upon any other than the simplest and most objective of problems. Will power being the automatic consequent of judgment, it is scarcely to be expected that inhibition would be an active factor in their lives. To act or to refrain from action is with them largely a reflex. If the stimulus is a pleasant though ultimately a disastrous one, they react automatically, without ordinary emotional control, with results that may be very unfortunate. They think with the spinal cord rather than with the brain. Marriage of the mental defectives is their most common and serious reaction. Like produces like, and many families of lesser notoriety than the Kalikacks and Jukes lengthen out the chain of paupers, criminals, and imbeciles that fill our courts and institutions and become a burden upon philanthropy. There is scarcely a charitable agency that has not for years upon its books helpless families resulting from marriages of imbeciles.

What is their status in industry? They are grossly inefficient. Their work is occasional and desultory. They are far below the grade of common labor. They can not be depended upon to work without the closest supervision. Unable to read or to understand the simplest directions, they usually are employed on the most commonplace of tasks. The necessity of providing for the future does not stimulate them to continuous labor, and they work only long enough to satisfy immediate desires, and are idle until hunger or necessity again drives them to work. In every community are a few dependent families that can not seem to get along and are a constant burden and problem to municipal or organized charity.

Fortunately their criminal tendencies are of a mild kind. Their crimes are those of passion or false motive, since they have not sufficient mentality to plan complicated offenses or to premeditate serious crimes. Among the disciplinary cases tried by special and summary court-martial, the offenses of the D minus group consisted mainly of such as disobedience of orders, insubordination or disloyal statements, and seldom arose to the importance of crimes of acquisitiveness (larceny, forgery, fraud), or to assault or murder.

The D class, representing a stage between imbecility and dull normality, was somewhat more useful, but little more dependable. They were in no sense soldier material. They composed pioneer battalions, with pick and shovel to build roads, to drive teams, and contributed only in a muscular way to the work of the army. Constant supervision of their work was necessary. Even simple tasks were beyond their powers if continuous labor was necessary. They wholly lacked initiative. Their educational possibility was limited to the fifth grade. Sixty-eight per cent finished their schooling at this point, and those who reached higher grades were promoted because of age rather than because of school accomplishment. Even if kept for years in a grade they made no progress. According to the army test, they were for the most part illiterate. Diminished power of attention, feeble perceptive qualities, and deficient associative memory, prevented them from acquiring more than the most rudimentary education.

Within the D class are included many who are called "simple," not definitely feeble-minded, but rather subnormal,--who fairly well adapt themselves to a simple environment, but are unable to meet in industrial competition those of higher intellectual endowment. They are simple but inoffensive people of good character, honest and contented with their surroundings. They endure hardship and deprivation without much complaint, are easily exploited by the more cunning, and are inincapable of anything other than stolid acceptance of what fate brings to them. They can comprehend only concrete ideas. Their minds do not rise to the level of the abstract, and all their problems are referred back to past experiences, upon which alone they form their judgments.

Men of the D class are physically well developed. A large number of them are attractive, and pass in the crowd as normal. Many, by reason of their emotional instability, are regarded on first sight as unusually quick and responsive. They laugh easily and are with equal ease moved to tears. It is practically impossible by inspecting the physiognomy or figure of a D class man to distinguish him from a higher intellectual type.

In this class belongs the moron, whose intellectual level seldom exceeds that of 11 years. The moron is marked by a low intellectual level combined with an emotional instability and lack of inhibition that leads to infraction of social customs and laws. He is a reflex arc rather than a reasoning being. What gives him pleasure is the height of his ambition. He thinks not of to-morrow, but is content if to-day finds him well fed and his other appetities satisfied. He is regardless of the restraint of law, not so much through vicious intention as by the pressing necessity of gratifying his wants. He is the petty criminal, who steals or assaults for the satisfaction of his impulses, without much thought of the consequences. He lives in the present, unwarned by past punishments, and heedless of the future. He spends with reckless

hand the earnings of to-day without thought of the needs of to-morrow. His morals are limited by his instincts. He is, in times of stress, forced to depend on charity. in industry he has little place. His work is haphazard and only sufficient to supply immediate wants. He is the casual farm laborer, the tramp, the hanger-on in the slums of cities, the easy-going, care-free improvident, who, without persistence enough to be a common laborer or skill to acquire a trade, does the menial and degrading, though necessary, work of the world. Morons fill the workhouses and public institutions of the country. From 60 to 70 per cent of prostitutes are in this group. They marry and produce children in the proportion of two to one as compared with the higher intellectual grades.

How can it be expected that these of low intellectual grade can become good citizens? To become a worthy citizen of this country only a few things are required, but they are essential. Understanding of the general principles on which our Government is founded is one of them. Respect for law and recognition of the rights of others is another. Is it possible that the feeble mentality of the D minus class can comprehend the beneficient principles on which our Government is based? Is it likely that the D class can recognize the advantages of our free institutions or can properly assume the duties and obligations which citizenship imposes? To what extent can these two classes exercise the duty of voting for our rulers? Unable to read books or papers, they can not get in proper touch with their surroundings. Lacking in judgment and power of inhibition, they can not properly comprehend the conditions of their environment, nor can they resist the forceful inclination to break the laws which restrain them from the gratification of their instinctive desires. Being constitutionally inferior they are necessarily socially inadequate. They can not conform to the normal customs society. Creatures of transient and often violent emotions, they are swayed by the voice of the demagogue with consequences dangerous to orderly government. They are incapable of becoming good citizens by reason of intellectual deficiency, and they should be allowed no place in this country and no voice in its affairs.

We have talked much of the Americanization of the foreigner. Theoretically this means that we shall educate him in the methods of our Government, teach him our language, and familiarize him with those social customs which are peculiar to this country. We shall teach him patriotism, the significance of our flag, and prepare him to make an intelligent use of the ballot. This is an ideal that is in every way worthy. But how does it work out in practice? It can hardly be more than 50 per cent successful, because only half of the immigrants have intelligence enough to receive the education which we wish to give them. When we realize that by reason of their mental limitations one-half of them can not progress beyond the fifth grade in our elementary schools, how optimistic should we become over the prospect of teaching them civics, patriotism, or the wise use of the franchise? We can not hope to make worthy citizens of the subnormal, nor can we hope that they will ever be led in the use of their votes by any other than their emotions, too often played upon by the demagogue and crooked politician. The elaborate scheme of Americanization is abruptly halted by the no-thoroughfare of limited mentality of 45 per cent of our immigrants.

The parallel between the percentage of illiterates and the percentage of low-grade intelligence is startling. It was determined by the simple test of inability to read a paragraph from a paper, or to write a letter, that 24 per cent of the recruits in the Army were illiterate. It is not a mere coincidence that in the general white draft the percentage in the D and D minus classes were 22 per cent. It is very evident that these groups could not be otherwise than illiterate, since their mental equipment could not receive education higher than the fifth grade, and a large proportion of these were advanced in classes by reason of age and growth rather than by their school performance. Education can be received only by those who have intelligence to receive it. It does not create intelligence. That is what one is born with. The intelligent can receive education only in proportion to their capacity. The D minus group can not go beyond the second grade. The D group can not pass the fifth grade. The C minus group finds its limit at the eighth grade. The C group can enter the high school, but can not finish it, while the C plus group can finish the high school.

We must reckon always to have a high percentage of illiterates, no matter how excellent are our schools, for the two lower groups can not become literate no matter how long they are instructed. A pint cup can not hold a quart, nor can a limited mental equipment absorb more than its quota of education. It is useless to clamor for education of the lower groups. They can not receive it. What is of more urgent necessity is education of the higher groups to fuller comprehension of their environment, to greater realization of the duties and obligations of citizenship, and for the procurement of a higher degree of justice for the less intelligent, who are too often the victims of the selfishness and cruelty of those of higher mental endowment.

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It is time to awaken to the necessity of protecting this country from the influx of the worthless. Unless we do so we shall degenerate to the level of the Slav and Latin races, with their illiteracy, ignorance, and consequent degradation. America is becoming Europeanized, not with the best, but with the worst element of that continent. We can not swin against the tide of foreign invasion unless it is checked and directed into less harmful channels.

We are being swamped with the offscourings of Europe. Those at the lower end of the intellectual scale have brought to us their social customs, their language, their political ideas. They can not assimilate out ideals. Their adaptability to their new surroundings is limited. They can not become citizens in the highest meaning of that word. They can not enter into the spirit of American life. They add little except numbers to the body politic. They add to the burdens of State and municipality, and render more difficult and complex the administration of law and order. We need immigrants. Our fields are hungry for cultivation. Our resources lie fallow, awaiting the laborer. We need immigrants, but not of the kind that comes to us in the largest numbers. We need those with intelligence, who are adaptable to the environment which we offer them. We need the honest, intelligent, hardworking and thrifty men, who are able to appreciate the opportunities which our free institutions afford and who are able and willing to assume and discharge the duties and obligations which citizenship imposes.

We do not need the ignorant, the mentally feeble, the moron. We already suffer from the presence of too many whose low mentality leads them into pauperism, crime, sex offenses, and dependency. We have no place in this country for the "man with the hoe," stained with the earth he digs, and guided by a mind scarcely superior to the ox, whose brother he is.

"Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him

Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?"

We must awaken to the dangers which are increasingly threatening. If we wish to preserve to this country the ideals which inspire its founders, we must protect ourselves against the degenerate horde whom we now heedlessly invite to come to us. We must view the immigration problem from a new angle. We must forget those sentimental bywords, like "a refuge for the oppressed of other nations," unless we want to be oppressed by the burden of ignorance and degeneracy which such a catchword invites.

Our immigration laws have not afforded and can not afford us adequate protection against the undesirable immigrant. They are the outcome of the foolish policy of regarding the quantity rather than the quality of those who come to our shores. The literacy test excludes many of high intellectual capacity, who in the old country had no opportunity for education. We must apply ourselves to the task with the new weapons of science, rather than with an armament that is based on crude and imperfect comprehension of the problem. When bubonic plague, typhus, or cholera threatens, we meet the danger with the perfect weapons formed for us by science. We must in the same manner meet the far more serious danger that threatens our pody politic and our institutions.

It is not enough to guard only against the physically defective. We must recognize that the more imminent danger is from the mentally feeble. Prior to the Great War we had no standard by which we could measure a man's intellect. The exigencies of that conflict produced such an instrument, and it is now as easy to calculate one's mental equipment as it is to measure his height and weight. The examination of over 2,000,000 recruits has tested and verified this standard, so that there is little of controversy as to its reliability and efficiency. The application of this new method to intending immigrants will enable us to select those who are worthy and reject those who are worthless.

ARTHUR SWEENEY.

Gentlemen's agreement governing immigration from Japan.

The following statement relating to the so-called gentlemen's agreement, or RootTakahira agreement, is reprinted.

[From the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1908, p. 125.]

To section 1 of the immigration act, approved February 20, 1907, a provision was attached reading as follows:

"That whenever the President shall be satisfied that passports issued by any foreign Government to its citizens to go to any other country than the United States or to any

insular possession of the United States or to the Canal Zone are being used for the purpose of enabling the holders to come to the continental territory of the United States to the detriment of labor conditions therein, the President may refuse to permit certain citizens of the country issuing such passports to enter the continental territory of the United States from such other country or from such insular possessions, or from the Canal Zone."

This legislation was the result of a growing alarm, particularly on the Pacific coast and in States adjacent to Canada and Mexico, that labor conditions would be seriously affected by a continuation of the then existing rate of increase in admissions to this country of Japanese of the laboring classes. The Japanese Government had always maintained a policy opposed to the emigration to continental United States of its subjects belonging to such classes, but it has been found that passports granted by Baid Government to such subjects entitling them to proceed to Hawaii or to Canada or to Mexico were being used to evade the said policy and gain entry to continental United States. On the basis of the above-quoted provision, the President, on March 14, 1907, issued a proclamation excluding from continental United States "Japanese or Korean laborers skilled or unskilled, who had received passports to go Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come therefrom."

Department circular No. 147, dated March 26, 1907, which has been continued in force as rule 21 of the immigration regulations of July 1, 1907, outlined the policy and procedure to be followed by the immigration officials in giving effect to the law and proclamation.

In order that the best results might follow from an enforcement of the regulations, an understanding was reached with Japan that the existing policy of discouraging emigration of its subjects of the laboring classes to continental United States should be continued, and should, by cooperation of the Governments, be made as effective as possible. This understanding contemplates that the Japanese Government shall issue passports to continental United States only to such of its subjects as are nonlaborers, or are laborers who, in coming to the continent, seek to resume a formerly acquired domicile, to join a parent, wife, or children residing there, or to assume active control of an already possessed interest in a farming enterprise in this country; so that the three classes of laborers entitled to receive passports have come to be designated former residents," "parents, wives, or children of residents," and "settled agriculturists."

With respect to Hawaii, the Japanese Government of its own volition stated that, experimentally at least, the issuance of passports to members of the laboring classes proceeding thence would be limited to "former residents" and "parents, wives, or children of residents." The said Government has also been exercising a careful supervision over the subject of emigration of its laboring class to foreign contiguous territory.

(The following article is reprinted from Commerce Monthly, a publication of the National Bank of Commerce, New York, N. Y.; edition of November, 1922 :)

THE IMMIGRATION QUESTION.

Immigration has played a major role in the development of this country. In the United States the Indians are now negligible in number. So indeed, the present population is immigrant or more or less remotely of immigrant descent. Important though it looms in the history of the past, immigration is even more important as a vital problem of the future.

In the post-armistice period millions of Europeans were making their plans to emigrate to America. The war-interrupted tide of immigration began to fow again with pre-war vigor, threatening indeed an unprecedented volume. The then existing laws required health, character and literacy examinations which sifted the incoming aliens qualitatively. But the country was demanding that immigrants be restricted as to number, so the 3 per cent limitation law was passed erecting a temporary barrier. However, the national immigration policy is still in the making. Its present expression in legislation is the work of many decades. During this time important changes have taken place in the character of immigration itself; tremendous increases have occurred in population.

In the beginning, abundant natural resources and the Indian menace combined caused the pioneer colonists of this continent to favor a growing population. Many of them had fled their native lands because of religious, political, or economic conditions. Consequently, both America and Europe came to

regard the Western Hemisphere not only as an asylum of refuge for the oppressed but also as a land of great opportunity. More units of labor gave promise of increasing returns all the way around, and immigrants were welcomed. Total immigration from 1776 to 1820 is officially estimated at 250,000. The following table gives the figures for subsequent decades:

TABLE A.-Immigration into the United States by decades.

For nearly a century there was little national legislation with respect to immigration. Regulation, such as it was, was State enacted. But in 1876 Federal activity in the matter of immigration control was given impetus by a decision of the Supreme Court. In reviewing one of the State statutes restricting immigration, the opinion was expressed that the whole matter could be better handled by the Federal Government than by the States. As a consequence, the year 1882 saw the passage of an act levying a head tax of 50 cents on all aliens landed at United States ports, which tax has been increased at various times since. Before the end of the century there were several enactments concerning the importation of contract labor, the exclusion of those suffering with particular diseases, and the entry of natives of certain oriental countries. Although the industrial depression of the nineties developed a strong demand for restriction of immigration in general, the century closed without any important legislation along this line.

However, the twentieth century early saw the emergence of a new attitude of mind. A growing number of persons were coming to view the problem in the light of changing economic conditions and of the changing character of immigration itself. Under the leadership of these persons a public opinion developed out of which has grown the restrictive immigration legislation of the past five years.

These persons have shown that account must be taken of the startling rapidity with which the peoples of the old world have overrun the new, especially that part of it within the confines of the United States. The tremendous increase in the density of poulation as indicated in Table B measures this process. In the past 60 years density has increased threefold, from 10.6 to 35.5 per square mile. Free lands are now a thing of the past, and more and more must cultivation be on an intensive basis.

Because of the vast natural resources at hand for exploitation, increasing well-being long accompanied the rapid growth in population. Currently accepted figures for per capita income and wealth in terms of purchasing power show a startling growth since the middle of the last century. Per capita income increased from $82 in 1860 to $274 in 1912; during the same time per capita wealth grew from $364 to $1,559. The increase was more rapid in the first decades of the half century. There is a noticeable slowing down of late. Of course, sufficient time has not elapsed to justify a conclusion that a definite corner has been turned; that the rates of increase will become pro