American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [95]
Throughout the first decade of the new century, a more organized, pro-immigrant voice began to be heard. Political organizing on immigration had previously been the sole preserve of the Immigration Restriction League. In 1906, the National Liberal Immigration League was formed as a counterweight, opposing any further restrictions on immigration, as well as “all unjust and un-American methods of administering these [current immigration] laws.” Yet even the most liberal immigration defenders did not support a completely open-door policy. The group wanted “to preserve for our country the benefits of immigration while keeping out undesirable immigrants.”
The new organization’s board included luminaries such as Princeton’s president, Woodrow Wilson; Andrew Carnegie; and the president of Harvard, Charles Eliot. In addition, it was strongly allied with German-American organizations and received funds from Germanowned steamship companies, lending credence to the charge that the pro-immigrant movement consisted largely of businessmen concerned with profits.
The pro-immigrant group also drew support from Jewish Americans, who wanted to make it easier for their coreligionists to escape religious persecution. Back in the 1890s, the German Jewish community had looked askance at the new immigrants from eastern Europe and many had even favored a strict interpretation of immigration laws. This stemmed partly from the snobbishness of cultivated and assimilated German Jews toward their poorer and more orthodox coreligionists, but also from the fact that needy Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe might become a burden on Jewish charities. It took repeated crackdowns in czarist Russia for America’s German Jews to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the battle against further restriction. The public debate over immigration revolved around how strict the regulation of immigrants should be, not on whether there should be any regulations at all. It was hard to find someone arguing either for completely restricted immigration or for a completely open door. Oscar Straus came close when he told the National Conference on Immigration that “the right to move from one part of the earth to another is a fundamental part of personal liberty.” However, he prefaced the remark by saying, “We all agree there should be some restriction of unnatural immigration.”
Closer to the general consensus on immigration policy was a 1907 New York Times editorial.
It is well understood and admitted by all men of enlightened and unprejudiced opinions that selection, not exclusion, should be the guiding principle in any amendments of our immigration laws undertaken by Congress. . . . An immigrant capable of adding to the productive energy of the country is desirable. On the other hand, immigrants who are clearly beyond all dispute undesirable, who would be a burden or a source of danger to health, morals, and the public peace, are already under the ban of our statutes.
As an official devoted to upholding the law against undesirables as well as staying true to his belief in the positive contributions of immigrants, Robert Watchorn had to maintain a careful balance. As his friend Edward Steiner explained, Watchorn “must be both just and kind, show no preferences and no prejudices, guard the interests of his country and yet be humane to the stranger.” It was a tall task for any individual and perhaps unrealistic to expect anyone to satisfy. Not only did Watchorn need to strike the right balance in enforcing American immigration law, but he also had to manage a difficult workforce. One who tried Watchorn’s patience was Marcus Braun, the president of New York’s Hungarian Republican Club who received his patronage position thanks to his friendship with Roosevelt. In fact, Braun increased