Editing Literacy test (section)

==Immigration==

When introduced in the 1890s, the literacy test was a device to restrict the total number of immigrants while not offending the large element of ethnic voters.  The "old" immigration (British, Dutch, Irish, German, Scandinavian) had fallen off and was replaced by a "new" immigration from Italy, Russia and other points in Southern and eastern Europe. The "old" immigrants were voters and strongly approved of restricting the "new" immigrants.  The 1896 Republican platform called for a literacy test.<ref>{{cite book |first=Brian |last=Gratton |chapter=Demography and Immigration Restriction in American History |editor-first=Jack A. |editor-last=Goldstone |title=Political Demography: How Population Changes Are Reshaping International Security and National Politics |year=2011 |pages=159–75 |publisher=Oup USA |isbn=978-0-19-994596-2 }}</ref>

The [[American Federation of Labor]] took the lead in promoting literacy tests that would exclude illiterate immigrants, primarily Eastern Europe and countries that had national waters in the [[Mediterranean Sea]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=A. T. |last=Lane |title=American Trade Unions, Mass Immigration and the Literacy Test: 1900–1917 |journal=Labor History |year=1984 |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=5–25 |doi=10.1080/00236568408584739 }}</ref>

Corporate industry, however, needed workers for its mines and factories and opposed any restrictions on immigration.<ref>{{cite book |first=Claudia |last=Goldin |author-link=Claudia Goldin |chapter=The political economy of immigration restriction in the United States, 1890 to 1921 |title=The regulated economy: A historical approach to political economy |publisher=U. of Chicago Press |year=1994 |pages=223–258 |isbn=0-226-30110-9 }}</ref> In 1906, the [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|House Speaker]] [[Joseph Gurney Cannon]], a conservative [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]], worked aggressively to defeat a proposed literacy test for immigrants. A product of the western frontier, Cannon felt that moral probity was the only acceptable test for the quality of an immigrant. He worked with Secretary of State [[Elihu Root]] and President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] to set up the "[[Dillingham Commission]]," a [[blue ribbon]] body of experts that produced a 41-volume study of immigration. The Commission recommended a literacy test and the possibility of annual quotas.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Robert F. |last=Zeidel |title=Hayseed Immigration Policy: 'Uncle Joe' Cannon and the Immigration Question |journal=Illinois Historical Journal |year=1995 |volume=88 |issue=3 |pages=173–188 |jstor=40192956 }}</ref> Presidents Cleveland and Taft vetoed literacy tests in 1897 and 1913. President Wilson did the same in 1915 and 1917, but the test was passed over Wilson's second veto.<ref>{{cite book|first=Henry|last=Bischoff|title=Immigration Issues|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z55TNEvNX-UC&pg=PA156|year=2002|publisher=Greenwood|page=156|isbn=9780313311772}}</ref>