Though the German immigrants at this time were at least as numerous as the Irish, they attracted much less attention. This was partly because they were less poverty-stricken, and partly because they mostly moved on to the west, and did not collect in the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. The Irish, in consequence of their native character, the circumstances which led to their coming, and the conditions of the voyage, were in a particularly helpless state when they arrived. They were the most prominent victims of the runners, and made the largest showing in the hospitals and almshouses. In spite of the good accomplished by the state and federal statutes, an extreme amount of destitution and suffering persisted. The burden of foreign pauperism, in particular, increased tremendously. In 1850 more than half the paupers wholly or partially supported in the United States were of foreign birth. In the North Atlantic coastal states the proportion was much larger.[[90]]

These considerations, added to the preponderance of Roman Catholics among the Irish immigrants, led to a renewal of the anti-immigration agitation, which had been so vigorous ten years earlier. This time the movement took the form of a secret organization, started probably in New York City in 1850. This society grew rapidly. Its meetings were held in secret, and the purpose and even the name of the organization were so much of a mystery at first that the rank and file of the members, either from necessity or from choice, were in the habit of answering all questions regarding it by saying, “I don’t know.” Hence it came to be known as the “Know Nothing” party, and as such has come down to history.[[91]]

The organization did not long maintain its ultra-secret character. This had mostly disappeared by 1854, and the society openly indorsed candidates, and put forward candidates of its own. It is recorded that in 1855 the governors and legislatures in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, California, and Kentucky were Know Nothings, and that they had secured many offices in other states. By 1855 they began to mature plans for the presidential election. They adopted a platform calling for a change in the existing naturalization laws, for the repeal of the state laws allowing unnaturalized foreigners to vote, and the repeal by Congress of all acts making land grants to unnaturalized foreigners and allowing them to vote in the territories. In 1856 a national convention was held, and Millard Fillmore was nominated for president. The principles of the platform adopted were that Americans must rule America, that native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal government employment in preference to all others, that the naturalization law should be changed so as to require twenty-one years’ residence, and that a law should be passed excluding from the United States all paupers or persons convicted of crime. This party had its greatest strength in the thirty-fourth Congress, 1854–1856, and in the discussions of the period many severe charges were made against the immigrants.

But the Know Nothings were in the minority and consequently had little real influence on legislation. The immigration laws proposed by them were, as a rule, confined to the exclusion of foreign paupers and criminals, and none of these was passed.[[92]] The diversion of public interest from immigration affairs to the great questions of slavery, and the events preliminary to the Civil War, coupled with the decline in the volume of immigration after 1854, led to the natural decline and final break-up of the Know Nothing party.

The agitation of the period, however, particularly in regard to steerage conditions, had its effect on Congress, and in 1853 a select committee of the Senate was appointed to investigate the conditions of steerage immigration and, in particular, “the causes and the extent of the sickness and mortality prevailing on board the emigrant ships on the voyage to this country,” and to determine what legislation, if any, was necessary to secure better conditions. This committee reported on August 2, 1854, and on March 3, 1855, a bill was passed which, with slight modifications, governed the carriage of immigrants up to 1882. The design of this act was to improve steerage conditions, and “theoretically the law of 1855 provided for an increased air space, better ventilation, and improved accommodations in the way of berths, cooking facilities, the serving of food, free open deck space, and so forth. Although the evil of overcrowding, which had been attended with such disastrous results in former years, appears to have been especially aimed at by the makers of the law, the wording of the act was, unfortunately, such that the provisions relating to the number of passengers to be carried were inoperative, and there was practically no legal restraint in this regard, as far as the United States law was concerned, between 1855 and 1882.”[[93]]

Practically the only amendment to the steerage law from 1855 to 1882 was an act of 1860, designed to secure much-needed protection for female passengers from immoral conduct on the part of members of the crew. A fine of $1000 was imposed on any person employed on any ship of the United States who was found guilty of such conduct, and members of the crew were forbidden to visit parts of the ship assigned to immigrants, except under the direction or with the permission of the commanding officer.

It will be observed that, while the various state laws had a slightly restrictive effect, all of the federal acts of this period, designed as they were to secure better accommodations on the voyage, served as an encouragement, rather than a deterrent, to immigration. And, on the whole, in spite of the violent anti-immigrant agitation of the nativistic and Know Nothing movements and the dread of foreign paupers and criminals, the preponderance of public opinion in the United States was probably favorable to the immigrant as such. It must be remembered that during this entire period the United States was still distinctly a new country. There was an abundance of unoccupied land which might be secured on easy terms. There was a large westward movement of population from the Atlantic seaboard, and the growing manufactures and internal improvements created a large demand for labor. It was, as a whole, a decidedly thinly settled country. All of these things combined to give the immigrant every advantage in the mind of the native citizen.

Reviewing the third period, we see that it was a period of rapidly increasing immigration, responding to the expanding industry and exceptionally favorable agricultural situation in this country. The movement culminated in the enormous immigration of the late forties and early fifties. These were mainly Germans, who left their home primarily for political reasons, and took up farm lands in the west, and Irish, who emigrated because of economic disaster, and tended to linger in the eastern cities, or to go out into the construction camps. Both of these races were closely allied to the American people, and easily assimilated. At the beginning of the period, the attitude of the American people was almost wholly one of welcome, but with the increase of the current, bringing as it did enormous numbers of destitute and helpless aliens, there arose a distinct feeling of opposition to unregulated immigration, based primarily upon the dislike of foreign paupers and criminals, and aided by the undeniable practice of foreign countries of emptying their poorhouses, and even their jails, upon our shores. This feeling later came to be intensified by a strong antipathy to Roman Catholics and the restriction of immigration was made a party policy. Nevertheless, the opposition to immigration did not, during this period, attain sufficient strength to secure any important legislation. Many of the states had laws designed to indemnify the communities against expense on account of foreign paupers, which may have had a slight restrictive effect. But such federal legislation as there was, was directed to the improvement of the conditions of the voyage, and hence had an encouraging rather than a restrictive tendency. With the approach of the Civil War immigration fell off, and public attention was diverted to other matters.

CHAPTER V
1860 TO 1882

The disturbances connected with the Civil War, following the industrial depression of 1857, naturally produced a diminution in the immigration current, which in the year 1862 fell to 72,183, the lowest point it had reached for more than twenty years, and one which has never been reached since. This condition, which tended to allay the excessive fear of immigration which had marked the previous decade, was augmented by certain other factors. Foremost among these was the enormous internal migration of people from the east to the middle and farther west, encouraged by the liberal homestead act of 1862. This movement, in connection with the loss of life occasioned by the war, seemed to leave great gaps in the population of the eastern states, and put the foreigners who came to fill them in much better favor. Many of the immigrants themselves also moved on to the west and took up new land, where they crowded nobody and rendered a real service in the building up of the country.