207 In his first: “Annual Report of William Williams, Ellis Island Commissioner,” September 19, 1910, Folder 5, File 1061, IRL. Also found in “Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration,” 1910, 134–135.
207 The amount of work: “Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration,” 1911, 147.
207 Williams worried: Letter from William Williams to Commissioner-General of Immigration, June 24, 1910, WW-Yale.
208 To the thousands: On the case of Wolf Konig, see File 53452-973, INS. 208 Michele Sica was: On the case of Michele Sica, see File 53305-74, INS. 209 Although much younger Although much younger 234, INS.
210 Williams himself: On the case of Jacob Duck, see File 52880-127, INS. 210 Though Williams may have: On the Kaganowitz family, see File 53390-146, INS.
211 Meier Salamy Yacoub: File 53257-34, INS.
211 Jewish groups were: “Extracts from Minutes of Second Annual Meeting of National Jewish Immigration Council Held February 18, 1912,” File 53173, INS: NYT, November 14, 1909.
212 Whether Uhl was: Edward Alsworth Ross, The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People (New York: Century, 1914), 289–290.
212 Meter was detained: File 53370-699, INS.
212 While HIAS continued: Max J. Kohler, “Immigration and the Jews of America,” AH, January 27, February 3, 1911; NYT, January 19, 1911. For a response to Kohler’s charges, see Memorandum for the Secretary from CommissionerGeneral of Immigration Daniel Keefe, February 16, 1911, File 53173-12, INS.
213 Not all Jewish leaders: Panitz, “In Defense of the Jewish Immigrant, 1891– 1924.”
213 Simon Wolf: NYT, July 18, 1909; Letter from Lipsitch to Kohler, March 7, 1911, Folder 11, Box 11, MK.
213 HIAS President: Letter from Leon Sanders to Max J. Kohler, July 29, 1910, Folder 11, Box 11, MK.
213 Secretary Nagel: Kohler, 198–199. See also, Otto Heller, ed., Charles Nagel: Speeches and Writings, 1900–1928, vol. 1 (New York: Putnam’s, 1931), 151, 157.
214 Jewish groups attempted: AH, January 28, 1910.
214 After that, Williams’s: “Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration,” 1911, 152.
215 In response, members: Letter from Moe Lenkowsky and Anton Kaufman, Chairman and Secretary of the Citizens Committee of Orchard, Rivington and East Houston Streets, to William Howard Taft, April 9, 1912, WW-NYPL; Letter from William Williams to Theodore Roosevelt, January 31, 1912, Series 1, Reel 126, TR; Letter from William Williams to Daniel Keefe, September 13, 1912, Series 6, Number 1579, WHT.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “CZAR WILLIAMS”
217 Taft listened to a number: NYT, October 19, 1910; Letter from William Williams to Charles Nagel, October 19, 1910, Folder 64, Box 4, Series I, WW-Yale.
217 But President Taft’s: NYTrib, December 16, 1910; Letters from Charles Nagel to Charles D. Norton, December 10, 13, 1910, WHT; Letter from Charles Nagel to William Howard Taft, January 7, 1911, WHT.
217 These were hard: “Remarks of President Taft to the Board of Directors of the American Association of Foreign Newspapers at the Executive Office, Washington, DC,” January 4, 1911, No. 77, Reel 364, Series 6, WHT; New York Evening Sun, January 4, 1911.
218 “Away with Czarism”: Morgen Journal, April 17, 1911; New York Evening Journal, May 24, 1911; Morgen Journal, June 23, 1911.
219 The Morgen Journal listed: Morgen Journal, April 17, 1911; Szabadsag, October 11, 1910.
219 O. J. Miller: Memorandum from William Williams to Daniel Keefe, October 14, 1910, Folder 63, Box 4, CN; File 53139-7, INS. Nagel sent a detective to investigate Miller and his organization. The investigation discovered that the German Liberal Immigration Bureau was only a paper organization and Miller a reporter for the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung. Nevertheless, Miller’s agitation caught the attention of government officials, congressmen, and German-American organizations.
219 Groups such as: File 53139-7, INS.
219 At first, Williams was: Letter from William Williams to Charles Nagel, April 5, : Letter from William Williams to Charles Nagel, April 5, 7, INS.
220 Nor could Charles: Letter from Charles Nagel to Charles Norton, October 21, 1910, Folder 65, Box 4, WW-Yale.
220 Harper’s Weekly asked: HW, July 7, 1911.
222 It is hard: Broughton Brandenburg, “The Tragedy of the Rejected Immigrant,” Outlook, October 13, 1906; Philip Taylor, The Distant Magnet: European Emigration to the USA (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 123; “Report of the Dillingham Immigration Commission,” undated, File 1060, Folder 9, IRL; “Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration,” 1907, 83. Harper’s Weekly estimated that some eight thousand potential immigrants were refused passage by steamship companies at Bremen in 1905. HW, April 14, 1906. 222 For some immigrants: Letter from J. M. Jenks to Oscar Straus, March 12, 1907, Box 6, OS.
222 An American congressional: “Report of the Sub-Committee of the Immigration Commission,” 1907; Senator A. C. Latimer and Rep. John L. Burnett, File 1060, Folder 8, IRL; Taylor, 123.
222 William Williams was: Letter from Charles Nagel to William Williams, April 6, 1911, File 53139-7, INS.
223 Nagel won no friends: “Hearings on House Resolution No. 166,” House Committee on Rules, United States House of Representatives, May 29, 1911, 107; Max J. Kohler, Immigration and Aliens in the United States: Studies of American Immigration Laws and the Legal Status of Aliens in the United States (New York: Bloch, 1936), 46.
223 This was not: Otto Heller, ed., Charles Nagel: Speeches and Writings, 1900–1928, vol. 1 (New York: Putnam’s, 1931), xviii, 146; Letter from Charles Nagel to William Howard Taft, April 16, 1912, Number 3D, Series 6, WHT. 223 The agitation among: “Hearings on House Resolution No. 166,” House Committee on Rules, United States House of Representatives, May 29, 1911, 3–6. 224 Before the hearings: Letter from William Williams to Prescott Hall, May 12, 1911, File 916, Folder 2, IRL.
224 Still, while the earlier: Letter from William Williams to Charles Nagel, June 5, 1911, Folder 81, Box 5, WW-Yale.
225 He had arrived: On Bass, see “An English Pastor’s Experience on Ellis Island: The Abuse of the USA Immigration Laws,” undated, Reel 409; Letter from William Williams to Commissioner-General of Immigration, January 30, 1911; Letter from Charles Nagel to Charles D. Norton, Secretary to the President, February 25, 1911, Series 6, Reel 409, WHT; “Hearings on House Resolution No. 166,” House Committee on Rules, United States House of Representatives, May 29, 1911, 130–135; New York Evening Journal, June 21, 1911; Letter from William Williams to Commissioner General of Immigration, March 9, 1911, Box 13, Folder 10, MK.
227 With the failure: NYT, October 8, 1911; Charles Thomas Johnson, Culture at Twilight: The National German-American Alliance, 1901–1918 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 76; Morgen Journal, January 4, 17, February 7, 1912. 227 Williams had his defenders: HW, June 10, 1911.
228 Arthur von Briesen: Letter from Arthur von Briesen to William Howard Taft, June 29, 1911, Folder 82, Box 5, Series I, WW-Yale.
228 Williams’s most steadfast: Letter from William Howard Taft to William Williams, November 25, 1911, Number 90, Reel 509, Series 8, WHT.
228 In his own way: Letter from William Howard Taft to William Williams, May 2, 1913, Folder 9, Box 1, WW-Yale.
228 Williams continued with: Thomas Pitkin, Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island (New York: New York University Press, 1975), 109.
229 The economic effects: NYT, September 28, 1912, September 21, 1913; Philip Cowen, Memories of an American Jew (New York: International Press, 1932), 184.
229 When the U.S. Commission: On the Dillingham Commission, see Robert F. Zeidel, Immigrants, Progressives and Exclusion Politics: The Dillingham Commissioner, 1900–1927 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004); Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 50–81; Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Con
trol in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 128–132; Oscar Handlin, Race and Nationality in American Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 93–138; Jeremiah Jenks and W. Jett Lauck, The Immigration Problem: A Study of American Immigration Conditions and Needs (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1913); and Survey, January 7, 1911. Tichenor found that the Dillingham Commission’s “expert findings offered a portrait of southern and eastern European newcomers that legitimized the xenophobic narrative and policy agenda of Progressive Era restrictionists.” In response, Zeidel notes that the Dillingham Commission was deeply rooted in the reform movements of the early twentieth century, a fact many historians have ignored “because they have not wanted to equate any form of xenophobia with progress.” Its conclusions and recommendations can be found in U.S. Immigration Commission, “Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission with Conclusions and Recommendations and Views of the Minority, Volume One,” 61st Congress, 3rd Session, Document 747, 1911.
230 His new party’s platform: Rivka Shpak Lissak, “Liberal Progressives and Immigration Restriction, 1896–1917,” Annual Lecture, American Jewish Archives, 1991; Tichenor, Dividing Lines, 135–136; Hans Vought, The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents and the Immigrant, 1897–1933 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 86–87.
230 The candidate who: Woodrow Wilson, A History of the American People, Volume 5 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1901), 212–214.
231 Thanks to newspaper: Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Road to the White House (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947), 381–387, 499–500; James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs—and the Election That Changed the Country (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 135–137; Wilson quoted in the Jewish Immigration Bulletin, November 1916, 8.
231 Despite the controversy: Letter from William Howard Taft to A. Lawrence Lowell, November 6, 1910, File 860, IRL.
231 For two decades: Survey, February 8, 1913.
232 The numbers support: LD, May 25, 1912; Outlook, February 22, 1913.
232 With only a few: Morris M. Sherman, “Immigration Restriction, 1890–1921, and the Immigration Restriction League,” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard College, 1957), 33.
232 A few weeks before: NYT, January 26, 1913.
233 Ethnic groups were: New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, May 7, 14, 1913, translation found in File 53139-7C, INS.
233 Throughout the 1912 campaign: Warheit, July 14, 1912, in “Instances of Continued Abuse of the Ellis Island Authorities by Certain Newspapers Printed in Foreign Languages in the City of New York,” undated, Folder 32, Box 3, WWNYPL.
233 The Deutsches Journal: Deutsches Journal, April 28 1913; “Comments on Annexed Report of Case of Aron Mosberg,” April 18, 1913, File 53139-7C, INS. 233 “Sir, You are the murderer”: Letter from John Czurylo to William Williams, May 3, 1913; Letter from William Williams to the Commissioner-General of Immigration, May 9, 1913, WW-NYPL.
234 In an April 1913 letter: Letter from William Williams to the CommissionerGeneral of Immigration, April 21, 1913, File 53139-7C, INS.
234 The uncertainty: Letter from Prescott Hall to William Williams, November 22, 1912, Box 3, WW-NYPL.
235 Others remembered Williams: Letter to William Williams, June 18, 1913, Box 3, WW-NYPL.
235 Others took issue: Morgen Journal, June 20, 1913.
235 After the war: NYT, February 9, 1947; Frederic R. Coudert, “In Memoriam: William Williams,” American Journal of International Law 41, no. 3 (July 1947). 236 Two months before: Case of Lipe Pocziwa, No. 667, Series 6, Reel 404, WHT. 237 William Williams: “Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration,” 1911, 147; “Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration,” 1912, 23.
CHAPTER TWELVE: INTELLIGENCE
238 During the depths: On the Zitello family, see File 54050-240, INS.
241 When Dr. Thomas Salmon: On the life and career of Thomas W. Salmon, see Earl D. Bond, Thomas W. Salmon: Psychiatrist (New York: W.W. Norton, 1950) and Manon Parry, “Thomas W. Salmon: Advocate of Mental Hygiene,” American Journal of Public Health 96, no. 10 (October 2006).
241 Salmon saw the chance: For a description of the work of a psychologist on line examination at Ellis Island, see Thaddeus S. Dayton, “Importing Our Insane,” HW, October 19, 1912.
242 Salmon was on the: Ian Robert Dowbiggin, Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880–1940 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 203.
242 The results of Salmon’s work: Salmon would later become the first medical director of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. During World War I, he served as a consultant for the U.S. Army and worked with returning soldiers suffering from shell shock and other psychological disorders. In 1923, he was elected president of the American Psychiatric Association. Despite having no formal background in psychiatry, Salmon had reached the pinnacle of his profession.
242 At the time: On the Binet tests, see Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 176–188.
243 There was also: Leila Zenderland, Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 102–103.
243 If there was some: C. B. Davenport, Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding (New York: Henry Holt, 1910). For more on Davenport, see Daniel J. Kelves, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 41–56.
244 In 1911, Davenport recommended: Letter from C. B. Davenport, Secretary of the America Breeders Association, Eugenics Section, to Prescott Hall, May 20, 1911, File 342, IRL; Report of the Immigration Committee of the Eugenics Section, American Breeders Association, December 30, 1911, File 1064, Folder 1, IRL. Interestingly, one member of the committee was Columbia anthropologist Franz Boas, who achieved fame for his criticism of eugenics.
244 Now many IRL members: Robert DeC. Ward, “National Eugenics in Relation to Immigration,” NAR, July 1910; Robert DeC. Ward, “The Crisis in Our Immigration Policy,” File 1063, Folder 9; Robert DeC. Ward, “Our Immigration Laws from the Viewpoint of National Eugenics,” National Geographic, January 1912. “The need is imperative for applying eugenic principles in much of our legislation. But the greatest, the most logical, the most effective step that we can take is to begin with a proper eugenic selection of the incoming alien millions. If we, in our generation take these steps, we shall earn the gratitude of millions of those who will come after us for we shall have begun the real conservation of the American race.”
244 For Prescott Hall: “Eugenics and Immigration,” Prescott Hall, undated, File 1061, Folder 1, IRL; Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall, Compiled by Mrs. Prescott F. Hall (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1922), 53. 245 One answer for Hall: Prescott Hall, “Birth Control and World Eugencis,” unpublished manuscript, in Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall.
245 As to whether humans: Immigration and Other Interests of Prescott Farnsworth Hall, 33, 83. Interestingly, anthropologist Franz Boas had recently completed his study, published by the Dillingham Commission, which showed a divergence in head size between foreign-born Hebrews and Sicilians and American-born Hebrews and Sicilian Americans. The American environment, Boas concluded, was having some effect on the “race characteristics” that many believed immutable. The irony is that Boas used the discredited theory of craniometry to prove his anti-eugenic, anti-racist theory. See “Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,” Reports of the Immigration Commission, Volume 38, 61st Congress, 2nd Session.
245 At the intersection: “Is it any wonder that serious students contemplate the racial future of the Anglo-Saxon American with some concern? They have seen the passing of the American Indian and the buffalo; and now they query as to how long the Anglo-Saxon may be able to survive.” William Z. Ripley, “Races in the United States,” Atlantic, December 1908. See also Robert DeC
. Ward, “National Eugenics in Relation to Immigration,” NAR, July 1910. 245 Progressive sociologist: Ross quoted in M. Victor Safford, “The Business Side of Immigration,” speech delivered at Old South Club, October 20, 1913, File 1064, Folder 8, IRL.
246 Ross proudly noted: Edward Alsworth Ross, The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People (New York: Century, 1914), 285–286.
246 A leading academic: Ross, The Old World in the New, 289–293. 246 Ross predicted that: Ross, The Old World in the New, 228, 254–256. 246 These descriptions placed: NYT, June 20, 1914.
247 Amidst such pressing: “Immigration and Insanity,” address of William Williams, U.S. Commissioner of Immigration, before the Mental Hygiene Conference at New York City, November 17, 1912, File 53139-13, INS; “The Crisis in Our Immigration Policy,” Robert DeC. Ward, File 1063, Folder 9, IRL. 247 Williams complained: See File 53139-13A, INS.
247 Neither Congress: H. H. Goddard, “The Binet Tests in Relation to Immigration,” Journal of Psycho-Asthenics 18 (1913); Henry H. Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant,” The Training School, November/December 1912; and Steven A. Gelb, “Henry H. Goddard and the Immigrants, 1910–1917: The Studies and Their Social Context,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 22 (October 1986). For more general background on Goddard and intelligence testing, see Zenderland, Measuring Minds; Franz Samelson, “Putting Psychology on the Map: Ideology and Intelligence Testing,” in Allan R. Buss, ed., Psychology in Social Context (New York: Irvington Publishers, 1979); and Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, 188–204.
248 Believing this was proof: Goddard’s own mathematical abilities were less than stellar. He translated his assistants’ success rate of nine out of eleven into a rate of “seven-eighths.” Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant.”
249 Goddard magnanimously said: Goddard, “The Feeble Minded Immigrant”; Goddard, “The Binet Test in Relation to Immigration.”
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