Lothrop Stoddard

T. Lothrop Stoddard

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

Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American historian, journalist, political scientist and racialist. Stoddard wrote several books which advocated eugenics, Nordicism, and scientific racism, including The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920). He advocated a racial hierarchy which he believed needed to be preserved through anti-miscegenation laws. Stoddard's books were once widely read both inside and outside the United States.

Quotes

The Rising Tide of Color

The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920)

• To me the Great War was from the first the White Civil War, which, whatever its outcome, must gravely complicate the course of racial relations.
  • Preface

• The ethnic focus of the yellow world has always been China. Since the dawn of history this immense human ganglion has been the centre from which civilization has radiated throughout the Far East.
  • Chapter II

• The proselyting power of Islam is extraordinary, and its hold upon its votaries is even more remarkable. Throughout history there has been no single instance where a people, once become Moslem, has ever abandoned the faith. Extirpated they may have been, like the Moors of Spain, but extirpation is not apostasy. This extreme tenacity of Islam, this ability to keep its hold, once it has got a footing, under all circumstances short of downright extirpation, must be borne in mind when considering the future of regions where Islam is to-day advancing.
  • Chapter III

• [T]he basic factor in human affairs is not politics but race.
  • Chapter III

• The black race has never shown real constructive power. It has never built up a native civilization. Such progress as certain negro groups have made has been due to external pressure and has never long outlived that pressure’s removal, for the negro, when left to himself, as in Haiti and Liberia, rapidly reverts to his ancestral ways. The negro is a facile, even eager, imitator; but there he stops. He adopts; but he does not adapt, assimilate, and give forth creatively again.
  • Chapter IV

• An Australian wrote the following lines in a Melbourne newspaper concerning his recent travels in Japan: “While in a car with several Japanese officers, they were conversing about Australia, saying that it was a fine, large country, with great forests and excellent soil for the cultivation of rice and other products. The whites settled in Australia, so thought these officers, are like the dog in the manger. Some one will have to take a good part of Australia to develop it, for it is a pity to see so fine a country lying waste. If any ill-feeling arose between the two countries, it would be a wise thing to send some battleships to Australia and annex part of it.”
  • Chapter IV