July 11, 2024 • 36 mins
In Gilded Age America, immigration from Europe rapidly grew the nation’s Jewish population, convincing many Americans that Jews were a dangerous and undesirable race. As lawmakers debated ways to restrict immigration, business owners denied service to Jews in hotels, resorts, and other public accommodations.
Featuring: Mitchel Hart, Zev Eleff, Britt Tevis, Jonathan Sarna, and Alan Kraut
Narrated by Mark Oppenheimer
Written by John Turner and Lincoln Mullen
This series is made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the David Bruce Smith Foundation.
Antisemitism, U.S.A. is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Oppenheimer (00:00):
Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from
the Henry Luce Foundation andthe David Bruce Smith
Foundation.
In May 1877 Joseph Seligman andhis family left Manhattan for
their regular early summervacation at the Grand Union
Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NewYork. Seligman was a symbol of
(00:24):
Jewish upward mobility. He wasborn in Bavaria and migrated to
Pennsylvania. He started off asa peddler then became a dry
goods storekeeper then aclothing store owner, and
eventually a banker who was sorich and successful that
presidents like Lincoln andGrant sought him out for advice.
He was a quintessential Americanrags to riches story. When
(00:49):
Seligman arrived at the GrandUnion Hotel, he was stunned to
learn that its new manager had"given instructions that no
Israelites" should be permittedto stop. Seligman was perplexed.
Was it because Jews were dirty?Because they were rowdy? Were
they known to skip town withoutpaying their bills? The response
(01:09):
was nothing like that. Seligmanlearned that the hotel's new
manager Henry Hilton had simplyconcluded that Christians did
not like the company of Jews. Itwas hurting business. Therefore,
no Jews allowed.
(01:32):
I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and thisis Antisemitism, U.S.A., a
podcast about the history ofanti semitism in the United
States. This is episode four,Exclusion. Beginning in the late
1800s, anti semitism in theUnited States became more
pervasive. It wasn't just thatother Americans disliked Jews or
(01:52):
held anti Jewish ideas. NowAmerican Jews were suffering
exclusion and discrimination.Thousands of Americans organized
themselves to prevent Jews fromeven entering the country in the
first place. By the 1920s, theircampaign of racist, nativist,
and eugenicist hatred hadsucceeded. What changed?
(02:17):
Two things. First, the AmericanJewish population grew really,
really quickly. In 1850, therewere around 50,000 Jews in the
United States, in 1900, therewere 1 million in 1930, there
were about 4 million. The secondbig change was a sharpening of
racial ideas about Jews. This isthe idea that Jews no matter
(02:39):
their religious beliefs, wereethnically or biologically
inferior. Many non JewishEuropeans and Americans were
deeply uncomfortable with Jewishemancipation and assimilation.
Here's historian Mitchell Hart,author of Social Science and the
Politics of Modern JewishIdentity.
Mitchell Hart (02:57):
And this produces extraordinary anxiety for many
non Jews. As Jews integrate moreand more in terms of their
language, their culture, theirsocial practices, their economic
practices, as they become, asthey were asked to do, through
(03:17):
the terms of emancipation, youmust become like us, the
dominant majority says, youbecome like us in all sorts of
ways you acculturate,assimilate, then we will grant
you the rights of being fullyFrench or fully German. And the
Jews took this up most of themwith a great deal of enthusiasm.
(03:40):
This is what they wanted. Theywanted to be Italians, they
wanted to be French, they wantedto be German, they wanted to be
American. And that's what theybecame.
Mark Oppenheimer (03:50):
You would think that other Germans or
French or Americans would behappy about Jewish assimilation.
After all, Jews were becomingmore like everybody else.
Ironically, however, thisprocess of Jewish assimilation
triggered alarms.
Mitchell Hart (04:05):
For those who were uncomfortable with notions
of equality, and emancipation,and integration, racial thinking
then steps in to argue that whatreally doesn't matter is
external traits. And I have topause here to say that this is
what I think a lot of peopledon't understand about racial
thought is that ultimately, it'snot about exteriors. It's about
(04:30):
the fact that for racialthinkers, the body, the physical
body, the traits, the nose, thehair, the chests, whether it's
concave or convex, all physicaltraits are indicative of
internal traits, moral,intellectual, spiritual
qualities, and potentialities,that's the key to racial
(04:54):
thought. And so for racialthinking with regard to the
Jews, if you no longer couldrely on the external traits at a
certain point, you couldnonetheless, posit that the Jews
are nonetheless still the same.Even if they change their
exteriors, they nonetheless arestill the same, because we now
(05:16):
know that the real importancelies in the blood within the
body, we would say in the genes.So either it's blood thinking,
it's genetic thinking, it'snotions of dissent or heredity.
These are the things thatmatter. These are the things
anti Semites began to argue thatdetermine who a people are.
Mark Oppenheimer (05:38):
In the United States, the main racial division
was between white and blackpeople. But it was never as
simple as all that. NativeAmericans and Asian immigrants
were also important in shapingthe ways white Americans thought
about race. And during thesecond half of the 19th century,
as immigration ramped up, theways that white Americans
thought about race becamereally, really complex. They
(06:02):
didn't simply equate Europeanand white. Instead, they
considered Italians, Slavs,Jews, and a host of other people
as separate races. And theseraces threatened the purity of
what they might call Nordic orAnglo Saxon or Protestant, or
simply white.
Mitchell Hart (06:21):
When Jews from Eastern Europe, together with
Southern Italians and otherEastern Europeans, Slavs, Poles
and others, start to come inextraordinarily large numbers to
the United States. This is forall sorts of reasons, first
economic, and then fleeingpolitical violence pilgrims. And
(06:44):
they start coming in themillions in the 1870s 80s, that
reaches its peak in the 1900s,and 10s. And this begins to
really produce a racializeddiscourse or a set of narratives
around the Jews. And they aretreated in much the same way.
There are interestingdifferences. But they are seen
(07:07):
in much the same way as thesouthern Italians associated
with mafia with violence, all ofthe stereotypes of southern
Italians, of Slavs, and then ofEastern European Jews. All of
these have negative stereotypesassociated with them. This
becomes part of a discussionaround this idea of how to
(07:31):
preserve the racial stock of oldAnglo American Protestant
families and the race. How doyou preserve from the impurities
and the dangerous infiltrationof these inferior peoples? How
do you protect us from this?
Mark Oppenheimer (07:56):
Within this racial hierarchy, the trajectory
of some groups is prettystraightforward. By 1850,
Americans of English and Germandescent generally thought about
the Irish as a separate race. 50years later, that was changing,
and they increasingly saw IrishAmericans as white. The same
story repeats itself withItalian Americans a generation
(08:17):
or two later. But the trajectoryof Jews is more complicated. We
could tell a story aboutAmerican Jews becoming white or
asserting whiteness, and thatdid happen, Jews were
increasingly getting access tothe privileges of white people.
But at the same time, whenAmericans talked about Jews,
they were starting to uselanguage like the Hebrew race.
(08:41):
This wasn't always negative orpejorative, Jews themselves and
sometimes even Gentiles, figuredthat the Israelites must have
had some positive racialcharacteristics to have survived
for thousands of years. But atthe same time, other Americans
saw Jews as a degenerative race,one that shouldn't be allowed to
enter the country or thebloodstream. There were a whole
(09:03):
host of negative ideas aboutJews having to do with their
noses, or their hair, or theirsexual proclivities, or their
intelligence, or theirsusceptibility to certain
diseases. It's a jumble ofinsults, and most of these
tropes weren't new. But theywere repackaged in this era of
racial thinking as immutable, ascoded in the genes. Even when
(09:26):
other Americans encountered Jewswho didn't fit the racial mold,
these negative racialstereotypes were often lurking
beneath the surface. It'sagainst this backdrop of
racialized thinking that JosephSeligman and his family got
turned away from the hotel inSaratoga Springs. According to
historian Zev Eleff, author ofWho Rules the Synagogue:
(09:48):
Religious Authority and theFormation of American Judaism,
the Grand Union Hotel wasn't anexclusive destination, but
rather an attainable dream forupwardly mobile Americans.
Zev Eleff (09:59):
What's really interesting about him being
banned are two things. Numberone is that the Grand Hotel
before Judge Hilton had becomethe manager, it was meant as a
discount leisure site for allpeople. And the violence done to
Jews wasn't that they werebarred from a Protestant country
(10:23):
club. To the contrary, they werebarred from an agent of
Americanization. This wasprecisely the luxury hotel in
the hottest vacation spot in theUnited States that was meant for
all people.
Mark Oppenheimer (10:38):
All people except people like Seligman.
Hotel Manager, Henry Hiltonclaimed that he didn't hate all
Jews, just Jews like Seligman.Hilton said he took no issue
with Jewish families who hadlonger roots in America. He just
didn't like new arrivals. Hiltontold The New York Times
Henry Hilton (10:58):
he but plays the mounteback if he attempts to
arouse the prejudices of theOrthodox Hebrew church by
circulating any stories orinsinuations to the effect that
he was turned out of the GrandUnion Hotel, simply because he
belonged to that ancient faith.Such is not the case. Mr.
Seligman is a Jew in the tradesense of the word. And the class
(11:20):
of Jews he represents. Whilethey are not forbidden to come
to the Grand Union are notencouraged to come.
Mark Oppenheimer (11:27):
In other words, Seligman wasn't the right
class of Jew. Hilton sawSeligman as a vulgar immigrant,
no matter how much money he had,or how he dressed. This is a
recurring theme in the historyof American anti semitism.
Someone accused of anti semitismwill say that No, no, no, he
only dislikes some group ofJews. It's just that that group
(11:47):
happens to be most Jews. Goingforward, many hotels and resorts
made it simple. They justadmitted no Jews at all. Here's
historian Britt Tevis, author ofJews not Admitted:
Anti-Semitism, Civil Rights andPublic Accommodation Laws.
Britt Tevis (12:04):
For many historians, they point to this
event as the jumping off pointof antisemitism in the United
States and what they like tocall social anti semitism.
Mark Oppenheimer (12:13):
Social antisemitism, the exclusion of
Jews from social settings, wasusually a matter of individual
discrimination. Hilton didn'tlike Jews, especially Jews like
Joseph Seligman. Now keep inmind what else is happening at
the time, this is a dozen yearsafter the end of the Civil War.
In 1875, Congress had passed aCivil Rights Act, which made it
(12:34):
illegal to bar individuals frompublic accommodations because of
race, color, or previouscondition of servitude. The 1875
Civil Rights Act had intendedAfrican Americans as its
beneficiaries. New York Statehad a similar law. Did these
laws also apply to Jews?
Britt Tevis (12:52):
When discussion plays out in the press, we see
questions of can you excludeJews because they're Jews? Or is
this excluding somebody becauseof their race? If it's excluding
someone because of their race,in that moment, it is both on a
state and federal level illegal.But if it's not because of their
race, or religion it is perhapspermissible. To defend himself,
(13:13):
Hilton goes to the press andoffers what would be his legal
defense had this played out incourt. And the defense he offers
of himself is that he isexcluding Jews because they are
undesirable, because they areobnoxious because they are loud
because it is a businessnecessity. He can't attract non
(13:33):
Jewish guests if he permits Jewsto frequent this hotel. He also
denies that this is a violationof the Civil Rights Acts. He
said those don't apply to mehere. This isn't a normal hotel.
This is a spa, a vacation space,a resort. Resorts don't belong
under the heading of whatCongress had in mind when they
wrote this law.
Mark Oppenheimer (13:53):
Just to be clear, there was no New York or
federal law that made it illegalto exclude someone from a hotel,
restaurant, resort or place ofemployment because of religion.
Hilton wasn't the only hotelierwho didn't want Jews in his
establishment. Arthur Corbin wasa railroad mogul and property
developer. He owned theManhattan Beach Hotel near Coney
(14:14):
Island. And a couple years afterthe Seligman affair, Corbin
announced a similar policy forhis hotel.
Britt Tevis (14:22):
And he comes out and says, no Jews, just no Jews.
I don't like them. No Jews noJews on my railroad and no Jews
at my hotel. He repeatsbasically almost all of Hilton's
rhetoric about why he'sexcluding Jews, but he doesn't
even bother to say it's not it'snot because of race or religion.
He just says I just don't wantthem here. He doesn't even
(14:43):
distinguish and try to make thisa distinguish between the idea
of the Seligman Jew, he says allJews are like this. I don't want
any of them here.
Mark Oppenheimer (14:51):
In fact, on a federal level, it soon became
legal for private businesses todiscriminate on the basis of
race as well as religion. In1883 the Supreme Court held that
the 14th amendment's citizenshipprotections applied only to
"state action of a particularcharacter," not to the actions
of hotels or restaurant owners.This decision gutted the 1875
(15:13):
Civil Rights Act, which hadbarred racial discrimination in
public accommodations. Goingforward, the legality of this
sort of discrimination hinged onstate law. New York, for
instance, made it illegal to barindividuals from hotels,
restaurants, and amusement parkson the basis of race, creed, or
color. But even in New York, orother places with anti
(15:35):
discrimination laws, it wasn'thard to make Jewish customers
feel unwanted.
Britt Tevis (15:40):
So some of these other methods that hotel owners
use to exclude Jews includeweeding people out according to
last name, keeping a list ofJews who have attempted to stay
in their institutions and thensharing those names with other
hotels. So that they basicallycollaborated in creating a group
of people to exclude, allowingJews to stay there if they asked
(16:02):
but putting them in the leastdesirable accommodations and
making sure that their stays areso uncomfortable that they never
want to return. One hotel ownerwas constant. I don't know if
they actually did this. But onthe newspaper, they claimed that
they would offer incoming guestslittle snacks that were pork.
And if the person chose to eatthe pork, they were permitted to
(16:23):
stay. But if they didn't, theyweren't permitted to stay
because of the assumption thatJews kept kosher. And pork is
not permissible for consumptionfor Jews who keep kosher. And so
presuming that if someone didn'teat it, they must be Jewish.
Mark Oppenheimer (16:40):
Jews didn't always use the courts to respond
to this mistreatment. Forinstance, Jewish clothing
manufacturers stopped sellingmerchandise to Henry Hilton. And
on a broader level, as antiJewish exclusion became more
common. Jews built their ownhotels and resorts and clubs.
Here's historian Jonathan Sarna,author of American Judaism: a
(17:00):
History.
Jonathan Sarana (17:01):
I think that long term, we see Jews creating
Mark Oppenheimer (17:02):
If a popular hotel in Saratoga Springs or in
Coney Island wouldn't welcomethem, Jews would go to resorts
a kind of parallel universe, youwon't let me come to these
that their fellow Jews had builtin the Catskills. It's difficult
hotels. So I'll create otherhotels where Jews are welcome.
to wrap one's head around theextent of anti Jewish exclusion
We're now barred from countryclubs and business clubs. So we
(17:22):
and discrimination during thisperiod of American history. It
wasn't universal, but it waswidespread. One hotel in the
will create Jewish ones. You'resoon going to see the creation
Catskills printed in itsadvertisements, no Hebrews, no
of Jewish college fraternities,because Jews are not admitted to
dogs. In the late nineteenteens, the Federation of Jewish
(17:42):
Farmers of America beganpublishing a Jewish vacation
the other fraternities andsororities. That's what I mean
guide, giving Jewish travelers asense of which establishments
by a parallel universe.
would welcome them. This guidewas a precursor to the better
known Green Book that providedsimilar information to black
(18:03):
Americans. To put it bluntly,Jews, like the Seligmans, only
risked embarrassment when theytried to check into hotels where
they weren't wanted. They didn'trisk their lives as black people
did. But restrictions on Jewswere real. In 1947, the Anti
(18:24):
Defamation League's New Englandbranch found that nearly half of
the regional hotels it surveyedexcluded Jews. Joseph Seligman
admired the Jewish philosopherFelix Adler. In 1897, Adler gave
a lecture in which he talkedabout four different causes or
(18:46):
strains of anti semitism. Hecategorized them as religious,
national, economic and social.Adler suggested that the first
three - religious, national andeconomic were minor factors in
the United States. AmericanJews, he said only faced social
(19:07):
anti semitism, which was mild,he thought, and benign. Other
forms of anti semitism werehardly as absent as Adler
indicated, as we'll discuss inthe second half of this episode.
Even so, the Seligman affairbrings us back to the question
(19:27):
of citizenship. What doescitizenship entail? Well, it
entails voting rights, theability to hold public office
and equal treatment under thelaw. But what about access to
spaces generally open to thePublic, what about equal access
(19:48):
to institutions of highereducation, or an equal chance to
compete in the workplace. In thewake of the civil rights
movement of the 1950s, and1960s, most people would
consider these things part andparcel of what it means to be an
(20:08):
American citizen. They are nolonger matters of social or
private discrimination, and inreality, they never were. That's
why states like New York had topass laws that made it illegal
to exclude people from hotels orrestaurants on the basis of
(20:29):
race, creed, or color. Thesimple fact is that until quite
recently, American Jews were notsecure in their rights as
citizens. We'll talk about thismore after the break.
(20:57):
By the early 1900s, manyAmericans were worried about the
increasing numbers of Jews. Theyworried about the purity and the
vigor of the nation's gene pool.They feared that the mentally
ill, African Americans, andundesirable immigrants were
polluting the country's bloodand thus imperiling its future.
(21:18):
When it came to undesirableimmigrants, Jews were usually at
the top of people's list. Inresponse to these fears,
supporters of eugenics proposedimmigration restrictions, birth
control, and the forcedsterilization of undesirable
individuals. These ideas hadbroad appeal across the
political spectrum. Prominentsupporters of eugenics included
(21:40):
Planned Parenthood founderMargaret Sanger, telephone
inventor Alexander Graham Bell,and Stanford President David
Starr Jordan. In the yearsduring and after the First World
War, there were tremendouseconomic, political, and racial
anxieties. In 1917, Congresspassed an Espionage Act, which
they use to prosecute not justspies, but also labor activists
(22:02):
and pacifists. After the war,the economy staggered through a
period of high inflation andhigh unemployment, and strikes,
so many strikes. In 1919, therewere hundreds of strikes every
single month. In Seattle, a hugeshipyard workers strike was
supported by tens of thousandsof other workers. And when there
were strikes, there was at leastthe threat of violence, and the
(22:25):
government would sometimes bringin troops to keep the peace and
to intimidate striking workers.All of this played out in the
context of the BolshevikRevolution in Russia, which had
just created the world's firstcommunist state. Vladimir Lenin
was publishing appeals forEuropean and American workers to
join the revolution. ManyAmericans thought that behind
(22:46):
every strike and every Laborprotest lurked the Bolshevik
Revolution. They also thoughtthe Bolsheviks might be behind
every bomb. Starting in April1919, dozens of bombs targeted
prominent Americans, including asenator, a Supreme Court
justice, and businessmen likeJohn D. Rockefeller, and JP
(23:06):
Morgan. Most of the bombs wereintercepted, none of the targets
was killed, but there wereinjuries and the house of
Attorney General A MitchellPalmer was damaged. There was
talk of more strikes and moreviolence in conjunction with May
Day. These events became knownas the Red Scare, and many
Americans were terrified. Formany of these fearful Americans,
(23:31):
Jew and Bolshevik, were linked.In Russia, those who remained
loyal to the Tsar blamed therevolution on Jews. Now, to be
clear, some percentage ofRussian Jews were Bolsheviks,
not least because they hated theTsar who had perpetrated so much
violence against the Jews. Butmost Jews were not in the
vanguard of the revolution. Andthat was especially true in the
(23:55):
US. Jews were coming here foreconomic opportunity and to
escape pogroms. They weren'tcoming to start a revolution. At
the same time, there wereprominent Jews among labor
activists. So it was easy forpeople to scapegoat all Jewish
immigrants with the taint ofradicalism and Bolshevism.
Here's Alan Kraut, the author ofSilent Travelers: Germs, Genes
(24:19):
and the Immigrant Menace
Alan Kraut (24:21):
Between the middle of the 19th century and the end
of the 19th century, is thatimmigration is still very
largely a state matter. It isn'tuntil the end of the century in
the beginning of the 20th, thatthe federal government becomes
directly involved in theregulation of immigration. It's
(24:41):
fairly easy to get into theUnited States. What would
normally happen? Let's take aperiod after 1855 when Castle
Garden is the main immigrationdepot in New York, ships would
come in and immigrants would betaken for inspection at Castle
Garden by New York StateImmigration officers and
(25:02):
volunteer physicians who wouldconduct medical inspections. And
most of the time, there wasadmission, people could get into
the United States relativelyeasily during this period.
Mark Oppenheimer (25:15):
If you could get to a port of entry, you
might face a medical inspection.These inspections became more
(25:37):
common as the years passed. Theywere first done on a state by
state basis, and later by the USMarine Hospital service, which
(26:02):
Fear of revolution supercharged,nativist fears about the germs
became the US Public HealthService. Until the early 1900s,
and the genes of immigrants. Andthis fear led to government
surveillance of immigrantcommunities, especially Jews,
and it prompted politicians topass severe restrictions on
immigration. A man named John B.Trevor, was central to both of
if you didn't have obvious signsof tuberculosis or something
(26:22):
these efforts. Trevor grew upwealthy in New York City. He
graduated from Harvard Law in1902. With too much time and too
much money on hand, he joinedgroups like the Immigration
else on the watch list, you gotin. It didn't matter where you
Restriction League and theAmerican Eugenics Society.
Trevor served with the US Armyduring World War One, and became
(26:42):
the officer in charge of theArmy's Military Intelligence
were coming from, whether or notyou had money, or whether or not
Division in New York. In hispost with Army Intelligence,
Trevor drew up ethnic maps ofNew York City's boroughs. He
color coded the neighborhoods toshow how they were populated by
Italians, by Germans by theIrish and by, quote, Russian
you had a job lined up. Nowthere is that big exception,
(27:02):
Jews. The Jewish neighborhoodsin Trevor's maps were the big
areas in red. They're like somesort of cartographic Red Scare.
Trevor didn't especially carewhether the Jews in question
which is in 1882, Congress hadbanned immigration from China.
were actually from Russia, orwhether they were from Poland or
Belarus or Lithuania or anywhereelse. To him, they were Russian
(27:24):
Jews, and thus, they weredangerous because of their
But for Europeans, the door waspretty wide open. And then,
association with Soviet stylerevolution. Trevor figured that
90% of New York's radicals wereJewish. He also believed that
their activities wereorchestrated by Jewish bankers
who controlled the FederalReserve, and that the Wilson
after World War One, everything changed.
administration worked in tandemwith counterparts in Russia.
(27:47):
Here's historian Britt Tevis.
Britt Tevis (27:49):
For Trevor his number one problem were Jews
because they represented thishuge communist threat and he was
sure that they were going tolead a revolution in the United
States. For these reasons, hesaw them as hugely problematic.
He was so worried that he evenwas involved with an effort to
draw up potential military plansshould Jews on the Lower East
(28:11):
Side try to lead this communistrevolution. So how could the
American military invade, if youwill, Manhattan in the late
teens and early 20s, to protectthe federal government from this
Jewish communist takeover?
Mark Oppenheimer (28:25):
In the spring of 1919, Trevor believed that
there was a war brewing with NewYork's Jewish population. He
asked the federal government tosend guns and soldiers and he
gave them a block by block planfor the city's defense. He
called for a mobile machine gunbattalion to be sent to quote,
(28:45):
"the congested district chieflyinhabited by Russian Jews." And
Trevor insisted that there wasno time to waste. He predicted a
general uprising in the comingdays. Now, this perceived crisis
never materialized. But powerfulAmericans took Trevor seriously.
The army did send a few thousandrifles to New York. There were
(29:06):
people in the army, and the NewYork State Legislature, and in
Congress who listened to Trevor.And they took Trevor so
seriously, because they sharedhis fear about what they
considered colonies of foreignborn radicals. And like Trevor,
they were especially alarmedabout Jews. And these men
ultimately concluded that thebest way to blunt the threat of
(29:28):
Jewish Bolshevism was simply tomake sure that fewer Jews
entered the US.
When he returned to civilianlife, Trevor continued to pursue
his nativist and anti semiticagenda. He worked closely with
Albert Johnson, the chair of theHouse Immigration Committee, who
was also the president of theEugenics Research Association.
(29:50):
As far as Trevor and Johnsonwere concerned, immigration laws
were a critical front to savethe Nordic Anglo Saxon race.
Under their influence in the1920s, the United States
gradually enacted laws thatclosed the country's doors to
all but a trickle of immigrants.Representative Johnson appeared
(30:10):
before his counterparts in theSenate. And he showed them
Trevor's color coded map ofManhattan. And here's what he
told them.
Albert Johnson (30:17):
The large red splotches show those whom we
know as the Russian Jews, orRussians, or poles. It is
immaterial from my standpoint,whether they call themselves
Russians, or call themselvesJews. I have not the time to
make the distinction betweenOrthodox Jews, racial Jews, and
Russians. They are of that typewhich we call Semitic. I do not
(30:41):
criticize the race or thereligion. I call attention to
the congestion.
Mark Oppenheimer (30:47):
That year, Congress passed what became
known as the Johnson Act. Itlimited European immigration to
3% of the number of foreign bornof each nationality according to
the 1910 census. So what didthat mean in practice, if in the
1910 census, there were 100,000,Polish born Americans, then
(31:09):
going forward, there would be3000 immigrants allowed in from
Poland every year 3% of thetotal in the 1910 census. This
would cut annual immigrationfrom Europe by about two thirds.
And remember, this was the firsttime Congress had ever limited
immigration from Europe. Beforethis, when it came to Europeans,
(31:30):
we had been an open borderscountry. But that wasn't good
enough for Johnson and Trevor.In 1924, they got Congress to
pass a more stringent law. Andthen, Trevor began working with
Pennsylvania Senator David Reedto devise an even more ruthless
system. In 1927, Congress cappedthe total number of immigrants
(31:52):
at 150,000. Once that number washit in a given year, nobody else
was allowed into the country.These laws slammed the brakes on
immigration, especially fromcountries in Eastern and
Southern Europe, first andforemost, Italy and Poland, but
also Russia, Latvia, Hungary,and the Balkans, many of these
(32:13):
countries with big Jewishpopulations.
Here are a few things to keep inmind about these immigration
restrictions. First, they didn'toccur just because of John
Trevor and a few other racists,these laws passed with
overwhelming popular support.Second, nativism wasn't just
(32:33):
antisemitism. During and afterWorld War One, Congress expanded
the exclusion of Chineseimmigrants, and barred
immigration from nearlyeverywhere in Asia. The mid 20s
was also the peak of the secondKu Klux Klan, which was anti
black, but also anti Catholicand anti Jewish. So anti
semitism was only one ingredientin the toxic stew of early 20th
(32:56):
century nativism. But antisemitism was a crucial and
enduring ingredient. And manypoliticians saw Jewish
immigrants as the preeminentthreat. The concern that Jewish
immigrants were disloyal, andcould not assimilate, persisted
longer than similar concernsabout, say Italian immigrants.
Here's historian Britt Tevis again.
Britt Tevis (33:18):
When we look at the discussions of the imposition of
the 1921 Emergency Quotas Law,which then becomes the
underlying basis for the 1924law, we see discussions of the
Jewish race. And we seediscussions of why Jews are
perceived as undesirableimmigrants. And the discussions
in the congressional recordsinclude language like calling
(33:40):
Jews dirty, calling Jewsdiseased, talking about racial
inferiority, talking about Jews'unwillingness and inability to
till the soil, a classic ideathat Jews can't really work.
They do what they participate inthe economy as middlemen. They
act as leeches upon theeconomies in the countries where
(34:01):
they live. And these are just ahandful of the hopefully,
apparently very, very racistrhetoric. In addition to being
dehumanizing that we see appearin conversations about why we
need the passage of these laws.
Mark Oppenheimer (34:15):
There wasn't a specific Jewish quota in these
immigration laws, but because ofthe way they were crafted, the
restrictions greatly reduced thenumber of Jewish immigrants.
Over 2 million European Jews hadcome to the US in the prior half
century. In peak years, morethan 100,000 would come. But
(34:35):
with these new restrictions inplace, that number dropped to
around 8000 Jews a year. Andthis had wide reaching effects.
For the first time, more Jewsfrom Eastern Europe emigrated to
Palestine than to the US. And inthe coming years, when Jews
attempted to flee Nazipersecution, they found that the
United States had shut the door
(35:04):
Thank you for listening toAntisemitism, U.S.A. it's a
production of R2 Studios part ofthe Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. Visit
R2studios.org for a completetranscript of today's episode
and for suggestions for furtherreading. I'm your host Mark
Oppenheimer. Antisemitism U.S.A.is written by John Turner and
Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevis isour lead scholar Jim Ambuske is
(35:26):
our producer Jeanette Patrick isour executive producer. We'd
like to thank Zev Eleff forbeing our lead advisor and we'd
like to thank our advisory boardmembers, Laura Shaw Frank,
Riv-Ellen Prell, and JonathanSarna. Our graduate assistants
are Rachel Birch, AlexandraMiller, and Amber Pelham. For
this episode special thanks toMitchell Hart, Zev Eleff, Britt
Tevis, Jonathan Sarna, and AlanKraut for sharing their
(35:47):
expertise. We're able to bringyou this show through the
generosity of the Henry LuceFoundation, the David Bruce
Smith Foundation, and manyindividual donors like you.
Thank you for listening, and wehope you'll join us for the next
episode.
Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from
the Henry Luce Foundation andthe David Bruce Smith
Foundation.
In May 1877 Joseph Seligman andhis family left Manhattan for
their regular early summervacation at the Grand Union
Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NewYork. Seligman was a symbol of
(00:24):
Jewish upward mobility. He wasborn in Bavaria and migrated to
Pennsylvania. He started off asa peddler then became a dry
goods storekeeper then aclothing store owner, and
eventually a banker who was sorich and successful that
presidents like Lincoln andGrant sought him out for advice.
He was a quintessential Americanrags to riches story. When
(00:49):
Seligman arrived at the GrandUnion Hotel, he was stunned to
learn that its new manager had"given instructions that no
Israelites" should be permittedto stop. Seligman was perplexed.
Was it because Jews were dirty?Because they were rowdy? Were
they known to skip town withoutpaying their bills? The response
(01:09):
was nothing like that. Seligmanlearned that the hotel's new
manager Henry Hilton had simplyconcluded that Christians did
not like the company of Jews. Itwas hurting business. Therefore,
no Jews allowed.
(01:32):
I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and thisis Antisemitism, U.S.A., a
podcast about the history ofanti semitism in the United
States. This is episode four,Exclusion. Beginning in the late
1800s, anti semitism in theUnited States became more
pervasive. It wasn't just thatother Americans disliked Jews or
(01:52):
held anti Jewish ideas. NowAmerican Jews were suffering
exclusion and discrimination.Thousands of Americans organized
themselves to prevent Jews fromeven entering the country in the
first place. By the 1920s, theircampaign of racist, nativist,
and eugenicist hatred hadsucceeded. What changed?
(02:17):
Two things. First, the AmericanJewish population grew really,
really quickly. In 1850, therewere around 50,000 Jews in the
United States, in 1900, therewere 1 million in 1930, there
were about 4 million. The secondbig change was a sharpening of
racial ideas about Jews. This isthe idea that Jews no matter
(02:39):
their religious beliefs, wereethnically or biologically
inferior. Many non JewishEuropeans and Americans were
deeply uncomfortable with Jewishemancipation and assimilation.
Here's historian Mitchell Hart,author of Social Science and the
Politics of Modern JewishIdentity.
Mitchell Hart (02:57):
And this produces extraordinary anxiety for many
non Jews. As Jews integrate moreand more in terms of their
language, their culture, theirsocial practices, their economic
practices, as they become, asthey were asked to do, through
(03:17):
the terms of emancipation, youmust become like us, the
dominant majority says, youbecome like us in all sorts of
ways you acculturate,assimilate, then we will grant
you the rights of being fullyFrench or fully German. And the
Jews took this up most of themwith a great deal of enthusiasm.
(03:40):
This is what they wanted. Theywanted to be Italians, they
wanted to be French, they wantedto be German, they wanted to be
American. And that's what theybecame.
Mark Oppenheimer (03:50):
You would think that other Germans or
French or Americans would behappy about Jewish assimilation.
After all, Jews were becomingmore like everybody else.
Ironically, however, thisprocess of Jewish assimilation
triggered alarms.
Mitchell Hart (04:05):
For those who were uncomfortable with notions
of equality, and emancipation,and integration, racial thinking
then steps in to argue that whatreally doesn't matter is
external traits. And I have topause here to say that this is
what I think a lot of peopledon't understand about racial
thought is that ultimately, it'snot about exteriors. It's about
(04:30):
the fact that for racialthinkers, the body, the physical
body, the traits, the nose, thehair, the chests, whether it's
concave or convex, all physicaltraits are indicative of
internal traits, moral,intellectual, spiritual
qualities, and potentialities,that's the key to racial
(04:54):
thought. And so for racialthinking with regard to the
Jews, if you no longer couldrely on the external traits at a
certain point, you couldnonetheless, posit that the Jews
are nonetheless still the same.Even if they change their
exteriors, they nonetheless arestill the same, because we now
(05:16):
know that the real importancelies in the blood within the
body, we would say in the genes.So either it's blood thinking,
it's genetic thinking, it'snotions of dissent or heredity.
These are the things thatmatter. These are the things
anti Semites began to argue thatdetermine who a people are.
Mark Oppenheimer (05:38):
In the United States, the main racial division
was between white and blackpeople. But it was never as
simple as all that. NativeAmericans and Asian immigrants
were also important in shapingthe ways white Americans thought
about race. And during thesecond half of the 19th century,
as immigration ramped up, theways that white Americans
thought about race becamereally, really complex. They
(06:02):
didn't simply equate Europeanand white. Instead, they
considered Italians, Slavs,Jews, and a host of other people
as separate races. And theseraces threatened the purity of
what they might call Nordic orAnglo Saxon or Protestant, or
simply white.
Mitchell Hart (06:21):
When Jews from Eastern Europe, together with
Southern Italians and otherEastern Europeans, Slavs, Poles
and others, start to come inextraordinarily large numbers to
the United States. This is forall sorts of reasons, first
economic, and then fleeingpolitical violence pilgrims. And
(06:44):
they start coming in themillions in the 1870s 80s, that
reaches its peak in the 1900s,and 10s. And this begins to
really produce a racializeddiscourse or a set of narratives
around the Jews. And they aretreated in much the same way.
There are interestingdifferences. But they are seen
(07:07):
in much the same way as thesouthern Italians associated
with mafia with violence, all ofthe stereotypes of southern
Italians, of Slavs, and then ofEastern European Jews. All of
these have negative stereotypesassociated with them. This
becomes part of a discussionaround this idea of how to
(07:31):
preserve the racial stock of oldAnglo American Protestant
families and the race. How doyou preserve from the impurities
and the dangerous infiltrationof these inferior peoples? How
do you protect us from this?
Mark Oppenheimer (07:56):
Within this racial hierarchy, the trajectory
of some groups is prettystraightforward. By 1850,
Americans of English and Germandescent generally thought about
the Irish as a separate race. 50years later, that was changing,
and they increasingly saw IrishAmericans as white. The same
story repeats itself withItalian Americans a generation
(08:17):
or two later. But the trajectoryof Jews is more complicated. We
could tell a story aboutAmerican Jews becoming white or
asserting whiteness, and thatdid happen, Jews were
increasingly getting access tothe privileges of white people.
But at the same time, whenAmericans talked about Jews,
they were starting to uselanguage like the Hebrew race.
(08:41):
This wasn't always negative orpejorative, Jews themselves and
sometimes even Gentiles, figuredthat the Israelites must have
had some positive racialcharacteristics to have survived
for thousands of years. But atthe same time, other Americans
saw Jews as a degenerative race,one that shouldn't be allowed to
enter the country or thebloodstream. There were a whole
(09:03):
host of negative ideas aboutJews having to do with their
noses, or their hair, or theirsexual proclivities, or their
intelligence, or theirsusceptibility to certain
diseases. It's a jumble ofinsults, and most of these
tropes weren't new. But theywere repackaged in this era of
racial thinking as immutable, ascoded in the genes. Even when
(09:26):
other Americans encountered Jewswho didn't fit the racial mold,
these negative racialstereotypes were often lurking
beneath the surface. It'sagainst this backdrop of
racialized thinking that JosephSeligman and his family got
turned away from the hotel inSaratoga Springs. According to
historian Zev Eleff, author ofWho Rules the Synagogue:
(09:48):
Religious Authority and theFormation of American Judaism,
the Grand Union Hotel wasn't anexclusive destination, but
rather an attainable dream forupwardly mobile Americans.
Zev Eleff (09:59):
What's really interesting about him being
banned are two things. Numberone is that the Grand Hotel
before Judge Hilton had becomethe manager, it was meant as a
discount leisure site for allpeople. And the violence done to
Jews wasn't that they werebarred from a Protestant country
(10:23):
club. To the contrary, they werebarred from an agent of
Americanization. This wasprecisely the luxury hotel in
the hottest vacation spot in theUnited States that was meant for
all people.
Mark Oppenheimer (10:38):
All people except people like Seligman.
Hotel Manager, Henry Hiltonclaimed that he didn't hate all
Jews, just Jews like Seligman.Hilton said he took no issue
with Jewish families who hadlonger roots in America. He just
didn't like new arrivals. Hiltontold The New York Times
Henry Hilton (10:58):
he but plays the mounteback if he attempts to
arouse the prejudices of theOrthodox Hebrew church by
circulating any stories orinsinuations to the effect that
he was turned out of the GrandUnion Hotel, simply because he
belonged to that ancient faith.Such is not the case. Mr.
Seligman is a Jew in the tradesense of the word. And the class
(11:20):
of Jews he represents. Whilethey are not forbidden to come
to the Grand Union are notencouraged to come.
Mark Oppenheimer (11:27):
In other words, Seligman wasn't the right
class of Jew. Hilton sawSeligman as a vulgar immigrant,
no matter how much money he had,or how he dressed. This is a
recurring theme in the historyof American anti semitism.
Someone accused of anti semitismwill say that No, no, no, he
only dislikes some group ofJews. It's just that that group
(11:47):
happens to be most Jews. Goingforward, many hotels and resorts
made it simple. They justadmitted no Jews at all. Here's
historian Britt Tevis, author ofJews not Admitted:
Anti-Semitism, Civil Rights andPublic Accommodation Laws.
Britt Tevis (12:04):
For many historians, they point to this
event as the jumping off pointof antisemitism in the United
States and what they like tocall social anti semitism.
Mark Oppenheimer (12:13):
Social antisemitism, the exclusion of
Jews from social settings, wasusually a matter of individual
discrimination. Hilton didn'tlike Jews, especially Jews like
Joseph Seligman. Now keep inmind what else is happening at
the time, this is a dozen yearsafter the end of the Civil War.
In 1875, Congress had passed aCivil Rights Act, which made it
(12:34):
illegal to bar individuals frompublic accommodations because of
race, color, or previouscondition of servitude. The 1875
Civil Rights Act had intendedAfrican Americans as its
beneficiaries. New York Statehad a similar law. Did these
laws also apply to Jews?
Britt Tevis (12:52):
When discussion plays out in the press, we see
questions of can you excludeJews because they're Jews? Or is
this excluding somebody becauseof their race? If it's excluding
someone because of their race,in that moment, it is both on a
state and federal level illegal.But if it's not because of their
race, or religion it is perhapspermissible. To defend himself,
(13:13):
Hilton goes to the press andoffers what would be his legal
defense had this played out incourt. And the defense he offers
of himself is that he isexcluding Jews because they are
undesirable, because they areobnoxious because they are loud
because it is a businessnecessity. He can't attract non
(13:33):
Jewish guests if he permits Jewsto frequent this hotel. He also
denies that this is a violationof the Civil Rights Acts. He
said those don't apply to mehere. This isn't a normal hotel.
This is a spa, a vacation space,a resort. Resorts don't belong
under the heading of whatCongress had in mind when they
wrote this law.
Mark Oppenheimer (13:53):
Just to be clear, there was no New York or
federal law that made it illegalto exclude someone from a hotel,
restaurant, resort or place ofemployment because of religion.
Hilton wasn't the only hotelierwho didn't want Jews in his
establishment. Arthur Corbin wasa railroad mogul and property
developer. He owned theManhattan Beach Hotel near Coney
(14:14):
Island. And a couple years afterthe Seligman affair, Corbin
announced a similar policy forhis hotel.
Britt Tevis (14:22):
And he comes out and says, no Jews, just no Jews.
I don't like them. No Jews noJews on my railroad and no Jews
at my hotel. He repeatsbasically almost all of Hilton's
rhetoric about why he'sexcluding Jews, but he doesn't
even bother to say it's not it'snot because of race or religion.
He just says I just don't wantthem here. He doesn't even
(14:43):
distinguish and try to make thisa distinguish between the idea
of the Seligman Jew, he says allJews are like this. I don't want
any of them here.
Mark Oppenheimer (14:51):
In fact, on a federal level, it soon became
legal for private businesses todiscriminate on the basis of
race as well as religion. In1883 the Supreme Court held that
the 14th amendment's citizenshipprotections applied only to
"state action of a particularcharacter," not to the actions
of hotels or restaurant owners.This decision gutted the 1875
(15:13):
Civil Rights Act, which hadbarred racial discrimination in
public accommodations. Goingforward, the legality of this
sort of discrimination hinged onstate law. New York, for
instance, made it illegal to barindividuals from hotels,
restaurants, and amusement parkson the basis of race, creed, or
color. But even in New York, orother places with anti
(15:35):
discrimination laws, it wasn'thard to make Jewish customers
feel unwanted.
Britt Tevis (15:40):
So some of these other methods that hotel owners
use to exclude Jews includeweeding people out according to
last name, keeping a list ofJews who have attempted to stay
in their institutions and thensharing those names with other
hotels. So that they basicallycollaborated in creating a group
of people to exclude, allowingJews to stay there if they asked
(16:02):
but putting them in the leastdesirable accommodations and
making sure that their stays areso uncomfortable that they never
want to return. One hotel ownerwas constant. I don't know if
they actually did this. But onthe newspaper, they claimed that
they would offer incoming guestslittle snacks that were pork.
And if the person chose to eatthe pork, they were permitted to
(16:23):
stay. But if they didn't, theyweren't permitted to stay
because of the assumption thatJews kept kosher. And pork is
not permissible for consumptionfor Jews who keep kosher. And so
presuming that if someone didn'teat it, they must be Jewish.
Mark Oppenheimer (16:40):
Jews didn't always use the courts to respond
to this mistreatment. Forinstance, Jewish clothing
manufacturers stopped sellingmerchandise to Henry Hilton. And
on a broader level, as antiJewish exclusion became more
common. Jews built their ownhotels and resorts and clubs.
Here's historian Jonathan Sarna,author of American Judaism: a
(17:00):
History.
Jonathan Sarana (17:01):
I think that long term, we see Jews creating
Mark Oppenheimer (17:02):
If a popular hotel in Saratoga Springs or in
Coney Island wouldn't welcomethem, Jews would go to resorts
a kind of parallel universe, youwon't let me come to these
that their fellow Jews had builtin the Catskills. It's difficult
hotels. So I'll create otherhotels where Jews are welcome.
to wrap one's head around theextent of anti Jewish exclusion
We're now barred from countryclubs and business clubs. So we
(17:22):
and discrimination during thisperiod of American history. It
wasn't universal, but it waswidespread. One hotel in the
will create Jewish ones. You'resoon going to see the creation
Catskills printed in itsadvertisements, no Hebrews, no
of Jewish college fraternities,because Jews are not admitted to
dogs. In the late nineteenteens, the Federation of Jewish
(17:42):
Farmers of America beganpublishing a Jewish vacation
the other fraternities andsororities. That's what I mean
guide, giving Jewish travelers asense of which establishments
by a parallel universe.
would welcome them. This guidewas a precursor to the better
known Green Book that providedsimilar information to black
(18:03):
Americans. To put it bluntly,Jews, like the Seligmans, only
risked embarrassment when theytried to check into hotels where
they weren't wanted. They didn'trisk their lives as black people
did. But restrictions on Jewswere real. In 1947, the Anti
(18:24):
Defamation League's New Englandbranch found that nearly half of
the regional hotels it surveyedexcluded Jews. Joseph Seligman
admired the Jewish philosopherFelix Adler. In 1897, Adler gave
a lecture in which he talkedabout four different causes or
(18:46):
strains of anti semitism. Hecategorized them as religious,
national, economic and social.Adler suggested that the first
three - religious, national andeconomic were minor factors in
the United States. AmericanJews, he said only faced social
(19:07):
anti semitism, which was mild,he thought, and benign. Other
forms of anti semitism werehardly as absent as Adler
indicated, as we'll discuss inthe second half of this episode.
Even so, the Seligman affairbrings us back to the question
(19:27):
of citizenship. What doescitizenship entail? Well, it
entails voting rights, theability to hold public office
and equal treatment under thelaw. But what about access to
spaces generally open to thePublic, what about equal access
(19:48):
to institutions of highereducation, or an equal chance to
compete in the workplace. In thewake of the civil rights
movement of the 1950s, and1960s, most people would
consider these things part andparcel of what it means to be an
(20:08):
American citizen. They are nolonger matters of social or
private discrimination, and inreality, they never were. That's
why states like New York had topass laws that made it illegal
to exclude people from hotels orrestaurants on the basis of
(20:29):
race, creed, or color. Thesimple fact is that until quite
recently, American Jews were notsecure in their rights as
citizens. We'll talk about thismore after the break.
(20:57):
By the early 1900s, manyAmericans were worried about the
increasing numbers of Jews. Theyworried about the purity and the
vigor of the nation's gene pool.They feared that the mentally
ill, African Americans, andundesirable immigrants were
polluting the country's bloodand thus imperiling its future.
(21:18):
When it came to undesirableimmigrants, Jews were usually at
the top of people's list. Inresponse to these fears,
supporters of eugenics proposedimmigration restrictions, birth
control, and the forcedsterilization of undesirable
individuals. These ideas hadbroad appeal across the
political spectrum. Prominentsupporters of eugenics included
(21:40):
Planned Parenthood founderMargaret Sanger, telephone
inventor Alexander Graham Bell,and Stanford President David
Starr Jordan. In the yearsduring and after the First World
War, there were tremendouseconomic, political, and racial
anxieties. In 1917, Congresspassed an Espionage Act, which
they use to prosecute not justspies, but also labor activists
(22:02):
and pacifists. After the war,the economy staggered through a
period of high inflation andhigh unemployment, and strikes,
so many strikes. In 1919, therewere hundreds of strikes every
single month. In Seattle, a hugeshipyard workers strike was
supported by tens of thousandsof other workers. And when there
were strikes, there was at leastthe threat of violence, and the
(22:25):
government would sometimes bringin troops to keep the peace and
to intimidate striking workers.All of this played out in the
context of the BolshevikRevolution in Russia, which had
just created the world's firstcommunist state. Vladimir Lenin
was publishing appeals forEuropean and American workers to
join the revolution. ManyAmericans thought that behind
(22:46):
every strike and every Laborprotest lurked the Bolshevik
Revolution. They also thoughtthe Bolsheviks might be behind
every bomb. Starting in April1919, dozens of bombs targeted
prominent Americans, including asenator, a Supreme Court
justice, and businessmen likeJohn D. Rockefeller, and JP
(23:06):
Morgan. Most of the bombs wereintercepted, none of the targets
was killed, but there wereinjuries and the house of
Attorney General A MitchellPalmer was damaged. There was
talk of more strikes and moreviolence in conjunction with May
Day. These events became knownas the Red Scare, and many
Americans were terrified. Formany of these fearful Americans,
(23:31):
Jew and Bolshevik, were linked.In Russia, those who remained
loyal to the Tsar blamed therevolution on Jews. Now, to be
clear, some percentage ofRussian Jews were Bolsheviks,
not least because they hated theTsar who had perpetrated so much
violence against the Jews. Butmost Jews were not in the
vanguard of the revolution. Andthat was especially true in the
(23:55):
US. Jews were coming here foreconomic opportunity and to
escape pogroms. They weren'tcoming to start a revolution. At
the same time, there wereprominent Jews among labor
activists. So it was easy forpeople to scapegoat all Jewish
immigrants with the taint ofradicalism and Bolshevism.
Here's Alan Kraut, the author ofSilent Travelers: Germs, Genes
(24:19):
and the Immigrant Menace
Alan Kraut (24:21):
Between the middle of the 19th century and the end
of the 19th century, is thatimmigration is still very
largely a state matter. It isn'tuntil the end of the century in
the beginning of the 20th, thatthe federal government becomes
directly involved in theregulation of immigration. It's
(24:41):
fairly easy to get into theUnited States. What would
normally happen? Let's take aperiod after 1855 when Castle
Garden is the main immigrationdepot in New York, ships would
come in and immigrants would betaken for inspection at Castle
Garden by New York StateImmigration officers and
(25:02):
volunteer physicians who wouldconduct medical inspections. And
most of the time, there wasadmission, people could get into
the United States relativelyeasily during this period.
Mark Oppenheimer (25:15):
If you could get to a port of entry, you
might face a medical inspection.These inspections became more
(25:37):
common as the years passed. Theywere first done on a state by
state basis, and later by the USMarine Hospital service, which
(26:02):
Fear of revolution supercharged,nativist fears about the germs
became the US Public HealthService. Until the early 1900s,
and the genes of immigrants. Andthis fear led to government
surveillance of immigrantcommunities, especially Jews,
and it prompted politicians topass severe restrictions on
immigration. A man named John B.Trevor, was central to both of
if you didn't have obvious signsof tuberculosis or something
(26:22):
these efforts. Trevor grew upwealthy in New York City. He
graduated from Harvard Law in1902. With too much time and too
much money on hand, he joinedgroups like the Immigration
else on the watch list, you gotin. It didn't matter where you
Restriction League and theAmerican Eugenics Society.
Trevor served with the US Armyduring World War One, and became
(26:42):
the officer in charge of theArmy's Military Intelligence
were coming from, whether or notyou had money, or whether or not
Division in New York. In hispost with Army Intelligence,
Trevor drew up ethnic maps ofNew York City's boroughs. He
color coded the neighborhoods toshow how they were populated by
Italians, by Germans by theIrish and by, quote, Russian
you had a job lined up. Nowthere is that big exception,
(27:02):
Jews. The Jewish neighborhoodsin Trevor's maps were the big
areas in red. They're like somesort of cartographic Red Scare.
Trevor didn't especially carewhether the Jews in question
which is in 1882, Congress hadbanned immigration from China.
were actually from Russia, orwhether they were from Poland or
Belarus or Lithuania or anywhereelse. To him, they were Russian
(27:24):
Jews, and thus, they weredangerous because of their
But for Europeans, the door waspretty wide open. And then,
association with Soviet stylerevolution. Trevor figured that
90% of New York's radicals wereJewish. He also believed that
their activities wereorchestrated by Jewish bankers
who controlled the FederalReserve, and that the Wilson
after World War One, everything changed.
administration worked in tandemwith counterparts in Russia.
(27:47):
Here's historian Britt Tevis.
Britt Tevis (27:49):
For Trevor his number one problem were Jews
because they represented thishuge communist threat and he was
sure that they were going tolead a revolution in the United
States. For these reasons, hesaw them as hugely problematic.
He was so worried that he evenwas involved with an effort to
draw up potential military plansshould Jews on the Lower East
(28:11):
Side try to lead this communistrevolution. So how could the
American military invade, if youwill, Manhattan in the late
teens and early 20s, to protectthe federal government from this
Jewish communist takeover?
Mark Oppenheimer (28:25):
In the spring of 1919, Trevor believed that
there was a war brewing with NewYork's Jewish population. He
asked the federal government tosend guns and soldiers and he
gave them a block by block planfor the city's defense. He
called for a mobile machine gunbattalion to be sent to quote,
(28:45):
"the congested district chieflyinhabited by Russian Jews." And
Trevor insisted that there wasno time to waste. He predicted a
general uprising in the comingdays. Now, this perceived crisis
never materialized. But powerfulAmericans took Trevor seriously.
The army did send a few thousandrifles to New York. There were
(29:06):
people in the army, and the NewYork State Legislature, and in
Congress who listened to Trevor.And they took Trevor so
seriously, because they sharedhis fear about what they
considered colonies of foreignborn radicals. And like Trevor,
they were especially alarmedabout Jews. And these men
ultimately concluded that thebest way to blunt the threat of
(29:28):
Jewish Bolshevism was simply tomake sure that fewer Jews
entered the US.
When he returned to civilianlife, Trevor continued to pursue
his nativist and anti semiticagenda. He worked closely with
Albert Johnson, the chair of theHouse Immigration Committee, who
was also the president of theEugenics Research Association.
(29:50):
As far as Trevor and Johnsonwere concerned, immigration laws
were a critical front to savethe Nordic Anglo Saxon race.
Under their influence in the1920s, the United States
gradually enacted laws thatclosed the country's doors to
all but a trickle of immigrants.Representative Johnson appeared
(30:10):
before his counterparts in theSenate. And he showed them
Trevor's color coded map ofManhattan. And here's what he
told them.
Albert Johnson (30:17):
The large red splotches show those whom we
know as the Russian Jews, orRussians, or poles. It is
immaterial from my standpoint,whether they call themselves
Russians, or call themselvesJews. I have not the time to
make the distinction betweenOrthodox Jews, racial Jews, and
Russians. They are of that typewhich we call Semitic. I do not
(30:41):
criticize the race or thereligion. I call attention to
the congestion.
Mark Oppenheimer (30:47):
That year, Congress passed what became
known as the Johnson Act. Itlimited European immigration to
3% of the number of foreign bornof each nationality according to
the 1910 census. So what didthat mean in practice, if in the
1910 census, there were 100,000,Polish born Americans, then
(31:09):
going forward, there would be3000 immigrants allowed in from
Poland every year 3% of thetotal in the 1910 census. This
would cut annual immigrationfrom Europe by about two thirds.
And remember, this was the firsttime Congress had ever limited
immigration from Europe. Beforethis, when it came to Europeans,
(31:30):
we had been an open borderscountry. But that wasn't good
enough for Johnson and Trevor.In 1924, they got Congress to
pass a more stringent law. Andthen, Trevor began working with
Pennsylvania Senator David Reedto devise an even more ruthless
system. In 1927, Congress cappedthe total number of immigrants
(31:52):
at 150,000. Once that number washit in a given year, nobody else
was allowed into the country.These laws slammed the brakes on
immigration, especially fromcountries in Eastern and
Southern Europe, first andforemost, Italy and Poland, but
also Russia, Latvia, Hungary,and the Balkans, many of these
(32:13):
countries with big Jewishpopulations.
Here are a few things to keep inmind about these immigration
restrictions. First, they didn'toccur just because of John
Trevor and a few other racists,these laws passed with
overwhelming popular support.Second, nativism wasn't just
(32:33):
antisemitism. During and afterWorld War One, Congress expanded
the exclusion of Chineseimmigrants, and barred
immigration from nearlyeverywhere in Asia. The mid 20s
was also the peak of the secondKu Klux Klan, which was anti
black, but also anti Catholicand anti Jewish. So anti
semitism was only one ingredientin the toxic stew of early 20th
(32:56):
century nativism. But antisemitism was a crucial and
enduring ingredient. And manypoliticians saw Jewish
immigrants as the preeminentthreat. The concern that Jewish
immigrants were disloyal, andcould not assimilate, persisted
longer than similar concernsabout, say Italian immigrants.
Here's historian Britt Tevis again.
Britt Tevis (33:18):
When we look at the discussions of the imposition of
the 1921 Emergency Quotas Law,which then becomes the
underlying basis for the 1924law, we see discussions of the
Jewish race. And we seediscussions of why Jews are
perceived as undesirableimmigrants. And the discussions
in the congressional recordsinclude language like calling
(33:40):
Jews dirty, calling Jewsdiseased, talking about racial
inferiority, talking about Jews'unwillingness and inability to
till the soil, a classic ideathat Jews can't really work.
They do what they participate inthe economy as middlemen. They
act as leeches upon theeconomies in the countries where
(34:01):
they live. And these are just ahandful of the hopefully,
apparently very, very racistrhetoric. In addition to being
dehumanizing that we see appearin conversations about why we
need the passage of these laws.
Mark Oppenheimer (34:15):
There wasn't a specific Jewish quota in these
immigration laws, but because ofthe way they were crafted, the
restrictions greatly reduced thenumber of Jewish immigrants.
Over 2 million European Jews hadcome to the US in the prior half
century. In peak years, morethan 100,000 would come. But
(34:35):
with these new restrictions inplace, that number dropped to
around 8000 Jews a year. Andthis had wide reaching effects.
For the first time, more Jewsfrom Eastern Europe emigrated to
Palestine than to the US. And inthe coming years, when Jews
attempted to flee Nazipersecution, they found that the
United States had shut the door
(35:04):
Thank you for listening toAntisemitism, U.S.A. it's a
production of R2 Studios part ofthe Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. Visit
R2studios.org for a completetranscript of today's episode
and for suggestions for furtherreading. I'm your host Mark
Oppenheimer. Antisemitism U.S.A.is written by John Turner and
Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevis isour lead scholar Jim Ambuske is
(35:26):
our producer Jeanette Patrick isour executive producer. We'd
like to thank Zev Eleff forbeing our lead advisor and we'd
like to thank our advisory boardmembers, Laura Shaw Frank,
Riv-Ellen Prell, and JonathanSarna. Our graduate assistants
are Rachel Birch, AlexandraMiller, and Amber Pelham. For
this episode special thanks toMitchell Hart, Zev Eleff, Britt
Tevis, Jonathan Sarna, and AlanKraut for sharing their
(35:47):
expertise. We're able to bringyou this show through the
generosity of the Henry LuceFoundation, the David Bruce
Smith Foundation, and manyindividual donors like you.
Thank you for listening, and wehope you'll join us for the next
episode.
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