Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/282

278 could not wipe out a type under these conditions. The unit characters on which elimination acts are plainly in the pure races, which are constantly eliminated, but constantly reappear in the descendents of the mixed types.

That this is not mere theory, but an actual condition, is shown by the way elimination is now working among the civilized races. The long-faced woman is narrow hipped and large boned. Child-bearing to her is difficult and many, therefore, do not marry. Men dislike the long-faced woman and seldom marry her unless forced by economic necessity. The result is that an elimination works against long-faced women. They become the old maids and business women, or, if married, are the source of the much-discussed race suicide. The long-faced woman disappears in these ways in each generation, to reappear in the next as the pure element in the mixed or oval-faced marriages. We can, thus, have a perpetual succession of long-faced women, even if they have no children. The round-faced woman, on the other hand, is broad-hipped and makes flesh rather than bone. Men prefer her to her long-faced sister. She gets married early and bears many children. The tendency, therefore, is to perpetuate the short, thick-set women of the type that men admire.

Among men, however, the opposite tendency prevails. The tall, nervous, long-faced man has more mental vigor and moral control. The round-faced man lacks initiative, is governed by tradition, and readily accepts the subordination, exploitation and poverty that come with defeat. He suffers more from epidemic diseases and is a ready victim of dissipation. In civilized countries his lack of earning power forces him into the slums of cities, or into the less favored occupations in the country. In these ways, he is forced into places and positions where the death rate is high. Against him, an elimination is working that cuts him off in each generation almost as fully as elimination works against the long-faced women. We thus have effective processes that weed out the round-faced man and the long-faced woman. This means that the productive unions are between the long-faced and oval-faced men on the one hand, and the oval-faced and round-faced women on the other. So long as the long-faced man is more productive, and the round-faced woman more fertile, the marriage of the two will create the mixed race found in northern countries. It is only in southern regions that the pure round-faced type prevails in both men and women.

Elimination thus leads not to extermination of existing types, but to their perpetuation. If conscious elimination is to be put in operation, it must be made to act on men and women alike. This is extremely difficult, as we admire traits in women we despise in men, and we keep them in existence by this means. We do not, for example, like a deceitful man, but men condone or admire deceit in women. The round-faced woman reproduces her lower morality in the next