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Most citizens of the United States are either immigrants themselves or have in their family trees relatives who immigrated to this country. Despite this fact, the American public has always remained ambivalent over the issue of immigration. Anti-immigration sentiment had reached one of its peaks in the years immediately following the end of World War I. Historians have identified a number of factors contributing to these nativist feelings. During the 1880s and 1890s the nation faced a sharp economic recession with significant rates of unemployment. Many citizens believed that immigrants flooded the labor market and reduced job opportunities and wages for those born in the United States. The new immigration of the late-nineteenth century, brought immigrants from eastern Europe and from southern European countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece. Many American citizens viewed these people as racially inferior. Finally, it was believed that southern European immigrants brought to these shores political ideologies such as anarchism, and communism, which most Americans saw as both radical and threatening. This editorial reflects all of these sentiments.

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