0 comment Thursday, July 31, 2014 | admin
I find it interesting and encouraging that there has been recent attention paid to writers of the past, such as Lothrop Stoddard, about whom I blogged recently, and now Madison Grant, who is the subject of a piece at VDare.com:
Madison Grant: Preserving Buffaloes, Redwoods -- And Founding Stock Americans
by F. Roger Devlin
Madison Grant (1865-1937), conservationist and architect of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, is finally the subject of a biography: Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant
The author, Prof. Jonathan Spiro, recounts that
During the course of my research, if I told people I was writing a biography of a leading conservationist, they would delightedly exclaim "how wonderful!" On the other hand, if I told people that my subject was a leading eugenicist, they would invariably respond: "How dreadful!"
Yet Madison Grant had similar motivations for both of these endeavors. Having worked to save buffaloes, antelopes, eagles and bears, it seemed only natural to him to turn to the preservation of his own kind, viz., Americans threatened by the flood of foreign immigration of the early twentieth century.
[...]
In 1908, Grant came under the influence of physical anthropologist William Z. Ripley, author of The Races of Europe. He learned that the rise of mass immigration correlated with a drastic decline in the fertility of the older American population. As a result, immigration amounted not to a re-enforcement of the American population but to a replacement of native by foreign stock.''
From a 1997 AmRen article:
Grant concluded that America should abandon a largely open-door immigration policy. He favored a eugenics program that would promote the Nordic race and discourage the expansion of the colored races in the white world. In particular, he condemned miscegenation.
It is worth noting that one of the reasons Grant and other racialists opposed the new immigration was that it brought alien ideologies. The First World War had seen the triumph of Bolshevism, and continuing immigration from Eastern Europe brought Marxists. Like most racialists, Grant saw socialism as unfit for Nordics. When he was helping found the Galton Society in 1918, he wrote to the other organizers: "My proposal is the organization of an anthropological society � confined to native Americans, who are anthropologically, socially, and politically sound, no Bolsheviki need apply."
Again, though Grant is now anathema to the usual suspects, being generally mentioned as having been an inspiration to (who else?) Hitler, we can see that he was held in much higher regard in his own time, when people did not cower in fear of something called 'political correctness':
The Passing of the Great Race became an immediate best-seller, with new editions in 1918, 1920, and 1921, multiple printings, and translations into German, French, and Norwegian.
It was reviewed favorably by Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and by periodicals as diverse as the Journal of Heredity and The Saturday Evening Post. The editor of the Post commissioned a series of articles on immigration in a similar vein, and in an editorial in the May 7, 1921, issue wrote: "Two books in particular that every American should read if he wishes to understand the full gravity of our present immigration problem: Mr. Madison Grant�s The Passing of the Great Race and Dr. Lothrop Stoddard�s The Rising Tide of Color� . These books should do a vast amount of good if they fall into the hands of readers who can face without wincing the impact of new and disturbing ideas."
You can find several of Grant's works online here, though they are not very readable due to many typos. Amazon.com also has several of his books available in addition to the new book by Jonathan Spiro.
From Henry Fairfield Osborn's preface to Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race:
Thus conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country, of a true sentiment which is based upon knowledge and the lessons of history rather than upon the sentimentalism which is fostered by ignorance. If I were asked: What is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic to-day ? I would certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our people of those hereditary traits through which the principles of our religious, political and social foundations were laid down and their insidious replacement by traits of less noble character.''
It seems to me that these words represent ideas whose time has truly come; in his day, they were important, but today, they are crucial ideas.
And here, an excerpt from an interesting review by R.E. Prindle of Grant's 'A Conquest of a Continent'
In the immediacy of the moment one frequently overlooks or forgets the history leading up to the moment. One might think for instance that the current flap over Diversity and Multi-Culturalism is a recent occurrence. While the two terms are of recent provenance the argument under different names goes back much farther while the protagonists are essentially the same.
The story of immigration into America is almost always told from the point of view of the immigrant. Few books tell the tale from the Nativist point of view and they are universally and viciously derided as a tale told by bigoted idiots. While charity is demanded from the Nativists none is to be expected from the immigrationists.
Thus we get volumes like Strangers In The Land by John Higham and Carl Wittke�s We Who Built America that distort the issue in favor of immigrants while deprecating the Natives.
Gustavus Myers� History Of Bigotry In The United States on the other hand appears to be a willful misunderstanding of the nature of the relative status between immigrant and native resulting in a slanderous approach like that of the contemporary Greil Marcus.
Conquest Of A Continent has been placed on the Jewish Index Of Anti-Semitic Books. Based on that I expected a detailed derogatory examination of the Jews from their entry into America perhaps being the conquerors referred to. The President of the American Jewish Committee sent a letter to every Jewish publisher in the United States demanding that they refrain from either reviewing the book or noticing it at all. Dynamic silence was to prevail.
[...]
Grant�s book should prove useful to any unbiased reader. If his attitude of Nordic superiority offends you, ignore it. His history as history is sound. For those of you reared on Myer�s History of Bigory attitude you will probably be surprised to find that there is another point of view. Bigotry is not a matter solely of American destestation of immigrants as the program of Diversity and Multi-Culturalism indicates, bigotry is a red herring and not the issue. The issue is who will be Top Race. The contestants for the Top Spot have turned out to be the Africans, Semites (both Jews and Arab Moslems) Hispanics, Chinese and Euro-Americans. (Grant�s Nordics) As you can see race has replaced nationalism.
The contest is real and ongoing. Peace is merely another form of war. The prize will go to who wants it the most. If you don�t see the contest in these terms I suggest you remove your rose colored glasses.''
Madison Grant: Preserving Buffaloes, Redwoods -- And Founding Stock Americans
by F. Roger Devlin
Madison Grant (1865-1937), conservationist and architect of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, is finally the subject of a biography: Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant
The author, Prof. Jonathan Spiro, recounts that
During the course of my research, if I told people I was writing a biography of a leading conservationist, they would delightedly exclaim "how wonderful!" On the other hand, if I told people that my subject was a leading eugenicist, they would invariably respond: "How dreadful!"
Yet Madison Grant had similar motivations for both of these endeavors. Having worked to save buffaloes, antelopes, eagles and bears, it seemed only natural to him to turn to the preservation of his own kind, viz., Americans threatened by the flood of foreign immigration of the early twentieth century.
[...]
In 1908, Grant came under the influence of physical anthropologist William Z. Ripley, author of The Races of Europe. He learned that the rise of mass immigration correlated with a drastic decline in the fertility of the older American population. As a result, immigration amounted not to a re-enforcement of the American population but to a replacement of native by foreign stock.''
From a 1997 AmRen article:
Grant concluded that America should abandon a largely open-door immigration policy. He favored a eugenics program that would promote the Nordic race and discourage the expansion of the colored races in the white world. In particular, he condemned miscegenation.
It is worth noting that one of the reasons Grant and other racialists opposed the new immigration was that it brought alien ideologies. The First World War had seen the triumph of Bolshevism, and continuing immigration from Eastern Europe brought Marxists. Like most racialists, Grant saw socialism as unfit for Nordics. When he was helping found the Galton Society in 1918, he wrote to the other organizers: "My proposal is the organization of an anthropological society � confined to native Americans, who are anthropologically, socially, and politically sound, no Bolsheviki need apply."
Again, though Grant is now anathema to the usual suspects, being generally mentioned as having been an inspiration to (who else?) Hitler, we can see that he was held in much higher regard in his own time, when people did not cower in fear of something called 'political correctness':
The Passing of the Great Race became an immediate best-seller, with new editions in 1918, 1920, and 1921, multiple printings, and translations into German, French, and Norwegian.
It was reviewed favorably by Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and by periodicals as diverse as the Journal of Heredity and The Saturday Evening Post. The editor of the Post commissioned a series of articles on immigration in a similar vein, and in an editorial in the May 7, 1921, issue wrote: "Two books in particular that every American should read if he wishes to understand the full gravity of our present immigration problem: Mr. Madison Grant�s The Passing of the Great Race and Dr. Lothrop Stoddard�s The Rising Tide of Color� . These books should do a vast amount of good if they fall into the hands of readers who can face without wincing the impact of new and disturbing ideas."
You can find several of Grant's works online here, though they are not very readable due to many typos. Amazon.com also has several of his books available in addition to the new book by Jonathan Spiro.
From Henry Fairfield Osborn's preface to Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race:
Thus conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country, of a true sentiment which is based upon knowledge and the lessons of history rather than upon the sentimentalism which is fostered by ignorance. If I were asked: What is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic to-day ? I would certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our people of those hereditary traits through which the principles of our religious, political and social foundations were laid down and their insidious replacement by traits of less noble character.''
It seems to me that these words represent ideas whose time has truly come; in his day, they were important, but today, they are crucial ideas.
And here, an excerpt from an interesting review by R.E. Prindle of Grant's 'A Conquest of a Continent'
In the immediacy of the moment one frequently overlooks or forgets the history leading up to the moment. One might think for instance that the current flap over Diversity and Multi-Culturalism is a recent occurrence. While the two terms are of recent provenance the argument under different names goes back much farther while the protagonists are essentially the same.
The story of immigration into America is almost always told from the point of view of the immigrant. Few books tell the tale from the Nativist point of view and they are universally and viciously derided as a tale told by bigoted idiots. While charity is demanded from the Nativists none is to be expected from the immigrationists.
Thus we get volumes like Strangers In The Land by John Higham and Carl Wittke�s We Who Built America that distort the issue in favor of immigrants while deprecating the Natives.
Gustavus Myers� History Of Bigotry In The United States on the other hand appears to be a willful misunderstanding of the nature of the relative status between immigrant and native resulting in a slanderous approach like that of the contemporary Greil Marcus.
Conquest Of A Continent has been placed on the Jewish Index Of Anti-Semitic Books. Based on that I expected a detailed derogatory examination of the Jews from their entry into America perhaps being the conquerors referred to. The President of the American Jewish Committee sent a letter to every Jewish publisher in the United States demanding that they refrain from either reviewing the book or noticing it at all. Dynamic silence was to prevail.
[...]
Grant�s book should prove useful to any unbiased reader. If his attitude of Nordic superiority offends you, ignore it. His history as history is sound. For those of you reared on Myer�s History of Bigory attitude you will probably be surprised to find that there is another point of view. Bigotry is not a matter solely of American destestation of immigrants as the program of Diversity and Multi-Culturalism indicates, bigotry is a red herring and not the issue. The issue is who will be Top Race. The contestants for the Top Spot have turned out to be the Africans, Semites (both Jews and Arab Moslems) Hispanics, Chinese and Euro-Americans. (Grant�s Nordics) As you can see race has replaced nationalism.
The contest is real and ongoing. Peace is merely another form of war. The prize will go to who wants it the most. If you don�t see the contest in these terms I suggest you remove your rose colored glasses.''
Labels: American History, Anglo-Saxon Heritage, Demographics, Ethnoconservatism, Mass Immigration, Nativism, Political Correctness, Race Replacement, Racial Dispossession