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and rich, native-born and immigrant, were all tied together. Treating contagious diseases, therefore, called for a more holistic approach. “To the man of wealth, therefore, there is a direct and very great interest in the well-being of the man of poverty,” Edson wrote, describing a kind of public health socialism. Edson did describe Russian Jews as “poor, ignorant, down-trodden” and implied that they could be susceptible to bringing contagious diseases to the United States. However Edson was not scapegoating Russian Jews or calling for their exclusion. If anything, he was saying that native-born Americans had a distinct interest in the well-being of Russian Jews, whether in Russia or in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. See, Cyrus Edson, “The Microbe as a Social Leveller,” NAR, October 1895.

76 The sometimes callous treatment: NYT, February 24, 1892.

77 New Hampshire senator: Leon Burr Richardson, William E. Chandler: Republican (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940), 7–11.

77 As easy as it may be: Richardson, William E. Chandler, 439; Carol L. Thompson, “William E. Chandler: A Radical Republican,” Current History 23 (November 1952); NYT, March 7, 1892. Historian Morton Keller writes that Chandler “gave voice to a widespread attitude when he warned that trusts . . . tended to destroy competition, crush individualism, and put the control of society into the hands of opulent oligarchs.” Morton Keller, Regulating a New Economy: Public Policy and Economic Change in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 25.

77 Back in the spring: NYT, March 6, 1892.

78 Chandler’s investigation: NYT, June 30, July 29, 1892.

78 The hearings highlighted: Transcripts of the Chandler hearings and subsequent report are found in “Immigration Investigation, Ellis Island, 1892,” 52nd Congress, 1st Session, House Reports, Vol. 12, No. 2090, Series 3053. For more of Chandler’s criticism of Weber, see Congressional Record, 52nd Congress, 1st Session, Vol. 23, Part 2, February 15, 1892, 1132.

79 Weber came across: John B. Weber, Autobiography of John B. Weber (Buffalo, NY: J.W. Clement Company, 1924), 95–96, 99–100.

82 Then there was: Markel, Quarantine! 49.

82 Typhus, the New York Times: NYT, February 13, 1892. See also Amy L. Fairchild, Science at the Borders: Immigrant Medical Inspection and the Shaping of the Modern Industrial Labor Force (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,

2003), 42–43.

83 The linkage of: “Select Committee of the House of Representatives to Inquire into the Alleged Violation of the Laws Prohibiting the Importation of Contract Laborers, Paupers, Convicts, and Other Classes,” 1888; Julia H. Twells, “The Burden of Indiscriminate Immigration,” American Journal of Politics, December

1894.

83 Cyrus Edson: Cyrus Edson, “Typhus Fever,” NAR, April 1892. 84 Chandler tried to: William E. Chandler, “Methods of Restricting Immigration,” Forum, March 1892; Letter from William Chandler to Unknown, 1890, Book 82, WC.

84 Both extremes: John Hawks Noble, “The Present State of the Immigration Question,” Political Science Quarterly, June 1892; HW, September 1, 1894. 85 Not surprisingly: AH, March 4, 1892.

85 Traveling from Turkey: Howard Markel calls Benjamin Harrison an antiSemitic restrictionist, claiming that his 1892 reelection platform “contained strong calls for the immigration restriction of Russian Hebrews.” The platform calls for no such thing. In fact, the Republican Party platform protested “against the persecution of the Jews in Russia.” It did call for “the enactment of more stringent laws and regulations for the restriction of criminal, pauper and contract immigration,” a belief in keeping with the general view of regulating against “undesirable” immigrants. Markel also claims that Harrison “was long a proponent of ‘restricting the immigration of Russian Hebrews’ and stated so emphatically in his final two annual addresses.” That charge is also false. In his 1891 Annual Message to Congress, Harrison discusses the protests made by his government to the Russian czar “because of the harsh measures