MIXED RACES. Racial amalgamation, or crossing of the races, which begun in prehis toric times, has been continued into our own era with ever-increasing speed and complicity of results. Broadly speaking, any two races can unite to form a third race. As the process of amalgamation has been going on for so many thousands of years, an exhaustive classi fication of the existing mixed races is impos sible. The types that stand out most promi nently are the mulatto, the cross between the white and the negro; the mestizo, the cross be tween a European and the American Indian; the Eurasian, or Anglo-Indians, the mixture of English and natives; and the complex mixture found in the East Indian Archipelago, in which Chinese and Malayan types predominate. The results of racial intermarriage have been ex ceedingly variable. Sometimes it has produced a better race. This is the case when the cross ing has been between different but closely allied stocks. The Englishman," writes Dr. J. G. Wilson, has resulted from the commin gling of so many Teutonic tribes with the native Briton and Celt and the composite molded and directed by Roman culture, is, perhaps, the very best example of a good result from extensive crossing. Likewise the cross which has taken place in Ecuador, Mexico and Peru has pro duced a race of great promise. It is not so much a question of the possibility of producing a vigorous cross race under favorable condi tions, as whether such a cross is, in itself, a desirable thing. The vital question is whether this inevitable amalgamation is worth the fos tering care and regulation of our government. The answer to this question depends altogether upon what will be the results of this immigrant blood upon our own individual selves and upon our social and political institutions. When we come to consider the question of the influence of racial amalgamation upon our habits of thought, upon our morals and upon our institu tions — upon our spiritual selves—we are con fronted with a much graver problem. History is replete with instances where nations have lost their own peculiar form of civilization and political institutions on account of overwhelm ing alien influences. That the influence of the alien in the United States is enormous, and that it is yearly becoming more and more important, is almost a self-evident proposition. Whatever the race of people from which the immigrant comes, the final result is not to be feared so long as he does not come in overwhelming numbers. If he trickles in slowly we shall take care of him. Let him be what he will, the amal gamation will finally be complete. On the other hand, if we continue to let him come in what is practically unlimited numbers, we can not take care of him. He will take care of us. We shall lose our inherited Anglo-Saxon ideals, and instead of a perfect amalgamation we shall confront the danger of a complete racial sub stitution." It has been the misfortune of white civilization in its contact with the colored races in America, Africa and Australasia that both its worst products and its least desirable repre sentatives were the ones first in the field. This
has been an important factor in shaping the early relations of the races. It is the rover, the outlaw and the irresponsible trader who come first, and it is too often the contraband goods of civilization that they carry. It has been the rougher type of white also who has intermar ried with native women and become the father of a hybrid progeny. There is a varying de gree of adaptability and fusing power among the different branches of the white race in their relations with backwarrd peoples. The Latin peoples in Europe have shown peculiar capacity for successful intermarriage with tropic races. Spaniards have crossed with fair success with both Indians and negroes in America and with Malays in the Philippines, as have the Portuguese with the two former types in Brazil. In the Spanish and French West Indies there is a greater proportion of mixed marriages than in the British West Indies and there are fewer evidences of social friction. Prejudice against the blacks is not confined to Europeans and Americans. The Chinese, the most cosmopolitan of peoples, sometimes ex hibit a striking aversion to taking black wives, but manifest no particular aversion to the na tive women of Java or Borneo. East Indian laborers imported into the British West Indies and the British Guiana have sometimes interbred with blacks; but in British Guiana they are generally said to despise the negroes. Prof. U. G. Weatherly writes: It is an unquestion able fact that the yellow, as well as the negroid peoples possess many desirable qualities in which the whites are deficient. From this it has been argued that it would be advantageous if all races were blended into a universal type embodying the excellencies of each. But sci entific breeders have long ago demonstrated that the most desirable results are secured by specializing types rather than by merging them.
The color line is evidence of an attempt, based on instinctive choice, to preserve those distinctive values which a racial group has come to regard• as of the highest moment to itself. Although sometimes based on a blind prejudice surviving from the primal instincts of periods of isolated savagery, it invariably has in it the core of a sound scientific truth, which is, that specialization is the law of effi ciency. The fact that it is always the lighter race that puts the taboo on the colored and that the latter is every where eager to mix with the whites, is only an evidence of the general trend of choice towards the higher efficiency of the white race." Consult Weale, B. L. Putnam, The Conflict of Color' (London 1910) ; Bryce, James, The Relations of the Advanced and Backward Races of Mankind> (Oxford 1902) ; Boas, Franz, (The Mind of Primitive Ma& (New York 1911); Popular Science Monthly (pp. 474-495, 1911).