Immigration statistics for 1922 with relation to the 3% restriction law, while showing that “unquestionably the law greatly reduced the volume of immigration”, do not afford a certain basis for estimating the future effect on the act on the industrial labor situation, according to the report of the Civic Development Department of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.
The survey showed that in the fiscal year of 1922, the first year in which the 3% law was operative, excess of aliens admitted over aliens departed was 87,121 as compared to 552,132 in 1921 and 769,276 for the last comparable pre-war year 1914.
The survey report pointed out that consideration must be given to three things in gauging 1922 figures. These are:
First: That the fiscal year 1922 was “a bad year, economically, to the U.S.” and that experience proves that “bad years” coincide with decreased immigration.
Second: Religious persecutions impelled Jews to escape to America and “independent of the economic conditions which inclined their Gentile fellow-countrymen to stay at home”.
Third: Reluctance of aliens to leave the United States “for fear they could not return, “has prompted them to send for wives and children, with an obvious result in the figures.”
“In short” the report continued, “the first year of the emergency law’s operation may plausibly be held to have witnessed conditions which will not be repeated in other years.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
