THE FUTURE OF THE RACE
In proportion as fair means are found and utilized for remedying the
gross inequalities in the present distribution of wealth, and big
fortunes disappear, it will become necessary for the State to undertake
more and more generally the functions that have, during the last few
generations, been largely dependent upon private philanthropy. This
will be an advantage not merely in putting this welfare work upon a
securer basis, but in enlisting the loyalty of the masses to the
Government. Much of the energy and devotion which are now given to
the labor-unions, because in them alone the workers see hope of help,
might be given to the State if it should take upon itself more adequately
to minister to the people's needs. The rich can get health and beauty
for themselves; but the poor are largely dependent upon public provision
for a wholesome and cheerful existence. Laissez-faire individualism
has provided them with saloons; in the new age the State must provide
them with something better than saloons. "Flowers and sunshine for
all," in Richard Jefferies' wistful phrase-the State should make
a determined and thoroughgoing effort, not merely to repress, to punish,
to palliate conditions, but in every positive way that expert thought
can devise and the people will vote to support, to add to the worth
of human life. We may consider these paternal functions of government
under three heads: the improvement of human environment, to make it
more beautiful and convenient; the development, through educational
agencies, of the mental and moral life of the people; and the
improvement, by various means, of the human stock itself.
In what ways should the State seek to better human environment?
(1) Municipal governments should supervise town and village planning.
The riotous individualism of our American people has resulted in the
haphazard growth of countless dreary towns and an architectural anarchy
that resembles nothing more than an orchestra playing with every
instrument tuned to a different key. The stamp of public control is
to be seen, if at all, in an inconvenient and monotonous chessboard
plan for streets. Congestion of traffic at the busy points; wide
stretches of empty pavement on streets little used; houses of every
style and no style, imbued with all the colors of the spectrum;
weed-grown vacant lots, unkempt yards, some fenced, some unfenced;
poster-bedecked billboards-verily, the average American town is not
a thing of beauty. Matthew Arnold's judgment is corroborated by every
traveler. "Evidently," he wrote, "this is that civilization's weak
side. There is little to nourish and delight the sense of beauty there."
A certain crudeness is inevitable in a new country, and will be outgrown;
age is a great artist. Man usually mars with his first strokes; and
it is only when he has met his practical needs that he will dally with
aesthetic considerations. Many of our older cities and villages have
partly outgrown the awkward age, become dignified in the shade of
spreading trees, and fallen somehow into a kind of unity; a few of
them, especially near the Atlantic seaboard, where the stupid
rectangularity of the towns farther west was never imposed, are among
the loveliest in the world. But in general, in spite of many costly,
and some really beautiful, buildings, and acknowledging the individual
charm of many of the wide piazzaed shingled houses of the well-to-do,
and the general effect of spaciousness, our towns and villages are
shockingly, depressingly ugly. Money enough has been spent to create
a beautiful effect; the failure lies in that unrestrained individualism
that permits each owner to build any sort of a structure, and to color
it any hue, that appeals to his fancy, without regard to its effect
upon neighboring buildings or upon the eyes of passers-by. All sorts
of architectural atrocities are committed-curious false fronts, fancy
shingles, scroll-work balustrades, and the like;-in the town where
these words are written, a builder of a number of houses has satisfied
a whim to give eyebrows to his windows, in the shape of flat arches
of alternate red and white bricks, with an extraordinarily grotesque
and discomforting effect. But even where the buildings are good
separately, the general effect is, unless by coincidence, a sad chaos.
In the more progressive countries of Europe matters are not left thus
to the caprice of individuals; in some German towns, and the so-called
garden cities of England, we have excellent examples of scientific
town planning, conducing to homogeneity, convenience, and beauty. The
awakening social sense in this country will surely lead soon to a
general conviction of the duty of an oversight of street planning and
building in the interests of the community as a whole. There is no
reason why our towns should not be sensibly laid out, according to
a prearranged and rational plan; they might have individuality,
picturesqueness, charm; be full of interesting separate notes, yet
harmonious in design, making a single composition, like a great mosaic.
Such an environment would have its subconscious effects upon the morals
of the people, would awaken a new sense of community loyalty, and drive
home the lesson of the necessity and beauty of the cooperative spirit.
Among the features of this town planning are these:
Streets must be laid out in conformity with the topography of the
neighborhood and the direction of traffic. Gentle curves, or frequent
circles, as in Washington, must break the monotony of straight lines;
the natural features of the landscape, hills, bluffs, a river, must
be utilized to give character to the town. The height of buildings
must be regulated in relation to the width of the streets, and the
percentage of ground space that may be built upon determined.
All designs for buildings must be approved by the community architects
with consideration of their harmony with neighboring buildings. A public
landscape architect should have supervision over and give expert advice
for the planting of trees and shrubbery and the beautifying of yards
back as well as front. Factories and shops should be confined to
certain designated portions of a town (and the smoke nuisance strictly
controlled); disfiguring billboards and overhead wires done away with;
parks laid out and kept intact from intrusion of streets or buildings.
Fortunately, the majority of our American houses, built of wood, are
temporary in character; and most city buildings at present have a life
of but a generation or two. In this evanescence of our contemporary
architecture lies the hope for an eventual regeneration of American
towns. In the city and village of the future, life will be so bosomed
in beauty that there will be less need of artificial beauty-seeking
and gaslight pleasures. A healthy local pride will be fostered and
community life come into its own again.
(2) Municipalities should provide facilities for wholesome recreation
out of doors. Children, in particular, ought not to be obliged, for
lack of other space, to play upon city streets, where they impede
traffic and run serious risks. [Footnote: On New York City streets
two hundred and thirty-one children were killed in twenty-one months,
according to recent figures.] Schoolyards should be larger than they
generally are, and bedtime; in the big cities the roofs should be
utilized also. Every neighborhood should have its ample playgrounds.
For want of such provision children of the poor grow up pale and
pinched, without the normalizing and educative influence of healthy
play, and with no proper outlet for their energies, so that crime and
vice flourish prematurely. With proper foresight open spaces can be
retained as a city grows, without great expense; the economic gain,
in a reduced death-rate, reduced cost for doctors and nurses, police,
courts, and prisons, and increased efficiency of the next generation
of workers, will easily balance the outlay, without weighing the gain
in happiness and morality.[Footnote: See on this point, the literature
of the Division of Recreation of the Russell Sage Foundation, and of
the Playground and Recreation Association of America (1 Madison Avenue,
New York City). Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets.
C. Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, chap IX. J. Lee, Constructive
and Preventive Philanthropy, chaps. VIII-XII. Outlook, vol. 87, p.
775; vol. 95, p. 511; vol. 96, p. 443.] But, indeed, adults stand also
in need of outdoor life. Grounds for ball games, bowls, and all sorts
of sports should be generously provided if human life is not to lose
one of its pleasantest and most useful aspects. For evenings there
should be attractive social meeting-places, neighborhood clubs,
supervised dance halls, and the like, such as the social settlements
now to a slight extent provide, with notably beneficial results. As
the poorer classes come more and more into their inheritance of the
fruits of industry, these desiderata may perhaps be again left to private
initiative; but at present there is a large class too pressed by
poverty to get for itself these necessities of a normal life; and the
need of the people makes the duty of the State.[Footnote: Cf. C. R.
Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. XIV.]
(3) The States and the Nation must be careful to conserve the natural
resources of the country from waste, and advantage of the people. The
forests, still so recklessly felled, must be guarded, not only for
the sake of the future timber supply, but to prevent floods, ensure
a proper supply of water in times of drought, and preserve the soil
from being washed away. The scientific practice of forestry, the
maintenance of an efficient fire patrol, and the reforestation of denuded
areas that can best be utilized for the growth of timber, must be
undertaken or supervised by government experts. The very limited supplies
of coal, oil, and natural gas must be protected from waste. Arid lands
must be brought into use where irrigation is possible, swamp lands
drained, waterways and harbors improved to their full
usefulness.[Footnote: On national conservation, see C. R. Van Hise,
The Conservation of Natural Resources. Outlook, vol. 93, p. 770. Atlantic
Monthly, vol. 101, p. 694. Review of Reviews, vol. 37, p. 585.
Chautauquan, vol. 55, pp. 21, 33, 112.] National and state highways
must be built as object-lessons to the towns and counties that still
leave their roads a stretch of mud or sand.[Footnote: It is estimated
that ninety per cent of the public roads in the United States are still
unimproved; that the average cost of hauling produce is twenty-five
cents a mile-ton, as against twelve cents in France; that $300,000,000
a year would be saved in hauling expenses if our roads were as good
as those of western Europe.] All of these material improvements have
their civilizing influence, their moral significance; as Edmond Kelly
put it, "By constructing our environment with intelligence we can
determine the direction of our own development." So it is of no small
consequence what sort of homes and cities we live in. During the next
generation or so, while the State is slowly bestirring itself to
undertake these duties, there will be great need of civic and village
improvement associations, women's clubs, merchants' associations, etc,
to arouse public interest, demonstrate possibilities, and stir up
municipal holidays, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Arbor Day,
Thanksgiving Day, etc, should be used to stimulate civic pride in
these matters; pulpit and press should be brought into line. It will
be a slow and discouraging, but necessary, task to awaken the people
to a realization of the potentialities for a better civilization that
lie in the utilization of government powers. What should be done in
the way of public education? The principle of state support of education
has, happily, been pretty fully accepted in this country, although
in the East the universities still have to depend upon private
benefactions. The public-school system is excellent in plant and
principle; the next step is to work out a rational curriculum. The
average high-school graduate today has learned little of what he most
needs to know how to earn his living, how to spend his money wisely,
how to live. The average girl knows little of housekeeping, less of
the duties of motherhood.[Footnote: Cf. H. Spencer, Education, chap.
I: "Is it not an astonishing fact that though on the treatment of
offspring depend their lives or deaths, and their moral value or ruin,
yet not one word of instruction on the treatment of offspring is ever
given to those who will hereafter be parents? Is it not monstrous that
the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances of unreasoning
custom, impulse, fancy . . . ?" The whole chapter is worth reading;
the neglect of which Spencer complained still persists.] The dangers
of sex indulgence-the greatest of all perils to youth, the poisonous
effects of alcohol, the necessities of bodily hygiene, are seldom
effectively taught. Moral and religious education is, owing to our
sectarianism, almost absolutely neglected. The evils of political
corruption and unscrupulousness in business, the social problems that
so insistently beset us, are little discussed in school. Yet here is
an enormous opportunity for the awakening of moral idealism and the
social spirit. Boys and girls in their teens can be brought to an eager
interest in moral and social problems; class after class could be sent
out fired with enthusiasm to remedy wrongs and push for a higher
civilization. The failure to awaken more of this dormant good will
and energy, and to direct it for the elevation of community standards
and the solution of community problems, is a grave indictment against
our complacent "stand-pat" educational system. Religious instruction
will be a delicate matter for the indefinite future; but inspirational
talks on non-controversial themes should find place, and perhaps a
presentation of different religious views in rotation by representatives
of different communions. In some way, at least, recognition should
be made of the important role played by religion in life. Besides the
school system, other means of public education must be extended. The
libraries and art museums must reach a wider public. The docent-work
in the museums is a recent undertaking of considerable importance.
Free public lectures, free mothers' schools, city kindergartens,
municipal concerts, university extension courses-such enterprises will
doubtless become universal. The work of the National Government in
spreading knowledge of scientific methods of agriculture and of
practicable methods of improving country life- information about the
installation of plumbing systems, water supply, sewage systems, electric
lights, etc.- is of wide educational value. In 1911 the average schooling
of Americans was five years apiece. Such inadequate preparation for
life is a disgrace to our prosperous age. Education should be universally
compulsory until the late teens at least; it should be regarded not
as a luxury, like kid gloves and caviar, but as the normal development
of a human being and the common heritage. It ought not to be the
exclusive privilege of "gentlemen"- of certain select, upper- class
individuals; as economic conditions are straightened out, universal
education will become practically feasible. It is not only as a matter
of justice, but in the interests of public welfare, that education
should be given to all. It will actually pay in dollars and cents,
in increased efficiency, more intelligent voting, decreased crime,
decreased commercial prostitution, and crazy propaganda of all sorts.
The city of Boston was right in inscribing on its public library the
motto: "The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the
safeguard of order and liberty." What can be done by eugenics?
Environment and education are of enormous importance in determining
what the mature individual shall be. But the result is strictly limited
by the material they have to work upon; the individual who is handicapped
by heredity cannot expect to catch up with him who starts the race
of life better equipped, if both have equally favorable influences
and opportunities. These influences can effect little permanent
improvement in the human stock; that can only be radically bettered
by seeing to it that individuals of superior stock have children and
those of inferior stock do not. We have "harnessed heredity" to produce
better types of wheat and roses and cattle and horses and dogs; why
not produce better types of men? The study of these possibilities
constitutes the new science of eugenics, which its founder, Francis
Galton, defined as the study of "those agencies which humanity through
social control may use for the improvement or the impairment of the
racial qualities of future generations." Dr. Kellogg defines it as
"taking advantage of the facts of heredity to make the human race
better." "Good breeding of the human species." We may first ask what
duties the disclosures of this new science lay upon the individual.
(1) The constitutional health of children is partly deter parents at
the time of conception and birth. Most deaths of newborn infants are
due to prenatal influences. Overstrain, malnutrition, alcoholism, and
all physical excesses tend to cause physical degeneracy in the
offspring. It is obviously the duty of prospective parents- and that
means practically all healthy young people-to keep themselves well
and strong, so as to give a good endowment of health to their children.
(2) Feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, some forms of insanity, and some
venereal diseases are inheritable defects; those who suffer from them
must refrain from having children. Studies of the "Jukes" family and
the "Kallikak" family, and others, show convincingly the spread of
these defects where defectives marry. To bring children into the world
to bear such burdens-and to cost the State, as they are almost sure
to, for their support [Footnote: The descendants of the original
degenerate couple of "Jukes" cost New York State in seventy-five years
$1,300,000. See R. L. Dugdale, The Jukes. H. H. Goddard, The Kallikak
Family]-ought to be regarded as a grave sin.
(3) Little positive advice can yet be given as to those who are BEST
fitted to have children, except in the matter of health and freedom
from inheritable defects. According to Professor Boaz,[Footnote: F.
Boaz, The Mind of Primitive Man.] one racial stock is about as good
as another; so whatever selection is to be made may be between individual
strains. But to breed the human stock for beauty, energy, mental
ability, immunity to disease, sanity, or what not, is a task far beyond
our present knowledge. Personal value and reproductive value are not
closely correlative; and the factors that determine a good inheritance
are highly complex. So that the choice of wife and husband may be left
to those instinctive affinities and preferences which will in any case
continue to be the deciding causes for the strong and educated and
well-to-do to beget and rear children; the tendency to "race-suicide"
among the upper classes is a matter for serious alarm. That portion
of the population that is least able to give proper nurture to children,
and to train them up to American ideals, is producing them in
overwhelmingly greatest numbers. The older stocks in this country are
dying out and being replaced by the large families of the east and
south European immigrants. In England also, we are told, one sixth
of the population, and this the least desirable sixth, is producing
half of the coming generation. In 1790 the American family averaged
5.8 persons; in 1900 the average was 4.6. Among native Americans
the average is lower still. College graduates are failing to reproduce
their own numbers. Everywhere the Western peoples are breeding more
and more slowly, while the Orientals, Negroes, and, in general, the
less civilized peoples, are multiplying rapidly. Unless the upper classes
in western Europe and America cease their selfish refusal to rear
citizens, the earth will be inherited by the more backward peoples.
This means, plainly, a perpetual clog upon progress. We may now ask
what the State should demand in the interests of race- improvement.
(1) Health certificates may be required from both parties at marriage
i.e., marriage may be prohibited without a guarantee from a licensed
physician of freedom from communicable or inheritable disease, or
inheritable defects. This seems the minimum of protection due the
contracting parties themselves, as well as due the next generation.
(2) Marriage restrictions are easily evaded, however; unscrupulous
physicians can usually be found to sign certificates. And where
marriage is prohibited, illegitimacy is sure to flourish. Hence the
segregation (with proper care) of those obviously unfit to become
parents seems necessary. Great as would be the initial expense, the
rapid reduction in the number of idiots, epileptics, etc, would in
a generation or two counterbalance it and greatly diminish the problem.
It is estimated that there are some three hundred thousand feeble-
minded persons in the United States, only twenty thousand of whom are
segregated in institutions, the rest being free to propagate-which
they do with notorious rapidity. Most of them can be made
self-supporting; and real as the hardship to some of them may be in
confining them from sex relations, the sacrifice seems demanded by
the welfare of coming generations.
(3) An alternative to segregation (for inheritable, but not for
communicable, diseases) is sterilization. The operation when performed
on adults seems to have no effects upon character or the enjoyment
of life, not even interfering with ordinary sex gratification. It is
not painful, and perfectly harmless, to man; for women there is a risk,
which is said, however, to be slight.[Footnote: Cf. Dr. E. C. Jones,
in Woman's Medical Journal, December, 1912.] Sterilization permits
the unfit to be entirely at liberty, to marry, if they can find mates,
and to have all the pleasures of life except that of parenthood. A
number of the American States have passed laws permitting the compulsory
sterilization of certain very restricted classes of people undesirable
as parents, at the discretion of the proper authorities; and this
seems, on the whole, at least in the case of men, the best solution.
(4) Of an entirely different nature is the movement to secure state
support for mothers; a movement, however, which is also eugenic in
its intent. At present those parents who are zealous to maintain a
high standard of living, those with talents which they are ambitious
to develop, and those who realize keenly the care and expense that
children need, are deterred from having many, or any; while the
shiftless and happy-go-lucky propagate without scruple. There is, for
all except the rich, a premium on childlessness, which the natural
desire for parenthood cannot wholly discount. But this ought not to
be so. Childbearing and rearing is a very necessary and arduous vocation,
in which all the best women should be enlisted. In a socialistic regime
the State would as a matter of course pay for this work as well as
for all other productive work. But state endowment of motherhood, the
payment of "maternity benefits," may be practiced apart from industrial
socialism. It may be objected that the removal of economic pressure
would bring an undue increase in population and the evils that Malthus
feared. But the tendency of advancing civilization seems to be so
strikingly toward a declining birth-rate-a phenomenon unrecognized
in this country because of the tide of immigration, but apparent in
western Europe-that the net outcome may be attained of a stationary
population. Moreover, the scheme in question would not only tend to
increase the number of children born to the prudent among the middle
classes, it would enable mothers and prospective mothers to save
themselves from that overwork which enfeebles so many children today;
it would insure them the means to care properly for the children. State
inspectors would visit homes and examine the children of state
supported mothers; the amount granted might vary in proportion to the
care apparently given to the children, their cleanliness, health,
progress in education, the clothing, food, air, and space provided
for them; if the nurture of a child was judged too inadequate, it might,
after warning, be removed to an institution and the parents
punished.[Footnote: See, besides the books referred to later, H. G.
Wells, "The Endowment of Motherhood" (in Social Forces in England
and America); or, New Worlds for Old, chap. III. F. W. Taussig, Principles
of Economics, chap. 65, sec. 1. Survey, vols. 29 and 30, many
articles.] recruiting of coming generations from the diseased and
feeble-minded, to prevent the handicapping of poor children through
the overwork and poverty of their parents, and gradually to raise the
level of inherited human nature. When coupled with improved environment
and with universal and rational education, it will surely mean the
existence of a happier race of men-which should be the ultimate goal
of all human endeavor. What are the gravest moral dangers of our times?
In conclusion, we may venture a judgment as to which, out of the many
evils we have noted in contemporary life, are most serious, and where
our moral energies should most earnestly be directed.
The most prominent of prevalent vices are certainly sex incontinence
and the use of alcohol; the lure of wine and the lure of women have
from time immemorial been man's undoing. Alcohol is being vigorously
fought, and is probably doomed to general prohibition, together with
opium and morphine and the other narcotics. The sex dangers are not
to be so easily overcome, and we are probably in for an increase of
license and its inevitable evils. There will be need for every
farsighted and earnest man and woman to stand firm, in spite of
enticing promises of liberty, for the great ideal of faithful marriage
that makes in the end for man's deepest happiness.
The most prominent sins of today are, selfish moneymaking, selfish
money spending, selfish idleness; the chief sinners we may label
pirates, prodigals, parasites. By pirates are meant the dishonest
dealers, the grafters, the vice caterers, the unscrupulous competitors,
the pilers-up of exorbitant profits at the expense of employees and
public; by prodigals, the spendthrift rich, the wasters of wealth,
those who lavish in luxury or ostentation money that is sorely needed
by others; by parasites, the idle rich, the lazy poor, the tramps,
all who take, but do not give a return of honest work. There are also
the jingoes, the preachers of lawlessness, the demagogues, and many
less common types of sinners. But the particularly flagrant wrongs
of our day have to do with the getting and spending of money; and the
peril of the near future which looms now most menacingly on the horizon
is the irritation of the wronged classes to the point of civil warfare
and revolution. Such a calamity might, of course, be ultimately a means
of great social advance; but it is a highly dangerous and uncertain
method, involving great moral damage as well as great individual
suffering, and to be averted by every possible means. The hope for
averting it lies not only in the growth of public condemnation of
lawlessness, but in the substitution of an ideal of service for the
ideal of personal gain, and in the growing willingness of the community
to check by progressive legislative measures the various means which
resourceful men have discovered for advantaging themselves at the
expense of society. Necessary initial steps are the securing of
international peace and the construction of an efficient political
system. When these ends have been attained and a just industrial order
evolved, the citizens of the future will take pride in using the powers
of the State to bring the greatest possible health and happiness to
all.
Our forefathers had great wrongs to right-political tyranny to
overthrow, human slavery to eradicate, civil and religious liberty
to win, a system of popular education to inaugurate, and with it all
the wilderness to tame and a new land to develop. For these ends
they sacrificed much. It is for us to attack with equal courage the
evils of the present. Life has outwardly become easy for many of us;
our spiritual muscle easily becomes flabby. But there are new tasks
equally importunate, equally worthy of our loyalty and sacrifice,
hard enough to stir our blood. The times call for new idealism, new
courage, new effort; the purpose of this book will not be attained
unless the reader carries away from its perusal some new realization
of the moral dangers that confront our civilization, and some new
determination to have a hand in meeting them.
Environment: J. Nolen, Replanning Small Cities. T. C. Horsfelt, The
Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People. E.
Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow. The City Beautiful (magazine).
Literature of the National League of Improvement Associations, the
American Civic Association (914 Union Trust Building, Washington,
D.C.), the City Club of New York, Metropolitan Improvement League of
Boston, etc. The Civic Federation of Chicago, What it has
Accomplished (Hollister, Chicago, 1899). Atlantic Monthly, vol. 113,
p. 823. World's Work, vol. 15, p. 10022. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 373;
vol. 97, p. 393; vol. 103, p. 203. National Municipal Review, vol.
1, p. 236.
Education: H. Home, Idealism in Education. G. Spiller, Moral
Education in Eighteen Countries. International Journal of Ethics,
vol. 20, p. 454; vol. 22, pp. 146, 335. I. King, Social Aspects of
Education. E. Boutroux, Education and Ethics. Proceedings of the
National Education Association, Religious Education Association,
International Moral Education Congresses. C. R. Henderson, The
Social Spirit in America, chap, xn, xm. S. Nearing, Social
Adjustment, chaps, in, xv. World's Work, vol. 15, p. 10105. Outlook,
vol. 85, pp. 664, 943; vol. 89, p. 789; vol. 94, p. 701.
Eugenics: C. B. Davenport, Eugenics; Heredity in Relation to
Eugenics. W. D. McKim, Heredity and Human Progress. E. Schuster,
Eugenics. C. W. Saleeby, Parenthood and Race Culture. H. G. Wells,
Mankind in the Making, chap. in. New Tracts for the Times (various
authors, Moffat, Yard Co.). Reports of International Eugenic
Congresses. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 801. Forum, vol. 51, p.
542. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 26, p. 1.