sia, which was associated with sometimes violent union activities, which in turn were associated with the strong new-immigrant presence in industrial factories and mines (Kraut, pp. 174-5).
Medical and social scientists gathered data and compiled statistics to "prove" that the new immigrants were less intelligent, less law-abiding, or less loyal than those of Anglo-Saxon descent. Kraut (p. 152-3) cites the conclusion by one Professor Edward Alsworth Ross that "immigrants were subcommon and that they would racially cripple the American population if permitted unrestricted entry." Indeed, what Kraut describes as the primitive research methods of the day appear to have trickled down into the gene pool of public-health doctors, one of whom explained that inspectors at Ellis Island "know that almost every race has its own type of reaction during the line of inspection. On the line if an Englishman reacts to questions in the manner of an Irishman, his lack of mental balance would be suspected. The converse is also true" (Mullan, p. 739, in Study Notes, p. 3
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