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9 the united states government and the investigation of european emigration in the open door era Dorothee Schneider The United States, unlike the countries discussed elsewhere in this volume, has been a country of immigration throughout its history. Emigration and emigrants have therefore played a very minor role in the public consciousness and history of Americans during most of that period. Immigrants occupied the public debate, and at the turn of the twentieth century, the imposition of more restrictive immigration policies became a central part of the discussion. Gradually, as this debate widened, immigrants from other countries began to be understood as emigrants in their original national context (conversely, emigrants from the United States were often considered to be former immigrants to this country). This chapter seeks to delineate the efforts made by the U.S. government to understand immigration to the United States as part of European emigration and to align a set of priorities for immigration admission with the existing (or desirable) emigration regulations in European countries. The attempt to understand and control emigration to the United States at the source must be seen as the fourth leg of immigration policy in the so-called open door era. Together with the effort to strengthen restrictive immigration laws, enlarge the administrative capacities of Federal agencies dealing with immigration, and make U.S. citizenship more difficult to attain and retain, emigration control at the source played an important role in the thinking of many officials and some politicians at the turn of the last century. Ultimately, the attempt to change European policies in order to make them conform to U.S. restrictionist legislation was part of the attempt to shape the U.S. immigrant population to conform to ideas of racial desirability, economic self-sufficiency, and cultural conformity.1 During the first decades of the twentieth century, European emigration control and American immigration restriction had a set of goals that at times conflicted and at times overlapped. When it came to immigrant admissions , U.S. priorities were relatively clear-cut: immigrants with communicable diseases, paupers, and people of questionable morality and politics were to be prevented from entering the United States. At the ports of entry, inspectors of the Immigration Bureau therefore checked all new arrivals and were empowered to reject them as immigrants if they belonged to an “excludable class.” The largest group of rejects consisted of “people likely to become a public charge.” Another sizable group comprised those suffering from a “loathsome and dangerous” disease. Prostitutes, criminals, and anarchists, as well as suspected polygamists, were also among those barred from entering. Prospective immigrants who were rejected at the port of entry were transported back to their country of origin (or country of departure ) with the cost borne by the transportation company that brought them to the United States. Often, this meant that the transportation company not only had to take back a rejected immigrant but also his or her family . The system accorded the ultimate legal responsibilities to the immigration authorities in the United States, with the risk of rejection borne by the immigrants and the transportation companies. As immigration authorities themselves pointed out, this system split apart families and shattered long-nurtured dreams of a new life; the commissioner general of immigration emphasized time and again that restriction of emigration from Europe would diminish the human cost of rejection at the U.S. border.2 European countries’ regulations concerning emigration did not mesh well with U.S. laws. Within Europe, governments differed in their approach to emigration. Almost all countries had abandoned the strict control over population movements and the prohibition against emigration that characterized the preindustrial era. Russia was the only country that still maintained a principled opposition to emigration and permitted only its ethnic minorities (Jews, Poles, and Germans, for example) to leave, with permission of the government.3 Western and central European governments required only adult males of draft age to produce a certificate that they had served in the military (or were exempt from such service) in order to leave the country legally. Such provisions were enforced to varying degrees.4 In some countries, such as Austria-Hungary, single women needed a policeissued certificate of moral conduct or a “workbook” showing gainful and legal employment. In France, passports were needed to leave the country, though their issuance depended on local authorities’ willingness to grant them. Italy required a passport, which was issued to adult men only if their draft requirement had been fulfilled...

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