When a more-developed element is obliged to compete on the same economic plane with a less-developed element, the standards of cleanliness or decency or education cherished by the advanced element act on it like a slow poison. William does not leave as many children as 'Tonio, because he will not huddle his family into one room, eat macaroni off a bare board, work his wife barefoot in the field, and keep his children weeding onions instead of at school. Even moral standards may act as poison. Once the women raisin-packers at Fresno, California, were American-born. Now the American women are leaving because of the low moral tone that prevails in the working force by reason of the coming in of foreigners with lax notions of propriety. The coarseness of speech and behavior among the packers is giving raisin-packing a bad name, so that American women are quitting the work and taking the next best job. Thus the very decency of the native is a handicap to success and to fecundity. As they feel the difficulty of keeping up their standards on a Slav wage, the older immigrant stocks are becoming sterile, even as the old Americans became sterile. In a generation complaint will be heard that the Slavs, too, are shirking big families, and that we must admit prolific Persians, Uzbegs, and Bokhariots, in order to offset the fatal sterility that attacks every race after it has become Americanized. Very truly says a distinguished economist, in praise of immigration: "The cost of rearing children in the United States is rapidly rising. In many, perhaps in most cases, it is simpler, speedier, and cheaper to import labor than to breed it." In like vein it is said that "a healthy immigrant lad of eighteen is a clear $1000 added to the national wealth of the United States." Just so. "The Roman world was laughing when it died." Any couple or any people that does not feel it has anything to transmit to its children may well reason in such fashion. A couple may reflect, "It is simpler, speedier, and cheaper for us to adopt orphans than to produce children of our own." A nation may reason, "Why burden ourselves with the rearing of children? Let them perish unborn in the womb of time. The immigrants will keep up the population." A people that has no more respect for its ancestors and no more pride of race than this deserves the extinction that surely awaits it. APPENDIX APPENDIX TABLE I ANNUAL IMMIGRATION 1820-1913 Year ending Sept. 30 1820 8,385 1821 9,127 1822 6,911 1823 6,354 1824 7,912 1825 10,199 1826 10,837 Year ending Sept. 30 1827 18,875 1828 27,382 1829 22,520 1830 23,322 1831 22,633 15 months ending Dec. 31 1832 60,482