We’ve Met the Enemy

The Indian chief was worried about the future of his tribe as the flow of White Settlers moving westward across his land seemed to increase daily.  For a while, the almost constant arrival of new Whites had stopped, but when the great war the chief had heard rumors about stopped, the White men returned in numbers even larger than before.  Already, it was impossible for the Chief to move his tribe far enough away from the settlements of the Whites to avoid trouble.

Knowing that war would mean his tribe’s destruction, the chief tried a desperate move.  If he was to make peace with the White men, he must learn more about them, and in particular, some of his tribe must learn the White Man’s language.  Accordingly, he made an agreement with a nearby settlement—he would send three young men to work for a local rancher in exchange for language lessons.  The chief was determined to learn to live with his new neighbors.

A year later, when the young men returned, they could indeed speak with the nearby settlement.  Unfortunately, it made very little difference for the future of the tribe.  The chief had unknowingly picked the wrong local community, for the young Indian men had learned to speak German.

Strangely enough, the above story is actually true—it happened it Kansas in the 1870’s.  From 1860 to 1890, 14 million immigrants moved to America.  So many immigrants arrived that nativist political groups sprang up all over the country, fearful that so many new arrivals would destroy the culture of the country.   Without a doubt, these new immigrants did produce some changes.

By 1890, 80% of New York City was foreign stock.  The country was reaping the benefits of a large and successful industrialization, in part due to a large pool of unskilled labor willing to work at reduced wages.  The new production was, at least in part, purchased by the new consumers.

Still, immigration spurred complaints.  The “new” immigrants were not like the “old” immigrants.  They were too young, too many were unmarried men, and too few had skills. In addition, they didn’t speak English, they had no education, and they weren’t farmers—instead, they settled in slums in the rapidly growing cities.  These people were not capable of becoming Americans.  Political groups began screaming for reform, something had to be done!

Most of the complaints could be summarized as simply saying, “These new people are not like us!”

As industrialization and the changes in agriculture moved eastward across Europe, small peasant farmers took advantage of the drop in transportation costs and moved to America.  The waves of Irish and English immigrants were replaced with Germans and Italians, who in turn were replaced with Poles and Russians.  And as the ethnicity of the immigrants changed, the former immigrants, now assimilated, screamed, “They are not like us!”

Eventually, President Theodore Roosevelt succumbed to the political pressure and appointed the Dillingham Commission to gather facts about immigration.  The Dillingham Commission was far from unbiased:  all but one of the members were on the record as openly favoring imposing restrictions on immigration.  Nor were the members good at statistics, either.  They tended to reject information that did not back up their preexisting beliefs and generally misinterpreted the data they did accept. 

The Dillingham Commission was openly hostile towards Catholics and Jews, reporting racist nonsense such as over 60% of Jewish school children were retarded.  The report was a masterpiece of twisted statistics.  (Remember, for over 99.9% of her flight time, the Hindenburg was NOT on fire.)

I won’t bore you with the all the findings, since the final report is a massive 42 volumes.  And the data didn’t really matter since the biased commissioners interpreted the data to fit their own needs.  In a nutshell, the report said that immigration from Eastern Europe and Italy posed a real harm on the future of the country and that steps should be taken to restrict entry from those areas.

While the conclusions (and interpretations of some of the data) were flawed, the immigration data, once collected, was useful, however; a review of the information decades later did reveal some surprising results.  When comparing “new” (Eastern European) and “old”  (Western European) immigration, the two groups had some surprising similarities.  Both groups had roughly the percentage of single men, both groups had the same rate of literacy, both groups had the same rates of skilled labor, both came from rural backgrounds and both groups settled, at least for the first generation, in the cities. 

Regardless of geography, most of the immigrants came to America because of their desire for economic improvement.  Both groups were attracted by the opportunity to acquire farmland—something that was impossible in Europe.  The data reveals truths that the official conclusions denied: the simple facts are that all immigrants—regardless of where they came from—were far more like each other, and like the people of their new country than they were different from either group.  Or, as Pogo put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

When the Dillingham Commission's report was published, it was trashed in the press.  The flaws in the statistics were promptly exposed, the overt racism was revealed, and its obvious biases criticized.  Then, Congress—in usual fashion, ignored the criticisms and reality, and promptly passed laws limiting immigration from Asia and Eastern Europe.

The fears of 1900 seem ridiculous today.  It was widely believed then that Germans and Italians were from collectivist cultures, so that it impossible for them to embrace individual freedom.  Catholics were supposedly instilled with a deep sense of anti-republicanism that made the concept of liberty impossible, while the Chinese were believed  incapable of assimilation and would remain displaced foreigners for generations.  These ideas seem so absurd to us today (Well...to some of us, anyway!).

When cultures meet, there is a blending of ideas that usually benefits both groups.  I live in New Mexico where it is almost impossible to count the various cultural contributions that I benefit from.  (I’m eating Ranch style beans and turkey bratwurst while drinking a Dos Equis.)  Of course, not all cultural blends are good, (Taco Bell), but I choose to be optimistic, and believe that the current concerns about immigration are just as baseless as they were in my grandfather’s time.

A century from now, the current concerns about immigration will seem absurd, too.  If my great-grandchildren read this, they will probably say, “Why were they worried about us?