To Decrease and Clarify Stream of Incoming Aliens, 1910

From the December 18, 1910 edition of the defunct New-York Daily Tribune comes an article of interest to those of us who would like to understand the mindset of those who lived in the U.S. during the years of high immigration, especially those who wished to limit it. In this article the discussion is why the number of immigrants should or should not be restricted, and how it could be done.

The article begins:

"A few days ago, as required by law, the United States Immigration Commission filed a brief statement of its conclusions and recommendations, and announced that the materials it had gathered would ultimately be published in forty volumes. As a result of its labors it has recommended that for economic and social reasons the flow of the stream of immigrants should be reduced. Its investigations showed that, although the standards of living and of wages in the higher forms of skilled labor had not been materially affected, the volume of unskilled labor from Europe was so great that employers were under no compulsion to maintain a standard of wages. The result was that not only were industrial communities congested to a degree that interfered with rapid assimilation, but the unskilled laborer was not able to raise his standard of living.

The various well-known methods of putting on the brakes were suggested as a remedy, and emphasis was laid upon the literacy test. This test, however, was not emphasized without a protest from Congressman Bennet, a member of the commission, who argued that it was illogical as a selective measure.

The question whether to restrict or not to restrict is now squarely up to the American people and Congress. A number of men who have come into close contact with the subject from one standpoint or another have contributed their views in the form of interviews on the question of restriction. Among them are Senator William P. Dillingham, chairman of the United States Immigration Committee, who evidently may be described as a conservative restrictionist, and Congressman Burnett, of Alabama, a Democrat, who is considered the most radical restrictionist member of the commission. The proportion of those favoring restriction is much greater than one would be led to expect, in view of the growing interest in the immigrant as a man."

It was believed that too big a labor pool would drive down wages and thus lower the standard of living for those already living and working in the United States. A literacy test was proposed to weed out the "ignorant" and "illiterate," thereby making immigration a "selective" and not a "restrictive" process.

Reading these articles published within ten years either way of the turn of the twentieth century can be an eye-opener. It can "add meat," so to speak, to what we already understand about the immigration policies that were in place (or suggested) during the years of heavy immigration to the U.S.

This article will be included within the Museum's "A Multitude of Immmigrants..." exhibition that will be made available sometime before the end of the year.

The aforementioned article can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-multitude-immigrants-1910.12.18.htm.

At the Turn of the 20th Century: Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Britain and a Fact-Finding Mission Abroad

There were nearly five million Jews who lived in Czarist Russia during the nineteenth century. They were forced to live within a specified area and were subjected to religious persecution and a life of great poverty. Many Jews emigrated during this time, about 150,000 of them immigrating to Great Britain. This wave of immigration peaked in the late 1890s when tens of thousands of mostly poor and semi-skilled and unskilled immigrants settled in the East End of London.

At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a public uproar about the rising tide of immigration that was often fueled by the media. During this period the British Brothers League was formed. Local politicians supported this organization; many anti-immigrant marches and rallies were organized and petitions were signed. They didn’t want Great Britain to become a “dumping ground” for the “scum of Europe.”

William Evans-Gordon was a conservative politician and PM within the British parliament. He also wrote a book entitled 'The Alien Immigrant', which was published in 1903, the year he took a fact-finding tour of Eastern Europe and the Baltic region.

Evans-Gordon travelled from St Petersburg to Krakow, visiting and photographing the major towns of Jewish settlement. It was his sentiment that alien immigration to Great Britain, especially Jewish immigration, should be limited. He called on the Parliament to set up a Royal Commission, and as a result of this, in 1905, the Aliens Act was passed.

The act for the first time introduced immigration controls and registration in Great Britain. The Act was designed to prevent paupers or criminals from entering the country and set up a mechanism to deport those who slipped through. It provided asylum for people fleeing religious or political persecution. Anti-Semitic elements wanted a stop or severe restrictions on Jewish immigration to Britain, but were completely defeated. The 1905 Act did not meet any of the demands of restrictionists who wanted numerical restrictions on immigration.

According to Wikipedia, “Evans-Gordon continued to campaign for further anti-immigration legislation, seeking re-election in 1906. He kept up regular correspondence with Chaim Weizmann who would later write of him:

'Sir William Evans-Gordon had no particular anti-Jewish prejudices...he was sincerely ready to encourage any settlement of Jews almost anywhere in the British Empire but he failed to see why the ghettoes of London or Leeds should be made into a branch of the ghettoes of Warsaw and Pinsk.'"

This one-page exhibition at the Museum of Family History is entitled “At the Turn of the 20th Century: The Jewish Community at Home and Abroad, Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Britain and a Fact-Finding Mission Abroad, 1903."

By visiting this exhibition (and seeing some of the photographs taken during his visit), you can read what Evans-Gordon wrote about his European travels to Dvinsk, Vilnius, Pinsk, Libau, Lodz, Galicia and Romania. It provides an interesting perspective about how others viewed Jewish life within the Pale of Settlement and elsewhere within the Russian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century.

You can visit this exhibition at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/20c-evans-gordon.htm.