Lothrop Stoddard

Lothrop Stoddard
Born	Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (1883-06-29)June 29, 1883 Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	May 1, 1950(1950-05-01) (age 66) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Harvard, Boston University
Occupation	Scientist, historian, journalist, eugenicist

Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American historian, journalist, eugenicist, and political theorist. Stoddard is best known for his controversial works on race.

Biography

Early life and education

Stoddard was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of John Lawson Stoddard, a prominent writer and lecturer, and his wife Mary H. Stoddard. He attended Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude in 1905, and studied Law at Boston University until 1908. Stoddard received a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1914.

Career overview

In 1922, Alec Waugh, board member at the firm Chapman & Hall during the early 1920's, arranged to have Stoddard's The Revolt Against Civilization published in England.

Stoddard had a noted role during the legislative debates over immigration restriction throughout 1923 and early 1924. He was invited to testify in the House Committee hearings alongside Harry H. Laughlin, Madison Grant, Robert DeCourcy Ward and Herbert Spencer Jennings. As a result, the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 passed by large majorities in both the House and Senate.

In 1929, Stoddard debated W. E. B. Du Bois on equality and the concept of the natural inferiority of "colored races". In the same year, he debated Clarence Darrow on the subject of immigration law.

America's Town Meeting of the Air at the Town Hall, in New York City, during broadcast of a debate on the subject: “Is Franco-Spain a Threat to World Peace?”. George V. Denny Jr. is at the speaker’s desk. Other speakers, seated left to right, are: Cecil Brown, Vincent Sheean, Lothrop Stoddard, and C. G. Paulding (Thursday, April 18, 1946)

Between 1939 and 1940, Stoddard spent four months as a journalist for the North American Newspaper Alliance in National Socialist Germany. He got preferential treatment by National Socialist officials compared to other journalists. An example was the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda's insisting that NBC's Max Jordan and CBS's William Shirer use Stoddard to interview the captain of the Bremen.

Stoddard visited the Hereditary Health Court in Charlottenburg, an appeals court that decided whether Germans would be forcibly sterilized. After having observed several dysgenics trials at the court, Stoddard stated that the eugenics legislation was "being administered with strict regard for its provisions and that, if anything, judgments were almost too conservative" and that the law was "weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way." Stoddard was taken aback by the forthrightness of the National Socialists' anti-Jewish views, foreseeing that the "Jewish problem" would soon be settled "by the physical elimination of the Jews themselves from the Third Reich."

Stoddard wrote a memoir, Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today (1940), about his experiences in Germany. Among other events, the book describes interviews with such figures as Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley and Fritz Sauckel.

Later in life, Stoddard acted as foreign policy expert for The Washington Evening Star. He also worked for WMAL-FM radio in Washington, D.C., owned by the Evening Star, where he was an editorial writer at the time of his death.

Stoddard was married to the Bostonian singer Elizabeth Guilford Bates on April 16, 1926. The couple had two children. After his wife's death in 1940, he married Zoya K. Dickens. He was a member of the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, and the Academy of Political Science. He was appointed to the Board of Directors of the American Birth Control League, a forerunner to Planned Parenthood by Margaret Sanger. Stoddard was a lifelong Unitarian and Republican. He was also an enthusiastic stamp collector.

Death

Stoddard's work was praised by such men as Dean Inge, Lord Northcliffe and President Warren G. Harding. However, after World War II, his theories were deemed too closely aligned with those of the German Empire and so he suffered a large drop in popularity. His death in 1950 from cancer went almost entirely unreported despite his previously broad readership and influence.

Thought

Stoddard authored over two dozen books, most related to race and civilization. He wrote primarily on the dangers posed by "colored" peoples to "white" civilization. Many of his books and articles were racialist and described what he saw as the peril of immigration. His most famous book was The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy in 1920. In this book, he presented a view of the world situation pertaining to race and focusing concern on the coming population explosion among the "colored" peoples of the world and the way in which "white world-supremacy" was being lessened in the wake of World War I and the collapse of colonialism.

Title page of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-supremacy

Stoddard's analysis divided world politics and situations into "white," "yellow," "black," "Amerindian," and "brown" peoples and their interactions.

Stoddard argued that race and heredity were the guiding factors of history and civilization and that the elimination or absorption of the "white" race by "colored" races would result in the destruction of Western civilization. Like Madison Grant in his The Passing of the Great Race, Stoddard divided the white race into three main divisions: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. He considered all three to be of good stock and far above the quality of the colored races but argued that the Nordic was the greatest of the three and needed to be preserved by way of eugenics.

Stoddard blasted the ethnic supremacism of the Germans and blamed the "Teutonic imperialists" for the outbreak of World War I. He opposed what he saw as the disuniting of white European peoples through intense nationalism and infighting.

Some of the predictions that he made in The Rising Tide of Color were accurate, not all of which were original to Stoddard or predicated on white supremacy. They include Japan's rise as a major power; a war between Japan and the US; a second war in Europe; the overthrowing of European colonial empires in Africa and Asia; the mass migration of non-white peoples to white countries; and the rise of Islam as a threat to the West because of Muslim religious fanaticism. (Stoddard was an Islamic scholar and would publish the book The New World of Islam in 1921.)

An allusion to the book occurs in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, which is set in 1922 and was published in 1925. Tom Buchanan, the husband of Daisy Buchanan, the novel's principal woman character, says:

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Colored Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone."

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we — "

"Well these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California —" began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and —" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. " — And we've produced all the things that go to make civilization — oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more.

Title page of the first edition of Revolt Against Civilization

In The Revolt Against Civilization (1922), Stoddard put forward the theory that civilization places a growing burden on individuals, which leads to a growing underclass of individuals who cannot keep up and a 'ground-swell of revolt'. Stoddard advocated immigration restriction and birth control legislation to reduce the numbers of the underclass and promoted the reproduction of members of the middle and upper classes. He considered social progress impossible unless it was guided by a "neo-aristocracy" from of the most capable individuals that was reconciled with the findings of science rather than based on abstract idealism and egalitarianism.

In Re-Forging America: The Story of Our Nationhood (1927), Stoddard wrote:

We want above all things to preserve America. But "America," as we have already seen, is not a mere geographical expression; it is a nation, whose foundations were laid over three hundred years ago by Anglo-Saxon Nordics, and whose nationhood is due almost exclusively to people of North European stock—not only the old colonists and their descendants but also many millions of North Europeans who have entered the country since colonial times and who have for the most part been thoroughly assimilated. Despite the recent influx of alien elements, therefore, the American people is still predominantly a blend of closely related North European strains, and the fabric of American life is fundamentally their creation.

In the same book, referring to the 1924 Immigration Act, Stoddard wrote:

It is perfectly true that our present immigration policy does (and should) favor North Europeans over people from other parts of Europe, while it discriminates still more rigidly against the entry of non-white races. But the basic reason for this is not a theory of race superiority, but that most fundamental and most legitimate of all human instincts, self-preservation — rightly termed "the first law of nature."

He concluded:

"The cardinal point in our immigration policy should, therefore, be to allow no further diminution of the North European element in America's racial make-up."

Works

Books

• The French Revolution in San Domingo. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company (1914).
• Present-day Europe, its National States of Mind. New York: The Century Co. (1917).
• Stakes of the War. New York: The Century Co. (with Glenn Frank, 1918).
• The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1920).
• The New World of Islam. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1921).
• The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under Man. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1922).
• Racial Realities in Europe. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1924).
• Social Classes in Post-War Europe. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1925).
• Scientific Humanism. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1926).
• Re-forging America: The Story of Our Nationhood. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1927).
• The Story of Youth. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation (1928).
• Luck, Your Silent Partner. New York: H. Liveright (1929).
• Master of Manhattan; the Life of Richard Croker. London: Longmans, Green and Co. (1931).
• Europe and Our Money. New York: The Macmillan Co. (1932).
• Lonely America. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, and Co. (1932).
• Clashing Tides of Color. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1935).
• A Caravan Tour to Ireland and Canada, World Caravan Guild (1938).
• Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, Inc. (1940).

Selected articles

• “Turkey and the Great War,” The North American Review, Vol. CC, No. 707 (1914).
• “Santo Domingo: Our Unruly Ward,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. XLIX (1914).
• “How Europe’s Armies Take the Field,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. L (1914).
• “Italy and the War,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. L, (1914).
• “Bulgaria’s Dream of Empire,” The Century Magazine, Vol. XC (1915).
• “Imperiled Holland,” The Century Magazine, Vol. XC (1915).
• “Italian Imperialism,” The Forum (1915).
• “Italy and her Rivals,” Review of Reviews, Vol. LII (1915).
• “Venizelos: Pilot of Greater Greece,” Review of Reviews, Vol. LII (1915).
• "The Scandinavian Revival and the War," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXV, No. 3 (1915).
• "The Rumanian Sphinx," The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LIII (1916).
• "The Smouldering East," The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LIII (1916).
• “The Simmering Balkans,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LIV (1916).
• “The Danish West Indies: Keys to the Caribbean,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LIV (1916).
• "Russia's State of Mind," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXVIII (1916).
• “The Economic Heresy of the Allies,” The Century Magazine, XCIII, No. 2 (1916).
• "The Blundering of Greece,” The Century Magazine, XCIII, No. 5 (1917).
• "Pan-Turanism," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1917).
• "Little Russia," The Century Magazine, Vol. XCIV (1917).
• “The Real Menace of Pacifism,” The Forum, Vol. LVII (1917).
• “New China Menaced,” The Forum, Vol. LVII (1917).
• “The Right-Line of American Policy,” The Forum, Vol. LVII (1917).
• "Austria Faces the Future," The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LV (1917).
• “Exit Constantine,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LV (1917).
• “Russia: A Bird’s-Eye View,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LVI (1917).
• “Some Reflections on Revolution,” The Unpopular Review, Vol. IX (1918).
• “Russia and German Policy,” The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LVIII (1918).
• "A Detector for Foreign Trade Traps," The Nation's Business, Vol. VI, No. 8 (1918).
• “What Remains of Germanism in Central Europe,” The World's Work, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3 (1919).
• “Peace Conferences that Have Failed in the Past,” The World's Work, Vol. XXXVII, No. 4 (1919).
• "Bulgaria Quits," The Century Magazine, Vol. XCVII, No. 2 (1919).
• "Russia: A Dissolving View", The Century Magazine, Vol. XCVII, No. 3 (1919).
• “The World as It Is,” Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, The World's Work, Vol. XXXVIII (1919).
• “The Economic Foundations of Peace,” The World's Work, Vol. XXXVII (1919).
• "Europe's Minor Frictions," The American Review of Reviews, Vol. LIX, No. 3 (1919).
• "Adria: The Troubled Sea," The Century Magazine, Vol. XCVIII (1919).
• "Bolshevism: The Heresy of the Underman," The Century Magazine, Vol. XCVIII (1919).
• "How Persia Died: A Coroner's Inquest," The Century Magazine, Vol. XCIX (1919).
• “As Others See Us," The World's Work, Vol. XXXVIII; Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, The World's Work, Vol. XXXIX; Part VIII, Part IX, The World's Work, Vol. XL (1919/1920).
• “The Common People’s Union,” The World's Work, Vol. XXXIX No. 1 (1919).
• “Labor in World Politics,” The World's Work, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2 (1919).
• "How Europe Views Our Campaign Prospects," The World's Work, Vol. XL, No. 4 (1920).
• "Japan Challenges Us to Control California," The World's Work, Vol. XL, No. 5 (1920).
• "The Japanese Issue in California," The World's Work, Vol. XL, No. 6 (1920).
• “How Europe Views Our Campaign,” The World’s Work, Vol. XLI, No. 1 (1920).
• “Is America American?,” The World’s Work, Vol. XLI, No. 2 (1920).
• “Scandinavia’s Lesson to the World,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. LXVIII, No. 5 (1920).
• “The New Ignorance,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. LXVIII, No. 6 (1920).
• "A Greek Tragedy," The New Republic, Vol. XXIV, No. 301 (1924).
• “The Unrest in the Islamic World,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. LXX, No. 1 (1921).
• “Social Unrest and Bolshevism in the Islamic World,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. LXX, No. 2 (1921).
• "The Problem of India," The Century Magazine, Vol. CI, No. 4 (1921).
• "The Japanese Question in California," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. XCI (1921).
• "Population Problems in Asia," The Birth Control Review, Vol. V (1921).
• "The Month in World Affairs," Part II, Part III, The Century Magazine, Vol. CIII; Part IV Part V, Part VI, Part VII, The Century Magazine, Vol. CIV (1922).
• “Islam Aflame with Revolt,” The World’s Work, Vol. XLIV, No. (1922).
• "Lo, the Poor American," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCV, No. 28 (1923).
• “England: Impressions and Personalities,” Scribner's, Vol. LXXIV, No.3 (1923).
• “Through Rhineland and Ruhr — Via Morocco,” Scribner's, Vol. LXXIV, No. 5 (1923).
• “Berlin and Vienna: Likenesses and Contrasts,” Scribner's, Vol. LXXIV, No. 6 (1923).
• “Balkan Glimpses,” Scribner's, Vol. LXXV, No. 1 (1924).
• “Turkish Vistas by Land and Sea,” Scribner's, Vol. LXXV, No. 2 (1924).
• “Through Arab Lands,” Scribner's, Vol. LXXV, No. 3 (1924).
• "Kindred Brittain," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVI, No. 40 (1924).
• "Present Day Germany," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVI, No. 47 (1924).
• "The Alpine East," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVI, No. 52 (1924).
• "The Balkan Flux," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVII, No. 2 (1924).
• "Nationalist Turkey," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVII, No. 3 (1924).
• "The New Realism of Science," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVII, No. 10 (1924).
• "Bobbed-Haired Thinking," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVII, No. 23 (1924).
• "Worthwhile Americans," The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. CXCVII, No. 29 (1925).
• "Does Democracy Fit Most Peoples?," World's Work, Vol. L, No. 1 (1931).
• “The Pedigree of Judah,” The Forum, Vol. LXXV, No. 3 (1926).
• “Two Views of Fascism,” The Forum, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 2 (1927).
• “The Impasse at the Color-Line,” The Forum, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 4 (1927).
• "Realism: The True Challenge of Fascism," Harper's Magazine, Vol. CLV (1927).
• "1917—Red Russia Turns Pink—1927," World's Work, Vol. LV, No. 1 (1927).
• "Gomez is Venezuela," World's Work, Vol. LIX, No. 6 (1930).
• “Is This the End of Civilization?,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. LXXXIX, No. 6 (1931).
• “What France Really Wants,” The Forum, Vol. LXXXVI, No. 6 (1931).
• "Why Dictators?," World's Work, Vol. LX, No. 1 (1931).
• "Factories Expatriate," World's Work, Vol. LX, No. 3 (1931).
• " What’s the Matter with Australia?," Harper's Magazine, Vol. CLXIII, No. 975 (1931).
• “Why Cities Go Broke,” The Forum, Vol. LXXXVII, No. 6 (1932).
• "The Ominous Lesson from Australia’s Orgy of Public Ownership," ''Public Utilities Fortnightly, Vol. IX, No. 3 (1932).
• "The Revolt Against Radicalism," Public Utilities Fortnightly, Vol. X, No. 9 (1932).
• “Chaos in the East,” Scribner’s Magazine (1932).
• “How to Keep Out of the Next War,” Scribner's Magazine (1934).
• "U.S. Must Face Japanese Ambition to Rule the Pacific," The China Weekly Review, Vol. LXVII, No. 6 (1934).
• "The Professor's Place in Politics," Public Utilities Fortnightly, Vol. XIII, No. 3 (1934).
• "Men of Color Aroused," Review of Reviews, Vol. XCII, No. 5 (1935).
• "Nervous Money," Review of Reviews, Vol. XCIII, No. 6 (1936).
• “Africa—The Coming Continent,” Scribner's Magazine Vol. XCIX, No. 4 (1936).
• "When Gomez Was Venezuela," Current History, Vol. XLIII, No. 5 (1936).
• "Wanted: A New Far Eastern Policy," Harper's Magazine, Vol. CLXXVI, No. 1032 (1936).

Miscellania

• Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Vol. 6. New York and London: Harper & Brothers (1920; editor, with Theodore F. Jones)
• "Assimilation." In: James Truslow Adams, ed., Dictionary of American History, Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1968), p. 130.
• "Race Elements in America." In: James Truslow Adams, ed., Dictionary of American History, Vol. 4. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1968), pp. 391–93.
• "Race Problem." In: James Truslow Adams, ed., Dictionary of American History, Vol. 4. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1968), pp. 393–94.

See also

• Eugenics in the United States
• Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry

Further reading

• Bachman, James Robert. Theodore Lothrop Stoddard: The Bio-sociological Battle for Civilization, University of Rochester. Department of History, 1967.
• Bertonneau, Thomas F. "American Nietzsche," Part II, The Alternative Right, March 2010.
• Frank, Glenn. "The Literature of Despair," The Century Magazine, July 1925.
• Langdon-Davies, John (1925). The New Age of Faith. New York: The Viking Press.
• Locke, Robert. "Wahhabism, China, Mass Immigration: Lothrop Stoddard Rediscovered," V Dare, February 21, 2004.
• McDaniel, George. "America's Racialist Moment: Racism as Reform," The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. VI, No. 1, 2006, pp. 38–54.
• Newby, Idus A. Jim Crow's Defense: Anti-Negro Thought in America, 1900-1930, Louisiana State University Press, 1965.

External links

• Profile of Lothrop Stoddard, at The Northlander Archives
• Stoddard Family Association
• The Colchester Collection
• Works by Lothrop Stoddard at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Lothrop Stoddard at Hathi Trust
• Works by Lothrop Stoddard at Unz.com
• Works by Lothrop Stoddard at Harpers Magazine