This chapter focuses on the growing movement to restrict immigration that culminated in the National Origins Act of 1924. The chapter discusses the principal attacks on immigration, arguing that the restrictionists effectively undermined the Pennsylvania model by providing “scientific evidence” of the inability of the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe to become Americans. A leading proponent of restriction argued that Jews were “undersized and weak muscled,” Italians “possess a distressing frequency to low foreheads, open mouths, weak chins, poor features, skewed faces, small or knobby crania and backless heads.” He concluded that the new immigrants “are beaten men from beaten races, representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence.”

The chapter returns to the concerns about immigration highlighted in Chapter 7 – language acquisition, health, and crime. Data on these issues were used and misused by opponents of immigration to structure a seemingly irrefutable scientific argument against the capacity of the country to absorb the newcomers. The chapter reviews the progression of legislation adopted to curtail immigration. The 1875 legislation that led to the exclusion of the Chinese was the first of a series of efforts to define the attributes of desirable, as opposed to unwanted, immigrants. In 1875, prostitutes and convicts were barred. The Immigration Act of 1882 added to the classes of inadmissible immigrants, including persons likely to become a public charge. The Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885 made it unlawful to import aliens into the United States under contract for the performance of labor or services of any kind. Supported by labor unions, the legislation also addressed concerns about “birds of passage” – immigrants who worked for short periods and then returned home. The more comprehensive Immigration Act of 1891 added still other inadmissible classes of immigrants, including persons suffering from certain contagious diseases, felons, individuals convicted of other crimes or misdemeanors, polygamists, and immigrants whose passage was paid by other persons. It also made it illegal to encourage others to immigrate through advertisements.