Cultural Conflict and Social Control

Immigration Restriction

The adoption of federal restrictions on immigration in the early twentieth century was a dramatic departure from past practices. Congress passed no significant immigration legislation until after the Civil War. In 1875 it barred the entry of "women for the purposes of prostitution" and "criminals whose sentence has been remitted on condition of emigration." ³ Seven years later the Chinese, at the urging of Western labor leaders, were excluded, and in 1902 the ban on both Chinese immigration and citizenship became permanent. Congress in 1891 had imposed additional requirements on all immigrants, excluding the insane, criminals, polygamists, paupers, and "persons suffering from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease." ⁴

In 1903 immigration policy took a decidedly political turn from which it has never retreated. Congress reacted to the assassination of President William McKinley by a foreign-born self-proclaimed anarchist by requiring an inspection of the political opinions of applicants. The law permitted immigration inspectors to exclude "anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force and violence of the Government of the United States . . . or the assassination of public officials." ⁵ Concerns about political radicalism fused with fears of racial pollution of the native population, a theme trumpeted by the eugenics movement at the turn of the century. Even the respected Progressive labor economist John R. Commons warned that stricter

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immigration policies were in order, because the traditional open door to European immigrants threatened the United States with "race suicide." ⁶

Nativist sentiments and national security anxieties begat additional restrictions during World War I. In 1917 Congress imposed a literacy test for all immigrants, but the requirement proved insignificant; would-be immigrants willingly learned enough of a language to pass the examination. The high unemployment immediately following World War I encouraged further restrictive measures, culminating in the most important immigration measure of the twentieth century, the National Origins Act of 1924. This racist statute limited immigration to 2 percent of each nationality as reflected in the 1890 census, a cutoff date that hit hard at immigrants from southeastern Europe and Russia. The annual rate of immigration fell to 164,000 in 1924 in comparison with more than 800,000 who had entered in the fiscal year ending 1921. These ceilings were lowered even further in 1929, and in 1931, with the Depression underway, more foreigners left the United States than entered.

Control of Radicals

Equally far-reaching consequences for the civil liberties of all Americans flowed from the convergence in wartime of nativist sentiments with fever-pitch patriotism. During the nineteen months of U.S. participation in World War I, the administration of President Woodrow Wilson sought to curb dissent directed toward the government's wartime policies. These policies struck a sympathetic public chord, in part because they connected political radicalism to the foreign born. The administration justified these measures, as would its successors, by insisting that a war had to be won, and temporary limitations on civil liberties would hasten victory.

The administration relied on the Espionage Act of 1917 and the amendment made to it in early 1918, the Sedition Act. The Espionage Act contained two principal censorship provisions. First, the act made it a felony to attempt to cause insubordination in the armed forces, to interfere with the operation of the draft, and to convey false statements about the military with the intent of disrupting their operations. Second, the act permitted the postmaster to ban treasonable or seditious material from the mail.

Congress directed the Sedition Act against pacifist groups, vocal labor leaders, and radicals, especially members of the Communist party. The law made it a felony, among other things, to "disrupt or discourage recruiting or enlistment service, or utter, print, or publish disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government." ⁷ The law threw a legal collar around radicals, and granted broad enforcement powers to the attorney general.

The states also developed loyalty programs, and these too rested on nativist sentiments. When World War I broke out, state leaders, "[a]ware of the value of public identification with patriotism and loyalty in a period of national hysteria," rushed through measures directed at radical labor and religious groups long considered troublesome by the native-born majority. Eleven states passed sedition statutes that punished various kinds of opposition to the war, and state leaders applied these laws with special zeal against the foreign-language press. ⁸ Four other states, where the Industrial Workers of the World (a radical labor group with strong connections in the foreign community) was active, passed criminal syndicalism laws. These statutes made it a crime to advocate or to bring about the overthrow of the industrial order.

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Through the enforcement of these and related "security" measures, government poked its nose into the behavior of native as well as foreign-born opponents of the war. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, for example, required all foreign-language newspapers to submit for the Post Office Department's approval literal translations of all news and editorial articles that contained material on the government, the policies of the belligerent powers, or the conduct of the war. When an editor, such as socialist Victor Berger of the Milwaukee Leader, refused to cooperate, Burleson revoked second-class postage privileges and undertook prosecution in the federal courts. The editors of German-language papers quickly learned to print nothing but praise for the government's wartime policies.

Wartime hysteria etched with nativism encouraged extralegal violations of civil liberties. Some were silly, but others were deadly. The Austrian-born violinist, Fritz Kreisler, and the famous Swiss-born conductor of the Boston Symphony, Dr. Karl Muck, were denied access to American music halls. In Columbus, Ohio schoolteachers met after school to paste into school music books blank sheets of paper covering "The Watch on the Rhine" and "The Lorelei." Five hundred citizens of Collinsville, Illinois, who had decided that a fellow townsman, Roger Prager, was a German spy, dragged him into the street, wrapped him in the American flag, and then murdered him. ⁹

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 651