It has been unbearably hot over here in STL. Temperatures in the 100s with heat indexes that much higher. My brain feels like that anti-drug use commercial. Eggs, hot pan, and "this is your brain on drugs" as the eggs sizzle away. There is so much work to be done, but I have been beyond lethargic. Plus, when your work consists of reading and writing, you want to leave the house and go for a walk, for example, to get away from the page. Not possible at this juncture. Even Grover gets out of breath walking round the block.
Heat puts in mind the "emotional races" of my previous post on immigration and I found yet another volume in which the authors expound on the dangers posed by the lesser races of Eastern and Southern Europe. In a chapter titled "The Immigration Problem: ITS PRESENT STATUS AND ITS RELATION TO THE AMERICAN RACE OF THE FUTURE" by Robert DeC. Ward published in the 1904 volume of The Survey (by Edward Thomas Devine and Paul Underwood Kellogg who were "Survey Associates, Charity Organization Society of the City of New York"), Ward writes: "The question before us is, therefore, a race question. Slav, Italian, Jew, not discouraged by the problem of maintaining high standards of living with many children, are replacing native Americans. ... There can, then, be absolutely no doubt that the recent change in the races of our immigrants will profoundly affect the character of the future American race." How so, you may well ask. According to Ward, it's a mixed bag and we should stick to our known superiority rather than risk tarnishing Anglo-American perfection:
The increasing proportion of Alpine and of Mediterranean blood will "soften the emotional nature, but it will quicken the poetic and artistic nature. We shall be a more versatile, a more plastic people, gentler in our thoughts and feelings because of the Alpine strain; livelier and brighter, with a higher power to enjoy the beautiful things of life," because of the Latin blood. "We may doubtless learn courtesy from many an Italian; virtue from many a Slav; family loyalty from many a Jew; the beauty and the refining influence of music from many a Hungarian." Turning to the physical side it is clear that the average stature will be reduced and that the skull will become broader and shorter. He would, indeed, be a hopeless pessimist who should maintain that this racial change will have naught but undesirable effects, mental and physical, upon the future American race. We probably need less nervous energy and push; we shall undoubtedly benefit by a quickening of our artistic and poetic nature; we shall probably not be injured by an infusion of some of the "conservative and contemplative stock which comes from eastern Europe." The good qualities of the new races we may need; their defects we should be willing to do without. Yet, when all is said regarding the benefits which we may, or even must, derive from these new elements in the blood of our race, are we not, as it were, giving away to the philosophy of despair? Are we not, most of us, fairly well satisfied with the characteristics, mental and physical, of the old American stock? Do we not love American traits as they are? May we not be rather reckless in assuming that everything will settle itself for the best? It may be that the American race of the future is to be a far better race in every respect than the old one. But we should remember that, as it has been put by a recent writer, "in forming a race of unknown value, there is being sacrificed a race of acknowledged superiority in originality and enterprise."
Way to deliver a backhanded compliment! Why should we pay for poetry, music, or family (stereotypes all) with shorter statures and smaller brains when we are so perfect already?
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