Attention has again been directed to the unsatisfactory conditions which
prevail in the administration of quarantine inspection at the port of
New York by the report of a special committee of the New York Academy of
Medicine.
This report, which was recently made public, strongly advocated the
national control of quarantine from “the point of view of convenience,
efficiency and uniformity of administration, economy and law.” The
subject aroused discussion in the newspapers a few weeks ago because the
chairman of Governor Sulzer’s commission for the investigation of state
departments urged the transfer of this function to the federal
government.
In the discussion of this recommendation, several important points have
been overlooked. For example, there is some significance in the
discrepancy between the large sums spent by New York on the quarantine
station, which protects the country at large, and the small amount
expended for the State Health Department, upon which rests the
protection of the citizens of the state. Doubtless, as has been pointed
out, the fees charged steamship companies can be increased so that the
state will not be required to make any annual appropriations for the
maintenance of the quarantine station but the health officer of the port
has asked for an appropriation of about $1,800,000 for needed repairs
and improvements. About $180,000 is appropriated for the State
Department of Health each year. This constitutes practically all the
money spent by the state for the protection of the health of its
9,000,000 citizens. Out of it must be paid all salaries and expenses of
administration, the cost of collecting vital statistics, maintaining
laboratories for research and for the production of diphtheria
antitoxin, the control of epidemics, the inspection of water supplies
and, in short, all the work in the prevention of disease in which the
state is engaged. If the Legislature grants the $1,800,000 which the
health officer of the port requests, it will give him an amount equal to
that expended during ten years for safeguarding the health of those
residing in the state.
Closely related to this aspect of the question is the fact, which has
received little attention, that some of the largest immigrant-carrying
lines do not enter New York at all but dock at Hoboken and Jersey City.
Last year more than 36 per cent. of all the passengers who arrived at
this port from Europe landed in New Jersey. The following table shows
the passengers brought during 1912 by steamship lines having docks at
Hoboken and Jersey City:
STEAMSHIP LINES CABIN STEERAGE TOTAL
North German Lloyd 51,920 118,803 170,723
Hamburg American 38,033 98,043 136,076
Holland American 18,611 33,877 52,488
Scandinavian American 5,265 13,064 18,329
Lloyd Sabaudo 652 7,119 7,771
──────────────────────────────────────────────
114,481 270,906 385,387
Less than 30 per cent. of the immigrants who arrived at this port during
the year remained in this state, a large proportion landing in New
Jersey, being examined at Ellis Island and going west by one of the
railroad lines terminating at Jersey City. They were distributed over a
wide area and it cannot be denied that it is chiefly for the protection
of distant states that New York’s expensive quarantine is maintained.
Much has been said about the advantages to commerce of the state control
of quarantine at the port of New York. If $300,000 are collected during
1913 in fees from steamship companies, the amount will equal the
earnings on $7,500,000 of invested capital. In other words, an amount of
capital which would purchase ten large freighters must be set aside to
meet the quarantine dues at this port for one year. If ten such vessels
were tied up at one of the piers in this city for a year, as an object
lesson, we would not hear very much about the advantages to commerce
which local control of quarantine insures.
The tax rate in the Borough of Manhattan for 1911 was 1.72248. At such a
rate it would be necessary to tax $17,000,000 of capital to raise
$300,000 a year. This means that a tax equal to that rate on real estate
in the Borough of Manhattan has to be levied on $17,000,000 of the
capital of steamship companies to pay for a quarantine station, the cost
of which should be borne by the country which it protects.
Another phase of the question which has not been touched upon is the
relation between quarantine and the medical control of immigration. At
ports where the United States Public Health Service administers the
quarantine law and conducts the medical inspection of immigrants, the
two functions are performed under conditions making each more efficient
and also reducing interference with commerce to a minimum. The medical
inspection of immigrants at Ellis Island, which is performed by medical
officers of the United States Public Health Service, constitutes the
second line of quarantine defense and not a few cases of small-pox and
typhus fever which have escaped observation at the state quarantine
station have been detected in the medical examination at Ellis Island.
If both functions were performed by the Public Health Service at this
port the work could be carried on much more effectively and with benefit
to the immigrant—a factor which no one seems to have considered. When
cases of scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria and the other contagious
diseases of childhood were taken off vessels at the state quarantine
station, children died without their mothers, who were detained at Ellis
Island, even being able to visit them once during their illness. At the
same time a magnificent new group of hospitals for contagious diseases
remained idle at Ellis Island. No better example of the danger and
inutility of divided control could be found than this.