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. The change in type of the men who are now sent by the Southern States to represent them in the Federal Government from their predecessors in ante-bellum times is partly due to these causes, but in greater degree it is to be attributed to the fact that a large portion of the best racial strains in the South were killed off during the Civil War. In addition the war shattered the aristocratic traditions which formerly secured the selection of the best men as rulers. The new democratic ideals, with universal suffrage in free operation among the whites, result in the choice of representatives who lack the distinction and ability of the leaders of the Old South.