The then editor of Labor Defender, Karl Reeve, looks at the familiar chauvinist rhetoric and racist campaigns against immigrants and the foreign born in the United States. It’s the class war.

‘The Purpose of Restrictive Immigration’ by Karl Reeve from the Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 4. March 11, 1929.

The United States government, at the present time, is conducting a wide-spread campaign for further s restriction of immigration. The 70th a session of congress has now adjourned, and one of its last acts was to refuse a senate vote on a e resolution to postpone from July 1,1929 to July 1, 1930, the day when the “National Origins” method of determining immigration quotas would go into effect. In refusing to postpone this method whereby the quotas are based on the population as it was in 1790, the senate was edified by a speech of Senator Reed, who said that the basis which has now been changed, that it, the 1890 census basis, “ignored the sentiment of revolutionary days and is wholly unfair to us born in America,” and out of this need had come the National Origins clause of 1790.

In its propaganda for further restriction of immigration and for a tightening up of the deportation laws; propaganda accompanying the bills now before congress which have either been passed or are being favorably discussed by government officials, the real purpose of the further restriction of immigration is revealed. Of course the intentions of the government are not openly revealed in the newspapers, but the admission is made in speeches before capitalists as to the real reason for the attack on the foreign-born workers.

More Restriction.

This is clearly seen in a speech by the “Honorable” Rose Carl White, assistant secretary of labor, at Yale University last month in stating the official position of the government, she makes a plea for a far greater restriction of immigration, for the registration and finger-printing of foreign-born workers and for other measures against the foreign-born. Why does she make this plea? Let us hear her own words. “We have the ever present problem of ridding the country of the undesirable alien…Many of our people forget that this country was settled, the land reclaimed, and that our form of government, educational system and social laws were established while our people remained a homogeneous people. Granted they were immigrants, but keep in mind they were immigrants with the same racial background. The attacks upon our established customs, ideals and ethics, came in the main after the influx of different races. By this I do not mean that our forefathers did not disagree—they did, and at times violently—but not for the destruction of government because it is government, but for the sake of safeguarding liberties and for better government. The parlor pink, the ultraradical, the Bolshevik, the Communist, were products of foreign soil and for years were confined to foreign soil.”

Attack on Rebels.

The essence of this speech, which is the statement of the official policy of the United States government, is that the foreign-born is undesirable because he is in favor of a new system of society and that the government must restrict immigration further and attack the foreign-born workers because this is necessary to protect and perpetuate the capitalist system.

That there may be no misunderstanding of the position of the United States government, let us quote further: “Natural though these theories may be in the countries whence these immigrants come, they have no reason for being in America. On the contrary, because they are hostile to our principles and national philosophy, we owe it as a duty to our country to keep them out. We are too prosperous and contented to listen to the wild social theories of other lands. Let us hope we shall always have about us that natural safeguard. I do not mean that all evils can be traced to races different from those of the parent stock, I do mean they are bringing different customs and ideals and endeavoring to implant them within our body politic. Neither do I believe in race prejudice or in the superiority of one race over another, but I hold that as a majority of our people believe in our form of government, our social law, customs and ideals, established by our forefathers, then we have not only a right, but a duty to fight for the maintenance of same. We must be cautious as to the quality and quantity of immigrants whom we permit to enter. Restrictive immigration is now the established policy of our government and it was fixed none too soon.”

“Undesirable Reds.”

Speaking of the necessity to deport all “undesirable aliens,” this agent of U.S. imperialism declares:

“It is important to our welfare that this problem be solved. The officials of the Department of Labor have for the past several years, advocated the registration or enrollment of all aliens as the only practical solution of the problem confronting us. But the alien groups in this country are almost a unit against the enactment of such a law. They say it is czarist in character and will amount to police espionage. Such a fear is groundless. It would be a protection to the honest, law-abiding alien, and at the same time, it would enable our government to locate and deport the undesirable aliens, the anarchist, the Red, the criminal, the immoral, and the mentally deficient now in our midst. Among these, there are thousands who must be regarded as moral lepers, for they, have come here for evil purposes, they are destructives, and thousands of them are playing their nefarious game within our gates planning and laboring for the destruction of other governments, and hoping, ultimately to destroy this great republic of ours. The need for an enrollment law is immediate.”

Now comes the crashing finale. We are confronted with a number of oratorical questions which are intended to strike fear and horror into our hearts and to make us burn with hate against the aliens, “who are of a mental standard wholly below the one decreed by our law.” Do you know that there are 66 foreign language newspaper publications in the city of New York alone?

Attacks Y.W.C.L.

“Do you know that we have in this country an organization calling itself the American Young Workers (Communist) League and that it is teaching small children disregard and hatred of our form of government?”

The stand of the government toward the race question is also very illuminating. We are made to feel, in his speech, that every immigrant belongs to another race, that this country of ours is the champion of the white race and that those within this country belonging to other races are not Americans. The 12 million Negroes, the hundreds and thousands of Mexicans, Japanese and Chinese, etc., are not considered Americans. Those who have a status, we are led to believe, are solely native white Americans, and these 12 million Negroes, to all practical purposes, do not exist before the law. For example, we are told by the assistant secretary of labor that restriction of immigration became necessary because of the great influx of immigrants. Our country ‘‘was fast becoming heterogenous in character,” that is, made up of different races. This brought racial questions to the fore. And as one writer has said, “we are beginning to realize that racial factors lie behind most of the world problems of today.” This lackey of imperialism then goes into an analysis of the “racial problem” and tells us that the mixture of races does the white American harm because “certain mixtures tend to upset standards, increase lower types and thus eventually compromise national futures.”

Deport Negroes.

If we follow out this line of the government, we may expect to have a move soon for the deportation of the 12 million Negroes of this country, as we are told by this government spokesman that the native born white American is the highest type, and all other races are a lower type.

This is a revelation of the reasons why the government is attempting to further restrict immigration and to deport foreign born workers. It is just at this time when American imperialism is engaged in a fierce struggle with English imperialism on the world market, when a new world war is the prospect for the immediate future, that the government is intensifying its attack on the working class of this country. The government fears that the foreign born workers, who have behind them a history of revolutionary struggle, who are class conscious and who are opposed to the capitalist system of exploitation, will play an increasing role in the American class struggle.

The government is attacking the Negro workers and the workers of other races than the white for the same reason that it attacks the foreign born. The 12 million Negro workers of this country are the most exploited of any section of the working class, and are discriminated against socially, politically and economically. The Imperialist government uses this discrimination against the Negro as one means of exploitation of the entire American working class. The government spreads fake stories of the “lower standards” of other races than the white and attempts in all ways to divide the Negro, the foreign born and the white worker. This vicious lying propaganda against the Negro worker must be fought. The Workers (Communist) Party demands political, social and economic equality for the Negroes, and exposes such vicious falsehoods and such imperialist attacks.

Would Split Workers.

The government is at the present time attacking the entire working class by attempting to split and divide its ranks. The Negro is set off against the white worker. The foreign born worker is degraded and placed in a separate category apart from the native born worker. The government is tightening its lines and preparing in case of war to attempt to split up the working class, and to get rid of one of its most militant and class conscious and experienced sections, the foreign born workers, by the methods of restriction and deportation.

This is a blow aimed at the entire working class. This attack on the foreign born worker, which is directly connected up with the increased war preparations which can be observed in many phases of government activity, must be answered not only by the foreign born workers, but by the entire working class. We must not allow one of the most oppressed and one of the most important sections of the working class to be attacked without a strong and militant answer on the part of the entire working class. The foreign born workers are experienced in revolutionary struggles. The foreign born workers are found in the basic industries in large numbers. The foreign born workers are discriminated against by the employers and by the government. They receive lower wages for the same work, and are given the hardest and dirtiest work to perform.

We see from the above quotations that the Negroes and the foreign born workers are two sections of the working class which are most exploited in the United States. We must present a united working class front against these attacks on the most oppressed sections of the American working class. We must answer this attack not only by organized protest but by uniting the entire working class under the banner of the Workers (Communist) Party in the struggle for the overthrow of the entire system and for the establishment of a socialist state. The exploitation of the working class and the discrimination against the foreign born and Negro workers in this country will not cease until imperialism is overthrown by the workers under the leadership of the Workers (Communist) Party, and until a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government is created in this country.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n004-NY-mar-11-1929-DW-LOC.pdf