Survival of the fittest

From A treasury of American anecdotes; sly, salty, shaggy stories of heroes and hellions, beguilers and buffoons, spellbinders and scapegoats, gagsters and gossips, from the grassroots and sidewalks of America by Benjamin Albert Botkin. 

I was deeply impressed with manufacturers and the ingenuity of New England people from whom we were getting so many finished products, and I decided to make a trip to Boston to see what these New England people looked like. I went to Baltimore by train and thence by the Merchants and Miners Line to Boston, and stopped at the old Adams House, where I ate a good New England dinner.

In the lobby after dinner, I made the acquaintance of a very gracious New England gentleman who was willing to talk and give me some information. I asked him if he could tell me some of the fundamental reasons why the New England people were so select, so ingenious, and so successful in manufacturing. With a twinkle in his eye, he spoke as follows: “Did you come in this morning against a heavy east wind?” I answered, “Yes.” “Did you have baked beans for your dinner?” I admitted that there were baked beans on the table. “In these two things you have the answer to your question as to why the people of New England are so select. It is this: Persons of weak lungs are soon cut off by east winds and those of weak stomachs are early killed by baked beans! We have here a survival of the fittest.”