Immigration Act of 1924

The United States Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the National Origins Act or the Johnson-Reed Act, limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890 according to the census of 1890. It superseded the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. The law was aimed at reducing the influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s, as well as East Asians and Asian Indians, who were prohibited from immigrating entirely. It set no limits on immigration from Latin America.

It passed with strong congressional support (only 6 dissenting votes in the Senate). Some of its strongest supporters were influenced by Madison Grant and his 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race. Grant was a eugenicist and advocate of the racial hygiene theory. His data, which is now considered by the vast majority of scientists to be flawed, purported to show the superiority of the founding Northern European races.

Floor debates

On the house floor the most common argument made by those favoring the legislation, and the one reflected in the majority report, is the argument that in the interests of fairness to all ethnic groups, the quotas should reflect the relative ethnic composition of the entire country. Restrictionists noted that the census of 1890 was chosen because the percentages of the foreign born of different ethnic groups in that year approximated the general ethnic composition of the entire country in 1920. Senator Reed of Pennsylvania and Representative Rogers of Massachusetts proposed to achieve the same result by directly basing the quotas on the national origins of all people in the country as of the 1920 census, and this was eventually incorporated into the law. Representative Rogers argued that 'Gentlemen, you can not dissent from this principle because it is fair. It does not discriminate for anybody and it does not discriminate against anybody' (Cong. Rec. April 8, 1924; p. 5847). In the words of the House Majority Report:

• “The use of the 1890 census is…an effort to preserve as nearly as possible, the racial status quo of the United States. It is hoped to guarantee as best we can at this late date, racial homogeneity in the United States. The use of a later census would discriminate against those who founded the Nation and perpetuated its institutions.”

Senator Reed noted:

• "The purpose, I think, of most of us in changing the quota basis is to cease from discriminating against the native born here and against the group of our citizens who come from northern and western Europe. I think the present system discriminates in favor of southeastern Europe." (Cong. Rec., April. 16, 1924; p. 6457) (i.e., because 46% of the quotas under the 1921 act went to Eastern and Southern Europe when they constituted less than 12% of the population).

• "Let me emphasize here that the restrictionists of Congress do not claim that the 'Nordic' race, or even the Anglo-Saxon race, is the best race in the world. Let us concede, in all fairness that the Czech is a more sturdy laborer, with a very low percentage of crime and insanity, that the Jew is the best businessman in the world, and that the Italian has a spiritual grasp and an artistic sense which have greatly enriched the world and which have, indeed, enriched us, a spiritual exaltation and an artistic creative sense which the Nordic rarely attains. Nordics need not be vain about their own qualifications. It well behooves them to be humble. What we do claim is that the northern European, and particularly Anglo-Saxons made this country. Oh, yes; the others helped. But that is the full statement of the case. They came to this country because it was already made as an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth. They added to it, they often enriched, but they did not make it, and they have not yet greatly changed it. We are determined that they shall not. It is a good country. It suits us. And what we assert is that we are not going to surrender it to somebody else or allow other people, no matter what their merits, to make it something different. If there is any changing to be done, we will do it ourselves." (Cong. Rec. April 8, 1924; p. 5922).

While Representative Scott Leavitt stated quite bluntly that Jewish representatives should respect the desire of other Americans to retain the ethnic status quo:

• “The instinct for national and race preservation is not one to be condemned, as has been intimated here. No one should be better able to understand the desire of Americans to keep America American than the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Sabath], who is leading the attack on this measure, or the gentlemen from New York, Mr. Dickstein, Mr. Jacobstein, Mr. Celler, and Mr. Perlman. They are of the one great historic people who have maintained the identity of their race throughout the centuries because they believe sincerely that they are a chosen people, with certain ideals to maintain, and knowing that the loss of racial identity means a change of ideals. That fact should make it easy for them and the majority of the most active opponents of this measure in the spoken debate to recognize and sympathize with our viewpoint, which is not so extreme as that of their own race, but only demands that the admixture of other peoples shall be only of such kind and proportions and in such quantities as will not alter racial characteristics more rapidly than there can be assimilation as to ideas of government as well as of blood. [Congressional Record, April 12 1924, 6265-6266]

See: Samuel Dickstein, Meyer Jacobstein

Possible Anti-Semitism

While motivated by a desire to preserve an ethnic status quo, these laws may also have been motivated partly by anti-Semitism, since during this period opposition to immigration was perceived as mainly a Jewish issue. This certainly appears to have been the perception of Jewish observers: for example, prominent Jewish writer Maurice Samuel (1924), writing in the immediate aftermath of the 1924 legislation, wrote that "it is chiefly against the Jew that anti-immigration laws are passed here in America as in England and Germany" (p. 217),' and such perceptions continue among historians of the period (e.g., Hertzberg 1989, 239).

This perception was not restricted to Jews. In remarks before the Senate, the anti-restrictionist Senator Reed of Missouri noted that "Attacks have likewise been made upon the Jewish people who have crowded to our shores. The spirit of intolerance has been especially active as to them" (Cong. Rec. Feb. 19, 1921; p. 3463), and during World War II Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson stated that it was opposition to unrestricted immigration of Jews that resulted in the restrictive legislation of 1924. (Breitman & Kraut, 1987, p. 87).

The House Immigration Committee Majority Report (House Report #109, Dec. 6, 1920) stated that "by far the largest percentage of immigrants (are) peoples of Jewish extraction," (p. 4), and it implied that the majority of the expected new immigrants would be Polish Jews. The report 'confirmed the published statement of a commissioner of the Hebrew Sheltering and Aid Society of America made after his personal investigation in Poland, to the effect that 'If there were in existence a ship that could hold 3,000,000 human beings, the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland would board it to escape to America (p. 6).

The Majority Report also included a report by Wilbur S. Carr, head of the United States Consular Service, that stated that the Polish Jews were "abnormally twisted because of (a) reaction from war strain; (b) the shock of revolutionary disorders; (c) the dullness and stultification resulting from past years of oppression and abuse... ; Eighty-five to ninety percent lack any conception of patriotic or national spirit. And the majority of this percentage are unable to acquire it' (p. 9; see also Breitman and Kraut [1987, 12]

Consular reports warned that "many Bolshevik sympathizers are in Poland". (p. 11)

As an example of its effect, in the ten years following 1900 about 200,000 Italians immigrated every year. With the imposition of the 1924 quota, only 4,000 per year were allowed. At the same time, the annual quota for Germany was over 57,000. 86% of the 165,000 permitted entries were from the British Isles, France, Germany, and other Northern European countries.

The quotas remained in place with minor alterations until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

See also

• List of United States Immigration Acts