Brief History of Immigration into the US.

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Immigrants: America's Industrial Growth Depended on Them
Written by Frank Beardsley
19 October 2005

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

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Statue of Liberty
In our last program, we told the story of the Statue of Liberty, given to the United States by the people of France. The "Lady of Liberty" holds a bright torch high over the harbor of New York City. Her torch of freedom was a welcome signal to millions of immigrants arriving to begin a new life in America.

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American life was changing. And it was changing quickly. Before eighteen sixty, the United States had an agricultural economy. After eighteen sixty, the country began to change from an agricultural to an industrial economy.

In eighteen sixty, American shops and factories produced less than two thousand million dollars' worth of goods. Thirty years later, in eighteen ninety, American factories produced ten thousand million dollars' worth. By then, more than five million persons were working in factories and mines. Another three million had jobs in the building industries and transportation.

VOICE ONE:

Year after year, production continued to increase. And the size of the industrial labor force continued to grow.

A great many of the new industrial workers came from American farms. Farm work was hard, and the pay was low. Young men left the family farms as soon as they could. They went to towns and cities to look for an easier and better way of life. Many of them found it in the factories. A young man who worked hard and learned new skills could rise quickly to better and better jobs.

This was not only true for farmers, but also for immigrants who came to the United States from foreign countries. They came from many different lands and for many different reasons. But all came with the same hope for a better life in a new world.

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In the eighteen fifties, America's industrial revolution was just beginning. Factories needed skilled workers -- men who knew how to do all the necessary jobs. Factory owners offered high pay to workers who had these skills.

British workers had them. Many had spent years in British factories. Pay was poor in Britain, and these skilled workers could get much more money in America. So, many of them came. Hundreds of thousands. Some factories -- even some industries -- seemed completely British.

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Cloth factories in Fall River, Massachusetts, were filled with young men from Lancashire, England. Most of the workers in the shipyards of San Francisco were from Scotland. Many of the coal miners in America were men from the British mines in Wales.

Many were farmers who came to America because they could get land for nothing. They could build new farms for themselves in the rich land of the American west.

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One of the best-liked songs in Britain then was a song about the better life in America. Its name: "To The West. " Its words helped many men decide to Make the move to America.

"To The west, to the west, to the land of the free

where mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea;

where a man is a man if he's willing to toil.

And the poorest may harvest the fruits of the soil.

Where the young may exult and the aged may rest,

away, far away, to the land of the west."


View from Ellis Island in New York Harbor
VOICE ONE:

To another group of immigrants, America was the last hope. Ireland in the eighteen forties suffered one crop failure after another. Hungry men had to leave. In eighteen fifty alone, more than one hundred seventeen thousand people came to the United States from Ireland. Most had no money and little education. To those men and women, America was a magic name.

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Throughout Europe, when times were hard, people talked of going to America. In some countries, organizations were formed to help people emigrate to the United States. A Polish farmer wrote to such an organization in Warsaw:

"I want to go to America. But I have no money. I have nothing but the ten fingers of my hands, a wife, and nine children. I have no work at all, although I am strong and healthy and only forty-five years old. I have been to many towns and cities in Poland, wherever I could go. Nowhere could I earn much money. I wish to work. But what can I do. I will not steal, and I have no work. So, I beg you to accept me for a journey to America."

VOICE ONE:

As the years passed, fewer people were moving to America for a better job. Most were coming now for any job at all. Work was hard to find in any of the cities in Europe.

A British lawmaker told parliament in eighteen seventy that Englishmen were leaving their country, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. They could not find work at home. He said that even as he spoke, hundreds were dying of hunger in London and other British cities. They were victims of the new revolution in agriculture and industry.

Small family farms were disappearing. In their places rose large modern farms that could produce much more. New machines took the place of men. And millions of farmers had to look for other work. Some found it in the factories. Industry was growing quickly...but not quickly enough to give jobs to all the farmers out of work.

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In the next ten years, millions of people made the move from Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. But then, as industry in those countries grew larger, and more jobs opened, the flood of immigration began to slow.

The immigrants now were coming from southern and eastern Europe. Anti-Jewish feeling swept Russia and Poland. Violence against Jews caused many of them to move to America.

In the late eighteen eighties, cholera spread through much of southern Italy. Fear of the disease led many families to leave for the United States.

Others left when their governments began building up strong armies. Young men who did not want to be soldiers often escaped by moving to America. Big armies were costly, and many people left because they did not want to pay the high taxes.

Whatever the reason, people continued to immigrate to the United States.

VOICE ONE:

These new immigrants were not like those who came earlier. These new immigrants had no skills. Most were unable to read or write.

Factory owners found that these eastern and southern Europeans were hard workers. They did not protest because the work was hard and the pay was low. They did not demand better working conditions. They did not join unions or strike.

Factory owners began to replace higher-paid American and British workers with the new immigrants. Business leaders wanted more of the new workers. They urged the immigrants to write letters to their friends and relatives in the old country. "Tell them
to come to America, that there are plenty of jobs."


Italian family picking berries in Delaware
VOICE TWO:

Letters from America brought many more immigrants. The big steamship companies also helped industry to get more of the new workers. They paid thousands of agents throughout Europe to sell tickets for the trip to America. Their efforts meant that
steamships bringing grain to Europe could return to America filled with immigrants.

They came by the hundreds of thousands. People of all religions, from all across Europe. Many remained in New York and other eastern cities. But many others moved westward. They took jobs in the steel factories of Pennsylvania and the coal mines
of West Virginia. They worked in the lumber camps of Michigan and in the stockyards and meat-packing plants of Chicago.

VOICE ONE:

Within a few years, foreign-born workers held most of the unskilled jobs in many American industries. American workers began to protest. They demanded an end to the flood of immigration.

That will be our story in the next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION, a program in Special English. Your narrators were Leo Scully and Maurice Joyce. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.

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American Lawmakers React to Flood of Immigrants in Late 1800s
Written by Frank Beardsley
26 October 2005

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

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View from Ellis Island in
New York Harbor

In our last program, we told how the flow of immigration to the United States began to change in the eighteen eighties. Before then, most of the immigrants came from central and northern Europe. From Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries.

The largest number came from Britain. They found it easy to settle in the United States. They shared with the Americans the same language and many of the same traditions. Some of these early immigrants were skilled workers who found good jobs in American industry. Others were farmers who came to America for free land.

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After eighteen eighty, the flood of immigration from northern and central Europe began to fall. Now, most immigrants were coming from eastern and southern Europe. From Russia, Poland, Romania, Italy, Greece.


Italian family picking berries in Delaware, 1910
These new immigrants were different from those who came earlier. Most did not speak English. Most were poor farmers who had few special skills. Most had little or no education.

They were, however, good workers. They did not protest working long hours for low pay. They did not demand better working conditions. They usually refused to join labor unions or take part in strikes.

VOICE ONE:

American factory owners were pleased with the new immigrants. They gave them jobs formerly held by higher-paid American workers. The owners asked the new workers to write letters to friends still in the old country, urging them to come to America.

And they came by the hundreds of thousands to take jobs in steel factories in Pennsylvania and the coal mines of West Virginia. They worked in the lumber camps of Michigan and in the stockyards and the meat-packing plants of Chicago.

American workers then began to protest, as their jobs were filled by immigrants who were happy to work for less money.

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The protests were especially bitter on the pacific coast where thousands of Chinese immigrants were settling in California.

The Chinese arrived there after eighteen fifty to help build western railroads. After the railroads were completed, these Chinese new-comers turned to other jobs. More came every year. By the eighteen seventies, California's political leaders were demanding an end to further immigration from China.

In eighteen eighty-two, Congress passed a law that barred Chinese immigration for ten years. The law was extended for another ten years, then made permanent.

VOICE ONE:

The immigration law of eighteen eighty-two put other limits on immigration. It closed the country to criminals, the mentally ill, and persons who could not support themselves. Later, others were added to this list. Persons with diseases. Anarchists. Alcoholics.

This, however, did not greatly reduce immigration from eastern and southern Europe. And opponents of immigration demanded stronger action.

Some proposed a literacy test. Immigrants would have to show that they could read and write. An immigrant who could not, would not be permitted to enter the country.


Henry Cabot Lodge
VOICE TWO:

Senator Henry Cabot lodge of Massachusetts urged Congress to pass such a law. In a Senate speech, lodge said:

"if we care for the welfare, the wages, or the standard of life of American workingmen, we should take immediate steps to limit foreign immigration. There is no danger to our workingmen from the coming of skilled workers or of trained and educated men. But there is a serious danger from the flood of unskilled, ignorant foreign labor.

"This labor not only takes lower wages, but accepts a standard of living so low that the American workingman cannot compete with it."

Senator Lodge continued.

"A literacy test will bear very lightly, if at all, upon English-speaking immigrants or Germans, Scandinavians, and French. The races which would suffer most under a literacy test would be those with which the English-speaking people have never united, and who are most different from the great majority of the people of the United States."

Congress passed the proposal. President Cleveland, however, vetoed it. He said the nation had nothing to fear from immigrants who could not read or write. He said there was greater danger from some of the educated immigrants who urged violence and anarchy.

It took a number of years before Congress was able to pass a law demanding a literacy test for immigrants.

VOICE ONE:

Another problem troubled President Cleveland. High tariffs -- taxes on imports.

Soon after his election, Cleveland decided to learn what he could about the tariff. "I'm sorry to say," said Cleveland, "but the truth is, I know nothing about the tariff."


President Grover Cleveland
Cleveland studied all the information he could find about the tariff. He found that the tariff was used not only to get money for the government, but to protect American industry from foreign competition. The tariffs had been raised so high that they were producing more money than the government needed.

Cleveland decided that high tariffs were wrong. He told other democratic leaders that he would try to get them reduced.

The politicians warned him not to try. They said he would only lose the support of businessmen. They said he would need campaign money from business if he expected to be elected president again. But Cleveland rejected their advice. He said, "What is the use of being elected or re-elected, if you don't stand for something."

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So, late in eighteen eighty-seven, Cleveland sent a tariff message to Congress.

He said it was wrong to raise more tax money than the government needed. When this happens, he said, money is withdrawn from the people's use and kept in the public treasury, where it does no good. It threatens the economy and invites dishonest attempts to use the money for private interests.

The government, he said, received most of this unnecessary tax money from tariffs. He said the present tariff laws were vicious, unfair, and illogical. He said they raised the prices of all imported goods which could be taxed. They also led American manufacturers to raise their prices as high as those charged for imported goods.

Cleveland said some men had become rich, because protective tariffs let them charge high prices. He noted that American businessmen like to talk about the strength and success of American industry. But he said that when the question of the tariff is raised, businessmen claim that industry is weak. They say they cannot compete with low-priced foreign products.

VOICE ONE:

Cleveland said he did not propose that all tariffs be ended. He said some were needed to raise money for the government. And he said some industries could not exist unless they were protected by tariffs. But he said tariffs should not let some industries make huge profits.

Cleveland warned that it would be far better to make safe, careful, and intelligent changes in the tariff laws now. Otherwise, he said, there might come a time when an angry public would demand radical and sweeping changes.

VOICE TWO:

The House of Representatives moved quickly to pass a moderate bill that would reduce many of the tariffs. The legislation -- called the Mills Bill -- was exactly what Cleveland wanted. But the bill ran into trouble in the Senate, where Republicans had control.

Senator William Allison, a Republican from Iowa, proposed a different tariff bill. It was one that would increase tariffs...not reduce them.

The Senate debated the tariff question for months. And since it was eighteen eighty-eight -- a presidential election year -- the tariff became an important election issue.

The Democrats promised low tariffs that would mean lower prices for the people. The Republicans defended high tariffs, which they said were necessary to protect American industry and labor.

The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland for another four-year term. The Republicans held their nominating convention two weeks later.

That will be our story next week.

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VOICE ONE:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Robert Bostic and Jack Weitzel. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley.