In this case, tallness, because it supercedes dwarfness in the first generation, is called a “dominant” trait, and dwarfness, because it disappears, is called a “recessive” trait. As Wiggam correctly says,[116] the fundamental principle is that “the units contributed by two parents separate in the offspring without having had any influence on each other,” or practically none. A trait either shows in the offspring, or it does not show. And where the inheritance is hybrid, the reappearance or disappearance of traits may be calculated, given a sufficient number of instances, by application of the law of greatest probability. Everybody knows that one may inherit a Roman nose from a grandfather even though one’s father’s was a snub and one’s mother’s retroussé. The mathematical implications are amazing. But all that I wish to call attention to is the fact that we all are hybrids, and that unless our ancestry for many generations back is known to the minutest detail it is utterly impossible to calculate the hereditary phenomena to be looked for in our children. Mendel believed in unit characters, but it has been found that unit characters, such as blue eyes, are far from being units and are made up of an unknown number of smaller units. This greatly increases the difficulty of even guessing what hereditary possibilities the children of any given couple will receive. Nevertheless, twenty-three states have already, at the behest of eugenists, passed laws permitting the sterilization of the “unfit” by means of enforced surgical operations. And under these laws, 6244 operations have actually been performed--and my statistics are of the year 1927 and not complete at that! What is the idea? I will let Mr. Wiggam explain. “The Nordic elements of our population are being forced out by other races whose representatives in this country are of distinctly lower average mental alertness and of less social coherence and political capacity.”[117] “This race has contributed a vast share of all political wisdom and scientific discovery to the modern world. It is probably the one race on earth which has steadily advanced in these respects for the past several thousand years.”[118] “Cattell has shown that in America not a single day laborer’s son has become a man of scientific distinction. The wholesale rise of the masses to power may be the death knell of their biological progress. Like a bottle of old wine, which, when uncorked, for a time sparkles and fumes with life but soon becomes inert and stale, so it seems that men, when freed from oppression for a time, bubble with genius. But ambition is sterilized by its own success. Indeed, without biology as the basis of social processes, success spells failure and achievement brings decay. Like caged animals, those who rise cease to breed.”[119] “There were one hundred two Pilgrims who came over in the _Mayflower_.... No finer stock to found a great national breed of men and women ever set out to sea.”[120]