Re: Patrick Cleburne’s NumbersUSA Timidly Proposes 1924-Style Immigration Cut-Off. Comments Thread Not Timid

From: An Engineer in Alabama [Email him]

Sorry, but the 1924 Immigration Restriction Act did NOT cut off immigration. Then as now the ruling elites want their cheap labor.  If you look at the numbers, you will see that immigration did not really fall off until AFTER the 1929 Wall Street Crash.

To be sure, post-1924 immigration was lower than the massive surge at the beginning of the 20th century, but then: a heavy meal after you are already full to bursting is not the same as a heavy meal on an empty stomach.

You also have to consider that if you accelerate a car to 100 MPH, and then only take ease off the gas 10 feet away from hitting. concrete wall, hitting the wall is not caused by easing off the gas.

The total cutoff post-1929 shows that the ruling class has neither moral nor practical issues cutting off immigration, when they feel like it.  Perhaps they were worried about revolution. Perhaps they finally had enough cheap labor to suit them. Whatever.

See earlier letters from the same reader.

Patrick Cleburne replies: Basically, this argument is mistaken, because the reader uses the wrong perspective.

As this wonderful graph (interactive on the Migration Policy Institute website) shows, immigration surged at the beginning of the 20th century, reaching a peak in 1907 at 1,285,349 and a secondary peak in 1914 of 1,218,480.

The disruptions caused by WW1 in Europe from late 1914 to late 1918 slashed immigration to 110,618 that year. By 1921 it had returned to 805,228. 

As your own numbers show, after 1924 immigration did collapse, particularly in comparison to the 1900-14 period.

Yet in the latter 1920s America experienced a great economic boom (while Europe was struggling—in contrast to the 1900-14 phase). So the key question is what would have happened without the 1924 Act.

Most likely immigration would have surged again, well into the millions.

Getting a sensible immigration measure was a tremendous, protracted struggle, as James Fulford laid out in The (First) Thirty Years War For Immigration Reform.

VDARE.com editor Peter Brimelow suggested here that the terrorist bombings here by anarchists immediately after WW1 and of course the bloodshed of the Russian Revolution gave the Restraint movement the extra strength it needed.

Perhaps events following the new eruption of Middle Eastern violence will convince the current “ruling class” that large scale immigration of Muslims and other anti-white People of Color is also unwise.