Human beings are hard-wired to protect young children. That’s the easiest explanation of the rush of Europeans — especially but not only elites — to welcome huge numbers of refugees after publication of the picture of a dead three-year-old boy on a Turkish beach.

In response Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would take in 800,000 as refugees. That’s 1 percent of Germany’s population. The proportionate equivalent in the United States would be 3 million — three times the current level of legal immigration.