WEBVTT

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So imagine, if you will, a single piece of paperwork.

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Just one document. Yeah, one document that simultaneously

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invents the US Border Patrol, severely alters

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the demographic makeup of the entire United States.

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Oh, and effectively traps millions of European

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refugees a decade later. Right. And incredibly,

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it inadvertently helps trigger the rise of Japanese

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militarism that led directly to the attack on

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Pearl Harbor. I mean, it sounds like the plot

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of an alternate history novel. It really does.

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But it is entirely strictly historically accurate.

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Exactly. So today we are opening the files on

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a law passed in 1924. Welcome to today's Deep

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Dive. Glad to be here for this one. We are going

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to unpack the Immigration Act of 1924, which

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is also known as the Johnson -Reed Act or the

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National Origins Act. Right. If you are listening

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to this to try and understand how modern borders

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are drawn, I mean, you have to look at this specific

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moment. You really do. We're going to trace the

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intense social and political fears of the 1920s,

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examine the genuinely shocking role that literal

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eugenics played in drafting U .S. policy, and

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we're going to reveal the mathematical sleight

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of hand legislators used with census data to

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engineer the ethnic makeup of the country. Yeah,

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the math part is wild. But before we step back

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into the 1920s, I do need to address you, the

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listener, directly for a second. Go ahead. Because

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this deep dive involves highly charged historical

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content, including white supremacy, the Ku Klux

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Klan, eugenics, and some really severe political

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rhetoric spanning the ideological spectrum. We

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want to make it absolutely clear to you that

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we are not taking any political sides. Right.

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Definitely not. Nor are we endorsing the viewpoints,

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racial theories, or historical prejudices found

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in this original source material. Our job today

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is to impartially report on the contents of these

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documents to help you understand the ideas and

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motivations that drove this era of history. Thank

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you. Having that framework is crucial, so let's

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set the stage. Okay, paint the picture. It's

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May 1924. President Calvin Coolidge is sitting

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at his desk. He's about to sign a bill that caps

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global immigration, specifically from outside

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the Western Hemisphere, at just 165 ,000 people

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a year. Which is a tiny number. It is. To put

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that in perspective, that is an astonishing 80

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% reduction from the pre -World War I average.

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80%. Wow. Yeah. But here's what I don't get.

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If you look at the 1920s, we always think of

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the roaring 20s, right? Right. Flappers, jazz,

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Gatsby. Exactly. The economy is booming, skyscrapers

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are going up, assembly lines are churning out

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Model T Fords. So why would an industrializing

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capitalist powerhouse suddenly want to choke

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off its supply of labor? It seems counter -intuitive.

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It defies basic economic logic. I mean, why the

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drastic reduction right at that moment? Well,

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that is the paradox of the 1920s. We remember

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the flappers and the jazz. But to understand

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the 1924 Act, you really have to look at the

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immediate aftermath of World War I. OK, before

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the roaring really started. Exactly. The climate

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of fear in America was suffocating. And it was

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driven by two distinct highly volatile engines.

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You had economic anxiety and you had ideological

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paranoia. Let's look at the economics first.

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OK. So when the war ended in 1918, millions of

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American soldiers returned home from the trenches

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and the wartime industrial boom, you know, the

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factories churning out munitions and uniforms.

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It just suddenly halted. Right. The war machine

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turns off overnight. Exactly. The government

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canceled massive manufacturing contracts. And

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this triggered a severe, albeit brief, post -war

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recession between roughly 1920 and 1921. So people

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are out of work. Unemployment spiked. So you

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have a terrified domestic workforce. The immediate

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fear was that a massive unrestricted influx of

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desperate immigrants from a war -torn Europe

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would flood the labor market. Which would skyrocket

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unemployment even further. Right. And completely

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crater American wages. OK. So the American worker

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is looking at the factory gates and thinking,

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If a million people show up from overseas willing

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to work for pennies, I can't feed my family.

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That's the mindset. Yeah. That explains the economic

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protectionism. But you mentioned ideological

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paranoia. We are talking about the era immediately

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following the 1917 October Revolution in Russia.

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Yes. How did the Bolsheviks overthrowing the

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czar translate into immigration policy in Washington?

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It translated into what we now call the first

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Red Scare. which peaked between 1919 and 1921.

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Okay. And this wasn't just like a vague unease

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about communism. It was a visceral hysterical

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panic. People were actually freaking out. Completely.

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The American public was watching the Russian

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empire collapse into a violent communist revolution.

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And there was a widespread belief that foreign

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radicals, specifically anarchists, socialists,

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and communists, were migrating to the United

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States with the express purpose of undermining

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American values. And staging a violent uprising.

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Exactly. And it wasn't just imaginary paranoia,

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right? I mean, the fear was definitely blown

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out of proportion, but there were actual events

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fueling it. Oh, absolutely. You had the mail

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bombings in 1919, where anarchists sent dynamite

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to prominent politics. politicians and business

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leaders? Precisely. You had bombs going off in

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major cities. You had massive violent labor strikes,

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like the Seattle General strike and the Boston

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police strike. So it felt like chaos. To the

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average American reading the newspaper in 1920,

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it genuinely felt like the fabric of society

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was unraveling. And the government's response

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was the Palmer raids. Right. Led by Attorney

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General A. Mitchell Palmer. Yeah. Where thousands

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of suspected radical immigrants were rounded

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up and deported without due process, the narrative

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became deeply ingrained. Foreign equals radical,

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and radical equals a threat to the nation. OK.

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So on the East Coast, you have people looking

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across the Atlantic Ocean at a shattered Europe.

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They see poverty, unemployment, and communist

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revolution, and they are terrified it is all

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going to spill onto American shores. That's the

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East Coast view, yeah. But if we pivot and look

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at the West Coast, the anxiety has a completely

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different flavor. They aren't looking at Europe.

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They're looking at Asia. A totally different

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demographic reality. And from the source documents

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we have, the rhetoric coming out of California

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isn't just about jobs or anarchism. It's incredibly

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militarized. Yes. The West Coast anxiety was

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heavily racialized under the banner of what was

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historically termed the Yellow Peril. All right.

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You have to remember the historical context here.

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The Chinese Exclusion Act. of 1882 had already

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severely choked off Chinese immigration decades

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earlier. So the Chinese population wasn't the

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primary focus anymore. Exactly. But by the 1920s,

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you had a new demographic reality. Japanese,

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Korean and Filipino laborers who were initially

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brought in to replace the excluded Chinese workers

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in agriculture and railroad construction were

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now putting down deep roots in the western United

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States. They weren't just passing through. No,

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they were buying land. starting businesses and

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having children. And this permanence sparked

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a massive, highly organized exclusionary movement

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among white citizens in places like California.

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I was looking through our sources at a quote

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from a man named Valentine S. McClatchy. Oh,

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he's a key figure here. Yeah, he was the publisher

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of the Sacramento Bee, the founder of the McClatchy

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Company and a major, highly influential leader

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in this anti -Japanese movement. Very influential.

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He went to Congress to argue against these Asian

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immigrants, and his specific words were, and

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this is a quote, They come here specifically

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and professedly for the purpose of colonizing

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and establishing here permanently the proud Yamato

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race. That specific vocabulary is not accidental

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at all. Exactly. That's what jumped out at me.

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If you're a farmer in California and another

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farmer moves in next door, you might view them

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as a competitor. Sure. But McClatchy isn't calling

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them competitors. He's using words like colonizing.

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Right. He is framing these immigrants who are

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just individuals trying to grow strawberries

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or run a shop as a literal vanguard, an invading

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military force setting up a colony for a foreign

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empire. It's pure threat escalation. So how does

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that hyper -militarized rhetoric moved from a

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newspaper publisher's mouth into the actual drafting

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of a federal bill. It moves very smoothly when

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the politicians drafting the bill rely on that

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rhetoric to secure votes. Ah, of course, politics.

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That narrative of a silent demographic invasion

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successfully catalyzed politicians to write an

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outright ban into the 1924 Act. The legislation

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included a deeply insidious clause. What did

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it say? It mandated that no alien ineligible

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to become a citizen could be admitted to the

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U .S. as an immigrant. Wait, explain that mechanism.

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How does ineligible for citizenship translate

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to an immigration ban? It ties back to existing

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naturalization laws. Under the laws of the time,

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dating back to the late 18th and 19th centuries,

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naturalized citizenship was generally restricted

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to free white persons and persons of African

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nativity or descent. Okay, so Asians were excluded

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from that. Therefore, Asian immigrants were already

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legally categorized as aliens ineligible to citizenship.

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I see. By writing that exact phrase into the

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1924 immigration bill, Congress created a perfectly

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closed loop. So they didn't even have to name

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them. While the act didn't explicitly name Japanese

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or Korean individuals, that was exactly who it

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was aimed at. In effect, the act completely banned

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all immigrants from Asia. All of them. The only

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exception was the Philippines. And that was strictly

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because the Philippines was a U .S. territory

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at the time, meaning its citizens were technically

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U .S. nationals who could travel to the mainland.

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OK, so we have a foundation of raw fear, economic

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anxiety about jobs, ideological panic about communism

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and blatant militarized xenophobia on the West

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Coast. A very toxic mix. But if you look at human

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history. Fear of the other is tragically common.

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I mean, politicians have been standing on soap

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boxes shouting about foreign threats since the

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Roman Empire. Sure. What makes the 1924 act so

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unique and honestly so deeply unsettling to read

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about today is how these fears were legitimized.

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Yes. They didn't just use angry rhetoric. They

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wrapped their prejudice in a lab coat. That's

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a great way to put it. If you want to understand

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how this bill passed, you have to look at the

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pseudoscience of exclusion. This is perhaps the

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most crucial and sobering element of the entire

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deep dive. The two main architects of the act

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were U .S. Representative Albert Johnson of Washington

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state and Senator David Reid of Pennsylvania.

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Johnson and Reid. When they spoke on the floor

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of Congress, they didn't just speak in terms

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of union wages or national security. They spoke

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in biological genetic terms. They explicitly

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stated that they conceived the act as a necessary

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bulwark against a stream of alien blood. A stream

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of alien blood. Again, look at the language.

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That is not the vocabulary of trade tariffs or

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border security. Got it all. That is the vocabulary

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of a biology textbook being weaponized. Precisely.

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Senator Reid argued to the Senate that earlier

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legislation had focused too much on the newcomers

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and disregarded the people who were already born

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in America. OK. He stated he wanted to keep American

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stock and he explicitly meant genetic stock.

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up to the highest standard. Meaning white northern

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Europeans. He argued that immigrants from southern

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and eastern Europe who were predominantly Catholic

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and Jewish were arriving sick, starving, and

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were biologically incapable of contributing to

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the economy or assimilating into American culture.

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And to justify this biologically, they turned

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to eugenics. Now, if you are listening to this,

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you might have heard the term eugenics in relation

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to some of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.

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But let's define what it actually meant in the

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context of 1920s America. Eugenics was a completely

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discredited pseudoscience that claimed you could

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and should improve the human race by selectively

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breeding out undesirable traits and promoting

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desirable ones. That's the core of it. But the

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key here is that in 1924, this wasn't considered

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some fringe dark web conspiracy theory. Not at

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all. That is a vital distinction to make. In

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the 1920s, eugenics was treated as a cutting

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edge, legitimate scientific discipline. It was

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mainstream. Very mainstream. It was taught in

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major Ivy League. universities. It was funded

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by prominent philanthropic organizations. It

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was discussed in polite society. That is just

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so hard to wrap your head around today. The proponents

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of eugenics argued that traits like poverty,

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criminality, and what they called feeble -mindedness

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were strictly hereditary. And they tied these

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supposedly hereditary traits directly to specific

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races and ethnicities. So they basically created

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a biological hierarchy of human value. Exactly.

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So in 1924, lawmakers were explicitly using this

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mainstream pseudoscience to restrict certain

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ethnicities, claiming they were scientifically

00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:38.960
obligated to prevent the spread of genetic inferiority

00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:41.779
in American society. But the integration of eugenics

00:12:41.779 --> 00:12:45.019
into the government goes far beyond a few senators

00:12:45.019 --> 00:12:48.179
quoting a textbook. The institutionalization

00:12:48.179 --> 00:12:51.340
of this is staggering. It really is. The United

00:12:51.340 --> 00:12:55.340
States Congress literally had a eugenics subcommittee.

00:12:55.659 --> 00:12:59.419
Yes. The House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization

00:12:59.419 --> 00:13:01.779
created a specialized eugenics subcommittee.

00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:04.379
Unbelievable. And the man they appointed as the

00:13:04.379 --> 00:13:06.419
expert advisor to this committee during the entire

00:13:06.419 --> 00:13:09.110
legislative process was Harry Laughlin. Okay,

00:13:09.289 --> 00:13:11.309
explain who Harry Laughlin was because his role

00:13:11.309 --> 00:13:13.590
here is the lynchpin. Harry Laughlin was one

00:13:13.590 --> 00:13:15.889
of the most prominent eugenicists in the United

00:13:15.889 --> 00:13:18.610
States. He was the superintendent of the Eugenics

00:13:18.610 --> 00:13:20.750
Record Office in New York. So this is his whole

00:13:20.750 --> 00:13:23.070
life's work. His entire career was dedicated

00:13:23.070 --> 00:13:25.820
to compiling data. which we now know was deeply

00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:29.340
flawed and heavily biased, to prove that immigrants

00:13:29.340 --> 00:13:32.120
from Southern and Eastern Europe had overwhelmingly

00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:35.659
higher rates of insanity, criminality, and intellectual

00:13:35.659 --> 00:13:38.840
disability compared to older Northern European

00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:41.080
immigrant populations. And he brings this to

00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:43.539
Congress. He presented this data to Congress

00:13:43.539 --> 00:13:48.059
as undeniable, objective scientific fact. He

00:13:48.059 --> 00:13:50.919
testified repeatedly, presenting charts and graphs,

00:13:51.559 --> 00:13:53.639
essentially arguing that the American gene pool

00:13:53.639 --> 00:13:56.139
was being polluted. And Congress just swallowed

00:13:56.139 --> 00:13:57.639
this whole thing. They didn't just swallow it.

00:13:58.059 --> 00:14:00.159
They enthusiastically built a legal apparatus

00:14:00.159 --> 00:14:03.279
around it. Jeez. After the bill passed, Laughlin

00:14:03.279 --> 00:14:05.870
didn't just celebrate a political victory. He

00:14:05.870 --> 00:14:08.850
praised the law specifically as a political breakthrough

00:14:08.850 --> 00:14:11.850
in the adoption of scientific racism as a theoretical

00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:14.509
foundation for immigration policy. Wait, he actually

00:14:14.509 --> 00:14:16.990
called it scientific racism. He literally used

00:14:16.990 --> 00:14:19.429
the phrase scientific racism as a point of pride.

00:14:19.830 --> 00:14:23.529
That phrase stops you in your tracks. Scientific

00:14:23.529 --> 00:14:26.990
racism. If you're listening to this and wondering

00:14:26.990 --> 00:14:29.070
how a democratic government justifies something

00:14:29.070 --> 00:14:31.789
like that out loud, it really comes down to how

00:14:31.789 --> 00:14:34.730
the law essentially redefined what it meant to

00:14:34.730 --> 00:14:37.730
be an American. Yes. I was reading the analysis

00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:40.309
in our sources by historian Maingai, and she

00:14:40.309 --> 00:14:42.470
makes a brilliant point about what the pseudoscience

00:14:42.470 --> 00:14:45.289
actually accomplished legally. Maingai's analysis

00:14:45.289 --> 00:14:48.070
is essential here. She points out that the 1924

00:14:48.070 --> 00:14:51.490
law operated on two distinct levels. OK. On the

00:14:51.490 --> 00:14:54.340
surface, the practical level. It differentiated

00:14:54.340 --> 00:14:56.500
Europeans according to nationality ranking them

00:14:56.500 --> 00:14:59.460
in a hierarchy of desirability. British and German

00:14:59.460 --> 00:15:01.720
immigrants were at the top. Italians and Eastern

00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:04.360
European Jews were at the bottom. But on a deeper,

00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:07.340
more profound level, the law effectively constructed

00:15:07.340 --> 00:15:10.100
a white American race. Let's unpack that. What

00:15:10.100 --> 00:15:12.580
does it mean to legally construct a race? Before

00:15:12.580 --> 00:15:15.039
this period, people didn't necessarily view all

00:15:15.039 --> 00:15:18.440
Europeans as one cohesive white race. Oh, right.

00:15:18.620 --> 00:15:21.299
Because of religious and ethnic tensions. Exactly.

00:15:21.960 --> 00:15:25.980
A wealthy Anglo -Saxon Protestant in Boston did

00:15:25.980 --> 00:15:30.139
not view a poor Catholic Sicilian immigrant as

00:15:30.139 --> 00:15:32.440
being of the same race. They were seen as distinct

00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:36.429
groups. But Nega argues that the 1924 Act, by

00:15:36.429 --> 00:15:38.710
grouping all these European nationalities into

00:15:38.710 --> 00:15:41.509
a quota system that excluded Asians and heavily

00:15:41.509 --> 00:15:44.610
restricted others, legally synthesized a new

00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:47.029
identity. A shared category. It created a legal

00:15:47.029 --> 00:15:49.250
framework where persons of European descent,

00:15:49.690 --> 00:15:51.649
despite their different nationalities, shared

00:15:51.649 --> 00:15:54.009
a common whiteness that was legally, socially,

00:15:54.210 --> 00:15:56.669
and politically distinct from those deemed not

00:15:56.669 --> 00:15:59.070
white. Wow. So the law didn't just reflect the

00:15:59.070 --> 00:16:01.809
racial categories of the time. It actively manufactured

00:16:01.809 --> 00:16:03.850
them and codified them into the administrative

00:16:03.850 --> 00:16:06.370
state. Yes. So they essentially used the law

00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:09.490
to define what whiteness was and then used eugenics

00:16:09.490 --> 00:16:12.289
to justify protecting that definition. That's

00:16:12.289 --> 00:16:14.730
the core machinery of the act. We have now established

00:16:14.730 --> 00:16:17.129
the why. We know the fear, the economic panic,

00:16:17.190 --> 00:16:19.250
and the pseudoscience that drove the motivation.

00:16:19.429 --> 00:16:21.740
Right. But motivation isn't legislation. You

00:16:21.740 --> 00:16:23.940
can't just write a federal law that says, uh,

00:16:23.940 --> 00:16:26.019
no Italians or Eastern European Jews allowed.

00:16:26.460 --> 00:16:28.120
No, that would cause an international crisis.

00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:30.919
Exactly. That violates a dozen international

00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:33.179
treaties. It's a diplomatic nightmare and it's

00:16:33.179 --> 00:16:35.940
too legally blunt. So they didn't use names.

00:16:36.379 --> 00:16:38.600
They used math. They weaponized the United States

00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:41.379
census. This brings us to the actual mechanics

00:16:41.379 --> 00:16:44.860
of the law. How do you legally engineer a demographic

00:16:44.860 --> 00:16:47.700
shift without explicitly stating it? This is

00:16:47.700 --> 00:16:49.320
where the bureaucratic engineering comes in.

00:16:49.860 --> 00:16:52.159
And to understand the trick they pulled in 1924,

00:16:52.299 --> 00:16:54.500
we actually have to look three years earlier

00:16:54.500 --> 00:16:58.740
to 1921. Okay, the 1921 Emergency Quota Act,

00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:02.139
how did that work? In 1921, Congress passed a

00:17:02.139 --> 00:17:05.460
stopgap measure. It established the first numerical

00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:09.019
limits on European immigration. The formula was...

00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:11.400
relatively straightforward. It limited annual

00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:14.200
immigration from any given country to three percent

00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:16.539
of the number of foreign born persons of that

00:17:16.539 --> 00:17:18.700
specific nationality who were residing in the

00:17:18.700 --> 00:17:21.180
U .S. at the time of the 1910 census. Let's do

00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:22.759
the math out loud so we can see how this works.

00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:25.440
Sure. Let's say we look at the 1910 census and

00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.859
it shows there are exactly one hundred thousand

00:17:27.859 --> 00:17:30.380
people born in country X currently living in

00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:33.579
the United States. Under the 1921 law, country

00:17:33.579 --> 00:17:36.380
X gets an annual immigration quota of three percent

00:17:36.380 --> 00:17:39.759
of that number. So 3 ,000 people from CountryX

00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:42.539
can immigrate this year. Simple enough. Exactly.

00:17:42.599 --> 00:17:45.000
It tied future immigration directly to the existing

00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.140
demographic footprint. Makes sense on paper.

00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:50.400
But for architects like Albert Johnson and the

00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:53.759
eugenics advocates like Harry Laughlin, the 1921

00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:56.980
law was fundamentally flawed. Why? It wasn't

00:17:56.980 --> 00:17:59.059
restrictive enough overall. And more importantly,

00:17:59.319 --> 00:18:01.940
it didn't target the right people in their eyes.

00:18:02.160 --> 00:18:04.799
I don't get it. The 1910 census was just 10 years

00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:07.900
prior. Because by 1910, the massive wave of immigration

00:18:07.900 --> 00:18:10.099
from Southern and Eastern Europe had already

00:18:10.099 --> 00:18:12.640
been happening for two decades. Oh, I see. There

00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:15.480
were already millions of Italians, Poles, and

00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:17.500
Eastern European Jews living in the U .S. by

00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:21.440
1910. Therefore, 3 % of a very large number still

00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:23.920
resulted in tens of thousands of those specific

00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:26.059
immigrants arriving every year. So the quotas

00:18:26.059 --> 00:18:28.339
were too high for the groups they hated. The

00:18:28.339 --> 00:18:29.940
eugenicists looked at those numbers and said,

00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:32.700
this isn't working. We were still letting in

00:18:32.700 --> 00:18:35.619
too much alien blood. So they go back to the

00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:38.420
drawing board for the 1924 Act. The first thing

00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:40.920
they do is turn the dial down on the percentage.

00:18:41.019 --> 00:18:44.299
They drop the quota from 3 % to 2%. Yes. That

00:18:44.299 --> 00:18:46.859
tightens the valve a bit. But that is not the

00:18:46.859 --> 00:18:50.160
smoking gun of this legislation. The real mathematical

00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:52.880
sleight of hand was changing the baseline year.

00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:57.000
Yes. The 1924 Act completely abandoned the 1910

00:18:57.000 --> 00:18:59.869
census. Keep in mind. They are drafting this

00:18:59.869 --> 00:19:03.509
law in 1924. They have a perfectly fresh, highly

00:19:03.509 --> 00:19:06.329
accurate census from 1920 sitting right in front

00:19:06.329 --> 00:19:08.890
of them. The most recent data available. But

00:19:08.890 --> 00:19:11.670
Congress legally mandated that the new 2 % quotas

00:19:11.670 --> 00:19:14.309
must be calculated using the data from the 1890

00:19:14.309 --> 00:19:16.609
census. I want you to really think about how

00:19:16.609 --> 00:19:20.559
absurd this is. It is 1924. You have 1920 data,

00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:23.500
but you pass a federal law insisting that your

00:19:23.500 --> 00:19:26.259
government must ignore reality and base its formulas

00:19:26.259 --> 00:19:28.859
on data that is done four years old. It's completely

00:19:28.859 --> 00:19:31.180
ahistorical. That is like a modern tech company

00:19:31.180 --> 00:19:33.079
trying to understand smartphone usage today,

00:19:33.180 --> 00:19:35.200
but insisting their algorithms can only use data

00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.720
from the year 2004 before the iPhone even existed.

00:19:37.900 --> 00:19:40.579
That's a great analogy. Why deliberately look

00:19:40.579 --> 00:19:43.079
backwards? What was so magical about the year

00:19:43.079 --> 00:19:45.900
1890? It was a mathematically sinister brilliance.

00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:48.500
Madison Grant, the chair of the eugenics subcommittee,

00:19:48.980 --> 00:19:51.960
and Harry Laughlin heavily pushed for the 1890

00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:55.799
census for one very specific demographic reason.

00:19:55.920 --> 00:20:00.039
Which was? 1890 was the exact moment before the

00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:02.420
massive demographic shift in American immigration

00:20:02.420 --> 00:20:04.720
occurred. If you look at American immigration

00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:07.960
prior to 1890, the vast majority of immigrants

00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:10.279
came from Northern and Western Europe, places

00:20:10.279 --> 00:20:12.180
like Great Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia.

00:20:12.349 --> 00:20:15.569
The people the eugenicists liked. Exactly. The

00:20:15.569 --> 00:20:17.710
massive wave of Italian Catholics and Eastern

00:20:17.710 --> 00:20:20.529
European Jews didn't truly explode until the

00:20:20.529 --> 00:20:23.730
late 1890s and the early 1900s. So the trap clicks

00:20:23.730 --> 00:20:27.009
into place. If you use the 1910 or 1920 census,

00:20:27.089 --> 00:20:29.190
you have to acknowledge the millions of Italians

00:20:29.190 --> 00:20:31.390
and Eastern Europeans already living in America.

00:20:31.490 --> 00:20:34.049
Yes. Which means their 2 % quota would be relatively

00:20:34.049 --> 00:20:36.430
high. But if you rewind the clock and point your

00:20:36.430 --> 00:20:38.690
legal time machine at 1890, you artificially

00:20:38.690 --> 00:20:41.150
shrink their baseline population to almost zero.

00:20:41.259 --> 00:20:44.200
That is so deeply manipulative. By legally pretending

00:20:44.200 --> 00:20:48.640
it is 1890, the act magically allocated 85 percent

00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:51.420
of the total global immigration quota to northern

00:20:51.420 --> 00:20:54.359
and western Europe. Eighty five percent. It systematically

00:20:54.359 --> 00:20:56.460
punished southern and eastern Europe without

00:20:56.460 --> 00:20:59.180
ever having to write the words Italian or Jewish

00:20:59.180 --> 00:21:02.579
into the restrictive clauses. It was demographic

00:21:02.579 --> 00:21:05.789
engineering disguised as arithmetic. The numbers

00:21:05.789 --> 00:21:08.369
in our sources just lay bare how devastating

00:21:08.369 --> 00:21:10.630
this math was. Let's look at Italy. The Italian

00:21:10.630 --> 00:21:14.089
numbers are shocking. From 1901 to 1914, an average

00:21:14.089 --> 00:21:17.470
of 210 ,000 Italians immigrated to the United

00:21:17.470 --> 00:21:19.930
States every single year. They were building

00:21:19.930 --> 00:21:23.089
the infrastructure of American cities. Under

00:21:23.089 --> 00:21:26.609
the new 1924 quota using the 1890 census time

00:21:26.609 --> 00:21:29.650
machine, that number plummeted from 210 ,000

00:21:29.650 --> 00:21:32.589
a year down to just 4 ,000 per year. 4 ,000.

00:21:32.650 --> 00:21:35.329
A total collapse. Meanwhile, Germany, which was

00:21:35.329 --> 00:21:37.450
a favored northern European nation with a massive

00:21:37.450 --> 00:21:40.309
population already in the U .S. in 1890, was

00:21:40.309 --> 00:21:43.549
granted an annual quota of over 55 ,000. Great

00:21:43.549 --> 00:21:46.329
Britain got over 34 ,000. The math functioned

00:21:46.329 --> 00:21:48.849
exactly as the eugenicists designed it to. But

00:21:48.849 --> 00:21:51.069
it is important to note that this 1890 census

00:21:51.069 --> 00:21:53.450
trick was originally written as a temporary measure.

00:21:53.950 --> 00:21:56.990
Yet the law stated that the 1890 baseline would

00:21:56.990 --> 00:22:01.960
only be used until 1929. In 1929, a new permanent

00:22:01.960 --> 00:22:04.440
quota system would be implemented, and this one

00:22:04.440 --> 00:22:07.339
would be based on the more recent 1920 census.

00:22:07.460 --> 00:22:10.019
Wait, if they switched to the 1920 census in

00:22:10.019 --> 00:22:12.539
1929, doesn't that undo the whole trick? The

00:22:12.539 --> 00:22:14.799
Italians and Eastern Europeans are in the 1920

00:22:14.799 --> 00:22:16.960
census? You would think so, but the architects

00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:18.980
of the law anticipated that. They found a way

00:22:18.980 --> 00:22:23.160
to manipulate the 1929 update as well. The 1929

00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:25.819
system wasn't a flat 2 % of foreign -born residents.

00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:28.680
It was based on the national origins of the total

00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:31.640
U .S. population in 1920. Okay, total population.

00:22:31.779 --> 00:22:33.619
They would calculate the ethnic makeup of the

00:22:33.619 --> 00:22:36.940
entire country and distribute the 150 ,000 total

00:22:36.940 --> 00:22:40.309
quota slots proportionally. But, to ensure the

00:22:40.309 --> 00:22:42.230
quotas remained overwhelmingly weighted toward

00:22:42.230 --> 00:22:45.069
white Northern European nations, the law purposefully

00:22:45.069 --> 00:22:47.410
mandated that the baseline population calculation

00:22:47.410 --> 00:22:49.309
would not include certain groups. Who did they

00:22:49.309 --> 00:22:51.690
exclude from the math? The law explicitly stated

00:22:51.690 --> 00:22:53.690
that the demographic baseline would not include

00:22:53.690 --> 00:22:56.049
Black Americans, mulattoes, or Asians. You have

00:22:56.049 --> 00:22:59.569
got to be kidding me. They legally erased millions

00:22:59.569 --> 00:23:02.569
of minority citizens from the demographic reality

00:23:02.569 --> 00:23:04.329
of the United States. So they just pretended

00:23:04.329 --> 00:23:06.930
they didn't exist. If they had included Black

00:23:06.930 --> 00:23:09.549
Americans in the baseline, the proportion of

00:23:09.549 --> 00:23:12.250
white Americans would have been lower, thereby

00:23:12.250 --> 00:23:15.910
lowering the quotas for European nations. By

00:23:15.910 --> 00:23:18.130
erasing non -white citizens from the equation,

00:23:18.369 --> 00:23:20.369
they artificially inflated the percentage of

00:23:20.369 --> 00:23:22.529
the population that was of European descent,

00:23:22.930 --> 00:23:24.930
ensuring the quotas favored the demographics

00:23:24.930 --> 00:23:27.910
they desired. It is truly staggering when you

00:23:27.910 --> 00:23:29.829
see the mechanics of it laid out on the table

00:23:29.829 --> 00:23:32.390
like that. It's not an accident. It is precision

00:23:32.390 --> 00:23:34.730
engineering. Absolutely. So the trap is set.

00:23:34.789 --> 00:23:36.829
They have the pseudoscience of eugenics providing

00:23:36.829 --> 00:23:39.809
the biological justification, and they have the

00:23:39.809 --> 00:23:42.609
weaponized time machine census math providing

00:23:42.609 --> 00:23:45.569
the legal mechanism. Right. But to get a bill

00:23:45.569 --> 00:23:48.369
passed into law, you need votes. You need massive

00:23:48.369 --> 00:23:51.690
political coalitions. Who exactly pushed this

00:23:51.690 --> 00:23:53.349
over the finish line? Because when you look at

00:23:53.349 --> 00:23:55.839
the political alignments of 1924, or you find

00:23:55.839 --> 00:23:58.339
some very, very strange bedfellows. You certainly

00:23:58.339 --> 00:24:00.940
do. When you look at the coalition that supported

00:24:00.940 --> 00:24:03.680
the Johnson -Reed Act, some of it is entirely

00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:06.619
expected, and some of it is deeply paradoxical.

00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:09.140
Let's start with the expected. On one hand, you

00:24:09.140 --> 00:24:13.339
had rabidly nativist and xenophotic groups. The

00:24:13.339 --> 00:24:16.079
Ku Klux Klan, which had experienced a massive

00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:19.400
resurgence in the 1920s and wielded significant

00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:22.059
political power in both the South and the Midwest,

00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:24.900
fiercely supported the bill. Well, obvious. They

00:24:24.900 --> 00:24:27.799
marched in Washington to support it. That aligns

00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:29.740
perfectly with the racial and religious rhetoric

00:24:29.740 --> 00:24:33.480
we've discussed. The Klan was anti -black, anti

00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:36.259
-Catholic. and anti -Semitic. Right. The Klan

00:24:36.259 --> 00:24:39.240
supporting a eugenics -based immigration ban

00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:41.339
tracks with everything we know about history.

00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:44.240
But here is the part that genuinely shocked me

00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:46.180
when I was reviewing the sources. The labor unions.

00:24:46.420 --> 00:24:50.079
Yes. Alongside the Ku Klux Klan, you had massive

00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:52.160
organized support from the American Federation

00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:55.099
of Labor, the AFL. Yes. The most powerful labor

00:24:55.099 --> 00:24:57.470
union in the country. And the founder and president

00:24:57.470 --> 00:25:00.109
of the AFL was Samuel Gompers. Now, if you know

00:25:00.109 --> 00:25:02.029
anything about labor history, you know Gompers.

00:25:02.390 --> 00:25:04.730
But look at his biography. It's quite the contradiction.

00:25:05.349 --> 00:25:08.289
Samuel Gompers was himself a Jewish immigrant

00:25:08.289 --> 00:25:11.650
who came to the U .S. from Britain. He experienced

00:25:11.650 --> 00:25:14.210
the immigrant struggle firsthand. He did. Yet.

00:25:14.460 --> 00:25:17.160
He throws the full immense political weight of

00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:19.960
the AFL behind this act, an act that he knows

00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:23.440
is explicitly designed by eugenicists to severely

00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.880
restrict Jewish immigration. Why? If you are

00:25:26.880 --> 00:25:28.740
sitting there wondering why a Jewish immigrant

00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:31.460
would lobby for a bill supported by the KKK that

00:25:31.460 --> 00:25:34.980
targets Jewish refugees, it feels inexplicable.

00:25:35.079 --> 00:25:37.859
It feels inexplicable until you look at it strictly

00:25:37.859 --> 00:25:40.769
through the lens of labor economics. Right. For

00:25:40.769 --> 00:25:44.230
Gompers, economic protectionism ultimately overrode

00:25:44.230 --> 00:25:46.829
any sense of ethnic solidarity. Wow. We have

00:25:46.829 --> 00:25:49.109
to understand the union's position. The AFL's

00:25:49.109 --> 00:25:51.309
entire purpose was to improve wages, shorten

00:25:51.309 --> 00:25:53.309
working hours, and secure better working conditions

00:25:53.309 --> 00:25:55.990
for its members. Right. Gompers fundamentally

00:25:55.990 --> 00:25:58.170
believed that a constant unrestricted influx

00:25:58.170 --> 00:26:00.190
of desperate immigrants, people who were fleeing

00:26:00.190 --> 00:26:02.230
poverty and were willing to work for practically

00:26:02.230 --> 00:26:04.829
nothing, would perpetually flood the labor market.

00:26:05.250 --> 00:26:08.369
It's the law of supply and demand. If the factory

00:26:08.369 --> 00:26:10.769
owner has a thousand men outside the gate willing

00:26:10.769 --> 00:26:13.470
to work for a dollar a day, the union inside

00:26:13.470 --> 00:26:16.430
the factory loses all its leverage to demand

00:26:16.430 --> 00:26:20.089
two dollars a day. Exactly. Gompers viewed mass

00:26:20.089 --> 00:26:23.109
immigration as a weapon used by industrial capitalists

00:26:23.109 --> 00:26:26.349
to break strikes and depress wages. So to him,

00:26:26.670 --> 00:26:29.410
closing the border was pro -worker. He believed

00:26:29.410 --> 00:26:31.650
that the only way to build a strong middle -class

00:26:31.650 --> 00:26:34.490
labor force in America was to artificially restrict

00:26:34.490 --> 00:26:37.720
the supply of labor. If labor is scarce, labor

00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:40.240
is valuable. Interesting. For Gompers, closing

00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:42.460
the border was the ultimate union protection

00:26:42.460 --> 00:26:45.259
mechanism. He was willing to close the door on

00:26:45.259 --> 00:26:47.779
people fleeing the exact same poverty he fled

00:26:47.779 --> 00:26:50.279
because he believed it was the only way to protect

00:26:50.279 --> 00:26:52.900
the American worker who was already here. It

00:26:52.900 --> 00:26:56.680
is a phenomenal insight into how resources or

00:26:56.680 --> 00:26:59.000
the perceived scarcity of resources can force

00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:01.660
alliances between groups that otherwise despise

00:27:01.660 --> 00:27:03.779
each other. Absolutely. The Klan wants them out

00:27:03.779 --> 00:27:05.559
for biological reasons. The unions want them

00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:07.680
out for economic reasons. They meet in the middle

00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:10.039
and pass the bill. But there was opposition,

00:27:10.200 --> 00:27:12.420
right? It wasn't unanimous. No, it wasn't. Who

00:27:12.420 --> 00:27:15.180
is standing up against this tidal wave? There

00:27:15.180 --> 00:27:18.559
was opposition, but they were severely outnumbered

00:27:18.559 --> 00:27:21.769
and swimming against the political current. In

00:27:21.769 --> 00:27:23.829
the House of Representatives, one of the most

00:27:23.829 --> 00:27:27.970
vocal and vigorous opponents was a freshman congressman

00:27:27.970 --> 00:27:31.349
from Brooklyn named Emanuel Seller. Emanuel Seller.

00:27:31.490 --> 00:27:33.470
He was a Jewish -American, and he didn't mince

00:27:33.470 --> 00:27:37.009
words. He loudly called out the act's blatant

00:27:37.009 --> 00:27:39.150
mathematical discrimination against Central,

00:27:39.589 --> 00:27:42.220
Eastern, and Southern Europe. He pointed out

00:27:42.220 --> 00:27:44.619
the absurdity of the eugenics arguments. And

00:27:44.619 --> 00:27:46.559
he actually spent the next 40 years of his life

00:27:46.559 --> 00:27:48.640
fighting this exact law, right? He eventually

00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.319
helps tear it down in 1965. Yes. The Hart -Celler

00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:54.839
Act of 1965, which finally abolished the national

00:27:54.839 --> 00:27:57.500
origins quota system, bears his name. That's

00:27:57.500 --> 00:28:00.140
a legacy right there. But in 1924, he was a lonely

00:28:00.140 --> 00:28:02.819
voice. He also had Secretary of State Charles

00:28:02.819 --> 00:28:06.059
Evans Hughes opposing the act, primarily because

00:28:06.059 --> 00:28:08.200
he saw the diplomatic disaster it was going to

00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:10.660
cause, calling the exclusion clauses quite...

00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:13.440
unnecessary. And in the Senate. In the Senate,

00:28:14.140 --> 00:28:16.559
progressive voices like Wisconsin Senator Robert

00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:19.319
M. LaFollette argued passionately that the bill

00:28:19.319 --> 00:28:21.920
was fundamentally inhumane and would inflict

00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:25.200
untold misery on millions of would -be immigrants.

00:28:25.500 --> 00:28:29.059
But the most dramatic climax of this entire legislative

00:28:29.059 --> 00:28:31.740
battle, the moment where it all almost fell apart,

00:28:32.259 --> 00:28:34.180
didn't come from a congressman in Washington.

00:28:34.430 --> 00:28:36.410
No, it came from across the Pacific. Right. We

00:28:36.410 --> 00:28:38.430
talked earlier about the West Coast paranoia

00:28:38.430 --> 00:28:40.690
regarding the Yellow Peril and the specific clause

00:28:40.690 --> 00:28:43.130
banning Asians. Well, the Japanese government

00:28:43.130 --> 00:28:45.690
was absolutely furious about this. They were.

00:28:46.230 --> 00:28:48.089
And to understand why, you have to look at the

00:28:48.089 --> 00:28:52.000
geopolitical dynamic. OK. By 1924... Japan had

00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:54.420
defeated Russia in the Russo -Japanese War. They

00:28:54.420 --> 00:28:56.940
had been an allied power in World War I, and

00:28:56.940 --> 00:29:00.059
they viewed themselves rightfully as a rapidly

00:29:00.059 --> 00:29:02.819
modernizing top -tier global power. They were

00:29:02.819 --> 00:29:05.339
a major player. They had maintained a relatively

00:29:05.339 --> 00:29:07.680
cordial economic and political relationship with

00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:10.400
the U .S., governed by a gentleman's agreement,

00:29:10.819 --> 00:29:14.299
where Japan voluntarily restricted its own emigration

00:29:14.299 --> 00:29:16.859
to ease tensions. So Japan is saying, we are

00:29:16.859 --> 00:29:19.099
already playing ball. We are already restricting

00:29:19.099 --> 00:29:22.130
our citizens to help you out. Exactly. And then

00:29:22.130 --> 00:29:24.630
Congress writes a law legally defining Japanese

00:29:24.630 --> 00:29:27.450
people as racially ineligible to immigrate. Which

00:29:27.450 --> 00:29:30.170
is just a slap in the face. To the Japanese government,

00:29:30.289 --> 00:29:33.769
this felt like a massive public betrayal, a profound

00:29:33.769 --> 00:29:37.009
national insult. The Japanese foreign minister

00:29:37.009 --> 00:29:40.569
Matsui Kishiro instructed his ambassador in Washington,

00:29:41.170 --> 00:29:44.869
Masanohanihara, to write a formal, highly diplomatic,

00:29:45.069 --> 00:29:48.349
but incredibly stern letter of protest to Secretary

00:29:48.349 --> 00:29:50.650
of State Hughes. And the wording of this letter

00:29:50.650 --> 00:29:53.269
is critical to how the vote actually goes down.

00:29:53.569 --> 00:29:56.150
Let's look at what Hanihara actually wrote. Hanihara

00:29:56.150 --> 00:29:58.750
wrote that the manifest object of the law was

00:29:58.750 --> 00:30:01.789
to single out Japanese people as a nation, stigmatizing

00:30:01.789 --> 00:30:04.230
them as unworthy and undesirable in the eyes

00:30:04.230 --> 00:30:05.930
of the American people. Which is exactly what

00:30:05.930 --> 00:30:08.369
the law was doing. He pointed out the sheer mathematical

00:30:08.369 --> 00:30:11.450
absurdity of the insult. Based on the 2 % quota

00:30:11.450 --> 00:30:13.829
formula, if Japan had just been given a normal

00:30:13.829 --> 00:30:15.990
quota like a European country, it would have

00:30:15.990 --> 00:30:18.890
amounted to a mere 146 Japanese immigrants a

00:30:18.890 --> 00:30:22.589
year. Wait, 146 people? Yes, the formula would

00:30:22.589 --> 00:30:25.490
have yielded exactly 146 people. That is nothing.

00:30:25.910 --> 00:30:28.210
Anahar is basically saying you are causing a

00:30:28.210 --> 00:30:30.630
massive international incident and insulting

00:30:30.630 --> 00:30:34.369
a global empire just to stop 146 people from

00:30:34.369 --> 00:30:37.609
moving to California. Unbelievable. And then

00:30:37.609 --> 00:30:40.329
he ended the letter with a standard diplomatic

00:30:40.329 --> 00:30:42.960
warning. He wrote that he felt compelled to warn

00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:45.500
of the grave consequences that this enactment

00:30:45.500 --> 00:30:48.299
would inevitably bring upon the otherwise happy

00:30:48.299 --> 00:30:50.779
and mutually advantageous relations between the

00:30:50.779 --> 00:30:53.119
two countries. OK, so if you read that in the

00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:55.980
context of international diplomacy, grave consequences

00:30:55.980 --> 00:30:59.059
means we are going to raise tariffs. We are going

00:30:59.059 --> 00:31:01.740
to cancel trade deals. Our relationship is going

00:31:01.740 --> 00:31:04.119
to sour. Right. It's economic fallout. It's a

00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:06.400
warning about diplomatic fallout. But how does

00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:08.660
the U .S. Senate react when they read those two

00:31:08.660 --> 00:31:11.180
words? They seize upon it instantly. Hardliners

00:31:11.180 --> 00:31:13.579
in the Senate, led by Henry Cavett Lodge, get

00:31:13.579 --> 00:31:15.980
their hands on this letter. Oh, boy. And instead

00:31:15.980 --> 00:31:18.740
of reading it as a diplomatic protest, they deliberately

00:31:18.740 --> 00:31:22.700
spin the phrase grave consequences as a literal

00:31:22.700 --> 00:31:25.440
physical military threat against the United States.

00:31:25.619 --> 00:31:27.960
They treat it like a declaration of war. Exactly.

00:31:28.539 --> 00:31:30.680
Lodge goes to the Senate floor and essentially

00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.839
says, the Japanese empire is threatening us with

00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:36.660
grave consequences if we pass our own domestic

00:31:36.660 --> 00:31:40.750
law. We cannot let a foreign nation dictate American

00:31:40.750 --> 00:31:43.410
policy through threats of violence. Wow, what

00:31:43.410 --> 00:31:45.990
a spin. It was a completely manufactured spin,

00:31:46.309 --> 00:31:48.750
but it was incredibly effective. It whipped up

00:31:48.750 --> 00:31:51.349
nationalist anger. Any senator who might have

00:31:51.349 --> 00:31:53.410
been on the fence or who might have voted against

00:31:53.410 --> 00:31:56.109
the bill to preserve trade relations was suddenly

00:31:56.109 --> 00:31:58.369
painted into a corner. Right. If you voted against

00:31:58.369 --> 00:32:00.049
the bill now, you looked like you were bowing

00:32:00.049 --> 00:32:03.339
to a foreign threat. It's a brilliant if utterly

00:32:03.339 --> 00:32:06.680
cynical parliamentary maneuver. It forces the

00:32:06.680 --> 00:32:09.240
vote through. But what about the president? Calvin

00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:11.799
Coolidge is a pro -business Republican. He knows

00:32:11.799 --> 00:32:14.160
this is going to hurt trade. Why doesn't he veto

00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:17.960
it? Election year politics. Oh, always. 1924

00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:20.759
was a presidential election year. Coolidge knew

00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:23.759
that the bill had massive populist support from

00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:26.180
the unions to the nativists to the general public

00:32:26.180 --> 00:32:28.690
whipped up by the Red Scare. vetoing the bill

00:32:28.690 --> 00:32:30.849
would have been political suicide. He couldn't

00:32:30.849 --> 00:32:33.390
risk it. And even if he had stood on principle

00:32:33.390 --> 00:32:37.269
and vetoed it, the margins in Congress were overwhelmingly

00:32:37.269 --> 00:32:40.349
against him. The Senate passed the final version

00:32:40.349 --> 00:32:43.789
of the bill with a vote of 69 to 9. The House

00:32:43.789 --> 00:32:47.049
passed it three on eight to 58. So it was veto

00:32:47.049 --> 00:32:49.710
proof anyway? It was veto proof. Two thirds majority

00:32:49.710 --> 00:32:53.309
in both houses. The die was cast. So on May 24,

00:32:53.589 --> 00:32:57.079
1924, Coolidge signs the bill. We've spent a

00:32:57.079 --> 00:32:59.119
lot of time in the quiet rooms of Washington

00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:02.220
looking at the paperwork, the census math, the

00:33:02.220 --> 00:33:04.640
eugenics hearings, the parliamentary spin. The

00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:07.740
bureaucratic side. Right. But as we know, legislation

00:33:07.740 --> 00:33:10.700
doesn't stay on paper. A law is just ink until

00:33:10.700 --> 00:33:13.619
a government enforces it. If you have just banned

00:33:13.619 --> 00:33:15.579
millions of people from entering the country,

00:33:15.900 --> 00:33:18.240
how do you actually stop them at a physical border

00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:21.099
that up until now was essentially open. That's

00:33:21.099 --> 00:33:23.000
the million dollar question. Let's transition

00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:25.519
to the immediate physical realities on the ground

00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:27.440
because the mechanics of the border changed almost

00:33:27.440 --> 00:33:30.319
overnight. They absolutely did. The 1924 Act

00:33:30.319 --> 00:33:32.960
invented two massive logistical systems that

00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:35.019
fundamentally created the modern border apparatus

00:33:35.019 --> 00:33:36.859
we still live with today. What's the first one?

00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:39.819
First, it literally authorized the creation of

00:33:39.819 --> 00:33:42.000
the United States Border Patrol. It's wild to

00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:44.920
think the border patrol didn't exist before 1924.

00:33:45.400 --> 00:33:47.279
If someone wanted to walk across the border from

00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:51.319
Mexico or Canada in 1915, who stopped them? Nobody,

00:33:51.500 --> 00:33:53.460
really. There were mounted watchmen who looked

00:33:53.460 --> 00:33:55.440
for Chinese immigrants trying to smuggle themselves

00:33:55.440 --> 00:33:59.380
in after the 1882 Exclusion Act and customs agents

00:33:59.380 --> 00:34:02.599
looking for untaxed goods. But there was no systemic

00:34:02.599 --> 00:34:04.880
patrol of the physical border. It was just a

00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:08.139
line on a map. But the 1924 act changed the paradigm.

00:34:08.340 --> 00:34:10.500
If you suddenly severely restrict the front door.

00:34:10.710 --> 00:34:13.309
the ports of New York and Boston people are inevitably

00:34:13.309 --> 00:34:15.789
going to seek a side door. Sure, human nature.

00:34:16.010 --> 00:34:19.210
Lawmakers realized that European and Asian immigrants

00:34:19.210 --> 00:34:22.130
would simply sail to Mexico or Canada, which

00:34:22.130 --> 00:34:24.610
had no quotas, and walk across the land border.

00:34:24.849 --> 00:34:27.050
So the creation of the Border Patrol wasn't even

00:34:27.050 --> 00:34:29.489
initially about Mexican or Canadian citizens.

00:34:29.550 --> 00:34:32.809
It was to stop Europeans and Asians from bypassing

00:34:32.809 --> 00:34:35.849
the quotas via the land borders. Exactly. The

00:34:35.849 --> 00:34:37.909
Border Patrol was established just two days after

00:34:37.909 --> 00:34:40.789
the act was passed. Congress initially appropriated

00:34:40.789 --> 00:34:45.050
$1 million to hire 450 patrol inspectors. 450

00:34:45.050 --> 00:34:47.650
guys for the whole border? Yeah, they were issued

00:34:47.650 --> 00:34:50.369
badges and revolvers and tasked with patrolling

00:34:50.369 --> 00:34:53.110
thousands of miles of incredibly porous, difficult

00:34:53.110 --> 00:34:56.409
terrain, primarily along the Mexico -U .S. border.

00:34:57.309 --> 00:34:59.489
This is the moment the southern border transitions

00:34:59.489 --> 00:35:02.230
from a line on a map into a militarized zone

00:35:02.230 --> 00:35:04.960
of enforcement. OK, so that is the physical enforcement

00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:07.679
on the land. But what about the ports? What about

00:35:07.679 --> 00:35:09.980
the millions of people trying to cross the ocean?

00:35:10.059 --> 00:35:12.639
You mentioned a second massive creation. Yes.

00:35:12.739 --> 00:35:15.719
And this second creation was perhaps even more

00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:18.300
globally impactful. Consular control system.

00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:21.900
How did an immigrant get to America before 1924?

00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:25.119
Before this act, the journey was relatively unregulated

00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:28.059
on the departure side. If you were a farmer in

00:35:28.059 --> 00:35:30.579
Italy, You saved up your money, you went to a

00:35:30.579 --> 00:35:32.840
port like Naples, you bought a steamship ticket,

00:35:32.920 --> 00:35:35.260
and you got on the boat. Okay. You sailed across

00:35:35.260 --> 00:35:37.260
the Atlantic and you arrived at Ellis Island.

00:35:37.820 --> 00:35:39.739
The inspection, the medical checks, the legal

00:35:39.739 --> 00:35:42.159
checks happened after you arrived on American

00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:44.559
soil. And if you failed? If you failed the inspection,

00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:46.900
the steamship company had to sail you back at

00:35:46.900 --> 00:35:49.460
their own expense. Which was incredibly tragic.

00:35:49.699 --> 00:35:51.920
People would sell everything they own, make the

00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:54.039
brutal journey, and be turned away at the gates

00:35:54.039 --> 00:35:57.239
of New York. It was heartbreaking. But the 1924

00:35:57.239 --> 00:36:01.179
Act completely dismantled that system. It mandated

00:36:01.179 --> 00:36:03.420
that immigrants could no longer just show up

00:36:03.420 --> 00:36:05.360
at a U .S. port. So what did they have to do?

00:36:05.579 --> 00:36:08.500
They now had to obtain a valid immigration visa

00:36:08.500 --> 00:36:11.559
from an American consulate abroad before they

00:36:11.559 --> 00:36:13.460
were even legally allowed to purchase a ticket

00:36:13.460 --> 00:36:16.699
or board a ship. So they essentially pushed the

00:36:16.699 --> 00:36:19.099
U .S. border out into foreign countries. They

00:36:19.099 --> 00:36:22.429
outsourced the gatekeeping. Precisely. It created

00:36:22.429 --> 00:36:25.289
what historians call a double layer of protection.

00:36:25.849 --> 00:36:28.010
First, you had to travel to a city in your home

00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:30.250
country that had a U .S. embassy or consulate.

00:36:30.289 --> 00:36:32.889
Okay. You had to apply for a visa, prove you

00:36:32.889 --> 00:36:35.309
didn't violate the quotas, undergo medical and

00:36:35.309 --> 00:36:37.190
background checks by American officials operating

00:36:37.190 --> 00:36:39.949
on foreign soil, and wait for approval. All before

00:36:39.949 --> 00:36:42.550
leaving home. If you passed that, you got the

00:36:42.550 --> 00:36:45.449
visa. Then you made the journey. And then you

00:36:45.449 --> 00:36:47.449
were checked again upon arrival in the U .S.

00:36:47.550 --> 00:36:50.690
That gives the State Department immense, unprecedented

00:36:50.690 --> 00:36:53.050
control over who even starts the journey. You

00:36:53.050 --> 00:36:54.829
don't have to deport people if you never let

00:36:54.829 --> 00:36:57.130
them on the boat. And it fundamentally transformed

00:36:57.130 --> 00:36:59.869
the logistics of global travel. The visa system

00:36:59.869 --> 00:37:02.409
we all use today to travel internationally, that

00:37:02.409 --> 00:37:04.489
bureaucratic hurdle of going to an embassy and

00:37:04.489 --> 00:37:07.989
getting a stamp and a passport, was largely popularized

00:37:07.989 --> 00:37:10.530
and institutionalized by the requirements of

00:37:10.530 --> 00:37:14.380
the 1924 Act. So the U .S. throws up these massive

00:37:14.380 --> 00:37:16.920
bureaucratic and physical walls. Let's look at

00:37:16.920 --> 00:37:19.239
the global shockwaves of this action, because

00:37:19.239 --> 00:37:22.019
when you slam a door that hard, the sound echoes.

00:37:22.059 --> 00:37:23.880
It reverberates everywhere. Let's go back to

00:37:23.880 --> 00:37:26.739
Japan. They warned about grave consequences and

00:37:26.739 --> 00:37:28.619
the U .S. Senate essentially laughed in their

00:37:28.619 --> 00:37:31.840
faces and passed the ban anyway. What actually

00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:34.119
happened in Tokyo when the news broke? The reaction

00:37:34.119 --> 00:37:36.940
in Japan was a mixture of intense, profound sorrow

00:37:36.940 --> 00:37:40.300
and furious national anger. It was viewed across

00:37:40.300 --> 00:37:43.460
Japanese society as an unforgivable national

00:37:43.460 --> 00:37:46.159
humiliation. They felt completely betrayed. The

00:37:46.159 --> 00:37:48.739
U .S. essentially told them, we do not view you

00:37:48.739 --> 00:37:51.219
as equals on the world stage, and we do not view

00:37:51.219 --> 00:37:53.280
your people as biologically fit to live among

00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:56.480
us. Wow. The diplomatic fallout was immediate.

00:37:57.940 --> 00:38:00.219
Japanese ambassadors, including Hanehara, resigned

00:38:00.219 --> 00:38:03.260
in protest. The Japanese government retaliated

00:38:03.260 --> 00:38:05.760
economically by heavily hiking tariffs on American

00:38:05.760 --> 00:38:09.599
goods by 100%, which severely hurt American businesses

00:38:09.599 --> 00:38:11.760
operating in the Pacific. And there was a visceral

00:38:11.760 --> 00:38:13.880
public reaction too, wasn't there? Yes, there

00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:16.820
were massive anti -American boycotts, and there

00:38:16.820 --> 00:38:19.579
was a highly publicized, deeply tragic incident

00:38:19.579 --> 00:38:22.500
where an unknown Japanese citizen committed seppuku

00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:25.079
ritual suicide right near the compound of the

00:38:25.079 --> 00:38:28.210
U .S. Embassy in Tokyo. That is just chilling.

00:38:28.469 --> 00:38:30.909
He left behind a note that simply read, appealing

00:38:30.909 --> 00:38:32.929
to the American people. The sense of betrayal

00:38:32.929 --> 00:38:36.150
was absolute. That is heartbreaking. And it goes

00:38:36.150 --> 00:38:38.710
far beyond just a temporary diplomatic freeze.

00:38:39.019 --> 00:38:41.840
In our sources, historian David C. Atkinson traces

00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:44.179
the long -term political domino effect this had

00:38:44.179 --> 00:38:46.960
inside Japan, and it is honestly terrifying.

00:38:47.159 --> 00:38:49.719
Atkinson's analysis is vital. During the 1920s,

00:38:49.880 --> 00:38:51.920
Japan actually had a growing, albeit fragile,

00:38:52.199 --> 00:38:54.300
democratic movement. Oh, really? Yeah. There

00:38:54.300 --> 00:38:57.320
were liberal, pro -Western politicians who were

00:38:57.320 --> 00:39:00.380
arguing for international cooperation, disarmament,

00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:02.900
and peaceful trade with the United States and

00:39:02.900 --> 00:39:05.139
Britain. That sounds like a completely different

00:39:05.139 --> 00:39:07.519
path. But the passage of the American Immigration

00:39:07.519 --> 00:39:11.260
Act of 1924 dealt a near -fatal blow to that

00:39:11.260 --> 00:39:13.500
democratic movement. Because it made the pro

00:39:13.500 --> 00:39:16.650
-Western politicians look weak. Exactly. The

00:39:16.650 --> 00:39:19.869
hardline right -wing militarists in Japan looked

00:39:19.869 --> 00:39:22.570
at the liberal politicians and said, you advocate

00:39:22.570 --> 00:39:24.510
for friendship with the Americans. Look at how

00:39:24.510 --> 00:39:27.190
they treat us. They despise us. They pass racist

00:39:27.190 --> 00:39:30.289
laws against us. That's powerful political ammunition.

00:39:30.469 --> 00:39:33.469
They argued we cannot rely on international cooperation.

00:39:33.769 --> 00:39:35.829
We must rely on military strength and imperial

00:39:35.829 --> 00:39:38.750
expansion to secure our future. So the racist

00:39:38.750 --> 00:39:41.030
quota passed in a quiet room in Washington in

00:39:41.030 --> 00:39:44.130
1924 directly undermines Japanese democracy.

00:39:44.349 --> 00:39:47.000
Yes. Atkinson notes that this humiliation opened

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:49.380
the door for those anti -Western militarists

00:39:49.380 --> 00:39:51.760
to gradually take control of the Japanese government

00:39:51.760 --> 00:39:54.960
in the late 1920s and 1930s. Leading to World

00:39:54.960 --> 00:39:58.110
War II. It is widely seen by historians as a

00:39:58.110 --> 00:40:00.809
major turning point, a catalyst in the growing

00:40:00.809 --> 00:40:03.550
estrangement between the U .S. and Japan, setting

00:40:03.550 --> 00:40:06.710
the two empires on a slow, grinding collision

00:40:06.710 --> 00:40:09.329
course that ultimately culminated in the Japanese

00:40:09.329 --> 00:40:12.130
attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It is terrifying

00:40:12.130 --> 00:40:14.530
to trace that line of causality. You change a

00:40:14.530 --> 00:40:17.210
census baseline year in Washington and 17 years

00:40:17.210 --> 00:40:19.969
later, battleships are burning in Hawaii. Actions

00:40:19.969 --> 00:40:23.429
have massive unintended consequences. And Japan

00:40:23.429 --> 00:40:26.840
wasn't the only place where the 1924 act had

00:40:26.840 --> 00:40:29.880
devastating historical consequences. Let's look

00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:32.179
across the Atlantic at Europe, specifically the

00:40:32.179 --> 00:40:34.940
impact on Jewish migration, because the math

00:40:34.940 --> 00:40:37.159
they invented was about to collide with the darkest

00:40:37.159 --> 00:40:39.599
chapter of the 20th century. The impact here

00:40:39.599 --> 00:40:42.250
is profoundly dark. As we discussed earlier,

00:40:42.650 --> 00:40:45.170
the 1890 census math was explicitly designed

00:40:45.170 --> 00:40:47.670
to target and restrict Eastern and Southern Europeans.

00:40:47.849 --> 00:40:50.650
Right, the time machine algorithm. Well, demographically,

00:40:51.030 --> 00:40:53.829
nearly 75 % of all Jewish immigrants in the U

00:40:53.829 --> 00:40:57.309
.S. prior to 1924 had come from Russia and Eastern

00:40:57.309 --> 00:40:59.769
Europe. Oh, wow. Because mass migration from

00:40:59.769 --> 00:41:02.030
those areas didn't really start until the late

00:41:02.030 --> 00:41:05.929
1890s. Using the 1890 baseline... effectively

00:41:05.929 --> 00:41:08.610
made mass migration from Eastern Europe, where

00:41:08.610 --> 00:41:11.849
the vast majority of the global Jewish diaspora

00:41:11.849 --> 00:41:14.570
lived at the time, mathematically impossible.

00:41:14.769 --> 00:41:17.409
The door was slammed shut. The quota for countries

00:41:17.409 --> 00:41:19.670
like Poland and Russia dropped to practically

00:41:19.670 --> 00:41:22.809
nothing. Yes. And this had an immediate demographic

00:41:22.809 --> 00:41:25.070
shift, right? Because millions of Jewish people

00:41:25.070 --> 00:41:27.730
who were facing rising anti -Semitism in programs

00:41:27.730 --> 00:41:29.849
in Eastern Europe could no longer come to America.

00:41:29.909 --> 00:41:32.250
They had to go somewhere else. This spurred what

00:41:32.250 --> 00:41:35.360
is known as the Fourth Lea. Correct. Blocked

00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:37.920
from entering the United States, a massive wave

00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:40.159
of Jewish immigration turned toward mandatory

00:41:40.159 --> 00:41:43.639
Palestine. The British Peel Commission in 1937

00:41:43.639 --> 00:41:45.760
specifically noted that the drastic American

00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:48.699
quotas were a primary factor in spurring immigration

00:41:48.699 --> 00:41:51.179
levels to Palestine that hadn't been previously

00:41:51.179 --> 00:41:53.599
anticipated. Which obviously drastically altered

00:41:53.599 --> 00:41:55.639
the demographic and political landscape of the

00:41:55.639 --> 00:41:59.010
Middle East. But the absolute grimmest historical

00:41:59.010 --> 00:42:01.610
footnote regarding the 1924 Act is what happened

00:42:01.610 --> 00:42:03.929
in the decades immediately following its passage.

00:42:04.750 --> 00:42:07.130
We move into the 1930s. The rise of the Third

00:42:07.130 --> 00:42:10.460
Reich. Exactly. The Nazi Party rises to power

00:42:10.460 --> 00:42:12.960
in Germany. They begin their systemic brutal

00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:16.199
persecution of the Jews. The Nuremberg laws are

00:42:16.199 --> 00:42:19.840
passed. A massive desperate refugee crisis emerges

00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:22.760
as Jewish families try to flee Europe. And they

00:42:22.760 --> 00:42:24.780
look to the United States for asylum. Right.

00:42:24.920 --> 00:42:27.340
They're desperately trying to get visas. But

00:42:27.340 --> 00:42:29.679
what happens with the quotas? Does Congress look

00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:32.360
at the humanitarian crisis and say, OK, the circumstances

00:42:32.360 --> 00:42:34.980
have changed. We need to lift the 2 % cap. No,

00:42:35.099 --> 00:42:37.099
they do not. The United States government did

00:42:37.099 --> 00:42:39.820
not modify the quotas at all. Despite the obvious,

00:42:39.960 --> 00:42:42.460
well -documented and escalating horrors of the

00:42:42.460 --> 00:42:45.280
Holocaust, the strict numerical limits established

00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:47.760
by the eugenics driven math of the 1920s were

00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:50.320
rigidly kept in place. The law was simply not

00:42:50.320 --> 00:42:52.659
altered to aid Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.

00:42:52.739 --> 00:42:56.099
That is just sickening. There are countless tragic

00:42:56.099 --> 00:42:59.639
stories of families who were denied visas because

00:42:59.639 --> 00:43:02.500
the quota for their birth country was already

00:43:02.500 --> 00:43:05.280
full for the year. They were trapped. and so

00:43:05.280 --> 00:43:07.360
they couldn't escape. The quota system worked

00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:09.719
exactly as its original architects designed it

00:43:09.719 --> 00:43:13.579
to, keeping undesirables out, regardless of the

00:43:13.579 --> 00:43:16.300
humanitarian cost. It is incredibly sobering.

00:43:16.500 --> 00:43:19.639
You realize that a mathematical formula designed

00:43:19.639 --> 00:43:22.599
to protect a manufactured idea of racial purity

00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:25.349
ended up being a death sentence for thousands

00:43:25.349 --> 00:43:28.130
of people. It really was. And look, even if we

00:43:28.130 --> 00:43:31.170
step away from the profound moral and humanitarian

00:43:31.170 --> 00:43:34.170
tragedies, even if we look purely at the domestic

00:43:34.170 --> 00:43:36.650
cold, hard economic outcomes that people like

00:43:36.650 --> 00:43:38.849
union leader Samuel Gompers were so worried about,

00:43:39.349 --> 00:43:42.489
the act still managed to backfire spectacularly

00:43:42.489 --> 00:43:44.369
on the United States. Oh, the economics of it

00:43:44.369 --> 00:43:46.869
totally failed. We now have modern economic studies

00:43:46.869 --> 00:43:49.170
looking back at a century of data. What did this

00:43:49.170 --> 00:43:51.130
restriction actually do to the American economy?

00:43:51.210 --> 00:43:53.590
It did the exact opposite of what Gompers and

00:43:53.590 --> 00:43:55.800
the protection as hoped it would do. How so?

00:43:56.239 --> 00:43:59.699
Economists Petra Moser and Shmuel San published

00:43:59.699 --> 00:44:03.239
a highly detailed paper in 2020 analyzing the

00:44:03.239 --> 00:44:07.019
long term economic impact of the 1924 quotas.

00:44:07.059 --> 00:44:10.059
They focused on science and innovation. OK. They

00:44:10.059 --> 00:44:12.840
found that the drastic sudden reduction in immigration

00:44:12.840 --> 00:44:15.900
from Eastern and Southern Europe caused a significant

00:44:15.900 --> 00:44:18.920
measurable drop in American scientific innovation.

00:44:19.059 --> 00:44:21.420
Because fewer immigrant scientists were arriving.

00:44:21.619 --> 00:44:23.630
That is part of it, but it goes deeper. There

00:44:23.630 --> 00:44:26.710
were vastly fewer new patents filed. Yes, because

00:44:26.710 --> 00:44:29.269
the immigrant scientists were kept out. But the

00:44:29.269 --> 00:44:31.429
study found a sharp decline in patents filed

00:44:31.429 --> 00:44:33.590
by Native -born American scientists as well.

00:44:33.789 --> 00:44:36.090
Wait, Native -born Americans stopped inventing

00:44:36.090 --> 00:44:38.860
as much. Why? By cutting off the flow of international

00:44:38.860 --> 00:44:41.659
talent, the U .S. isolated its own scientific

00:44:41.659 --> 00:44:44.039
community. Native -born scientists were no longer

00:44:44.039 --> 00:44:46.159
collaborating with, competing against, or being

00:44:46.159 --> 00:44:48.880
pushed by brilliant international peers. The

00:44:48.880 --> 00:44:51.860
entire ecosystem of innovation stagnated. Wow.

00:44:52.179 --> 00:44:54.420
So trying to protect American exceptionalism

00:44:54.420 --> 00:44:56.639
actually weakened it. But what about the blue

00:44:56.639 --> 00:44:59.800
-collar workers? The folks Gompers was trying

00:44:59.800 --> 00:45:02.739
to protect, the miners, the farmers, the factory

00:45:02.739 --> 00:45:05.539
workers who were terrified of cheap labor driving

00:45:05.539 --> 00:45:08.179
down their wages. The everyday worker. Right.

00:45:08.500 --> 00:45:11.519
Did the 1924 act usher in a golden age of high

00:45:11.519 --> 00:45:14.340
wages for the American working class? Not according

00:45:14.340 --> 00:45:17.619
to the data. A major 2023 study published in

00:45:17.619 --> 00:45:19.780
the American Economic Journal looks specifically

00:45:19.780 --> 00:45:22.340
at the industries most affected by the sudden

00:45:22.340 --> 00:45:24.900
loss of cheap immigrant labor. And what did they

00:45:24.900 --> 00:45:27.800
find? And the findings are fascinating. The end

00:45:27.800 --> 00:45:29.940
of that labor pool didn't lead to factory owners

00:45:29.940 --> 00:45:32.300
suddenly doubling wages for native -born workers.

00:45:33.360 --> 00:45:35.860
Instead, capitalist industries adapted to the

00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:39.000
scarcity. How did they adapt? Well, the agricultural

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.559
sector, which was highly reliant on migrant labor,

00:45:42.260 --> 00:45:44.739
shifted rapidly towards capital -intensive methods.

00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:48.119
Instead of paying higher wages to American farmhands,

00:45:48.519 --> 00:45:50.699
farm owners invested heavily in mechanization.

00:45:50.889 --> 00:45:54.469
So tractors, reapers, automated systems. Yeah,

00:45:54.469 --> 00:45:56.730
they replaced the missing immigrants with machines.

00:45:56.889 --> 00:45:59.769
The mining industry, which was also heavily reliant

00:45:59.769 --> 00:46:02.349
on immigrant labor in places like Appalachia,

00:46:02.510 --> 00:46:05.150
couldn't automate as easily. So it simply contracted.

00:46:05.809 --> 00:46:08.289
Mines closed down. So jobs just disappeared.

00:46:08.590 --> 00:46:10.809
Ultimately, the economic contraction in some

00:46:10.809 --> 00:46:13.610
sectors and the rapid shift toward mechanization

00:46:13.610 --> 00:46:17.050
in others ended up economically harming the very

00:46:17.050 --> 00:46:19.550
U .S.-born workers the act was ostensibly supposed

00:46:19.550 --> 00:46:22.150
to protect. The American worker didn't get a

00:46:22.150 --> 00:46:24.889
raise, they got replaced by a machine, or they

00:46:24.889 --> 00:46:27.650
lost their job when the industry shrank. So if

00:46:27.650 --> 00:46:30.690
we step back and look at the entire massive picture

00:46:30.690 --> 00:46:33.389
we've painted today, let's summarize the journey

00:46:33.389 --> 00:46:36.230
of this single piece of legislation. It's a heavy

00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:39.210
journey. We started in an America gripped by

00:46:39.210 --> 00:46:42.809
post -World War I economic anxiety and the ideological

00:46:42.809 --> 00:46:46.420
hysteria of the Red Scare. Those very real, very

00:46:46.420 --> 00:46:49.619
potent fears were weaponized by lawmakers pushing

00:46:49.619 --> 00:46:52.219
the mainstream pseudoscience of eugenics. Right,

00:46:52.320 --> 00:46:54.380
the biological threat narrative. Because they

00:46:54.380 --> 00:46:56.920
couldn't explicitly ban people by nationality

00:46:56.920 --> 00:46:59.340
without causing chaos, they reached back into

00:46:59.340 --> 00:47:03.239
the past. They pulled out outdated 1890 census

00:47:03.239 --> 00:47:06.400
data to mathematically engineer a quota system

00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:09.139
that artificially inflated Northern European

00:47:09.139 --> 00:47:12.320
numbers and erased everyone else. The time machine

00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:14.840
algorithm. They used that algorithm to preserve

00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:18.179
a manufactured ideal of racial homogeneity. And

00:47:18.179 --> 00:47:20.460
the consequences of that bureaucratic engineering

00:47:20.460 --> 00:47:24.269
were seismic. They inadvertently sparked global

00:47:24.269 --> 00:47:26.610
chain reactions that defined the 20th century.

00:47:27.230 --> 00:47:29.289
Seriously. They created the modern border apparatus

00:47:29.289 --> 00:47:32.010
and the consular visa system. They accidentally

00:47:32.010 --> 00:47:35.130
fueled the rise of Japanese militarism by humiliating

00:47:35.130 --> 00:47:37.730
a rising Pacific power. They stifled their own

00:47:37.730 --> 00:47:39.690
domestic economic and scientific innovation.

00:47:39.829 --> 00:47:42.710
It's just failure after failure. And most tragically,

00:47:42.909 --> 00:47:45.349
they shut the door on millions of refugees right

00:47:45.349 --> 00:47:47.269
before one of the darkest periods in human history.

00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.719
trapping them in Europe. It is a phenomenal terrifying

00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:54.360
example of how bureaucracy is never neutral every

00:47:54.360 --> 00:47:58.219
number every baseline year every percentage point

00:47:58.219 --> 00:48:00.820
in a law has a philosophy behind it and real

00:48:00.820 --> 00:48:03.199
world consequences ahead of it. We look at the

00:48:03.199 --> 00:48:05.199
paperwork and think it is just administration,

00:48:05.199 --> 00:48:08.739
but it is destiny. It truly is. And before we

00:48:08.739 --> 00:48:11.079
close, I want to leave you, the listener, with

00:48:11.079 --> 00:48:13.940
one final, deeply chilling piece of historical

00:48:13.940 --> 00:48:16.320
context to mull over. OK, what is it? We spent

00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:18.579
this whole deep dive looking at how America's

00:48:18.579 --> 00:48:21.139
fears shaped this law and how the law impacted

00:48:21.139 --> 00:48:23.440
the rest of the world. But the ultimate legacy

00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:26.300
of the Immigration Act of 1924 wasn't just domestic.

00:48:26.440 --> 00:48:29.159
The eugenic framework and the concept of legally

00:48:29.159 --> 00:48:32.380
manufacturing racial demographics didn't go unnoticed

00:48:32.380 --> 00:48:35.099
abroad. Oh, no. Four years after the act passed

00:48:35.099 --> 00:48:38.440
in 1928, a rising radical political figure in

00:48:38.440 --> 00:48:41.000
Europe published a book where he explicitly and

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:43.239
publicly praised the American immigration law.

00:48:43.559 --> 00:48:45.960
Seriously. He praised it for its success in banishing

00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:48.239
what he called strangers of the blood. He expressed

00:48:48.239 --> 00:48:50.159
deep admiration for how the United States had

00:48:50.159 --> 00:48:52.960
managed to legally methodically exclude foreign

00:48:52.960 --> 00:48:55.440
racial masses from its gene pool. Let me guess.

00:48:55.699 --> 00:48:58.710
That European leader was Adolf Hitler. Wow. He

00:48:58.710 --> 00:49:00.849
wrote about the American quota system in his

00:49:00.849 --> 00:49:04.050
unpublished second book and the framers of his

00:49:04.050 --> 00:49:06.849
later regime would go on to cite U .S. immigration

00:49:06.849 --> 00:49:09.769
and segregation law favorably when drafting their

00:49:09.769 --> 00:49:12.690
own racist exclusionary legislation in the 1930s.

00:49:12.769 --> 00:49:15.349
That is just devastating. It invites us to consider

00:49:15.349 --> 00:49:18.960
a very dark reality. How laws designed in a quiet

00:49:18.960 --> 00:49:21.679
room to protect a nation's identity can end up

00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:23.900
writing the blueprints for history's darkest

00:49:23.900 --> 00:49:26.219
chapters across the globe. So the next time you

00:49:26.219 --> 00:49:28.699
hear about a shift in a quota, a change in a

00:49:28.699 --> 00:49:31.119
baseline year, or a debate over the math of a

00:49:31.119 --> 00:49:33.099
border, well, remember that the muddy waters

00:49:33.099 --> 00:49:35.559
of bureaucratic policy are never just math. They

00:49:35.559 --> 00:49:37.619
are the blueprints of the future. Thank you for

00:49:37.619 --> 00:49:39.739
joining us on this deep dive. Something to think

00:49:39.739 --> 00:49:40.039
about.