Immigration Concerns Quotes
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
