Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-04-16
that s'Pass- for White" Person Married to
Pure White May HaUe a Negro Child

life is so long that it would take nearly
a century to get the three successive
generations required, and partly because
unions between brothers and sisters are
not permitted by law and public senti-
ment, So that the best that we can do is
to take two races as widely apart as pos
sible, and with some striking, singular
difference between them, and find out
what happens to this difference when
those possessing it intermarry.
1t is, of course, impossible to go into
details, but after several yeai of careful
study, Of actual facts of race mixture in
the Bermudas, Dr. Davenport, of the Eu-
genics Laboratory, came to the following
working conclusions: That there are four
factors or units required for the produe-
ton of the full black negro color, of which
the pure or Guinea" negro has all four,
the three-qnarter blood negro that is half
way between pure black and mulatto, has
three; the mulatto or halfbreed two, the
quadroon one, the octoroon one-half,
while the white of course, has none at all.
OF course, there are many difficulties in
the way, questions of paternity among
different children in the same family,
questions of accurate birth registration
and family history, but when the doubt
full cases have been eliminated, it seems
fairly clear to the investigators that
woman has mated with a black or par.
TALLY black mate, the children, instead of
being all intermediate in point of color,
vary widely in color between the ex
tremes possessed by both parents. And
whenever a sufficient number of families
representing the same racial mixture
could be secured to give fifty o. more
children, it was found that, roughly speak
ing, one-fourth would be as white as the
whitest parent, one-1ourth as dark as the
darkest. and one-haif of varying mix
ture between the two.
Another feature, however, soon came
to the front with great distinctness, and
that is that while there might be a wide
variation in the color of the different off
spring of one pair of parents. none of
those offspring was ever found darker
than the sum of the darknesses of the
two parents. For instance. when a pure
white man mated with black woman,
some of the offspring might be jet black.
like the mother, some nearly pure white,
like the father, and the others interme-
date, because there were present in the
maternal parent fodr full factors of black.
ness, and consequently any child might
inherit all four.
The Color Problem Settled
by Exact Scientific Methods.
But when a white man married a
mulatto woman, though the children
would be varying degrees of color, not
one would b. darker than the mother, or
the darker parent; that is to say, the
mother having only two factors and the
father none at all. none of the children
could inherit more blacKness than there
was in the melting pot. The same thing
held true In the marriage of a white man
with an octoroon or nuadroon woman. No
child was born darker than the mother.
From which purely scientific piece of alb
stract investigation emerged the interest
ing, practical result that no individual,
either knowing or suspecting that he has
some slight trace. of negro blood, need
have any serious fear of having a child
born to him darker in color or more
negrolike In feature than he is himself
IL he mates with a white partner
This so strongly contravened the
popular belief. embalmed in legend and
story of the BLACK Frankenstein" order,
that the Commission at once proceeded
to investigate the evidence upon which
this belief In 'throw-back" to the origi-
nal type was based. and made a thorough
and careful search for al reported or
recorded instances of the occurrence of
such distressing incident Two of their
most skiilfnl trained pedigree-tracers
worked for over year on the research
and records. The result was. considerably
to their own surprise. that they we're. un-
able to find single authentic and docu-
mented case OF such a catastrophe ever
Copyright. 1910. by the star compsi
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