1960s “Queen for a Day” Show Provided Model for Immigration Policy Today
Though it first started on radio in the 1940s, it was on the fledgling television of the late 50s and early 60s that the Queen for a Day television show made its way into the political soul of America.
Sobbing women would tell hard luck stories to host Jack Bailey. As Wikipedia describes, “Often the request was for medical care or therapeutic equipment to help a chronically ill child, but sometimes it was as simple as the need for a hearing aid, a new washing machine, or a refrigerator. Many women broke down sobbing as they described their plights, and Bailey was always quick to comfort them and offer a clean white handkerchief to dry their eyes.”
In fact, “The harsher the circumstances under which the contestant labored, the likelier the studio audience was to ring the applause meter’s highest level.” Astute politicians quickly saw a model that would win elections and gain public support. The applause meter became national polls. The audience (now watching flat screens) would welcome the tug at their heartstrings and be given the chance to vote for the unfortunate.
Everyone wants to be generous, especially if the “cost” seems little more than immediate sentiment. Presidential debates now routinely have cameras zoom in on individuals who have been flown-in to exemplify, in as positive a manner as possible, one welfare cause or another. The longterm budget complexities for millions of beneficiaries are missing, while the audience is asked to provide sympathy for just one person or family.
In his recent Immigration Address, the president mentioned “a mother who’s working hard to provide for her kids.” Immigrants in general, he says, are exemplary: “They support their families. They worship at our churches. Many of their kids are American-born or spent most of their lives here, and their hopes, dreams, and patriotism are just like ours.”
But the president never once hints at where the line should be drawn. Should we give extra points to those who knowingly break the law to get here? What about all the downtrodden millions in other parts of the world who are just as deserving–but who can’t afford the travel funds to just walk across the porous US southern border?
The message to the world is simply that applications for entry are meaningless and self-defeating. Getting here by “hook or by crook” at least shows a seriousness of purpose. Shouldn’t the world’s poor all have an equal chance at the American Dream (sob, sob)?
The same goes for ebola victims in West Africa. Why languish and die when the US has life-saving medical care just waiting for those who can illegally make it past the Statue of Liberty to join others in the Nation of Immigrants and the Land of the Free? The media will see to it that no one will be asked to leave. Is there no well-meaning group out there willing to arrange such mercy flights?
