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    "label": "Memorandum from President Harry S. Truman to Vice President Alben Barkley, Senator Scott Lucas, Congressman Sam Rayburn, and Congressman John W. McCormack, with Attached Report",
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    "title": "Memorandum from President Harry S. Truman to Vice President Alben Barkley, Senator Scott Lucas, Congressman Sam Rayburn, and Congressman John W. McCormack, with Attached Report",
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    "ocrText": "-10-\nIV. KNOW-NOTHING movement, 1840-1856\nA. Background.\nThe so-called Know-Nothing Movement was primarily directed against Catho-\nlics and immigrants in the period prior to the Civil War. It was a native Amer-\nican phenomenon, characterized by a super-nationalistic feeling, hatred of certain\nminority groups, and secrecy of code and operation. The name derived from the\nfact that members who were questioned about the organization usually replied \"I\nKnow Nothing.\" In later years, the political supporters of the movement succeeded\nin getting on the ballot in many states as the \"American Party.\"\nAlthough the American Indian is probably the only native American, some\nindividuals have always imagined that immigration is a menace to American instit-\nutions. The country was warned that \"in welcoming what seem to be the oppressed\nof other lands we may really be taking an adder into our bosom.\" In 1830, there\nwere about 400,000 foreign-born in this country, out of a total population of\n13,000,000. But during the period between 1830 and 1850, there were 2,500,000\nimmigrants -- who made up one-quarter of our increase in population during that\nperiod. Between 1847 and 1856, covering the years of the Irish potato famine and\nthe revolution in Germany, over 3,000,000 immigrants arrived in this country, or\nover twice the number arriving in the previous seventy years.\nThe immigrants settled in huge numbers in large urban areas, where many\nof them joined city political machines. The Know-Nothing Movement started as a\nprotest against the influence of these immigrants. It was directed against the\nGermans in Cincinnati and St. Louis, the Scandinavians in Wisconsin and Minnesota,\nand the Irish in the east. Primarily, however, it was directed against the Catho-\nlics. All who joined were pledged to vote only for natives, to press for the\nenactment of a 21-year probationary period preceding naturalization, and to combat\nthe Catholic Church.\nThe prejudice against the Catholics was stirred up by books and pamphlets,\nspeeches and sermons, and the same pattern developed as in the Anti-Masonic Movement.\nThe background was laid by declarations that the Pone was scheming to set up =\nCatholic State in America. Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph, con-\ndemned \"popery\" and urged that immigration restrictions be imposed so that\"no\nforeigner who comes into this country after the law is passed shall ever be en-\ntitled to the right of suffrage.\" Wild rumors spread about what went on behind\nthe walls of Catholic missions and convents. Mob hysteria broke out into overt\nattacks on Catholics--such as the burning and pillaging of the Ursuline Convent\nat Charlestown, Mass.; riots in Boston; the tarring and feathering of Catholic\npriests; the wrecking of a Catholic church in Manchester, N. H.; and riots against\nCatholic workers on the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod and on the Chesapeake and Ohio\nCanal.. All of these mob actions were a prelude to the more widely organized\npolitical activities of the anti-Catholics.\nB. The Know-Nothing Movement Enters Politics.\nAt first, the Know-Nothing Movement was localized in its scope and in-\nfluence. It depended for its support on a dozen or more propaganda or pressure\nagencies formed ostensibly to keep the country safe for Protestant Americanism,"
}