On October 18, 1912, with only a few weeks to go in the presidential campaign, the Lykens Standard published an article that claimed that Gov. Woodrow Wilson preferred Chinese immigration to European immigration. The publisher of the Standard, Samuel B. Coles, claimed that the conclusion was based on what Wilson himself had written in his History of the American People published in 1902.
The general election of 1912 was bitterly contested by Woodrow Wilson (Democrat), governor of New Jersey; Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive), former president of the United States; and William Howard Taft (Republican), the then president and seeking a second term. Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” platform called for social insurance programs, reduction to an eight-hour workday, and robust federal regulation of the economy. Wilson’s “New Freedom” platform called for tariff reduction, banking reform, and new antitrust regulation. With little chance of victory, Taft conducted a subdued campaign based on his platform of “progressive conservatism.” A fourth candidate, Eugene V. Debs (Socialist) claimed the three candidates were financed by trusts and tried to galvanize support behind his socialist policies. [Source: Wikipedia].
None of the candidates supported Chinese immigration or the lifting of the ban imposed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was renewed in 1892, and made permanent in 1902.
Samuel B. Coles article was not sourced, other than to give volume and number of the quotes which the Democrats and Wilson claimed were taken out of context. What Coles failed to tell his readers was that the quoted passages were not his discovery in Wilson’s work but were given in speech in Congress by William A. Rodenberg (R-IL) and were immediately refuted by Rep. Robert L. Henry (D-TX). Henry’s response appeared in newspapers nationwide a few days before Coles published the article on October 18, 1912. Surely Coles must have had access to that rebuttal, which was printed in its entirety in the Scranton Times-Tribune on October 15, 1912 (and repeated below).
Henry was particular in defending Poles, Italians, and Hungarians – three immigrant groups that were found in significant concentrations in the coal regions. He used Wilson’s words as well as statements from members of these national groups that supported Wilson.
Interestingly, in Wilson’s campaigning, and in his defense of his writings about Chinese vs. European labor, we find clues of his racist views. For example, in the defense of Hungarian immigration, Wilson used the word “stock” to refer to Hungarians who had proven themselves “worthy” of immigration. Wilson was also a strong believer in eugenics, the so-called “science” of breeding.
Of course, in 1912, women did not vote and Jim Crow was used to prevent many African Americans from voting. Other groups were excluded as well.
On November 5, 1912, the election was held and the obvious occurred. The Republicans split their votes in enough states to give Wilson the victory in the popular vote and the Electoral College. Strangely though, Theodore Roosevelt, as the progressive third-party candidate, won the state of Pennsylvania with its 38 electoral votes. and Eugene V. Debs, who claimed to be the true candidate of the working man, garnered nearly a million votes nationwide, or 6% of the total vote cast.
See also: The Racist Legacy of Woodrow Wilson, by Dick Lehr.
The two articles referenced above are presented now. First, from the Lykens Standard, October 18, 1912 (presumably by Samuel B. Coles).
FOR CHINESE IMMIGRATION
What Woodrow Wilson Wrote In His Well Known “History”
PREFERRED IT TO EUROPEAN
“More to Be Desired as Workmen, if Not as Citizens, Than Most of the Coarse Crew That Came Crowding Every Year at Eastern Ports.
Woodrow Wilson, Democratic candidate for president of the United States, has declared himself in the most public and permanent manner in favor of Chinese immigration as preferable to foreigners from southern and eastern Europe, whom he calls “the course crew crowding in at the eastern ports” — that is, New York, Boston, etc. As a very large proportion of the workers in New England mills belong to the class denounced by Wilson as less desirable that the Chinese, they ought to e interested in the views which he has expressed and which we quote as follows from page and volume of Wilson’s History of the American People.
From page 212, volume 5:
Now there came multitudes of men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, as if the countries of the south of Europe were dis-burdening themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their population.
From page 213, volume 5:
The Chinese were more to be desired as workmen, if not as citizens, than most of the course crew that came crowding in every year at the eastern ports. It was their skill, their intelligence, their knack of succeeding and driving duller rivals out rather than their alien habits that made them feared and hated and led to their exclusion at the prayer of the men they would likely displace should they multiply. The unlikely fellows who came in at the eastern ports (that is, the immigrants from Europe) were tolerated because they usurped no place but the very lowest in the scale of labor.
Foreign born workingmen and working women of New England, what do you think of this statement by Woodrow Wilson, Democratic candidate for president of the United States? He says you are a “course crew.” that the Chinese are better workmen and might make better citizens that you are, and that you are tolerated because you usurp “no place but the very lowest in the scale of labor.”
We have given you page number and volume number where these statements are to be found in Woodrow Wilson‘s History of the American People. You can go to any library and read them for yourself.
Woodrow Wilson is the first candidate for president of the United States who has declared himself in favor of Chinese immigration. Of the estimated population of 350,000,000 in China many millions would like to come to America. If admitted they would soon drive American labor out of the mills and workshops and also out of retail and much of the wholesale business. At present, Wilson is keeping very mum on the subject, but there can be no doubt whatever what he would, if elected president, attempt to carry out his published views, and open the door to the Chinese. In this he would have the backing of the southern Democrats, who would be glad to have the Chinese come over and work for them in place of the negroes.
In this connection we suggest particular attention to Woodrow Wilson‘s expression about “the unlikely fellows” from southern and eastern Europe being “tolerated because they usurped no place but the very lowest in the scale of labor.”
The Republican party, whose first president was Lincoln the rail splitter, whose second president was Johnson the tailor, whose third president was Grant the tanner, whose fifth president was Garfield the towpath mule driver, whose eighth president was McKinley. in his youth an iron founder, regards and treats all honest labor as honorable and as not merely to be “tolerated,” but honored.
Wilson’s slur upon the labor of the foreign born finds no echo in the utterances of President Taft, who returning from a visit to the west, in the course of which he addressed large gatherings of our adopted countrymen, declared that nothing had gratified him so much as the intelligent interest shown by his hearers in American institutions and their earnest desire to understand the spirit and meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
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The second article is from the Scranton Times-Tribune, October 15, 1912, author unknown.
GOVERNOR WILSON ON FOREIGN IMMIGRATION
HIS REAL ATTITUDE AS STATED BY CONGRESSMAN ROBERT L. HENRY
FAVORS HONEST AND INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANTS — AGAINST ONLY CRIMINALS AND UNDESIRABLES
The mercenaries of the stand-pat and so-called progressive Republican parties have endeavored to make much capital out of the alleged opposition of Governor Woodrow Wilson to certain nationalities and having quoted from Governor Wilson’s History of the American People to sustain their claims, we take pleasure in presenting the true attitude of the Democratic candidate on the question of immigration. It is an extract from a speech by Congressman Robert L. Henry, of Texas, replying to an address by Congressman Rodenberg, of Illinois, as follows:
Wilson on Foreign Immigration
Again, the gentleman from Illinois undertakes to prejudice the minds of this house and the country against Wilson in regard to foreigners and foreign immigration. He totally misrepresents the distinguished governor on than subject. He understands full well that Governor Wilson is not opposed to worthy foreigners of every clime in the universe coming to our country as the abode of liberty to make the Republic their home. (Applause on the Democratic side).
Let us analyze the language. And I intend to set it out in the [Congressional] Record so that the American people may scrutinize it.
Now there came multitudes of men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence, and they came in numbers which increased from year to year, as if the countries of the south of Europe were disburdening themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their population. The people of the Pacific coast had clamored these many years against the admission of immigrants out of China, and in May 1892, got at last what they wanted – a federal statute which practically excluded from the United States all Chinese who had not already acquired the right of residence, and yet the Chinese were more to be desired, as workingmen if not as citizens than most of the coarse crew that came crowding in every year at the eastern ports.
Consider the meaning of the expression, “men of the meaner sort.” What did Wilson mean when he said, “More to be desired as workmen?” By whom “desired?” Wilson does not say by himself. I answer Rudenberg with his own words, expressed immediately following his quotation and comment thereon. In the same speech in which he arraigns Wilson he says:
While I believe in the strict enforcement of our immigration laws, to protect us against the vicious, the lawless, and the depraved, yet I would not draw the line against admitting immigrants who, judged by our own experience, possess the possibility of developing into useful American citizenship.
He too charges that there are the “vicious,” the “depraved,” the “lawless,” in foreign countries. Does he wish them for American citizens? Does any right-thinking man of any nationality desire such immigration?” The mere propounding of the query answers the point with every patriotic voter. Are not the views of Wilson and Rodenberg identical on immigration? He too would exclude the “vicious,” the “lawless,” and the “depraved.” Are they not the “meaner sort” to which Governor Wilson referred?”
I challenge and defy the gentleman to point to a single instance where Wilson ever in his history or elsewhere said one word against the worthy immigrants from Italy, Poland, or Hungary, the homes of Garibaldi, Kosciusko, and Kossuth.
Again, let Wilson speak for himself. In refuting these false interpretations and charges, he wrote a letter to N. O. Plotrowski, Esq., of Chicago. The gentleman can not arose the prejudice of foreigners against Governor Wilson by such claptrap argument. The letter is well worth perusal by every liberty-loving American citizen and every man throughout the country who loves freedom and good government.
(Personal)
— March 12, 1912
My Dear Mr. Plotrowski —
I remember with pleasure meeting you when I was in Chicago and esteem it a privilege in reply to your frank and interesting letter of March 11.
My history was written on so condensed a scale that I am only too well aware that passages such as you quote are open to misinterpretation, though I think their meaning is plain when they are fairly scrutinized. No one who knows anything of the history of Europe can fail to be familiar with the distinguished history of the Polish people and any writer who spoke without discrimination of members of that nation as constituting an undesirable element in population would not only be doing a gross injustice but exhibiting a great ignorance. I did not know all of the facts you so interestingly set forth in your letter, but I did know in a general way of the honorable and useful careers of the Polish citizens of America and the self-respect and steady advancement of the Polish communities which have been established in various parts of the country. In the passage quoted from my history I was speaking of a particular time when it become the practice of certain employers on this side of the water to import large numbers of unskilled laborers under contract for the purpose of displacing American labor, for which they would have been obliged to pay more.
Here permit me to give the instances. The American Woolen Company imported foreigners from every part of the earth to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and paid children in their factories two and three dollars a week and adults six and seven dollars a week. This great protected industry allowed the children to pay five an ten cents a week for water, and saw them crying for bread and shivering for clothing around their very factory doors. And still the Republican party must protect the Woolen trust.
They were drawing in many cases upon a class of people who would not have come of their own motion and who were not truly representative of the finer element of the countries from which they came.
I know that a just and thoughtful man like yourself will pay no attention to the miscellaneous misrepresentations which have been put upon the passage referred to, and that you will have already interpreted my meaning as I have endeavored to interpret it.
Your letter has been very graciously afforded me an opportunity to make this explanation.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
Woodrow Wilson
Hon. N. O. Plotrowski, City Attorney, 59 Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois
(Applause on the Democratic side).
And as late as July 22, 1912, at Seagirt, New Jersey, Governor Wilson, in a signed statement gave his views on foreigners and foreign immigration to Mr. Gexa Kendam the able editor of the Hungarian paper, America Magyar Nepszava, at New York:
I believe in the reasonable restriction of immigration but not in any restriction which will exclude from the country honest, industrious men who are seeking what America has always offered, an asylum for those who seek a free field. The whole question is a very difficult one, but I think it can be solved with justice and generosity. Anyone who has the least knowledge of Hungarian history must feel that stock to have proved itself fit for liberty and opportunity.
I have never had any objection to sound immigration from any country, he said, and being asked just how he defined sound immigration, he said he referred to the coming of honest men and women from other lands whose presence in the United States is not calculated to interfere with the health and moral conditions of this country.
It is a wholly false insinuation to say that ever Wilson for a single day of his life opposed the right kind of immigration to our country. Never did he breathe or write such opposition anywhere.
The gentleman will fail in his efforts to prejudice the voter. Hos party must meet the real issue. For more than a generation the American people have been moving up to this great conflict, and the battle is on. Democracy asks no quarter at the hands of the opposition. We know that Wilson carries the flag typifying the rights of the people and are confident of victory in November. (Applause on the Democratic side).
Let us examine how this charge, oft repeated, has affected the foreigners in our country. Here is what they say through their papers. As a matter of fact, the mendacious use of these quotations, when the situation is once explained, has failed to deceive the people intimately concerned. Foremost in repudiating these attacks are the Italians and Poles themselves. The leading newspapers representing the nationalities are placing Governor Wilson in a proper light. The editor of La Voce del Popolo, the national Italian newspaper in New York, after writing to Governor Wilson and receiving an explanation has come to his support.
All Italians can be satisfied — says this paper:
With Governor Wilson’s frank and clear explanation, [he] has now made it entirely plain, and a man who has no political or party ends to serve gladly acknowledges it. We have the greatest esteem for Woodrow Wilson ever since he became governor of New Jersey and undertook to eliminate corruption, and we entertain toward him today the same deep and disinterested admiration.
So we have an explanation of the feeling with which that quotation has been received by the so-called foreigner, Let me for a moment refer to the record of gentlemen on that side of the aisle in regard to the labor question, the Chinese issue. The gentleman from Illinois undertook to place Governor Wilson in the attitude of being a pro-Chinese advocate, and his party with having opposed to the immigration of the Chinese to this country.
He is indeed ignorant of history or else seems to be ready to suppress some of the facts. Why, do you know that back in the early eighties when the American laborer was endeavoring to secure action excluding the Chinese from this country, the Democratic party was advocating that legislation and the Republican party, almost in solid phalanx, stood on that side of the aisle favoring the Chinese? (Applause on the Democratic side). The Congressional record shows that two congresses passed bills to exclude the Chinese from the Pacific shores, and other ports of our country, and two Republican presidents vetoed these Chinese exclusion acts. It was a Democratic House that passed a Chinese exclusion act in 1892. Back in those days two Republican presidents stood by the Chinese and against the American laborer. Presidents Arthur and Hayes vetoed these Chinese exclusion bills, and when they came back to congress, the Democrats, almost in solid fashion, voted to pass the bills over the vetoes of these Republican presidents, and nearly every Republican voted in favor of the Chinese coming here in competition with American labor. (Applause on the Democratic side).
On January 28, 1879, Hayes sent the veto message of congress, and on March 1, 179, 83 Democrats could only secure the pitiful number of 22 Republican members to vote with them to pass the bill over the veto, while 81 Republicans voted “nay” and the veto prevailed. I am sure Rodenberg’s face will blush with shame when he reads that vote of his party.
Then, in 1882, another bill excluding the Chinese laborers was passed by Democrats; and on March 9, 1882, Arthur vetoed that. And in the Senate 31 Democrats voted to pass the bill over his veto, and could not secure a single Republican senator to vote with them, while 28 voted with the Chinamen and against the bill. And when the bill came up in the house on April 17, 1882, 103 Democrats voted to pass it over the president’s veto, and few Republicans dared to defy the protective tariff lords and vote with the Democrats.
And now, Mr. Rodenberg, when you talk about your party opposing Chinese laborers, I can only cry “Shame.” And yet the gentleman from Illinois says that his party defended the American laborer. Ah, Mr. Speaker, the Republican party ought not to take the flattering unction in its soul that it did anything for the American laborer. For 14 years I have sat on this floor and have seen Republican speakers occupying that chair refuse to allow legislation favorable to labor to come before this house.
The distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Cannon) during his incumbency as speaker of the house, whenever the labor people came to him and asked for legislation to prevent government by injunction, remedies limiting the power of federal judges in the issuance of injunctions, touching trial by jury in cases of indirect contempt, and kindred measures, scoffed at their demand and turned them away from the door of the speaker’s room. Year after year we have heard them appeal for legislation and not until the Democratic party came into power two years ago was their cry heeded. This very congress has passed a bill limiting the power of federal injunctions, the power of petty judicial tyrants. Such enactment will prohibit them from governing people through the writ of injunction. When we brought the bill to the floor of the house for consideration, the Republican party that had sat here for all these years stifling legislation became afraid and did not have courage to vote against the relief demanded by labor. (Applause on the Democratic side).
When we brought up the measure providing for jury trial in cases of indirect contempt, a splendid measure which is now pending at the other end of the Capitol, Democrats supported and pressed it. When a division was demanded, the Republicans, who for 15 years had suppressed this legislation, and did not have the courage to again suppress it, but ran to cover and voted with the Democrats. (Applause on the Democratic side). It is idle to boast of the Republican party being the friend of labor and Wilson being inimical to their interests. We are glad to welcome the issue, and when we have finished this contest it will be ascertained that we are standing by the people, the Republican party is still consistently fighting the battle of the special interests, as they have always done. (Applause on the Democratic side).
Mr. Speaker, it is appropriate that the stand-pat Republican from Illinois (Mr. Rodenberg), who loved the former speaker of this house (Mr. Cannon) so well that he characterized him as the “Iron Duke of the Republican party,” should assail the candidate of the Democratic party. There could be no more fitting representative to make this assault on Democracy’s nominee than the distinguished gentleman from the East St. Louis district, whose record is so graphically portrayed in the magazine of Senator Robert M. LaFollette. The recital of the record is commended in the consideration of all those who wish to read an interesting congressional biography of the gentleman now assailing Democracy’s nominee.
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News articles from Newspapers.com.
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