The idea of the great blond Aryan, the leader of mankind, is the result
of self-admiration, that emotional thinkers have tried to sustain by
imaginative reasoning. It has no foundation in observed fact. This,
however, does not decrease the emotional value of the fiction that
has taken hold of minds wherever the Teutonic, German, or Anglo-Saxon
type--however it may be called--prevails.
It is not the pre-eminence of the blonde alone that appeals to the
fancy in northwest-European countries: all over Europe we find the idea
of racial purity, and of the existence of certain features inherent
in each race that make it superior to all others; while it is assumed
that the mixed, “mongrel” races are doomed to permanent inferiority.
This notion prevails among ourselves with equal force, for we shake our
heads gravely over the ominous influx of “inferior” races from eastern
Europe. Inferior by heredity? No. Socially different? Yes, on account
of the environment in which they have lived, and therefore different
from ourselves, and not easily subject to change provided they are
allowed to cluster together indefinitely. Equally strong is our fear of
the mongrelization of the American people by intermixtures between the
northwest-European and other European types.
Scientific investigation does not countenance the assumption that in
any one part of Europe a people of pure descent or of a pure racial
type is found, and careful inquiry has failed completely to reveal any
inferiority of mixed European types.