United Nations

As early as August through October 1944, a conference at Dumbarton Oaks established plans to start a new "United Nations" (or "UN") to deal with disputes after the war. China, Britain, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. agreed on preliminary plans for this new world governing body. They agreed that it would include a "Security Council" for the founding nations to hold powers greater than the other nations.

Debate: Do you think a "United Nations" is a good idea?

Near the end of World War II, nations came together to form the United Nations, first in San Francisco and ultimately in New York, where it exists to this day. Alger Hiss, who was secretly a communist but served as a top aide to President Franklin Roosevelt, played a key role in founding the UN.

The United Nations has remained controversial to this day. In the 1990s, an American soldier named Michael New was ordered to fight under command of the United Nations. He refused, and was court-martialed (harshly punished) for it. He then sued, and lost. Many complain that the United Nations encroaches on the right and duty of nations like the United States to remain true to their own principles. Defenders of the United Nations say that it provides an important meeting place to discuss and defuse tensions before they escalate into wars. The United Nations did arrange for many countries to send troops to defend South Korea against invasion by communist North Korea. But as in Vietnam and most major international wars since World War II, the United States sent the vast majority of the soldiers who went to the battlefront.

President Woodrow Wilson would have been a supporter of the United Nations, just as he supported the League of Nations. His motto was to "make the world safe for democracy." Today, the "neoconservatives" adopt a similar worldview. They seek to expand and install democracy in countries all around the world, such as Iraq and Iran. Others, however, argue that democracy is not compatible with religions in other parts of the world, such as Islam. Conservative Congressman and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul wrote an essay entitled, "Making the World Safe for Christianity," observing that democracy in Iraq has increased the persecution of Christians there.

By the way, Congressman Paul blames the treaty after World War I (the Versailles Treaty) as the cause for World War II and the rise of communism. The U.S. Senate never ratified that treaty.

Debate: Should the United States make the world safe for democracy?

Immigration

Let's briefly review the issue of immigration, a topic that is often in the news.

Immigration was free and unlimited for most of our history. William Penn actually advertised in Germany for immigrants to settle in his colony of Pennsylvania in the late 1600s. There was some hostility to immigrants in the early United States, as illustrated by the "Alien and Sedition Laws" (1798) which authorized the deportation of subversive "aliens" or immigrants who had not yet become citizens. The law was inspired by a feeling that most immigrants were becoming Democratic-Republican Party members, and so the Federalist Party passed the law.

Nevertheless, up until the 1850s immigration was mostly welcomed in America. But after a huge influx of immigrants from Ireland due to the potato famine there, in 1854 the "American Party," also called the “Know-Nothings” because of how they would describe themselves, was founded in order to oppose immigration. Ever since, there has been political pressure to limit immigration.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ended the Mexican War and allowed Mexicans residing in territories acquired by the United States to become American citizens. However, segregation in the public schools of Mexicans was common until the Supreme Court abolished it for African-Americans in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). After 1890, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans entered the United States illegally and were given the racist name of "wetbacks".

The big flood of immigration occurred between the end of the Civil War and 1921. Up to one-third of Americans today are decedents of immigrations to America during that period. The vast majority was from Europe, but the Burlingame Treaty with China in 1868 gave Chinese unlimited rights to immigrate, and many did. Labor unions then complained about the influx of Chinese immigrants (who had built the transcontinental railroad over the Sierra Nevada mountains). In 1879, the moderate Republican Rutherford Hayes vetoed a bill restricting Chinese immigration, but three years later the new Republican president Chester Arthur signed a bill prohibiting the immigration of Chinese laborers. This bill was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

In 1891 the federal government established the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which supervises lawful immigration to this day. In 1892, INS established Ellis Island in New York harbor as the primary screening point for legal immigrants before they settled in the United States. Medical tests and oaths of allegiance to the United States were administered there.

The high point of lawful immigration to the United States was 1905-14, when more than a million legal immigrants entered in each of six separate years. Most were from southern and central Europe. By origin the percentage of immigration to the United States from 1890 to 1917 was:

Central, Southern and Eastern Europe – 70%

Northwest Europe – 20%

Central and South America – 3%

Canada and Newfoundland – 4%

Asia – 3%

Hence from 1890 through 1917, immigration was mostly from central and southern Europe, and also many from Eastern Europe.

That very high percentage of immigration from European countries other than England and Ireland caused alarm among many Americans of English descent. By the 1920s, the United States was increasingly concerned about anarchists and communists entering from southern and eastern Europe. Recall that President McKinley was assassinated in 1901 by an anarchist whose family had immigrated from Eastern Europe, and the American trial of anarchists from Italy named Sacco and Vanzetti for senseless murders had gripped our nation in 1920-21 and during the lengthy appeals afterward. The Red Scare of 1919-20 further alarmed Americans about immigration from Eastern Europe. After the great wave of immigration leading up to World War I, Americans wanted to limit it.

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 limited immigration to 3% of that originating country's immigration levels in 1910. This had the effect of favoring immigration from Anglo-Saxons (Britain) and northern Europe, which were more Protestant. This reflected the opposition to immigration from parts of Europe that were more Catholic and Jewish.

The Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the National Origins Act) reduced the 3% quota further, to 2%, and changed the baseline from 1910 to 1890 in order to give even greater preferences to immigrants from Great Britain, Germany and Ireland. Immigration from Italy, Russia and Asia was thereby sharply reduced. Strict quotas were enforced, but applied to unskilled laborers rather than professionals. President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill into law.

Just after the end of World War II, in 1946, immigration from India was allowed up to an annual quota, and in 1952 immigration from Asia was allowed again for the first time since 1917.

In 1965 the Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quotas for each foreign country and instead established an overall limit on visas for immigrants in the eastern hemisphere, and in 1968 a limit on visas from the western hemisphere was also established on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Illegal immigration from Mexico grew in the early 1980s and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 allowed most illegal aliens who resided in the U.S. continuously since 1982 to apply for legal status. Employers were prohibited from hiring illegal aliens, in order to discourage future illegal immigration.

Court decisions made it difficult or impossible for States to deny government benefits (such as free public education) to illegal immigrants. Accordingly, their entry into the United States continued to grow. Estimates are that 10-20 million people now live in the United States illegally, most having arrived by crossing the United States-Mexico border but not all of whom are Mexican. Congress is bitterly divided about how to address this, and some propose building a wall along that border.

Debate: What is your view of immigration?