other Colonies, they will soon outnumber us, that all the advantages we will have will in my opinion be not able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."

From what has been said above it is evident that conditions in Pennsylvania were by no means exceptional. Professor McMaster says of the same period: "Diverse as the inhabitants of the States were in occupations, they were not less diverse in opinions, in customs, and habits. Differences of race, differences of nationality, of religious opinions, of manners, of tastes, even of speech, were still distinctly marked."

It is evident then that all of the Colonies received their share of human chaff despite their vigorous protests. But the important thing to note is that the thoughtful people of those days were against immigration even when there was land in abundance and opportunity beckoned on every hand.

The "yellow streak" in the population faded rapidly, for many of these men belonged to the class of the unfortunate rather than to the vicious and were the product of a passing state of society. No doubt the worst felons were promptly hanged, so that those who were transported-despite the protests of Virginia and the other Colonies-were such as excited the compassion of the court in an age that recognized nearly three hundred capital offenses. When we consider the fact that many were the victims of bad surroundings rather than born malefactors; that the larceny of a few shillings was punishable by death, and that many of the victims were deported because of religious differences and political offenses, or kidnapped and brought over to be sold as indentured servants, then the stigma of crime is erased. Under the regenerative stimulus of opportunity many of these persons reformed, and, therefore, one does not wonder that some of these transported persons rose to places of honor and distinction in the Colonies and that many of them became respected citizens. Opportunity beckoned then, but today the immigrant's labor is considered no more than any other commodity to be bought at the lowest price, while opportunity is like a jack-o'-lantern or like the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.

But be that as it may, before passing on, I desire to

point out again the opposition in all the Colonies to the coming of new immigrants-an opposition which was so bitter that the new immigrants either themselves moved on to the frontier which was ever moving westward, or else forced the original inhabitants to do so. But today there is no frontier!

Very early in the legislation of our Federal Congress, in fact as early as 1798, statutes were enacted affecting the alien. The most important of these were the Alien and Sedition laws, both of which had for their object the removal of aliens from the United States. The Alien Law authorized the President, without trial, to order out of the country "any aliens he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" and, if they remained, to imprison them "so long as, in the opinion of the President, the public safety may require". In order that no alien might escape, sea captains were to make reports in writing of the names, ages, and places of birth of all foreigners brought over in their ships.

That early legislation was severe on the foreigner is attested by another law passed in 1798. A new Naturalization Act raised the period of necessary residence in the United States from five to fourteen years and provided that foreigners seeking naturalization must declare their intention five years before the time for obtaining papers. Even more stringent than these laws was another enacted in the same year which gave to the President the right, in case of war declared or invasion threatened, to seize, secure, or send away all resident aliens, whether natives or adopted citizens, of the hostile nation.

When we recall the conditions existing at the time of these acts a young Republic with a new form of government surrounded by avowed and hostile enemies-there was some justification for this severe attitude toward foreigners in this country. Washington, Jefferson, and other founders of our Government favored such legislation and warned the country against the evils of excessive immigration.

These acts indicate clearly a hostile attitude by our Federal Government in its youth toward foreigners. Historical facts thus refute the contention of the past and present advocates of unrestricted immigration that we have always welcomed the

immigrant with outstretched arms. Unable to protect themselves in colonial days, the States took drastic measures against foreigners almost from the beginning of their independence. Reference to these early statutes is important in that they were based upon conditions which have given tone and color to so much of the opposition that has manifested itself toward the immigrant at different periods in our history.

As early as 1804 a proposal in Connecticut to extend the franchise brought from the Federalists the charge that "never yet has an extension of the franchise failed to bring with it those triple horrors: Catholics, Irishmen, and Democratic rule". "Give to every man a vote and the ports of Connecticut would be crowded with ships swarming with patriots and rapparees fresh from the bogs of Erin, elections would be decided by the refuse of jails and gibbets, and factious men from Ireland would inflict on Connecticut just such a government as they have already inflicted on Delaware, on Pennsylvania, on New York."

In 1807 immigrants were characterized as "the vagabonds and wandering felons of the universe". Dire prophecies as to the submerging of our institutions, and the inevitable downfall of the Republic, abounded in the newspapers at the time so many Irish Catholics were coming to the United States. Through the sections of the country where the Irish settled, anti-Catholic riots were not infrequent, even necessitating at times the calling out of troops. In New York City at the spring elections of 1834 complaint was made by the Whigs that gangs of Irishmen "armed with stones and bludgeons drove them from the polls, attacked their committee in its own room, put the Mayor, Sheriff, and posse to flight and terrorized the city". In Boston in 1837 a mob attacked and sacked the houses of the Irish. There were also antiforeign riots of more or less serious proportions in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and other cities. In Cincinnati the rioting was directed primarily against the German element.

In 1819 Congress enacted a law providing for an enumeration of arriving aliens, this being the first action on record of legislative attention to the subject of immigration itself. Opposition to immigration was soon crystallized. In 1838 the House of Representatives instructed its Judiciary Committee to consider the pro

priety of passing a law prohibiting the importation into this country of vagabonds and paupers.

The antagonistic attitude of a considerable part of the public manifested itself in the political parties of the time in what has come to be called the nativistic movement or “Native Americanism". Immigration and its effects became an issue of the very first importance and was the cause of one of the most remarkable movements in American history. The Native American Association, formed in 1837 in Washington, sought to cherish native American sentiment, to exclude foreign opinions and doctrines, to exclude foreigners from office under the State and Federal Governments, and to procure a repeal of the naturalization law. The opposition to foreigners holding office was quite general. In 1835 the platform of the Native Americans in New York stated: "Elevate no person of foreign birth to any office of honor, trust, or profit in the United States."

Immigration was a prominent issue in the election of 1844 which made James K. Polk President of the United States over Henry Clay. In the Pierce-Scott Presidential campaign of 1852 Scott was accused of "nativism" and this was a factor in his defeat. The historian, Rhodes, states that "this is the first Presidential campaign in which we light upon those now familiar efforts to cajole the German and Irish citizens", and ever since then the foreign vote has played an important part in deciding great questions of American policy.

In 1854 the opposition to immigration as manifested in the Native American movement became known as the "Know-Nothing Party", its official title being the American Party. Their cry now began to be Washington's famous order, "Put none but Americans on Guard Tonight." The country was shaken to its depths, yet all this agitation and opposition by the American public proved futile in the direction of restricting the volume of immigration, for the great, almost limitless West was still to be settled. There was still a frontier, still plenty of land, the immigrants were for the most part still willing to go West and settle on the land, while opportunity still beckoned.

Although the opposition to immigration was not strong enough to place any restrictive measures on the Federal statute books

However,

prior to the Civil War, yet a number of States legislated on the subject of immigration. As early as 1847 New York passed laws dealing with the situation. Massachusetts, California, Louisiana and other States also took action. the Supreme Court of the United States declared a number of these laws unconstitutional, and in a case in 1882 it stated that the subject of immigration "had been confided to Congress by the Constitution, and that Congress can more appropriately and with more acceptance exercise it than any other body known to our laws, State or National". From the very moment when this decision of the Supreme Court was handed down the Government embarked upon a national policy of regulating immigration.

The act of March 3, 1875, prohibited the immigration of alien convicts and of women brought in for purposes of prostitution. Under date of May 6, 1882, Congress passed and the President approved an act "to regulate immigration" by which was suspended for ten years the coming of Chinese laborers to our shores -a suspension not yet removed. The act of February 26, 1885, prohibited the importation of laborers under contract. The act of February 15, 1893, granted additional quarantine powers and imposed additional duties upon the Public Health Service. By 1907 there were as many as sixteen classes of aliens being denied admittance to the United States, and to these the act of 1907 added others. A number of other important acts were passed prior to the act of February 5, 1917, which, among other important restrictions, made provision for the literacy test. On May 11, 1922, an act was approved extending the act of May 19, 1921— the so-called 3 per cent. law-to and including June 30, 1924. It was admitted by all that this 3 per cent. law was a makeshift, temporary, war measure to stem the tide of those unfortunates of Europe who were beginning to pour into this country in order to escape the misery and burdens which they had inherited from the World War. By extending this act to June 30, 1924, Congress had time to work out more or less permanent legislation to take the place of the somewhat arbitrary, unscientific restriction of a quota based upon the census of 1910. The country is virtually back to normal conditions. It was high time for us to face the