19 magg 1921 anni - Emergency Quota Act is enacted by Warren G. Harding (1921)

Descrizione:

In 1921, the Emergency Quota Act was enacted under President Warren G. Harding, who had a vision that the country would "return to normalcy". After World War I, people were fearing that foreign influence (particularly from Eastern Europe) would derail the country in the form of socialists and communists who wanted to take down the capitalist system. Harding felt the same fear, and thus craved for the United States to revert to its state before the war. To him, this meant reducing immigration. He enacted the Emergency Quota Act, dramatically reducing immigration to the United States by about 75%. This legislation marked the rise of a growing nativist sentiment in the country, because immigrants to the US were being pushed back just to "protect" the interests of white, American citizens and the existing capitalist system from radical ideas that could conflict with it.

The Act was a cornerstone of Harding’s broader agenda, which emphasized isolationism. Harding believed that cutting out immigrants wasn't enough to improve the United States after a long and hard war. He believed that global alliances too could destabilize the country by introducing socialism and communism. Harding opposed any alliances and internationalist initatives that came the US's way, most notably, refusing membership in the League of Nations post WWI.

CONNECTIONS TO LIBERALISM:

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 marks a rejection of classical liberalism’s core values of individual rights and freedoms, particularly in the dimension of mobility rights. Classical liberalists maintain that people should be allowed to use their "liberties", like mobility rights (the right to live and work anywhere), to pursue prosperity, regardless of their origin or ideology. However, by heavily limiting Southern and Eastern European immigrants (who were thought to be anarchists and communists) from a life in America, the Act went against the classical liberal belief that every individual is valuable and deserves success wherever they choose to live. By prioritizing perceived national security against radical ideas over the rights of immigrants to start a new life, the Emergency Quota Act went against classical liberalism, which believes that individual interests must take precedence over the group or the nation.

Image source: (1921) Illus. for article "an alien anti-dumping bill" in The Literary Digest, May 7, p. 13, reprinting a cartoon by Hallahan for Providence Evening Bulletin, showing funnel bridging Atlantic with top at Europe crammed with emigrants and bottom at U.S. with Uncle Sam permitting immigrants to trickle through. United States, 1921. [New York: Funk & Wagnalls] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2007680185/.

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