Writing six years after the grueling series of clashes with Congress on everything from tax reform to immigration, former President Coolidge would reflect on the national immigration policy as a whole in his daily article on December 13, 1930: “Immigration is not a simple question. The entire economic effect of restriction is unknown. Every immigrant is a consumer requiring food, clothing and shelter. To that extent work is made for wage earners. But when many are already idle, an influx of wage earners would aggravate the condition of unemployment. Every race and creed that has come here in numbers has shown examples of unsurpassed loyalty and devotion to our country. But only by coming slowly, avoiding city colonies and spreading over the land do they arrive in the real United States. The economic reasons for restricting immigration are not always the most important. We have certain standards of life that we believe are best for us. We do not ask other nations to discard theirs, but we do wish to preserve ours. Standards, government and culture under free institutions are not so much a matter of constitutions and laws as of public opinion, ways of thought and methods of life of the people. We reflect on no one in wanting immigrants who will be assimilated into our ways of thinking and living. Believing we can best serve the world in that way, we restrict immigration.” Our freedoms would be relinquished if we consign our sovereignty as a nation to an amorphous existence. We are a freer and more united people when we uphold standards of immigration.

As the political decision on immigration is taking shape, some thoughts on Coolidge’s view of the matter are in order. The Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act) has not been judged favorably by history. Coolidge is even held unfairly responsible for its “racial animus.” Congress, in a series of assertive actions that year, chose to restrict immigration down to 2% of the nations present in the 1890 census, severely rolling back Southern European and Asian entry. The previous law, passed in 1917, had allowed 3% of those present at the 1910 census. Under the new law, after 1927, the annual quotas would reflect those present at the 1920 census. As if this were not enough, the Congress included a refusal of Japanese immigrants into the country, ignoring the Gentleman’s Agreement that had expressed the good will and peace existing between the two nations up to that time. It was the unfortunate letter of Japanese Ambassador Hanihara referring to “grave consequences” from Japan’s government should the bill pass that rallied support for it in Congress. The Congress recklessly interpreted this as a threat of war and emotional reaction, not reasonable discussion, prevailed. Both President Coolidge and Secretary Hughes fought against this momentum without success. It would finally be signed by the President but he would attach a firm protest against so hostile a measure toward a friendly nation. In his protest, he declared how he reconciled defeat on principled grounds, “If the exclusion provision stood alone, I should disapprove it without hesitation, if sought in this way at this time. But this bill is a comprehensive measure dealing with the whole subject of immigration and setting up the necessary administrative machinery…It is of great importance that a comprehensive measure should take its place and that the arrangements for its administration should be provided at once in order to avoid hardship and confusion.” Had it been solely his to decide, his personal disgust with prejudice on the basis of class or color, would have vetoed the bill promptly. But it was given to the Congress, not the President, by the Constitution to outline immigration law. Still, he would not leave people without legal continuity given by the rest of the law as a whole. Were he to withhold his signature then, it would hurt more people by depriving them of the good in the bill without any sure expectation that a better result could be obtained in a Congressional climate so emotionally-charged.