ndex is written large in the signs over shops and
stores and clearly in the lists of professional men in the city
directories and in the pay roll of the public school teachers. The
unpronounceable Slavic combinations of consonants and polysyllabic
Jewish patronymics are plentiful, while here and there an Italian name
makes its appearance. The second generation is arriving. The sons and
daughters are leaving the factory and the construction gang for the
counter, the office, and the schoolroom.

American ideals and institutions have borne and can bear a great deal
of foreign infiltration. But can they withstand saturation?

CHAPTER XI

THE GUARDED DOOR

"Whosoever will may come" was the generous welcome which America
extended to all the world for over a century. Many alarms, indeed,
there were and several well-defined movements to save America from the
foreigner. The first of these attempts resulted in the ill-fated Alien
and Sedition laws of 1798, which extended to fourteen years the period
of probation before a foreigner could be naturalized and which
attempted to safeguard the Government against defamatory attacks. The
Jeffersonians, who came into power in 1801 largely upon the issue
raised by this attempt to curtail free speech, made short shrift of
this unpopular law and restored the term of residence to five years.
The second anti-foreign movement found expression in the Know-Nothing
party, which rose in the decade preceding the Civil War. The third
movement brought about a secret order called the American Protective
Association, popularly known as the A.P.A., which, like the
Know-Nothing hysteria, was aimed primarily at the Catholic Church. Its
platform stated that "the conditions growing out of our immigration
laws are such as to weaken our democratic institutions," and that "the
immigrant vote, under the direction of certain ecclesiastical
institutions," controlled politics. In 1896 the organization claimed
two and a half million adherents, and the air was vibrant with ominous
rumors of impending events. But nothing happened. The A.P.A.
disappeared suddenly and left no trace.

For over a century it was almost universally believed that the
prosperity of the country depended largely upon a copious influx of
population. This sentiment found expression in President Lincoln's
message to Congress on December 8, 1863, in which he called
immigration a "source of national wealth and strength" and urged
Cong