New Immigrants and Old. Americans at the turn of the century were alarmed about what they perceived as a change in the type of immigrants entering the United States. Some of the traits they saw as distinguishing the new immigrants from the old immigrants were real; some were imagined; some were half-true. The old immigration peaked in the 1880s. The new immigration peaked in 1907.
It is absolutely OK to filter and reuse deep-fry oil. It's not uncommon at some short-order restaurants for them to filter the oil daily and only change it once a week. Of course, it does start to taste a little off when you reuse it that many times.
But Americans cook something like a billion pounds of pasta a year, so those minutes could add up. My rough figuring indicates an energy savings at the stove top of several trillion B.T.U.s. At the power plant, that would mean saving 250,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil, or $10 million to $20 million at current prices.