This cartoon addresses public anxiety about the influx of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. In the aftermath of World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the spread of radicalism throughout much of Europe and anarchism in America, Congress was under pressure to severely restrict immigration, particularly from the “less desirable” countries of eastern and southern Europe. The 1921 Emergency Quota Law, also called the Immigration Restriction Act and the Emergency Immigration Act, imposed quotas on immigration based on the potential immigrant’s country of birth. An annual quota for each country was established at 3 percent of the number of persons from that country as recorded in the 1910 census. This act would be entrenched in 1924 with the passage of the National Origins Act.