The task of eugenics is by no means
what it is sometimes supposed to be: to breed a superior caste. But a
very important part of its task is certainly to increase the number of
leaders in the race. And it is this part of its task, in particular,
which is menaced by the declining birth-rate in the United States.
As every one knows, race suicide is proceeding more rapidly among the
native whites than among any other large section of the population; and
it is exactly this part of the population which has in the past
furnished most of the eminent men of the country.
It has been shown in previous chapters that eminent men do not appear
wholly by chance in the population. The production of eminence is
largely a family affair; and in America, "the land of opportunity" as
well as in older countries, people of eminence are much more
interrelated than chance would allow. It has been shown, indeed, that in
America it is at least a 500 to 1 bet that an eminent person will be
rather closely related to some other eminent person, and will not be a
sporadic appearance in the population.[118]
Taken with other considerations advanced in earlier chapters, this means
that a falling off in the reproduction of the old American best strains
means a falling off in the number of eminent men which the United States
will produce.
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