Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Quotes
The illiteracy test will bear most heavily upon the Italians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, and Asiatics, and very lightly, or not at all, upon English-speaking emigrants and Germans, Scandinavians, and French. In other words, the races most affected by the illiteracy test are those…with which the English-speaking people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are the most alien to the great body of the people of the United States.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., 1902-1986, U.S. Senator (Republican, MA), Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Ambassador to Vietnam & Germany, Congressional Record, March 16, 1896
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The senator later apologized for this remark.
Most of us are surprised that such an enlightened leader as Franklin could have such a strong anti-immigrant bias. Franklin was a strong supporter of immigration as the economic characteristic of America at the time was a plethora of land and a dearth of labor. But Franklin was a cultural chauvinist of the first order.
A bill was introduced making literacy a requirement for immigration.
Internal population movement was tightly controlled in China for fear that the huge body of rural peasants would swamp, seeking economic opportunity, the cities. In 2000 the Chinese were debating the wisdom of this policy. See Mau Yushi. “Rice Bowl” is a Chinese euphemistically used to mean “job and and a standard of living.”
For another of his immigration quotes and that of another labor leader, see {639891} and {639896}.
An insight to the culture and norms of the times may be gleaned from the fact that Hoover would have dared write material of this kind to an Italian-American member of Congress.
This quotation illustrates the extreme cultural chauvinism of which the English were capable. This definition was not the primary definition but it was one of the popular English uses of the word. The French had a similar linguistic egocentrism.
The great physicist was asked if he believed in extra-terrestrials. Fermi was the scientist who organized and planned the first controlled nuclear chain reaction
As in most weak economic times there were more people than usual opposed to immigration. Of the opponents of immigration some were not racist, but a large number were very much racist. Also the racist organizations all opposed immigration. Historically almost all anti-immigration movements were racist. First it was against the Irish, then the Germans, followed by Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Eastern European Jews, and at the time of this quote it was against the Mexicans and other Hispanics.
Most people are very surprised that the great Benjamin Franklin was so narrow-minded at one point in his life. The German immigration almost halted during the Seven Years War, and the influx of Germans to Pennsylvania did not resume at the same rate.
He was agreeing with the Right Wing racist Dutch politician Geert Wilders that one of the dangers of immigration of different races and ethnicities is that their children would not be capable or able to contribute to America or in his view make America Great Again as it has been diminished by all these immiogrant babies of the last few generations. There are very few areas of civilization where America is not greater today than ever before.
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was a Republican United States senator from Massachusetts in both Senate seats in non-consecutive terms of service and a United States ambassador. He was considered as a Presidential running mate, most significantly in 1952 by Dwight Eisenhower. Later, largely due to Eisenhower's advice and encouragement, he ended up being chosen as the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 presidential election alongside incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. The Republican ticket narrowly lost to Democrats John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1964, Lodge won by a plurality a number of that years‘ party presidential primaries and caucuses on the strength of his name, reputation, and respect among many voters. This effort was encouraged and directed by low-budget but high-impact grassroots campaign by academic and political amateurs.
