The Weeding of Immigrants: U.S. Immigration Policies in 1920
📌 In 1920, the U.S. took drastic measures to exclude “undesirable” immigrants. This article examines the efforts at Ellis Island under Commissioner Frederick A. Wallis to filter out those deemed unfit, highlighting the complex social, economic, and health considerations of immigration policy at the time.
Uncle Sam Weeding Out Undesirable Immigrants – 1920
Relevance to Immigration Studies
The article Uncle Sam Weeding Out Undesirable Immigrants (1920) offers a deep dive into the early 20th-century immigration policies and the screening process at Ellis Island. It holds significant value for teachers, students, historians, and genealogists interested in understanding the evolution of American immigration laws and their socio-political implications. The piece uses the metaphor of a garden to explore how the U.S. government, under Commissioner Frederick A. Wallis, approached the task of admitting immigrants—choosing those considered "fit" while rejecting those deemed "undesirable."
For historians and immigration researchers, the article illuminates the cultural mindset of the period, which was focused on both assimilation and exclusion. It presents the struggles and disappointments that immigrants faced, helping genealogists and family historians better understand the barriers their ancestors might have faced upon entering the U.S.
Uncle Sam, a Gardener
By Winifred Worthington
From Forecast 1920
Commissioner of Immigration Frederick A. Wallis. American Industries, December 1920. GGA Image ID # 14e84304fe
Frederick A. Wallis, Immigration Commissioner at Ellis Island, takes a personal and kindly interest in those who seek admission to Uncle Sam's fair dominion.
Knowing that one weed in his beautiful garden causes more trouble than all the flowers he can grow, Uncle Sam is learning to be more careful to keep out the weeds.
Some years ago, almost anyone could come to "The Land of the Free," European countries thought it wise to dump their refuse from almshouses and even prisons upon our shores.
The blind, the lame, the halt, the deaf and dumb, people suffering from chronic as well as acute contagious diseases, paupers, insane persons, and even criminals were not denied refuge here.
America was a big country. It needed more people, and as Romulus invited all kinds of human beings to help him make Rome a city, Uncle Sam was willing to let anyone help him populate and cultivate his vast tracts of land.
But after suffering grievously from sickness of body and of mind spread by European and Asiatic human refuse, the United States government enacted a few laws to keep out the weeds of other countries that were filling our almshouses and insane asylums and spreading trachoma, favus, venereal diseases, leprosy, and plague among our healthy pioneer citizens.
These laws were very elastic at first, and almost anyone who did not show visible signs of disease and was blessed with a few dollars could enter the United States.
Unprincipled steamship companies also helped Europe unload its "undesirables" on American shores by carrying boatloads of unsound immigrants to Canadian ports, where there were no restrictions on landing immigrants then.
Those seeking a home in the United States landed at Halifax, N.S., St. John, N.B., Quebec, or Montreal, where they had little trouble crossing the border at points not guarded by U.S. officials.
When the United States government heard of this method of breaking its laws, U.S. Immigration and Public Health Service officers were sent to these ports to examine all immigrants booked for the United States and refuse admission to those unfit mentally or physically.
The Canadian government wisely cooperated with the United States officers. Except for a few runaways, most of the "undesirables" were prevented from setting foot in Uncle Sam's well-cared-for garden.
Shortly afterward, the Canadian government followed the United States' example and made more stringent laws prohibiting the entrance of the unfit, thus helping to keep this side of the Atlantic free from a weedy growth of inhabitants.
However, physical ailments, insanity, moral turpitude, and lack of money were not enough to keep out those who were not capable of becoming producers and consumers in this land of prosperity.
It was found that many sounds in the body became charges because, although not idiots or imbeciles, they were not yet developed mentally enough to provide food and shelter for themselves.
Accordingly, a new law was passed demanding that each immigrant pass an illiteracy test. This test consists of being able to read and count in one's native language.
U. S. Immigration officers and surgeons of the U.S. Public Health Service examine United States fitness. The largest stream of human life that pours into our wonderful country by the Atlantic Ocean routes flows to Ellis Island, which is fully equipped with competent officials to weed out the unfit.
Recently, some very wealthy and so-called high-class foreigners have been mortified by being refused entrance to the United States, where they have been accustomed to paying visits for many years, but from whose shores they are now debarred because of the test for illiteracy.
During the past winter, two wealthy Cuban sugar planters who had their daughters at school in New York City could not visit these daughters because they had no reading knowledge of their native language. They were keen businessmen and knew how to make money but had not thought "book learning" had much consequence.
Not long ago, one of the New York papers printed a picture of the kind of human flowers that Uncle Sam would like to transplant from foreign shores instead of the anarchist's paupers, and unhealthy in body and mind who fill our slums and become a public nuisance and menace to the peace and prosperity of our land.
The sought-after human flowers were members of a Holland Dutch family, a father, mother, and nine fine healthy children, blonde, blue-eyed, sturdy, good to look upon, and eager to get to work.
The father had ten thousand dollars to put in a safe American bank and enough capital to buy a farm in the suburbs of New York. He and his nine healthy children expected to raise fruits and vegetables for the New York markets.
They Were Testing Male Immigrants at Ellis Island. Photo by Underwood and Underwood. In 1914, the Last Year of Heavy Immigration, 6,537 Aliens Were Excluded Because of Physical or Mental Defect Which Was Thought Likely to Make Them Become Public Charges. Half of These Were Suffering from Some Loathsome or Contagious Disease, While 1,247 Were Mentally Defective. Trachoma, a Contagious Disease of the Eyes, Is the Commonest Cause for Exclusion, and Four-Fifths of Those Who Were Excluded for Physical Defects Were Suffering from It. Since the Outbreak of the War, the Number of Immigrants Arriving Has Much Decreased, and the Examiners Have Therefore Had Time to Inspect Them More Thoroughly, with the Result That a Larger Percentage Than Usual of Defectives Has Been Detected. The Journal of Heredity, April 1917. GGA Image ID # 14e9f013e7
"But," as a U. S. Public Health Service officer on a recent visit to Ellis Island said to me, "such in flowers are indeed rare. Look at that mob of smelly, wild-eyed creatures who are healthy and sane enough for entrance but know nothing of cleanliness.
And yet, I need not be a great prophet to predict that in fifty years, some of this tremendous unwashed crowd will be leading citizens in our country, and many of them will have dollars when you and I have only coppers.
They have come here with a big aim—to get rich—and they will deny themselves all the comforts that you and I consider essential to happiness to get the foundation greenback of plank upon which they will build their house of financial success.
They will push everything before them with dogged perseverance and reach their goal. But come with me to the detention room—the chamber of tears. There, you will see some poor souls who have had their bright dreams shattered."
He led me first to a young Italian Woman who would have made an ideal model for any artist. Even the tears that had rolled down her cheeks and had been wiped away with dirty fingers had not hidden her beauty.
She was a perfect specimen of physical health and rustic beauty. Blue-black curling hair, large dark eyes with sweeping lashes, rich olive skin tinted with plenty of natural colors, teeth that any society of which a Venus would be proud—all these favors
Nature had bestowed upon her, yet she was undesirable. She came from a sunny homeland but had been told that the United States was even sunnier. It was a beautiful land, rich not only in milk and honey but with "bananas growing on every street corner and oranges, peaches, and plums to be had for singing an Italian song."
Beautiful clothes and a palace in which to live could easily be secured if one possessed a "hurdy-gurdy" to wheel through the streets of New York City, where the wealthy people stood at their windows throwing kisses to the Italian musicians and raining golden ducats upon their heads.
Everyone in America greeted newcomers with smiles, and big people and little ones could go to magnificent schools and be taught how to paint and play the piano for nothing. Nothing was wanting in the rich and jovial land of the ever-generous American people.
With this big hope, the young Italian, who now moaned in grief, had sold her only possession, a small piece of land, and bought a hurdy-gurdy and steerage passage to America.
She set forth, bearing mal de mer and other discomforts of a sea voyage with a light heart, for was not she sailing to the only Heaven upon earth. She arrived here on a cold, dismal, sleeting day and was compelled to stand on deck with other steerage passengers for several hours.
Then she was driven with them like a sheep to be slaughtered down a long gang-plank into different pens. As she came down the line, she was tackled by inspectors who sought to see if she had the required amount of money to save her from being classed as a pauper.
Another official would not let her pass until he had turned back her eyelids with a stick, to which treatment she objected strenuously, not knowing that the health surgeon was on the lookout for a case of trachoma.
Neither did she enjoy having her head examined for favus, for she said in describing these tortures to me: "They fastened their huge burning eyes on me from head to feet and said I was all right, but when I came to the teacher man, he would not let me come to sing in your wonderful country because I had not learned how to read in Italian. I was too busy working in the field and singing. I did not know that I must be so wise to sing."
In trying to console her, I am afraid that I painted my native land in not very glowing colors. I told her that New York was not always sunny and that one of the maids now working in my home had come to this country with the same kind of dreams.
Instead of a rain of ducats, she met with cold rain from the skies. After a short time, she had the good sense to sell her organ and take a position as a domestic. There, she gets plenty of food and has good, sensible clothes, but she is not happy because she yearns for bright Italian skies.
In looking around the detention room, I saw many disappointed ones. Some of them looked as if they were suffering from shell shock. They acted as if they were in a maze, and as my guide informed me, some really intelligent immigrants act like imbeciles when given their first Binet-Simon or Mullen tests.
They are so frightened that they cannot think. Still, after being kept here for a few days and an explanation of examinations given to them through interpreters, they show themselves capable of becoming flowers, not weeds, in Uncle Sam's garden.
Watching these poor souls in the detention room, I saw material for thousands of stories that would produce the necessary tears that make novels succeed.
Truth is always more interesting and sadder than any manufactured fiction. No wonder some of them were wild-eyed, for fathers had been separated from mothers and children from parents because of mental or physical deficiencies.
My sympathetic guide, who, despite several years in immigration inspection, has not become hardened to the sorrows of those whose dreams are shattered, led me to another suffering woman, thinking that I might be able to say some comfort.
She was a young Syrian mother whose husband had come to this country two years ago to blaze the trail and send her money to join him. He had succeeded in earning passage money for herself and their two children. He had written her wonderful accounts of this land of happiness.
She had come to its ports but could not enter the Golden Gate with her two children because one child had trachoma. Her choice lay between returning to her home with both children, entering the United States with a healthy child, and allowing the sickly one to be deported or securing the money to pay for the treatment of the sick child in the hope of its recovery.
As usual, the lack of money, the fairy that brings all good things with its golden wings, stood in the way. There she sat as Niobe with tears streaming down her cheeks as she shook her head in hopeless grief. Two magnificent braids of shining black hair hung down her back.
She was a truly beautiful specimen of womanhood, and the unafflicted child was as beautiful and perfect as its mother, but she could not look upon the afflicted one as a weed not fit for entrance to the United States garden. As the little one had been passed as healthy in her country, she felt she was being treated unjustly in the new land.
My guide told me that although New Yorkers do not rain down on the heads of singers and organ players, they are always doing charitable deeds. He felt certain that he could persuade a wealthy friend to pay for the sick child's treatment so that the mother would not have to be deported—that is if the disease yielded to treatment.
The Baron de Hirsh Society in Quebec and Montreal do this for unfortunate Hebrews, and some charitable Christians are following the Jewish example. But many unfortunates are doomed to deportation.
All tubercular cases, those suffering from venereal diseases, trachoma, favus, chronic communicable diseases, organic troubles causing disability, unmarried pregnant women, deformed or disabled children without parents to support them, idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded and insane persons, moral degenerates, paupers, tramps, very aged persons, those under sixteen years of age, unless accompanied by one or both parents, persons physically unfit to earn a living, those without a certain sum of money, anarchists, and those who cannot read and count in their native tongue, are rightfully regarded as weeds not fit to grow in the United States of America garden.
However, if any of the immigrants are afflicted with acute contagious diseases such as measles, smallpox, diphtheria, etc., they are treated in the Ellis Island government hospitals by U.S. Public Health Service officers and allowed to enter our port as soon as they are declared well.
I was not curious enough to visit the contagious hospitals, not wishing to run the risk of capturing diseases from which I had been spared in childhood. Still, I found intense interest in the psychopathic wards and in watching the examinations given by health officials for mental fitness.
Several self-declared anarchists were pacing up and down and looked as wild-eyed as beasts in the jungle. I pitied one poor fellow with disheveled hair and great shining dark eyes, who, with clenched fists, paced up and down the floor, looking like everyone was his enemy. He was ready to bite, scratch, kick, and strike anyone who came near him.
Ignorance, poverty, and wrong teaching were the causes of his complaint. I felt sure, and I yearned to make him think that those living under just laws and abiding by them are the only free and protected souls in the whole world.
Some of the patients in this ward had become temporarily deranged through seasickness. They were being treated briefly to see if they would regain their mental balance. Others seemed hopeless and no doubt would be shortly deported.
Looking at these poor souls, who had lost their steering gear and were wandering in the darkness, I wondered why they must live on while young, healthy, happy people fully equipped for life's battle must be deprived of life.
Psychiatrists, psychology students, and anyone interested in the workings of the human mind can find much more interesting and instructive material in the mental testing examinations conducted by U.S. Public Health Service officers than in any books on the subject.
There, one sees the actual testing of immigrants temporarily deranged through fright and the real insane; there, one can see the line of demarcation between idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, and the higher-class morons; there, one may discover a higher mentality in some children of five years than in grandfathers of sixty.
It was intensely interesting to watch grandparents, parents, and children fitting small blocks into the places where they belong, dotting the eyes of animals and ducks in animal drawings, and trying to say their letters backward and forward.
Some of the examining officers say that several well-known people in the United States today cannot pass the tests that the poor immigrant must pass.
The government is just weeding out the unfit and allowing only perfect specimens of manhood and womanhood to come here. All strangers admitted to our gates should be healthy in body, mind, and spirit and willing to put their hands to the great American wheel of commerce to help it go around easily.
It is unfair to allow weeds bearing disease of mind or body to hamper the growth of the next generation, the future United States of America citizens. No hater of a sane government, no tearer down of the stars and stripes, has the right to spread seeds of dissension in our glorious republic.
We have no need for perpetual knockers, big-headed egotists, or pessimists who believe that the world is all wrong and that they alone can change it.
However, I agree with the present Commissioner of Immigration, Mr. Frederick A. Wallis, that the greatest kindness should be shown to all immigrants seeking entrance to our country.
The government should supply sufficient inspectors to handle large crowds without delay, decreasing the discomfort of waiting on shipboard or staying in detention rooms.
Mr. Wallis is so eager to alleviate the discomforts of those seeking a home in the United States that he does not spend his time at his desk but "goes into the fray," figuratively speaking, by mixing with the immigrants and learning of their needs.
He takes an interpreter with him so that he may get at the root of troubles and misunderstandings, and through the kindness of this big-hearted man, many terrified souls, almost on the verge of nervous collapse or insanity, are made to understand the "wherefore of the why" and to have hope for what the future is to bring.
We might also add that many hungry bodies are fed through the goodness of this humane official wisely selected by Uncle Sam as a judge concerning the fitness of transplanting certain foreigners upon American soil.
The government does not wish to find it necessary to deport hundreds of insane aliens, as has been done within the past few years; two hundred and ninety insane aliens have recently been deported.
The immigration authorities must be careful to safeguard our country from these defectives, but there is no reason why they should not be furnished with proper bathing facilities and given prompt examination by plenty of examiners who are always ready for this work.
Mr. Wallis believes that the unhealthy in body and mind should be sent home with the Bolshevists at great speed. He says there is no excuse for such slow action, as he found when he became commissioner.
At that time, he discovered that eighty-six persons had been on Ellis Island for one to six months, awaiting action.
According to Mr. Wallis, the character of immigration has improved since the war. The immigrants are bringing over their families and coming to stay, not to make money but to return to their native land and spend it. But weeding out the unfit is still necessary and undoubtedly will be for all time.
Shortly after this visit to Ellis Island, I spent an afternoon in one of New York's playgrounds, where I watched the children of both native-born citizens and foreigners at play.
There were many marks of sickness, lack of mental development, and even morality plainly visible in these little ones. The thought came to me that while Uncle Sam is protecting his garden from foreign weeds, it might be wise for him to pull up a few weeds that are already planted and are bringing forth a larger number of young weeds than his flowers and sturdy trees can produce.
It is not fair to mix subnormal children with normal ones in the schools, and it is not sensible to allow the feeble-minded to furnish the citizens of a coming generation.
It is well known that the feeble-minded reproduce five times as many children as the normals, and these children inherit their parents' weaknesses, producing imbeciles, idiots, and morons.
If these poor human weeds were kept away from the young flowers and the sturdy young plants given every chance to grow, Uncle Sam might expect the growth of the most beautiful and best-developed plants and flowers in his garden of the next century, a garden of beauty and prosperity.
Worthington, Winifred, "Uncle Sam a Gardner," in The Froecast: A Magazine of Home Efficiency, New York: The Forecast Publishing Company, Vol. XX, No. 4, October 1920, p. 226-228, 280, 285.
Key Highlights and Engaging Content
The Garden Metaphor for Immigration
One of the most striking features of the article is the use of the garden metaphor, where immigrants are compared to flowers and weeds. This image serves as a visual and conceptual framework for understanding how American authorities screened immigrants during the early 20th century.
The "weeds" (unfit immigrants) are described as mentally ill, diseased, or lacking proper education, while the "flowers" are seen as strong, healthy, and ready to contribute to the country. 🌷🌱
Commissioner Wallis’ Role
Commissioner Frederick A. Wallis is presented as a compassionate yet firm figure committed to upholding the health and quality of the American populace. His personal involvement in the immigration process, including interacting with immigrants, is highlighted as a humanizing force in the rigid bureaucratic machinery of Ellis Island. This compassionate approach contrasts with the often impersonal and dehumanizing treatment many immigrants faced during the early 20th century. 🧑⚖️💬
Illiteracy Test for Immigrants
The introduction of the illiteracy test for immigrants is another crucial aspect covered. The literacy requirement was one of the more controversial measures used to weed out immigrants who were perceived as unfit for American society.
The article discusses how this test, requiring immigrants to be able to read and count in their native language, affected immigrants from non-European countries, such as the wealthy Cuban sugar planters who were denied entry despite their financial success. 📚✍️
Images and Depictions of Immigrants’ Struggles
The image caption "Testing Male Immigrants at Ellis Island" stands out as it underscores the rigorous health examinations immigrants underwent upon arrival. The picture of inspectors examining immigrants for trachoma and other diseases serves as a vivid reminder of the strict health and moral standards enforced at the time.
The struggles of young immigrants, such as the Italian woman with dreams of a better life, further illustrate the emotional and psychological toll of the immigration process. 🏥👀
The Impact of Economic Status on Immigration
The article highlights the shift in immigration from poor laborers to more economically stable immigrants. The portrayal of the Dutch family with substantial financial means, eager to contribute to the U.S. economy, emphasizes how economic status played a role in shaping American immigration policy. Wealthier immigrants, despite being mentally fit and healthy, could still be excluded based on their failure to meet educational standards. 💰🏡
Educational and Historical Insights
Evolving Immigration Policies: The article is an excellent resource for understanding the shifting perspectives on immigration, from a more open-door policy in the 19th century to the stricter, more exclusionary measures of the early 20th century.
For students of U.S. history, it offers a compelling narrative about how public health concerns and social fears led to the exclusion of those perceived as unfit for assimilation. 📜🇺🇸
Impact on Immigrants: The piece highlights the psychological trauma immigrants often experienced during the examination process, making it particularly relevant for historians and educators interested in the emotional toll of immigration.
The detention rooms, where immigrants faced rejection or delays, became a symbolic representation of the uncertainty and despair that many newcomers to America felt. 🧳🛑
Immigration Law and Discrimination: The article also serves as a reminder of the racial and ethnic prejudices that shaped immigration policy.
The focus on excluding mentally ill individuals, paupers, and those deemed morally unfit reflects a narrow vision of what it meant to be a desirable citizen. This is an important point for genealogists and immigration scholars studying how certain groups (e.g., Eastern Europeans, Italians, and others) were particularly targeted under these laws. 📚👨👩👧👦
Final Thoughts
Uncle Sam Weeding Out Undesirable Immigrants (1920) offers an invaluable historical perspective on the early 20th-century immigration system at Ellis Island.
The human cost of the strict regulations is made clear through the personal stories of disappointed immigrants and the sympathetic portrayal of Commissioner Wallis. It serves as both a document of its time and a warning about the impact of policies designed to exclude rather than include.
For those studying the history of immigration law, social policy, and the cultural attitudes of the time, this article provides a wealth of insights into the social forces that shaped the nation’s immigration landscape.
The continued relevance of these policies in contemporary discussions about immigration underscores the enduring nature of these historical questions.
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