Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
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in all oppressed communities under capitalism, cheap<br />
drink was encouraged as a pacifier. Immigrant mill communities<br />
would fester with saloons - Gary, Indiana had<br />
more than one saloon for every one hundred inhabitants.<br />
Of course, the local police and courts preyed on these<br />
"foreigners" with both abuse and shakedowns. They had<br />
few democratic rights in the major urban centers, and in<br />
the steel or mining or rubber or textile company towns they<br />
had none.<br />
In the U.S. Empire nationality differences have<br />
always been disguised as "racial" differences (so that the<br />
Euro-Amerikan settlers can maintain the fiction that theirs<br />
is the only real nation). The Eastern and Southern European<br />
national minorities were widely defined as non-white,<br />
as members of genetically different (and backward) races<br />
from the "white" race of Anglo-Saxons. This pseudoscientific,<br />
racist categorizing only continued an ideological<br />
characteristic of European capitalist civilization. The<br />
Euro-Amerikans have always justified their conquest and<br />
exploitation of other nationalities by depicting them as<br />
racially different. This old tactic was here applied even to<br />
other Europeans.<br />
So Francis A. Walker, President of M.I.T. (and<br />
the "Dr. Strangelove" figure who as U.S. Commissioner<br />
of Indian Affairs developed the Indian reservation<br />
system), popularized the Social Darwinistic theory that the<br />
new immigrants were "beaten men from beaten races;<br />
representing the worst failures in the struggle for<br />
existence ..." Thus, as double failures in the "survival of<br />
the fittest," these new European immigrants were only<br />
capable of being industrial slaves.<br />
eagerly encouraging their influx when the economy was<br />
booming. It was often stated that these "races" were prone<br />
to extreme and violent political behavior that the calm,<br />
business-like Anglo-Saxon had long since outgrown. One<br />
writer in a business journal said: "I am no race worshipper,<br />
but ... if the master race of this continent Is subordinated<br />
to or overrun with the communistic and revolutionary<br />
races it will be in grave danger of social disaster."<br />
(15)<br />
One answer - and one that became extremely important<br />
- was to "Americanize" the new laboring masses,<br />
to tame them by absorbing them into settler Amerika, to<br />
remake them into citizens of Empire. The Big Bourgeoisie,<br />
which very much needed this labor, was interested in this<br />
solution. In November, 1918 a private dinner meeting of<br />
some fifty of the largest employers of immigrant labor<br />
discussed Americanization (this was the phrase used at the<br />
time). Previous social work and employer indoctrination<br />
campaigns directed at.the immigrants had not had much<br />
success.<br />
It was agreed by those capitalists that the spread of<br />
"Bolshevism" anlong the industrial immigrants was a real<br />
danger, and that big business should undercut this trend<br />
The wildest assertions of "racial" identity were<br />
common. Some Euro-Amerikans claimed that these<br />
"swarthy" Europeans were really "Arabs" or "Syrians."<br />
U.S. Senator Simmons of North Carolina claimed that the<br />
Southern Italians were 'the degenerale progeny of the<br />
Asiatic hordes which, long cenrlrries ago, overran [lie<br />
shores of the Mediterranea~i.. ." (12)<br />
The St. Paul, Minnesota District Attorney argued<br />
in Federal court that Finns shouldn't receive citizenship<br />
papers since "a Finn ... is a Mongolian and not a 'white person'."<br />
Scientists were prominent in the new campaign.<br />
Professor E.A. Hooton of Harvard University claimed<br />
that there were actually nine different "races" in Europe,<br />
each with different mental abilities and habits. As late as<br />
1946, in the widely-used textbook, New Horizons In<br />
Criminology, Prof. Hooton's pseudo-science was quoted<br />
by police to "prove" how Southern Italians tended to<br />
"crimes of violence," how Slavs "show a preference for<br />
sex offenses," and so on. (13)<br />
A widely-read Sarurday Everiing Post series of<br />
1920 on the new immigrants warned that unless they were<br />
restricted and kept segregated the result would be "a<br />
hybrid race of people as worthless and futile as the goodfor-nothing<br />
mongrels of Central America and<br />
Southeastern Europe." (14) On the street level,<br />
newspapers and common talk sharply distinguished between<br />
"white Americans" and the "Dago" and "Hunky"<br />
- who were not considered "white" at all.<br />
The bourgeoisie had a dual attitude of fearing<br />
these new proletarians during moments of unrest and