Up till 1830, immigration into the United States was small in amount and fairly regular. The first wave stretched from 1831 to 1861, reaching its peak in 1855; its total amounted to four millions of foreigners, of whom the largest group and the first to come were the Irish, the second in number and date of arrival the Germans. The growth of intolerance against these newcomers was shown in the movement known as Know-Nothingism or the American Party. The second wave, of similar nationalities, was from 1862 to 1877; the reply to this appeared in the anti-alien planks in the political platforms of 1876. The third wave, from 1878 to 1897, was larger than these earlier ones; it included many Scandinavians and, after 1882, growing numbers of Italians, Russians, and Austro-Hungarians, the two last being composed in part of persecuted Jews, in part of impoverished peasants. The Nativist reaction against this immigrant trend appears rather in the form of religious opposition, for the American Protective Association of those days was predominantly anti-Catholic. The fourth wave began in 1898 and extended until 1914, when the outbreak of the World War in Europe caused a sudden drop to almost nothing; in its highest years, 1907 and 1913, more than 1,200,000 entered our ports annually; and the greatest number of these new arrivals came from Italy, Austria-Hungary and Russia. The reaction against these new immigrants was under way, but the war interrupted its progress, and the Ku Klux Klan arrived at its full power only after the war, when new conditions swayed the group mind of America.