John Tanton

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John H. Tanton

John H. Tanton, M.D., is a retired ophthalmologist from Petoskey, Michigan, an environmental activist, and an influential activist in efforts aimed at reducing immigration levels in the United States. He was organizer and first chairman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a non-profit educational group that advocates for a reduction in the level of immigration into the U.S, and he is still on the board of directors of that group. He also helped to start two other groups with a similar goal: the Center for Immigration Studies, a non-profit research group; and NumbersUSA, a grassroots lobbying group.^[1][2]

Tanton has also been a leader in efforts to make English the official language of government in the U.S. To that end, he was co-founder (1983) and chairman of U.S. English and later (1994) of ProEnglish, of which he is still a director.

Tanton founded The Social Contract Press, which publishes the quarterly journal The Social Contract^[3] and other materials on the topics of immigration, population, conservation, and preservation of American culture. He has been the publisher of this journal since its inception in 1990, and he was its editor until 1998. Tanton's wife, Mary Lou Tanton, chairs the U.S. Immigration Reform PAC.^[4]

Life

Tanton was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1934. In 1945, he moved with his family to a farm northeast of Bay City, Michigan on which his mother had been raised and on which he worked.^[5]

Tanton graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Michigan State University in 1956, and received his doctor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1960.^{[citation needed]} He received an M.S. in ophthalmology from the University of Michigan in 1964.^{[citation needed]}

Professional career

Tanton practiced ophthalmology at the Burns Clinic Medical Center, Petoskey, Michigan, from 1964 to 1998. ^{[6][unreliable source?]} Tanton stated:

Even though it may be true that nothing more can be done for the eye, it is almost never true that nothing more can be done for the patient.^[7]

Tanton was named by the Northern Michigan Medical Society to receive the Michigan State Medical Society's Community Service Award. The award was announced in observance of Doctors' Day on March 30, 1995. ^{[8][unreliable source?]}

Environmentalist

Tanton became a conservationist and advocate for the environment.^{[citation needed]} Soon after Tanton began practicing ophthalmology in Petoskey, Michigan he formed the Bear River Commission.^{[citation needed]} This effort organized volunteers to clear litter, tires, and refuse from the Bear River, a scenic waterway flowing into the town’s Lake Michigan waterfront marina. Soon thereafter, the conservation ethic of Tanton and his wife found expression by founding the Petoskey Regional Audubon Society (1967),^{[citation needed]} the Hartwick Pines Natural History Association (1969),^{[citation needed]} and the League of Conservation Voters for the 11th Congressional District (1970).^{[citation needed]} Tanton and his wife founded Northern Michigan Planned Parenthood, where he served as President from 1970 to 1975.^{[9][unreliable source?]}

He helped establish the Little Traverse Conservancy that has protected more than 37,000 acres (150 km²) in northern Michigan.^{[10][citation needed]} His belief that continued human population growth was a large factor in America's environmental problems led him to chair the National Sierra Club Population Committee (1971-1974)^{[citation needed]} and to lead Zero Population Growth (ZPG),^{[citation needed]} where he served one term as its president (1975-1977) and was a member of its national board (1973-1978).^{[citation needed]}

According to his personal website, Tanton was one of 25 recipients of the Chevron Conservation Award in 1990.^{[unreliable source?]} He was recognized for founding the Little Traverse Conservancy.^{[11][unreliable source?]} In 1994, Tanton co-authored the book The Immigration Invasion.^{[citation needed]} He has written numerous editorials and opinion pieces, including "End of the Migration Epoch?"^{[12][unreliable source?]} In 2002, Fair Horizon Press published a joint biography of Tanton and his wife Mary Lou, also an environmental activist.^{[13][unreliable source?]}

Resignation from U.S. English

In 1988, shortly before a referendum in Arizona to make English the state's official language, a private memo written by Tanton was leaked to the media. In this memo, he expressed concerns about the potential political, cultural, environmental, and demographic impacts of continued high levels of Hispanic immigration into the U.S., especially if the Hispanic fertility rate remained higher than that of other ethnic groups. He ended by calling for limiting the flow of immigrants to a rate that would enable them to be assimilated. However, several of his questions and statements were provocative, such as: "Will Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.?", "What are the differences in educability between Hispanics (with their 50% dropout rate) and Asiatics (with their excellent school records and long tradition of scholarship)?", and "On the demographic point: perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!"^[14]

After the media published the memo, several prominent members of U.S. English cut their ties with the organization, including advisory board member Walter Cronkite and its executive director Linda Chavez, a prominent conservative Republican columnist.^[15] Tanton himself eventually resigned, although he complained that he had been smeared as a racist.^{[citation needed]}

Controversial funding of FAIR

Under Tanton's leadership FAIR was criticized for taking funding for many years from the Pioneer Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to “improving the character of the American people” by, among other things, promoting the practice of eugenics, or selective breeding.^[16] FAIR responded to this criticism by asserting that the Fund clearly states that it supports equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, national origin, or ethnicity; that other major organizations, including universities in the United States and other countries, have also accepted grants from the Fund;^[17] and that the Fund's contributions to FAIR were used only for the general operation of the organization.^[18] In February 2009, after the Southern Poverty Law Center publicized these allegations against him, Tanton challenged that organization to a public debate at the National Press Club.^[19]

Tanton’s environmentalist and immigration-reduction activities are well-documented in 17 file boxes of archives he donated to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.^[20][21]

SPLC Criticism

A February 2009 report by Southern Poverty Law Center examined Tanton's written correspondence^[22] highlighted alleged connections between Tanton's immigration-reduction efforts and white supremacist, neo-Nazi and pro-eugenics leaders.^[23]

The introduction to the report reads:

FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA are all part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by John Tanton, the “puppeteer” of the nativist movement and a man with deep racist roots. As the first article in this report shows, Tanton has for decades been at the heart of the white nationalist scene. He has met with leading white supremacists, promoted anti-Semitic ideas, and associated closely with the leaders of a eugenicist foundation once described by a leading newspaper as a “neo-Nazi organization.” He has made a series of racist statements about Latinos and worried that they were outbreeding whites. At one point, he wrote candidly that to maintain American culture, “a European-American majority” is required.^[24]

A 2002 Southern Poverty Law Center report^[25] listed 13 immigration-restriction groups, which they claim were founded and/or funded by Tanton.

• American Immigration Control Foundation - AICF, 1983, funded
• American Patrol/Voice of Citizens Together - 1992, funded
• California Coalition for Immigration Reform - CCIR, 1994, funded
• Californians for Population Stabilization - 1996, funded (founded separately in 1986)
• Center for Immigration Studies - CIS, 1985, founded and funded
• Federation for American Immigration Reform - FAIR, 1979, founded and funded
• NumbersUSA - 1996, founded and funded
• Population-Environment Balance - 1973, joined board in 1980
• ProEnglish - 1994, founded and funded
• ProjectUSA - 1999, funded
• The Social Contract Press - 1990, founded and funded
• U.S. English - 1983, founded and funded
• U.S. Inc. - 1982, founded and funded

References

External links

• International Relations Center - IRC - People-Centered Policy Alternatives Since 1979
• Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report, Summer 2002
• Southern Poverty Law Center, article on John H. Tanton
• The Puppeteer Replies, by John Tanton - John Tanton's reply to the Southern Poverty Law Center Puppeteer article
• Teaching Tolerance
• "Vigilante injustice" Salon.com, 2003
• Keeping America Empty: How one small-town conservationist launched today’s anti-immigration movement Christopher Hayes, April 24, 2006, In These Times (Profile of Tanton)
• On Immigration, A Theorist Who’s No Fence-Sitter, by Anita Huslin, The Washington Post (November 26, 2006) (Profile of Tanton)
• Father of Anti-Immigration Movement Awaits History’s Judgment, by Jonathan Tilove, The Grand Rapids Press (April 23, 2006). (© Newhouse News) (Profile of Tanton)
• John Tanton's files, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
• Common Sense on Mass Immigration, published by John Tanton's The Social Contract is an introductory collection of mini-essays in 40-page softcover pocket-sized booklet.
• The Ethics of Immigration Policy, published by John Tanton's The Social Contract is a downloadable collection of mini-essays, also published in a 40-page softcover pocket-sized booklet.