Albert Johnson and Immigration Act of 1924
This paper will discuss the role of Albert Johnson, a congressman from the state of Washington from 1912 to 1932, in the formulation and passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. The first part of the paper will briefly examine the life of Johnson, up through the time he was elected to Congress. The second part of the paper will discuss the background to the racial philosophy behind the immigration laws passed in the early 1920s. The third part of the paper will discuss the passage of the laws themselves, concentrating upon the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924.
Albert Johnson was born in 1869 in Springfield, Illinois. Soon after his birth, his parents moved to Hiawatha, Kansas, where his father farmed and ran unsuccessfully for district judge. Albert's interest in news reporting surfaced early in his life and he became a reporter in his hometown while he was still a minor. He quickly moved on to the larger cities in the Midwest, where he covered many major events for their larger newspapers. Early in the 1890s, he moved to Washington D.C., where he picked up reporting jobs with the Washington Morning Post; he moved on to the New Haven Register, where he was made managing editor in 1896. He briefly returned to the Post before being offered the position of managing editor of the Tacoma News in 1898. He jumped at the opportunity to head a newspaper in a growing part of the country and his fortunes grew. In 1909, he purchased the Hoquiam Washingtonian, and became interested in politics as a second career (Hillier 193-95).
Johnson and his newspaper generally supported the progressive policies of the Taft administration. He made his move into the national political arena on the immigration issue. In the region in which he lived, there had been a large influx of oriental, particularly Japanese, immigrants. In addition, Hoquiam had become the site for the local headquarter...