Immigration Restriction League

The Immigration Restriction League, ^[1] was founded in 1894 by three Harvard College graduates, Charles Warren, Robert DeCourcy Ward, and Prescott Farnsworth Hall. The members of the league felt it necessary to oppose the avalanche of supposedly "undesirable immigrants" that were coming to the United States from southern and eastern Europe. Many people in the U.S. at this time felt that these immigrants were threatening what they saw as the American way of life. The League was founded in Boston, but quickly gained support across the United States. Important cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco became major recruitment centers where many prominent scholars and philanthropists joined the cause of the League. A National Association of Immigration Restriction Leagues was created in 1896 and one of the founders of the IRL, Prescott F. Hall served as its General Secretary from 1896 to 1921.

The League used books, pamphlets, meetings, and numerous newspaper and journal articles to disseminate information and sound the alarm about the dangers of the immigrant flood tide. The League also had political allies that used their power in Congress to gain support for the League’s intentions.

Demands

Numerical limitation

On April 8, 1918 the League introduced a bill into the United States Congress to increase the restriction of immigration by means of numerical limitation. World War I had ended and the League was worried about the invasion of a large number of immigrants of inferior quality. As said on the bill, it was "An Act to regulate the immigration of aliens to, and the residence in, the United States." The goal of this bill was to reduce as much as possible the number of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe while increasing the number of immigrants from Northern and Western Europe who the League thought were people with kindred and homogeneous racial stocks. The numbers suggested by the bill were as follows:

Increase of the duty on alien passengers

The bill asked for an increase of the duty paid by alien passengers to enter the United States from two to five dollars.^[3] It excluded the citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. The League demanded a needed increase in duty in order to properly support and maintain the inspection and deportation of immigrants. Among other things, the funds obtained from the increase in duty would be used for:

• Enlargement of immigrant stations
• The development and perfecting of the service along the Mexican and Canadian border
• More immigration inspectors
• Enlarged immigration office facilities

With this bill, the League also intended to diminish the immigration of people from the poorer countries, who were considered less beneficial for the United States.

Additions to the excluded classes

The National Conference on Immigration, held in New York proposed to have imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and epileptics as additions to the excluded classes.^[4] Persons of poor physique were more susceptible to diseases because of the unsanitary places where they lived,. The Bill also demanded an extension of fines to steamship companies for bringing imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, insane persons or epileptics.

Prevention of unlawful landing

Before, the transportation companies were only asked to exercise care when returning home from Europe, as to not transport illegal immigrants into the United States. This Bill directly ordered the transportation companies to prevent the landing of "undesirable aliens".

Deportation of public charges

It was a law that would allow deportation of immigrants that entered the United States in violation of law and those becoming public charges from causes arising prior to landing. Furthermore, it stated that the company that provided the transportation of such individuals would pay half of the entire cost of removal to the port of deportation.

Literacy test

This is how the Immigration Restriction League (IRL) imprinted its name in the history of the United States.^[5] The IRL advocated a literacy requirement as a means to prevent or limit immigration into the United States. As immigration increased substantially, League members became obsessive in their attempt to avoid continued immigration into the United States by certain groups. They associated immigration with poverty, crime, disease, delinquency and violence. In order to limit what they thought to be detrimental immigration, the League proposed a literacy test to be part of the immigration bill. It was an act to stop or prevent immigration, especially directed to immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who were considered undesirable, with little education, and susceptible to diseases. Congress passed the literacy bill in 1896,^[6] which requested the ability to read at least 40 words in any language as a requirement for admission to the United States. President Grover Cleveland vetoed the first time it went through in 1897. President William Taft also objected the literacy test in 1913. Again in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson did not allow the bill to go through. But in 1917 Congress overturned Wilson’s veto and it became the first literacy requirement for naturalization and was added as part of the Immigration Act of 1917.^[7] The law stated that immigrants over 16 years of age should read at least 30 words and not more than 80 in ordinary use in any language.

After World War I, the number of immigrants, including those from Eastern and Southern Europe, remained high despite the literacy test. The influence of the Immigration Restriction League declined but remained active for nearly twenty years. After the death of Hall the League disbanded, however, attitude towards restriction of immigration remained strong. The literacy test became one of the key requirements to become a citizen of the United States.

Notable members and officers

• Robert DeCourcy Ward, founder
• Prescott Farnsworth Hall, executive secretary [1]
• Francis H. Kinnicutt, president
• Madison Grant, vice president
• Joseph Lee, vice president
• Francis Amasa Walker, vice president
• Richmond Mayo-Smith, vice president
• A. Lawrence Lowell, vice president (President of Harvard)
• George F. Edmunds, founding member [2]
• John Fiske, founding member [3]
• Robert Treat Paine, founding member
• Nathaniel Shaler, founding member
• Henry Cabot Lodge [4]
• Frank B. Gary [5]
• Owen Wister [6]
• Joseph H. Patten, secretary in Washington, D.C.
• Lothrop Stoddard, member of the executive council

Notes

References

1. McSeveney, Samuel (November 1987). "Immigrants, the Literacy Test, and Quotas: Selected American History College Textbooks' Coverage of the Congressional Restriction of European Immigration, 1917-1929". The History Teacher 21: 41–51. doi:10.2307/492801. 
2. "Origins of Immigration Restriction, 1882-1897: A Social analysis". Notes and Documents 39: 77–88. June 1952. 
3. Higham, John (1955). Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. Rutgers University Press. p. 447. ISBN 0813531236. 
4. Barkan, Elliott Robert (January 1996). And Still They Come: Immigrants and American Society, 1920 to the 1990s. Harlan Davidson. ISBN 978-0882959283. 
5. Solomon, Barbara Miller. Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New England Tradition (1856) the standard history of the League
6. Vought, Hans P. (December 2004). The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0865548879. 
7. Tichenor, Daniel J. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (2002)

Primary sources

1. U.S. Department of State, The immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act), http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/id/87718.htm, retrieved on 2007-10-29 
2. Harvard University Library, Immigration Restriction League, http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/outsidelink.html/http://pds.harvard.edu:8080/pdx/servlet/pds?id=5233215, retrieved on 2007-10-26 
3. Immigration Restriction League. Constitution of the Immigration Restriction league. Boston, Massachusetts: Immigration Restriction League 189-
4. Grose, Howard B. Aliens or Americans? New York: Young People's Missionary Movement, c1906

See also

For immigration controversies by country, see also Immigration

• Immigration reduction
• Opposition to immigration
• Immigration policy
• List of United States immigration legislation