Last modified on May 17, 2023, at 20:39

Progressivism and xenophobia

Progressivism and xenophobia in the United States has historically been widely connected, evident in the exacerbation of anti-immigrant bigotry with the onset of the Progressive Movement. According to libertarian economic historian Murray N. Rothbard:[1]

“ Progressivism brought the triumph of institutionalized racism, the disfranchising of blacks in the South, the cutting off of immigration, the building up of trade unions by the federal government into a tripartite of big government, big business, big union alliance, the glorifying of military virtues and conscription, and a drive for American expansion abroad. ”

—The Progressive Era

1924 Johnson–Reed Act

Although the sponsors of the Immigration Act of 1924 (also, known as the Asian Exclusion Act) held right-wing voting records in Congress, they were heavily influenced by the xenophobic bigotry which stemmed from the Progressive Movement. The House sponsor and main backer, Albert Johnson (R–WA), was a Freemason and rabid eugenicist obsessed with Nordic/Anglo-Saxon identity politics, and also prominent in anti-Jewry attacks against refugees. The Ku Klux Klan in Washington supported, in their words, 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."[2] The Senate sponsor, Pennsylvania Republican David A. Reed, boasted that "America of the Melting Pot Comes to End."[3]

Despite insistence by revisionists who claim that the Johnson–Reed Act was a justified action against "Bolshevik" threats, there is clear evidence that racial motivations, influenced by progressive ideology, were the underlying factor. Progressives exploited anti-Communist fears from the 1910s, scapegoating innocent populations—Lothrop Stoddard, a prominent birth control activist, Ku Klux Klan leader, and later Nazi collaborator, deemed Eastern European Jews "Asiatic"; Prescott Hall branded the Bolshevik Revolution leaders as "Asiatic semites."[4] Another prominent eugenicist, Wilbur J. Carr, directly influenced Johnson, who ultimately legislated the 1924 Act excluding both Eastern Europeans and Asians from immigrating to the United States.

According to Ohio History Central on the second incarnation of the Klan, reaching its peak in the 1920s:[5]

“ While Progressives enacted numerous positive reforms, some of their goals were questionable. While they did seek to make the United States government more democratic and to protect U.S. workers, they also sought to force their social and political beliefs on others. Progressives opposed immigration and enacted several immigration restrictions during the 1920s. Progressives also tried to force immigrants to adopt Progressive moral beliefs. One way they tried to accomplish this was through settlement houses. Settlement houses existed in most major cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were places where immigrants could go to receive free food, clothing, job training, and educational classes. While all of these items greatly helped immigrants, Progressives also used the settlement houses to convince immigrants to adopt Progressive beliefs, causing the foreigners to forsake their own culture. During the 1920s, many Progressives also joined the Ku Klux Klan, a self-proclaimed religious group that was to enforce morality, based on Progressive beliefs, on other people. ”

—Ohio History Central article on the Progressive Movement

Andrew Syrios of the Mises Institute notes labor union support for the 1924 Immigration Act:[6]

“ Nativism is usually associated with the right, but that shouldn’t be the case for these progressives. The AFL supported the 1882 and 1924 immigration restriction acts against the Chinese. In fact, many “progressive” labor unions were very racist, nativist, and nationalist. Even the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan in the early twentieth century, aside from being quite racist, was also in favor of many progressive reforms. ”

—Andrew Syrios, July 22, 2014

Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, writes that the culmination of the Immigration Act of 1924 was a direct result of immigration restrictionist activism by the American Federation of Labor.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Naopolitano, Andrew P. (2017). The Progressive Era. Mises Institute. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  2. ↑ Griffey, Trevor (2007). Citizen Klan: Electoral Politics and the KKK in WA. The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  3. ↑ Reed, David A. (April 27, 1924). AMERICA OF THE MELTING POT COMES TO END; Effects of New Immigration Legislation Described by Senate Sponsor of Bill -- Chief Aim, He States, Is to Preserve Racial Type as It Exists Here Today. The New York Times. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  4. ↑ Okrent, Daniel (May 7, 2019). The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America, p. 281.
  5. ↑ Progressive Movement. Ohio History Central. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  6. ↑ Syrios, Andrew (July 22, 2014). A Brief History of Progressivism. Mises Institute. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  7. ↑ Kaufmann, Eric (2004). The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America, p. 61. Google Books. Retrieved May 17, 2023.