8. A fixture of anti-immigration campaigns from the 1890s through to the end of the First World War, literacy requirements were persistently advocated as a means to reduce unwanted migration from particular nations
Supported heavily by union organizations such as the American Federation of Labor, as well as explicitly nativist movements such as the Immigration Restriction League, literacy tests were devised as a means to limit the total number of immigrants. Designed as a method to inhibit migration without resulting in a dramatic backlash from “old” immigrants – those from Britain, Ireland, Germany – literacy tests specifically targeted “new” migration in particular from Asia. Becoming part of the Republican Party’s official platform in 1896, towards the end of the same year the first literacy bill was passed by Congress.
Stipulating an immigrant must be able to read at least forty words in any language, President Cleveland, under pressure from corporate industry which required access to cheap manual labor, vetoed the bill in 1897. Similar bills were introduced and passed by Congress in 1913 and 1915, with Presidents Taft and Wilson vetoing on both occasions. However, in 1917 Congress overrode Wilson’s second veto on the subject to impose literacy requirements for naturalization. Stipulating immigrants seeking citizenship aged sixteen or over must be able to read thirty to eighty words in any chosen language, the limited scope of the requirement did little to discourage European migration in the aftermath of World War One.