Anti-immigration policies have always plagued U.S. politics, as we see below in the article published 100 years ago in 1924.
What I find particularly interesting about the article is the mention of the Ku Klux Klan and the Hundred Percenters, who have always taken a stance against immigrants, including immigrants from Europe.
Alien Quota Law Scored as Inhuman
Unfair, unscientific and inhumane were the terms applied to the immigration quota law by Miss Edith Abbott of the University of Chicago in her address yesterday before the American Statistical Association.
Referring to one result of the law, she said:
“In one private organization in Chicago there are 200 cases of aliens who cannot become citizens because their wives are in the old country and who cannot bring their wives over because they are not citizens.”
Miss Abbott declared against extending the quota regulations to Canada, declaring that “we should be glad to welcome these aliens with open arms.
“They are hand-picked and selected by a careful process through Canada.”
Herbert A. Miller of Ohio State University discussed alien culture in this country, which he said “had been driven into cold storage by the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and the Hundred Percenters.”
“After a few years, when this post war complex wears off,” he declared, “this culture will come out of hiding to the enrichment of American life.”
Dr. Alexander Goldenweiser of the new School of Social Research in New York spoke in favor of repealing the immigration law and throwing America’s gates wide open.
Source: Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 31 Dec. 1924.
