CHAPTER I -- RACIAL REALITIES IN EUROPE

NOT long ago a well-known  British scientist was showing 
me his collection of Egyptian antiquities.   Up and down 
the long museum hall we strolled, gazing at the innumer-
able relics of a remote past. Safely ensconced in glass- 
covered cases,  these exiles from the sunny  land of the 
Pharaohs looked strangely  alien in the  gray light of a 
London afternoon. Presently the scientist halted before a 
show-case.
    "Here," said he, tapping the glass with his forefinger 
-- "here is something which to a student of racial matters 
like yourself will be of peculiar interest."
     I looked.  The case was filled with little heads and
busts made of burnt clay, or terra-cotta. There were more
than a hundred of them, neatly arranged in long rows.
    "These little busts," went on the scientist, "were made
to represent the different types of foreigners residing in
the city of Memphis shortly after the Persian conquest of
Egypt, about 2,500 years ago.  Apparently made for the
purpose of being carried in some sacred procession, they
were deposited in a shrine which was recently discovered 
by our excavators."

                          
                          

    I looked closer -- and was filled with astonishment. 
Those ancient busts, modelled after men in their graves 
these 2,500 years, were strangely familiar.  Many of 
them looked exactly like men who walk the earth to-day. 
There were Arabs not at all different from the Arabs whom 
I had seen sitting beneath their black Bedouin tents or
swaying upon camels crossing the desert sands.
    There were Armenians indistinguishable from Armenians
whom I had viewed by thousands in refugee camps throughout 
the Near East.  There were negroes just like Georgia 
cotton-pickers, and there was a Jew who might have stepped 
in off Broadway.
    Furthermore, there were busts representing historic 
racial types such as Greeks, Persians, and Babylonians -- 
races which no longer exist, yet whose appearance is known
to us from statuary and kindred relics come down to us from 
ancient times. Those old Greeks and Persians depicted in the 
busts were instantly recognizable as the same breeds of men 
sculptured on the friezes of the Athenian Parthenon and on 
the bas-reliefs of Persia's ruined capital, Persepolis. On 
the contrary, the busts did not in the least resemble
modern Greeks and Persians -- peoples which, though bearing 
the same names, have practically none of the ancient blood.
    Lastly, there were a few busts depicting racial types which 
have perished without leaving even a historic memory, so that 
to-day we have no idea of who they were or whence they came.
    To my mind that series of little heads and busts, fashioned
by the deft fingers of old Egyptian craftsmen, is a most 
striking illustration of the mighty drama of man's

 
                          

racial life athwart the ages. Just think of it! Here we 
have a series of statuettes showing the various types of
foreigners who walked the streets of an ancient Egyptian
city.  Pass 2,500 years, and what do we find?  We find 
that some of those race types still survive relatively 
unchanged; that others have perished, leaving their names 
but not their blood; and that still others have vanished 
so utterly that not even a memory of them remains.
    And all this in 2,500 years! What rapid changes!  Does
that last remark sound strange?  Let us, then, remember that
man has probably existed for something like 500,000 years.
Comparing man's race life with man's individual life, what
signifies a couple of thousand years?
    Yes, for 500,000 years men have walked the earth -- men
of all sorts and conditions, of the most varied appearance
and capacity. And for untold ages men have been divided into
sharply marked races, ranging all the way from types so
primitive that they looked like apes up to types such as the
ancient Greeks, who were certainly handsomer and probably
much more intelligent than any human stock now alive.  And
the great drama of man's race life still unfolds, never more
intensely than to-day.
    More and more we are coming to realize the fundamental
importance of race in human affairs. More and more we see
that the racial factor lies behind most of the world's
problems. This is not solely an academic matter to be left
for the consideration of scientists and historians; on the
contrary, it is about the livest, most practical subject
that can engage the attention of thinking


                          

men and women to-day.  A general understanding of racial
matters is necessary for an intelligent appreciation of
current events.
   Would you understand what is happening in the world, why
nations act as they do, what their relations are to America,
and what our policy should be toward them?  You cannot fully
understand these things unless you have some general idea of
the racial factors involved.  And, unless you thus understand, 
you cannot act so successfully and efficiently in your own 
every-day activities, whether you be banker, manufacturer, 
politician, farmer, professional man or wage-earner. Directly 
or indirectly, these things touch us one and all, both in our 
common capacity as citizens and in our private capacity as 
individuals.
    Especially do we need to regard the racial factor when
considering Europe, because hitherto in considering European
affairs that factor has been disregarded.  When we look at
other parts of the world, racial distinctions leap to the
eye and the racial factor obtains proper recognition. Who
can think of China, India, Mexico, Africa, without instantly
sensing the significance of race?  When we turn to Europe,
however, we do not at first glance get any such clear-cut
impression.  Of course we may realize in a general way that
inborn distinctions exist between the inhabitants of various
European countries, that Swedes differ markedly from
Spaniards, say, or Russians from Englishmen.  Still, even
then, we are apt to think of such differences not so much in
terms of race as in terms of other things, like nationality,
language, religion, and culture. We look at the political
map of Europe


                           

and there find a continent divided into a number of national
states with sharply defined political frontiers, jealously
independent of one another, emphasizing their respective
policies, languages, manners, and customs.  We see them
engaged in bitter rivalries and fighting bloody wars over
just such things.  What wonder if we come to feel that those
are the things which really matter, that by comparison other
elements in Europe's problems may be relatively disregarded?
    And yet, is this true? Are there not other factors, deep-
seated but powerful, working behind the scenes?  Assuredly
there is one such -- race.  The discoveries of modem science
reveal more and more clearly the fundamental importance of
race in human affairs.  Of course there are other basic
factors to be considered, like climate and soil.  Yet even
these are not so universal in their effects as race, which
subtly but inevitably influences every phase of human
existence.
    Whoever begins looking at Europe from the racial angle
is astonished at the new light thrown upon its problems, at
the apparent mysteries that are explained, at the former
riddles that are solved.  Europe's seemingly tangled history
grows much simpler, while present-day conditions become more
understandable.
    Look at a race map of Europe.  How it differs from the
political maps we are accustomed to see! Gone are all those
intricate national frontiers.  Instead of a Europe split into
many states, we see a Europe inhabited by three races.  These
races are known as the Nordic race, the Alpine race, and the
Mediterranean race.  They have all been in Europe for 
thousands of years, and to them 


                          

the great bulk of Europe's present inhabitants belong. Only
in Eastern Europe do we find a perceptible admixture of
Asiatic elements, while in Southern Europe we discover
certain infusions of negroid African blood. Both these alien
elements have, however, entered Europe in relatively recent
historic times.
    Roughly speaking, the European races spread horizontally
in three broad bands across the European continent. To the
north lie the Nordics, centring about the Baltic Sea and
stretching from the British Isles to Western Russia. To the
south lie the Mediterraneans, centring about the 
Mediterranean Sea as the Nordics do about the Baltic.
Between the Nordics and Mediterraneans thrusts the Alpine
race, stretching from Russia and the Near East clear across
mid-Europe until its outposts reach the Atlantic Ocean in
Western France and Northern Spain.
    These three races differ markedly from one another, not
merely in physical appearance but also in intellectual and
emotional qualities.  Although they have been in Europe for
thousands of years, have been in constant contact with one
another, and have widely intermarried, they have never
really fused and remain essentially distinct to-day.  Right
here we must emphasize the basic quality of race -- its
great persistence. Although the European races are
unquestionably closer to one another in origin than they are
to more remote human stocks like the yellow Mongolians of
Eastern Asia or the African negroes, they nevertheless
separated ages ago, and for ages thereafter remained
separate.  During that immense period of isolation they
developed their racial individualities

 
                           

so that when they met again in Europe they were clearly 
distinct both in physique and in character.
    A glance is enough to distinguish full-blooded
representatives of these European races. The true Nordic is
tall and blond, with a long head, blue or gray eyes, and a
fair skin.  The true Mediterranean is short-statured,
slenderly built, long-headed like the Nordic, but dark-
complexioned, with black hair and eyes and a skin inclined
to be more or less swarthy. The pure-blooded Alpine is also
dark-complexioned, but differs from both the other races in
being round-skulled.  Of medium height, the Alpine is of a
distinctly heavy build, bones and muscles being alike
stockier and less gracefully proportioned than either the
tall Nord or the slight Mediterranean.  To visualize these
race types, call to mind a typical Scandinavian for the
Nordic, a Southern Italian or Spaniard for the
Mediterranean, and an average peasant from Central or
Eastern Europe for the Alpine. The illustrations speak for
themselves.
    Few things are more interesting and enlightening than a
study of the movements of these races since their emergence
upon the European scene long before the dawn of history,
many thousands of years ago.  The vast migrations, the
brilliant conquests, the striking shifts of fortune from age
to age, reveal a mighty drama of which the recent war was
only a latest episode.  For let us always remember that the
play still goes on, with the actors much the same as they
were in ancient times.
    This is a fact of the greatest practical importance,
because these races differ not merely in outward appearance
but also in mind and in temperament.  Thus the relative


                           

strength and importance of the different racial elements in
a nation will largely determine every phase of that nation's
life, from its manners, customs, and ideals to its
government and its relations with other nations.
Furthermore, knowledge of its racial make-up will enable us
to understand many of the changes in a nation's past and
also to get a clearer idea of present tendencies, because we
must not forget that, though races themselves change very
slowly, the ratio between the racial elements in a nation is
constantly changing.  This occurs not only where the racial
elements live distinct from one another; it is true even
where extensive intermarriage has taken place.  Racial
characteristics are about the most persistent things that we
know of.  Developed and set by ages of isolation and
inbreeding, they do not fuse when crossed with other
characteristics of a different nature. On the contrary, they
remain distinct in the mixed offspring, and the descendants
of such mixed marriages tend to sort themselves out as
belonging predominantly to one or other of the original
types, in accordance with the hereditary laws applying to
their particular cases.
    Europe is a striking example of the persistence of race,
because the three great European stocks all belong to the
same main branch of the human species.  They are all white
men and, however remote their common origin may have been,
they are more closely related to one another than they are
to more distant branches of mankind like the yellow races of
Eastern Asia or the black races of Africa.  And yet during
the long ages of their separation from their original source
they so far diverged in type that when they met again in
Europe they did so as


                          

true races distinct from one another, and thousands of years
of contact have not sufficed to fuse them again.  On the
contrary, even in those regions where racial mixture has
been most prolonged and general we find populations not
fused into new intermediate varieties with harmonious,
stably blended qualities but composed of obviously mixed
individuals most of whom can be classified as belonging
mainly to one or other of the ancestral types.
    Furthermore, in those parts of Europe where race mixture
has not been general or recent, we find the inhabitants to
be mostly of almost pure racial stock.  This illustrates
another law of races -- the tendency to breed out alien
strains when these are not too numerous, so that such
strains ultimately vanish and never reappear in the stock.
The racial persistence displayed by a long-settled, well-
acclimated population of homogeneous stock is truly
extraordinary. This may occur even with small communities,
as shown by the so-called racial islets not infrequently
found in various parts of Europe.  In such cases small
communities belonging to one stock have retained their
racial identity for many generations, although surrounded by
people of another stock.
    A striking illustration of this is the racial islets to
be found in Norway.  The bulk of the Norwegian people are
pure Nordics -- tall, blond, long-skulled, and fair-skinned.
Yet here and there, in out-of-the-way nooks of the Norwegian
coast, are found communities most of whose inhabitants are
relatively short, dark, and roundskulled.  These people are
obviously Alpines, and they have been clearly identified as
the descendants of Alpines who settled along the coasts of
Norway thousands of


                           

years ago.  Yet these people to-day still differ not only
physically but also intellectually and temperamentally from
the rest of the population.  This is so evident that they
have always been looked upon as different, almost alien, by
their Nordic neighbors.
    This illustration shows why the racial make-up of a
nation is not merely of scientific interest but also of
great practical importance; because, as already stated,
races differ from one another as much mentally and
temperamentally as they do physically, and because such
mental and temperamental differences are precisely the
factors which in great part determine national development.
Thus, in order to understand a nation, we must find out its
racial make-up.  Lastly, we must remember that, except in a
few cases where a people springs from only one race, the
racial make-up of a people is not a fixed quantity but a
highly unstable ratio, which is always changing and which
may change very rapidly as one racial element is favored or
penalized by a variety of circumstances like wars,
revolutions, emigration, immigration, or social changes such
as the growth of city life and the factory system.
    Bearing these things in mind, let us see what are the
broad mental and temperamental characteristics of the three
European races.  We have already observed their general
physical appearance.  Now let us examine their inner 
qualities.
    The Mediterranean race is a distinctly southern type.
Probably originating in South Central Asia, it entered
Europe by way of the Mediterranean basin, which has ever
since remained the centre of the race.  The Mediterraneans


                          

dislike extreme cold and high mountains, and tend to keep 
fairly close to the sea.  Their most northerly extension 
was through France to the British Isles, which they settled 
many thousand years ago and where they still form the bulk 
of the population in Ireland, Wales, and some parts of 
Scotland.  It is to be remembered, however, that the British 
Isles have a climate much milder than most countries of the 
same latitude.
    The Mediterranean temperament is emotional, often to a
high degree.  Passionate, excitable, loving and hating
intensely, yet inclined to fickle changes, the Mediterranean
is prone to lack stability and tenacity.  He is social, yet
individualistic within his group. Neither in politics nor in
war has he a high sense of discipline.  This, combined with
his want of tenacity, has made him relatively weak in the
competition of races.  Mediterraneans have usually gone down
before the attacks of both Nordics and Alpines, so that many
parts of Europe once held by Mediterraneans are to-day
inhabited by Nordic or Alpine stocks.  Mediterraneans have
rarely succeeded in founding strong, enduring governments.
    Strong magnetic leaders can do great things with them,
but the personal element is necessary, and naturally either
dies with the leader or shifts to some other strong
personality that captivates the fickle multitude.
    The most attractive and certainly the most valuable
traits of the Mediterranean stock are its artistic gifts -- 
its keen sense of beauty, form, and color; its love of music,
poetry, and other arts; and its general joy of life.  The
Mediterranean intellect is usually quick and often
brilliant, though apt to be superficial.  The race has, 


                           

however, produced many men of high intellectual quality,
particularly in the past. Unfortunately, some branches of
the stock are racially impaired and impoverished to-day,
both by a breeding out of the most intelligent strains and
by the admixture of vast numbers of nondescript, inferior
Asiatic and African elements. This is clearly the case with
the populations of Southern Italy and Portugal.  Matters are
even worse in parts of the Near East, inhabited in ancient
times by Mediterranean stocks who built up brilliant
civilizations, but to-day inhabited by mongrel populations
of a very poor quality.
    The Alpine race originated on the high plateaus of West
Central Asia, and it has never lost the imprint of its
ancestral home.  It is emphatically a continental stock,
taking naturally to highlands or to inland plains and
showing little liking for the sea.  The Alpines are a
sturdy, tenacious race, very stable, but apt to be stolid
and unimaginative. T hey have a strong sense of group
solidarity, stick together, cling to the land wherever they
settle, and when they do migrate move in groups.  This is
the secret of their successful expansion in Europe.  The
Alpines are not individually so warlike as the Mediterraneans 
and are far less warlike than the Nordics.  Their advances 
have usually been slow and their conquests seldom either 
rapid or spectacular.  Nevertheless, these advances, once 
made, have rarely been lost, at least in the racial sense.  
The great Alpine advances have been like glaciers, in solid 
masses, expelling or overwhelming the peoples they 
encountered and thoroughly settling the new territories.  
Mediterraneans have seemed


                           

unable to resist these mass advances. Accordingly, regions
like Central France and Northern Italy, once Mediterranean
lands, are to-day mainly Alpine in race.  Furthermore,
Mediterraneans have seldom subdued Alpine peoples and
imposed themselves as conquerors.  For these reasons there
has been comparatively little mixture between the two races.
    Far different have been the relations between the Alpine
and Nordic races.  Ever since the dawn of history the
restless, energetic Nordics have been coming down upon the
Alpines, overwhelming their territories and setting
themselves up as masters.  Wherever the odds have not been
too great the Nordics have usually won the batties. Yet the
fact remains that, racially speaking, the Alpines have not
only held their own but have actually gained ground at the
Nordics' expense.  Both in Eastern and in Central Europe
many regions once racially Nordic are to-day inhabited by
predominantly Alpine populations.
    This seeming paradox is explained by the Alpine
qualities of tenacity, instinctive solidarity, and dogged
endurance.  Their very passiveness has helped to give them
the ultimate victory.  The Nordic might conquer them and set
himself up as master.  The Alpines might submit, become his
loyal subjects, even accept his language and culture.
Outwardly the land might be Nordicized.  But racially it
would mean merely a Nordic aristocracy laid like a thin top
dressing on a solid Alpine soil. The Alpines would cling to
the land, stick together, and gradually absorb their
conquerors.  Ultimately the region would be once more
inhabited by an almost wholly Alpine


                          

population, perhaps showing some Nordic traits that
would be slowly bred out of the stock.
    On the other hand, where Alpines have peopled regions
once racially Nordic, they have usually done so not by
sudden conquest but by gradual infiltration.  Often such
regions were temporarily underpopulated, the Nordic
inhabitants having been thinned by war or drained off by
migration.  Once in, however, the Alpines would take firm
root.  Perhaps the Nordics might conquer them and the
Alpines cease to be independent political groups.  Yet
racially they could survive and prosper.
    Germany is a striking example of all this.  Down to the
fall of the Roman Empire, Germany was almost wholly a Nordic
land.  To-day it is mainly Alpine in race.  Only in
Northwestern Germany is the population still predominantly
Nordic in blood.  This change has come about through a long
series of wars, migrations, and other conditions that have
favored the Alpines at the Nordics' expense.  It has also
profoundly changed the character of the German people.
Compare the solid, well-disciplined, docile German masses of
to-day with the restless, fiercely individualistic Teutonic
tribes that surged across the Roman world and turned Britain
into a Nordic Anglo-Saxon land!
    The attitude of the present German people illustrates a
trait characteristic of Alpines generally -- the tendency to
accept the rule of masterful minorities.  Left to themselves, 
Alpines rarely build strong, enduring states, at least of 
any considerable size.  Whether this is due to lack of 
initiative and imagination, or to still other defects, it
is undoubtedly the case.  The Alpine manages 


                          

his local affairs well enough.  With his strong group
feeling, he evolves village and regional organizations that
work smoothly. But beyond that his political sense falters.
The Alpines thus tend to form small political units, which
unite with difficulty and are more likely to be at odds with
one another. This is one of the chief reasons why the Balkan
peoples, who are of course mainly Alpines, are always
quarrelling and fighting among themselves.
    On the other hand, where Alpines are under the guidance
of strong masters they can be disciplined into powerful
states. Russia is a notable example. The early Russians, who
like the other Slav tribes, were practically pure-blooded
Alpines, were divided into many groups at chronic odds with
one another and thus an easy prey to their neighbors.  So
intolerable did this situation become that they actually
invited in foreign rulers, sending the following message to
some Nordic Scandinavian chiefs:
    "Our land is great and has everything in abundance, but
it lacks order and justice. Come and take possession and
rule over us."
    The Scandinavians came, established a strong government,
and laid the foundations of the mighty Russian Empire. From
that day to this Russia has been ruled mainly by persons of
non-Alpine blood.  The present Bolshevik government is no
exception to the rule.  Very few of its members spring from
the Alpine peasant masses.
    "Peasant" is in fact the term which best describes the
typical Alpine. Whether in France, South Germany, Poland or
Russia, the type is fundamentally the same. On the contrary,
there are no such peasant masses in 


                          

Scandinavia or the British Isles.  Why?  Because there is no
Alpine blood. Scandinavia is almost purely Nordic, and the
British Isles are either Nordic or Mediterranean in race.
The total absence of Alpine blood in the British Isles is
undoubtedly one of the chief reasons for the high qualities
of its inhabitants.
    For despite the Alpine's many solid virtues, it seems to
be the least gifted of the three European stocks.  Its type,
as already stated, is the peasant.  In cities the Alpine
tends to be lower middle class -- what the French call petit
bourgeois.  The effect of Alpine blood upon a nation, though
steadying, is also levelling, if not depressing.  Compared
with either Nordics or Mediterraneans, the Alpine is a
passive element.  The Alpine race has contributed little
that is truly great to politics, art or ideas.  Yet its
tenacity, endurance, and vitality favor its steady growth,
and wherever it has a foothold it appears to be increasing
at the expense of the Nordic and Mediterranean elements.
    Let us now consider the third great European stock-the
Nordic race.  The Nordics seem to have originated in
Northeastern Europe, though the shores of the Baltic Sea
have been the racial centre since very early times.
    They are a distinctly northern stock, inured to cold and
storm; but they do not thrive in hot, sunny southlands.
They also seem to take naturally to the sea.
    The outstanding characteristic of the Nordic race is its
restless creative energy.  In this peculiar quality it
surpasses not only the other European stocks but also all
the other branches of mankind.  The Nordics are assuredly
the most masterful breed that the world has


                          

ever seen.  For thousands of years they have poured forth
from their northland homes in conquering waves over Europe
and many parts of Asia as well.  The Aryan invaders of India
were Nordics; so were the ancient Persians; while the Greeks
and Romans of classic times contained much Nordic blood, at
least among the ruling classes.
     Always and everywhere the Nordics have been a race of
warriors, sailors, pioneers, and explorers.  Unlike the
Alpines, with their slow mass migrations and peaceful
penetration, the Nordics have ranged far and wide, often in
small numbers, but winning their way by their fierce energy
and great fighting power.  Conquering peoples sometimes
vastly superior in numbers, the Nordics have settled down as
an aristocratic ruling class, and they have usually known
how to perpetuate their rule because of their high political
ability.  Political ability is one of the Nordics' chief
gifts, which they display both in ruling others and in
ruling themselves.
    The Nordic is at once democratic and aristocratic.
Among his own kind he is democratic.  Profoundly
individualistic and touchy about his personal rights,
neither he nor his fellows will tolerate tyranny.   None of
the primitive Nordic tribes had despotic rulers, while modern
constitutional government was developed by the Nordic
English and has not been really successful except among
peoples with a strong strain of Nordic blood.
    Where the Nordic establishes himself among other races
he is instinctively aristocratic.  Feeling himself the ruler
and the superior, he prides himself on his race and seeks to
guard the purity of his blood.  Throughout Europe


                           

to-day the old aristocratic class tends to be of Nordic
origin.  Even in countries where the Nordic element has been
mainly bred out of the population what little Nordic blood
remains is found chiefly concentrated in the old upper-class
families.
     Nothing better illustrates the persistence of race
qualities than the way in which Nordics have everywhere
shown the same striking traits.  From the dawn of history to
the present day they have acted very much the same.  Look at
the Nordic Aryan invaders of India as described in the old
Sanscrit scriptures!  Those first Nordics to appear upon the
stage of history entered India nearly 4000 years ago.  Yet
the family likeness is unmistakable.  Tall, fair; hard
fighting, yet jovial; loving good food, drink, fresh air,
and exercise; chivalrous toward their women; despising the
little dark negroid aborigines as monkeys, and setting up a
rigid color line -- how like our Anglo-Saxon pioneers!
    This description of the ancient Aryans shows us merely
one of the many Nordic stocks that have racially perished.
For not only in Asia but also in Southern and Eastern
Europe, Nordic elements, once numerous and powerful, have
either entirely disappeared or to-day survive as mere
lingering traces with scant significance in the national
life of the countries where they are found.  Only where
Nordics have thoroughly occupied a country, expelling or
overwhelming the previous inhabitants, has the racial
conquest been promanent.  The best European examples of this
are England and Scotland.  The Anglo-Saxon invaders turned
both countries into Nordic lands, the former Mediterranean
population almost disappearing


                          

In Wales and Ireland, on the contrary, the Nordics never 
became more than a conquering aristocracy, so that in those 
countries the old Mediterranean element still forms the 
mass of the population.
    The greatest expansion of the Nordic race has in fact
occurred outside Europe -- in the United States, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand.  Here the few aborigines of very
primitive types were quickly eliminated and populations of
practically pure Nordic type were established, since the
pioneering settlers were overwhelmingly of Nordie stock.
The only exception was the settlers of French Canada, who
were mainly Alpine in race. Whether these Nordic conquests
will be racially permanent is of course impossible to say.
In the United States especially, recent immigration has
brought in floods of Alpine and Mediterranean blood, and
unless immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe is
restricted and kept restricted the racial character of the
American people will be rapidly and radically altered.  In
Canada the French element is showing the usual Alpine
characteristics -- clinging to the soil, sticking together,
and slowly but surely enlarging its racial area.  However,
in all these lands the Nordic dement still forms the bulk of
the population and can, if it so elects, secure its racial
future.
    On the continent of Europe Nordic race prospects are not
so bright.  Everywhere save in Scandinavia -- where it forms
virtually the entire population -- the Nordic element seems
to be rapidly on the wane.  Old handicaps, like war and
migration, which have penalized the race in the past have
been supplemented by new handicaps, like industrialism and
city life, the upshot being a steady decline 


                          

of the Nordics in favor of the Alpine and Mediterranean 
elements.
      It is really startling when one looks back into
history and sees how the Nordics have diminished racially in
Europe during the past 1000 years.  Their heyday was the
fall of the Roman Empire.  At that time and for centuries
thereafter, both Western and Central Europe were strongly
Nordic.  The Alpine and Mediterranean elements were either
reduced to serfdom or driven into the more mountainous and
infertile regions.
     Since then, however, the tide has been running the
other way.  War has been a terrible scourge to the Nordic
race. In the numberless wars that have raged in Europe the
Nordics have done most of the fighting and suffered most of
the losses, while the age of discovery and colonization that
began with Columbus still further thinned their ranks in
Europe, since it was adventurous Nordics who formed the
overwhelming majority of explorers and pioneers to new
lands.  Perhaps even more serious blows have been dealt the
race by the conditions of modem life.
    A century ago Europe began to be transformed from an
agricultural to an urbanized, industrial area.  Countless
cities and manufacturing centres grew up, where men were
close packed and were subjected to all the evils of
congested living.  Of course, such conditions are not ideal
for any stock.  Nevertheless, the Nordic suffered more than
any one else.  The Nordic is essentially a high-standard
man.  He requires healthful living conditions, and pines
when deprived of good food, fresh air, and exercise.  So
long as Europe was mainly agricultural the Nordic usually
got these things.  In fact, in cool Northern


                         

and Central Europe an agricultural environment actually
favored the big blond Nordic as against the slighter, less
muscular Mediterranean, while in the hotter south the Nordic
upper class, being the rulers, were protected from field
labor and thus survived as an aristocracy.  Under modern
conditions, however, the crowded city and the cramped
factory weed out the Nordic much faster than they do the
Alpine or the Mediterranean, both of which stocks seem to be
able to stand such an environment with less damage to
themselves. It is needless to add that the late war and its
aftermath have been terrible blows to the Nordic race.
    This rapid decline of the Nordic steck in Europe is a
very serious matter. The Nordic's great energy, political
ability, and high level of intelligence are vital to
Europe's prosperity and progress.  The peculiar qualities of
the Nordic intellect are just the ones which to-day would be
most missed.  One of the Nordic's most valuable traits is
his adventurous curiosity.  This makes him preeminent not
only as a pioneer and explorer but also as an inventor and
scientific investigator.  The Mediterranean probably excels
the Nordic in music and the fine arts.  But in the
intellectual fields the Nordic excels the Mediterranean and
vastly outstrips the Alpine.  Our modern scientific age is
mainly a product of Nordic genius.  Deprived of that genius,
it would rapidly decline.  It therefore seems as though
those nations which possess most Nordic blood will tend to
be the most progressive as well as the most energetic and
politically able.  Important assets, these, for the future!
Let us now take a brief survey of the present racial 


                           

make-up of the European nations, based upon the latest
scientific estimates that have been made.  Our survey will
shatter many old notions that used to prevail when race was
confused with matters like language and culture.  For
example, it used to be thought that France, Italy, and Spain
were all members of a Latin race.  We now know that there
never was any such race and that these three nations differ
widely in racial make-up.
    Beginning our survey with the British Isles, the first
important point to be noted is the total absence of Alpine
blood.  England and Scotland and are predominantly Nordic,
while Wales and Ireland are predominantly Mediterranean.
Scotland is the most Nordic, over four-fifths of the
population being of that blood. England is about four-fifths
Nordic and one-fifth Mediterranean.  In England the
Mediterranean element seems to be increasing.  A century or
two ago it was probably insignificant.  Since then the
growth of city and factory life, emigration of Nordics, and
immigration of Welsh and Irish laborers have combined to
make the Mediterranean element a growing factor.  Wales
seems to be about three-fifths Mediterranean, while Ireland
is over two-thirds Mediterranean in blood.
    Crossing to the Continent, we find that France is
racially a composite nation, all three European races being
strongly represented in its population. The Alpine element
is the largest, being slightly more numerous than the two
other stocks put together.  Roughly speaking, the Nordics
are clustered in the north and the Mediterraneans in the
south, the Alpines forming a broad band between.  There are,
however, many exceptions to this, the


                           

race map of France being quite complicated.  There is also a
distinct connection between race and social status.  The
upper classes and the city populations tend to be Nordic or
Mediterranean, while the peasantry tend to be Alpine in
blood.  The solid French peasant is certainly a good Alpine
type.
    Spain is predominantly a Mediterranean nation, most of
the Spanish people belonging to that race.  Nordic blood is
mainly confined to the upper classes.  The Spanish Alpines
are tucked away in the extreme north of the country.  They
are the descendants of Alpines who entered Spain many
thousand years ago; but the racial traits still persist, and
the inhabitants of these districts are recognized to-day as
being unusually solid, tenacious, and hardworking.
    As for Portugal, it is overwhelmingly Mediterranean in
race.  There are no Alpines and very few Nordics.  In
Southern Portugal the population is distinctly tinged with
negro blood.  Some centuries ago large numbers of negroes
were brought in as slaves to work on the great estates of
the south, which has an almost semitropical climate.
Furthermore, a certain amount of negro blood seeps in
continually from Portugal's African colonies. The result is
that the populations both of the southern countryside and of
the port towns show many negroid types.  The effect of this
African infusion upon the Portuguese stock has undoubtedly
been a depressing one.
    Italy, though politically united, is racially divided
into two very different peoples.  The north is inhabited by
a sturdy Alpine stock, considerably leavened with Nordic
blood. The south is almost purely Mediterranean in race,


                           

tinctured in the extreme south -- especially in Sicily -- by
African and Asiatic strains. The racial difference between
north and south is so evident that it strikes even the
casual tourist.  The Italians recognize it frankly.  It is
well known that the north runs Italy and looks down on the
backward south.
     Turning now to Northern Europe, we find the
Scandinavian nations overwhelmingly of Nordic blood.   In
Norway and Denmark there is a small Alpine element,
descended, as already stated, from migrations in prehistoric
times.  Sweden, however, is 100 per cent Nordic -- the only
purely Nordic nation in the world.
    Holland is predominantly Nordic, with a small Alpine
element.  Belgium, on the other hand, is sharply divided on
race lines.  The open plains of Northern and Western Belgium
are inhabited by a strongly Nordic stock -- the Flemings.
The hilly, wooded regions of Southeastern Belgium are
inhabited by a strongly Alpine stock -- the Walloons.  The
two stocks differ markedly in temperament, speak different
languages, and instinctively dislike each other.  Common
fear of powerful neighbors alone keeps them politically
together, and it is very possible that Belgium may some day
split up.
    The racial situation in Germany is decidedly
complicated.  Taken as a whole, Germany is Alpine rather
than Nordic in race, nearly two-thirds of its population
being classifiable as Alpines, while the remainder are
predominantly Nordic in blood.  This, however, is by no
means the whole story.  To begin with, in Germany, perhaps
more than anywhere else in Europe, the two races have
intermarried wholesale.  It is probable that a clear 


                           

majority of the German people are of mixed blood.  This is
particularly true of Central Germany, where one sees great
numbers of what scientists call disharmonic types --persons,
say, with blondish hair and light eyes, yet with round
Alpine heads and thick-set bodies.  In Northwestern Germany,
however, the population is almost purely Nordic, while in
the southern highlands and the eastern provinces the
peasantry is practically pure Alpine.  Yet here again we get
a fresh complication, because in both Southern and Eastern
Germany race runs strongly with social status.  Even in the
most Alpine parts of Germany the aristocracy tends to be
Nordic, while the towns are more Nordic than the countryside.  
This seems to be one of the chief reasons for the marked 
class distinctions that prevail in German social life.  
Again, racial differences have much to do with the contrasts 
in temperament and the latent dislike that exists between 
north and south.
    As already remarked, Germany has for centuries been
getting more Alpine in blood. The terrible wars that ravaged
Germany in the past were immensely destructive of Nordic
life.  The late war continued this process, while Germany's
present economic situation bears much harder on its Nordic
than on its Alpine elements.  The Alpinization of Germany is
proceeding rapidly to-day.
    Switzerland and German Austria are racially much the
same as Southern Germany. Both countries are predominantly
Alpine in blood, but with a strong Nordic element, much
intermarriage between the races, and a tendency of Nordic
blood to prevail in the upper classes and the town
populations.  The racial make-up of Switzerland is about 


                           

two-thirds Alpine and one-third Nordic.  In German Austria
the Nordic element is probably not quite so numerous.
     When we touch Eastern Europe we find racial conditions
very different from those in the countries to the west.  In
Western Europe the racial elements have been long
established and are more or less adjusted to one another.
In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, racial movements have
been more violent and recent, and racial adjustments are not
well established.  The whole situation is at once less
stable and more complex.
    Over the greater part of this immense area, stretching
from Russia to the Balkan Peninsula, Alpine stocks tend to
form the most numerous racial element.  This is especially
true of the various Slav peoples.  Of course, there is no
such thing as a Slav race, any more than there is such a
thing as a Latin race.  In each case the phrase really means
a group of peoples with similar languages and cultures.
With the Slavs, the fact that they belong mainly to the same
race has made a more or less instinctive bond of sympathy
between them.  Yet this sympathy has not produced the
profound political consequences that might offhand be
assumed.  It has not produced any general political union
between the Slav peoples.  That would have been dead against
the Alpine racial temperament, which, as we have already
seen, tends to relatively small political groups more apt to
quarrel than to fuse.
    The Alpines are, however, merely the most numerous
clement in the East European racial situation.  There is
considerable Nordic blood in Northwestern Russia and a good
deal of Mediterranean blood in the Balkans, especially in
Greece, which is mainly a Mediterranean nation.


                           

Besides these familiar stocks, however, there are in Eastem
Europe powerful Asiatic elements that make fresh
difficulties.  For the past 1500 years Eastern Europe has
experienced a long series of Asiatic invasions.  These
Asiatic elements -- Huns, Mongols, Tartars, Turks, Jews,
Gypsies, and many others -- have left their mark on the
various East European populations.  In some parts they have
widely intermarried; in other parts they have remained
largely distinct, forming separate castes or communities.
But in both cases the general effect has been to confuse and
complicate the situation.
    So ends our preliminary survey.  In subsequent chapters
we will view present-day conditions in the various parts of
Europe, discussing many things, but not forgetting that
racial factor, which, though often overlooked in human
affairs, is perhaps the most fundamental of all.

Back to Table of Contents -- RACIAL REALITIES IN EUROPE
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