Editorials such as this one from the Greenfield, Massachusetts, Gazette and Courier are reflections of broad national anti-immigration sentiments. A number of factors contributed to these sentiments in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Many native-born workers observed that their own wages went down as immigrants willing to work for lower pay flooded the United States labor market. It was also feared that many immigrants were anarchists and communists. The author of this editorial asserts that, “the bulk of the immigrants huddle in the larger centers and form little foreign colonies which do not absorb Americanism but do furnish fertile soil for the growth of the propaganda of Bolshevism and other isms which threaten even the very foundations of government such as Americans believe to be ideal.” The Immigration Act of 1917 passed despite President Wilson’s veto. It required a literacy test for certain immigrants and barred others from entering the United States. Legislation further limiting immigration and placing stricter standards on those admitted to the United States would pass in the early 1920s.
Greenfield Gazette and Courier. “Leaders in Congress to Shut off all Immigration article in The Gazette and Courier newspaper.” December 4, 1920. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l06-056/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
Please note: Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.