favorable con- 

 ditions than the well-to-do, are more subject to rapid extinction. But 



17 The U. S. Census of 1900 shows that the death rate in the cities of 

 Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Michi- 

 gan, Maine and Vermont was 18.6 per thousand of population, while in the 

 rural districts it was only 15.4 per thousand. Baker, Quart. Publ. Am. Statist. 

 Ass., Boston, 1908, XI., 133. 



18 Rev. d'anthrop., Paris, 1887, XVI., pp. 74 and 526. 



