Nov 21 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2687 -

Sale 2687 - Lot 190

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(NEW YORK CITY.) [Petition to President Taft] 3, 10 pages, plus blanks for signatures. 4to, 12 x 8¾ inches, staple and clasp-bound at top edge; horizontal fold, minor wear. New York, 9 April 1912
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Additional Details

The first three pages are a petition to President Taft by the Citizens Committee of Orchard, Rivington and East Houston Streets, concerning recent comments by New York's federal Commissioner of Immigration. He had denounced the immigrant residents of that portion of the Lower East Side as belonging to "backward races" who "have very low standards of living, possess filthy habits and are of an ignorance which passes belief," as part of an argument to restrict immigration at Ellis Island. The petition takes exception with his libelous comments and insists that the neighborhood's immigrants have "come to this country for the purpose of establishing permanent homes, of rearing and educating their children as good Americans, and of enjoying the blessings of freedom."

Appended is a 10-page report headed "A Study of the Social Centres, Professions, Industrial and Mercantile Establishments," showing that 90.3% of the neighborhood's residents are Jewish, and counting the types of business and social establishments, with narrative from the local public library and public school to demonstrate the progress of assimilation.

One copy in OCLC, at the American Jewish Historical Society.

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