IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION LEAGUE

The 'Immigration Restriction League' was founded in 1894 by a group of Bostonians who sought to make literacy a requirement for admission into the United States. The U.S. Congress passed such a measure, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it in 1897, calling it "illiberal, narrow, and un-American." The League continued in its efforts for the next several decades and was instrumental in lobbying efforts for new literacy tests in 1912 and 1917 - both of which passed in Congress but which were vetoed by Presidents Taft and Wilson. The League saw victory in its decades-long efforts when in 1921 the first of two immigration quota laws were passed by Congress and upheld by the president.

Contents

Notable members and officers

Notable members and officers

★ Robert DeCourcy Ward, founder

★ Prescott Farnsworth Hall, president [1]

★ Francis H. Kinnicutt, president

★ Madison Grant, vice president

★ A. Lawrence Lowell, vice president (President of Harvard)

★ George F. Edmunds, founding member [2]

★ John Fiske, founding member [3]

★ Robert Treat Paine, founding member

★ Nathaniel Shaler, founding member

★ Henry Cabot Lodge [4]

★ Frank B. Gary [5]

★ Owen Wister [6]