Supporting standards comprise 35% of the U. S. History Test

15 (C)

Supporting Standard (15)The student understands domestic & foreign issues related to U. S. economic growth from

the 1870s to 1920.

The Student is expected to:(C) Explain how foreign policies affected

economic issues such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Open Door Policy,

Dollar Diplomacy, & immigration quotas

Supporting Standard (15)The student understands domestic & foreign issues related to U. S. economic growth from

the 1870s to 1920.

The Student is expected to:(C) 1 Explain how foreign policies affected

economic issues such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

American Sinophobia: The Chinese Exclusion Act was

a U. S. federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of

Chinese laborers.

The first significant Chinese immigration to America began with the California Gold Rush of 1848-

1855 and continued with subsequent large labor projects, such as the

building of the First Transcontinental Railroad.

During the early stages of the gold rush, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were tolerated, if not well received. As gold

became harder to find and competition increased, animosity toward the Chinese and other foreigners increased. After being forcibly driven

from the mines, most Chinese settled in enclaves in cities, mainly San Francisco, and took up low end wage labor such as restaurant and

laundry work. Chinese laborers were willing to work for lower wages than their European counterparts.

“Chop sticks ; Cheap labor,” July 6, 1870, from Harper's weekly : a journal of

civilization

For the first time, Federal law

proscribed entry of an ethnic

working group on the premise that

it endangered the good order of

certain localities. Very few Chinese

could enter the country under the 1882 law.

Bernhard Gillam(1856-1896), 1882 from Puck.

x

The Act also affected Asians who had already settled in the United States. Any Chinese who left the United States had to obtain certifications for reentry, and the Act made

Chinese immigrants permanent aliens by excluding them from U.S. citizenship.

After the Act’s passage, Chinese men in the U.S. had little chance of ever reuniting with their wives, or of starting

families in their new homes.

Limited immigration from China continued until the

repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act sixty years later.

The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. It was

finally repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943.

One of the critics of the Chinese Exclusion Act was the anti-slavery/anti-imperialist

Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts who described the Act as

“nothing less than the legalization of racial discrimination.”

x

The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first time that the United States passed a law to bar a specific race or ethnicity from

entering the country.

Supporting Standard (15)The student understands domestic & foreign issues related to U. S. economic growth from

the 1870s to 1920.The Student is expected to:(C) 2 Explain how foreign policies affected

economic issues such as the Open Door Policy

Open Door Notes

These notes from Secretary of State John Hay (left) asked

that no power would prevent others from trading within their sphere of influence or

otherwise discriminate against another imperial power.

In September 6, 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia),

asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative

integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence

in China. The Open Door Policy stated that all nations, including the United States, could enjoy

equal access to the Chinese market.

The Open Door Policy is a concept in foreign affairs, initially used to refer to the United States policy in late 19th century and early 20th century that would grant

multiple international powers equal access to China, but none of them were in total control of the country.

The “Open Door” was a principle, not a policy formally adopted into a treaty or international law. It was invoked

or alluded to but never enforced as such.

The policy was originally aimed to safeguard Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity from partition, but in

fact, was mainly used to mediate competing interests of the colonial powers without much meaningful input from the Chinese, thus creating lingering resentment and has been seen as a symbol of national humiliation by many

Chinese historians.

Nations with Spheres of Influence in China by 1914

• Britain

• France

• Japan

• Germany

• Russia

After winning the Spanish American War of 1898, with

the newly acquired colony the Philippine Islands, the United

States increased its Asian presence and was expecting to

further its commercial and political interest in China. It

felt threatened by other powers’ much larger spheres

of influence in China and worried that it may lose access to the Chinese market should the country be partitioned.

The relatively transparent purpose of the Open Door Notes sent by Secretary of State Hay was to keep China independent and open to trade from all nations. As the

cartoon above suggests, U.S. policy also sought to preserve at least a modicum of Chinese sovereignty.

The U.S. wanted two things:

Equal commercial opportunity

Respect for Chinese independence

Does the Constitution Follow the Flag?

Do the inhabitants of U.S. colonies have the same rights as American

citizens? Ironically, in general principle, this was the very question asked by the Founding Fathers when

they were denied their demand of “No taxation without

representation.”

The Secretary of War wryly noted, “as near as I can make out the Constitution does

follow the flag—but doesn’t quite catch up with it.”

Boxer RebellionIn June 1900, a secret Chinese

society (Boxers) rose to expel foreigners in China. They

killed over 200 Europeans and attacked Peking buildings owned

by foreign governments.

The rising lasted for 2 months before a joint European and American military force arrived in Beijing to relieve those who had taken refuge

in the British compound.

The Boxer Rebellion was the first real test of the

Open Door

Notes.

“China never wanted foreigners any more than

foreigners wanted Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The Boxer is a patriot. He

loves his country better than he does the countries

of other people. I wish him success. The Boxer

believes in driving us out of his country. I am a

Boxer too, for I believe in driving him out of our

country.”

Impacts on American Foreign Policy Into the 20th Century

• McKinley, riding a wave of patriotism generated from success in the war, successfully defends against William Jennings Byran’s anti-imperialist campaign in the election of 1900

• The U.S. has become an imperial power and, with that turn of events, assumes the role of instructor of the peoples now newly under American rule

• It now dealt on equal terms with Europe• It dominated the Western Hemisphere• It was a major power in Asia

Supporting Standard (15)The student understands domestic & foreign issues related to U. S. economic growth from

the 1870s to 1920.

The Student is expected to:(C) 3 Explain how foreign policies affected economic issues such as Dollar Diplomacy

William Howard Taft

In 1908, T.R. selected his vice-president, Taft

(left), to replace him. Not only were Taft and Roosevelt good friends. TR perceived Taft as an extension of himself—a

man who would perpetuate Rooseveltian

policy without interruption.

Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”

Dollar Diplomacy is the effort of the U. S.—particularly over President William Howard Taft—to further its aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of its economic power by guaranteeing loans made to foreign

countries. The term was originally coined by President Theodore Roosevelt.

The United States felt obligated, through the Dollar Diplomacy, to uphold economic and political stability. Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy not only

allowed the United States to gain financially from countries, but also resisted other foreign countries from reaping any sort of financial gain.

While Taft’s domestic

conservative policies led to an

estrangement with TR, his foreign policy, like his

predecessor’s, was interventionist.

Big Stick vs. Dollars

GOALS OF DOLLAR DIPLOMACY

• bring stability to troubled regions

• increase American power and profit without the use of force

President Taft’s policy of substituting dollars for bullets (i.e., TR’s “Big Stick” policy). He argued that American investment abroad would help stabilize troubled regions

while simultaneously turning a profit. As such, Taft encouraged business ventures abroad when they advanced

U.S. interests.

Historian Thomas A. Bailey argues that Dollar Diplomacy was nothing new, as the use of diplomacy to promote commercial interest

dates from the early years of the Republic. However under Taft the State Department

was more active than ever in encouraging and supporting American bankers and

industrialists in securing new opportunities abroad. Bailey finds that Dollar Diplomacy was designed to make both people in foreign lands and the American investors prosper.

Latin Americans tend to use the term “Dollar Diplomacy” disparagingly to show their disapproval of the role that the U.S. government & U.S. corporations have played in using

economic, diplomatic and military power to open up foreign markets.

The outgoing President Roosevelt laid the foundation for this approach in 1904 with his Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (under which U.

S. Marines were frequently sent to Central America) maintaining that if any nation in the Western Hemisphere appeared politically and financially so unstable as to be vulnerable to European control, the United States had

the right and obligation to intervene.

In 1911, Taft helped Nicaragua obtain a large sum

in the form of a loan. In exchange, the U.S. received

control of Nicaragua’s National Bank. When

Nicaraguans revolted against the agreement, Taft

dispatched a detachment of Marines to stabilize the situation. Those soldiers

remained in Nicaragua, off and on, into the 1930s.

Moreover, From 1906-1909, the United States U.S.

intervened in Cuba regularly

As the cartoon above suggests, Nicaragua was

the site of “exploding foreign policy volcanoes.”

In spite of various successes, “dollar diplomacy” failed to

counteract economic instability and the tide of revolution in

places like Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and China.

Taft continued and expanded the policy, starting in Central

America, where he justified it as a means of protecting the

Panama Canal. In March 1909, he attempted unsuccessfully to

establish control over Honduras by buying up its debt to British

bankers.From 1909 to 1913, President William Howard Taft and Secretary of State

Philander C. Knox followed a foreign policy characterized as “dollar

diplomacy.” Taft shared the view held by Knox (a corporate lawyer who had founded the giant conglomerate U.S.

Steel) that the goal of diplomacy should be to create stability abroad, and through this stability promote

American commercial interests.

Supporting Standard (15)The student understands domestic & foreign issues related to U. S. economic growth from

the 1870s to 1920.

The Student is expected to:(C) 4 Explain how foreign policies affected

economic issues such as immigration quotas

Background From Readiness Standard (3)

The student understands the political, economic, & social changes in the U. S. from

1877 to 1898.(C) 4 Social issues affecting immigrants

The growth of urban slums accompanied the rapidly

expanding urbanization process. . . and the working class filled this

particular feature of growing American cities.

Immigration to AmericaWaves of immigration poured into the U.S. in the late-19th century. While this was not new, the origin of these immigrants—Southern and Eastern Europe—was indeed new.

Italian wave in 1887 to escape cholera epidemic—Italians constituted the largest number of new immigrants

Arrival of Russian Jews

The assassination of Tsar Alexander

II (1818-1881. below) triggered a

wave of persecutions

against Jews in Russia.

Tsarist persecution in Russia and Russian controlled Poland—Jews were the second

largest number of new immigrants

While immigration to American had long been from Europe, until this

juncture, about 85% had come from the Northwestern European countries—the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia

Immigration now came mainly from Italy, Greece, Austria-Hungary,

Poland, and Russia

Motives for Coming • to escape poverty

• to escape drought

• to escape disease

• to escape religious persecution

• to escape political persecution

• to find a better life

• to find employment

Immigrant Profile

• Between 1877-1890 there were 6.3 million immigrants into the U.S.

• By 1890, about 15% of the population—9 million—were foreign born

• Most were between ages 15-40 • Most settled on the eastern seaboard, especially in

the industrial cities and port towns of the northeast • Most were poor, unskilled, settled in ethnic

communities of their national origin • Most resisted assimilation

Evolving Immigrant Stereotype

Backlash to Immigration

• Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Semitism rose

• Many wondered whether these immigrants would become a challenge to traditional American values

Immigration Patterns

Immigration Patterns

The decline in numbers reflects the quotas set through

immigration acts to limit the number of foreigners entering

the U. S.

Immigration Patterns

Immigration Acts from 1882 through 1918

The Immigration Act of 1882

BACKGROUND: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 halted all legal immigration of Chinese laborers and is considered by many to be the first major exclusionary immigration restriction on an entire

nationality enacted by the United States. The act sprang from simple prejudice and the public perception of these immigrants’ inability to assimilate into American culture.

While the Immigration Act of 1882 shared the principle of immigration restriction with these two aforementioned acts, it was different in a fundamental way. Unlike the Chinese Exclusion act,

the Immigration Act of 1882 would not limit all immigration from a certain country or region. Certain European immigrants were

considered extremely desirable, so to limit by region would deny desirable immigrants as well. Instead, to limit immigration based on excluding certain kinds of people who were deemed “undesirable,”

there needed to be a piece of legislation capable of adhering to a more comprehensive, exclusionary approach that would be

administered through a federal government agency with federal policy.

On August 3, 1882, the forty-seventh United States Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1882. It is considered by many to be “first general immigration law” due to the fact that it created the

guidelines of exclusion through the creation of “a new category of inadmissible aliens.”

There were two main components of the Immigration Act of 1882. The first was to create a “head tax” that would be imposed upon

certain immigrants entering the country. The Act states that “There shall be levied, collected and paid a duty of fifty cents for each and

every passenger not a citizen of the United States who shall come by steam or sail vessel from a foreign port to any port within the United States.” This money would be paid into the United States Treasury and “shall constitute a fund called the immigration fund.” These

funds would be used to “defray the expense of regulating immigration under this act.”

The Immigration Act of 1882 was the beginning of the “contours of federal oversight” in immigration policy administration. In addition to the head tax, the Act also stipulated the

responsibility of government agents to inspect ports and vessels bringing immigrants into the country.

This then lead to the second historically significant component of the Act. Upon inquiry of the vessels transporting immigrants,

immigration officials were given the authority to expel certain immigrants based on criteria laid out within the Act. The legislation

dictated that “If on such examination there shall be found among such passengers any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of him or herself without becoming a public charge, they shall report the same in writing to the collector of such port, and

such person shall not be permitted to land.” Furthermore, if a criminal was found to be on board, it was the fiscal responsibility of the ship that brought the immigrant there to take them back out of the United States. The criminal provision of the act did not include immigrants who were “convicted of political offenses, reflecting the

traditional American belief that the United States is a haven for those persecuted by foreign tyrants.

The Immigration Act of 1882 was the first piece of immigration regulation to contain this kind of comprehensive subjective restriction, and it would continue

on into contemporary conversations and debates regarding immigration.

Immigration Acts from 1882 through 1918

The Immigration Act of 1903

The Immigration Act of 1903, also called the Anarchist Exclusion Act, was a law of the U. S. regulating immigration. It codified previous immigration law, and added four inadmissible classes: anarchists,

people with epilepsy, beggars, and importers of prostitutes. It had little impact and its provisions related to anarchists were expanded in the Immigration Act of 1918.

Anarchism came to public attention in the United States in Chicago with the Haymarket Affair of 1886. On Sep. 6, 1901, Leon F. Czolgosz, an American-born son of Polish

immigrants and a self-proclaimed anarchist, assassinated President McKinley.

Theodore Roosevelt urged the exclusion and deportation of anarchist immigrants in his first address to Congress on December 3, 1901: “I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the exercise of its wise discretion it should take into

consideration the coming to this country of anarchists or persons professing principles hostile to all government. . . .They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country

whence they came.”

This was the first legislation

in the U.S. since the Alien

& Sedition Acts of 1798 that

called for questioning

potential immigrants about their

political beliefs.

Immigration Acts from 1882 through 1918

The Immigration Act of 1907

The Immigration Act of 1907 was a piece of federal U. S. immigration legislation passed on February 20, 1907 by the 59th Congress and signed into law by President Roosevelt. The Act was part of a series of reforms aimed at restricting the increasing

number and groups of immigrants coming into the U.S. before and after World War I. The law introduced and reformed a number of restrictions on immigrants who could be admitted into the United States, most notably ones regarding disability and

disease.

The same year that the Immigration Act of 1907 was passed, Japan and United States entered into a

“Gentlemen’s Agreement” in which the United States would not restrict Japanese immigration and the Japanese would not allow emigration. This period before the act was passed signaled that the United

States government was interested in restricting those types of immigrants that would be viewed as

undesirable. These sorts of policies signaled an increasing centralized policy for United States

immigration that lead to further legislation being enacted in a more comprehensive manner in 1907.

Immigration Acts from 1882 through 1918

The Immigration Act of 1917

On February 5, 1917, the U. S. Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 (also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) with an overwhelming majority, overriding President Wilson’s December 14, 1916, veto. This act added to the number of undesirables banned from entering the country, including but not limited to “homosexuals,” “idiots,” “feeble-minded persons,” “criminals,”

“epileptics,” “insane persons,” “alcoholics,” “professional beggars,” all persons “mentally or physically defective,” polygamists,” & anarchists. Furthermore, it barred all immigrants over the age of sixteen who were illiterate. A literacy test in was established 1917 to prevent illiterates from

coming in the U.S. If the immigrants could not pass the literacy tests that were being given to them, they were not allowed to enter the U.S.

This is an illustration describing how the test is a barrier for immigrants to enter the United States.

The most controversial part of the law was the section that designated an “Asiatic Barred Zone,” a region that included much of Asia & the Pacific Islands from which people could not

immigrate. Previously, only the Chinese had been excluded from admission to the country.

The Immigration Act of 1917 is one of many immigration acts during this time period which arose from nativist and xenophobic sentiment. These immigration laws were

intentional efforts to control the composition of immigrant flow into the United States.

Immigration Acts from 1882 through 1918

The Immigration Act of 1918

The United States Immigration Act of 1918 was enacted on October 16, 1918. It is also known as the Dillingham-Hardwick Act. Working together, officials at the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration drafted legislation designed to remedy

the defects in current legislation by defining anarchism broadly enough to cover all forms activity related to its advocacy, including membership in or affiliation with any organization or group that advocated opposition to all forms of organized

government.

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