The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy

The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy is a book by Lothrop Stoddard, published in 1922. In it, Stoddard warns against what he saw as dangers to the white, 'Nordic' domination of the world from other races and from 'inferior' white or 'mongrel' races.

Stoddard saw the main danger for the white race domination over the world as coming from the "Yellow race" and especially from the Japanese. The threat from the 'brown' and the 'black' he saw as less likely. He predicted that overpopulation in India would lead to "such a cycle of strife as would devour its human surplus and render distant aggressions impossible." . a "black 'renaissance'" was, he thought, even less likely, unless the white race stops holding firm and show weakness. South and central America, Stoddard predicted, "will be neither red nor black. It will ultimately be either white or yellow. The Indian is patently unable to construct a progressive civilization. As for the negro, he has proved as incapable in the New World as in the Old."

Stoddard condemned what he saw as the unjustified optimism of the "whites" regarding their continued world domination. The Russo-Japanese War where "the legend of white invincibility was shattered" was to Stoddard a watermark in human history. As a result of the Industrial revolution, which forced people to live in proximity to one another the Nordic race , he claimed, had allowed itself to be "invaded by hordes of immigrant Alpines and Mediterraneans, not to mention Asiatic elements like Levantines and Jews."

This undesirable development, says Stoddard, can still be corrected. The situation "is not yet irreparable... Decisions - firm decisions - must be made. Constructive measures - drastic measures - must be taken." The white race, who lost his solidarity because of on-going disputes between whites, is even more "hampered by Versailles, and harassed by Bolshevism." It may have to abandon "the outer dikes" (areas where there are no white settlements) but must hold firm to "the inner dikes" where there are such settlements. Most importantly, it must fight immigration: "migrations of lower human types like those which have worked such havoc in the United States must be rigorously curtailed."

Stoddard's book, expressed a popular notion at the time, viewing the 19th century as unduly optimistic in its views regarding progress. In line with widely held views about the future of European dominance and 'the white race' after World War I it warns against what he saw as the 'dangers' of racial mixing. Some evidence of this popularity can be discerned Tom Buchanan's view in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby that Stoddard is correct in his prediction, and from the adoption of many of Stoddard's ideas here in Aviator Charles Lindbergh's Aviation, Geography, and Race.[1].

The book fell into disrepute, along with similar 'scientific' racial concepts that were prevalent in the late 19th century and early 20th century. In recent years, though, some white supremacists have touted its "prophetic" merits.

Sources

• The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy