• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Joseph Powderly, the brother of famed union leader Terrence V. Powderly, was labor’s representative on the committee, and his report mirrored the concerns of many native-born workingmen. He was concerned that workers from eastern Europe were coming to western Pennsylvania and competing with native-born workers in the mines and factories, driving down wages and the quality of life. Unless immigration was restricted, Powderly argued, the native-born American would be driven from the coal mines or else he “will have to come down from his extravagant standard, and be contented with one room for himself, wife, and children in which to live, eat, and sleep.”

The commission’s final member, Herman J. Schulteis, took issue with the nuanced notion of pauperism found in Weber and Kempster’s report. Schulteis complained that recent immigrants were coming to America with the help of immigrant aid societies and other associations that encouraged paupers and criminals to emigrate. He also reported on the widespread involvement of Italian banks and labor agents in the distribution of prepaid tickets for Italian immigrants. As for whether steamship companies could be trusted to screen out immigrants who might be disqualified under the 1891 Immigration Act, Schulteis answered with an emphatic no, claiming to have witnessed the “sham inspection” of immigrants at the port of Naples.

While Weber was sympathetic to the plight of Russian Jews, Schulteis wrote of the “alleged” persecutions in Russia, which only existed in the minds of “Russophobists and of persons who have never looked into the economic situation in Russia.” Schulteis approved of Russia’s anti-Jewish edicts, writing that they were “in the interest of the general welfare of the Russian people.” After all, Schulteis noted, while Jews were only 5 percent of the population, they owned half of the wealth of Russia. “This is a matter of general notoriety in Russia and has an important bearing on the social status of the Hebrew,” he concluded.

It is no surprise that someone who would recycle the anti-Semitism of Russian officials would conclude that throughout Europe, “there are many persons engaged in the business of transferring from the moribund systems of European misgovernment vast members of their ‘dangerous’ pauperized, diseased, decrepit, and criminal population, not

only a safety valve to their own overstrained machinery, but to serve as

an element of weakness in this Republic, the greatness of which they

view with growing alarm.”

Despite his insensitivity, Schulteis never called for a ban on immigration or the selection of immigrants only from desirable races. Instead, his recommendations included having American inspectors at

European ports inspect and approve potential immigrants; a bigger

head tax on immigrants; the end of prepaid tickets; and the granting of

emergency quarantine powers to the president.

These dueling reports lay out a spectrum of attitudes toward immigration. To Weber and Kempster, newcomers fled poverty and prejudice in search of opportunities in the New World, where they were

certain to be molded into independent and productive citizens. By contrast, Powderly voiced the concerns of workingmen eager to protect

their wages from the competition of cheap foreign labor brought to

America by greedy businesses. Lastly, Schulteis articulated the darker

vision of immigration, seeing newcomers as Europe’s refuse dumped

on America’s shores—a losing equation that would only weaken the

Republic, while strengthening Europe.

Rather than a final answer on the root causes and nature of immigration, the Treasury secretary got more of the same contentious

debate of Americans grappling with the changes that were wrenching

the nation into the modern world and showed no signs of abating. Ellis

Island, created as the “proper sieve” to weed out undesirable immigrants, would soon become a lightning rod in this debate.

Chapter 4

Peril at the Portals

There lies the peril at the portals of our land. . . . In careless strength, with generous hand,