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Michigan State
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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
ETHNIC PREJUDICE AND RACIAL IDEDImY IN THE
DMGRATION ARTICLES OF WIT-I L. ROBERI‘S

presented by

Gary Frank Hoffinan

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

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ETHNIC PREJUDICE AND RACIAL IDEOLOGY IN THE

IMMIGRATION ARTICLES OF KENNETH L. ROBERTS

BY

Gary Frank Hoffman

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

School of Journalism

1979

ABSTRACT

ETHNIC PREJUDICE AND RACIAL IDEOLOGY IN THE
IMMIGRATION ARTICLES OF KENNETH L. ROBERTS

BY

Gary Hoffman

This thesis is an analysis of the articles of
Kenneth L. Roberts on Eur0pean immigration in the Satur-

day Evening Post, primarily between 1920 and 1924. It

 

suggests that the probable sources of Roberts' negative
view of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were
his personal prejudices and the supposedly scientific
doctrines of the early twentieth century that proclaimed
the moral and intellectual superiority of northern Euro-
pean peeples. This thesis also examines how Roberts used
racial arguments in his articles in an effort to influence
the U.S. Congress to pass a discriminatory immigration
law. The major sources for this study are the Saturday

Evening Post articles, Roberts' memoirs, and unpublished

 

manuscripts among his personal papers.

Accepted by the faculty of the School of Journalism,
College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Michigan
State University, in partial fulfillment of the require-

ments for the Master of Arts degree.

45:;gkz7‘jéj;;%é;: gif»\_,,

Director of Thesis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer wishes to express his appreciation
to Dr. Robert Hudson for his invaluable advice during
the research, organization, and writing of this thesis.

Others also provided important assistance.

Dr. Maurice Cullen provided early guidance; Dr. Stanley
Soffin also aided this writer during the intermediate
stages of research and writing; and Dr. Mary Gardner
gave this writer an early interest in national and
cultural biases in international reporting.

Finally, gratitude is also expressed to my wife,
Marilyn, and my young son, Michael, for their love and

patience during this work.

ii

INTRODUCTION

Chapter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I.

1. THE IMMIGRANTS .

2. THE RESTRICTIONISTS

PART II.

3. THE EARLY YEARS.

4. THE ASSIGNMENT .

5. THE INVESTIGATION
6. THE EVIDENCE.
7. POLICY-MAKING
8. THE AFTERMATH

9. CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BACKGROUND

KENNETH L.

iii

16

28
35
43
52
63
74
82

87

INTRODUCTION

The views of Kenneth L. Roberts on race and immi-
gration were the distilled hatreds and prejudices of his
times. During the early 19203, his articles in the

Saturday EveningAPost exhibited the narrow nationalistic

 

biases of the post-World War I era as he scrutinized
certain ethnic groups. Roberts attacked immigrants from
southern and eastern Europe, arguing that they were bio-
logically inferior, unsuited to American citizenship.
The sources of these arguments were his own consistently
pro-American and anti—foreign biases and some of the pre-
vailing scientific theories on superior and inferior i
races. His subjective opinions were supported by the -S
apparently objective pronouncements of racial theorists. J'
These influences subverted what was conceived as an inde—
pendent journalistic inquiry and made it a naive vehicle
for racial propaganda.

The years 1919 through 1924 were years of
heightened nationalistic sentiment, a hangover from

I I l I O O
wartime pa531ons and fears. American political leaders,

 

1John Higham, Strangers inlthe Land: Patterns of
American Nativism, l§60-I925 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1955), p. 233.

 

1

educators and spokesmen for various interest groups were
concerned about immigration, probably because immigrants
were a major, highly visible foreign element in America.
Many Americans unjustly associated immigrants with the
radicalism of 1919, when, in fact, immigrants were largely
conservative, wary of social change.1 The anti-immigrant
sentiment culminated in two restrictive laws, one in 1921
and another in 1924. The stricter 1924 law drastically
reduced immigration from southern and eastern Europe.

The articles of Kenneth L. Roberts illustrate
anti-foreign prejudices. These sentiments were pervasive,
coloring his thoughts and observations. He demonstrated
chauvinism in his writings before the first immigration
article, and throughout his articles on immigration con-
tinued to disparage most foreign peOples and customs,
while praising Americans and their way of life. His
sentiments were not merely opinions; they were deeply
entrenched attitudes.

His xenophobia, or fear of foreigners, was appar- ‘ \
ently unconscious. He prided himself on his journalistic_;
honesty and he railed against propagandists in all their
forms. He was a firm believer in the time-honored dictum

that a reporter should not get too close to his sources.2

 

lHigham, Strangers, p. 232.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, I Wanted to Write (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1949), p. 144.

 

He admired writers who investigated things for themselves
instead of relying on the evidence of others.1 His suc-
cession of articles on immigration was initially conceived
as journalistic inquiry. George Horace Lorimer, editor

of the Saturday Evening Post, used the words "actual

 

investigation" during the planning of Roberts' first trip
through Europe to examine and report on the immigrants.
Lorimer evidently had some awareness of Roberts' extreme
hostility toward foreign peoples; he had to warn him not
to unnecessarily antagonize foreign countries with his
articles.2

Roberts added substance to his findings about the
undesirable characteristics of Jews, Slavs and Italians
by citing the opinions of experts on immigration. He
argued, in effect, that his opinions were not merely
personal prejudices, since they were supported by others
in different positions and professions. He relied heavily
on the statements of consular officials who dealt with
immigrants in EurOpe and who, he seemed to believe, had
a particularly good Opportunity to observe and to judge
immigrants. He implied that his views were objectiye
because they were corroboratedflby different people in \—
different occupations and, sometimes, with different

political views. Once, after reciting a litany of

 

1Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 134.

 

21bid., p. 135.

complaints about Jews, he wrote: "Even the most liberal
minded authorities state that they are highly undesirable
as immigrants."1

Many of Roberts' assertions seemed to carry the"
weight of scientific truth. Eugenicists, or scientists”
in the field of human breeding, propounded theories of
the superiority of the northern European peOples. Certain
biological laws, according to Roberts and the eugenicists,
governed the breeding of men as well as animals. Certain
races were morally and intellectually superior. The word
"race" was an elastic term, sometimes encompassing the
populations of whole regions, such as northwestern or
eastern EurOpe, and at other times specifying a particular,
well-defined ethnic group, such as the Magyars of Hungary.
Whatever the sc0pe of the classification system, the com-
mon theme was that differences between the groups were
biological.2 A related theory was that there was an
American race, the descendants of northern European
peoples who could becontaminated by intermarriage and
madeextinct by competition with immigrants from southern

and central Europe.3

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Goal of Central Eur0peans,"
Saturday Evening Post, 6 November 1920, p. 62.

 

2Jethro K. Lieberman, Are Americans Extinct? (New
York: Walker and Company, 1968), p. 33.

 

3Ibid., p. 36.

Writers and organized interest groups, notably "’54

the Immigration Restriction League, were influential in

promoting these ideas in the press and among legislators.ffw

In some cases, these people were simultaneously authori-
ties on immigration and spokesmen for a well-defined

racial viewpoint. The doctrine of Nordic supremacy and

a host 9f other racial arguments during the early 19203 ff

.—
,_.—r

were merely extensions of the fears and class~conscious- 5
ness of many wealthy educated Easterners. These influ-
ential gentlemen were threatened by immigration. Large

F—‘——"

numberswof immigrants foretold the end of a homogeneous

#1..

dominated for generations.lf

Roberts' articles became propaganda for the
restrictionists, although he probably never thought of
himself as a propagandist. While the effects of prOpa-
ganda by Roberts and the propagandists were similar,
their intentions sometimes differed. Both Roberts and
the league publicists wrote magazine articles advocating
restriction of immigration, but journalism was not the
profession of the restrictionists; magazine articles were
just one more tool designed to bring about passage of the

desired legislation. They also found that writing books

and lobbying in Congress effectively promoted their

 

1Barbara M. Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), pp. 83-102.

an... ..

points of View.1 On the other hand, Roberts was a
journalist. He did not set out to publicize a particular
set of racial beliefs. He arrived at these beliefs dur—
ing an admittedly biased, but independent, investigation.
A prOpagandist knows, or pretends to know, the truth; a
journalist endeavors to discover it. The close corres-
pondence of Roberts' arguments and those of the restric—
tionists suggests the writer's personal biases and pro-
fessional weaknesses rather than his conscious adoption

of the role of the restrictionists.

The Methodology

 

This study is based on primary sources, including
Roberts' own articles on immigration and other subjects,
his memoirs, and his private papers. These illustrate
some of the apparent origins of Roberts' ethnic and racial
prejudice and help to place his ideas within the contexts
of their times and of his career.

As background, this thesis provides an examination
of the social phenomenon of immigration. Federal figures
on immigration illuminate the immigration situation during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, high-
lighting the unprecedented numbers of immigrants and sug-

gesting the inevitability of some conflict and friction

 

1Mark Hughlin Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian
Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1963), p. 132.

 

 

between Americans and immigrants. Roberts' reporting is
then considered as a manifestation of this hostility.

This thesis examines Roberts' writings, primarily .
between the years 1920 and 1924. It analyzes his argu-
ments against immigration and the relationship between
his ideas and the ideas of racial theorists. This study
also looks at a recurring theme, his steadfast nationalism,
as it was exhibited before, during and after the most of
the immigration articles. The primary sources for this
examination include both published articles and unpublished
manuscripts.

Roberts' immigration articles, his memoirs, and
unpublished biographical manuscripts provide important
clues to his sense of journalistic ethics. His profes-
sional attitudes, particularly during his formative period

as a reporter for the Boston Post, are reflected in the

 

memoirs and manuscripts. His later articles for the

Saturday Evening Post reveal many of the same attitudesl

 

The works of scholars about immigrants and immi-
gration during the early twentieth century help to illus-
trate the fundamental character of the immigration
restriction movement, outlining its intellectual context

and identifying its activists. In Ancestors and Immi-

 

grants, Barbara M. Solomon traced the roots of the Immi—
gration Restriction League. Kenneth M. Ludmerer in

Genetics in American Society and Jethro K. Lieberman in

 

Are Americans Extinct? described the eugenics movement

 

and its offshoot, the movement to restrict immigration.
They also describe in detail the major actions and strate-

gies of the league. George M. Stephenson's A History of

 

American Immigration, John H. Higham's Strangers in the

 

 

Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1660-1925, and

Maldwyn Allen Jones' American Immigration all provide

 

insight on the postwar paranoia that seemed to increase
ethnic prejudice and intolerance.1 Higham's work, in
particular, brings together the varied elements of this
era and defines its spirit.

This study is in part built upon the findings of
these scholars. It scrutinizes one element of the history
of immigration and immigration restriction, the role of
Kenneth L. Roberts. Although this paper is limited to
one person, that person was possibly one of the more
influential figures in the history of immigration restric-

tion in the United States.

 

1See John H. Higham, Strangers in the Land: Pat-
terns of American Nativism, 1660-1925 (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1955), pp. 280-350; Maldwyn
Allen Jones, American Immigration (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 143-240; Jethro K. Lieberman,
Are Americans Extinct? (New York: Walker and Company,
1968), passim; Kenneth E. Ludmerer, Genetics in American
Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972),
pp. 100-83; Barbara M. Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), passim; and
George M. Stephenson, A History of American Immigration
(New York: Ginn and Company, 1926), pp. 317-532.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PART I

BACKGROUND

CHAPTER 1

THE IMMIGRANTS

The massive immigration of the late nineteenth
century and early twentieth century occurred as a result
of conditions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The
promise of freedom and prosperity beckoned Europeans, and
the shortcomings of their lives in their homelands encour-
aged them to leave. The growth of industry and technology
simultaneously made life in Europe less attractive and
life in the United States appealing. Technology was the
prOperty of rich landowners in Europe; it was a competi-
tive edge that put the tenant farmer and small landowner
out of business. In America, the same industrial revo-
lution, thriving in the robust economic atmosphere of the
United States, provided jobs in American cities for immi-
grant labor. Moreover, technical innovations in trans-
portation, particularly the steamship, made migration to
the United States easier.

Friction between ethnic groups was probably
inevitable during the social changes caused by immigration.

The shipping companies, like other businesses of the

10

industrial era, became dynamic enterprises, aggressively
seeking new markets.1 Their desire for new business led
them to the backwaters of central and southeast Europe,
areas barely touched by the industrial revolution and
separated from innovative western EurOpe by half a con-
tinent.2 Technology had narrowed the distance between
cultures by bringing Poles, Italians, Jews, Greeks and
others thousands of miles and setting them down next to
western Europeans. Technology had created an unsettled
mix of different peeples with different languages and
cultures on a scale unmatched in the history of the world.
Millions of people were displaced; the magnitude of the
movement of peoples during the barbarian invasions of the
Roman Empire could be measured, by comparison, only in
the tens or hundreds of thousands.3 During the latter
half of the nineteenth century, the less secure Americans
saw the newcomers as a threat, but the real threat was
sudden change. American pioneers had lived during a
period of more or less gradual change; the later waves

of immigration can be seen as a demographic upheaval.

 

1Maldwyn Allen Jones, American Immigration (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 182-83.

 

2George M. Stephenson, A History of American Immi-
gration, 1820-1924 (New York: Ginn and Company, 1926),
p. 70.

 

3Encyclopedia Britannica, 1965 ed., s.v. "Vandals.

 

11

The influx of immigrants during the era of sailing
ships was at an ideal level for gradual assimilation into
the American culture and for gradual acceptance by native-
born Americans of the newcomers' strange ways. Their
numbers were small, and their cultures complemented the
English-inspired ways of life. They lived near the bustle
of Atlantic commerce, primarily in England, Germany,
Holland, Ireland, and Scandinavia. Cumbersome wind-
powered vessels brought them over, a few hundred or less
at a time. Many were agricultural people and raised large
families. Early America was populated as much by the
fertility of its settlers as by the early waves of immi-
gration.

There were vast differences between the numbers
of immigrants before and after 1870. These differences
suggest that after that year the experience of assimilation
became a less pleasant experience for both immigrants and
Americans because of the increasing influx of foreigners.
The great majority of the 27 million immigrants between
1820 and mid-1920 came after 1870.1 For instance, there
was a total of about 152,000 immigrants who arrived in

1820, compared to about 2,812,000 in 1880.2 Between 1820

 

lU.S. Immigration Commission, Department of Labor,
Abstracts of the Reports of the Immigration Commission
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911),
p. 23.

21bid., p. 57.

12

and 1883, 95 percent of the immigrants came from Belgium,
France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Between 1883 and mid-1910, 70 percent came from southern
and eastern Europe.1 Throughout the nineteenth century,
Germans came to the United States in growing numbers.
About 10,000 came in 1832, about 34,000 in 1845, and
about 83,000 in 1865.2 They outnumbered every other
group until 1900, when Slavs, Polish Jews, and Italians
began to predominate.3 Some Americans would eventually
argue that immigration before and after 1870 was quali—
tatively different. Certainly, there was a vast quanti-
tative difference.

America after 1870 was different as well. Agri-
cultural regions in the east were largely settled. Many
immigrants, often disillusioned by their experience with
farming in Europe, preferred city life anyway. Urban
areas had the factories and the jobs and seemed to offer
the fulfillment that had led many immigrants to come to
the United States. The immigrants settled into ethnic
neighborhoods, recreating the close communal life of the
village in their homeland. Their clannishness may have
seemed greater than earlier immigrant groups because

they settled in ethnic enclaves. Some native Americans

 

1U.S. Immigration Commission, Abstracts, p. 23.

 

2 .
Ibid., p. 66. 3Ibid., p, 42,

13

perceived them as being different, even peculiar; such per-
ceptions were probably tainted with prejudices. A few
things seem obvious about the differences between the old
and new immigration. The established groups primarily
were Protestant and spoke Germanic tongues, although there
were also considerable numbers of Irish Catholics. Newer
arrivals were usually Catholics and spoke Romance or
Slavic languages. But in the later waves of immigration,
there were large numbers of Protestant and Catholic
Germans and Yiddish-speaking Jews. One historian during
the 19205, George M. Stephenson, said that German immi-
grants were favored by Americans for their "sturdy char-
acter, law—abiding instincts, habits of industry, pain-
staking zeal, honesty and intelligence. . . ."1 Numerous
leaders, scholars, and writers generalized about the
qualities of the various ethnic groups during the early
twentieth century. Some explained these traits by citing
the racial inheritance of immigrants rather than their
cultures, religions, and institutions.

A generalization that can be made about the
"newer" immigrants is that they tended to be politically,
socially, and economically oppressed in their homelands.
In the countries where a dominant nationality ruled a
subject nationality, members of the subject nationality

were more likely to come to the United States. Thus,

 

1Stephenson, A History of American Immigration,

 

p. 51.

l4

Poles outnumbered Russians, Irishmen outnumbered English-
men, Slovaks outnumbered Magyars.l The same trend holds
true for religious minorities. Russian Jews outnumbered
members of the Russian Orthodox Church, and nonconformists
of the Scandinavian churches outnumbered adherents of the
state churches.2 Still another common denominator was
poverty. The poor of Europe came to America in greater
numbers than the rich; there is a cliché that the United
States was populated by the lower classes of Europe.3
German peasants were economically injured by the increas-
ing use of technology by wealthy farmers, and production
increased and crop prices fell according to the laws of
supply and demand. Small farmers went bankrupt, and
their land was bought by the wealthy. The decline of
German agricultural prices during the 18805 was probably
responsible for the record German immigration during
those years.4 The agricultural landlords of southern

Italy and Sicily had not yet recruited technical

 

1U.S. Immigration Commission, Abstracts, passim.

 

2William K. Laiger, Political and Social Upheaval,
1832-1852 (New York: Harper and Row, 196977 p. 131.

 

3Oscar Handlin, Immigration as a Factor in American
Histor (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1959), p. 2.

4Laiger, Political and Social Upheaval, 1832-1852,
p. 35.

15

innovation as their ally, but their economic warfare
against tenant farmers was nonetheless effective.

When these immigrants came to the United States,
it was their poverty, their strangeness of appearance,
and their peculiar languages that caught the attention of
Americans. The sheer size of the immigration may have
made the immigrants seem even more threatening. Concen-
trated in the cities, the millions of newly arrived
Americans occupied entire neighborhoods and, thus, were
highly visible to native Americans. These people often
looked upon the immigrants with some hostility and argued
that the gates had been open too wide. They did not want
the immigrants to continue coming in the numbers of the
previous decades and they began their efforts to step,

or at least slow, the influx.

CHAPTER 2

THE RESTRICTIONISTS

Some Americans saw the differences between them-
selves and the immigrants as evidence of their own
superiority. Borrowing some of the prevailing scientific
theories, they believed that they found incontestable
evidence of the racial inferiority of the immigrants.

A well-organized group, the Immigration Restriction
League, sought to convince the American peOple and theiri

representatives in government that immigration from

 

southern and eastern Eur0pe should be stopped. These

"MM...____ _,

viewpoints eventually appeared in popular magazines,

such as the Saturday Evening Post.

 

There were negative reactions toward immigration
among native-born Americans even before many southern
and central Europeans came to the United States. During
the mid-nineteenth century, immigration restriction,
without necessarily a racial component, was a recurring
political movement. Then Dr. Samuel C. Busey wrote that
the foreigner

is totally unacquainted with our language and has

been reared under institutions hostile to personal
liberty, to free institutions and to a Republican

16

17

government; hence, it is foreigners that are so

prone to congregate together, to organize them-

selves into clubs, societies and even communities,

occupying entire sections of a county.1
Sentiments such as these were not based on racial or bio-
logical grounds. Busey was describing fair-skilled Swedes,
Irishmen, and Germans.

XenOphobia was the prevailing symptom of social
insecurity when the Immigration Restriction League was,
formed by a group of young and wealthy men, members of)
the Harvard University class of 1889. They had been j

1'
t

taught by professors steeped in the racial philosophies \ 1;
of Teutonic historians and in the belief that Anglo-Saxom—
dominance in the United States was threatened.2 As the j
immigrant population grew, the league and other groups
attempted to convince Americans of the immigration danger.
The league became a professional lobby and helped to
mobilize support for legislation requiring a literacy

test for immigrants in 1902. College professors formed

one strong and enduring base of support.3 Eugenics, or

the science of human breeding, originated in England in

 

1Samuel C. Busey, Immigration: Its Evils and Con-
sequences (New York: DeWitt and Davenport, 1856; reprint
ed., New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969),
p. 39.

 

2Jethro K. Lieberman, Are Americans Extinct? (New
York: Walker and Company, 1968), p. 33.

 

3Barbara M. Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 123.

18

1901 and reinforced the growing body of racial doctrines
by emphasizing the importance of heredity. The eugeni-
cists and the league were partly responsible for the
congressional passage of literacy requirements in 1913,
but they were vetoed by the president. The measure
finally passed in 1917, overriding another presidential
veto. Restrictionists frankly admitted that the law
would decrease the new immigration by about 25 percent.1
The original activists campaigned for stricter
immigration laws for three decades. They included /
Prescott F. Hall, Robert DeC. Ward, and Charles Warren,
all of the Harvard class of 1889. These lobbyists even-
tually became close advisers to members of the House of
Representatives. One of the strangest figures in the
movement was Harry H. Laughlin. He was probably the
major source of information on race and heredity for the
House during the 19203. The son of a minister, he was
born in Iowa in 1880. Before coming to the Station of
Experimental Evolution at Cold Harbor Springs in New
York, he was a high school principal and college teacher.
He began his investigation of human heredity in 1910 and

later drafted a bill for the House requiring the sterili-

zation of criminals, the feeble-minded, and epileptics.

 

1Robert A. Divine, American Immigration Policy,
1924-1952 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957),

p. 4.

 

 

19

The ironic aspect was that Laughlin himself was an epi-
leptic. He married but remained childless.1

These well-bred militants made some unexpected
partnerships. The American Federation of Labor had pain- )
ful memories of unemployment and wished to preserve jobs I

for Americans. They therefore threw their wholehearted
support to the cause. Also, philanthropists were either
active in or cooperated with the league. "Especially in
Boston, philanthropy easily fused with restriction because
proper New Englanders administered and controlled most
social projects,"2 Barbara M. Solomon wrote. The philan-
thropists were apparently concerned about the poverty and
living conditions of immigrants. Wealthy Bostonians could
ease the plight of the immigrants with charity, but the
overcrowding and squalor would continue if large numbers
of their countrymen continued to come to America. Restric-
tion was one more solution to poverty problems of American
cities.3

There were theoreticians as well as lobbyists,

and scholars as well as publicists, who sometimes know-

ingly and other times unwittingly abetted the cause of

 

1Mark Hughlin Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian
Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1963), p. 132.

 

 

2Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, p. 136.

 

31bid.

20

immigration restriction. The pre-eminent theorist was
William Z. Ripley, the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-

nology professor who published The Races of EurOpe in

 

1899. Relying on skull classifications and other physical

traits defined by anthropologists, he divided EurOpeans

into three classes. The Tegtgns were the fair races of

northern Europe, the Alpines_were the sturdy peasants of

central Europe, and the Mediterraneans were the darker

peOple of southern Europe and the Near East.1 Unlike

some later thinkers, Ripley believed that race and

heredity were only two of a number of determinants of

the cultural and moral traits of individuals and groups;

he believed that environment also played a key role.2

He did warn, however, that intermarriage between the

older immigrant groups and the immigrants would contami-

nate the American people. He provided the excuse, but-

tressed by an apparently scientific argument, for Americans

to distrust, and sometimes despise, their new neighbors.
Other scholars and writers echoed the arguments of

Ripley. One of the more influential writers was Madison

Grant, a wealthy New Yorker who published The Passing of

 

the Great Race in 1916. This book purported to be a

 

history of the world, retold in a racial framework. He

 

1William 2. Ripley, The Races of Europe (New York:
D. Appleton and Company, 1899), pp. 103-30.

2Lieberman, Are Americans Extinct?, p. 34.

21

wrote of virile Nordics conquering effete and dying civil-
izations and leading them to greater glories. His account
gave no credit to the founders of the first civilizations,
the pOpulations of which were not the supposedly Nordic
variety.1

The racial theories borrowed heavily from the
prevailing biological theories of the time, such as the
conclusions of Darwin and Mendel.2 It was the smattering
of science that gave credibility to the theorists' pro-
_nouncements. Science and technology had begun to revo—
lutionize society, and peOple respected them. The
greatest influence was Mendelian biology, the science of
the inheritance of traits and characteristics. Grant
and other restrictionists believed that the best peoples
supposedly belonged to a Nordic subspecies, which could
be destroyed in biological and economic competition with
mongrel races. Adapting his ideas to Mendelian language,
Grant wrote that "the cross between a white man and a I

Negro is a Negro, and a cross between any of the three

. 3
European races and a Jew IS a Jew."

 

lMadison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), passim.

 

2Haller, Eugenics, p. 56.

3Grant, Passing, p. 18.

22

Borrowing from Darwin, Grant described the fitter
Nordic races dominating the weaker races throughout
history.1 But the real meaning of Darwinism tended to
undermine the racial doctrines of Grant and others. If
the fairer skinned Americans were really more fit, then
what had they to fear from the immigrants? In reality,
Grant and others feared competition, and the Darwinist
corollary, extinction. Their oft-stated fear was that
the foreign-born would outnumber the Americans with their
fertility. They believed that peoples who failed to
reproduce as quickly as lower races in their midst would
be committing race suicide.2 The proportion of old stocRJ
Americans in the pOpulation would dwindle. Many would

intermarry with other races. Homo Americanus would

 

eventually become extinct.

In Europe, Scandinavians and Germans were con-
sidered the best races. In America, the honor fell to
the Anglo-Saxons. "In the city of New York, and elsewhere~

in the United States," Grant declared, "there is a native

.
1

American aristocracy resting on layer after layer of the
immigrants of lower races."3 Who were these beleaguered¥//

aristocrats? They were men of inherited wealth, once

 

lGrant, Passing, passim.

2Lieberman, Are Americans Extinct?, p. 36.

 

3Grant, Passing, p. 5.

r"

A
l

23

part of the cultivated mercantile class of the nineteenth
century and the nearest American equivalent of nobility.
Solomon aptly describes them as a class verging upon
extinction, eclipsed by Carnegies, Rockefellers, and
Fords. Their families were a touch too genteel to enter
the rough and tumble world of large-scale industry.1 Their
inherited wealth would offer them less and less security
and prominence in a period of rapid economic growth.
Their wish was to protect the country from change and
return it to the old values. Better a static and tranquil
society than an industrial juggernaut, powered by the
muscle of immigrant labor. The crusade against immigra-
tion became the last refuge of frightened gentlemen.

Most of these people were not scientists; they
were propagandists for Nordic philosophy. Madison Grant's

Passing of the Great Race was a popularization, containing

 

the findings of extremist geneticists and little of his
own contributions.2 Moderate geneticists shunned the
discussion of human breeding.3 Yet publicists for Nordic
philosophy, such as Grant and LothrOp Stoddard, passed

themselves off as experts, testifying at conventions set

 

lSolomon, Ancestors and Immigrants, pp. 83-102.

 

2Haller, Eugenics, p. 151.

31bid., p. 167.

 

24

up for the sole purpose of publicizing their views on
race.1 They realized the importance of public Opinion
in their crusade.

According to Maldwyn Allen Jones, an historian of
the immigration restriction movement, organized restric-
tionists had little success in pOpularizing their views
until World War I. There was anti-immigrant sentiment
before World War I, but it lacked a racial component.

In addition, anti-foreign feelings were generally at a
low ebb between 1898 and 1917 because these were pros-
perous times with enough work for both foreigners and
Americans.2 During this period, restrictionists and
other writers wrote anti-immigrant magazine articles,

but there was little widespread appreciation of their
views. "One should beware of exaggerating the racial
content of early twentieth century nativism," Jones wrote.f
"As yet the new racial ideology remained the exclusive .
property of a handful of intellectuals, and outside the
South and Far West, popular nativism was hardly touched
by race thinking."3

Jones attributed an increase of nativist sentiment

to World War I and its accompanying nationalist anxieties.

 

lHaller, Eugenics, p. 156.

2Jones, Immigration, p. 261.

 

31bid., p. 268.

25

Eugenicists found the war years and their aftermath a
propitious time to publicize their racial ideologies.
People previously who had been indiscriminantly anti-
foreign "came to concentrate their fire upon immigrants
from southern and eastern EurOpe, whose bizarre appearance
offered a tempting target for nativist attack."1 The
doctrine of Nordic superiority became respectable enough

for national leaders to expound them. For example, Vice

President Calvin Coolidge wrote in a Good Housekeeping

 

article:
There are racial considerations too grave to be
brushed aside for sentimental reasons. Biological
laws tell us that certain divergent peoples will
not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves
successfully. With other races, the outcome shows
deterioration on both sides.2
The bias of Coolidge's statement was obvious. Perhaps it
was less obvious that Coolidge had little grasp of what
the eugenicists of the time were saying. It strangely
suggests that non-Nordics have difficulty reproducing.
’4
In reality, racial thinkers feared the fertility of the of
immigrants. Despite Coolidge's poor understanding Of the
prevailing theories, his article shows how contemporary

Opinions on immigration were impregnated with racial

ideology.

 

1Jones, Immigration, pp. 256-57.

 

2Calvin Coolidge, "Whose Country Is This?" Good
Housekeeping, February 1921, p. 14.

 

26

Popular magazines, such as Collier's and the

 

Saturday Evening Post, may have helped promote these

 

racial ideas. George Creel, who wrote on immigration

and other subjects for Collier's, stated:

 

The overwhelming majority of immigrants for the
last twenty years has proved to be so much slag in
the melting pot. Opposed at every point tO the
American or Nordic stock, both in tradition and
ideals, these new peOples do not enter intO
solution, but coagulate in alien masses, clinging
tenaciously to their language, their traditions, --
their customs, and their institutions.

Kenneth L. Roberts investigated the immigration situation

for the Saturday Evening Post. Historian Jones wrote

 

that Roberts' articles were an important vehicle for the
ideas Of eugenicists. Said Jones: "Especially influentialfl.
in popularizing the doctrine Of Nordic superiority was a
series Of articles in 1922 in the Saturday Evening Post

by the novelist Kenneth Roberts, who warned that a mixture“‘

Of Nordic with Alpine and Mediterranean stocks would pro-

f

l
/ ,
f.—

duce a worthless race Of hybrids."2
The publication Of Nordic philosophy in the

Saturdaijvening Post was one measure of the success of

 

the restrictionists in gaining respectability. The

Saturday Evening Post was well known and popular. Roberts

 

had a high regard for his journalistic integrity; he would

 

lGeorge Creel, "Melting Pot or Dumping Ground,"
Collier's, May 6, 1922, p. 7.

 

2Jones, American Immigration, pp. 275-76.

27

not have written something in which he did not believe.
His investigation of the immigration question was planned
without any overt suggestion Of racial prejudices. But
Roberts was susceptible to the subtle influence Of race

feeling and adopted the views of the restrictionists.

PART II

KENNETH L. ROBERTS

CHAPTER 3

THE EARLY YEARS

Roberts apparently did not see himself as a
spokesman for immigration restriction or any other
political cause during the years before the immigration
articles. He was a reporter and free-lance writer and
Often wrote humorous essays, stories, and verse. His
professional background was unlike the backgrounds of the
more prominent restrictionists who devoted their energies
to their cause. Roberts' own burning desire was to
become a successful author Of serious fiction.

Roberts' roots may have been the source of a
certain small town conservatism in his writing. Roberts
was born in Kennebunk, Maine, in 1885, and was reared in
Kennebunk and in Boston. His earlier years in Maine
evidently made a great impression upon him.1 He moved
back to Maine as an adult, and in his books and articles,

he was never a Bostonian; he was a militant Down Easter.

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, Untitled autobiographical
manuscript, Kenneth L. Roberts Papers, U.S. Library Of
Congress, Washington, D.C.

28

29

Roberts credited his talent for writing to his
early religious training, not his college education. He
once wrote that he learned much about writing when he
was forced to read the Bible during childhood.1 He was
apparently doubting the value of his college education
when he maintained that serious students were actually
wasting their time. They "Often burned the midnight Oil
. . . and answered puzzling questions that they will have
forgotten within three years of graduation."2

During his college years, 1904 to 1908, Roberts
exhibited his penchant for travel and for writing. He
began to write for the campus humor magazine, the Cornell
University‘Wiggg, during his freshman year. During the
following summer, he went on a low-budget tour Of Europe.
He saw England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany
on $300 and a cattle-boat pass. Through a carefully
executed political maneuver, he became the editor of the
Wiggg during his sophomore year. He defeated upperclass—
men for this position by persuading all the underclassmen

to vote for him as a bloc.3

 

lRoberts, autobiographical manuscript.

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Filibusters," Saturday
Eveninngost, 12 May 1923, p. 6.

 

3Roberts, autobiographical manuscript.

30

After graduation, Roberts returned to Boston,
where he first found work as a clerk for a company that
manufactured leather goods, and later, in 1910, tOOk a

job as a reporter for the Boston Post. He worked hard,

 

rising each day at 10 A.M. and Often staying up until

2 or 3 A.M. the next day. He hoped that by beginning

his day before the other reporters started work, he

would get the best assignments. He enjoyed covering

exciting events such as murder trials, fires, and Harvard-

Yale boat races but despised promotional stories about

banquets and businesses.1 He apparently believed that

the duty Of a reporter was to get past promotional puffery

and propaganda. As he described it, reporting was "learn-

ing to ask questions about things that interested me until

I understood them and got at the truth about them."2
His commitment to honesty and journalistic ethics

once jeopardized his jOb as a reporter. He turned down

an assignment, suggested by the advertising department

and passed on by his editors, to do a story on an actress

appearing at a local theater. The story was to be an

incentive for the owner Of the theater to advertise in

the Boston Post. Roberts wrote in his memoirs: "Somewhat

 

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, I Wanted tO Write (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday and CO., 1949), p. 39.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, Radio script, Kenneth L.
Roberts Papers, U.S. Library Of Congress, Washington, D.C.

31

to my surprise, and to the business manager's annoyance,
I refused the assignment on the grounds that this was a
press agent's work, that press agents tOO Often had tO
misrepresent their wares, and that I didn't want to be a
press agent."1

During his years as a reporter, Roberts was
driven by his desire to become a successful writer of
serious fiction. He would eventually achieve this goal
in the 19305 with the success of a series Of novels about
colonial and revolutionary America. When he heard the
swish Of the eraser on a newsroom blackboard during his
Boston newspaper days, he was troubled by the fact that
his writings would be forgotten as easily as those chalk
jottings. His creations would be thrown away each day
with the newspaper.

After two years Of reporting, Roberts got an
Opportunity to contribute humorous verse and essays to
the humor page Of the newspaper. Soon he was sending

some Of his work to humor magazines, including Life, Puck,

 

and Punch. In 1915, he quit his job to embark on the
uncertain career Of writing humorous pieces full time on

a freelance basis. The writing was agony. "I found

 

1Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 19.

 

2Ibid., p. 34.

32

myself writing 12,000 words a week," he later wrote. "Two
years of it made me so nervous that I would bark like a
dog whenever anyone said boo."l
In 1917, while other Americans were enlisting in
the armed services to fight Germans, Roberts joined the
Army with a literary purpose in mind. He became an intel-
ligence Officer, believing that his experience in gather-
ing military information would help him collect informa-
tion for a book.2 Just before he left for Siberia as
part of the Allied effort to prevent the spread of B01-

shevism to the Orient, he met with George Horace Lorimer,

the editor of the Saturday Evening Post, and discussed

 

the possibility Of an article on American military efforts
in that part Of the world. Lorimer told him to write
something on the "social, economic and political situation"
in Siberia and the Far East, words used so often in
instructions to Lorimer's writers that they had become

a cliché among regular contributors.3 But those words
gave Roberts the feeling that Lorimer thought the story

was important.4

 

lRoberts, autobiographical manuscript.

2Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 129.

 

3John Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer and the
Saturday Evening Post (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
and CO., 1948), p. 89.

 

 

4Roberts, I Wanted tO.Write, p. 132.

 

33

Roberts found his experience in the military dis-
appointing. Instead of acquainting him with the tech-
niques Of investigation, his military intelligence work
merely introduced him to red tape and petty military
regulations. These rules almost prevented him from pub-
lishing his work while he was in the service, for special
permission was required before submission of a manuscript
tO a magazine. Roberts sometimes ignored the rules and
had some humorous pieces published under a pen name. He
also postponed publication Of some magazine articles
until after his discharge in 1919.

Although military service had not invested Roberts
with the elusive knowledge of how to do research for a
novel, it did provide him with interesting settings and
experiences for nonfiction writing. He wrote a prophetic
story about the aggressive and arrogant behavior of
Japanese trOOps in the Far East, but Lorimer rejected it
on the grounds that it might Offend the State Department.
Yet Lorimer evidently saw something in Roberts and his
work. In early 1919, he accepted one article on the
Philippines and another on the Bolsheviks, which was
based on Roberts' experience in Siberia.

These articles on the Far East were a prelude to
Roberts' assignment as a European correspondent and to a
turning point in Roberts' professional life. During the

early part of his career, Roberts had followed a course

34

charted by his muse, from reporter to poet to intelli-
gence Officer. He was certain he wanted to write, but
uncertain of his genre and subject matter. Roberts'
professional life was fundamentally different from the
professional lives Of the restrictionists; Roberts had
no mission. The restrictionists were evangelists; and
Roberts, during his investigation Of immigration, would

eventually become one Of their converts.

CHAPTER 4

THE ASSIGNMENT

In the autumn Of 1919, George Horace Lorimer
planned an investigative series on immigration and
EurOpean conditions. He apparently envisioned a series
Of articles that not only told what was going on in post-
World War I Europe but also told how these circumstances
would affect Americans. His instructions for the series
generally outlined American concerns and interests, and
his selection of Roberts as the reporter seemed to assure
that the investigation would have a strong pro-American
bias. Roberts had displayed a vigorous nationalism in
his articles on the Far East.

Roberts' faith in the fundamental goodness Of the
American peOple and nation was apparently unshakeable.
His professional distaste for overt propaganda was appar-
ently accompanied by a susceptibility to the more subtle
influences of his patriotic feeling. In "Random Notes
Of an Americansky," Roberts complained that Russian
soldiers did not salute their American allies, and

Japanese soldiers liked to nudge Americans off the

35

36

sidewalks Of Vladivostok, taking advantage of the good
nature Of the American personality. Roberts wrote:

The American soldier is essentially peaceable.
He gives other peOple most Of the sidewalk without
a thought; and when the occasion seems to require
it, he lets other people have it all . . . so when
three or four Japanese soldiers came up the street
abreast and pushed a doughboy into the gutter, he
didn't resent it.

At first, he didn't. Eventually a change
occurred. A doughboy can be crowded so far and
no farther. There came a day when three Japanese
doughboys essayed to push a soldier into the
gutter. There was a slight disturbance, a con-
fused noise and a cloud Of dust. When the dust
cleared away, three little brown men were sitting
in the middle Of the road, wondering whether they
had been hit by an automobile or a street car, and
the doughboy was proceeding calmly down the road
occupying his customary modest portion of the side-
walk.

Roberts showed nationalistic sentiment on other occasions.
In "Bringing Chaos Out of Order," an article about the
Philippines, he wrote:

. . . the United States has made this fairyland
out Of a boiling pot Of corruption. When an Ameri-
can sees what his countrymen have done in the Philip-
pines--how order has been brought out of chaos and
peace out Of turbulence and cleanliness out Of filth
and health out of a pest hole and plenty out Of
destitution and happiness out of misery and beauty
out Of squalor in twenty years' time--when an Ameri-
can sees all this he holds his head higher, and has
still another reason for thanking God that he is an
American.2

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Random Notes of an Ameri-
cansky," Saturday Evening Post, 17 May 1919, p. 4.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Bringing Chaos Out Of Order,"
Saturday Evening Post, 12 July 1919, p. 17.

 

37

In his descriptions Of the inhabitants Of the
Orient, Roberts displayed the animosity that he would
later focus on immigrants from Europe. He said a Korean
beard
. . . consisted Of seventeen to twenty-five long,
unhappy-looking hairs. If a Korean ever desired to
get rid of his beard, it would hardly pay him to
shave. It would be much easier for him to shut the
hairs in a door and jump backward.l
He found nothing good about the Tagalogs of the Philippines.
He thought they were "illiterate, extremely superstitious,
impractical, illogical, uninquisitive, unresourceful; they
would gamble away their last pennies in cock-fighting.

2 Roberts used this depiction of

They were improvident."
the Tagalogs to support his belief that the Philippines
would not be ready for independence in the foreseeable
future.

After the articles on the Far East were published,
Lorimer apparently decided that Roberts would be right for
the immigration series. Roberts was contemplating a spy
novel based on his army experiences when he received an

unexpected letter from Lorimer inviting him to Philadel—

phia. Anxious to do more work for the Saturday Evening

 

Post, Roberts took a train from Kennebunk, carrying a gift

for Lorimer (six partridges he shot while hunting), and a

 

lRoberts, "Americansky," p. 131.

2Roberts, "Bringing Chaos," p. 36.

38

satirical article on golf. Such enthusiasm was under-
standable. John Tebbel, Lorimer's biographer, stated
that Lorimer was an editor "upon whom thousands of
writers, both famous and unknown, looked to as a god to
whose Olympus every creator Of prose aspired."1 Roberts
was bringing an Offering.

Lorimer persuaded Roberts to take on the series.
He came to the point indirectly, first dissuading Roberts
from attempting to write a spy novel and then asking him
if he would like to become a roving correspondent in
Europe for his magazine. Roberts tried to control his
excitement. The most that he had hOped for was to be
allowed to submit articles from time to time and thereby
provide himself with a steady income. "You know anything
about immigration?" Lorimer asked him. When Roberts said
no, the editor told him to find out about it. Lorimer
had not always been concerned about immigration. A 1910

Saturday Evening Post editorial stated: "The dream that

 

the United States will presently become a nation of
foreigners is no nearer realization than it was when a
0

small shipload of English pilgrims constituted the 'native

stock."2 But in 1919, Lorimer apparently had some doubts

 

lJohn Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer and the
Saturday Evening Post (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
and CO., 1948): P. l.

 

2Saturday Evening Post, 15 January 1910, p. 18.

 

39

about the advisability of further immigration. Such
doubts were common after World War I; a sense Of height-
ened nationalism, a hangover from the war years, led
people to regard immigrants as radical foreigners, not
as potential American citizens.1

A letter, dated October 31, 1919, included other
instructions about the investigation Of immigration. The
editor wanted Roberts to determine the numbers of aliens
coming tO this country and their nationalities. Lorimer
mentioned other concerns in the letter, but Roberts under-
stood that the study of immigrants and immigration was
the primary reason for the tour Of EurOpe; it was this
purpose that Roberts heralded in an early article. "What
our immigration will be during the next few years is
problematical, and it is partly for the purpose of delv—
ing into this hazy problem that I am wandering through
the highways and by-ways Of Europe,"2 he wrote.

Lorimer also wanted Roberts to investigate the
general political and social conditions Of Europe. The
writer was told tO note the ebb and flow of the Bolshevik

tide, the climate for American business investment, and

 

lJohn Higham, Strangers in the Land; Patterns Of
American Nativism, 1660-1925 (New Brunswick, N.Y.: Rutgers
Ufiiversity Press, 1955). PP. 280-316.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Rising Irish Tide," Saturday
Evening Post, 14 February 1920, p. 4.

 

40

the economic plight Of individual Europeans.l All these
issues touched on the various roles of the United States
after World War I. Financially strong and prosperous,
America was the pre-eminent capitalist power of the world,
an asylum for the oppressed, and a benefactor for bankrupt
and war-torn nations. Lorimer apparently wanted to know
how the United States would fare in its new position Of
international leadership.

Concerned about the tone of the articles, Lorimer
asked Roberts to include "light and illustrative anecdotes"
and that he lOOk at things in "a big broad spirit." These
instructions suggest that Lorimer, at least initially, did
not intend the articles to become attacks on ethnic
groups. Lorimer wrote: "I don't want tO do anything in
this series unnecessarily to offend the sensibilities or
to promote unnecessary antagonisms between the United
States and European countries."2

Roberts was to have considerable autonomy once
he was in Europe. "In a sense," Lorimer wrote, "you have
a roving commission as to the way the articles shape up,
and their number depends entirely on what you find from

3

actual investigation." Lorimer apparently had no pre-

conceived notions about the content Of these articles.

 

1Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer, p. 90.

 

21bid., p. 91. 3Ibid.

41

When Roberts accepted the assignment of reporting

from Europe, he joined an unofficial Saturday Evening Post

 

staff, which included such established writers as Sam
Blythe, Garet Garret, George Patullo, and Will Irwin.

All articles were bought on a free-lance basis, although
a writer favored by Lorimer could expect to contribute
articles on a regular basis. This approach had some dis-

advantages, for Cosmopolitan lured some regular contribu-

 

tors from Lorimer, giving them "liberal contracts and
increased paychecks," Roberts recalled in his memoirs.1
He remained loyal, and Lorimer substantially increased
his paycheck throughout Roberts' investigation of the
immigration issue.

The circumstances Of Roberts' hiring suggest that
Lorimer did not conceive the series as an attempt to pub-
licize specific racial doctrines. By all indications,
Lorimer wanted a fresh lOOk at the immigration issue.
He turned to a writer who claimed no knowledge of the
subject Of immigration and gave him considerable freedom
to investigate it as he saw fit. Yet Lorimer was probably
aware that Roberts was an intensely nationalistic writer
who would look at European immigrants from an American
point of view; the editor had felt obliged to warn the
writer about Offending foreign countries. It was

Roberts' nationalism that would eventually lead him

 

1Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 162.

 

42

to conclude that the American race was better than the

races Of southern and eastern Europe.

CHAPTER 5

THE INVESTIGATION

In the articles on immigration, Roberts revealed

prejudices about numerous ethnic groups and a naive view
Of the differences between Americans and foreigners.
These articles, like those he wrote about his experiences
in the Orient, portrayed Americans as basically intelli-
gent and good and certain ethnic groups as inferior in
moral character and intellect. While some businessmen
were proposing economic barriers against cheap foreign
goods, Roberts suggested ethnic barriers against low
quality human material. His specific views about immi-
grant groups were rooted in a generally pro-American view
of the world. He distrusted foreign political ideologies,
which he called "a great mass of foolish and half-baked
theories," as much as he distrusted some foreign peOples.l
His ethnic prejudices were an extension of his chauvinism.

Roberts supported his viewpoints with facts and

Opinions gathered during two tours of Europe, one between

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Ambush Of Italy," Saturday
Evening Post, 25 August 1923, p. 6.

 

43

44

December 1919 and June 1920, and another between November
1920 and June 1921. He toured England, Ireland, France,
Germany, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and the
Balkans, gathering material during the day and writing
during the evening. He rode trains or hitched rides with
American relief workers, who were helping tO feed Europeans,
and with State Department Officials. Some of the time he
traveled with his wife, Anna, who worked as his typist.

Roberts showed his distaste for immigrants of the
later waves Of immigration in his first article before he
even visited their source, southern and eastern Europe.
He wrote: "Of recent years, the contents Of the melting
pot have stood badly in need Of straining, in order that
the refuse might be removed and deposited in the customary
receptacles for such things."1 The immigrants were sus—
pect because they did not readily adopt American behavior
and habits, such as reading English-language newspapers.2
These viewpoints suggest that Roberts was prejudiced at
the outset and that the thrust of his conclusions was set
in advance.

He sought out emigrants and potential emigrants
throughout Europe, particularly at the ports of embark-

ation. He characterized emigrants at Danzig as "undersized,

 

1Roberts, "Rising Irish Tide," Saturday Evening
Post, 14 February 1920, p. 4.

 

21bid.

45

peculiar and alien peoples." He sent back descriptions
Of Poles and Jews being cleansed Of lice with diluted
doses of hydrochloric acid, and he warned, quite correctly,
that lice could bring typhus into the United States.1 Some
Of the descriptions, however, were unnecessarily ruthless.
"Many of the women have bathed so seldom that their skins
are almost battleship grey in color,"2 he wrote, unchar-
itably of people still covered with the dust Of their
migrations from their homes to the ports. He also visited
the Discount Bank of Warsaw and saw masses of people try-
ing to collect money sent from friends and relatives in
America. The money was Often used to book steamship pas-
sage to the United States.3 At ports and at banks,
thousands of peOple gathered in an effort to make their
way to the United States.

That Roberts' view Of ethnic groups seems to have
been distorted by his personal prejudices is suggested in
one of his notebooks. He sometimes used the words "Chink"

and "wop" to describe Chinese and Italians.4 He never

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Ports of Embarkation,"
Saturday Evening Post, 7 May 1921, p. 12.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Existence Of an Emer-
gency," Saturday Evening Post, 30 April 1921, p. 90.

 

3Kenneth L. Roberts, "Poland for Patriotism,"
Saturday Eveninngost, 17 April 1920, p. 13.

 

4Kenneth L. Roberts, Notebook, Kenneth L. Roberts
Papers, U.S. Library Of Congress, Washington, D.C.

46

used these epithets in his articles, but he Openly evoked
the images of such uncomplimentary ethnic stereotyping.
He implied that Italians and Slavs were not too bright,
and Jews were crafty and scheming. "The great mass Of
Italian immigrants will never be anything except but
stolid manual laborers,"l he wrote. Describing Slavs,

he wrote:

Now all the Slav races have certain peculiarities
that are apt to make them particularly dangerous
members Of large industrial communities. They are
easily influenced [and] they will not acknowledge
each others' equality. . . .

Some Of his comments about Jews were so rancorous that

he apparently hesitated to publish them in the Saturday

Evening Post. But these sentiments were not tOO Offen-

 

sive to publish in his book, Whnyurope Leaves Home, a

 

compendium Of his articles, with slight revisions. In
one article, he wrote:

The Jew is either a usurer, a peddler, or liquor
dealer or a small shopkeeper. Even the most
liberal-minded authorities agree that they are
highly undesirable as immigrants.

In his book, he wrote:
Even the most liberal-minded authorities on immi—

gration state that the Jews Of Poland are human
parasites, living on one another and on their

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Guests from Italy,"
Saturday Evening Post, 21 August 1920, p. 137.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Goal of Central
Europeans," Saturday Evening Post, 6 November 1920, p. 62.

 

3Ibid.

47

neighbors of other races by means that are too

often underhanded, that they continue to exist

in the same way after coming to America, and

that they are basically undesirable as immigrants.
Roberts' most important piece on immigration during 1921,
"The Existence Of an Emergency," was a tirade against
Jews in an early draft. He wrote:

A steady stream Of Hebrew refugees is also pour-
ing into Poland from Russia, driven on by the panics
to which the Hebrews so frequently fall victim.

. . . They were purely parasites . . . mostly small

shOpkeepers . . . who live in the city by under-

handed means.
Bribery was "getting things in the Jewish manner."3 More
than three-quarters Of the original draft dealt with the
undesirability Of Jews, yet only one reference tO Jews
was made in the published article.4 These sentiments,
whether or not they were deemed suitable for publication,
are an indication Of Roberts' personal biases.

Roberts was inconsistent. He admitted that he

could lOOk at immigrants individually and find gOOd qual-

ities but found nothing good about them when he general-

ized about them as a group. Roberts wrote:

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, Why Europe Leaves Home
(Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill CO., 1920). p. 68.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Existence of an Emer-
gency," Kenneth L. Roberts Papers, U.S. Library Of Con-
gress, Washington, D.C.

31bid.

4Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Existence Of an Emer-
gency," Saturday Evening Post, 30 April 1921, p. 89.

 

48

Even the most backward, illiterate, thick-headed
immigrants have their excellent points. Practically
all of them viewed individually were hard-working,
well—meaning, likeable persons. One who lives among
them sympathizes with them and longs to better their
lot. Taken in mass, however, and viewed from an
American standpoint, it is no more possible to make
Americans out of them than to make a race horse out
of a pug dog.
Roberts' generalizations were semantic short cuts. In
one sentence or a mere phrase, he sought to categorize a
heterogeneous ethnic group, a rich mosaic of varying
talents and personalities. Roberts even went so far as
to judge most European immigrants in this sweeping state-
ment. He wrote:

The emigrants who are passing through the Northern

European ports Of embarkation are, as far as the

great majority are concerned, the weakest and the

poorest material Of Europe. They are the defeated,

the incompetent and the unsuccessfu1--the very

lowest layer of EurOpean society.

One of the sources of his prejudices may have been

his provincial view of Americans as altruists and immi-
grants as self-centered, unethical scoundrels. To Roberts,
the typical American had an inbred sense of fairness. He
was, as Roberts described him in "Random Notes of an
Americansky," the stalwart fellow who took up his share
Of the sidewalk and no more. Most immigrants, on the
other hand, were only interested in themselves. Roberts

suggested this in his first article on immigration,

 

1Roberts, "Goal Of Central Europeans," p. 61.

21bid.

49

almost before his investigation had begun. "The peOple
Of Europe have just one reason to emigrate to America,"
he wrote. "They want more money."1 As he continued his
investigation, he repeatedly characterized Americans and
immigrants in this fashion, interpreting what he saw to
fit his pre-existing attitude.

Roberts attributed the nationalistic upheaval in
Europe after World War I, which broke up the old Prussian,
Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires, tO the fundamental
selfishness Of the nationalities. He documented how
various new nations vied for each others' territory and
took advantage Of weak neighboring states.2 Slavs, as
a group, enjoyed seizing "every Opportunity to ruthlessly
crush the people over whom they have a temporary advan-
tage."3 Roberts wondered how these nationalities could
ever be assimilated in America if they had remained un-
assimilated for centuries in Europe despite the domination
of various peOples.4

Roberts found evidence Of American gOOd will in

Europe, just as he had found it in the Far East. The

 

1Roberts, "Rising Irish Tide," p. 61.

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Balkan Jottings," Saturday
Evening Post, 11 February 1922, p. 16.

 

3Roberts, "Goal Of Central Europeans," p. 68.

41bid., p. 62.

50

difference between Americans and the people of central
Europe, according to Roberts, was in their sense of fair
play. He called his countrymen "the only disinterested,
impartial peOple to be found in that large and troubled
stretch of territory."1 Roberts often cited the relief
efforts of Americans as demonstrations Of American
altruism.

Immigrants, by contrast, were greedy. According
to Roberts, they coveted the American dollar the way
their leaders lusted for territorial conquest. Roberts
clung to his belief that the major motivations for immi-
gration were crassly material goals, not political or
religious freedom.2 He noted that immigrants Often
returned to their homelands with thousands of dollars
in American money, an indication that they had little
love for their adopted country.3 "Here in Italy you can't
earn any money," Roberts quoted an Italian as saying.
"Everybody up in the hill towns just sits around and does

nothing."4

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Poland for Patriotism,"

Saturday Evening Post, 17 April 1920, p. 10.

 

2Roberts, "The Existence Of an Emergency," p. 93.

3Roberts, "Guests from Italy," p. 137.

41bid., p. 143.

51

Roberts emphasized the material acquisitiveness
and territorial ambitions of Europeans but exhibited
little interest in their sources: the widespread poverty
and, until the end of World War I, the wholesale repres-
sion Of the nationalistic aspirations of ethnic groups.
He looked at these ethnic groups in his narrowly nation-
alistic manner and explained this greed born of depri-
vation as an inherent trait of these peOples. Since
immigrants possessed such undesirable characteristics,

he concluded they made poor Americans.

CHAPTER 6

THE EVIDENCE

Roberts supported his arguments by citing the
testimony of federal government authorities and the pre-
vailing scientific theories on race and immigration. .«2
Government sources confirmed that a large number Of immi-
grants were expected tO come to the United States and that
their moral and intellectual qualities were generally poor.
Consular Officials in Europe provided Roberts with Opinions
that were quoted and paraphrased in his articles. Roberts
also substantiated his views with the tenets Of early
twentieth century racial theory. He accepted the comments
of both government Officials and eugenicists as the
Opinions Of experts.

Government Officials and documents provided infor-
mation on the quality and quantity Of European immigration.
For instance, Dr. Dana Durand, an American economist
advising the Polish government on food problems, told
Roberts that the Polish government was encouraging the

emigration of about one million citizens.1 Poles and

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Existence of an Emer-
gency," Saturdanyvening Post, 30 April 1921, p. 4.

 

52

53

Polish Jews, like other peOples Of southern and central
Europe, were not the best candidates for American citi-
zenship, according to one study. Roberts wrote that this
conclusion
. . . has been corroborated in every detail by

the Army mental tests carried out on 1,700,000

Officers and men during the war. These mental

tests prove scientifically that the average men-

tality Of the new immigration from central and

southern EurOpe--Of practically all our recent

immigration, that is to say--has been very low.
Roberts defended the accuracy Of the Army test, saying
that it was unbiased because it was nonverbal. It was
fair to foreigners, he maintained, because it did not
require a knowledge Of the English language.2

Consular Officials in Europe who were charged

with handling the administrative details Of immigration
repeatedly told Roberts Of their distaste for immigrants
from southern and central Europe, but many Of these
officials were reluctant to voice their feelings publicly.
Roberts wrote in his memoirs that many consular Officials
in Europe sent him letters that praised his articles, but

they could not take a position on immigration because

diplomats cannot always be frank on such sensitive

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Canada Bars the Gates,"
Saturday Evening Post, 12 August 1922, p. 100.

 

21bid., p. 101.

54

international matters as immigration.l He did, however,
publicize the consensus Of consular Opinion and occa-
sionally quoted Officials without identifying them. A
young American Official told Roberts, "when I think that‘”\

these people are going to have a voice in the future of

2

that country, it makes me see red." Roberts wrote that

the Opinions of this unnamed Official were the
condensed opinion of eyeryygmgriggn consular

Official, every diplomatic representative, and
every American Official and relief worker and

businessman who has had an Opportunity of Observ-

ing conditions in Europe during the past year and

whose racial and business affiliations do not make

him hold contrary views.
George B. Anderson, consul general at Rotterdam, was per-
haps more outspoken than some Of his colleagues. Roberts
asked if he could quote him. "You sure can," replied
Anderson, "if anything I say can help tO convince the
people in America that the continuation of the present
immigration is a very bad thing for the American peOple."

American Officials in Europe COOperated with

Roberts by letting him read visa applications Of

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, I Wanted to Write (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday and CO., 1949), p. 143.

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Ports Of Embarkation,"
Saturday Evening Post, 7 May 1921, p. 12.

31bid.

4Roberts, "Existence of an Emergency," p. 94.

55

immigrants. Roberts noted with disbelief that each
immigrant claimed to be joining an aunt, an uncle, or a
spouse in America and recounted with delighted triumph
how one woman, who had never been to the United States,
wrote on her application that she was joining her American-
born children.l

State Department Officials Often made their
beliefs known through Official reports and through formal
testimony before Congressional committees, and Congressmen
with restrictionist views made the Opinions available to
the press. One report cited by Roberts stated that

"Ninety-five percent Of those desirous Of leaving Poland.

/

are Of the very lowest classes."2 Consular Officials //

were equally frank when they appeared before Congress.
Roberts wrote:
Testimony was presented before the House Immigration
Committee and Senate Immigration Committee, which
showed conclusively that the bulk of European immi-
gration was of low—grade. This testimony came from
American consuls, diplomatic representatives and
trained Observers in every part of Europe.3
Senator Albert Johnson, the chairman of the House
Immigration Committee, apparently had a shrewd awareness

of the propaganda value Of these reports in advancing the

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Almost Sunny Italy,"
Saturday Evening Post, 7 May 1921, p. 143.

 

2Roberts, "Existence of an Emergency," p. 94.

3Roberts, "Canada Bars the Gates," p. 100.

56

cause of immigration restriction. On one occasion,
Johnson secured a report from a pronounced anti-Semite
in the State Department. It paraphrased comments by
American consuls overseas on the dangers Of Jewish immi-
gration. Johnson submitted it to the Senate Immigration
Committee where it was made part of the formal record Of
committee business.1 The report was mentioned in the

New York Times in April 1921.2 More than one year later,

 

Roberts summarized its contents for Saturday Evening Post

 

readers:

As a matter Of fact, . . . every American consul in

Europe, before whom every European immigrant must

pass, states specifically and unequivocably that

we are getting the riffraff, the incompetent and

the parasites Of EurOpe by immigration.3

Consular officials may have been prejudiced

against immigrants precisely because their work in EurOpe
required dealing with unkempt immigrants day after day.
Immigrants were an irritant in the professional lives Of
the diplomatic corps. One career diplomat laten:§f5tém\

Our offices became frantically busy with such \

matters as approving thousands Of visas for immi- ‘\‘

grants, issuing a large volume Of American pass-
ports, making Out consular invoices, and preparing

 

1John Higham, Strangers in the Land; Patterns Of
American Nativism, 1660-1925 (New Brunswick, N.Y.: Rutgers
University Press, 1955), p. 309.

 

 

2New York Times, 21 April 1921, Sec. 1, p. 2.

 

3Roberts, "Canada Bars the Gates," p. 100.

57

economic reports which we had to type ourselves

because the State Department could not afford to

provide us with sufficient clerical help.
Similar complaints were apparently communicated to Roberts
when he was doing research for his immigration articles.
"As things are going at present," he wrote, "American
consulates are being forced by circumstances over which
they have no control to neglect the State Department work
and to devote all their energies to the immigrants."2

Roberts employed the prevailing scientific

theories on race as well as the opinions Of consular \
Officials to substantiate his arguments against immigra-
tion. He demonstrated his faith in a grim distortion of
science. There was almost a mythological element in his
writing as he described the Nordic character of the

American race. He wrote that the Nordics were the master;

race,

. . . the tall, blond adventurous people from
the northern countries Of Europe . . . they possess
to a marked degree the ability to govern themselves
and to govern others; and from their ranks have 1
always been recruited the world's voluntary
explorers, pioneers, soldiers, sailors and adven-
turers. The early migrants to every new country
have invariably been Nordics.

 

1Robert Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1964), pp. 5-6.

2Roberts, "Ports of Embarkation," p. 72.

31bid.

58

The danger was that this strain of Nordic thoroughbreds
would somehow become contaminated through intermarriage
/

or relegated to minority status by a fast-growing immi-j
grant population. Roberts outlined the concept of bio-
logical competition and expressed the fear that the
Nordics in America would become extinct:

One Of the Oldest stories in history is the
repeated influx Of Alpine and Mediterranean peOples
into Nordic peoples, and the resultant and almost
invariable breeding out Of the Nordics by the
Alpines and the Mediterraneans.

This was all inspired by the proponents Of racial
ideology who preceded Roberts. Roberts' Observations on
biological competition were suggested by Edwin A. Ross
in 1911. Ross wrote that "a people who fail to reproduce
as quickly as the lower races in their midst are committ- ._I

ing race suicide."2 Roberts also echoed William Z. Ripley,

the preeminent theoretician who wrote The Races Of Europe

 

and divided Europeans and their descendants into three
racial groups: Teutons, Alpines, and Mediterraneans.
Roberts wrote:

The Alpines are the stocky, slow, dark, round-

skulled folk who inhabit most of Central EurOpe
and whose chief representatives are the large part

 

lRoberts, "Ports Of Embarkation," p. 72.

2Jethro K. Lieberman, Are Americans Extinct?
(New York: Walker and Company, 1968), p. 36.

 

3William Z. Ripley, The Races Of Europe (New York:
D. Appleton and Company, 1899)? pp. 103-30.

59

of the different Slav peOples. The Mediterraneans

are the small, swarthy, black-haired, long-skulled

peOples who form the bulk Of the pOpulation in

Southern Italy, Greece, Spain and the north coast

Of Africa.1
Roberts used the same terms as Ripley to describe the dif-
ferent races, except that he used the word "Nordic"
instead Of "Teuton." He also referred to skull propor-
tions, which were the basis of Ripley's classifications.
Roberts did not say where he Obtained this information,
and this may have been an indication that he thought that
the findings Of science were facts that required no attri-
bution.

Madison Grant was probably a direct influence on

Roberts' views. In "Ports Of Embarkation," Roberts sup-
ported Ripley's theories by arguing that Nordics had

demonstrated their superiority throughout history, just

as Madison Grant had argued in The Passing of the Great

 

5333. In fact, Roberts' summary Of Ripley's theories
echoed a one-page summary of the same ideas near the end
of Grant's book. Roberts wrote of "the ability of Nordics
to govern themselves and others," while Grant wrote that
Nordics were a "race of rulers, organizers and aristo-
crats."2 Roberts' words at one point are a feeble para-

phrase Of Grant's original statement. Roberts wrote that

 

1Ripley, Races, p. 72.

2Madison Grant, The Passingyof the Great Race
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), p. 198.

60

Nordics were "the world's voluntary explorers, pioneers,
soldiers, sailors and adventurers." Grant wrote that
the "Nordics are, all over the world, a race Of soldiers,
sailors, adventurers, and explorers."1

Roberts implied that America could not survive
the influx Of Europeans. America's strength was in its
blood. He wrote that "race purity is the prime essential
for the well-being Of the America Of Washington and
Franklin and Jefferson and Lincoln."2 Similar thoughts
were mentioned in "The Existence of an Emergency," "Goal
Of Central Europeans," and "Plain Remarks on Immigration
for Plain Americans."3 Roberts believed that repeating
these racial concepts performed a useful function. He
said that such statements

. . . have been frequently repeated; but repe-

tition is necessary because Of the peculiar success

Of the unrestricted immigrationists in making America
believe that all pre-war immigration was the same.4 //

 

1Grant, Passing Of the Great Race, p. 198.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Shutting the Sea Gates,"
Saturday Evening Post, 28 January 1922, p. 151.

 

3Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Existence of an Emer-
gency," Saturday Evening Post, 30 April 1921, p. 3;
Kenneth L. Roberts, "Goal Of Central Europeans," Saturday
Evening Post, 6 November 1920, pp. 12-13; Kenneth L.
Roberts, WPIain Remarks on Immigration for Plain Amer-
icans," Saturday Evening Post, 12 February 1921, pp. 21-
22.

 

 

 

4Roberts, "Existence Of an Emergency," p. 4.

61

Roberts was acknowledging his role as an advocate and
his mission Of/persuading Americans Ofythe dangers Of
undesirable immigration. He had raised the banner Of
the popular authorities on immigration and the spokesmen
for the cause Of restriction.
The racial doctrines appeared to have had an
element Of common sense despite their origins in science.
They were quite closely related to the practice of animal
breeding. Since many Americans were farmers or had
recently left the farm, these concepts of human breeding
may have struck a familiar chord. Roberts used the word
"breed" as a metaphor to describe different races. For
example, he stated:
Starting around 1880, the immigrants who swarmed
into the United States were an entirely different
breed from the people who had discovered the
country, colonized it, made its laws and developed
it.

He also wrote:
So far as I am able tO gather from the letters
which frequently reach me on this subject, no
mention should be made of racial differences
because all peOple are equal in the eyes Of St.
Peter. This is probably true. Here on earth,
however, there are certain biological laws which

govern the crossing of different breeds, whether
the breeds be dogs or horses or men.

 

1Roberts, "Existence Of an Emergency," p. 3.

2Roberts, "Shutting the Sea Gates," p. 151.

62

These arguments might have helped persuade Americans that
foreigners in their midst radically differed from descen-
dants of the old stock.

These seemingly objective views Of experts on
immigration, the people who dealt regularly with immi-
grants in EurOpe or formulated theories about them in
America, coincided with Roberts' pre-existing notions.
This body Of anti-immigrant Opinion rested on a foun-
dation of Roberts' chauvinistic attitudes, which con-
tributed to a pattern Of prejudice in Roberts' writings.
This pattern became particularly illogical during his
coverage of immigration legislation in Washington, where
he decried the influence of interest groups and yet
failed to recognize the restrictionists as some of the

most active lobbyists.

CHAPTER 7

POLICY-MAKING

Between June 1921 and June 1924, Roberts was
based in Washington, D.C., and covered Congressional
debate and prOposals on immigration for the Saturday

Evening Post. He attacked political leaders for their

 

failure to pass a strict immigration law, claiming they
were representing vocal, militant minorities rather than
the interests of most Americans. Congress, according to
Roberts, was jeopardizing the future of the United States
by continuing to admit tens Of thousands Of immigrants
from southern and eastern Europe each year.1

A temporary law, passed in June 1921, allowed
about 350,000 immigrants a year into the country, pri-
marily from southern and central Europe. It set quotas
restricting European immigration to 3 percent of the
foreign-born in the United States in 1910, the year of

the latest available census. These restrictions did not

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Slow Poison," Saturday
Evening Post, 2 February 1924, p. 58.

 

63

64

change the general ethnic composition of immigration.1

Although Roberts appreciated its provisions for reducing

the general levels of immigration, he apparently would

have preferred a law that drastically limited the number

Of immigrants from southern and eastern EurOpe, as some

Of the prevailing scientific theories had recommended.

The 1921 law "is an unscientific law," Roberts wrote,

"but it cuts down the numbers, and therefore it is good."2
During the summer of 1921, Lorimer assigned

Roberts to the Saturday Evening Post staff in Washington

 

to report on the progress of immigration bills through
Congress. Although Roberts frequently wrote on subjects
not related to immigration and sometimes traveled to
other parts Of the country on his assignments, he never
neglected the subject Of immigration for long. Roberts
seemed to be staging a journalistic siege, determined

not to give up until certain ethnic groups were barred
from entering the United States. In his memoirs, he

said that as much as he "disliked the tumult, the turmoil,

the waste, constant telephone ringing and political

 

1Robert K. Murray, The Hardinngra (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1969), p. 395.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Shutting the Sea Gates,"
Saturday Eveninngost, 28 January 1922, p. 11.

 

65

ineffectuality of Washington," he "felt obliged to stay
there until something was done about immigration."1

The House Immigration Committee, the source of
most important immigration prOposals during the early
19205, became part of his beat. He got along well with
legislators and administrators closely involved with
immigration policymaking. W. W. Husband, the commissioner
general Of immigration, immediately tOOk an immediate
liking to Roberts. "The Office Of the commissioner
general Of immigration stood Open to me when the rotund
and cheery W. W. Husband discovered that I came from
Maine," Roberts wrote. "He was a Vermonter, and Ver-
monters usually are favorably disposed to State of Mainers
because residents Of those two states Often presented a
united front to the misguided other 46."2 Roberts was
in constant touch with the committee. A former legisla-
tive clerk recalled that Roberts stayed at the committee
Offices for days at a time.3

The committee faced the task of formulating a

new law involving an extremely controversial issue.

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, I Wanted to Write (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1949), p. 151.

 

21bid., p. 144.

3John Higham, Strangers in the Land; Patterns of
American Nativism, 1660-1925 (New Brunswick, N.Y.: Rutgers
University Press, 1955), p. 313.

 

66

Numerous groups had reservations about the 1921 law.

Some businessmen wanted the federal government to adjust
the quotas to allow more immigrants into the United States
to work in their factories. The 1921 law, according to
these businessmen, failed to consider that many immigrants
lived in the United States for only a few years and then
returned to their homelands.1 Spokesmen for various
ethnic groups defended the alleged right of their former
countrymen to come to the United States from EurOpe.2
Labor leaders allied themselves with the restrictionists,
arguing that industrialists wanted to keep wages down by
creating a huge pool of cheap labor. Frank Morrison,
secretary Of the American Federation of Labor, attacked
U.S. Steel executives for demanding more workers: "What
they want to see is three men for every job, as in 1914,
when the packing houses, for instance, had several hundred
men idle at each gate as a silent warning to the men who
asked higher wages that the men ready to take their jobs
were at hand."3

Roberts recognized that many groups had a vested

interest in the immigration question and he apparently

 

1New York Times, 2 June 1923, Sec. 1, p. 6.

 

2Mark Hughlin Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian
Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1963), p. 148.

 

 

3New York Times, 20 April 1923, Sec. 1, p. 18.

 

67

believed that Congress was more interested in listening
to organized interest groups rather than defending the
welfare of Americans in general. He reported that
Washington is as full Of these organized minorities
as it is Of wealthy widows; and they work constantly
at the task of bulldozing and terrorizing members
Of both Houses Of Congress into supporting measures
which should never be supported.
Roberts claimed that the Senate Immigration Committee in
1923 represented the wishes of the pro-immigration forces.
"By some singular chance," he wrote sarcastically, "most
Of those who testified before the Senate committee were
filled with a burning desire to break down existing immi-
gration restructions."2 Roberts singled out Senator
Le Baron Colt, chairman Of the Senate Immigration Com-
mittee, as a particular Obstacle and accused some senators
Of lobbying against immigration restriction among House
members.3
Roberts wrote that Congressmen devoted most Of
their energies to turning the immigration issue to their

political advantage. Some Of the senators and represen-

tatives had pet schemes designed to bring them individual

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Tribulations Of the
Senate," Saturday Evening Post, 16 September 1922, p. 66.

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Lest We Forget," Saturday
Evening Post, 1 May 1923, p. 3.

 

31bid., p. 158.

68

renown.1 In Roberts' view, the typical representative
used the House floor "as a garden in which to plant the
little acorns which shall later grow into re-election
oaks."2 The entire Senate, according to Roberts, ingra-
tiated itself with pressure groups and its own electorates
by supporting a popular, but unwise, measure to let home-
less and orphaned Armenian children into the United States.
He wrote:
When dug out from the commas and language in which
it is entangled, this bill will be seen to be a
political move to secure the good will Of the power-
ful organizations that were seeking the admission
Of Armenian refugees. It will also be seen to be a
bill whose passage into law would have helped to
discredit and to break down the existing immigration
law. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous con-
sent and sent it over tO the House for consideration.
There were a great many votes in it.3
The highly organized and vocal Immigration
Restriction League, however, escaped Roberts' wrath.
The league was a classic example of an interest group,
but Roberts did not see it as such. The House Immigration
Committee itself provided an example of the inroads that

zealous lobbyists can achieve; Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, a

league activist, was on the committee staff as a eugenics

 

1Roberts, "Slow Poison," p. 58.

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Troubles of the House,"
Saturday Evening Post, 3 June 1922, pp. 6-7.

 

3Roberts, "Lest We Forget," p. 4.

69

expert.1 Testimony before the House Immigration Com-
mittee, largely elicited from league members and sup-
porters, was characterized by Roberts as "reliable,
genuine and honest." He believed that the committee
"toiled faithfully and conscientiously" during a large
part Of the deliberations on immigration.2
Roberts apparently believed that the Immigration

Restriction League represented the interests Of the
majority Of Americans. Roberts claimed that restriction
of immigration from south and central EurOpe had become
a popular cause and that legislators were ignoring their
constituents in not passing new legislation. In 1923,
he wrote:

The people who don't understand legislative pro-

cedure, but who do understand that the country

needs protection from undesirable aliens, want

less talk, more action, more congressional team-

work, and the comprehensive, scientific and per-

manent immigration law they were promised over

two years ago.
A year later, he wrote:

The American people are thoroughly weary of such

impotence and delay in a matter that so profoundly
affects the future of their children.

 

lHaller, Eugenics, p. 132.

2Roberts, "Lest We Forget," p. 3.
3 .
Ibld., p. 10.

4Roberts, "Slow Poison," p. 58.

70

He maintained that Americans had largely adOpted the
racial beliefs Of the restrictions and implied that
these concepts were indisputable facts:

Unless lawmakers and public speakers are really
quite silly, they know that some people make better
citizens than others. They know that peOple from
certain sections of Europe are hopelessly inferior
in physique, manner Of thought, and ability to
people from other sections Of EurOpe.1

It was not clear, however, that the American

peOple and their representatives were ready to exclude
certain nationalities with a blatantly discriminatory
law. Congress apparently preferred a law that would bar
some EurOpean nationalities without the appearance of
doing so. During 1922, the restrictionists in the House
drafted a new quota law that substituted the census of
1890 for that Of 1910.2 This change was intended to
alter the ethnic composition of immigration from Europe.
The total members Of immigrants in a given year from a
particular nationality could not exceed 2 percent Of the
foreign-born from that nation who were in the United
States in 1890. Since America was still overwhelmingly
Anglo-Saxon in 1890, the House Immigration Committee

believed that the law would recreate the racial mix of

the golden era Of Nordic predominance.

 

1Roberts, "Slow Poison," p. 8.

2Higham, Strangers, p. 315.

 

71

The bill was merely a superficial concession to
ethnic groups. Their pride intact, immigrants were not
going to be specifically excluded or publicly judged.
"That much tribute, at least, America's democratic creed
demanded," John Higham wrote. "Only a minority went the
whole way of racism with Madison Grant, explicitly repudi-
ating democratic and Christian values in the interests of
Nordic philosophy."1
Lorimer appreciated the cleverness of this
indirect approach, calling it a "cagey idea" and sug-
gesting it to Roberts as a possible tOpic for an edi-
torial.2 Recognizing it as another concession to interest
groups, Roberts wrote:
The undesirables admittedly came from Southern and
Eastern Europe, but the countries couldn't be named,
because such naming, according to the anti-restric-
tion propagandists, was contrary to the ideals of
the founders of America.3

Roberts did, however, acknowledge the effectiveness of

the plan.4 The bill, signed by President Calvin Coolidge

in June 1924, drastically reduced immigration from southern

 

lHigham, Strangers, p. 319.

2John Tebbel, George Horace Lorimer and the
Saturday Evening Post (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
and Company, 1948), p. 94.

 

 

3Roberts, "Slow Poison," p. 9.

4Kenneth L. Roberts, "Mexicans or Ruin," Saturday
Evening Post, 18 February 1928, p. 18.

 

72

and eastern Europe. The annual total for European immi-
gration during fiscal year 1924-1925 was 164,667, less
than half the 1923-1924 total of 357,802. The number Of
Italian immigrants drOpped 90 percent, while British and
Irish immigration dropped only 19 percent.1

Roberts apparently believed that his articles
had an important effect on the legislative process by
alerting Americans to the dangers of immigration and by
applying pressure on policy-makers. In his memoirs, he
wrote that he described "conditions until an awakened
America came to the support Of senators and representa-
tives and gave them courage to act."2 As federal com-
missioner Of immigration, Husband attributed passage Of
the 1924 law primarily to the articles written by
Roberts.3

Such an influence was possible because of the

stature of the Saturday Evening Post. With a weekly

 

circulation of more than two million, it was touted
during the 19205 as the largest weekly magazine in the

world.

 

1George M. Stephenson, A History of American
Immigration (New York: Ginn and Company, 1926), p. 174.

 

2Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 144.

 

3James F. Wood, Magazines in the United States;
Their Social andyEgonomic Influence (New York: Ronald

73

"It was seen and read everywhere," historian
James P. Wood wrote years later. "People came to know
it as they knew their own names; its influence was per-
vasive and immeasureable."1

This influence was used to promote the doctrine
of Nordic superiority and the legislative goals of the
restrictionists. Roberts apparently believed that this
doctrine was indisputable, and he argued that anyone
who did not subscribe to it was distorting the facts
and representing special interests. But Americans, or
at least their representatives, were probably expressing
some doubts about Nordic superiority when they failed to
support a blatantly discriminatory law. Their doubts
would become more clear as the nation recovered from the

contagious nationalism Of the post-war years and as the

climate of Opinion changed.

 

lWood, Magazines in the United States, p. 150.

 

CHAPTER 8

THE AFTERMATH

After the passage of the 1924 law, Roberts con-
tinued to exhibit his chauvinistic and racial attitudes,
although nationalistic sentiment in the United States
was declining and suspicion of the eugenics movement was
increasing. In 1925, he wrote an article that decried
the popularity of foreign artists and musicians in the
United States, and in 1927, he began investigating immi-
gration from Mexico. His three-part series on Mexico,
published in 1928, reflected a philosophy similar to that
in articles between 1920 and 1924. Moreover, the series
portrayed Mexicans as an even greater racial threat than
EurOpeans.

After the victory of the immigration restric-
tionists, Roberts wanted to begin writing serious fiction;
but he lacked the requisite financial independence. Lori-
mer made it clear that Roberts, as a novelist, would get

little support from the Saturday Evening Post. The

 

editor said that Roberts' fiction would undoubtedly be
too long for publication in his magazine. Discouraged,

Roberts stayed with journalism.

74

75

Between 1924 and mid-1928, Roberts wrote on a
variety of subjects as a roving correspondent in the
United States for the magazine. Some of the major pieces
were about the Mormon Church, major American colleges,
the growing population of California, and the risks of
land speculation in Florida.1 Roberts maintained his
interest in Europe and was particularly irked by the per-
formance Of Richard Washburn Child, a former ambassador,
as the European correspondent for the magazine. Roberts
and his friend, Sam Blythe, who was his predecessor in

Washington for the Saturdaijvening Post, concluded that

 

Lorimer had a weakness for specialists, that is, business-
men Or government Officials, as contributors. Roberts
and Blythe thought he should employ professional writers

to improve coverage of European affairs.2

 

1See Kenneth L. Roberts, "California Change,"
Saturday EveningPost, 14 March 1925, p. 16; Kenneth L.
Roberts, "California Diversions," Saturday Evening Post,
18 September 1926, p. 13; Kenneth L. Roberts, "California
Ray," Saturday Evening Post, 4 September 1926, p. 8;
Kenneth L. Roberts, "Flaming Alumni," Saturday Evening
Post, 15 December 1928, p. 6; Kenneth L. ROberts, Florida
Fever," Saturday Evening Post, 5 December 1925, p. 6;
Kenneth L. Roberts,4“Florida Fireworks," Saturday Evening
Post, 23 January 1926, p. 12; Kenneth L. Roberts, I'Harvard:
Fair and Cooler," SaturdayEvening Post, 9 February 1929,
p. 16; Kenneth L. Roberts, "Mormons and What Not," Satur-
day Evening Post, 5 June 1926, p. 20; "Smoldering I111n1,"
Saturday Evening Post, 12 January 1929, p. 12.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, I Wanted to Write (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1949), p. 171.

 

76

Roberts showed some Of his distaste for Euro-
peans in his article, "The New Immigration." He com-
plained that European artists and musicians were exploit-
ing the American hunger for the culture of Europe and came
to the United States because they coveted the American

dollar. Roberts wrote:

There is no way of discovering how many European
artists are engaged in wrenching a comfortable living
from commercial and inartistic America at the present
time. The figures of the Commissioner General Of
Immigration fail to reveal the true state Of affairs,
because many European artists who have come to
America in the past ten years tO pry as much cur-
rency as possible out of the country have found the
prying so delightfully easy and so soothing to their
artistic temperaments that they have carelessly
neglected to return to their native lands, where the
prying requires infinite pains and exertion.

These artists and musicians, according tO Roberts, dis-
dained the wealthy Americans who acted as their patrons.
"Few of them are grateful for their good fortune," he
wrote. "They accept money from their hosts, and then
circulate tales of their crudities and follies behind
their backs."2 He compared the greedy artists with their
lower-class countrymen:
For a great many years the proletariat of

EurOpe had recognized America as the source of

material welfare, and had strained itself severely

to get to America and pry out all of the material

welfare in sight before anybody else could get at
it . . .

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "The New Immigration,"

Saturday Evening Post, 24 October 1925, p. 76.

2Ibid., p. 78.

77

It is only within the past few years that the

highbrows of Europe have discovered that America

is the land of single-track romance; the land of

easy-mark society and starry-eyed suckers; and

best Of all, the land of lightly held dollars.1
Roberts, who had disdained the rabble of Europe, held a
similar dislike for many cultured Europeans. Prejudice
against foreigners again seemed to be a common theme in
his immigration articles.

Roberts and the restrictionists continued to fear
the contamination Of the American race through immigra-
tion, even though Europeans found it more difficult to
enter the United States. The restrictive legislation Of
1924, as a gesture Of gOOd will to neighboring countries
in the Western hemisphere, did not apply to their citizens.
Government Officials did not want tO damage relations with
Latin American countries. A friend Of Roberts at the
State Department tried tO steer him away from investigat-
ing immigration from Mexico and maintained that his
articles would Offend Latin Americans. "I was unable tO
agree with him," Roberts wrote later, "since I was
strongly of the Opinion that our Department of State

had already done everything possible to harm our relations

with Latin America."2

 

1Roberts, "The New Immigration," p. 47.

2Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 182.

 

78

Roberts visited the American Southwest to gather
information on immigration, and his conclusions about
Mexicans were similar to his findings about European
immigrants, except that Mexicans were even less desirable
than immigrants from southern and central Europe. He
wrote:

Various Opinions are held in regard to the quali-
ties Of Mexican peons as immigrants, but there is
little argument concerning their desirability by
comparison with the immigrants from Europe who
have been shut out of the United States, in large
part, by a quota law.1
His rationale hinged on the doctrine of Nordic superiority.
One source Of the Mexicans' inferiority was their Indian
blood; some Indian tribes, Roberts wrote,
. . . are fierce and aggressive, like the Yaquis.
Others are as low on the human scale as the Digger
Indians of California, and seem only a little re-
moved, mentally and physically, from dumb brutes.2
Their genetic inferiority was supposedly compounded by
racial mixture. Some prevailing theories on racial
biology held that half-breeds were even less desirable
than inferior races Of pure blood; in a Mexican context,
this meant that the majority of the population, the Mes-

tizos, were racially inferior to Mexican Indians. Roberts

wrote: "The Mestizos of any country are generally

 

1Kenneth L. Roberts, "Mexicans or Ruin,
Evening Post, 18 February 1928, p. 18.

Saturday

 

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "Wet and Other Mexicans,"
Saturday Evening Post, 4 February 1928, p. 11.

79

regarded by biologists, social workers and employers of
labor as being undesirable additions to the population
of any other country."1 The high birthrate of the
Mexicans and the large numbers Of illegal immigrants
seemed to magnify the problem of immigration from Mexico.2
These arguments were increasingly out of place
during the prosperous and more secure years of the late
19205. Restrictionists in the House Of Representatives
continued to press for tighter immigration laws, barring
Latin Americans, but there was little enthusiasm for
their measures. "Surely this amounted to a modest program
compared with all the achievements Of the early twenties,"
John Higham wrote. "Nevertheless, through the rest of
the decade, it all remained undone. . . ."3 Americans
had become apathetic about the nationalistic pronounce-
ments of patriotic and eugenics groups.4 "Interest in
eugenics declined steadily," Higham wrote, "and the move-
ment shrank to the status of a dedicated but ineffectual

5

cult." Moderate geneticists hastened the decline of

 

lRoberts, "Wet and Other Mexicans," p. 11.

2Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Docile Mexican," Satur-
day Evening Post, 10 March 1928, p. 165.

 

3John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns
of American Nativism, 1660-1925 (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1955), p. 325.

 

4Ibid., p. 326. 51bid., p. 327.

80

eugenics by repudiating its findings as out of date and
misleading.1 Roberts was clinging to arguments that
were losing their claim to validity and their capacity
to incite passions.

At about the time Roberts was investigating
Mexican immigration, he decided to end his regular work
for Lorimer and devote his time to a series of historical
novels based on the exploits of his ancestors, tales of

privateers and soldiers he first heard of as a child in

Maine. Although Lorimer was initially reluctant to pub-
lish Roberts' fiction, he consented to publish Lively
Eagy in edited, serial form in 1930.2 During the next
few years, both through the serialization of his writing
in the Pg§£_and through sales of his books, Roberts grad-
ually built up a mass of loyal readers. The stories were
filled with action, abundant color and minute detail
about daily life in early America. His crowning work was

Northwest Passage, selected by the Book of the Month Club
3

 

in July 1937.

 

1Kenneth M. Ludmerer, Genetics and American
Societ (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univergity Press,
1972), p. 125.

 

2Roberts, I Wanted to Write, p. 420.

 

3See Kenneth L. Roberts, Lively Lagy (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & CO., 1931), and Kenneth L.
Roberts, Northwest Passage (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
Doran & CO., 1937).

 

 

81

Roberts' decision to leave reporting for a career
as a novelist was perhaps one more symptom Of the decline
of nationalistic feeling after 1924. Roberts evidently
retained his racial beliefs but felt less personally com-
mitted to his crusade. While he had kept his vow to con-
tinue reporting from Washington until European immigration
was curtailed, he apparently made no similar vow about
stopping Mexican immigration, even though he regarded
Mexicans as an even greater racial threat. He soon ‘
devoted his energy to his novels. Such a lapse of zeal
on the immigration question was common during the mid-
19205. "Actually the important change was not an out-
spoken Offensive against the premises or results Of the
new nationalism," Higham wrote. "The idea remained while
the energy drained away."1 Roberts' description of
Mexicans and their racial inheritance seems to have been
a vestige Of his earlier work. He was merely repeating
ideas formed during the unsettled war years and their

aftermath.

 

lHigham, Strangers, p. 326.

 

CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

Roberts publicized uncomplimentary descriptions

of immigrants in his Saturday Evening Post articles

 

because apparently trustworthy evidence suggested that
immigrants from central and southeastern Europe were
inferior. Important and respected peOple in various
fields maintained that there were significant differences
between Americans and certain ethnic groups. His own
Observations seemed to confirm this. Roberts evidently
was unaware Of the narrow prejudices that lay at the root
of his own conclusions and those of the eugenicists. He
portrayed these racial theories as indisputable facts

to the readers Of the Saturday Evening Post and thereby

 

may have helped to effect the passage of a discriminatory
immigration law in 1924.

The nationalistic climate after World War I gave
the immigration question a sense Of urgency. Politicians,
writers, scholars, government Officials and others took a
second look at newcomers from Europe and began to worry

about the ultimate effect of this influx of foreigners

82

83

on American life. Lorimer was sufficiently moved by

the spirit of the times to reconsider his complacent,
pre-war attitude toward immigration. He envisioned an
investigation of the character and the motives of European
immigrants and commissioned a strongly nationalistic
writer to undertake it. Lorimer evidently recognized
Roberts' pro-American and anti-foreign biases; he felt
obliged to warn Roberts at the start of the series not

to write anything that would needlessly antagonize foreign
countries.

Roberts' prejudices consistently colored his
Observations. His impressions of foreigners were usually
negative. He even announced his distaste for immigrants
before he visited the major sources Of immigration in
EurOpe. Such xenophobia appeared again in 1925 and in
1928, after most Of his immigration articles had been
published. The consistency Of this attitude suggests
that Roberts was unable to view foreign peoples as he
viewed Americans.

Roberts considered himself an honest reporter
and apparently did not believe that he was unfairly
maligning the Italians, Slavs, and Jews Of Europe. He
adhered to professional ethics that he formed during his
newspaper days in Boston. The goal of reporting was the
truth; he had no patience for prOpaganda. His oft-stated

belief was that the inferiority of certain groups from

84

southern and eastern Europe was a fact. According to
Roberts, those who tried to deny this truth were propa-
gandists.

Roberts supported his views about European immi-
grants with the opinions Of peOple he considered to be
experts on the subject of immigration. Consular Officials
and other Americans confirmed his belief that certain
ethnic groups were undesirable. Roberts also relied on
the findings of pseudo-scientific eugenicists, sometimes
borrowing their very words and phrases. The thrust of
these beliefs was that some immigrant groups were forever
incapable of becoming true Americans. Lorimer and the

Saturday Evening Post tOOk this position editorially in

 

1921.
A change of scenery, Of air, of job cannot change
the fundamental facts Of heredity. . . . The
trouble with our Americanization program is that
a large part of our immigrants can never become
Americans. They will always be Americanski-inear
Americans with un-American ideas and ideals.

The biases of these hereditarian attitudes were,
in part, rooted in the intolerant public climate and the
lingering provincialism of a nation suddenly thrust into
world affairs. Higham wrote that this era exhibited "the

defensive nationalism of an age undergoing disillusion."2

 

1Saturday Evening Post, 14 May 1921, p. 21.

 

2John Higham, Strangers in the Land; Patterns of
American Nativism, 1660-1925 (New BrunsWick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1955), p. 271.

 

 

85

The climate of Opinion encouraged the extremist eugeni-
cists; the moderates tended to remain silent. "Though

the research of the war years showed many of the eugeni-
cists' claims to be in error," historian Kenneth M. Lud-
merer wrote, "until the mid-19205, no geneticist of note,
and only Franz Boas Of the leading anthrOpologists, Openly
repudiated the views of the eugenicists."1 Ludmerer also
wrote that zealots assumed the leadership of the eugenics
movement. "Strong in political sentiment, lacking in
scientific interest, racially and culturally prejudiced,
these men found in the movement a scientific sanctuary,"
he wrote. "They constituted a vocal prominent group
whose influence exceeded its numbers; after the war, they
became the movement's major spokesmen."2 It was the views
Of such militants that found their way into the Saturday

Evening Post.

 

Roberts and Lorimer evidently intended to influence
policymaking on immigration by publishing the views Of the
eugenicists and by calling for a scientific immigration
law. Particularly during 1922 and 1923, Roberts repeatedly
maintained that Congress was ignoring the findings of
science and the will Of the people by not curtailing

immigration. A magazine with the prestige and popularity

 

1Kenneth M. Ludmerer, Genetics and American
Society (BaltimOre: Johns Hopkins Ufiiversity Press,
1972) I p. 250

2

 

Ibid., p. 84.

86

of the Saturday Evening Post could conceivably have

 

caused Congressmen some embarrassment in this way. It

is also likely that the magazine helped to legitimize,

in a limited way, the extreme racial beliefs of the
eugenicists and thereby paved the way for the immigration

restriction law of 1924.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Coolidge, Calvin. "Whose Country Is This?" Good House-
keeping, February, 1921, p. 14.

Creel, George. "Close the Gates!" Collier's, 6 May 1922,
p. 9.

. "Melting Pot or Dumping Ground." Collier's,
6 May 1922, p. 7.

Grant, Madison. The Passing of the Great Race. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916.

Ripley, William Z. The Races of EurOpe. New York:
D. Appleton and Company, 1899.

Roberts, Kenneth L. "Almost Sunny Italy." Saturday
EveningyPost, 1 May 1920, p. 18.

 

. "And West Is West." Saturdanyvening Post,
15 March 1924, p. 12.

. "Beer Worshipers." Saturdanyvening Post,
19 February 1921, p. 6.

. "Bringing Chaos Out Of Order." Saturday
Evening Post, 12 July 1919, p. 17.

 

. "California Change." Saturday Evening Post,
14 March 1925, p. 16.

. "California Diversions." Saturday Evening
Post, 18 September 1926, p. 13.

. "California Ray." Saturday Evening Post, 4
September 1926, p. 8.

. "Canada Bars the Gates." Saturday Evening
Post, 12 August 1922, p. 10.

87

Roberts,

88

Kenneth L. "The Docile Mexican." Saturday
Evening Post, 1 May 1928, p. 39.

 

. "East Is East." Saturday Evening Post, 23
February 1924, p. 6.

. "Eating through Europe." Saturday Evening
Post, 1 October 1921, p. 6.

 

. "The Existence of an Emergency." Saturday
Evening Post, 30 April 1921, p. 3.

 

. "Flaming Alumni." Saturday Evening Post,
15 December 1928, p. 6.

 

. "Florida Fever." Saturday Evening Post,
5 December 1925, p. 6.

. "Florida Fireworks." Saturday EveningaPost,
23 January 1926, p. 12.

 

"For over a Thousand Years." Saturday Evening
Post, 12 June 1920, p. 18.

 

. "The Goal Of Central Europeans." Saturday
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. "Guests from Italy." Saturday Evening Post,
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. "Handing It Back." Saturday Evening Post,
29 May 1920, p. 8.

 

. "Harvard: Fair and Cooler." Saturday Evening
Post, 9 February 1929, p. 16.

 

. "Husks." Saturday Evening Post, 1 May 1920,
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. I Wanted to Write. Garden City, N.Y.: Double-
day and Company, 1949.

 

. "Lest We Forget." Saturday Evening Post,
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. Lively Lady. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
Doran and Company, 1931.

 

. "Mexicans or Ruin." Saturday Evening Post,
18 February 1928, p. 18.

 

89

Roberts, Kenneth L. "Mormons and What Not." Saturday
Evening Post, 5 June 1926, p. 20.

 

. "The New Immigration." Saturday Evening Post,
24 October 1925, p. 48.

 

"Plain Remarks on Immigration for Plain Ameri-
cans." Saturday Evening Post, 12 February 1921,
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. "Poland for Patriotism." Saturday Evening
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"Ports of Embarkation." Saturday Evening Post,
7 May 1921, p. 12.

 

"Random Notes Of an Americanski." Saturday
Evening Post, 17 May 1919, p. 4.

 

. "Rising Irish Tide." Saturday Evening Post,
27 March 1920, p. 3.

 

. "Shutting the Sea Gates." Saturday Evening
Post, 28 January 1922, p. 3.

 

. "Slow Poison." Saturday Evening Post, 2 Feb-
ruary 1924, p. 8.

 

. "Smoldering Illini." Saturday Evening Post,
12 January 1929, p. 12.

 

. "Submerged Congressmen." Saturday Evening
Post, 21 October 1922, p. 3.

 

. "Tribulations of the Senate." Saturday Evening
Post, 16 September 1922, p. 25.

 

. "Troubles of the House." Saturday Evening
Post, 3 June 1922, p. 6.

 

. "Trial by Travel." Saturday Evening‘Post,
4 September 1920, p. 6.

 

"Wet and Other Mexicans." Saturday Evening
Post, 4 February 1928, p. 10.

 

. Why Europa Leaves Home. Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill CO., 1920.

 

U.S. Immigration Commission. Abstracts of the Reports of
the Immigration CommissIOn. Washington: Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1911.

 

 

90

Washington. U.S. Library Of Congress. Kenneth L.
Roberts Papers.

Secondary Sources

 

Haller, Mark H. Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in
American Thought. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1962.

Higham, John. Strangars in_the Land; Patterns of American
Nativism, 1660-1925. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1955.

Jones, Maldwyn Allen. American Immigration. Chicago:
University of ChiCagO Press, 1960.

Lieberman, Jethro K. Are Americans Extinct? New York:
Walker and CO., 1968.

 

Ludmerer, Kenneth M. Genetics and American Society.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972.

Solomon, Barbara M. Ancestors and Immigrants. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1956.

 

Stephenson, George M. A History of American Immigration.
New York: Ginn and CO., 1926.

 

Tebbel, John. George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday
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