Special Note to Catholics: Don’t Forget the “Know-Nothings”

A special piece written by Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

In light of all the present furor over the issue of immigration, especially as it pertains to Muslims and Mexicans, let us hope that we Catholics of European descent do not forget our own immigrant experience. We are now in the majority. We are now among the best-educated people and the possessors of the most elite career successes in the United States.

But it wasn’t always so.

We are all descendants of mostly European immigrants – immigrants who were profoundly hated and denigrated in every possible way.

The highly respected American historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., insists that anti-Catholicism is the “deepest bias in the history of the American people.” John Tracy Ellis, a Catholic priest, and also a Church historian, wrote that “a universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and was vigorously cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia.”  

Anti-Catholicism was rampant in colonial America, as these historians attest to. Politically, however, it remained, according to Wikipedia, “somewhat submerged until 1830 to 1860 when the immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics made religious difference between Catholics and Protestants a political issue.”

The reasons for this were the obvious ones of extreme poverty, criminality, lack of education, and the fight for jobs. And then there was the religious difference. In that regard the tensions became explosive. Again, to quote Wikipedia, “Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX … was an opponent of democracy and Republicanism.” One pointed example of this initial bigotry is that of a prominent Boston minister who described Catholicism as “the ally of tyranny, the opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the carousel, and the school.”

These kind of fears and hysteria were then hyped and magnified by “various conspiracy theories regarding papal intentions of subjugating the United States through a continuing influx of Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope.”

“Secret, oath-bound societies developed to enhance hatred of the Irish and the Germans immigrants.” Their primary intention was to promote political candidates sympathetic to their cause.

The most famous and effective of these was one secret organization that taught their members to reply “I know nothing,” when asked about their group. This led to them popularly being called “Know Nothings.”

Beginning in the election year of 1854, the Know Nothings carried many New England cities, most of the state of Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and exerted significant influence in political races in Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California. As a result of their impressive success, triggered partly by the demise of the Whig party, the “Know Nothings” formed an official political party called the American Party.

The “Know Nothings” were also responsible for opposing Chinese immigration. In 1855, Leen Boone was elected mayor of Chicago for the “Know Nothings.” He then proceeded to bar all immigrants from city jobs.

Again, according to Wikipedia, this brand of bigotry “became a new American rage: Know Nothing candy, Know Nothing tea, and Know Nothing toothpicks appeared … this new party was deeply suspicious of outsiders of any kind, especially Catholics.”

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

12/10/15