Population problems / by Edward Byron Reuter.

  • Edward Byron Reuter
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Population problems / by Edward Byron Reuter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    remedial treatment; many states have practically no facili¬ ties for their care and treatment and in none are the institutions adequate. Education, nominally free and universal, as a matter of fact reaches the poorer masses in only an exceedingly elementary way. Child labor, with its inevitable physical injury and moral degradation and mental retardation, is so widespread as to be a national disgrace. In regard to immigration there has been an almost complete refusal to exercise in any thoroughgoing way the right of selection. With the exception of certain Oriental peoples, there has been a consistent neglect to exercise any radical control over the racial type of the incomers. Individuals with certain physical and mental diseases or otherwise deemed objectionable have been refused admit¬ tance ; more recently illiterates have been included among the groups excluded. But no choice has been exercised as among races or nationalities. The importation of Negroes, with the consequent race situation, is an example of the manner in which the economic interests have pre¬ vailed in the determination of national policy. Presented with the greatest opportunity in the history of the world to select a population of a superior type, there has been a complete official failure to realize the opportunity. Need of a Comprehensive Population Policy.—It would appear that few things could be of more funda¬ mental interest and concern to a society than the course of its own development. To make a maximum contribu¬ tion to human progress and thereby to occupy an increas¬ ingly important place in the history of culture would seem to be a goal toward which an intelligent people should strive. Any such national ideal emphasizes the need for a comprehensive and consistent population policy as one
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