NEARING THE GATE
Sunday fell on the 11th, and it was a pleasant day till afternoon, when
it began to get rough. The ship’s band was sent forward to play on the
hurricane deck, in order to cheer up the emigrants, many of whom were
beginning to look very badly, and to endeavor to brace them up till port
could be reached; for it is a great saving to the company to take as
many passengers as possible to Ellis Island in a good state of health.
On this day occurred another medical inspection; and to make all of the
health tickets appear to have been properly punched as each passenger
was inspected day by day, a steward whom I had heard called Beppo went
about and carefully punched any vacant spaces. As neither my wife nor
myself had gone by for the last three of the four health inspections,
having missed the call by being busy eating in the petty officer’s
cubby, Beppo punched out the full twelve days of the voyage at one
punching. When those tickets were presented at Ellis Island there was
nothing to show that their bearers had not been properly inspected each
day.
That night Beppo and two other stewards, who were on watch below, went
into the women’s compartment and drank some wine that had been brought
aboard by a Spanish woman of uncertain character, and in a short while a
small orgie was in progress. About six persons participated. The other
women finally roused to protest, and the stewards addressed them in
language that is not fit to be stated here, and continued until they
were ready to quit.
In the morning the warmth of the Gulf Stream began to stir the chilled
blood of all hands, and the first sail sighted since the Azores caused
the poor emigrants to rejoice, as it was a token that they were nearing
America. In a slow way the Italian provincial songs which had prevailed
changed to American airs, attempted by those who had been in the States.
Everybody seemed happier than they had been for days, and first-cabin
passengers began to appear in numbers on the forward end of the
hurricane deck. Several young women had brought out little bundles of
delicacies, candy, oranges, apples, etc., and were dropping them over
the rail to the emigrant children below. This kindly occupation was
observed by the first officer, who was on the bridge, and he came down
in haste and rebuked the first-cabin young women with severity, and sent
the ship’s interpreter down to hector the emigrant children and their
mothers. I wonder what he would have said had he known the quantities of
first-cabin fare that was being smuggled to emigrants by the stewards
and cooks every day.
That night we saw Nantucket light, and from that on my wife and I
counted the hours. We arrived too late the night of the 13th to go up
the harbor, and so proceeded slowly so as to reach Quarantine by eight
o’clock on the morning of the 14th.
The night before, the joy among the emigrants that they were reaching
the Promised Land was pitiful to see, mingled as it was with the
terrible dread of being debarred.
There was little sleeping all night. About twelve o’clock the women woke
up the sleeping children, opened their packs, and took out finery on top
of finery, and began to array the little ones to meet their fathers. My
wife pleaded with Camela to stay in her bunk and wait for daylight at
least, but Camela could not understand why she should wait, and at three
o’clock little Ina was brought up on deck arrayed in her very best, and
as clean as her mother could make her with a small bottle of water and a
skirt combination wash-rag and towel.
By six o’clock all the baggage in the compartments had been hauled out
and up on deck, and the hundreds of emigrants were gathered there, many
trying to shave, others struggling for water in which to wash, and
mothers who had been unable to dress their children to their
satisfaction in the cramped quarters below were doing the job all over
again, despite the chill air.
Happy, excited, enthusiastic as they were, there was still that dread
among the people of the “Batteria,” the name used to sum up all that
pertains to Ellis Island. I saw more than one man with a little slip of
notes in his hand carefully rehearsing his group in all that they were
to say when they came up for examination, and by listening here and
there I found that hundreds of useless lies were in preparation. Many,
many persons whose entry into the country would be in no way hindered by
even the strictest enforcement of the letter of the emigration laws,
were trembling in their shoes, and preparing to evade or defeat the
purpose of questions which they had heard would be put to them.
Some of the people who had confided in me came around even two or three
times to ask me whether I thought they looked at all “sick in the eyes.”
One woman who fancied that her baby had trachoma gorged the child all
that day in an effort to get it asleep and keep it asleep, so that the
doctor should pass it without examining it, as she was prepared to
protest against its being waked up.
More than once I heard leaders of groups telling men:
“Remember, you have got no work and you paid your own way.”
“Oh, but they will not let me in if they think I have no work and will
have no money to keep my family from charity,” protested one fellow whom
I knew was under promise of work.
“That makes no difference; you are a jackass not to do as I tell you;
don’t you think I know my business?” was the answer he received.
One man whom I knew to be of independent means and in no wise an unfit
person under the law to be admitted was going about in a very nervous
state, his hand constantly on some papers in his breast pocket. I had
talked with him before, and he had told me he had had a store in
Salerno. Now I approached him and drew him into conversation about the
land already in sight, and before long he drew out the papers he had in
his pocket. In addition to his passport and his regular ticket of health
he had the naturalization papers of a full-fledged American citizen. The
name on them was not the name on his ticket of health, and which would
be the same on the ship’s manifest, and I told him that if he endeavored
to use the naturalization papers at the docks he would certainly get
into trouble. He was greatly frightened and was very suspicious of me,
so much so that I was unable to get any further information out of him.
I found one of his friends aboard who was a man of more experience, and
after telling him just what lay before the Salerno man if he attempted
to use the naturalization papers, I persuaded him to find out where and
how the Salerno man got them. In half an hour he came back and said the
Salerno man was below, weeping, and ready to commit suicide, but had
told him that he had gone with three other men to a man in the first
wine-shop on the Strada del Duomo off the Strada Nuova in Naples, and
had paid fifty lire each for American citizens’ papers brought home by
returning emigrants, and the four were to receive fifteen lire each if
they returned them after use. The three other men had sailed on the
_Citta di Napoli_.
Numbers of the people were privately taking out and setting aside
varying sums from their slender stores of money, with which to “pay
something to the American inspector and American doctor.” So accustomed
were they to extortion by officials, that they refused to believe me
when I told them that it would cease at Ellis Island. They were
astounded and deeply puzzled when it did.
Giuseppe Rota followed me wherever I went, for I had promised to lend
him the money to replace his stolen seventy lire, and though we were
hours and hours yet from Ellis Island he was afraid the ship would dock
at any moment, a giant in the uniform of an American immigrant inspector
would appear and demand to see twelve dollars, and I would be out of
sight, in which case he would be locked up and sent back.
As we approached Sandy Hook the alternate glee and depression of the
groups were pathetic. Even Antonio was trembling with excitement and
said to me: “Suppose they will not let me back in. Can’t I tell them
just to telephone up to my bank in Stonington, and they will tell them
that I got a wife and property there, and it will be all right.”
Camela’s tears were constantly ready to fall, for there dwelt in her
heart a dread that something would arise to prevent her reunion with
Giuseppe.
The steerage stewards and the interpreter under the direction of a
junior officer appeared and ordered all the steerage passengers to pass
up from the forward main deck to the hurricane deck and aft, leaving
their baggage just where it was. Wild commotion broke forth, for this
was preparatory action at last. Slowly the chattering, excited hundreds
were got aft and crowded into the space usually given to second-cabin
passengers, and after a long wait there, while we approached Quarantine,
and the port doctor’s boat came out, and the _Chamberlain_ carrying the
Ellis Island boarding-officers and a newspaper man or two, there were
cries forward along the hurricane deck which indicated that the crowd
was being passed back to steerage quarters.
I knew we were about to pass before the port doctor’s deputy and the
boarding-officers, and got our party together and into the line passing
forward along the promenade deck. As we approached the forward end we
saw the dour German doctor standing with a gray-whiskered man in
uniform, on whose cap front was the welcome gold-thread eagle design of
the United States service. As we came nearly abreast of them I saw
another official on the right-hand side, and turned my head slightly to
see what was occurring on that side of the line. I caught a glimpse of
steerage stewards beyond the officials, hurrying the emigrants down the
companion-way, and the next instant received a heavy raking blow on the
bridge of my nose and up my forehead. It partly stunned and dazed me,
and I was merely conscious of stumbling on and of having the spectacles
which I wore for reading or distance-viewing hanging by the hook over
one ear. Before I could even see, I was at the head of the
companion-way, and the stewards were hustling my wife down the steps. I
gathered from what she was saying that the German doctor had struck me,
and, turning to look at him, saw he was looking after me with a sneer on
his face. To go back would have been to spoil my investigations just at
the last stage, and with a lamb-like meekness I went below, where my
wife told how, having uncovered my head, as is the rule in passing the
doctor, I had replaced my hat a second too soon as I turned to look to
the right, and the German doctor had reached over her head and struck me
with the back of his wrist, inflicting a heavy blow under the pretense
of brushing my hat from my head.