National origins provision of immigration law

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1796380105

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-196168

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: National origins provision of immigration law

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: Gov. Pr. Off.

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: III, 171 S

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Frances H. Kinnicutt, immigration restriction league, and allied patriotic society, New York City

Collection:: Economics Books

168 NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW “ Senator SurpsTEAD. Yes. I say ‘reliable statistics’ are not available. Ae- cording to the best authorities, there are no reliable statistics of immigration for the first 213 years of this country’s history. I believe you stated in the debate upon this proposition that there were none until 1820? “ Senator REED. Yes, “ Senator SHIPsTEAD. I am quoting from your statement on the floor of thé Senate, April 3, 1924, page 5460, part 6, volume 65, of the Congressional Record : There was no official governmental record of immigration commenced until the year 1820." Dr. Edward McSweeney, former Assistant Commissioner of Immigration, has made a statement on that, and if you would care to have me do so I would like to read it. He said [reading]: “In 1819 a law was passed making it necessary for the captaing of all in- coming ships bringing passengers to the United States to file a manifest of the passengers but, except to give the number of the passengers to the Government, was never other than perfunctory and almost never used, These accumulated manifests were burned in the Hillis Island fire of 1896. The first real attempt to gather immigration statistics was after the Immigration Bureau was estab- lished in the early nineties.” In 1906 Congress passed a law providing that the Director of the Census be authorized and directed to publish in permanent form, by counties and minor subdivisions, the names of the families returned at the first census of the United States in 1790. Speaking of the difficulties in this work, William 8. Rossiter, then chief clerk of the Census Bureau, stated in Outlook for December 29, 1906, page 1071, mar- shals in the different districts who had charge of the census: ' “The break in official records is one of the marks of the teeth of the British on, these papers and many others having been destroyed during the occupation of Washington in the War of 1812.” Mr. Rossiter also states: “ Vagaries of size, shape, paper, ruling, chirography, and language could easily be forgiven, if, however, thereby we could restore the missing schedules lor Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia, another reminder of the British, for they were also destroyed during the occupation of Washington.” Mr. Rositer estimates that one-fourth of the enumeration ig now lacking and that it would be very difficult to comply with the law of 1906. Director of the Census North was not seemingly deterred by the fact that such a large part of the records was missing, and proceeded in 1909 to make a voluminous report which not only used the partial records but gave meti- culous percentages of the racial divisions in the country based solely on names, the same as the late Senator Lodge has done in his “ Distribution of Ability ” in 1896. Well, certainly the recklessness of that would be apparent ; for instance, here is a man by the name of Murphy; suppose he marries a girl of German descent. What would the children be? If you go by naine, of course they would be called Irish; the German would be wiped out. If an Irish girl should marry a man with a German name, a Scotch name, or Scandinavian name, the Irish descent would be wiped out. These fragmentary statistics of immigration and emigration are, therefore, admitted by the chairman of “experts” to be the foundation of their report. One-half of the records of the census of 1790 were destroyed more than 100 years before the commission began its work. In the census of 1790 the only information gathered by the census takers was the name and age of the in- dividual. No information was gathered to determine their national origin. Che only manner in which the national origin could he determined of the popula- tion of 1790 would be from the remaining records of the seven remaining States. Six are gone, and the only manner in which the national origin if the remainder can be determined is by tracing the national origin of each individual of the population at that time by spelling or sound of lis name. This is ‘tracing the ancestors of descendants of particular individuals,” but he law creating the committee of experts says, ‘such determination shall not be made by tracing the ancestors or descendants of particular individuals, but shall be based upon statistics of emigration and immigration together with rates of increase of population as shown by successive decennial United States censuses, and such other data as may be found to be reliable.” It seems plain and must be patent to the committee that the census of 1790 is specifically eliminated from consideration in this work by specific provi- zion of the law. It is plain, in view of the statement of Doctor Hill that the

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