The Great Hypocrisy rather than The Great Replacement. Part 2

This post will continue our investigation into the anti-immigration ideology that characterized the US at the turn of the 20th century. In the previous commentary the emphasis was placed on the way certain representatives of the host country would treat the newcomers from the eastern parts of Europe. We have seen that the standard racial notion was to distance the Polish, Slovak, or Hungarian immigrants, for instance, from the earlier arrivals whereby the true Americans, purportedly “members of a superior race”, were created. And to be sure, while the so-called Mediterranean and Alpine races were placed below the highest-ranking Nordic people, our eastern Europeans were not in the worst position.

“The Chinese were the first racial group to be constructed as ‘illegal immigrants.’ Racist stereotypes painted them as ‘subhuman,’ launching a national tradition of codifying unwanted immigrants as a ‘racialized’ and ‘othered’ category. This growing trend of anti-Chinese racism and xenophobia culminated in the first Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. [...] By the 1890s, a new type of immigrant began to also be more broadly racialized - Southern and Eastern Europeans. [...] Henry Cabot Lodge, for example, strongly distanced Southern and Eastern Europeans from true Anglo-Saxons, stating that what made a race was ‘their mental, and above all, their moral characteristics.’ [...] He lamented the influx of ‘dangerous masses’ which sought to disrupt Anglo-Saxon racial purity [...].’”

Not to mention the black people of African origins. All of this brings us to yet another historical paradox. It is quite common to see Americans today portraying themselves as the saviours of the world from Nazism during the Second World War. One could even remember the incident when “Trump derisively remarked that the French would be speaking German nowadays if not for U.S. intervention in the two world wars.” In this regard, it is also worthwhile to examine the political context of the period in US history under discussion here. For any honest observer will recognise that, long before the rise of the Nazis in Germany, the United States itself harboured deeply racist ideologies that bore striking similarities to those later associated with Nazism. Indeed, even an individual who would eventually become president of the United States could express views reminiscent of those of Adolf Hitler.

“Roosevelt’s nationalism thrived on the idea of conquering ‘savage’ or ‘barbaric’ peoples, both abroad and at home. His Turner-influenced racial ideas are well exhibited in his epic “The Winning of the West” (1889-1896), where he plainly touted his belief in the superiority of the American ‘race,’ noting that there had never before been a race ‘whose expansion has been either so broad or so rapid.’

Moreover, even a catalogue of different “races” for the purposes of immigration control was compiled. Entitled “Dictionary of Races or Peoples”, it was published by the U.S. Immigration Commission in 1911. And while such attempts at categorizing different nationalities would inevitably invite great backlash today, this racial conception of the world was clearly a mainstream element of US society at the time. The corresponding stage of economic development had made such racist views completely standard within the advanced countries of that historical moment. As a result, people like Madison Grant, whom we have quoted quite extensively in the first part of this series, should not be dismissed as some conservative radical rightwingers.

“By the time of his death in 1937, “The Passing of the Great Race” had sold 16,000 copies in the US and was on its fourth edition. Grant’s work, along with that of other eugenicists, was frequently quoted by politicians during debates on the Congress floor and influenced public figures such as Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge. Hitler’s anti-Semitic manifesto that heavily influenced the Nazi Regime in Germany, “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), contains passages that refer to “The Passing of the Great Race”. Hitler later quoted Grant’s book in his speeches and even sent Grant a letter where he referred to “The Passing of the Great Race” as his Bible. In 1936, the Nazi party included Grant’s book as one of the only non-German books on an essential reading list for the field of human heredity.”

Obviously, the patriotic agenda of US politics will ignore these facts in the same manner as the German nationalist ideology wishes to ignore their years of Nazism. And it would be possible to dig even deeper into the historical comparisons in relation to the former Nazi-like policies within the USA. But our purposes within this commentary are different. Here, the task is to demonstrate the historical parallels between two distinct, yet relatively modern, periods with regard to human migration. Such a scientific exercise exposes the irrationality of the racist anxieties underpinning our contemporary anti-immigration politics. As could have been expected, the American nation did not collapse as a result of the massive influx of different nationalities that took place more than a century ago. And neither will the European societies of today.

But let us return to the aforementioned “Dictionary of Races or Peoples”. This document offers a striking reminder of how the ancestors of some of the present-day European nations were perceived at the time. The first example concerns the Hungarians, who in recent years have been among the most vocal defenders of restrictive anti-immigration policies on the Old Continent:

“Thus it is that the Magyars, together with the Finns, are the foremost branches of the Mongolian race, as measured by western civilization. [...] But physically the Magyars and the Finns of today are not Mongolian as much as Caucasian. Because of mixture with Caucasian peoples, they have deviated more widely from the ancient type than have the Turks. While these latter are becoming southern European in type, the Magyars are often blonds, yet not so generally as are the Finns. In short, while the Magyars have imposed their speech and rule upon Hungary, they have taken on the physical characters and the civilization of the subject peoples. [... ] They are not counted in the same great divisions with European races by the Bureau of Immigration but find a place with Turks and Armenians among ‘All others’.”

How would today's defenders of European heritage in Hungary react to the suggestion that their nation's origins lie outside of Western civilization? Also, if one accepts that modern Magyars have become members of European culture by assimilation and by mixture with the “true Europeans” - on what basis are these possibilities being denied to the contemporary newcomers? Unfortunately, it is not difficult to assume a reply that “their case is different”... But of course it is. Let us now have a look at the former generations of Poles:

“Finally, in their physical inheritance, they resemble the ‘Eastern’ or Slavic race more than that of northwestern Europe, although probably modified by racial intermixture from the earliest times. [...] While darker than the Lithuanians, the Poles are lighter than the average Russian. In other words, they show more of the Teutonic and little or none of the Asiatic element of eastern Europe. In temperament they are more high-strung than are the most of their neighbors. In this respect they resemble the Hungarians farther south. [...] It is significant to the student of immigration that the Jews and the Poles reside mainly in the same region. Excepting for the Italian, these are the races now coming in greatest numbers to America.”

It must be noted here that “at the time, ‘race’ was often equated to the modern meaning of ethnicity and sometimes drew its terminology from nationality, such as references to the ‘German race’.” Therefore, aside from the Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean peoples, we might also read about the French, Hungarian, or Polish “races”. As for the latter, would our Polish conservative friends accept the fact that their current ethnicity is a product of historical racial intermixture? And how would they respond to earlier racial classifications in the United States that placed Poles below their fellow Europeans, particularly those from northwestern Europe? History might have a lesson to teach them here, but for a committed conservative, history is not a friend.

All these efforts to racially classify different peoples of the world were part of the policies that “were deliberately designed to exclude more southern and eastern Europeans, so-called new immigrants deemed ‘undesirable’ by many contemporary Americans.” Hence, just because so far we have been mainly discussing the nations from the eastern part of Europe, these were by no means the only “undesirable” Europeans. For example, “Italian immigrants, who often had darker complexions, became the focus of pseudo-scientific theories that trumpeted the superiority of individuals of northern European heritage over ‘Mediterranean types’.” Would Giorgia Meloni accept the once prominent idea within the US that Italian immigrants were among the causes of the supposed “race suicide” taking place on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? After all, that would be a historically consistent stance given that she has also claimed that our contemporary inward migration into Europe was “a rehearsal for ethnic replacement”.

But there is more. Italy’s current Prime Minister has also argued that “there is a clear correlation between crime and immigration,” and that “there are nationalities more prone to commit crimes or to be recruited into criminal networks.” Therefore, we shall conclude this commentary with a historical lesson for all contemporary anti-immigration activists in Italy. The following was an observation regarding the Italian immigrants in the US just a little over a hundred years ago:

“In homicide, rape, blackmail, and kidnapping they lead the foreign-born. Says the Immigration Commission: ‘The Italian criminals are largest in numbers and create most alarm by the violent character of their offenses in this country.’”

Sources:
1. https://www.loc.gov/resource/llserialsetce.05867_00_00-001-0662-0000/?sp=87&st=pdf&r=-0.402%2C-0.015%2C1.805%2C1.805%2C0&pdfPage=114
2. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0v38s4hm
3. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/madison-grant-1865-1937
4. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1911-report-set-america-on-path-screening-out-undesirable-immigrants-180969636/?utm_source
5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-orleans-apologizes-1891-lynching-italian-americans-180971959/?utm_source
6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/03/why-united-states-should-support-creation-european-union-army/?utm_source
7. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47954/pg47954-images.html?utm_source
8. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14782804.2024.2390161?utm_source
9. https://www.giorgiameloni.it/2018/02/02/laccoglienza-non-un-dogma-politiche-immigrazione-imposte-sinistra-fallito/?utm_source

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