Applied Eugenics Part 30

(a) Too many college men and men in intellectual pursuits were taken as officers, particularly in the aviation corps. There should have been more men employed as officers who had demonstrated the necessary qualifications, as foremen and others accustomed to boss gangs of men.

(b) The burden was thrown too heavily on the old white Americans, by the exemption of aliens, who make up a large part of the population in some states. There were communities in New England which actually could not fill their quotas, even by taking every acceptable native-born resident, so large is their alien population. The quota should have been adjusted if aliens were to be exempt.

(c) The district boards were not as liberal as was desirable, in exempting from the first quota men needed in skilled work at home. The spirit of the _selective_ draft was widely violated, and necessitated a complete change of method before the second quota was called by the much improved questionnaire method.

It is difficult to get such mistakes as these corrected; nevertheless a nation should never lose sight of the fact that war is inevitably damaging, and that the most successful nation is the one which wins its wars with the least possible eugenic loss.

Leaving the period of preparedness, we consider the period of open warfare. The reader will remember that, in an earlier chapter, we divided natural selection into (1) lethal, that which operates through differential mortality; (2) s.e.xual, that which operates through differential mating; and (3) fecundal, that which operates through differential fecundity. Again, selection operates both in an inter-group compet.i.tion and an intra-group compet.i.tion. The influence of any agency on natural selection must be examined under each of these six heads. In the case of war, however, fecundal selection may be eliminated, as it is little influenced. Still another division arises from the fact that the action of selection is different during war upon the armed forces themselves and upon the population at home; and after the war, upon the nations with the various modifications that the war has left.

We will consider lethal selection first. To measure the effect of the inter-group selection of the armed forces, one must compare the relative quality of the two races involved. The evidence for believing in substantial differences between races is based (a) upon their relative achievement when each is isolated, (b) upon the relative rank when the two are competing in one society, and (c) upon the relative number of original contributions to civilization each has made. Such comparisons are fatal to the sentimental equalitarianism that denies race differences. While there is, of course, a great deal of overlapping, there are, nevertheless, real average differences. To think otherwise is to discard evolution and revert to the older standpoint of "special creation."

Comparison of the quality of the two sides is sometimes, of course, very difficult. One may feel little hesitation in giving a decision in the cla.s.sical war of the Greeks and Persians, or the more modern case of the English and Afghans, but when considering the Franco-Prussian war, or the Russo-j.a.panese war, or the Boer war, or the American civil war, it is largely a matter of mere opinion, and perhaps an advantage can hardly be conceded to either side. Those who, misunderstanding the doctrine of evolution, adhere to the so-called "philosophy of force," would answer without hesitation that the side which won was, _ipso facto_, the better side. But such a judgment is based on numerous fallacies, and can not be indorsed in the sweeping way it is uttered. Take a concrete example:

"In 1806, Prussia was defeated at the battle of Jena. According to the philosophy of force, this was because Prussia was 'inferior' and France was 'superior.' Suppose we admit for the moment that this was the case.

The selection now represents the survival of the fittest, the selection which perfects the human species. But what shall we say of the battle of Leipsic? At Leipsic, in 1813, all the values were reversed; it is now France which is the 'inferior' nation.... Furthermore, a large number of the same generals and soldiers who took part in the battle of Jena also took part in the battle of Leipsic. Napoleon belonged, therefore, to a race which was superior to that of Blucher in 1806, but to an inferior race in 1813, in spite of the fact that they were the same persons and had not changed their nationality. As soon as we bring these a.s.sertions to the touchstone of concrete reality we see at once how untenable and even ridiculous are direct biological comparisons."[156]

Without going into further detail, it is readily seen that, on the world at large, the eugenic effect of a war would be very different according as the sides differ much or little. Yet this difference in quality, however great, will have no significance, unless the superior or inferior side is in general more likely to lose fewer men. Where the difference has been considerable, as between a civilized and savage nation, it has been seldom that the superior has not triumphed with fewer losses. Victory, however, is influenced much less in these later days by the relative military efficiency of two single nations than by their success in making powerful alliances. But such alignments are by no means always a.s.sociated with better quality, because (a) there is a natural tendency for the weak to unite against a strong nation, (b) to side with a group which is apparently succeeding, and (c) the alliances may be the work of one or a few individuals who happen to be in positions of power at the critical time.

Modern European wars, especially the latest one, have been marked by the high quality of the combatants on both sides relative to the rest of the world. As these same races fight with pertinacity, there is a high mortality rate, so that the dysgenic result of these wars is particularly deplorable.

As for the selection taking place _within_ each of the struggling nations, the combatants and the non-combatants of the same age and s.e.x must first be compared. The difference here depends largely on how the army in question was raised. Where the army is a permanent, paid force, it probably does not represent a quality above the average of the nation, except physically. When it is conscripted, it is superior physically and probably slightly in other respects. If it is a volunteer army, its quality depends largely on whether the cause being fought for is one that appeals merely to the spirit of adventure or one that appeals to some moral principle. In the latter case, the quality may be such that the loss of a large part of the army will be peculiarly damaging to the progress of the race. This situation is more common than might be supposed, for by skillful diplomacy and journalism a cause which may be really questionable is presented to the public in a most idealistic light. But here, again, one can not always apply sweeping generalizations to individual cases. It might be supposed, for instance, that in the Confederate army the best eugenic quality was represented by the volunteers, the second best by those who stayed out until they were conscripted, and the poorest by the deserters. Yet David Starr Jordan and Harvey Ernest Jordan, who investigated the case with care, found that this was hardly true and that, due to the peculiar circ.u.mstances, the deserters were probably not as a cla.s.s eugenically inferior to the volunteers.[157] Again some wars, such as that between the United States and Spain, probably develop a volunteer army made up largely of the adventurous, the nomadic, and those who have fewer ties; it would be difficult to demonstrate that they are superior to those who, having settled positions at home, or family obligations, fail to volunteer. The greatest damage appears to be done in such wars as those waged by great European nations, where the whole able-bodied male population is called out, and only those left at home who are physically or mentally unfit for fighting--but not, it appears to be thought, unfit to perpetuate the race.

Even within the army of one side, lethal selection is operative. Those who are killed are by no means a haphazard sample of the whole army.

Among the victims there is a disproportionate representation of those with (1) dauntless bravery, (2) recklessness, (3) stupidity. These qualities merge into each other, yet in their extremes they are widely different. However, as the nature of warfare changes with the increase of artillery, mines, bombs, and gases, and decrease of personal combat, those who fall are more and more chance victims.

In addition to the killed and mortally wounded, there are many deaths from disease or from wounds which were not necessarily fatal. Probably the most selective of any of these three agencies is the variable resistance to disease and infection and the widely varying knowledge and appreciation of the need for hygienic living shown by the individual, as, for instance, by less reckless drinking of unsterilized water. But here, too, in modern warfare, this item is becoming less selective, with the advance in discipline and in organized sanitation.

The efficiency of selection will be affected by the percentage that each side has sent to the front, if the combatants are either above or below the average of the population. A nation that sends all its able-bodied males forward will be affected differently from its enemy that has needed to call upon only one-half of its able-bodied men in order to win its cause.

Away from the fighting lines of the contending sides, conditions that prevail are rendered more severe in many ways than in times of peace.

Poverty becomes rife, and sanitation and medical treatment are commonly sacrificed under the strain. During a war, that mitigation of the action of natural selection which is so common now among civilized nations, is somewhat less effective than in times of peace. The scourge of typhus in Serbia is a recent and graphic ill.u.s.tration.

After a war has been concluded, certain new agencies of inter-group selection arise. The result depends largely on whether the vanquished have had a superior culture brought to them, as in the case of the Philippines, or whether, on the contrary, certain diseases have been introduced, as to the natives of the New World by the Spanish conquerors and explorers, or crus.h.i.+ng tribute has been levied, or grievous oppression such as has befallen Belgium.

Sometimes the conquerors themselves have suffered severely as the result of excessive spoliation, which has produced vicious idleness and luxurious indulgence, with the ultimate effect of diminis.h.i.+ng the birth-rate.

Within the nation there may be various results. Sometimes, by the reduction of overcrowding, natural selection will be less severe. On the other hand, the loss of that part of the population which is more economically productive is a very serious loss, leading to excessive poverty with increased severity in the action of natural selection, of which some of the Southern States, during the Reconstruction period, offer a good ill.u.s.tration.

Selection is also rendered more intense by the heavy burden of taxation, and in the very common depreciation of currency as is now felt in Russia.

s.e.xual selection as well as lethal is affected by war in manifold ways.

Considering the armed force, there is an inter-group selection, when the enemy's women are a.s.saulted by the soldiers. While this has been an important factor in the past, it is somewhat less common now, with better army discipline and higher social ideals.

Within the group, mating at the outset of a war is greatly increased by many hurried marriages. There is also alleged to be sometimes an increase of illegitimacy in the neighborhood of training camps. In each of these instances, these matings do not represent as much maturity of judgment as there would have been in times of peace, and hence give a less desirable s.e.xual selection.

In the belligerent nation at home, the number of marriageable males is of course far less than at ordinary times. It becomes important, then, to compare the quality of the non-combatants and those combatants who survive and return home, since their absence during the war period of course decreases their reproduction as compared with the non-combatants.

The marked excess of women over men, both during the war and after, necessarily intensifies the selection of women and proportionately reduces that of men, since relatively fewer men will remain unmated.

This excess of women is found in all cla.s.ses. Among superiors there are, in addition, some women who never marry because the war has so reduced the number of suitors thought eligible.

The five years' war of Paraguay with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina (1864-1869) is perhaps the most glaring case on record[158] in recent years of the destruction of the male population of a country. Whole regiments were made up of boys of 16 or less. At the beginning of the war the population of Paraguay had been given as 1,337,437. It fell to 221,709 (28,746 men, 106,254 women, 86,079 children); it is even now probably not more than half of the estimate made at the beginning of the war. "Here in a small area has occurred a drastic case of racial ravage without parallel since the time of the Thirty Years' War." Macedonia, however, furnishes a fairly close parallel--D. S. Jordan found whole villages there in 1913 in which not a single man remained: only women and children. Conditions were not so very much better in parts of the South at the close of the Civil War, particularly in Virginia and North Carolina, where probably 40% of the young men of reproductive age died without issue. And in a few of the Northern states, such as Vermont, Connecticut and Ma.s.sachusetts, the loss was proportionately almost as great. These were probably as good men as any country has produced, and their loss, with that of their potential offspring, undoubtedly is causing more far-reaching effects in the subsequent history of the United States than has ever been realized.

In the past and still among many savage peoples, inter-group selection has been affected by the stealing of women from the vanquished. The effect of this has been very different, depending on whether these women would otherwise have been killed or spared, and also depending on the relative quality of their nation to that of their conquerors.

To sum up, there are so many features of natural selection, each of which must be separately weighed and the whole then balanced, that it is a matter of extensive inquiry to determine whether a certain war has a preponderance of eugenic or dysgenic results.

When the quality of the combatants is so high, compared with the rest of the world, as during the Great War, no conceivable eugenic gains from the war can offset the losses. It is probably well within the facts to a.s.sume that the period of this war represents a decline in inherent human quality, greater than in any similar length of time in the previous history of the world.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that war is becoming much less common if we consider number of combatants rather than number of wars as times goes on,[159] and it steadily tends to be more destructive. War, then, offers one of the greatest problems which the eugenist must face, for a few months of war may undo all that eugenic reforms can gain in a generation.

The total abolition of war would, of course, be the ideal, but there is no possibility of this in the near future. The fighting instinct, it must be remembered, is one of the most primitive and powerful that the human mechanism contains. It was evolved in great intensity, to give man supremacy over his environment--for the great "struggle for existence"

is with the environment, not with members of one's own species. Man long ago conquered the environment so successfully that he has never since had to exert himself in physical combat in this direction; but the fighting instinct remained and could not be baulked without causing uneasiness. Spurred on by a complex set of psychological and economic stimuli, man took to fighting his own kind, to a degree that no other species shows.

Now contrary to what the militarist philosophers affirm, this particular sort of "struggle for existence" is not a necessity to the further progressive evolution of the race. On the contrary it more frequently reverses evolution and makes the race go backward, rather than forward.

The struggle for existence which makes the race progress is princ.i.p.ally that of the species with its environment, not that of some members of the species with others. If the latter struggle could be supplanted by the former then racial evolution would go ahead steadily without the continuous reversals that warfare now gives.

William James saw, we believe, the true solution of the problem of militarism, when he wrote his famous essay on _The Moral Equivalent of War_. Here is man, full of fighting instinct which will not be baulked.

What is he to do? Professor James suggested that the youth of the nation be conscripted to fight the environment, thus getting the fight "out of its system" and rendering a real service to the race by constructive reclamation work, instead of slaying each other and thus turning the hands of the evolutionary clock backward.

When education has given everyone the evolutionary and eugenic view of man as a species adapted to his environment, it may be possible to work out some such solution as this of James. The only immediate course of action open seems to be to seek, if possible, to diminish the frequency of war by subduing nations which start wars and, by the organization of a League to Enforce Peace; to avoid war-provoking conquests; to diminish as much as possible the disastrous effects of war when it does come, and to work for the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge which will eventually make possible the greater step, effective international organization.

CHAPTER XVII

GENEALOGY AND EUGENICS

Scientific plant breeders to-day have learned that their success often depends on the care with which they study the genealogy of their plants.

Live-stock breeders admit that their profession is on a sure scientific basis only to the extent that the genealogy of the animals used is known.

Human genealogy is one of the oldest manifestations of man's intellectual activity, but until recently it has been subservient to sentimental purposes, or pursued from historical or legal motives.

Biology has had no place in it.

Genealogy, however, has not altogether escaped the re-examination which all sciences received after the Darwinian movement revolutionized modern thought. Numerous ways have been pointed out in which it could be brought into line with the new way of looking at man and his world. The field of genealogy has already been invaded at many points by biologists, seeking the furtherance of their own aims.

It will be worth while to discuss briefly the relations between the conventional genealogy and eugenics. It may be that genealogy could become an even more valuable branch of human knowledge than it now is, if it were more closely aligned with biology. In order to test this possibility, one must inquire:

(1) What is genealogy?

(2) What does it now attempt to do?

(3) What faults, from the eugenist's standpoint, seem to exist in present genealogical methods?

(4) What additions should be made to the present methods?