Julian’s excellent piece on Lou Dobss’ gentelmanly xenophobia reminds me of a passage from The Great Gatsby. What’s wonderful about the passage is not merely that the bigot in question is named “Buchanan” (prescient, that Fitzgerald), but that eighty years later, there are still Buchanans in this world (Tom, Pat — it doesn’t matter), making the same stale, short-sighted arguments.

“I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?” [Tom Buchanan asked].

“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”

“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we –.”

“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”

“We’ve got to beat them down,.” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

“You ought to live in California –” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and –.”

After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. ” — And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization - oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”

I’m currently working on a project dealing with alcohol prohibition. Take any anti-immigration essay from the paleo-right today. Substitute “German” for “Mexican,” and you’ll have an anti-immigration piece from the early 20th century. “They don’t speak English,” “they won’t assimilate,” “they’re taking jobs away from the rest of us,” “they’re milking social programs” — the same arguments, over and over, each time a new wave of immigrants hits the U.S. from a new corner of the world.

And guess what? Each wave added, not detracted, to the American experience.

In fact, it was anti-immigration demagoguing that finally pushed alcohol prohibition into enactment. Temperance advocates seized on anti-German fervor spilling out from World War I. It was German-Americans’ hard-drinking habits and love of beer that finally convinced fence-sitters perhaps alcohol really was the evil the prohibitionists made it out to be.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 2nd, 2003 at 10:44 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Alcohol, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.