After reading The Passing of the Great Race, Congressman Albert Johnson, the Chair of the US House of Representatives Committee on Immigration and Naturalization from the sixty-sixth to the seventy-first Congresses, was impressed by Grants work and reached out to Grant, establishing a casual correspondence between the two according to Spiro. After seeing the alleged benefits of widespread sterilization, Grant predicts that the American people would willingly agree to sterilize ever-increasing proportions of the community, eventually moving on to those Grant labels as weaklings or worthless race types. Grant expounds a theory of Nordic superiority, claiming that the "Nordic race" is inherently superior to other human "races". In the chapters "Race and Habitat" and "The Competition of Races," Grant considers how natural selection occurs in humans of the modern world through disease and competition. The Nordic realm includes nearly all the northern third of France with extensions into the fertile southwest; all the rich lowlands of Flanders; all Holland; the northern half of Germany with extensions up the Rhine and down the Danube; and the north of Poland and of Russia. 354-360 US Senator David Reed co-sponsored the act, so it is also called the Johnson-Reed Act. These children were often fathered by their white masters, which led to their fair skin and resemblance to other white children. The book is mostly based on obsolete evolutionary and genetic concepts (hereditary mental and physical characteristics preserved through copulation in the same racial groups ) and a rather chaotic description of cultural influences through the history of mankind. Or the racial basis of European history Beginning in 1920, a series of congressional hearings was held to identify problems that immigrants were causing the United States. Deep seated Castilian traditions associate aristocracy with blondness and the sangre azul, or blue blood of Spain, probably refers to the blue eye of the Goth, whose traditional claim to lordship is also shown in the Spanish name for gentleman, "hidalgo," said to mean "the son of the Goth." ed., with a documentary supplement, with prefaces by Henry Fairfield Osborn, Advanced embedding details, examples, and help. The remainder of the book is divided into two parts. In the introduction, Grant expresses that his goal in the book is to explain European history in terms of race, or physical and mental characteristics that he claims are inherited and unchangeable. Hereditarianism ran counter to the belief in education, hard work, and "pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps.". He marshals an impressive amount of facts and scholarship to an entirely useless aim. To what extent the Mediterranean race entered into the blood and civilization of Rome, it is now difficult to say, but the traditions of the Eternal City, its love of organization, of law and military efficiency, as well as the Roman ideals of family life, loyalty, and truth, point clearly to a Nordic rather than to a Mediterranean origin. ed., with a documentary supplement, with prefaces by Henry Fairfield Osborn by Grant, Madison, 1865-1937; Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935 Publication date 1922 Topics Ethnology -- Europe Publisher New York Scribner Collection robarts; toronto Digitizing sponsor msn The salvation of humanity will then lie in the chance survival of some sane barbarians who may retain the basic truth that inequality and not equality is the law of nature. "White Nationalisms Deep American Roots.". Particularly striking about Grant is his lack of originalityhis skill at reproducing as his own the conventional wisdom of white supremacy. The underlying idea seems to be that if publication can be suppressed the facts themselves will ultimately disappear. Then, if the strain survives, it is by the slow reversion to one of the parent types - almost inevitably the lower. According to Spiro, Grants interest in conservation naturally led to his interest in eugenics, as Grant saw both movements as a way of preserving the old country from threats of extinction. The Passing of The Great Race; or, The Racial Basis of European History is a 1916 book by the American lawyer and conservationist Madison Grant. The coast of Finland is as a result Swedish and the natives of the interior have distinctly Nordic characters with the exception of the skull, which in its roundness shows an Alpine cross. The final three chapters of part one advocate for preserving the Nordic race through immigration restriction and laws banning marriage between people of different races. The underlying idea seems to be that if publication can be suppressed the facts themselves will ultimately disappear. Such demands on energy, if long continued, would produce a strong, virile, and self-contained race which would inevitably overwhelm in battle nations whose weaker elements had not been purged by the conditions of an equally severe environment" (p.170). This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. Coolidge, Calvin. In America we have nearly succeeded in destroying the privilege of birth; that is, the intellectual and moral advantage a man of good stock brings into the world with him. The proportion of men of pure type of each constituent race to the mixed type is also a powerful factor. But I bumped it up a little for its historical and philosophical significance because from those perspectives it's really fascinating - if horrifying - to read about how people actually thought about race a hundred years ago and more. The Census Bureau's projections, released today, estimate that minorities will be the majority by 2042, nearly a decade . Even after the statute was passed, Grant continued to be irked that even a smattering of non-Nordics were allowed to immigrate to the country each year. These center around the growing numbers of immigrants from non-Nordic Europe. The unfortunate fact that nearly all species of men interbreed freely leaves us no choice in the matter. Grant also supports eugenics, advocating the sterilization of "undesirables", a treatment possibly to be extended to "types which may be called weaklings" and "perhaps ultimately to worthless race types": A rigid system of selection through the elimination of those who are weak or unfitin other words social failureswould solve the whole question in one hundred years, as well as enable us to get rid of the undesirables who crowd our jails, hospitals, and insane asylums. A huge inspiration to me, although I cannot recommned it to other readers. Of this we have many examples in America. In most cases the blood of pioneers has been lost to their race. The men who wrote the words, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," were themselves the owners of slaves and despised Indians as something less than human. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. [13], Grant advocated restricted immigration to the United States through limiting immigration from East Asia and Southern Europe; he also advocated efforts to purify the American population though selective breeding. In turn, this corruption of society would lead to the subjection of the Nordic community to "inferior" races who would in turn long to be dominated and instructed by "superior" ones utilizing authoritarian powers. In Hindustan the blond Nordic invaders forced their Aryan language on the aborigines, but their blood was quickly and utterly absorbed in the darker strains of the original owners of the land. Belonging physically and spiritually to the lower race, but aspiring to recognition as one of the higher race, the unfortunate mongrel, in addition to a disharmonic physique, often inherits from one parent an unstable brain which is stimulated and at times overexcited by flashes of brilliancy from the other. Starting from the now-discredited assumption that Europeans, Africans, and Asians are distinct groups, Grant believed that Europeans, while overall allegedly superior to Africans and Asians, could be further classified into distinct races. Boas and his students were strongly opposed to racialist notions, holding that any perceived racial inequality was from social rather than biological factors. This book should be mandatory reading for all white people--especially those of school age, and double especially, by those attending Marxist indoctrination centers in colleges and universities. The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History is a 1916 book by American lawyer, self-styled anthropologist, and fan of the pseudo-science of eugenics, Madison Grant (1865-1937). However, they still maintained that the book held value due to Grants ability to synthesize the arguments of earlier eugenics works in an accessible and concise way. In The Passing of the Great Race, Grant calls on the US to enact an extensive eugenics program. The first three chapters trace the history of prehistoric peoples in Europe. Some of those Nazi anthropologists, such as Eugen Fischer and Hans F. K. Gnther, were even friends with Grant and stayed in contact with him until his death according to Spiro. The book is short and sweet, getting straight to the point without much complication. It is, therefore, the Homo europaeus, the white man par excellence. Grant reasons that the United States has always been a Nordic country, consisting of Nordic immigrants from England, Scotland, and the Netherlands in Colonial times and of Nordic immigrants from Ireland and Germany in later times. A fantastically "just-so" book: things are ordered exactly as Grant wishes them to be, he just makes up whatever conditions he needs to knit things together. "The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant. In The Passing of the Great Race, Grant argues that there are three distinct European races and that the supposedly superior Nordic race is responsible for most notable human achievements and progress. The Immigration Act of 1924 is often cited as just one step in a long history of racist immigration policy in the US. For the world's future the destruction of wealth is a small matter compared with the destruction of the best human strains, for wealth can be renewed while these strains of the real human aristocracy once lost are lost forever. The Emperors to please the vulgar erected from time to time new shrines to strange gods utterly unknown to the Romans of the early Republic. Department of Sociology, University of South Florida. The high tide of the Mongol invasion was during the thirteenth century. The second part of the book reviews European prehistory as it was known at the time of writing of the book, and then postulates the existence of three European races, which Grant defines as Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean, as well as their physical and mental characteristics. This is a practical, merciful and inevitable solution of the whole problem and can be applied to an ever widening circle of social discards, beginning always with the criminal, the diseased and the insane and extending gradually to types which may be called weaklings rather than defectives and perhaps ultimately to worthless race types." Buy It Now. Machines may be able to crunch number and analyze data, but they can't match the human touch when it come to customer service, teamwork, and collaboration. "The Passing of The Great Race" became an immediate best seller, with new editions in 1918, 1920 and 1921, multiple printings and translations in German, French and Norwegian. Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). One of the curious effects of democracy is the unquestionable fact that there is less freedom of the press than under autocratic forms of government. Hitler quotes Grants book in his speeches and even sent Grant a letter where he referred to it as his Bible. In our Southern States Jim Crow cars and social discriminations have exactly the same purpose and justification. The result is a total lack of continuity of purpose, an intermittent intellect goaded into spasmodic outbursts of energy. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Race feeling may be called prejudice by those whose careers are cramped by it but it is a natural antipathy which serves to maintain the purity of type. The proposed eugenics programs Grant detailed in The Passing of the Great Race also influenced Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany, who committed genocide in the name of eugenics. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The final three chapters consider the relationship between the Nordic race and the Aryan group of languages. From barely-used Formula 1 circuits to shuttered . 2016 marks a century since the publication of The Passing of the Great Race, a book described by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould as "the most influential tract of American scientific racism."Its author, Madison Grant, a genteel dabbler with impeccable . 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. "Racism, the Immigration Enforcement Regime, and the Implications for Racial Inequality in the Lives of Undocumented Young Adults. The Passing of the Great Racehas had many uses over the years. Additionally, a 1921 article by then Vice President Calvin Coolidge published in Good Housekeeping echoed many of the ideas presented in The Passing of the Great Race, as Coolidge called for immigration restriction and condemned interracial marriages. "Reviewed Work(s): The Passing of the Great Race: Or the Racial Basis of European History by Madison Grant. Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute. With the remaining race, the Nordic, however, the case is different. Where two distinct species are located side by side history and biology teach that but one of two things can happen; either one race drives the other out, as the Americans exterminated the Indians and as the Negroes are now replacing the whites in various parts of the South; or else they amalgamate and form a population of race bastards in which the lower type ultimately preponderates. Nascar Race Hub analysts Chad Knaus and Aric Almirola discussed the possibilities of Kyle Busch's chances of passing the late great Dale Earnhardt 76 career cup series win. Part two, "European Races in History," contains fourteen chapters that trace the prehistory of Europe, outline the purported differences between the three European races that Grant claims exist, and detail the origin and achievements of the allegedly superior Nordic race. Grant is also deeply opposed to the prospect of Black Americans obtaining any semblance of equality, for he states that they are only valuable so long as they are subservient to Whites.