The future American race is a popular theme for essayists, and has been
much discussed. Most expressions upon the subject, however, have been
characterized by a conscious or unconscious evasion of some of the main
elements of the problem involved in the formation of a future American
race, or, to put it perhaps more correctly, a future ethnic type that
shall inhabit the northern part of the western continent. Some of these
obvious omissions will be touched upon in these articles; and if the
writer has any preconceived opinions that would affect his judgment,
they are at least not the hackneyed prejudices of the past--if they lead
to false conclusions, they at least furnish a new point of view, from
which, taken with other widely differing views, the judicious reader may
establish a parallax that will enable him to approximate the truth.
The popular theory is that the future American race will consist of a
harmonious fusion of the various European elements which now make up our
heterogeneous population. The result is to be something infinitely
superior to the best of the component elements. This perfection of
type--no good American could for a moment doubt that it will be as
perfect as everything else American--is to be brought about by a
combination of all the best characteristics of the different European
races, and the elimination, by some strange alchemy, of all their
undesirable traits--for even a good American will admit that European
races, now and then, have some undesirable traits when they first come
over. It is a beautiful, a hopeful, and to the eye of faith, a thrilling
prospect. The defect of the argument, however, lies in the
incompleteness of the premises, and its obliviousness of certain facts
of human nature and human history.
Before putting forward any theory upon the subject, it may be well
enough to remark that recent scientific research has swept away many
hoary anthropological fallacies. It has been demonstrated that the shape
or size of the head has little or nothing to do with the civilization or
average intelligence of a race; that language, so recently lauded as an
infallible test of racial origin is of absolutely no value in this
connection, its distribution being dependent upon other conditions than
race. Even color, upon which the social structure of the United States
is so largely based, has been proved no test of race. The conception of
a pure Aryan, Indo-European race has been abandoned in scientific
circles, and the secret of the progress of Europe has been found in
racial heterogeneity, rather than in racial purity. The theory that the
Jews are a pure race has been exploded, and their peculiar type
explained upon a different and much more satisfactory hypothesis. To
illustrate the change of opinion and the growth of liberality in
scientific circles, imagine the reception which would have been accorded
to this proposition, if laid down by an American writer fifty or sixty
years ago: "The European races, as a whole, show signs of a secondary or
derived origin; certain characteristics, especially the texture of the
hair, lead us to class them as intermediate between the extreme primary
types of the Asiatic and Negro races respectively." This is put forward
by the author, not as a mere hypothesis, but as a proposition fairly
susceptible of proof, and is supported by an elaborate argument based
upon microscopical comparisons, to which numerous authorities are cited.
If this fact be borne in mind it will simplify in some degree our
conception of a future American ethnic type.
By modern research the unity of the human race has been proved (if it
needed any proof to the careful or fair-minded observer), and the
differentiation of races by selection and environment has been so stated
as to prove itself. Greater emphasis has been placed upon environment as
a factor in ethnic development, and what has been called "the vulgar
theory of race," as accounting for progress and culture, has been
relegated to the limbo of exploded dogmas. One of the most perspicuous
and forceful presentations of these modern conclusions of anthropology
is found in the volume above quoted, a book which owes its origin to a
Boston scholar.
Proceeding then upon the firm basis laid down by science and the
historic parallel, it ought to be quite clear that the future American
race--the future American ethnic type--will be formed of a mingling, in
a yet to be ascertained proportion, of the various racial varieties
which make up the present population of the United States; or, to extend
the area a little farther, of the various peoples of the northern
hemisphere of the western continent; for, if certain recent tendencies
are an index of the future it is not safe to fix the boundaries of the
future United States anywhere short of the Arctic Ocean on the north and
the Isthmus of Panama on the south. But, even with the continuance of
the present political divisions, conditions of trade and ease of travel
are likely to gradually assimilate to one type all the countries of the
hemisphere. Assuming that the country is so well settled that no great
disturbance of ratios is likely to result from immigration, or any
serious conflict of races, we may safely build our theory of a future
American race upon the present population of the country. I use the word
"race" here in its popular sense--that of a people who look
substantially alike, and are moulded by the same culture and dominated
by the same ideals.
By the eleventh census, the ratios of which will probably not be changed
materially by the census now under way, the total population of the
United States was about 65,000,000, of which about seven million were
black and colored, and something over 200,000 were of Indian blood. It
is then in the three broad types--white, black and Indian--that the
future American race will find the material for its formation. Any dream
of a pure white race, of the Anglo-Saxon type, for the United States,
may as well be abandoned as impossible, even if desirable. That such
future race will be predominantly white may well be granted--unless
climate in the course of time should modify existing types; that it will
call itself white is reasonably sure; that it will conform closely to
the white type is likely; but that it will have absorbed and assimilated
the blood of the other two races mentioned is as certain as the
operation of any law well can be that deals with so uncertain a quantity
as the human race.
There are no natural obstacles to such an amalgamation. The unity of the
race is not only conceded but demonstrated by actual crossing. Any
theory of sterility due to race crossing may as well be abandoned; it is
founded mainly on prejudice and cannot be proved by the facts. If it
come from Northern or European sources, it is likely to be weakened by
lack of knowledge; if from Southern sources, it is sure to be colored
by prejudices. My own observation is that in a majority of cases people
of mixed blood are very prolific and very long-lived. The admixture of
races in the United States has never taken place under conditions likely
to produce the best results but there have nevertheless been enough
conspicuous instances to the contrary in this country, to say nothing of
a long and honorable list in other lands, to disprove the theory that
people of mixed blood, other things being equal, are less virile,
prolific or able than those of purer strains. But whether this be true
or not is apart from this argument. Admitting that races may mix, and
that they are thrown together under conditions which permit their
admixture, the controlling motive will be not abstract considerations
with regard to a remote posterity, but present interest and inclination.
The Indian element in the United States proper is so small
proportionally--about one in three hundred--and the conditions for its
amalgamation so favorable, that it would of itself require scarcely any
consideration in this argument. There is no prejudice against the Indian
blood, in solution. A half or quarter-breed, removed from the tribal
environment, is freely received among white people. After the second or
third remove he may even boast of his Indian descent; it gives him a
sort of distinction, and involves no social disability. The distribution
of the Indian race, however, tends to make the question largely a local
one, and the survival of tribal relation may postpone the results for
some little time. It will be, however, the fault of the United States
Indian himself if he be not speedily amalgamated with the white
population.
The Indian element, however, looms up larger when we include Mexico and
Central America in our fields of discussion. By the census of Mexico
just completed, over eighty per cent of the population is composed of
mixed and Indian races. The remainder is presumably of pure Spanish, or
European blood, with a dash of Negro along the coast. The population is
something over twelve millions, thus adding nine millions of Indians and
Mestizos to be taken into account. Add several millions of similar
descent in Central America, a million in Porto Rico, who are said to
have an aboriginal strain, and it may safely be figured that the Indian
element will be quite considerable in the future American race. Its
amalgamation will involve no great difficulty, however; it has been
going on peacefully in the countries south of us for several centuries,
and is likely to continue along similar lines. The peculiar disposition
of the American to overlook mixed blood in a foreigner will simplify the
gradual absorption of these Southern races.
The real problem, then, the only hard problem in connection with the
future American race, lies in the Negro element of our population. As I
have said before, I believe it is destined to play its part in the
formation of this new type. The process by which this will take place
will be no sudden and wholesale amalgamation--a thing certainly not to
be expected, and hardly to be desired. If it were held desirable, and
one could imagine a government sufficiently autocratic to enforce its
behests, it would be no great task to mix the races mechanically,
leaving to time merely the fixing of the resultant type.
Let us for curiosity outline the process. To start with, the Negroes are
already considerably mixed--many of them in large proportion, and most
of them in some degree--and the white people, as I shall endeavor to
show later on, are many of them slightly mixed with the Negro. But we
will assume, for the sake of the argument, that the two races are
absolutely pure. We will assume, too, that the laws of the whole country
were as favorable to this amalgamation as the laws of most Southern
States are at present against it; i.e., that it were made a misdemeanor
for two white or two colored persons to marry, so long as it was
possible to obtain a mate of the other race--this would be even more
favorable than the Southern rule, which makes no such exception. Taking
the population as one-eighth Negro, this eighth, married to an equal
number of whites, would give in the next generation a population of
which one-fourth would be mulattoes. Mating these in turn with white
persons, the next generation would be composed one-half of quadroons, or
persons one-fourth Negro. In the third generation, applying the same
rule, the entire population would be composed of octoroons, or persons
only one-eighth Negro, who would probably call themselves white, if by
this time there remained any particular advantage in being so
considered. Thus in three generations the pure whites would be entirely
eliminated, and there would be no perceptible trace of the blacks left.
The mechanical mixture would be complete; as it would probably be put,
the white race would have absorbed the black. There would be no inferior
race to domineer over; there would be no superior race to oppress those
who differed from them in racial externals. The inevitable social
struggle, which in one form or another, seems to be one of the
conditions of progress, would proceed along other lines than those of
race. If now and then, for a few generations, an occasional trace of the
black ancestor should crop out, no one would care, for all would be
tarred with the same stick. This is already the case in South America,
parts of Mexico and to a large extent in the West Indies. From a Negroid
nation, which ours is already, we would have become a composite and
homogeneous people, and the elements of racial discord which have
troubled our civil life so gravely and still threaten our free
institutions, would have been entirely eliminated.
But this will never happen. The same result will be brought about slowly
and obscurely, and, if the processes of nature are not too violently
interrupted by the hand of man, in such a manner as to produce the best
results with the least disturbance of natural laws. In another article I
shall endeavor to show that this process has been taking place with
greater rapidity than is generally supposed, and that the results have
been such as to encourage the belief that the formation of a uniform
type out of our present racial elements will take place within a
measurably near period.
_Boston Evening Transcript_, August 18, 1900