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William Jett Lauck (born on August 2, 1879 in Mineral County, West Virginia) was an economist whose research was used to guide the recommendations of the Dillingham Commission.

Lauck, as an agent within the Dillingham Commission, was given the task of overseeing a massive study that entailed the collection of data from every major industry during the early 19th century. All the data he collected would be used to help conceptualize the “immigration issue” and to guide the policies that the Dillingham Commission would recommend for implementation at the national level. Lauck’s findings were directed toward proving that immigrants’ economic impact should be used as the basis in which the Dillingham Commission would recommend immigration policies. According to Lauck, their recommendations, “should be based primarily on economic and business considerations touching the prosperity and well-being of our people”. Lauck termed this kind of prosperity and well-being as the “American standard of living”, his idea was supported by other economists, reformers, and land leaders who considered this as a “living wage”. His “American standard of living” relied on assumptions regarding culture, gender, family dynamic, and race, which inevitably tended to cast a negative spotlight on new immigrants. Overall Lauck’s greatly influenced the ideology used to address the nation’s immigration issue.

Early Life
Lauck was raised in a German American and Protestant household, his hometown,  Keyser, was a product of the Industrial Revolution. Keyser, become one of the stops in the first national railroad, in 1852. His father William Blandford Lauck, built his livelihood as an agent of the U.S. Express, a railroad shipping company. Additionally, he served on the city council and was elected mayor, Lauck came from a family that was considered middle class during the time. Lauck was the second oldest out of eight children, he was also the first in his family to go to college. In college he became a debater, orator, and President of the Literacy Society and Press Club. He eventually married his college sweetheart, Eleanor Moore Dunlap, she came from Scottish-Irish descent. During his time in college he met to Economic Professors, H. Parker Willis and Robert F. Hoxie, he would eventually be mentored by Willis and work with Hoxie in the Dillingham Commission.

Dillingham Convention
By the time Lauck started to work in the Dillingham Commission he was a 28 year old college drop out, who worked as an adjunct teacher at his undergraduate alma mater, Washington & Lee University.He was in charge of overseeing one of history’s largest massive study, he collected data from every industry that immigrants were involved in during the 19th Century. Lauck’s study was highly influenced by his personal upbringing, he came for a middle working class and believed that the “working man” was the embodiment of being an American. Therefore development of the “American standard of living” was based specific gender, race, class, and assumptions. Therefore, when he proposed his project to the Dillingham Commission he stated that he would do his investigation through the perspective of the “working man”. Lauck’s study also supported the unions’ movement during 1870’s, who were fighting for a higher wage and better working conditions. For the unions, immigrants workers were seen as the enemy because they were being replaced by them due to the fact that they were paid half or less than half for the same job they were doing. Due to this Lauck’s pinpointed the immigrants and the corporations who hired them the root cause for their immigrations issue. Therefore, using all this data he came to the conclusion that the United States needed to place a restriction on immigration. Lauck argued that the immigrants had a great impact on the U.S.’s economy. In his report to the Dillingham Commission he emphasized economic and business should be the primary base used to determine the entrance of immigrants, the commission needs to consider if immigrants will be bring the United States prosperity and well-being to allow them into the country.