Albert Johnson | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromWashington | |
| In office March 4, 1913 – March 3, 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Stanton Warburton |
| Succeeded by | Martin F. Smith |
| Constituency | 2nd district (1913–1915) 3rd district (1915–1933) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 5, 1869 Springfield, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | January 17, 1957 (aged 87) |
| Resting place | Hoquiam, Washington, U.S. |
| Party | Republican |
Albert Johnson (March 5, 1869 – January 17, 1957) was an American politician who served as theU.S. representative fromWashington's third congressional district from 1915 to 1933.
Born inSpringfield, Illinois, Johnson attended the schools atAtchison, Kansas andHiawatha, Kansas.[1]
Johnson worked as a reporter on theSt. Joseph (Missouri)Herald and theSt. Louis Globe-Democrat from 1888 to 1891, as managing editor of theNew Haven Register in 1896 and 1897, and as news editor ofThe Washington Post in 1898. To edit theTacoma News he moved toTacoma, Washington in 1898. He became editor and publisher ofGrays Harbor Washingtonian (Hoquiam, Washington) in 1907. Johnson was supportive of the presidency ofWilliam Howard Taft, as well as women's suffrage and was opposed to monopolies, writing editorials critical of them.[2]
Albert Johnson was elected as aRepublican to the Sixty-third and to the nine succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1913 – March 3, 1933), but was defeated in a bid for reelection in November 1932.[3]While a Member of Congress, Johnson was commissioned a captain in the Chemical Warfare Service during theFirst World War, receiving an honorable discharge on November 29, 1918. He served as chairman of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization (Sixty-sixth through Seventy-first Congresses), where he played an important role in the passage of theanti-immigrant legislation of the 1920s.[4]
Johnson was the chief author of theImmigration Act of 1924 (known as theJohnson-Reed Act), which in 1927 he justified as a bulwark against "a stream of alien blood, with all its inherited misconceptions respecting the relationships of the governing power to the governed."[5] Johnson has been described as "an unusually energetic and vehement racist and nativist."[6]
Johnson appointed one of the leading eugenicists of the era,Harry Laughlin, associated with theEugenics Record Office inCold Spring Harbor, New York, as the committee's Expert Eugenics Agent.[7]From 1923 to 1924, he was the president of the Eugenics Research Association, an organization of eugenics researchers and supporters which opposedinterracial marriage and also supported the program of forced sterilization of the mentally disabled.[8] In support of his 1919 proposal to suspend immigration he included this quote from a State Department official referring to the recent wave of Jewish immigrants as "filthy, un-American, and often dangerous in their habits."[9]
Johnson retired from the newspaper business in 1934.[10]
Albert Johnson died age 87 on January 17, 1957, in a veterans hospital atAmerican Lake, Washington and was buried in Sunset Memorial Park,Hoquiam, Washington.[citation needed]
Media related toAlbert Johnson (congressman) at Wikimedia Commons| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromWashington's 2nd congressional district 1913-1915 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromWashington's 3rd congressional district 1915-1933 | Succeeded by |
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