CH212.3001--"America for Americans" 1935--DEMOCRATS HAWK DEPORTATION OF FOREIGNERS

CH212.3001
J.L'Angelle
Univ of Nevada, Reno
Summer 2019

HR4860, The Dies Committee, RR Reynolds, et al.

      Republican rhetoric isn't the only place where "go back to your own country," language can be found. In radio broadcasts and subcommittee hearings (HR4860) as far back as 1935-40, Democrats such as JJ Dempsey from New Mexico voiced similar ideology;
     "I do not care whether a man is a Communist or a Nazi or a Fascist, if he is not satisfied with our form of government and wants to substitute the form of government of his own country, he should return to his own country and not bother us."  (Dempsey, Gov Printing Office)
Sentiment ran high for deportation as rising tides of revolution and war swept across Europe and Russia with Hitler and Stalin coming to power.
     But Dempsey wasn't the only Democrat with a desire to run everyone out of the United States who wasn't American. In his radio address to the nation titled "America for Americans" delivered in May of 1935, Congressman Martin Dies (D-TX) was even more explicit on determination to run foreigners out of the United States;

     "But you ask, and properly so, what are we going to do about it? I agree with you that there is nothing we can do so long as our policy is dominated by sentimentality, fatuous internationalism, industrial greed, and alien political influence. So long as we permit America to be made the asylum for the peoples of other lands and the dumping ground for Europe and so long as politicians fear the vote and influence of alien groups and blocs in the great cities, there is nothing that we can do." (Dies, DNA Learning Ctr)
Taking it one step further, Rep. Dies pegs the kidnapping of the Lindbergh child by foreigner Bruno Hauptmann to lax immigration policy (Detroit Free Press) Demonization of foreigners as a disruptive force in the American way of life appears to have champions on both sides of the aisle in the halls of Congress.
     Further hyping the anti-foreigner agenda in the period that led to the outbreak of World War Two was Senator RR Reynolds of North Carolina, one of Roosevelts New Deal Democrats. In keeping with a states rights perspective, many of his ideas and legislative efforts were directed at making North Carolina great again;
     "His anti-communism notwithstanding, Reynolds supported Roosevelt’s recognition of the Soviet Union so that the communist nation might buy North Carolina goods.  A staunch unilateralist, he opposed U. S. adherence to the World Court, for he considered it a tactic to enter the failed League of Nations.  During his senatorial career, Reynolds advocated strict limits on immigration, the registration of all aliens, and the deportation of alien criminals.  In particular, the nativist Reynolds deemed most aliens as a threat to American security, values, and jobs, so he co-authored the Reynolds-Starnes Bill (1936) that called for cutting immigration quotas by 90%." (North Carolina History)
Rather naïve when it came to Nazi deception and scheming, his reported anti-Semitic stance was used to their advantage at his expense, but the image damage was done, possibly due to his allegiance first to North Carolina.
     Yet another attempt to exploit anti-foreigner sentiment originated in the (Martin) Dies Committee and the effort to expel Australian born Harry Bridges of the west coast Longshoreman's Union and subsequent attempt to impeach the Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. (JSTOR)
     At the HR4860 hearings in 1935, John Thomas Taylor of the American Legion had this to say about bigotry;
     "Resolved, That we urge national legislation that will punish American citizens who advocate the overthrow of our Government by force, fraud, or violence, or seek to promote race or religious prejudice, and deport all aliens who do like- wise. " (HR4860)
The sentiment to condemn anybody in the United States who chose to promote hatred on cultural grounds was clearly in the minds of veterans before the outbreak of the Second World War.
     Singling out a particular representative of the government, whether it be the president or members of Congress is nothing more than a political move to create partisanship amid catcalling and name tagging such as "racist," and "bigot." From the official record, Democrats have just as many guilty in their political party as do Republicans. Now is not the time to create an even greater cultural fissure of ideology but to offer remedies to the difficult issues surrounding foreigners and immigrants.

Works Cited
 Dempsey, JJ, HR 4860,  https://www.loc.gov/law/find/hearings/pdf/00108304534.pdf
Dies, M., https://www.dnalc.org/view/11023--America-for-Americans-Radio-address-of-Hon-Martin-Dies-of-Texas-May-6-1935-about-deportation-1-.html
Lindbergh baby, (Detroit Free Press, 10 Jan 1935, Page 5.)
Reynolds, https://northcarolinahistory.org/commentary/senator-robert-rice-reynolds-an-atypical-tar-heel-politician-and-isolationist/
Mansfield, HC., Impeach Perkins, Public Administration Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring, 1941), pp. 281-286

Dies Committee photo, Pictured as the final hearing closed are, left to right, seated: Rep. Harold G. Mosier, Ohio-Chairman Martin Dies. and Rep. J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey. Standing, left to right: Rep. John J. Dempsey of New Mexico; Ree. Stripling, Secretary to the committee, and John Metcalf, Chief Investigator, 12/18/38 (Wikimedia)