He wrote that Brazil could become a great nation by having a huge influx of German immigrants who would achieve the embranquecimento (racial whitening) of Brazil.[190] In 1912, Romero praised Gobineau in an essay for "admirable, genius-like vision" and his "wise words that merit every consideration" before launching what the American historian Thomas Skidmore called a "violent polemic" against Brazil's mulatto population as a racially degenerate people who should disappear from Brazil.[190]