Men of the Nordic race may not enjoy the fogs and snows of the North, the endless changes of weather and the violent fluctuations of the thermometer and they may seek the sunny southern isles, but under the former conditions they flourish, do their work and raise their families. In the south they grow listless and cease to breed.
In the lower classes in the Southern States of America the increasing proportion of “poor whites” and “crackers” are symptoms of lack of climatic adjustment. The whites in Georgia, in the Bahamas and, above all, in Barbadoes are excellent examples of the deleterious effects of residence outside the natural habitat of the Nordic race.
The poor whites of the Cumberland Mountains in Kentucky and Tennessee present a more difficult problem, because here the altitude, even though moderate, should modify the effects of latitude and the climate of these mountains cannot be particularly unfavorable to men of Nordic breed. There are probably other hereditary forces at work there as yet little understood.
No doubt bad food and economic conditions, prolonged inbreeding and the loss through emigration of the best elements have played a large part in the degeneration of these mountaineers. They represent to a large extent the offspring of indentured servants brought over by the rich planters in early Colonial times and their names indicate that many of them are the descendants of the old borderers along the Scotch and English frontier. The persistence with which family feuds are maintained certainly points to such an origin. The physical type is typically Nordic, for the most part pure Saxon or Anglian, and the whole mountain population show somewhat aberrant but very pronounced physical, moral and mental characteristics which would repay scientific investigation. The problem is too complex to be disposed of by reference to the hookworm, illiteracy or competition with Negroes.
This type played a large part in the settlement of the Middle West, by way of Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. Thence they passed both up the Missouri River and down the Santa Fé trail and contributed rather more than their share of the train robbers, horse thieves and bad men of the West.
Scotland and the Bahamas are inhabited by men of precisely the same race, but the vigor of the English in the Bahamas is gone and the beauty of their women has faded. The fact that they were not in competition with an autochthonous race better adjusted to climatic conditions has enabled them to survive, but the type could not have persisted, even during the last two hundred years, if they had been compelled to compete on terms of equality with a native and acclimated population.
Another element entering into racial degeneration on many other islands and for that matter in many New England villages, is the loss through emigration of the more vigorous and energetic individuals, leaving behind the less efficient to continue the race at home.
In subtropical countries where the energy of the Nordics is at a low ebb it would appear that the racial inheritance of physical strength and mental vigor was suppressed and recessive rather than destroyed. Many individuals born in unfavorable climatic surroundings, who move back to the original habitat of their race in the north, recover their full quota of energy and vigor. New York and other Northern cities have many Southerners who are fully as efficient as pure Northerners.
This Nordic race can exist outside of its native environment as land owning aristocrats who are not required to do manual labor in the fields under a blazing sun. As such an aristocracy it continues to exist under Italian skies, but as a field laborer the man of Nordic blood cannot compete with his Alpine or Mediterranean rival. It is not to be supposed that the various Nordic tribes and armies, which for a thousand years after the fall of Rome poured down from the Alps like the glaciers to melt in the southern sun, were composed solely of knights and gentlemen who became the landed nobility of Italy. The man in the ranks also took up his land and work in Italy, but he had to compete directly with the native under climatic conditions which were unfavorable to his race. In this competition the blue eyed Nordic giant died and the native survived. His officer, however, lived in the castle and directed the labor of his bondsmen without other preoccupation than the chase and war and he long maintained his vigor.
The same thing happened in our South before the Civil War. There the white men did not work in the fields or in the factory. The heavy work under the blazing sun was carried on by Negro slaves and the planter was spared exposure to an unfavorable environment. Under these conditions he was able to retain much of his vigor. When slavery was abolished and the white man had to plough his own fields or work in the factory deterioration began.