John B. Trevor, Sr.

John Bond Trevor Sr. (November 19, 1878 – February 12, 1956) was an American lawyer and influential lobbyist for immigration restrictions. A wealthy nativist, he was an architect of the Immigration Act of 1924, which banned Asian immigration and established quotas that stood for forty years until 1964.

Biography

Early life and education Trevor was born in Yonkers, New York, on November 19, 1878. His father, John Bond Trevor, was an early Wall Street stockbroker.

He attended Columbia Law School and received his law degree from Harvard in 1902. Trevor was a member of the Eugenics Research Association, the American Eugenics Society, the Immigration Restriction League, and the American Defense Society. He was also in the Society of Colonial Wars and was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History. The latter, whose work Trevor helped orchestrate, launched raids against suspected radicals, arresting 500 and deporting 246. Trevor's influential "national origins" proposal for the Immigration Act of 1924 assigned restrictive quotas similar to what Trevor deemed as the previous composition of the American population. The act, which was signed by President Calvin Coolidge and took full effect in 1929, banned Asian immigration and sharply cut levels of immigration previously allowed from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe.

In 1927 Trevor founded a group that became the American Coalition of Patriotic, Civic and Fraternal Societies, with a slogan of "Keep America American". It was an umbrella group of more than 100 civic groups, including the Sons of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Trevor and his coalition campaigned against admitting Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s into the United States. Trevor unsuccessfully opposed a 1943 law to welcome some Chinese (who were World War II allies) into the United States. He was the coalition's president until 1950. A committee associated with Trevor called Ten Million Americans Mobilizing for Justice defended Senator Joseph McCarthy against censure by the Senate. a trustee of New York University,

Personal life He married Caroline Murray Wilmerding (one of the oldest friends of Eleanor Roosevelt They had two sons. His son John B. Trevor Jr. also was involved with the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, was on the board of the Pioneer Fund, and was a trustee of the Trudeau Institute.