Ideological Reasons
A. Frederick Jackson Turner
- 1893 Significance of the Frontier in American History
- frontier was cause of democracy, progress, character
- not "germ" theory of Herbert Baxter Adams
- 1890 census, depression, Haymarket, Homestead
- new expansion must replace the old closed frontier
- 1896 essay "The Problem of the West" - "It is one of the profoundest lessons that history has to teach, that political relations are inextricably connected with economic relations" - informal empire not enough
- U.S. must expand for a historical reason
B. Brooks Adams
- 1895 Law of Civilization and Decay
- cycles of barbarism and civilization; outward-growing energy and inward-collapsing decay; builder soldier and exploitive banker
- U.S. needed Asia to energize; elect martial leaders (such as TR)
- 1896 Bryan silver better than McKinley gold
- own family in crisis - emotional breakdown 1882, 1895
- wife Evelyn Davis, daughter of Adm. Charles Davis, sister of wife of Henry Cabot Lodge
- with Theodore Roosevelt and Henry C. Lodge, were the "three musketeers in a world of perpetual war."
- U.S. must expand for a survival reason
C. Josiah Strong
- 1885 Our Country for Amer. Home Mission Society
- Americans were "chosen people" to rule and civilize
- but manifest destiny "no longer drift with safety"
- sense of urgency - many threats to Protestantism
- "Perils" of immigration, mormonism, intemperance, wealth, cities, socialism
- new peril of romanism added for 1891 edition
- Social Gospel - a religion of action
- U.S. must expand for a religious reason
D. John Burgess
- 1890 Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law - read by TR at Columbia
- social darwinism = anglo-saxonism + scientific evolution + Horatio Alger
- The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin 1859
- a nation is an organism that must change according to the laws of natural selection, survival of the fittest
E. Ferdinand Putnam & Daniel Burnham
F. Francis A. Walker
- 1891 birth rate theory - native stock declining
- New Immigration from S. & E. Europe - 21 million
- 1891 Ellis Island - to separate, classify by federal standards
- Ellis Island from the i-channel
- Ellis Island and immigration photos from California Museum of Photography
- U. S. Bureau of Immigration established 1906
- U.S. must expand to stop the melting pot
G. Henry Cabot Lodge
- 1907 Immigration Commission - 42-volume report
- used "science" of C. Davenport, William Z. Ripley
- Charles Davenport's Eugenics Record Office
- to measure racial characteristics - cephalic index
- William Z. Ripley's Races of Europe - 3 head shapes
- Teutonic, Alpine, Mediterranean
- intermixing would produce "reversion"
- Lodge sought scientific evidence for restriction
- literacy test added 1917: aliens over 16 to read "not less than 30 nor more than 80 words in ordinary use" in any language
- Quota Act of 1924 - maximum quota for each nationality to be 164,447 (half of 1921 quota 357,803) or 2% of 1890 census (not 1921 law 3% of 1910 census); exceptions were Canada and Latin America, ministers, professors, college students; all immigration stopped for Japanese as "aliens ineligible to citizenship."
revised 11/10/01 | Class Page