Immigration Act (1924)
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The Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the Johnson–Reed Act) was the second major act signed by the United States that imposed restrictions on immigration. The act reduced the total quota number of immigration into the United States to 165,000-20 percent less than the pre-World War I average.[1]
The quota instruction limited effort to limit immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe and reduced the amount of Italians entering the United States from 200,000 to 4,000.[1] The act also provided for a future reduction of the quotas to 154,000.[2] As a result of the act only 500,000 people entered the United States during the 1930s.
In 1924, U.S. Representative Emanuel Celler stated, "We were afraid of foreigners; we distrusted them; we didn't like them. Under this act only some one hundred and fifty odd thousands would be permitted to enter the United States. If you were of Anglo-Saxon origin, you could have over two-thirds of the quota numbers allotted to your people. If you were Japanese, you could not come in at all. That, of course, had been true of the Chinese since 1880. If you were southern or eastern European, you could dribble in and remain on sufferance."[3]
Leftist/white supremacist origins
Long before Johnson–Reed was introduced, left-wing labor unions and their (proto-)progressive allies were the public face of American white supremacy, vociferously demanding minimum wage laws and immigration restrictions to prevent free-market economic competition from immigrants that would (supposedly, according to para-Marxist economic theory) lower domestic wages and perpetuate poverty. Bourgeois conservatives supported racial equality in tandem with modernization and right-wing, laissez-faire classical liberalism, by contrast. The Chinese Exclusion Act, endorsed by the American Federation of Labor (AFL),[4] was opposed by Northeastern conservative Republicans.[5]
The U.S. House sponsor of the 1924 Immigration Act was Republican Albert Johnson, a "eugenics supporter and a national leader in demanding that the U.S. restrict most of its immigration to “Nordic” peoples."[6] Johnson, a self-proclaimed participator of the white supremacist Bellingham riots (perpetrated by working-class labor unionists of the Asiatic Exclusion League against ethnic immigrants), supported eugenics aligned with the viewpoints of the Second Ku Klux Klan whose top agenda was the "renomination and re-election of Representative Albert Johnson of Washington, so he can continue to be Chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and fight for restricted immigration laws."[6]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5078/
- ↑ http://www.historicaldocuments.com/ImmigrationActof1924.htm
- ↑ http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAE1917A.htm
- ↑ Syrios, Andrew (July 22, 2014). A Brief History of Progressivism. Mises Institute. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
- ↑ Cohn, Henry S.; Gee, Harvey. “No, No, No, No!”: Three Sons of Connecticut Who Opposed the Chinese Exclusion Acts. University of Connecticut. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Griffey, Trevor. Citizen Klan: Electoral Politics and the KKK in WA. The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
