77 Back in the spring: NYT, March 6, 1892.
78 Chandler’s investigation: NYT, June 30, July 29, 1892.
78 The hearings highlighted: Transcripts of the Chandler hearings and subsequent report are found in “Immigration Investigation, Ellis Island, 1892,” 52nd Congress, 1st Session, House Reports, Vol. 12, No. 2090, Series 3053. For more of Chandler’s criticism of Weber, see Congressional Record, 52nd Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 23, Part 2, February 15, 1892, 1132.
79 Weber came across: John B. Weber, Autobiography of John B. Weber (Buffalo, NY: J.W. Clement Company, 1924), 95–96, 99–100.
82 Then there was: Markel, Quarantine! 49.
82 Typhus, the New York Times: NYT, February 13, 1892. See also Amy L. Fairchild, Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2003), 42–43.
83 The linkage of: “Select Committee of the House of Representatives to Inquire into the Alleged Violation of the Laws Prohibiting the Importation of Contract Laborers, Paupers, Convicts, and Other Classes,” 1888; Julia H. Twells, “The Burden of Indiscriminate Immigration,” American Journal of Politics, December
1894.
83 Cyrus Edson: Cyrus Edson, “Typhus Fever,” NAR, April 1892. 84 Chandler tried to: William E. Chandler, “Methods of Restricting Immigration,” Forum, March 1892; Letter from William Chandler to Unknown, 1890, Book 82, WC.
84 Both extremes: John Hawks Noble, “The Present State of the Immigration Question,” Political Science Quarterly, June 1892; HW, September 1, 1894. 85 Not surprisingly: AH, March 4, 1892.
85 Traveling from Turkey: Howard Markel calls Benjamin Harrison an antiSemitic restrictionist, claiming that his 1892 reelection platform “contained strong calls for the immigration restriction of Russian Hebrews.” The platform calls for no such thing. In fact, the Republican Party platform protested “against the persecution of the Jews in Russia.” It did call for “the enactment of more stringent laws and regulations for the restriction of criminal, pauper and contract immigration,” a belief in keeping with the general view of regulating against “undesirable” immigrants. Markel also claims that Harrison “was long a proponent of ‘restricting the immigration of Russian Hebrews’ and stated so emphatically in his final two annual addresses.” That charge is also false. In his 1891 Annual Message to Congress, Harrison discusses the protests made by his government to the Russian czar “because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia.” Harrison also sent John Weber on a fact-finding trip to the Pale of Settlement to investigate the rise of anti-Semitism. Harrison was clearly concerned not only about the plight of the Russian Jews, but also about the effect that Jewish emigration might have on America. He wrote: “The immigration of these people to the United States—many other countries being closed to them—is largely increasing and is likely to assume proportions which may make it difficult to find homes and employment for them here and to seriously affect the labor market.” Harrison’s actual words hardly betray an anti-Semite. “The Hebrew is never a beggar; he has always kept the law—life by toil—often under severe and oppressive civil restrictions. It is also true that no race, sect, or class has more fully cared for its own than the Hebrew race. But the sudden transfer of such a multitude under conditions that tend to strip them of their small accumulations and to depress their energies and courage is neither good for them nor for us.” In the wake of the cholera and typhus outbreaks, Harrison’s 1892 Annual Message to Congress did argue that the “admission to our country and to the high privileges of its citizenship should be more restricted and more careful. We have, I think, a right and owe a duty to our own people, and especially to our working people, not only to keep out the vicious, the ignorant, the civil disturber, the pauper, and the contract laborer, but to check the too great flow of immigration now coming by further limitations.”
85 What was within: NYT, September 2, 1892.
86 Still, the brunt of: Markel, Quarantine! 120–121, 130.
86 The quarantine policy: Richardson, William E. Chandler, 417; Thomas M. Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 20; John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955), 100; NYT, November 7, 1892.
87 Weber called Chandler’s bill: W. E. Chandler, “Shall Immigration Be Suspended?” NAR, January 1893; Richardson, William E. Chandler, 38; Weber, Autobiography, 133; Arthur Cassot, “Should We Restrict Immigration?” American Journal of Politics, September 1893.
87 Instead, Congress passed: Markel, Quarantine! 173–182; Edwin Maxey, “Federal Quarantine Laws,” Political Science Quarterly 23, no. 4 (December 1908).
87 The nation did get: William C. Van Vleck, The Administrative Control of Aliens: A Study in Administrative Law and Procedure (New York: Da Capo Press, 1971 [1932]), 8–9; Richard H. Sylvester, “The Immigration Question in Congress,” American Journal of Politics, June 1893; Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 20–21. An article in the Political Science Quarterly agreed, noting that although some had proposed extending “the policy adopted with reference to the Chinese, making race the test of fitness,” such a policy would be politically unpopular, cause diplomatic problems, and be “repugnant to the general theory that America is a haven for the oppressed of all mankind.” What was needed was a “less clumsy and offensive law.” Noble, “The Present State of the Immigration Question.”
88 The new manifests: Joseph H. Senner, “How We Restrict Immigration,” NAR, April 1894; Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 20–22.
89 These boards of special: Van Vleck, Administrative Control of Aliens, 46–53, 214; Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 24.
89 Health concerns: Fitzhugh Mullan, Plagues and Politics: The Story of the United States Public Health Service (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 40–48. 91 The epidemic scares: NYT, January 6, July 21, 1894; Joseph Senner, “The Immigration Question,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 1897.
92 The top three: Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 79; HW, January 8, 1898.
92 These changes were: NYT, March 6, August 29, 1892; Noble, “The Present State of the Immigration Question”; Henry Cabot Lodge, “Lynch Law and Unrestricted Immigration,” NAR, May 1891; John Chetwood Jr., “Immigration, Hard Times, and the Veto,” Arena, December 1897.
92 Such feelings extended: James R. O’Beirne, “The Problem of Immigration: Its Dangers to the Future of the United States,” Independent, November 2, 1893. 92 While the Massilia incident: Noble, “The Present State of the Immigration Question.” On the 1891 lynching of Italians, see Richard Gambino, Vendetta (New York: Doubleday, 1977); Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993), 204–213; Lodge, “Lynch Law and Unrestricted Immigration.”
93 If the crimes seemed: NYT, May 18, 1893.
93 As deportations increased: NYT, May 21, 1894.
93 The anger of Italians: NYT, April 5, 1896; Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 24–26. For more on Italian immigrants during this time, see J. H. Senner, “Immigration to Italy,” NAR, June 1896 and Prescott F. Hall, “Italian Immigration,” NAR, August 1896.
93 The fear of Italian: BG, April 26, 1896.
CHAPTER FIVE: BRAHMINS
95 Boston had long stood: Barbara Miller Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New England Tradition (New York: Wiley, 1956), 48, 101; Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: Birth Control in America, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 135.
96 It is no surprise: Francis A. Walker, “Restriction of Immigration,” Atlantic, June 1896.
96 Perhaps the best expression: Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 88; Thomas Bailey Aldrich, “The Unguarded Gates,” Atlantic, March 1895. Today
the poem is still popular among supporters of immigration restriction. See, http://www .vdare.com/fulford/unguarded.htm.
97 Not all of the voices: BH, July 5, 1896.
97 As the Fitzgeralds: Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 23, 57; Francis Walker, “Immigration,” Yale Review, August 1892. Charles Francis Adams Jr., brother of Henry, thought the immigration questions was “too big and too intricate . . . to meddle with.” Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 32.
98 At just twenty-five years old: Warren later became a noted constitutional lawyer. The Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University is named after Warren, funded by an endowment from his late wife. It is disappointing, yet unsurprising, that Warren’s bio on the Harvard University website makes no mention of his role in the founding of the Immigration Restriction League: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cwc/historycwbio.html.
98 Prescott Hall: Prescott F. Hall, “The Future of American Ideals,” NAR, January 1912. For more on the “Anglo-Saxon Complex,” and theories of Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic culture, see Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 59–81 and Henry Cabot Lodge, “The Restriction of Immigration,” Our Day, May 1896. 98 Hall, who would be: Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall, compiled by Mrs. Prescott F. Hall (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1922), 119– 123.
99 The deep depressions: T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 47–58.
99 In response, the boisterous: Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life,” speech delivered to Chicago’s Hamilton Club, April 10, 1899; Theodore Roosevelt, “Twisted Eugenics,” Outlook, January 3, 1914. During his presidency, Roosevelt began speaking of “race suicide,” a term coined by Progressive academic Edward A. Ross. The president and father of six famously gave a talk before the National Congress of Mothers arguing against birth control and in favor of larger families. See Theodore Roosevelt, “On American Motherhood,” speech delivered to the National Congress of Mothers, March 13, 1905.
100 In fact, Hall embodied: Prescott F. Hall, “Representation Without Taxation,” unpublished manuscript, in Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall.
100 So it was no surprise: Morris M. Sherman, “Immigration Restriction, 1890– 1921, and the Immigration Restriction League,” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard College, 1957).
101 The IRL’s strength: John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955), 102–103; Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 103–104, 123; “Reports of the Industrial Commission on Immigration,” vol. 15, 1901, 46.
101 The IRL worked closely: Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 77, 85.
102 The descendants: Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, 73, 107, 114, 120; Julia H. Twells, “The Burden of Indiscriminate Immigration,” American Journal of Politics, December 1894.
103 Among its proposals: “Constitution of the Immigration Restriction League,” August 22, 1894, IRL.
103 For a young man: NYT, December 12, 1894.
103 Like so many: BH, April 5, 1895.
103 In mid-December 1895: “Immigration Restriction League, Annual Report of the Executive Committee for 1895,” January 13, 1896, and “IRL Annual Report of the Executive Committee for 1896,” January 11, 1897, File 1138, IRL; Brookline Chronicle, January 18, 1895; Boston Journal, January 25, 1896. 104 So in April 1896: NYT, April 21, 1896.
104 In its April 1896 investigation: “Immigration: Its Effects upon the United States, Reasons for Further Restriction.” Publication of the Immigration Restriction League, No. 16, February 13, 1897, IRL. It is certainly true that many Italians were illiterate, due in large part to the poor schools of their native country, but in Italy illiteracy rates went down considerably during the era of peak immigration, from almost 69 percent in 1872 to an estimated 23 percent in 1922. Antonio Stella, Some Aspects of Italian Immigration to the United States (New York, Arno Press, 1975), 53.
104 The IRL members: “Immigration Restriction League, Annual Report of the Executive Committee for 1895,” January 13, 1896, File 1138, IRL; Prescott F. Hall, “Immigration and the Educational Test,” NAR, October 1897.
104 Such a test would: Henry Cabot Lodge, “The Restriction of Immigration,” Our Day, May 1896.
105 Not all restrictionists: Francis A. Walker, “Immigration,” Yale Review, August 1892.
105 Writing to the secretary: Letter from Herman Stump to John Carlisle, February 20, 1897, Grover Cleveland Papers, LOC.
106 For years, immigration restrictionists: President Grover Cleveland’s Veto Message of the Educational Test Bill, March 2, 1897, reprinted by the National Liberal Immigration League, File 1125, Folder 4, IRL. Many years later, Theodore Roosevelt told Madison Grant that General Leonard Wood had told him that Cleveland had regretted his veto of the literacy test, confirming what many restrictionists had come to believe. There is no definite proof that Cleveland ever expressed regret about his veto. Letter from Madison Grant to Theodore Roosevelt, November 15, 1915, TR.
CHAPTER SIX: FEUD
107 Just after midnight: Victor Safford, Immigration Problems: Personal Experiences of an Official (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1925), 199–200.
108 To some, it was: Thomas M. Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 26; NYT, June 17, 1897; NYW, June 16, 1897; HW, February 26, 1898.
108 Officials then moved: NYT, June 19, 1897.
109 Victor Safford remembered: Safford, Immigration Problems, 76.
109 Befitting someone from: Letter from Edward McSweeney to Archbishop Michael Corrigan, January 12, 1900, ANY; Letter from A. J. You to Terence V. Powderly, June 11, 1900, Box 137, TVP.
110 McSweeney remained: Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 29.
110 Meanwhile, the McKinley: Robert E. Weir, Knights Unhorsed: Internal Conflict in a Gilded Age Social Movement (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000), 16; Craig Phelan, Grand Master Workman: Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 1–2.
111 McSweeney seemed: Phelan, Grand Master Workman, 47.
111 One historian described: Weir, Knights Unhorsed, 15; Vincent J. Falzone, Terence V. Powderly: Middle-Class Reformer (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1978), 174; Terence V. Powderly, The Path I Trod: The Autobiography of Terence V. Powderly (New York: AMS Press, 1968; original edition: Columbia University Press, 1940), 287; Letter from Terence V. Powderly to William Scaife, February 6, 1910, Box 153, TVP.
112 Another critic was: Falzone, Terence V. Powderly, 175.
112 Powderly fought back: Letter from Edward F. McSweeney to Samuel Gompers, November 22, 1901, SG.
112 Powderly’s brother: Letter from T. V. Powderly to Roy W. White, March 1, 1898, Box 128, TVP; T. V. Powderly, “A Menacing Irruption,” NAR, August 1888.
112 Powderly did not stop: Edward McGlynn, “The New Know-Nothingness and the Old,” NAR, August 1887; Powderly, The Path I Trod, 5.
113 That trouble would: Powderly, The Path I Trod, 299; Letter from Edward F. McSweeney to T. V. Powderly, June 6, 1898, Box 133, TVP.
113 Powderly made: Memorandum from T. V. Powderly, February 15, 1902, Box 156, TVP; NYT, March 10, 1899.
114 Such impolitic behavior: Falzone, Terence V. Powderly, 175–182, 188. 114 The decision on the: Memorandum from T. V. Powderly, February 15, 1902, Box 156, TVP; Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate, 28.
115 Perhaps that insecurity: Letter from T. V. Powderly to Thomas Fitchie, August 3, 1898, TR.
115 Just a few months: Letter from Sen. T. C. Platt to Thomas Fitchie, February 17, 1898, TR.
115 Despite Platt’s urgings: Letter from T. V. Powderly to William McKinley, 1901, Series 2, TVP.
116 More complaints emerged: Alvan F. Sanborn, “The New York Immigration Service,�
�� Independent, August 10, 1899; Safford, Immigration Problems, 86. 116 Much as Powderly: All references to the report come from Report by Campbell and Rodgers, June 2, 1900 to Secretary of the Treasury, Boxes 157–158, TVP. 117 The most serious charges: For charges against Lederhilger, see Report by Campbell and Rodgers, June 2, 1900 to Secretary of the Treasury, TVP. See also Letter from Thomas Fitchie to John Lederhilger, September 10, 1900, File 52727-4, INS. 117 Treasury Department officials: Letter from Edward F. McSweeney to Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan, September 10, 1900, Roll 19, G-17-G20, ANY. 118 The report was certainly: NYT, June 6, 1900.
118 Edward Steiner: Edward A. Steiner, On the Trail of the Immigrant (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1906), 79–80.
118 Stewart had been: Letter from Thomas Fitchie to J. Ross Stewart, September 10, 1900, File 51841/119, INS; NYT, October 5, 1900; Eric Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders during Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 204. The Times referred to Stewart as “J. Ross Stewart” and claimed he had been a Georgia state legislator. However, it is fairly certain that the man fired at the Barge Office was Jordan R. Stewart and he was from Louisiana. Stewart was also a friend of P. B. S. Pinchback, the first black governor in the nation’s history, who had served one month as Louisiana’s governor. Pinchback was also living in New York City in the 1890s. George McKenzie, the Republican Colored Leader of the 25th Assembly District in New York, had known Stewart for forty years and wrote to the Treasury Department to protest the charges against his friend, calling him a “brave soldier during the war of the rebellion.” McKenzie did not believe the charges against Stewart because they came from “a band of conspirators, trying to reflect discredit on the administration of Commissioner Thomas Fitchie.” Letter from George McKenzie to H. A. Taylor, September 19, 1900, File 51841/119, INS.
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