Page:America Today, Observations and Reflections.djvu/94

 But one of the company maintained that this did not account for the whole phenomenon. "The real key to it," he said, "lies in such a family history as mine. My grandmother was the youngest of thirteen children; my mother was the eldest of five; my brother and I are two; and we are unmarried."

I am inclined to think that this story of a dwindling stock is typical, not for New England alone, but for other parts of the Union. It seems as though the pressure of life in the Eastern States, and perhaps some subtle influence of climate upon temperament, were rendering the people of old Teutonic blood—British, Dutch, and German—unwilling to face the responsibility of large families, and so were giving the country over to the later and usually inferior immigrant and his progeny. I am not sure that it might not be well to cultivate a new sense of social duty in this matter. Is it Utopian to suggest a policy of "America for the Americans"—some effectual restriction of immigration before it is too late, so as to leave room for the natural increase of the American people? This is an "expansion," a "taking up of the white man's burden," which would command my warmest sympathy. It is to the interest of the whole world that the America of the future should be peopled by "white men" in every sense of the word.

New England, however, cannot be utterly depopulated of its old stocks, for at every turn you come up against those good old Puritan names which