THE NOBLE EXPERIMENT

Mary Hunt (1897, p. 63) had expressed concern over "the enormous increase of immigrant population flooding us from the old world, men and women who have brought to our shores and into our politics old world habits and ideas [favorable to alcohol]" and peppered her writing with references to this "undesirable immigration" and "these immigrant hordes." She is but one example. The largely anti-foreign, anti-Catholic, anti-Black, anti-German, anti-Semitic, and anti-urban nature of the temperance movement has been extensively documented (Kobler, 1973, pp. 168-169; Odegard, 1928, pp. 24-35; Sinclair, 1962, ch. 2 and pp. 119-126; Stivers, 1983, p. 358; Hofstadter, 1965, pp. 289-290). It appears to be no coincidence that legislation restricting immigration occurred during the height of the temperance movement's power.

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