The great American Melting Pot is destroying all form and symmetry, all beauty and character, all nobility and usefulness. It is a mistake which left unchecked, will destroy America forever.

This book, written shortly after the passage of the U.S. 1924 Immigration Act, addresses the fallacies of the "melting pot" by plainly stating the observed facts about race, nationality and what constitutes a nation.

The author, a distinguished American sociologist and chairman of the Department of Sociology in the Graduate School, New York University, shows what social implications are involved in this false symbol of the melting pot and what the essential conditions are of a healthy attitude towards the whole problem of making true citizens out of aliens.

"There can be no doubt that the founders of America expected it and intended it to be a white man's country . . . The calmness with which they closed their eyes to the presence of the Negroes in this white man's country did not alter their intentions any more than it provided an escape from the difficulties involved. There can also be no doubt that if America is to remain a stable nation it must continue to be a white man's country for an indefinite period to come. We have enough grounds of disunion and disruption without adding the irremediable one of deep racial antagonisms. An exclusion policy toward all non-white groups is wholly defensible in theory and practice, however questionable may have been the immediate means by which this policy has been put into effect at successive periods in our history."

This book answers those questions that persistently arise regarding the effect of immigration on the vigor and permanence of a nation, focusing on the racial underpinnings of society.