THE RIGHT BOOKS

IF there were any question that “ethnicity” and “ethnic” politics in America have become a case of the tail wagging the dog, it was dispelled by events surrounding the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty in 1986; an occasion distinguished by a combination of mass sentimentality and political cynicism and opportunism. This “Party of the Century,” as Time magazine called it, was widely exploited by special-interest groups and interested politicians in general to promote the concept of the United States as not just a “melting pot” but a “mirror of the world,” and to discredit any ideal to the contrary as un-American. In The Myth of Open Borders: The American Tradition of Immigration Control (The American Immigration Control Foundation, Water Street, P.O. Box 525, Monterey, Va. 24465; $3), Wayne Lutton insists that “Amidst the references to what was called our ‘traditional policy’ of providing an asylum and haven of refuge for the poor and oppressed of every land, all sight was lost of what, in fact, is the American ‘tradition’ regarding immigration. Far from being a thing of the past or, alternatively, a recent development, American opposition to immigration dates back to early Colonial days.” In a succinctly written summary of 47 pages, Mr. Lutton condenses the development of the anti-immigrationist argument over two centuries.

From the earliest days of colonial settlement, Lutton shows, “efforts were made to encourage the settlement only of those who were most likely to make a positive contribution to society.” For the English Colonies, a major problem in respect of immigration was the mother country’s tendency to regard America as a dumping ground for what an Act of Parliament in 1663 described as “rogues, vagrants, and sturdy beggars,” whom the Act empowered English justices of the peace to ship across the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, for example, passed laws in the Colonial period expelling foreign paupers, fining shipmasters who imported indigents and criminals, and laying duties on disembarked immigrants, whether or not they were either criminal or destitute. Over a period of nearly two hundred years, such stopgap policies seem to have produced at least something of the desired result: E. E. Proper, in his Colonial Immigration Laws, attributed the religious and political unity of the Colonies in 1776 partly to the restrictions enacted by the Colonial government prior to the Revolution.

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IF there were any question that “ethnicity” and “ethnic” politics in America have become a case of the tail wagging the dog, it was dispelled by events surrounding the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty in 1986; an occasion distinguished by a combination of mass sentimentality and political cynicism and opportunism. This “Party of the Century,” as Time magazine called it, was widely exploited by special-interest groups and interested politicians in general to promote the concept of the United States as not just a “melting pot” but a “mirror of the world,” and to discredit any ideal to the contrary as un-American. In The Myth of Open Borders: The American Tradition of Immigration Control (The American Immigration Control Foundation, Water Street, P.O. Box 525, Monterey, Va. 24465; $3), Wayne Lutton insists that “Amidst the references to what was called our ‘traditional policy’ of providing an asylum and haven of refuge for the poor and oppressed of every land, all sight was lost of what, in fact, is the American ‘tradition’ regarding immigration. Far from being a thing of the past or, alternatively, a recent development, American opposition to immigration dates back to early Colonial days.” In a succinctly written summary of 47 pages, Mr. Lutton condenses the development of the anti-immigrationist argument over two centuries.

From the earliest days of colonial settlement, Lutton shows, “efforts were made to encourage the settlement only of those who were most likely to make a positive contribution to society.” For the English Colonies, a major problem in respect of immigration was the mother country’s tendency to regard America as a dumping ground for what an Act of Parliament in 1663 described as “rogues, vagrants, and sturdy beggars,” whom the Act empowered English justices of the peace to ship across the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, for example, passed laws in the Colonial period expelling foreign paupers, fining shipmasters who imported indigents and criminals, and laying duties on disembarked immigrants, whether or not they were either criminal or destitute. Over a period of nearly two hundred years, such stopgap policies seem to have produced at least something of the desired result: E. E. Proper, in his Colonial Immigration Laws, attributed the religious and political unity of the Colonies in 1776 partly to the restrictions enacted by the Colonial government prior to the Revolution.