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“What Must Be the Answer of the United States to Such a Proposition?” Anarchist Exclusion and National Security in the United States, 1887–1903

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2016

ALEXANDER NOONAN*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Boston College. Email: alexander.noonan.1@bc.edu.

Abstract

This article examines the debates around anarchist restriction that shaped the eventual passage of the Immigration Act of 1903 and argues that domestically oriented conceptions of national security are both challenged and constituted by transnational and international processes and currents. While discussions of transnational immigration control became important features of both scholarly discourse and popular debate in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 2001, these discussions were not new. Similar debates about immigration policy, security, and civil liberties shaped discussions between the mid-1880s and early 1900s, when an unprecedented wave of attacks against heads of state fed rumors of wide-ranging conspiracies, and reports of anarchist outrages in cities far and wide spread fear. Anarchist exclusion was far more than an example of a rising nativist tide raising all boats and excluding a widening spectrum of undesirable aliens. Such measures set the foundation for restriction based on political beliefs and associations that, over subsequent decades, would become critical to suppressing political dissent. Consequently, understanding how the fear of anarchist violence helped shape the contours of the domestic and diplomatic debates over anarchist restriction is critical as these old questions of transnational immigration control reemerge.

Type
Immigration Forum
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2016 

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References

1 “No. 8773: Prefect of Naples (Cavasola) to the Royal Ministry of the Interior, 8 August 1900,” Record Group 59: United States Department of State, M202: Notes from the Italian legation in the United States, Roll 15 (1 March 1900–31 July 1901), National Archives II, College Park, MD (hereafter RG 59).

2 “To Kill All of Europe's Sovereigns?”, Boston Morning Journal, 1 Aug. 1900, 2; “Other Countries' Boxers,” Daily Herald (Biloxi, MS), 11 Sept. 1900, 3, no. 21, 3; “The Plot Details,” Trenton Evening Times, 14 Aug. 1900, 7; “Another Anarchist Plot to Assassinate Monarch,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 Sept. 1900, 143, no. 75, 2; “Gigantic Anarchistic Plot,” New Haven Evening Register, 20 Sept. 1900, LVII, no. 222, 12; “Plot to Assassinate Loubet,” New Haven Evening Register, 27 Oct. 1900, LVII, no. 254, 1; “Another Plot,” Daily Herald (Biloxi), 28 Nov. 1900, 3, no. 85, 1. For coverage of the specific plot supposedly involving Maresca and Guida see “A Plot to Kill President McKinley,” Wilkes-Barre Times, 25 Aug. 1900, 2.

3 This information was personally shared with Baron Fava, per his original request, on 27 September. See “23,391–I: Acting Secretary of the Treasury to Sec. of State, 26 Sept 1900,” RG 59, M179: Records of the Department of State, Miscellaneous Letters (Received), Roll 1083 (19–30 Sept. 1900).

4 Donna Gabbacia, in her 2010 keynote at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, issued a call to increase the dialogue between these two subdisciplines. Donna R. Gabaccia, Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Gabaccia, “Foreign Relations: Immigration History as International History,” in Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, 2010 Annual Meeting (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 25 June 2010). For examples of work that tie together issues of human movement, security, and foreign relations see Elaine Carey and Andrae M. Marak, eds., Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine: Historical Perspectives on Contraband and Vice in North America's Borderlands (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011); Jonathan Gantt, Irish Terrorism in the Atlantic Community, 1865–1922 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010); Erika Lee, At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Adam M. McKeown, Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).

5 William Preston Jr., Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 21, 34.

6 See Barton, Mary S., “The Global War on Anarchism: The United States and International Anarchist Terrorism, 1898–1904,” Diplomatic History, 39, 2 (April 2015), 303–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hong, Nathaniel, “The Origins of American Legislation to Exclude and Deport Aliens for Their Political Beliefs and Its Initial Review by the Courts,” Journal of Ethnic Studies, 18, 2 (Summer 1990), 136Google Scholar; Kraut, Julia Rose, “Global Anti-anarchism: The Origins of Ideological Deportation and the Suppression of Expression,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19, 1 (Winter 2012), 169–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 9.

8 Erika Lee, “A Nation of Immigrants and a Gatekeeping Nation: American Immigration Law and Policy,” in Reed Ueda, ed., A Companion to American Immigration (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 5–35, 28, 29. For discussions of the relationship between immigration, civil liberties, and security since September 11, 2001 see also Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia, Migrant Mobilization and Securitization in the US and Europe: How Does It Feel to Be a Threat? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 2–3; Deirdre M. Moloney, National Insecurities: Immigrants and U. S. Deportation Policy since 1882 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 1–3.

9 Doty, Roxanne Lynn, “The Double-Writing of Statecraft: Exploring State Responses to Illegal Immigration,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 21, 2 (April–June 1996), 171–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 180. Fear as a critical element in immigration policy is widely present in scholarly studies of the issue. See, for example, Philippe Bourbeau, The Securitization of Immigration: A Study of Movement and Order (New York: Routledge, 2011); Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia, Frontiers of Fear: Immigration and Insecurity in the United States and Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012); Jaret, Charles, “Troubled by Newcomers: Anti-immigrant Attitudes and Action during Two Eras of Mass Immigration to the United States,” Journal of American Ethnic History, 18, 3 (Spring 1999), 939Google Scholar; Teitelbaum, Michael S., “Immigration, Refugees, and Foreign Policy,” International Organization, 38, 3 (Summer 1984), 429–50CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. A ban on anarchist immigration persisted through the Internal Security Act of 1950 (64 Stat. 987), which included anarchists along with alien communists and communist sympathizers as excluded classes of subversives. Edward P. Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798–1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981), 423–27.

10 For studies that take this approach see Andrew Bacevich, ed., The Long War: A New History of U. S. National Security Policy since World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992); Michael S. Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 4, 8; Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State (New York: Penguin Press, 2010); Julian E. Zelizer, Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security from World War II to the War on Terrorism (New York: Basic Books, 2010).

11 Jelly-Schapiro, Eli, “Security: The Long History,” Journal of American Studies, 47, 3 (2013), 126CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 2; Preston, Andrew, “Monsters Everywhere: A Genealogy of National Security,” Diplomatic History, 38, 3 (2014), 477500CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 492. In the post-Cold War and 9/11 world, national security has become even more of a presentist concern. As one scholar, in a chapter entitled “The Old Days: Cold War, 1947–1989,” writes, “For those who will always recall where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001, the outlandish, remote idea that the United States could be attacked by outsiders seeking to injure the national psyche was suddenly no longer distant, infeasible, or unthinkable.” Cynthia A. Watson, U. S. National Security: A Reference Handbook, Contemporary World Issues (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2002), 2.

12 Sherry, 4. Charles Maier cautions, “For all the recent histories that suggest the state became exponentially more ambitious and powerful in controlling its citizens, nineteenth-century governments still hardly ‘penetrated’ society.” Charles Maier, “Leviathan 2.0,” in Emily Rosenberg, ed., A World Connecting, 1870–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 163–64. Julian Zelizer ascribes the desire to create a robust national security agenda to Theodore Roosevelt, who was, nevertheless, “unable to break through nineteenth-century resistance to internationalism and a national security state.” Zelizer, 18.

13 Melvyn P. Leffler, “National Security,” in Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson, eds., Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 123–36, 123, 136. There are a small but growing number of studies that expand the temporal focus on security. See, for example, Barton; Christopher Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); James Chace and Caleb Carr, America Invulnerable: The Quest for Absolute Security from 1812 to Star Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); Totten, Robbie, “National Security and U. S. Immigration Policy, 1776–1790,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 39 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some studies, traditionally done by political theorists, focus on general theories of security and situate it in the longue durée – tracing the roots back to Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes and the protection of property rights. These works examine how security is socially constructed at different moments rather than accept security as a given. See, for example, Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Pub., 1998); Mark Neocleous, Critique of Security (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008); Neocleous, “Security, Liberty and the Myth of Balance: Towards a Critique of Security Politics,” Contemporary Political Theory 6 (2007), 131–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 “Youngs to Hill, 6 Sept. 1900,” RG 59, M179, Roll 1081; “Adee to Secretary of the Treasury, 11 August 1900”; “Adee to Sylvester, 22 August 1900”; and “Adee to Secretary of the Treasury, 22 August 1900,” RG 59, M40: Domestic Letters (Sent) of the Department of State, Roll 148 (20 June–14 Sept. 1900); “No. 6744: Vanderlip to Commissioner General of Immigration, 5 Sept. 1900,” US Secret Service, Correspondence, 1863–1950, A1 20: Letters Sent, 1899–1914, Box 7, Volume 7 (Nos. 6,001–7,000), National Archives II, College Park, MD (hereafter RG 87); confirmations of letters received in Department of Justice, A1 72D: Year Files (Folded), 1900, Box 1226 (11569–11754), National Archives II, College Park, MD.

15 Keith Fitzgerald, The Face of the Nation: Immigration, the State, and Ntional Identity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 145.

16 The Act, as Lucy Salyer points out, left the enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Laws under the control of the Customs Service – a policy that remained until the Act of 6 June 1900. See Lucy E. Salyer, Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 1–2.

17 Prescott F. Hall, Immigration and Its Effects upon the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1907), 223–24.

18 “No. 6516: Wilkie to William P. Hazen, Post Office Building, New York,” 15 Aug. 1900, RG 87, A1 20, Box 7; “No. 6669: Gage to Secretary of State,” 28 Aug. 1900, RG 87, A1 20, Box 7.

19 “No. 8773: Prefect of Naples (Cavasola) to the Royal Ministry of the Interior, 8 August 1900,” RG 59, M202, Roll 15.

20 “Fitchie to Commissioner-General of Immigration, 25 Feb. 1901,” RG 59, M179, Roll 1095.

21 H. Rpt. 3472: “Immigration Investigation,” House of Representatives, Fifty-First Congress, Second Session, 2, 150.

22 Hall, 224. H. Rpt. 3472: “Immigration Investigation,” House of Representatives, Fifty-First Congress, Second Session, 150–51.

23 “For Control of Anarchists,” The Nation, 82, 2136 (7 June 1906), 464. See also “The Week,” The Nation, 45, 1168 (17 Nov. 1887), 383; “The Bill against Anarchists,” The Nation, 74, 1912 (20 Feb. 1902), 145–46.

24 Defining anarchists solely in terms of violence – and the intractable problem of crafting a more suitable definition – played a role in torpedoing the passage of all earlier legislative efforts. See Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, 8231; Fine, Sidney, “Anarchism and the Assassination of McKinley,” American Historical Review, 60, 4 (July 1955), 779–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 777–80; Kraut, “Global Anti-anarchism,” 173.

25 It was largely for these reasons that attempts to include provisions for extensive “consular inspections” were generally shelved. For a thorough accounting and detailed analysis of the debates from the Congressional Record see Hall, 280–88.

26 See, respectively, “No. 6428 [telegram]: Wilkie to W. P. Hazen, Post office building, New York,” 8 Aug. 1900; “No. 6473 [telegram]: Wilkie to W. P. Hazen, Post office building, New York,” 11 Aug. 1900. US Secret Service (hereafter RG 87): Correspondence, 1863–1950; Letters Sent, 1899–1914, Box 7, Volume 7 (Letter Nos. 6,001–7,000; June 26–Sept. 28, 1900), National Archives II, College Park, MD.

27 “No. 6516 [Telegram]: Wilkie to W. P. Hazen, Post office building, New York,” 15 Aug. 1900. RG 87: Correspondence, 1863–1950; Letters Sent, 1899–1914, Box 7, Volume 7. The problems of such an imprecise physical description easily lent themselves to numerous cases of mistaken identity or intentional fraud. The latter was a pressing concern of the consulate in Naples in the late 1890s.

28 “No. 12: Byington to the Assistant Secretary of State,” 10 Feb. 1898. Records of the Foreign Service Posts to the Department of State (hereafter RG 84): Diplomatic Posts, Italy, Volume 57: Serial No. 112: Instructions from the Department of State, Draper, 1 Jan. 1898 to 5 May 1898, Volume 24, National Archives II, College Park, MD.

29 Frank P. Sargent, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1904 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), 6–8. The English anarchist John Turner was deported in 1904 while on a public lecture tour in the United States. It is unclear, however, that the anarchist listed in the 1904 Annual Report is he: the individual was classified as “French” and Turner was not debarred at port. Rather he was detained after his arrival and in the legal proceedings that followed, Turner never confirmed or denied his method of entry into the United States. The Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled on Turner v. Williams, 194 U. S. 279 (1904), was asked to weigh in on whether the 1903 act violated the First Amendment or if, as future Supreme Court Justice James Clark McReynolds argued, Turner had no First Amendment rights as a foreigner and the deportation was strictly an immigration issue. See Kraut, 182–86. William Williams, the other named party, was the United States commissioner of immigration for the Port of New York.

30 Daniel Keefe and A. Warner Parker, Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1910 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910), 80.

31 “The Bill against Anarchists,” 146. These public views echoed the frustration of the immigration officials directly confronting the challenge of identifying such individuals. See, for example, “Fitchie to Commissioner-General of Immigration, 25 Feb. 1901,” RG 59, M179, Roll 1095.

32 “Would Have an Anarchist Island,” Denver Republican, 11 Sept. 1901; and “N. G. Burnham to Knox,” 12 Sept. 1901, RG 60, A1 72-B, Box 8, Folder 1.

33 The German law was passed on 19 October 1878 after two attempts by political radicals to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm I failed earlier that same year.

34 For an extensive discussion of European anti-anarchist laws see Loubat (procureur de la République à Saint-Etienne), De la legislation contre les anarchists au point de vue international (fin),” Journal du droit international privé et de la jurisprudence comparée, 23 (1896), 294320Google Scholar. In the American press, telegraphic notices of anarchists being deported were a frequent feature in the “International/Telegraph” sections. For typical coverage of anti-anarchist legislation see “Untitled,” Morning Oregonian, 6 Sept. 1900, 6.

35 Francis H. Nichols, “The Anarchists in America,” Outlook, 10 Aug. 1901, 859.

36 “No. 55, Confidential: Mr. Gosselin to the Marquis of Salisbury,” 12 April 1892. Home Office (hereafter HO): Registered Papers, Supplementary, 144/587/B2840C, National Archives, Kew, England. The file highlights a number of similar occurrences.

37 See “Ministère de l'intérieur, Direction de la Sûreté générale, Etat signalétique des anarchistes éstrangers expulsés de France, No. 4 – Juin 1894 [filed by Dept. of State 28 Aug. 1894],” RG 59, M53: Notes from the French Legation in the United States to the Department of State, 1789–1906, Roll 26, 5 Jan. 1893–18 Dec. 1895; “Unnumbered: Draper to Sherman,” 9 Sept. 1897, RG 84: Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, Italy, Volume 0024: Serial No. 81: Despatches to Secretary of State, Mac Veagh and Draper, Nov. 17, 1896 to Feb. 1, 1898, Volume 17; HO 144/587/B2840C.

38 “Reports of Diplomatic and Consular Officers,” in H. Rpt. 3792, Fiftieth Congress, Second Session, 100.

39 S. Rpt. 13: “Foreign Immigration,” Fifty-Fifth Congress, First Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1897, 4.

40 H. Rpt. 3472, Fifty-First Congress, Second Session, 778.

41 Ibid., 646–57.

42 See “Fava to Stump, 10 September 1896” and “Kingdom of Italy, Minister of the Interior, General Direction of Public Security, 8 November 1896” in S. Doc. 9: Mission to Italian Government, Fifty-Fourth Congress, Second Session, RG 59, M179, Roll 1095.

43 See, respectively, “Carlisle to Stump, 6 October 1896” in S. Doc. 9: Mission to Italian Government, Fifty-Fourth Congress, Second Session; and “No. 25,732: Gage (Treasury) to Secretary of State, 27 February 1901,” RG 59, M179, Roll 1095.

44 See “Fitchie to Commissioner-General of Immigration, 25 February 1901,” RG 59, M179, Roll 1095; “Transcript of meeting of the Board of Special Inquiry, held at the U. S. Immigration Station, Ellis Island, New York – in the matter of Pellegrino Lepore,” 23 Feb. 1901; “Gage to the Secretary of State,” 27 Feb. 1901, RG 84: Records of Foreign Service Posts, Diplomatic Posts, Italy, Volume 62: Serial No. 117: Instructions from the Department of State, Meyer, Dec. 28, 1900 to Dec. 31, 1901, Volume 29.

45 “Emley to Voorhees, 2 December 1901,” RG 59, M179, Roll 1119.

46 Unlike Bresci, who was an Italian immigrant to the United States, Czolgosz was a first-generation American citizen of Polish background. Following the assassination, Czolgosz's statement to the police, which was widely published, brought Bresci back into national news. Though the sincerity of Czolgosz's anarchistic beliefs was widely doubted, he acknowledged a wide circle of anarchist associates but flatly denied any conspiracy: “I am an anarchist. I am a disciple of Emma Goldman … I am not connected with the Patterson [sic] group, or with those anarchists to kill Humbert.” See “Career of Assassin,” Washington Post, 8 Sept. 1901, 1. A little more than a year later, a new rumor that connected the Paterson group to a possible attempt on President Theodore Roosevelt circulated, but was quickly discredited. See “Mrs. Dexheimer Guarded,” New York Times, 20 Nov. 1902, 6. For a discussion of doubts about Czolgosz's anarchistic sympathies see L. Vernon Briggs, The Manner of Man that Kills (New York: Da Capo Press, 1983; first published 1921), 316–31; Eric Rauchway, Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2003), 83–111; Alice Wexler, Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 103–12.

47 Though Roosevelt would acknowledge that the process of industrial development and the growth of cities and corporations “aroused much antagonism,” an anarchist was “not the victim of social or political injustice. There are no wrongs to remedy in his case. The cause of his criminality is to be found in his own evil passions and in the evil conduct of those who urge him on, not in any failure by others or by the State to do justice to him or his. He is a malefactor and nothing else.” Theodore Roosevelt, “First Annual Message to the Senate and House of Representatives,” 3 Dec. 1901.

48 Theodore Roosevelt, “First Annual Message to the Senate and House of Representatives,” 3 Dec. 1901.

49 Aldrich, Edgar, “The Power and Duty of the Federal Government to Protect Its Agents,” North American Review, 173, 541 (Dec. 1901), 746–57Google Scholar; Duke of Arcos, “International Control of Anarchists,” North American Review, 173, 541 (Dec. 1901), 758–67Google Scholar; General Lew Wallace, “Prevention of Presidential Assassinations,” North American Review, 173, 541 (Dec. 1901), 721–26Google Scholar.

50 Technically, as Preston, Aliens and Dissenters, 309 n. 67, points out, anarchists were the second because of the prior exclusion of polygamists. However, he goes on to argue, “the anarchists were the first to be restricted for beliefs and associations that supposedly made them a threat to the security and welfare of the country. The anarchists were the first radical group to come under fire.”

51 Bills falling under this last category, “Criminological Study,” began to be introduced during the Fifty-Seventh Congress and they included anarchists as subjects of observation by a potential laboratory to study “the criminal, pauper and defective classes.” While some iterations of the legislation omit anarchists, all bills pertaining to this issue have been included.

52 The percentage jumps to 45 percent when strictly limited to the sixty-four bills and resolutions that explicitly touch on anarchism or anarchists. These records were culled from the indices of the Congressional Record and then cross-referenced using the printed versions located in RG 287 (Records of the Government Printing Office) and the Committee records from the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archive, Washington, DC. Bills that underwent significant revision – for example, some bills were substituted whole – count as only one entry.

53 The authors of the various pieces of legislation introduced into Congress came from the following states, in alphabetical order: Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

54 Of the bills and resolutions introduced, the most significant, in chronological order, were H. R. 176, 177, 221, S. 290, H. Res. 35, H. J. Res 65, H. R. 4360, and S. 4610.

55 Article V, 16 Stat. 740. Whether Congress had a right to restrict Chinese immigration, in light of this agreement, was critical in debates over the “Chinese Exclusion Act” of 1882 and the 1888 Exclusion Act (the Scott Act). See Congressional Record, Forty-Seventh Congress, First Session, Volume 13, Part 2, 1517–19, 1702–7; Congressional Record, Forty-Seventh Congress, First Session, Volume 13, Part 3, 2040–44; Congressional Record, Fiftieth Congress, First Session, Volume 19, Part 9, 9052–53.

56 Quoted in Lew-Williams, Beth, “Before Restriction Became Exclusion: America's Experiment in Diplomatic Immigration Control,” Pacific Historical Review, 83, 1 (Feb. 2014), 2456CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 49. Arguments along these lines can be traced back to Emer de Vattel's Law of Nations (1758): It was the “natural liberty” of a state to justify admission of foreigners and “every nation has a right to refuse admitting a foreigner … when he cannot enter it without exposing the nation to evident danger.” Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations; or Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, trans. Joseph Chitty (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., Law Booksellers, 1883; first published 1758), 107. On the issue of immigration control as a sovereign right see Doty, “The Double-Writing of Statecraft,” 180–82; Lee, Erika, “Immigrants and Immigration Law: A State of the Field Assessment,” Journal of American Ethnic History, 18, 4 (Summer 1999), 85114Google Scholar, 89–90; Lew-Williams, 27–28, 47–50; Charles J. McClain, In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 197; McKeown, Melancholy Order, 177.

57 Roger Daniels and Otis L. Graham, Debating American Immigration, 1882–Present (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001), 8.

58 Hutchinson, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 66, 80–81.

59 H. Rpt. 3472: “Report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives to Inquire into the alleged violation of the laws prohibiting the importation of contract laborers, paupers, convicts, and other classes together with the testimony, documents, and consular reports submitted to the Committee,” Fiftieth Congress, Second Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1889, 2.

60 Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 US 606, 607 [1889]. In Nashimura Ekin v. United States [142 US 651], the Justices wrote, “It is an accepted maxim of international law that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.” 142 US 659 [1892]. The landmark Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 US 698 [1893] affirmed the right to deport in similar terms.

61 “The Immigration of Nihilists and Communists,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 29 April 1881, 4.

62 Kenyon Zimmer argues, “It was American conditions that usually forged migrants into anarchists, rather than European ones.” Kenyon Zimmer, “‘The Whole World Is Our Country’: Immigration and Anarchism in the United States, 1885–1940” (University of Pittsburgh, 2010), 25. On the history and evolution of anarchism in the United States see Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: an Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); Andrew Cornell, “‘For a World Without Oppressors’: U. S. Anarchism from the Palmer Raids to the Sixties” (New York University, 2011); James Joseph Martin, Men against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827–1908 (DeKalb, IL: Adrian Allen Associates, 1953).

63 “Article No. 6 – No Title,” Friends' Review, 35, 45 (17 June 1882), 712.

64 “The Immigration of Nihilists and Communists,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 29 April 1881, 4.

65 The same logic was used by Herman Raster, the chief editor of Illinois Staats-Zeitung – one of the most successful German-language newspapers in the Mid-west. See, respectively, H. Rpt. 3792, Fiftieth Congress, Second Session, 929–30; 646.

66 Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, Appendix II, 1342. For earlier expressions of the same sentiment see “American Influence Abroad,” New York Times, 3 Aug. 1881, 4; “Migma,” The Continent, 4, 94 (28 Nov. 1883), 700.

67 George Adams (R – Illinois) introduced the original bill, H. R. 1291, on 4 January 1888. Initially written to address “dangerous aliens” and the “intent to overthrow the laws of the United States,” the bill was fully replaced with a bill on immigration by the Select Committee, chaired by Melbourne Ford (D – Michigan). See H. R. 1291 in Publications of the United States Government, Series Y1, Box 532–360: Publications of the Untied States Government, Senate Bills, Fiftieth Congress, Volume 451–740, National Archives II, College Park, MD (hereafter RG 287). Nathaniel Hong, using J. C. Burrows as his source, erroneously cites this as the first anti-anarchist legislation. However, in addition to being the third such bill introduced that year, the bill was strictly concerned with deportation and did not explicitly refer to anarchists or nihilists. See Hong, “The Origins of American Legislation,” 6.

68 H. Rpt. 3792: “Report of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives,” Fiftieth Congress, Second Session, 5.

69 Most, though making exaggerated claims about the size of the anarchist and socialist populations around the world, minimized the numbers immigrating to the United States – he said twelve in 1888–89. On the question of citizenship, he said that most socialists did become citizens, though he acknowledged that he did not obtain citizenship, recalling that when asked in court whether he would obey the laws, he had responded, “I could not say that I liked a law which I regard as bad.” Ibid., 251.

70 H. Rpt. 3472, Fifty-First Congress, Second Session, 644, 618.

71 Ibid., 705; See also the testimony of Emil Praetorius, editor of the Westliche Post in St. Louis in ibid., 811–12.

72 In addition to President Carnot and King Umberto I, Italian anarchists were responsible for the assassinations of President Antonio Cánovas del Castillo of Spain and Empress Elizabeth of Austria. The other two assassination attempts were by Jean-Baptiste Sipido on the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, in 1900 and Czolgosz's attack on McKinley. Of the six, only the attempt on the Prince of Wales failed.

73 Oswald, F. L., “The Assassination Mania: Its Social and Ethical Significance,” North American Review, 171, 526 (Sept. 1900), 314–19Google Scholar, 314–15, 17. The trend to see these assassinations as part of a trend, rather than isolated incidents, was also a defining quality of this period – explicit parallels were made in forums as different as the House of Lords in England and the New York Times in the United States.

74 Nichols, “The Anarchists in America,” 862.

75 “Draft of letter to various U. S. Attorneys in reference to alleged anarchists and their correspondents,” RG 60, A1 72-B, Box 8, Folder 3: Year Files (Folded), 1884–1903; D. J. Central Files, 1901 – McKinley Assassination (Vault), National Archives II, College Park, MD.

76 Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, Part 8, 8627.

77 Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, Part 8, 8628. On 25 June 1894, Representative William Stone attempted to introduce a bill (H. R. 7564) that awkwardly defined anarchists as “any person or persons who shall belong to, or who shall be appointed, designated or employed by any society or organization existing in this or in any foreign country which provides in writing or by verbal agreement, understanding or countenance for the taking of human life unlawfully or for the unlawful destruction of buildings or other property where the loss of life would be the probable result.” See Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, Part 7, 6800.

78 Burrows, Julius C., “The Need of National Legislation against Anarchism,” North American Review, 173, 541 (Dec. 1901), 727–45Google Scholar, 733. This in itself is a problematic assessment as Leon Czolgosz was not an immigrant. Instead, defenders of this position – in keeping with the belief that anarchism was foreign – maintained that Czolgosz would have been denied the intellectual inspiration for his actions because the advocates of such tactics like Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Johann Most would have been unable to immigrate to the United States.

79 32 Stat. 1214; Bill Ong Hing, Defining America through Immigration Policy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 210.

80 32 Stat. 1221–22. As Kraut and Fine have noted, the definition of anarchists failed to differentiate between those who advocated or committed acts of violence and philosophical anarchists (in broad terms) who advocated the abolition of organized government. See Fine, “Anarchism and the Assassination of McKinley,” 777–80; Kraut, “Global Anti-Anarchism,” 173.

81 Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, 8231.

82 Congressional Record, Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Volume 26, 8241. Advocates for anarchist restriction like William Stone and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (R – Massachusetts) would repeatedly counter that a definition of “anarchist” either was not necessary, attached to individuals of “common notoriety,” or was widely understood to mean “the reform of society to be brought about by blowing up their fellow beings.” S. Rpt. 1333: “Investigation by the Committee on Immigration of the United States Senate on the Proposition for the Suspension of Immigration for One Year,” Fifty-Second Congress, Second Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1893, 147, 155; See also H. Rpt. 1460: “Exclusion and Deportation of Alien Anarchists,” Fifty-Third Congress, Second Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1894, 2; H. Rpt. 3472: “Immigration Investigation,” House of Representatives, Fifty-First Congress, Second Session, 646.

83 Though the Stone Bill passed the House of Representatives in July 1894, the Senate held it up and the bill ultimately died in a joint committee.

84 Section 20 of the Act specified that “any alien who shall come into the United States in violation of the law … shall be deported as hereinafter provided to the country whence he came at any time within two years after arrival.” Subsequent legislation in 1907 and 1910 pushed this out to three years. 32 Stat. 1218; Preston, Aliens and Dissenters, 32.

85 H. Rpt. 433, House of Representatives, Fifty-Seventh Congress, First Session, 7–8.

86 “Petition from the Molly Pitcher Council, No. 68 (Daughters of Liberty, Manasquan, NJ),” Records of the United States Senate, Fifty-Seventh Congress, RG 46 SEN 57A-J39: Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures and Related Documents which were referred to committees, Committee of the Judiciary, Box 150, “1/7/1902 to 3/10/1902,” National Archives I, Washington, DC (hereafter RG 46).

87 “Petition of citizens of Plymouth, PA, 9 September 1901,” RG 46 SEN 57A-J39: Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures and Related Documents which were referred to committees, Committee of the Judiciary, Box 150, “01-07-1902–03-10-1902.” Members of the Buell Post, No. 178 of the Ohio G.A. R. from Marietta, Ohio, framed anarchist thought as criminal in the same way arson was: “We have been too tardy and lenient in our efforts to suppress dangerous public utterances in this land of free speech. If a man sets fire to your house he is arrested and imprisoned for Arson. Is a man or woman who, by defamatory utterances arouses an excited audience into a belief that all rulers should be destroyed any less criminal?” See “Resolution adopted by the Buell Post No. 178, Department of Ohio G.A. R. (Marietta, OH) favoring legislation for the suppression of anarchy (dated 7 Jan 1902),” RG 46 SEN 57A-J39: Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures and Related Documents which were referred to committees, Committee of the Judiciary, Box 150, “01-07-1902–03-10-1902.”

88 See, respectively, “Letter from Charles. S. Smick to Jas. M. Beck, 8 Sept 1901,” RG 60, A1 72-B, Box 8, Folder 2: Year Files (Folded), 1884–1903, D. J. Central Files, 1901 – McKinley Assassination (Vault); “Letter from Charles S. Smick to the Atty. General, 17 Sept 1901,” RG 60, A1 72-B, Box 8, Folder 4.

89 “Letter from Thomas W. Bacot to Knox, 10 September 1901,” RG 60, A1 72-B, Box 8, Folder 1.

90 See Resolution by the Olympia Chamber of Commerce (Washington), dated 18 Nov. 1901 (but passed in October), RG 46 SEN 57A-J39: Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures and Related Documents which were referred to committees, Committee of the Judiciary, Box 150, Folder 1 of 3: “12/4/1901, Folder 1 of 3.”

91 Preston, Aliens and Dissenters, 66.

92 Moloney, National Insecurities, 163.

93 H. Rpt. 3472, Fifty-First Congress, Second Session, 716.

94 “No. 8773: Cavasola to the Royal Ministry of the Interior, 8 August 1900.” RG 59, M202, Roll 15.