"A PROMINENT American once said, about immigrants, 'Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.'
"This sentiment did not emerge from the rancorous debate over the immigration bill defeated last week in the Senate. It was not the lament of some guest of Lou Dobbs or a Republican candidate intent on wooing bedrock conservative votes. Guess again.
"Voicing this grievance was Benjamin Franklin. And the language so vexing to him was the German spoken by new arrivals to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, a wave of immigrants whom Franklin viewed as the 'most stupid of their nation.'"
Kenneth C. Davis in The New York Times outlines America's history of anti-immigration.
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