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Thus, by 1855, Democratic control of state politics, already declining
the year before, was effectively ended. The Republicans had become the new
majority party. Despite their efforts to appeal to the immigrants in the state,
both parties were accused of nativist and prohibitionist leanings. That these
allegations were not entirely unfounded, can be inferred-if not proven-by
the abolition of the Office of the Commissioner of Emigration.
On January 19, 1855, a bill demanding the rescission of all laws pertaining
to state agencies of emigration was introduced by a Republican senator.54The
act to terminate the office was adopted on January 29, 1855 (chapter 3, laws of
1855), published on March 24 of that year. Some debate must have preceded
this decision, for just seventeen days before the vote, Governor Barstow, in his
annual message to the senate and the assembly, made the following entreaty in
support of the office, in vain, as it would turn out:
Emigration to our State is annually on the increase, furnishing further
evidence of the adaptation of our soil and climate to the habits and
wants of the emigrant, and of the high estimate abroad placed upon
our resources. The Commissioner of Emigration, in his annual report,
calculates the number of emigrants from foreign countries who have
found their home in Wisconsin, to be much greater during the past
than any former year. A large portion of this, I am induced to believe,
resulted from the continuance of the agency in New York, and through
the sub-agency, established at Quebec, under it. My former expressed
views, in regard to the propriety of such agencies, I have had, as yet,
no reason to change.
But even earlier, the fate of the Office of Commissioner of Emigration
may have been the subject of a heated public discussion, if not directly, so at
least through the increasingly felt nativist influence. On October 19, 1854,
a columnist in the Tigliches Wisconsin-Banner, under the title, "Ansichten
eines Amerikaners fiber die Einwanderung,"56 (no doubt with a tacit accent
on "Amerikaner") took issue with the notion, spread apparently by certain
politicians, that the ongoing emigration to this country was a curse that needed
to be gotten under control. After all, the writer argued, without the tremendous
53. Cf. Current, ch. 6.
54. Cf. Tdgliches Wisconsin-Banner, Jan. 23, 1855. The senator was Mr. West.

55. Annual Message of William A. Barstow, Governor of the State of Wisconsin, Jan. 12,
1855. The German text of the address appeared in the Tdgliches Wisconsin-Banner of Jan. 13,
1855.
56. Immigration as seen by an American.

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