In his January 1927 review "Charleston, Hey! Hey!" Eliot says of
John Rodker that he is "up to the minute, if anyone is; we feel sure
that he knows all about hormones, W. H. R. Rivers, and the Mongol in
our midst."  Later that year, in a September letter to Bonamy
Dobree, he jokes that he is preparing a little book entitled _The
Bolovian in Our Midst_, "proving that there was Bolovian blood in
some of the leading figures of the day."  (The latter description is
Robert Crawford's; I have not seen the letter in question).

I know I have seen this phrase ("the Mongol in our midst") before,
and I would bet it has to do with the racist rhetoric of that branch
of modern anthropology that associated more "primitive" cultures with
evolutionary inferiority and prattled about degeneration, but I
can't find the references anywhere. Can anyone refresh my memory?  
Who popularized the phrase "the Mongol in our midst"?

Thanks in advance,

Greg

___________________________________________________________
Greg Foster                  | "Fine art is the refinement,
<[log in to unmask]>  | not the antithesis, of
TSE <[log in to unmask]> | popular art." -- T. S. Eliot