In the Northwest and Alaska, whiskey and disease have been leading factors in the reduction of the number of the natives. With this, in many regions, went a low fertility, due partly to starvation.
Nearly all of the American Indians lived as hunters. When the Whites invaded the forests and drove off or killed the game, the Indian economic system was broken up, and they had little opportunity to meet the rapidly changing conditions.
There has been, since early times, some intermarriage between Indians and Whites, but it has not been on a sufficiently large scale to be serious. The estimate however is sometimes made that one-half of the census population of Indians has white blood. Naturally, there is no way of proving or disproving such a conjecture. Only in Oklahoma has such mixing been looked on with favor, and even there some tribes held themselves largely aloof from white miscegenation and punished with death any interbreeding of their members with Negroes. The discovery of oil on Indian tribal lands made the claim to Indian blood a lucrative one and oil revenues unfortunately covered a multitude of sins. Throughout the West in general the term "squaw man" is a bitter reproach.
Taking the country over, the Whites who have married Indians have not been of a high class. But the total number of Indians in the United States is so small that their future is probably that of being absorbed in the White race through miscegenation, unless it be for a few tribes cultivating a racial purity of their own and, with favorable economic conditions, perpetuating themselves for a long time to come.
The Mexican population is found mainly in the Southwestern States, but has also assumed relatively large proportions in such States as Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, and Michigan. The character of this immigration has been described elsewhere in these pages. It has given the United States an alien element with a high birthrate and very low standards of living, with which white laborers cannot and will not compete.
The census of 1930 found nearly a million and a half Mexicans in the United States. It was generally supposed that the number who had entered the country illegally was greater than those who came through the recognized routes. To prevent such a nullification of immigration regulations, mere registration of aliens is not sufficient, for that is likely to affect only those who have entered legally. Our entire population should be registered. The advantages of a universal system of proving identity are many, and extension of the system of registering births, on the one hand, and of registering voters, on the other, would take care of this without setting up much new and expensive machinery.
The menace of Chinese and Japanese immigration has for the present been stopped by immigration laws which exclude any one not eligible to citizenship. A proper application of this rule as established by the Supreme Court might shut off much of the immigration of Indians from Mexico.
Since the end of the World War the immigration of Filipino young men has become a disturbing problem on the Pacific Coast. The number of arrivals up to 1930 amounts to nearly 50,000. These, like the Greeks and some other European immigrant groups, bring but few women with them and therefore form a socially undesirable and racially threatening element wherever they are located.
Unlike the Puerto Ricans and Hawaiians, the Filipinos are not citizens of the United States, with rights of entry that cannot be abrogated. They are citizens of the Philippine Islands, and permitted to enter the United States only by courtesy. Congress, therefore, has full right to adopt legislation which will exclude them, and it should make immediate use of its power to protect white America from this reservoir of 10,000,000 Malays and Mongoloids now under the American flag and at present potential immigrants. If this cannot be done effectively, the United States will have no alternative but to admit that its adoption of the islands and its attempt to salvage them after Spanish misrule was a mistake. As a safeguard to its own racial welfare, it may become necessary to give the Filipino his independence, commend him to the benevolence of Providence and the League of Nations, and have nothing more to do with him.
In the same way there should be no thought of further acquisition of territory in the West Indies or in Central America. It is conceivable that the Central American countries might in a not too remote future be able to form a stable confederation and stand on their own feet more successfully than they have done during the last generation. If such a federation could include the West Indian Islands, the United States might well donate its possessions there.