Timelines: 1924
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The U.S. Immigration Act
Race and genetics - a combustible mixture
President Calvin Coolidge signs the Immigration Act of 1924 into law with strong Congressional support. The Act creates a permanent quota system barring the immigration of East Asians and significantly restricting numbers of incoming Southern and Eastern Europeans. Arguments made in support of the Act include claims regarding the genetic inferiority of these ethnic groups. A statement in the early 1920s by Dr. Harry N. Laughlin, a eugenics consultant to the House Judiciary Committee on Immigration and Nationalization, underscores the currency of notions regarding racial hygiene and the genetic maintenance and improvement of human populations:
“We in this country have been so imbued with the idea of democracy, or the equality of all men, that we have left out of consideration the matter of blood or natural born hereditary mental and moral differences. No man who breeds pedigreed plants and animals can afford to neglect this thing….”
Calvin Coolidge signs the act on the White House lawn
A political advertisement for the Workingmen's Party California
Political cartoon portraying the limits on immigration from Europe