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262 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 1 (1949)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0262 and id is 1 raw text is: Perspective By HUGH CARTER PERIODICALLY the American peo- ple reappraise their immigration policy. They are doing so at this time. The present basic immigration law of 1917, containing numerous qualitative controls including a literacy test, was enacted by Congress after prolonged de- bate. The quota legislation of 1924, establishing quantitative controls, was likewise preceded by widespread dis- cussion. Once the public had grown accus- tomed to the novel quota system, inter- est in immigration declined to a low level until near the end of the Second World War. Then began the public discussion of immigration that shows no signs of ending in the near future. The immediate cause of this debate was the urgent question of what to do about the displaced persons in Europe. In- evitably, such public discussion broad- ened to include all aspects of immigra- tion policy. DISPLACED PERSONS Much of the present discussion of immigration is a direct result of the war. War inevitably uproots many people, but the conflict of 1939-45 was unprecedented in the number of persons that were impelled by forces beyond their control to leave their homes and seek temporary sanctuary elsewhere. Resettlement of these displaced per- sons is an urgent problem. In a war that engulfed the entire world, the ad- vancing and retreating armies, the aerial bombings, the desires of political lead- ers to be rid of troublesome minorities, the insatiable demands of war indus- tries for manpower, and the extermina- tion policies of the Nazis directed against Jewish minorities combined to shift millions of persons about on the map of Europe. The end of the war did not bring an end to this problem. Hundreds of thou- sands were left stranded, unable or un- willing to return to their former homes. They led a miserable existence in dis- placed persons camps or under the temporary shelter of international or- ganizations. SHORTAGE OF WORKERS But while the displaced persons prob- lem is the most dramatic of the immi- gration questions facing the United States, as well as one of strong hu- manitarian appeal, the war also em- phasized underlying demographic trends both in America and in western Europe that have a vital bearing on immigration policy. Many Americans were startled by the manpower shortages of the war years, for the preceding fifteen years had been a period of manpower sur- pluses, with millions unemployed. Sud- denly all this was reversed. The press was filled with stories of delayed war production because of the lack of man- power. Needed crops rotted in the fields because no one was available to harvest them. A program of importing workers from nearby countries for work on railways and farms was instituted. Yet the shortages continued so acute that it was not unusual to see women working on the railroad rights of way. Many persons attributed these condi- tions entirely to the millions of produc- tive workers temporarily in the armed services, and dreaded the surplus of manpower that would exist as soon as the war ended. However, in the early

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