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"Where the Blame Lies," Sackett and Wilhelms Lithograph Co., April 4, 1891.
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Cartoon shows a man holding a top hat in one hand and gesturing toward horde of arriving immigrants. He scolds Uncle Sam.

Credit: Library of Congress

The flood of immigrants into the United States in the late 1800s and labor wars that racked the nation for decades mobilized a national movement to restrict immigration. In this 1891 political cartoon, a judge scolds Uncle Sam that "If Immigration was properly Restricted you would no longer be troubled with Anarchy, Socialism, the Mafia and such kindred evils!" After he resigned from the Supreme Court in 1880, Justice William Strong became president of the National Association to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution, which sought to restrict the influx of Catholic and Jewish immigrants and to declare the United States a “Christian nation.”

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