NW Okie's Journey
Did you know that immigration to America was practically unrestricted, unregulated than what we have had for the last eight-plus year? From 1819 onward there were successive milestones of legislation which, taken together, formed the background for the discussion in 1819. They were mostly emergency measures, dealing with problems of the moment and not developed through a constructive and statesman like viewpoint and policy.
The following is a background in the form of a concise chronology, intended merely for convenient reference:
- 1819 - Law regulating carriage of steerage passengers at sea and providing for recording of statistics on immigration.
- 1836 - State department directed to collect information on immigration of foreign paupers and criminals.
- 1838 - Congressional committee to report on expediency of revising naturalization laws, restriction of vagabonds and paupers, No legislation.
- 1847 - Better steerage conditions required by law.
- 1855 - Further regulation of steerage conditions.
- 1864 - Commissioner of immigration appointed. Foreign labor contracts validated to encourage immigration after Civil war.
- 1866 - Additional commissioners of immigration stationed on Atlantic coast, Congressional protests against dumping of criminals and undesirables upon the Untied States.
- 1868 - Law of 1864 favoring immigration of contract labor repealed.
- 1875 - Prostitutes excluded by law.
- 1876 - Much state regulation of immigration invalidated by Supreme court. Federal control supreme.
- 1882 - First general immigration law. Head tax 50 cents. Convicts (except political), lunatics, idiots and those likely to become public charges excluded. Provision for better steerage conditions.
- 1885 - Imprtation of contract labor forbidden. No provision for detection or deportation of contract laborers.
- 1887 - Secretary of treasury empowered to enforce contract labor provisions.
- 1888 - Allens landed contrary to law of 1885 deportable.
- 1889 - Standing congressional committee on immigration established, to investigate immigration and working of immigration laws.
- 1891 - Persons loathsomely or dangerously diseased and polygamists excluded. Soliciting immigrant labor prohibited. State immigration authority passed to federal authorities names, nationality and personal details regarding immigrants to be filed. Examination on Mexican and Canadian borders provided. Aliens landed in violation of immigration laws deportable within one year.
- 1893 - Head tax raised to $1.00.
- 1897 - President Cleveland vetoes educational test.
- 1898 - Industrial commission to investigate immigration and suggest legislation.
- 1903 - Head tax raised to $2. Exclusion of insane, or persons insane within five years, or who had had two attacks of insanity, epileptics, professional beggars, anarchists. Illegal to assist entrance of anarchists. Illegal to assist entrance of anarchists. Department of Commerce and Labor organized. Commissioner general of immigration appointed to administer immigration laws under that department.
- 1906 - Uniform rule for naturalization of aliens. Bureau of immigration called bureau of immigration nd naturalization.
- 1907 - Head tax raised to $4. Exclusion of imbeciles, feebleminded, unaccompanied children under 17, physically or mentally defective sufficient to render unable to make a living, prostitutes or prospective prostitutes. Division of distribution organized. Lists of outgoing passengers required of steamships. Immigration commission created. President empowered to call international conference on immigration and to revoke passports of aliens entering to detriment of labor conditions in United States.
- 1910 - Punishment and deportation provided for aliens profiting from prostituion.
- 1913 - President Taft vetoed literacy test.
- 1915 - President Wilson vetoed literacy test.
- 1918 - President Wilson vetoed literacy test a second time. Bill passed over veto by Senate and House.
- 1919 - Bill to suspend immigration for four years not passed.
- 1920 - Johnson bill suspending immigration for two years and setting 5 percent limit based on number of each nationality already in the United States, supplanted by Dillingham bill and passed. Alien percentage reduced from 5 percent to 3 percent. Bill passed but did not secure President Wilson's signature.
- 1921- The act of may 19, 1921, restricting immigration from all countries except British North America, Mexico, Central and South America, not subject to our laws and agreements regarding orientals to 3 percent of the number of American citizens of each nation resident in the Untied States, became operative on June3, 1921. Qutoas for this percentage restriction were based upon the census of 1910.
~ "Buckle-up, Buttercup!"
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