The ‘Hun’, the ‘Reds’ and World War One Imagery and Prejudice; the effect of the First World War on German and Russian minorities in early twentieth century America Master Thesis; History of International Relations By: Annelieke Wognum, 10077790 Advisor: Dr. E. A. Buettner Date of submission: 01-07-2016 Table of Content Chapter 1: The realities of immigration and immigrant life before 1914 7 Rules, Restrictions, and Regulations 7 Prejudices and Perceptions of the different ‘races’ 10 Chapter 2: The Great War and Immigration 23 Changes in perception and the effects of war propaganda 24 Revolution and the clash of political systems 32 Chapter 3: The Aftermath 41 The Great Red Scare 42 The Americanization movement and the integration debate 48 Conclusion and Discussion 56 Literature 60 Primary: 60 Secondary: 61 1 Introduction During the early twentieth century, America experienced one of its largest immigration waves, acquiring an even more ethnically diverse society than it already had. But, as human history teaches us, multiple ethnicities often have difficulties living together, resulting in prejudice towards minorities. As Eric Foner puts it: “The ‘new immigrants’ were often described by native born Americans as members of distinct ‘races’, whose lower levels of civilization explained everything from their willingness to work for substandard wages to their supposed inborn tendency toward criminal behavior.”1 These races that Foner speaks of are now described as ethnicities, ‘a highly elastic concept applied to groups who say they share or are perceived to share some combination of cultural, historical, radical, religious, or linguistic features.’2 This is a concept that can easily be applied to the ‘melting pot’ of different cultures that cumulated in America in the early twentieth century. In addition to the immigration influx, America took part in another great event during the 1910’s: The First World War. This war primarily impacted Europeans, who fought or lived through it from beginning to end, but it did not leave Americans unscathed. Even before they entered into the conflict in 1917 due to German submarines and an intercepted telegram, there were lively debates going on in Congress between those in favor of joining the war and those against.3 So even though it was still relatively far from their beds, especially before their participation, the First World War was most definitely a hot news item. This war not only affected American politics, it also had an impact on its population. In addition to producing an influx of immigrant refugees; it also altered perceptions of these different ethnicities, specifically the Germans who were now viewed as the ‘enemy’ and the Russians who, after their 1917 Revolution, had adopted an ideology that clashed with American capitalism; communism. America’s immigration history is most often separated into four eras: the open door era between 1776-1882, the era of regulation of 1883-1916, the era of restriction from 1917- 1964, and the era of liberalization between 1965-2000.4 All of these eras are defined by the events that took place within the time period. For example, the open door era is so named 1 Eric Foner, Give me liberty, an American History 4th ed. (New York: Norton & Company Inc., 2014) 659. 2 Elisabeth Buettner, ‘Ethnicity’, in: Craig Calhoun (ed.), Dictionary of the Social Sciences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 148. 3 Koen Koch, Een kleine geschiedenis van de Grote Oorlog 1914-1918 (Antwerpen: Manteau, 2010) 289. 4 Jeremiah Jaggers, W. Jay Gabbard, Shanna J. Jaggers, ‘The Devolution of U.S. immigration Policy: An Examination of the History and Future of Immigration Policy’ Journal of Policy Practice vol. 13 no. 3 (2014) 4. 2 because there were no or very few laws that governed immigration in that period, and each state had its own policies. The open door era became the era of regulation in 1882, for in that year, the first two federal immigration laws were approved by Congress. These laws were the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Immigration Act. The first of these laws prohibited every person of Chinese descent to enter the USA. The second law levied a tax on immigration, stating that every immigrant who wished to enter the United States would have to pay a tax before they were allowed to enter. In addition, it also provided a list of ‘undesirables’, who from that point on were no longer allowed to enter the US, e.g. convicts, lunatics and idiots.5 They were the first but definitely not the last restrictions on immigration within in this time period. The next turning point in immigration eras can be found in 1917, the year that America joined the First World War, for in 1917, the (new) Immigration Act was accepted by Congress and signed by President Woodrow Wilson on 5 February. This act can be viewed as a combination of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the previous Immigration Acts (the immigration act of 1882 had been adapted a few times before 1917). It was mostly an extension of the list of ‘undesirables’, but this act had a new and controversial dimension to it: entry into the US was now denied to Asians who originated from the ‘Asiatic Barred Zone’. This zone included most of Asia and some of the Pacific Islands.6 It was the first time an entire race of people had been singled out for exclusion, not just a nationality, as had been done with the Chinese in 1882. These laws remained in effect until the era of liberalization, when immigration policy changed to allow immigrants easier access to the United States. The law might have restricted only Asians as an entire group, but racism surrounding immigrants was not restricted to the Asian community. Europeans, and especially Eastern- and Southern Europeans were also considered unworthy of joining America, as David M. Reimers reports in his book Unwelcome Strangers, American Identity and the turn against immigration. He states that Italians for example, were believed to be a particularly violent race who were all part of Mafia families. Immigrants from Eastern Europe, on the other hand, were believed to come from backward countries that had been lagging behind in terms of progress for years due to the lack of work ethic from its inhabitants. In short, Americans 5 E. P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy 1798-1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981) 83-86. 6 Hutchinson, Legislative History, 155-160. 3 believed that these people were simply unfit to become part of America and its workforce.7 In today’s society we are less familiar with this form of racism, for the racism of today is primarily focused of skin-color and the overall outward appearance. This is even true for today’s religious racism; if an immigrant of today does not look like a middle eastern Muslim, and shows no outward signs their religious motivation, they are largely left alone. In contrast, the racism of the early twentieth century was based mainly on the attitudes or behavior of people/an ethnicity, and only in part about their appearance. That does not mean that color racism did not exist; the African Americans were still heavily discriminated against for example and there were immigration laws that excluded ‘Asians’ and ‘Latinos’ as distinct racial groups since the turn of the century.8 Joe Feagin states that, due to America’s past with slavery, it has a deep-rooted systematic form of racism that is nearly unconsciously applied by everyone, even those who fervently shout that they are not racist.9 This is undoubtedly a factor that needs to be considered. However, he only focuses on the division between black and white, and links everything to the history of slavery. Matthey Frye Jacobson provides a different viewpoint in his book Whiteness of a Different Color, in which he states that in the early twentieth century, a form of systematic racism was applied to groups of Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Slavic decent.10 These people were all ‘white’, which meant that the racism applied to them was more a form of racism based in culture rather than color. It is this last form of racism that will be applied to this analysis. Another point on which the immigrants were singled out was criminality. Most of the ‘native’ population believed that most of the immigrants coming to America’s shores ‘had an inborn tendency toward criminal behavior’, or that their children would be more inclined to violence than the children of native born Americans.11 Edward Ross described these tendencies by race in 1914; “The French and Hebrew stand out in bad eminence as offenders against chastity, the Italians lead in murder and blackmail, the Americans in burglary, the 7 David M. Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, American Identity and the turn against immigration (New York; Columbia University Press, 1998) 15-16. 8 Hutchinson, Legislative History, 155-160. 9 Joe R. Feagin, Racist America, roots, current realities, and future reparations, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis group, 2014) xvi. 10 Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998) 5. Matthew Frye Jacobson, ‘Becoming Caucasian: Vicissitudes of Whiteness in American Politics and Culture’, in: Spickard, Paul, Race and Immigration in the United States (New York: Routledge Tylor & Francis Group, 2012) 131-147. 11 Foner, give me liberty, 659. Reimers, Unwelcome Strangers, 17. 4 Greeks in kidnapping, the Lithuanians in assault, the Irish in disorderly conduct.”12 A recent study by Moehling and Morrison suggests that there were no grounds for these assumptions. In fact, according to their research, when it came to the more serious crimes, ‘native’ Americans were just as likely to be found guilty as immigrants.13 Not everyone within American society was against immigration or the integration of immigrants, however.