[h]ow do we explain why the u.s. national state has been

• "[H]ow do we explain why the U.S. national state has been quite receptive to immigrants during long stretches of its history, while it has pursued decisive restrictions on the number and characteristics of newcomers in other periods?"

• Why did the Chinese fair differently than the Catholics, especially the Irish?• Role of Ideas, Interests, and Institutions

Burlingame Treaty (1868)

Americans insist “inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance from country to the other.”-laissez faire labor mobility/end of feudalism, French Revolution

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November 20, 1869, page 745

CosmopolitansColumbia - "Hands off, Gentlemen! America means Fair Play for All Men"

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Be Just ---Even to John Chinaman” (1893) A mixed defense of the Chinese immigrant, to say the least. The text underneath reads “Judge (to Miss Columbia)---- ‘You allowed that boy to come into your school, it would be inhuman to throw him out now---it will be sufficient in the future to keep his brothers out!’” Equally fascinating are the other represented racial and national types: a Native American, an African American, an Asian Indian, a Russian, a Dutchman, an Italian, and an Irishman, who is holding up a blackboard with the words “Kick Out the Heathen---He’s Got No Vote” written upon it. The Irish, being the most politically cohesive group, were perhaps the butt of the nastiest and most paranoid ‘humor’ among all the immigrant groups---at least in 1893. A judge says to Miss Columbia, “You allowed that boy to come into your school, it would be inhuman to throw him out now – it will be sufficient in the future to keep his brothers out.” Note the ironing board and opium pipe carried by the Chinese. An Irish American holds up a slate with the slogan “Kick the Heathen Out; He’s Got No Vote.”

“One of the most worthy of our newly adopted citizens.”

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Field Hands, Sacramento Delta Circa 1860 Until Chinese labor diked the river and drained the tule swamps beginning in 1850, the Sacramento Delta, now one of the world's richest agricultural areas, was an uninhabitable marsh. Chinese prospectors were only allowed to take claims that Whites had already given up on. They were patient and thorough, satisfied with finding the smallest peices of gold, and devised new methods to sift the sediment that other miners copied. In 1851, instead of heading for the mines Chinese started to open up shops close to Portsmouth Square, the center of the city and a hub for commerce. Miners had needs, and the Chinese were ready to cater to those needs. Laundries, restaurants, and retail stores abounded. In 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad was in trouble. The snow and the mountains were seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and men willing to work in such harsh conditions were hard to find. The Chinese were at first thought to be too small (average height 4′ 10″) and too weak to handle the heavy railroad ties. An investor by the name of Charles Crocker made the case that if they could build the Great Wall, they could build this railroad. He immediately hired 50 men.

Central Pacific Railroad

Mark Twain, Roughing It• “They are a harmless race when white men either let

them alone or treat them no worse than dogs; in fact they are almost entirely harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting the vilest insults or the cruelest injuries. They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody.”

Peter Burnett, “Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer” 1880

• “Born and nursed in poverty, and early trained in the severe schools of unremitting toil and extreme economy, the Chinaman is more than a match for the white man in the struggle for existence. The white man can do as much work, and as skillfully, as the Chinaman; but he can not live so cheaply. It would require many centuries of inexorable training to bring the white man down to the low level of the Chinese mode of living. Were Chinamen permitted to settle in our country at their pleasure, and were they granted all the rights and privileges of the whites, and the laws were then impartially and efficiently administered, so that the two races would stand preciselyand practically equal in all respects, in one century the Chinese would own all the property on this coast. This result they would accomplish by their greater numbers and superior economy.” (emphasis added)

“Why They can live on 40 cents a day…and They can’t.”

viding a large pa

Devastation (1880)

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�Devastation (1880) ��A George Frederick Keller cartoon, in which the broken "Burlingame Treaty" gate in the background represents the 1868 accord which set the parameters of Chinese immigration; the scarecrow is Denis Kearney, the leader of the Workingmen's Party, now out of favor with "The Wasp." And the scattered ears and stalks of corn strewn about the landscape each represent a particular craft or industry which had supposedly passed into Chinese hands in the wake of immigration.

Workingman’s Party 1878

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"The Chinese Must Go" was the slogan of the California Workingman's Party headed by an Irish immigrant named Denis Kearney. Thomas Nast, the most influential political cartoonist of the day, mocked him as "a real American" and compared the anti-Chinese campaign to the anti-Catholic and anti-Irish crusade of the Native American Party or Know-Nothings of the 1850s. "Every Dog" (No Distinction of Color) "Has His Day" read one of Nast's ironic captions.

"Pacific Chivalry“, Thomas Nast 1869

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"Pacific Chivalry"�A California Kearnyite abuses a Chinese immigrant (Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly, 1869) Court of Justice closed to Chinese. Extra Taxes.

14th Amendment and Revision of Naturalization Act of 1790 "free white men”

Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) Senator William Stewart (R-NV)

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Despite its racial restriction to "free whites," the Act was radical for the ease with which European immigrants could gain U.S. citizenship for themselves. Moreover, the U.S. extended full citizenship to Catholics 50 years before Great Britain and to Jewish immigrants before the French Revolution had done so. Nonetheless, racial barriers were put in place for certain immigrants, which were not removed until 1870 (for Africans) and until 1952 (for East and South Asians). Despite its racial restriction to "free whites," the Act was radical for the ease with which European immigrants could gain U.S. citizenship for themselves. Moreover, the U.S. extended full citizenship to Catholics 50 years before Great Britain and to Jewish immigrants before the French Revolution had done so. Nonetheless, racial barriers were put in place for certain immigrants, which were not removed until 1870 (for Africans) and until 1952 (for East and South Asians). In 1870, the right of naturalization was extended to "aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent." Asians, such as the Chinese and Japanese, who were neither white nor black, were classified as "aliens ineligible to citizenship." Without the right to naturalize, Japanese immigrants could not become U.S. citizens; without citizenship, they could not vote; without the right to vote, they had very little political influence.

“"The Civilization of Blaine" John Confucius: "Am I not a Man and a Brother?"

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Thomas Nast again , 1884 Presidential Campaign, Blaine versus Cleveland Blaine, on the other hand, contended that representation should be based on population instead of voters, as being fairer to the North, where the ratio of voters varied widely, and he insisted that it should be safeguarded by security for impartial suffrage. This view prevailed, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was substantially Blaine's proposition. --unsuccessful Republican nominee for President in 1884, the only nonincumbent Republican nominee to lose a presidential race between 1856 and 1916.

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May 22, 1880,

Harpers, 1879

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--Nast contrasted the Chinese and the Irish. One had a vote, one had not. One represented "dear" and the other "cheap" labor. One represented industry. The Irishman, on the other hand, carried a whiskey bottle and a shillelagh (cudgel or club) in his back pocket. "The Chinamen were terribly taxed by the county authorities; but they always came up promptly, and without a word of complaint paid what was demanded of them....Let me here say that I never, during all my years of intercourse with this people, saw a single drunken Chinaman. I never saw a Chinese beggar. I never saw a lazy Chinaman." - Joaquin Miller "The Chinamen. They are not strikers, rioters, and burners of cities....No; the Creator of us all opened the Golden Gate to the whole wide world. let no man attempt to shut it in the face of our fellow-man." - Joaquin Miller Blaine Language. Tramp Nye. "Can this be? We are ruined by Chinese labor." Truthful James (G. Blaine). "Which is why I remark, And my language is plain,�That for ways that are dark� And tricks that are vain,�The heathen Chinee is peculiar.� Which the same I am free to maintain."

Dis-Honors are Easy “Now both parties have

something to hold onto.” Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly,

May 20, 1882,

Confucius. "How can Christians stomach such dirt?“--Kearney’s Senatorial Restaurant,

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Confucius. "How can Christians stomach such dirt?“ --Kearney’s Senatorial Restaurant, Table Reserved for presidential candidates, Menus say the Anti Chinese Bill, Blaine with a big heaping spoonful.

Veto Points

• President Arthur Arthur (a connoisseur). "It would be unreasonable to destroy it, and would reflect uponthe honor of the country.“

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President Arthur Arthur (a connoisseur). "It would be unreasonable to destroy it, and would reflect upon�the honor of the country.“ At Last The Democratic Tiger Has Something To Hang On April 22, 1882,

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• 10 year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration• “in the opinion of the Government of the United States the coming of

Chinese laborers to this country endangers the good order of certain localities within the territory”

• obtain re-entry certification• refused State and Federal courts the right to grant citizenship to

Chinese resident aliens

Snake River Massacre1885 Wyoming

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- In 1871 in Los Angeles a brutal race riot left roughly 20 Chinese men dead, after white residents ransacked Chinatown there. �- In 1885, in Wyoming, European immigrant mine workers rioted against Chinese workers (who were paid less than white workers and who had historically been recruited as strikebreakers), killing 28 Chinese miners and destroying 75 of their homes. �- In 1886, virtually every Chinese resident of Seattle was rounded up in an attempt to remove them from the city. �- In 1887, 31 Chinese gold miners were murdered by bandits in Oregon, and no one was prosecuted for the murders.

Anti Chinese Rioting, SF

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In San Francisco, anti-Chinese sentiment was common. The city's most famous anti-Chinese 'advocate' was Dennis Kearney publicly advocated rioting against both bosses and Chinese people at the old Sand Lot near City Hall.

Rise of the National Origins Quota System

Baby in a Slum Tenement

Baby in a Slum Tenement, photograph by Jacob A. Riis, 1888–89; in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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Baby in a Slum Tenement, photograph by Jacob A. Riis, 1888–89; in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

German stowaway

Source: Ellis Island Photographs from the Collection of William Williams, Commissioner of Immigration, 1902-1913Photographs (gelatin silver prints) relating to Ellis Island and immigration into the United States in the early 20th century, ranging from portraits of individual immigrants by Augustus Francis Sherman

Lapland Woman

Russian Cossacks 1914 Ruthenian Woman

Slovak Woman and SonRomanian Shephard

Greek SoldierSerbian gypsies

"The Immigrant“ 1910

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Title: "The Immigrant" Creator: T. Bernhard Gillam Publication: Judge Publication Date: October 3, 1910 Description: In the mid-1880s the number of immigrants to the United States from northern and western Europe declined sharply. At the same time, the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe greatly increased. The changing pattern of immigration concerned many Americans. Different perspectives on immigration are personified in this cartoon: Uncle Sam is looking for hard workers to fill the nation’s factories. The political boss wants the immigrant vote. The contractor is looking for cheap labor. The health inspector worries that immigrants carry contagious diseases. The worker fears lowered wages because immigrants were willing to work for less. The middle class man claims the new immigrants are a menace because they represent “inferior” European “races” and religions.

Goldin, The Political Economy of Immigration Restriction in the United States, 1890 to 1921

• It does not matter in the least what the favored classes of the country think about immigration; the doors of this land will never be closed except upon the initiative and the imperative of the laboring classes, looking to their own interests, and to the heritage of their children. - Francis A. Walker, Discussions in Economics and Statistics

Goldin, The Political Economy of Immigration Restriction in the United States, 1890 to 1921• Literacy Test Restriction Chronology- p. 227• Analysis of Literacy Test by Region/State p. 232 • Shift in flow of immigrants (skills) 240 • Economic impact of immigration on wages, Table 7.8 p. 251• Demographics vs. Economics p. 255

“A regime change was inevitable. From the early 1900s to 1917 it was just a matter of waiting for some exogenous force-an economic downturn, a war, a rash of labor unrest-to close the door. That 17 million slipped through from 1897 is the miracle.”

• Implications for today

Speaker Joseph Cannon (R-IL)

• Country = “hell of a success” • Ethnic Voters & Business Interests• Literacy Test 1896 • Prevents recorded vote on literacy

test to provide cover from AFL and IRL retaliation

• limits debate• loses vote and then he leaves to get

20 votes to strip literacy test requirements.

• Amendment to create a new commission

Dillingham Commission

Jeremiah Jenks, Chief Theoretician

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http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/themes-dillingham.htmlUnder the leadership of Vermont Senator William Paul Dillingham, the joint House-Senate commission included US Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and Asbury Latimer; US Representatives Benjamin Howell, William Bennett, and John Burnet; as well as Charles Neill of the US Department of Labor, Jeremiah Jenks of Cornell University, and William Wheeler, the California Commissioner of Immigration.

Harvard University Library, Open Collections

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http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/3296902?op=f&id=3296902&n=373&s=4 Grose, Howard B. Aliens or Americans?. New York : Young People's Missionary Movement, c1906.

Boosting Him up 1919

Images are taken from a database, Red Scare (1918-1921) created by Leo Robert Klein

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Images are taken from a database, Red Scare (1918-1921) created by �Leo Robert Klein* --a deadly flu epidemic, a strike wave of unparalled proportions, harsh suppression in some cases of those strikes, race riots, hyper-inflation, mass round-ups and deportations of foreign born citizens, expulsion of duely-elected officials from various offices in government, an incapacitated president, espionage laws, sedition laws and, of course, the advent of Prohibition and women's suffrage. http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/redscare/IMAGES_LG/Boosting_him_Up.jpg

• Close the Gate.Literary Digest, 7/5/19.

Put Them Out and Keep Them Out

• -Warsaw- 100000-250k Polish subjects of Hebrew race with anxious to emigrate immediately

• Italy- Catania peasant small in stature and low in intelligence• Florence- emigrants are honeycombed with socialist ideas.

“Come on in Gentlemen” 1922

• Immigration Act of 1917• Literacy test, doubles head tax, • Exclude those constitutional psychopathic inferiority,

advocates of property destrucution• Asiatic barred zone (no Hindus)

• National Quota Law 1921• Limits immigration of each nationality to 3% of number of

foreign born living in US in 1910• 387,000 limit; 55% Northern and Western Euro, 45%

southern and eastern

• National Origins Act 1924• Limits immigration of each nationality to 2% of number of

foreign born living in US in 1890• 186,437• 84% Northern and Western Euro, 16% southern and

eastern• Did not cover Western Hemisphere

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race (1916)

• Nordic Superiority • Threatens to lower standard of living and dilute basic strain of American population.

• members of contemporary American Protestant society who could trace their ancestry back to Colonial times were being out-bred by immigrant and "inferior" racial stocks.

Francis Walker, Census Founder, President MIT

• "The entrance into our political, social, and industrial life of such vast masses of peasantry, degraded below our utmost conceptions, is a matter which no intelligent patriot can look upon without the gravest apprehension and alarm. These people have no history behind them which is of a nature to give encouragement. They have none of the inherited instincts and tendencies which made it comparatively easy to deal with the immigration of the olden time. They are beaten men from beaten races; representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence. Centuries are against them, as centuries were on the side of those who formerly came to us. They have none of the ideas and aptitudes which fit men to take up readily and easily the problem of self-care and self-government, such as belong to those who are descended from the tribes that met under the oak-trees of old Germany to make laws and choose chieftains."

The number of foreign born living in US in 1890?

Immigration Restriction League• “proper eugenic selection of the

incoming alien millions” can improve racial stock “not by killing off the less fit, but by preventing them from coming into the state either by being born into it or by migration.”

• “inferior stocks can be prevented from both dilluting and supplanting good stocks.”

• Challenges of National Quota?• number of foreign born living in

US in 1890?•

Harry Laughlin, Eugenics Record Office

Asians and the Rule of Racial Unassailability

• 1. National Act of 1790- grants right of naturalized citizenship to “Free white persons” of good moral character. Always contested first by Native Americans and African Americans, later Asians (stays in place until 1952 McCarran Walters Act)

• 2. 14th Amendment- Congress extends right to persona of African nativity or descent. Sumner proposes all reference to race be stricken, aka china. No one believes Africans will emigrate, Indian and Chinaman in our midst and only too willing to assume the mantle of American Sovereignty, Judge 1880

• 3. Chinese exclusion act of 1882 – Chinese can’t be citizens, but what about Japanese, Asian Indians, Armenians, Syrians and Mexicans. Tricky-don’t fall in black white category. White – person without Negro blood.

[h]ow do we explain why the u.s. national state has been

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