Something of the same sort took place in the more intangible domain of population. Into the minds of the less than four million people who were enumerated in the United States in 1790, even the thought of a redundant population could hardly enter. The one great thing that seemed to be needed was more people, and while the natural increase of the native stock seemed to many ample to meet the demands, there was nevertheless a hearty welcome to all sturdy and well-intentioned aliens who elected to establish themselves within the territory of the new nation. Especially was there a feeling of sympathy toward those who came seeking refuge from political tyranny or oppression in the nations of Europe. Thus the principle of an open door, and a welcome to the “oppressed and downtrodden of all races,” became the established policy of the nation, and as decade succeeded decade acquired all the power and authority of tradition and usage. As a consequence, all efforts to control or regulate the ingress of aliens, which have been incited by the apparent needs of the situation, have been confronted with the necessity of bearing the burden of proof, and of assailing established dogma. This has put the advocates of restriction into the category of “antis,” and has laid them open to the charge of narrow-mindedness and bigotry. If it can be conceived that the United States should have been in her present industrial situation when she first began to frame national policies, it is wholly probable that the restrictionists would have been considered the conservatives, and the advocates of free immigration, the radicals. However this may be, the fact is that in general the open-door policy has prevailed, and only within the last generation have restrictive laws been passed, which have served merely to weed out the manifestly undesirables, scarcely to diminish in any significant measure the great bulk of the current. The resulting transfer of people from Europe to America has been truly phenomenal. In the period of years from 1820 to 1912 a total of 29,611,052 immigrants came to the United States.[347] No population movement of equal social significance, and comparable in volume, has ever taken place within the recorded history of the human race. And never again, so far as the human eye can see, can it be repeated, when the heyday of immigration to the United States is over. It is inconceivable that such a phenomenon should not have important and far-reaching effects upon every country concerned in the movement. There is, then, an immigration problem.