Introduction to Immigration

The national clamor almost forced politicians to lake a position on the immigration issue. Some,
like Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, joined the anti-Italian crusade with enthusiasm:
“This great Republic should no longer be left unguarded from them," he said." President Theodore
Roosevelt hoped to cool the controversy by establishing a commission to study the problem. Known as
the Dillingham Commission, after its chairman Senator William Paul Dillingham of Vermont, the
panel studied the issue for three years and came out with a forty-two-volume report. Its conclusions
were heavily weighted against the new immigrants. Serbo-Croatians had "savage manners"; Poles
were "high-strung"; Italians had "not attained distinguished success as farmers."
A major goal of restrictionists during this period was a literacy requirement. Congress first
passed such a law in 1896, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it. Congress passed it again in 1913
and 1915 but it was again vetoed, first by William Howard Taft and then by Woodrow Wilson. Said
Wilson: "Those who come seeking an opportunity are not to be admitted unless they have already had
one of the chief . . . opportunities they seek, the opportunity of education." Nonetheless, Congress
passed it two years later in 1917 over his veto.
World War 1 brought a natural slowdown of immigration. In fact, Ellis Island was used during
the war to hold prisoners of war and suspected aliens and spies. Following the war, however, immigration
showed signs of reaching new heights. From June 1920 to June 1921, 805,000 arrived, and
more than sixty-five percent of them were from southern and eastern Europe. Ellis Island was so
jammed that some ships had to be diverted to Boston.
Anti foreign sentiment in the country had been raised to a near frenzy by the war, and now more
immigrants were heading for America. Congress, responding to pressure, passed its first Quota Act in
1921. It limited new aliens to three percent of each nationality present in the country according to the
1910 census. The 1924 Quota Act went even further, limiting new aliens to two percent of those
nationalities present according to the 1890 census —before the new immigrants had arrived in such
large numbers.
The law was designed to limit total immigration, but it’s major goal was to keep out the newer
immigrants, The quota from Italy became around 5,000 per year; in 1907, 285,000 Italians had come
to America.
Before America moved to close its doors, millions of immigrants had arrived from southern
Europe. They would change the composition of the country for good: more than 5 million Italians,
600,000 Greeks 300,000 Portuguese, and 200,000 Spaniards.