The Passing of the
Great Race
By Madison Grant
Part I - Race, Language, And Nationality
Chapter
1
Race and Democracy
|
FAILURE to recognize the
clear distinction between race and nationality and the still greater
distinction between race and language, the easy assumption that the one is
indicative of the other, has been in the past a serious impediment to an
understanding of racial values. Historians and philologists have approached
the subject from the view-point of linguistics, and as a result we have been
burdened with a group of mythical races, such as the Latin, the Aryan, the
Caucasian, and, perhaps, most inconsistent of all, the "Celtic"
race. Man is an animal differing from his fellow
inhabitants of the globe, not in kind but only in degree of development, and
an intelligent study of the human species must be preceded by an extended
knowledge of other mammals, especially the primates. Instead of such
essential training, anthropologists often seek to qualify by research in
linguistics, religion, or marriage customs, or in designs of pottery or
blanket weaving, all of which relate to ethnology alone. The question of race has been further
complicated by the effort of old-fashioned theologians to cramp all mankind
into the scant six thousand years of Hebrew chronology, as expounded by
Archbishop Ussher. Religious teachers have also maintained the proposition
not only that man is something fundamentally distinct from other living
creatures, but that there are no inherited differences in humanity that
cannot be obliterated by education and environment. It is, therefore, necessary at the outset
for the reader to thoroughly appreciate that race, language, and nationality
are three separate and distinct things, and that in Europe these three elements
are only occasionally found persisting in combination, as in the Scandinavian
nations. To realize the transitory nature of
political boundaries, one has only to consider the changes of the past
century, to say nothing of those which may occur at the end of the present
war. As to language, here in America we daily hear the English language
spoken by many men who possess not one drop of English blood, and who, a few
years since, knew not one word of Saxon speech. As a result of certain religious and social
doctrines, now happily becoming obsolete, race consciousness has been greatly
impaired among civilized nations, but in the beginning all differences of
class, of caste, and of color, marked actual lines of race cleavage. In many countries the existing classes
represent races that were once distinct. In the city of New York, and
elsewhere in the United States, there is a native American aristocracy
resting upon layer after layer of immigrants of lower races, and the native
American, while, of course, disclaiming the distinction of a patrician class,
nevertheless has, up to this time, supplied the leaders of thought and the
control of capital, of education, and of the religious ideals and altruistic
bias of the community. In the democratic forms of government the
operation of universal suffrage tends toward the selection of the average man
for public office rather than the man qualified by birth, education, and
integrity. How this scheme of administration will ultimately work out remains
to be seen, but from a racial point of view, it will inevitably increase the
preponderance of the lower types and cause a corresponding loss of efficiency
in the community as a whole. The tendency in a democracy is toward a
standardization of type and a diminution of the influence of genius. A
majority must of necessity be inferior to a picked minority, and it always
resents specializations in which it cannot share. In the French Revolution
the majority, calling itself "the People," deliberately endeavored
to destroy the higher type, and something of the same sort was, in a measure,
done after the American Revolution by the expulsion of the Loyalists and the
confiscation of their lands. 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. We are now
engaged in destroying the privilege of wealth; that is, the reward of
successful intelligence and industry, and in some quarters there is
developing a tendency to attack the privilege of intellect and to deprive a
man of the advantages of an early and thorough education. Simplified spelling
is a step in this direction. Ignorance of English grammar or classic learning
must not be held up as a reproach to the political and social aspirant. Mankind emerged from savagery and barbarism
under the leadership of selected individuals whose personal prowess,
capacity, or wisdom gave them the right to lead and the power to compel
obedience. Such leaders have always been a minute fraction of the whole, but
as long as the tradition of their predominance persisted they were able to
use the brute strength of the unthinking herd as part of their own force, and
were able to direct at will the blind dynamic impulse of the slaves, peasants,
or lower classes. Such a despot had an enormous power at his disposal which,
if he were benevolent or even intelligent, could be used, and most frequently
was used, for the general uplift of the race. Even those rulers who most
abused this power put down with merciless rigor the antisocial elements, such
as pirates, brigands, or anarchists, which impair the progress of a
community, as disease or wounds cripple an individual. True aristocracy is government by the
wisest and best, always a small minority in any population. Human society is
like a serpent dragging its long body on the ground, but with the head always
thrust a little in advance and a little elevated above the earth. The
serpent's tail, in human society represented by the antisocial forces, was in
the past dragged by sheer force along the path of progress. Such has been the
organization of mankind from the beginning, and such it still is in older
communities than ours. What progress humanity can make under the control of
universal suffrage, or the rule of the average, may find a further analogy in
the habits of certain snakes which wiggle sideways and disregard the head
with its brains and eyes. Such serpents, however, are not noted for their
ability to make rapid progress. To use another simile, in an aristocratic
as distinguished from a plutocratic, or democratic organization, the
intellectual and talented classes form the point of the lance, while the
massive shaft represents the body of the population and adds by its bulk and
weight to the penetrative impact of the tip. In a democratic system this
concentrated force at the top is dispersed throughout the mass, supplying, to
be sure, a certain amount of leaven, but in the long run the force and genius
of the small minority is dissipated, if not wholly lost. Vox populi, so far
from being Vox Dei, thus becomes an unending wail for rights, and never a
chant of duty. Where a conquering race is imposed on
another race the institution of slavery often arises to compel the servient
race to work, and to introduce it forcibly to a higher form of civilization.
As soon as men can be induced to labor to supply their own needs slavery
becomes wasteful and tends to vanish. Slaves are often more fortunate than
freemen when treated with reasonable humanity, and when their elemental wants
of food, clothing, and shelter are supplied. The Indians around the fur posts in
northern Canada were formerly the virtual bond slaves of the Hudson Bay
Company, each Indian and his squaw and pappoose being adequately supplied
with simple food and equipment. He was protected as well against the white
man's rum as the red man's scalping parties, and in return gave the Company
all his peltries-the whole product of his year's work. From an Indian's point
of view this was nearly an ideal condition, but was to all in- tents serfdom
or slavery. When, through the opening up of the country, the continuance of
such an archaic system became an impossibility, the Indian sold his furs to
the highest bidder, received a large price in cash, and then wasted the
proceeds in trinkets instead of blankets, and in rum instead of flour, with
the result that he is now gloriously free, but is on the highroad to becoming
a diseased outcast. In this case of the Hudson Bay Indian the advantages of
the upward step from serfdom to freedom are not altogether clear. A very
similar condition of vassalage existed until recently among the peons of
Mexico, but without the compensation of an intelligent and provident ruling
class. In the same way serfdom in mediaeval Europe
apparently was a device through which the landowners overcame the nomadic
instincts of their tenantry. Years are required to bring land to its highest
productivity, and agriculture cannot be successfully practised even in
well-watered and fertile districts by farmers who continually drift from one
locality to another. The serf or villein was, therefore, tied by law to the
land, and could not leave except with his master's consent. As soon as these
nomadic instincts ceased to exist serfdom vanished. One has only to read the
severe laws against vagrancy in England, just before the Reformation, to
realize how widespread and serious was this nomadic instinct. Here in America we have not yet forgotten
the wandering instincts of our Western pioneers, which in that case proved to
be beneficial to every one except the migrants. |
Continue on to Chapter 2 - The Physical Basis Of Race