Francis Amasa Walker Quotes
The problems which so sternly confront us to-day are serious enough without being complicated and aggravated by the addition of some millions of Hungarians, Bohemians, Poles, south Italians, and Russian Jews.
Although generally a supporter of immigration, he began to oppose it when the very large numbers of immigrants who were ethnically and culturally different began to enter the United States. Northern Italians were OK but the Southern Italians were from a different social class. German Jews had made great contributions to America but the Russian Jews were peasants and serfs. Polish immigrants also. Walker was worried that for the first time in America there would be a social class division as the historical difference between rich and poor in America he believed was within ethnic groups and not between them.
Francis Amasa Walker, 1840–1897, Economist & Statistician, President of the American Statistical Association, President of the National Academy of Sciences, President of the American Economic Association, President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Army General, “Restriction of Immigration”, The Atlantic Monthly; June, 1896
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He was referring to North African and other third world immigrants. France’s second largest ethnic group had become Muslims from North Africa. But they were only 10 percent of the population.
The senator later apologized for this remark.
This relatively rarely quoted statement was made by Roosevelt shortly after he graduated from Harvard and was typical of the upper class racism of the day. This is the same man who would be the first to invite a Negro to dine at the White House despite media and public opinion which castigated his act; the same man who later would have several close Japanese friends and be considered very pro-Oriental. This illustrates how people can grow and develop over time—especially politicians. Many politicians with few prejudices have publicly adopted the in order to pander to populist biases of the time. Roosevelt was the opposite. He started out with the popular racism of the day and as he grew and developed, publicly led with exemplary statements and actions. See {588991} for another of his early racist statements—this one targeting Native Americans.
Most immigration reformers want to open immigration more widely. Ward wanted immigration restricted to certain ethnicities and limited. He wanted a uniformity of assimilation and not diversity.
The racial targets of the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League widened and they changed their name to the Asiatic Immigration Exclusion League.
New York was then the entry port of the vast majority of all immigrants to America.
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 and President George W. Bush appreciated the vakue and importance of immigration, but most other Republicans did not.
Francis Amasa Walker was an American economist, statistician, journalist, educator, academic administrator, and military officer in the Union Army.
