Politics and the Immigration Debate
You will read excerpts and analyze a political cartoon to better understand the different political arguments made for and against immigration. For each text or visual source, determine whether it presents evidence for or against immigrants and immigration. Then, in the Political section of the chart, summarize each source’s argument.
D. "We Can't Digest the Scum" Columbus Dispatch,
March 1919
Description: In the years after the 1917 Russian Revolution, some Americans became concerned about the impact of radical immigrants coming to the U.S. Here, Uncle Sam tries to stir the world’s melting pot and "mix in" Bolshevism, "the mad notions of Europe," and other un-American ideals.
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E. "Nineteenth-century reformer Andrew White commented on the influence he believed urban party bosses held over immigrant constituents and complained that in American cities, “a crowd of illiterate peasants, freshly raked from Irish bogs, or Bohemian mines, or Italian robber nests, may exercise virtual control.” These voters, he wrote, were “not alive even to their own most direct interests.” The tragic result was that “the vote of a single tenement house, managed by a professional politician, will neutralize the vote of an entire street of well-to-do citizens."
F. "Nineteenth-century immigrants arrived to find important political groups eager to satisfy their material needs. Political parties, especially the many urban political machines, needed immigrants’ votes and did their best to get them—accelerating the newcomers’ political assimilation in the process. . . . Parties moved immigrants into active citizenship by facilitating their naturalization, identifying and promoting leaders from immigrant communities, creating a cultural bridge to politics for the newcomers, and providing career ladders for advancement within party organizations. . . . The result was a remarkable record of political assimilation."
Take Notes
