ing, mannerisms, and conduct excite a feeling of strangeness or repulsion is in part no doubt the cause of the ill feeling toward his race as a whole. The modern negro, his ancestors still fresh in memory as slaves and menials, is the victim, by association and conditioning, of the slave psychology. The foreigner with the name suffixed with a ski, regardless of rank or attainment, in the general mind is regarded with distrust, largely because his name is conditioned by the misgivings produced by some first-generation countryman whose conduct has not conformed to the mode of American behavior-whose reactions themselves are conditioned to an alien culture. And how many are the unfortunates who are social outcasts because, holding what to them seem sound doctrines, they, by conditioning, are linked with what the popular mind calls "Red" or Bolshevik?

Thus, while kind may be in part a function of physical appearance, while it may be a function of similarity of interests, feelings, and the like still, by this process of reconditioning, even the person who bears characteristics of the self may yet, by a conditioned reaction, by means of which some trait or characteristic has been associated with some unpleasantness or idiosyncrasy, be conceived of not as of the kind, but as an outlander. The cultured, refined, blond, and regularly featured Jew or Jewess, even though once unknowingly accepted, is dropped, perhaps unconsciously, but generally nevertheless, from the Gentile's kind. The feeling against the more grating race-mate is carried over; the conditioned response has made former associates now of another kind, although in interests and appearance they are yet as one.

In summary, we may say that while all that Giddings has analyzed is true, there is this additional factor operating much of the time in determining the characteristics of the kind. Here we have one of the elements underlying the choice of kind-mates, and one of the important factors behind the "laws of social choice," the determination of which, according to Giddings, is one of the sociologists' main quests. The transfer of emotions and the

1 Principles, pp. 76, 404 ff. Giddings himself appreciates thoroughly the importance of the conditioned response in human mental life, but he has not in his writing made the direct application of this mechanism to his own concept of consciousness of kind, as the writers have tried to do. Cf. Studies in the Theory of Human Society, p. 155.

conditioning of emotions in many cases are seen as important factors in explaining what constitutes or determines those who are to be regarded as group mates. The conditioned response is, further, often the bond uniting emotional response with physical types; it is frequently the cause of the subtleties underlying the instability of kind on its subjective side-subtleties which Giddings himself recognized. The conditioned response, then, must be taken into consideration in all discussion which turns upon the consciousness of kind, and in all discussion which is based upon a subjective approach to the analysis of human group life.

STATISTICS AND THE IMMIGRATION PROBLEM

JOSEPH M. GILLMAN

School of Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh

ABSTRACT

From a survey of the comparative extent of social inadequacy among the various races and nationalities in the United States which Dr. H. H. Laughlin prepared for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, he concluded that "the recent immigrants present a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities than do the older stocks." An examination of his data and methods of analysis proves this conclusion to be unfounded. (1) His data are incomplete and statistically biased, as proved by the relatively large probable errors of the samples chosen. (2) The "quotas" for the various races and nationalities are derived without proper regard for the homogeneity of the facts compared. (3) The statistics disclose larger differential ratios between the older immigrant stocks and the natives than between the recent and older immigrant stocks. (4) Quotas for recent immigrant stocks are actually lower than the quotas for the older stocks, native and immigrant, in seven out of the nine inadequacies studied. (5) Finally, tests by the methods of correlation not only further prove the unreliability of Dr. Laughlin's data, they also remove any possible support for his assumption that social inadequacies are racially inborn values.

On November 21, 1922, Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, staff member of the Eugenics Record Office of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., and "expert eugenics agent" of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the House of Representatives, appeared before that committee with the results of a study which he had made on the "individual physical, mental and moral quality, and more particularly the potentiality of the immigrant as a parent of desirable Americans of the future.”

As a basis for this study he had taken "the occurrence of the degree of specific degeneracy within the several nativity and racial groups of the United States" as revealed by an enumeration "of the inmates of the custodial institutions of the several states and of the Federal Government." Ten such degeneracies, or "social inadequacies," were subjected to this analysis, as follows: (1) Feeble-mindedness; (2) insanity; (3) crime; (4) epilepsy; (5) inebriety (including drug habitués); (6) disease (including tuberculosis,

'Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 67th Congress, Third Session, November 21, 1922, p. 729. The Report, as Serial 7-C, was released by the Superintendent of Documents in July, 1923.

syphilis, leprosy, and other chronic infections and legally separable diseases); (7) blindness; (8) deafness; (9) deformity (including cripples and ruptured); and (10) dependents (including orphans, ne'er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and paupers).1

In this investigation Dr. Laughlin claims to have found "a measure of degeneracy which characterizes the several nativity groups of the United States." "The differences in institutional ratios, by races and nativity groups, found by these studies," he asserts, "represent real differences in social values, which represent, in turn, real differences in inborn values of the family stocks from which the particular inmates have sprung. These degeneracies and hereditary handicaps are inherent in the blood." He further asserts that "making all logical allowances for environmental conditions, which may be unfavorable to the immigrant, the recent immigrants, as a whole, present a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities than do the older stocks."4 (5) It goes without saying, therefore, that not the adequacy of the individual, but that of his family, race, or nationality becomes the test of his admissibility into the United States.s

Now, these conclusions are of serious import not alone to the theoretical eugenist and sociologist. They are of immediate and practical value to the statesman. It is upon such evidence, for instance, that rests the major part of the argument for changing the base year of our percentum immigration law from 1910 to 1890. Greater assurance of their validity might, therefore, be asked for than the mere testimony of the chairman of the committee that he had examined Dr. Laughlin's "data and charts" and had found them "both biologically and statistically thorough, and apparently sound." In fact, even a casual perusal of the "Hearings" will raise several serious doubts. For instance, as a biologist, does Dr. Laughlin really care to go on record as claiming that deformity can be proven a race characteristic and racially heritable? Or that the state of being an orphan is hereditary?

1 P. 730.

P. 733

3 P. 752.

4 P. 755

5 P. 748.

'P. 731. The chairman, Mr. Johnson, is president of the Eugenics Research Association.

But it is not necessary at this point to enter upon a detailed analysis of Dr. Laughlin's biological assumptions. Of these we will speak later. Here it should be noted that primarily Dr. Laughlin's is a statistical study. It is a study of "data and charts." And when examined in the light of elementary principles of statistics it is found that he had built upon three very doubtful premises; namely,

I. That an enumeration of these institutions, and particularly the enumeration as conducted by himself, sufficiently reveals the proportionate occurrence of these inadequacies among the various race and nativity groups.

II. That the data as gathered disclose significant differential occurrences among the various races and nationalities.

III. That the mere occurrence of an inadequacy within a group of individuals of a given race or nativity is a valid proof of the existence of susceptibilities toward the inadequacy as an inborn racial quality-Dr. Laughlin's fundamental biological assumption.

I

A. Sufficient ground exists to doubt that "a statistical survey of the race or nationality. . . . of the inmates of the custodial institutions of the several States and of the Federal Government" "most accurately and profitably" reveals the "occurrence of the degree of specific degeneracy within the several nativity and racial groups of the United States." For instance, Dr. Laughlin himself admits "that only about 5 per cent of the feeble-minded persons needing custodial care are actually receiving it from their respective states. The rest remain in the care of their own families. . . . Obviously, those families which by virtue of their better economic status can take care of their feeble-minded at home will be most inadequately represented in the statistics of the institutions for the feeble-minded. Without seeking further proof, it may be confidently asserted that these would generally be the families of the older American and earlier immigrant stocks, who in the course of a longer sojourn in this country, have established themselves in economic competence. Conversely, poorer families, economically