not what will be for this
country's own immediate or future benefit, but what will most benefit
the world at large, it can only be concluded that the duty of the
United States is to make itself strong, efficient, productive and
progressive. By so doing they will be much better able to help the rest
of the world than by progressively weakening themselves through failure
to regulate immigration.

Further, in reaching a decision on the regulation of immigration, there
are numerous kinds of results to be considered: political, social,
economic and biologic, among others. All these interact, and it is hard
to say that one is more important than another; naturally we have
limited ourselves to the biologic aspect, but not without recognizing
that the other aspects exist and must be taken into account by those who
are experts in those fields.

Looking only at the eugenic consequences, we can not doubt that a
considerable and discriminatory selection of immigrants to this country
is necessary. Both directly and indirectly, the immigration of recent
years appears to be diminishing the eugenic strength of the nation more
than it increases it.

The state would be in a stronger position eugenically (and in many other
ways) if it would decrease the immigration of unskilled labor, and
increase the immigration of creative and directing talent. A selective
diminution of the volume of immigration would tend to have that result,
because it would necessarily shut out more of the unskilled than the
skilled.

CHAPTER XVI

WAR

War always changes the composition of a nation; but this change may be
either a loss or a gain. The modification of selection by war is far
more manifold than the literature on the biological effects of war would
lead the reader to suppose. All wars are partly eugenic and partly
dysgenic; some are mainly the one, some are mainly the other. The racial
effects of war occur in at least three periods:

1. The period of preparation.

2. The period of actual fighting.

3. The period of readjustment after the war.

The first division involves the effect of a standing army, which
withdraws men during a part of the reproductive period and keeps most of
them in a celibate career. The officers marry late if at all and show a
very low birth-rate. The prolonged celibacy has in many armies led to a
higher incidence of venereal diseases which prolongs the celibacy and
lowers the birthrate.[155] Without extended