THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND
Cooped up in the barge, we waited till the sun got down into the smoke
of Bayonne and Elizabeth and was a great red ball only, so dull that the
eye could contemplate it pleasantly. Then came the shadows of night, and
we began to dread that our turn to be disembarked would come so late
that we should either be taken back to the steamer or be kept on the
island until morning. Myriads of lights were shining in the great
buildings. Each time the old ferry-boat floundered across from the
Battery it brought a crowd of friends of immigrants who had been
summoned from New York and elsewhere to meet the newly arrived ones. All
the races of Europe seemed to be represented in the crowds on the
ferry-boat as it passed close to us when bound back to the Battery.
The babies had sobbed themselves to sleep, worn-out mothers sat with
their heads drooped on the children they held to their breasts, and
among the men mirth and song had died away, though now and then a voice
would be heard inquiring if any one knew when or where we would get
something to eat.
“All ready for the last _Irenes_,” sang out a voice somewhere in the
darkness up by the buildings, and there was a clatter of feet overhead
and on the wharf. The doors of the barge were opened. The barge hands
dragged out the plank. The ropes restraining the crowd were dropped, and
the weary hundreds, shouldering their baggage yet once again, poured out
of the barge on to the wharf. Knowing the way, I led those of our group
who were with my wife and myself straight to the covered approach to the
grand entrance to the building, and the strange assemblage of Old World
humanity streamed along behind us, an interesting procession indeed.
When we came to the doorway I halted our section, and we piled the
baggage and waited. Antonio had all the papers for the Squadritos, and
with him also was Salvatore Biajo, who, thanks to the short-change game
worked on him by the draft-sellers at Naples, must have some money
advanced to him before we got inside. If the officials there saw me
giving him money they would want to know about it, and I did not wish to
attract attention to myself.
Antonio and Camela were meantime madly hunting us about the wharf, and
just as the official at the doorway had ordered us to go on in,
regardless of the others, each party caught sight of the other.
Half-way up the stairs an interpreter stood telling the immigrants to
get their health tickets ready, and so I knew that Ellis Island was
having “a long day” and we were to be passed upon even if it took half
the night. The majority of the people, having their hands full of bags,
boxes, bundles, and children, carried their tickets in their teeth, and
just at the head of the stairs stood a young doctor in the Marine
Hospital Service uniform, who took them, looked at them, and stamped
them with the Ellis Island stamp. Considering the frauds in connection
with these tickets at Naples and on board, the thoroughness used with
them now was indeed futile.
Passing straight east from the head of the stairs, we turned into the
south half of the great registry floor, which is divided, like the human
body, into two great parts nearly alike, so that one ship’s load can be
handled on one side and another ship’s load on the other. In fact, as we
came up, a quantity of people from the north of Europe were being
examined in the north half.
Turning into a narrow railed-off lane, we encountered another doctor in
uniform, who lifted hats or pushed back shawls to look for favus heads,
keenly scrutinized the face and body for signs of disease or deformity,
and passed us on. An old man who limped in front of me, he marked with a
bit of chalk on the coat lapel. At the end of the railed lane was a
third uniformed doctor, a towel hanging beside him, a small instrument
over which to turn up eyelids in his hand, and back of him basins of
disinfectants.
As we approached he was examining a Molise woman and her two children.
The youngest screamed with fear when he endeavored to touch her, but
with a pat on the cheek and a kindly word the child was quieted while he
examined its eyes, looking for trachoma or purulent ophthalmia. The
second child was so obstinate that it took some minutes to get it
examined, and then, having found suspicious conditions, he marked the
woman with a bit of chalk, and a uniformed official led her and the
little ones to the left into the rooms for special medical examination.
The old man who limped went the same way, as well as many others. Those
who are found to be suffering from trachoma are very frequently sent to
the hospital on the Island and are held and treated until “cured.” There
is neither space nor excuse for discussing here the question of “curing”
in a few days or weeks cases of trachomatous conjunctivitis. The powers
at Washington have ruled that immigrants may be held and cured, though
there are surgeons at Ellis Island who do not believe in it, and the
best specialists in New York contend that months or years are necessary
to eliminate any danger of contagion, while the Massachusetts Eye and
Ear Infirmary experiments in Boston have convinced the doctors there
that cures are the exception.
Concetta Fomica was the only one of our party whom the doctors examined
more than once. Her eyes were inflamed slightly, but she was passed.
Just where we turned to the right, a stern-looking woman inspector, with
the badge, stood looking at all the women who came up to select any
whose moral character might be questioned, and one of her procedures was
to ask each party as to the various relationships of the men and women
in it. Her Italian was good.
Passing west, we came to the waiting-rooms, in which the groups which
are entered on each sheet of the manifest are held until K sheet or L
sheet, whatever their letter may be, is reached. Our party being so
large, and some of the declarations which are used to fill out the items
on the manifest having been made at Messina, some at Reggio di Calabria,
and some at Naples, we were scattered through U, V, and W groups.
We sank down on the wooden benches, thankful to get seats once more. Our
eyes pained severely for some few minutes as a result of the turning up
of the lids, but the pain passed.
[Illustration: Stairway of Separation—Checking into Pens]
Somewhere about nine o’clock an official came by and hurried out U group
and passed it up into line along the railed way which led up to the
inspector who had U sheet, then came V group, and then W. Knowing that
the first into line would be the first passed, and having the task of
gathering our people together out of the crowd as fast as they were
passed, my wife and I hurried to the end of the lane and were among the
first before the inspector. Our papers were all straight, we were
correctly entered on the manifest, and had abundant money, had been
passed by the doctors, and were properly destined to New York, and so
were passed in less than one minute. We were classed as “New York
Outsides” to distinguish us from the “New York Detained,” who await the
arrival of friends to receive them; “Railroads,” who go to the stations
for shipment; and “S. I.’s,” by which is meant those unfortunates who
are subjected to Special Inquiry in the semi-secret Special Inquiry
Court, which is the preliminary to being sent back, though of course
only a portion of “S. I.’s” are sent back.
By the kindness of the official at the head of the stairs by which we
would ordinarily have passed down and out to the ferry to take us to New
York, we were allowed to drop our baggage behind a post, and, standing
out of the way of the crowd, pick out our people as they filtered
through past the inspectors. Salvatore Biajo came through marked
“Railroad,” and was passed along to get his railroad-ticket order
stamped, his money exchanged at the stand kept beside the stairs under
contract by Post & Flagg, bankers, and in a minute more he had been
moved on down the stairs to the railroad room, after I had had but the
barest word with him. Antonio Genone, with a ticket for Philadelphia,
came through without going over to the right to the railroad-ticket
stamping official, and he was down the stairs and gone without even
knowing that he was separated from us permanently.
We began to see why the three stairways are called “The Stairs of
Separation.” To their right is the money exchange, to the left are the
Special Inquiry Room and the telegraph offices. Here family parties with
different destinations are separated without a minute’s warning, and
often never see each other again. It seems heartless, but it is the only
practical system, for if allowance was made for good-byes the
examination and distribution process would be blocked then and there by
a dreadful crush. Special officers would be necessary to tear relatives
forcibly from each other’s arms. The stairs to the right lead to the
railroad room, where tickets are arranged, baggage checked and cleared
from customs, and the immigrants loaded on boats to be taken to the
various railroad stations for shipment to different parts of the
country. The central stair leads to the detention rooms, where
immigrants are held pending the arrival of friends. The left descent is
for those free to go out to the ferry.
Our Socosa boys, despite their labor contracts, came through bound for
the railroad room, and they were gone, waving their hands and throwing
kisses to us. Then the Gualtieri-Sicamino people, even Antonio, who had
completely lost control of the situation, came through, marked
“Detained.” I was allowed to collect them, that was all; as soon as they
were assembled they went down the middle stairs. As soon as the women
found they were to be shut up behind the screens of steel, they began to
bewail their fortune, and between getting them quieted and getting a
proper understanding of just why it had happened so, I had a lively five
minutes. It seemed certain that all but my wife and myself must go
behind the bars.
Having passed the last barrier and got all the information I wanted on
Ellis Island from the immigrants’ point of view, it seemed time to
declare myself, and so I informed the night chief inspector who I was
and why I was there, and requested that he discharge all our people to
me, so that I could take them over to New York, as I wanted to get the
story of their first impressions on American soil by being with them
when they landed in the greatest American city. The officials were
highly amused and interested in the whole affair, showed me every
courtesy, and in five minutes I was below at the gate of the detention
room with a written order for the entire party, except the “Railroads,”
to be discharged to me; they were already gone.
I found our people just preparing to sit down at one of the great number
of tables to have one of the substantial meals which are served to
immigrants; but time was pressing, and so the boys got only a bite and
that by grabbing it and taking it with them. Antonio was not to be
found, and after a long search I ascertained that he had convinced the
obliging chief clerk of the detention room that he could take care of
himself in New York and had got himself discharged, leaving the entire
party behind. I caught up with him before he got aboard the ferry-boat,
and, as I brought him back, got a glimpse into the waiting-room, where
friends of immigrants expected to arrive, or witnesses called to testify
before the Special Inquiry Court wait until they are summoned and hear
the names of their friends read, after which they pass up to the court
room above, or into the room to the west on the same floor, where they
have their friends released to them and take them away.
The more I saw of the inside of the great system on the Island the more
I was struck with its thoroughness and the kindly, efficient manner in
which the law was enforced. If undesirable immigrants are pouring into
the United States through Ellis Island, it is not because the laws are
not strict enough, or the finest system that human ingenuity can devise
for handling large masses is not brought into full play by honest and
conscientious officials, to pick out the bad from the good. The whole
trouble is that the undesirable immigrant comes up before the honest,
intelligent official with a lie so carefully prepared that the official
is helpless when he has nothing on which to rely but the testimony of
the immigrant and his friends. Only in the home town can the truth be
learned and the proper discrimination made. Any other plan is
fallacious.
At last we were reassembled. The women had dried their tears. Under the
inspiration of being at last within the barrier, of being about to step
on American soil and untrammeled, the party seemed to cast off its
weariness, and we passed out of the huge building, around to the
ferry-boat, and aboard.
[Illustration: Excluded for Age—Waiting for Immigrant Friends]
In the ferry house we saw a number of young Irish girls who were under
the care of a priest and were being taken to the Mission of Our Lady of
the Rosary, an institution that looks after immigrant girls who come
over to be servants. Large numbers of the people who had been with us on
the _Prinzessin Irene_ also appeared, tagged with a yellow ticket, and
under the leadership of an official from the Society for the Protection
of Italian immigrants. As we went aboard, this official, with one or two
helpers, stood by the doorway to one of the side compartments, and when
one of his people appeared he seized the immigrant and thrust him
quickly into the cabin, thus getting the crowd together. Then noses were
counted and all were found to be present. There are numbers of
missionaries and protection societies, all very necessary for the
shielding of greenhorns from the sharks that lie in wait for them about
the Battery. Formerly immigrant girls were kidnapped by scores, and
literally kept prisoners in evil resorts; and men were taken into
quarters of the city where it was easy to rob them of all they
possessed, and they could not even tell the police where it happened.
When Antonio’s eldest brother arrived in New York, he was discharged to
a friend of Antonio, who accompanied him safely ashore, and, having
other things demanding his attention, thought it wise to put Giuseppe
into a carriage and send him to the Grand Central Station. They
bargained with a cabman standing at South Ferry to take Giuseppe and his
baggage for $1.50, and Giuseppe got in. As soon as the cab was out of
sight of the Battery and of the friend who had met him, Giuseppe was
astounded by the cabman’s stopping and demanding a dollar more before he
would drive on. After a futile argument in sign talk, and with a great
waste of language which neither understood, Giuseppe succumbed and paid
the dollar. In ten minutes more the cabman stopped and demanded another
two dollars. Ten minutes later he had that also. Just about the time he
knew he must be close to the station, Giuseppe received another demand,
this time of three dollars. He did not have it, and after a violent
scene with the cabman, who threatened to beat him with the butt of his
whip, Giuseppe burst into tears, overcome with the feeling of being
alone in a strange land and the helpless victim of such a villain. He
decided to climb out and try to find his way to the station, so he
shouldered his baggage and trudged off to the north, for he knew the
station lay that way. The cabman whipped up and disappeared. Finally,
after asking scores of people where the station was, and being laughed
at by some and pitied by others, he met a little girl who understood
Italian, and she pointed out the way. He was only two blocks distant.
There had been no one to meet Giuseppe Rota, and he would have been held
in the Island until his relatives could be communicated with. He nearly
wept at the prospect of being alone, and so I brought him with us. He
was afraid to go five feet away from me on the ferry-boat.
As we docked at the Barge Office we had a slight wait until the
returning officials, visitors, and better-class passengers on the deck
overhead could be let off, and then we were released. We passed through
the huge piles of immigrants’ baggage, to which we must return on the
morrow to get the heavy pieces of our own, and out to the street.
There was the stretch of Battery Park, the looming buildings about
Bowling Green and on State Street, a real Broadway car, and a fine L
train roaring north on Sixth Avenue tracks, boys with ten-o’clock
extras, and a thousand things that told us we were back home, once again
in the best place of all. I was at the head of the party leading the way
to a Broadway car, for it was useless to try to go up on the “L” with
all our encumbrances, and looked back at my wife. She was looking up at
the trees and the buildings, and she said gently, “Thank God! Thank
God!”
The car we took was entirely empty but for ourselves, and when we were
inside with our luggage it looked like a baggage car. Weary as our
people were, their eyes were wide with wonder at all they saw, and as we
swung around into Broadway and started up town I saw in Concetta’s eyes
that wild look of the “startled fawn” as she contemplated the great
cañon, flanked by buildings, into which we were rushing. She shrank from
each sudden accentuation of the noise of the street.
People began to get on the car. They stared at us and made audible
comments, little thinking that some of us understood.
“Oh, what dirty, dirty wretches,” said a woman, with a worn seal-plush
sacque, as she looked at our women.
“I don’t see why they let these lousy dagoes ride on the same cars other
people have to use,” observed a stout gentleman with gold-framed glasses
as he shrank back from Gaetano Mullura, who had tried to change his seat
and was plunging down the aisle owing to a sudden jerk of the car.
Ere long we came to Bleecker Street, and, knowing there were several
hotels in the vicinity below middle class, the only sort at which we
stood a chance of being admitted, we alighted, and I went in to the desk
to see if I could get a half-dozen rooms. Three times I was met with the
excuse, “We are all full,” though I could plainly see that the room
board was but half covered with slips. At each of the hotels we created
a stir. As I turned away from the last desk the clerk observed to the
cashier:
“Well, what do you think of that for nerve?”
“What’s that?” said the cashier, who had been busy.
“Why, that dago coming in here with a push like that, trying to get
rooms.”
Beginning to get a little exasperated, I led the way west into the
Italian quarter, and we successively tried the Italian hotels,—Hotel di
Campidoglio, Hotel di France, and one other. All refused us admittance.
By this time there was not a member of the party who was not exhausted,
so, gathering them together in the shelter of a building in the course
of construction, and leaving my wife in charge, Antonio and I went
hunting a roof for the heads of all of us. It was an hour later when we
mounted the steps at the same house in which my wife and I had lived. It
seemed ages since we had left the portal, but the good Signora Tonella
was there, looking just the same, and when she found out who it was
under the dirt and the Italian clothes she offered the three small rooms
she had, and, having no other chance, we accepted. Going back to the
Hotel di Campidoglio, I persuaded the proprietor to allow us to go into
the rear of the dining-room and get something to eat. It took the sight
of money to induce him. The waiter was angry at being requested to serve
us, and slammed plates and things on the table. A little silver acted as
a sedative to his nerves.
Poor little Ina went to sleep with a spoon in her mouth, and every
person at the two large tables was exhausted, it was plain to see. But,
with full stomachs once more, we took up the last stage of the journey,
and, shouldering our baggage, made our way the several blocks to 147
West Houston Street.
Not one of the three rooms had a full-sized bed in it, and but one had
space enough to spread a bed on the floor, yet after a distressing half
hour I got the fifteen persons still with us parceled out into the three
rooms, all except Giuseppe Rota, who was number sixteen. Try as I would,
I was unable to find room for him to stretch his hulking frame unless he
took to the doorsteps, so I escorted him over to the Branch of the
Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, a few doors west, and
put him up there. When he found he was to be left alone, he burst out
crying and declared he would never see his uncle in Newark again. I
reassured him, and told him I would come and get him on the morrow. I
remember leaving the place, and it is a fact I was so worn that, going
back to the house, settling the others for the night, and turning in
myself, left no impression on my memory, and I cannot say what happened.
We slept until after noon the next day, and then began the process of
assembling all the baggage, clearing it from the customs, and of
dispersing the remnant of our party to their various destinations.
[Illustration: The Immigrants’ Track Through Ellis Island]
_Explanation of the illustration entitled, “The Immigrants’ Track
Through Ellis Island,” facing this page_:
A. Immigrants landed from barges enter by these stairs.
B. Surgeon examines health tickets.
C. Surgeon examines head and body.
D. Surgeon examines eyes. Suspects go to left for further examination.
E. Female inspector looking for prostitutes.
F. Group enters and sits in pen corresponding to ticket letter or
number.
G. Inspector examines on twenty-two questions.
H. Into special inquiry court.
I. Stamping railroad ticket orders.
J. Money exchange and telegraph office.
K. To railroad pen.
L. To New York pen.
M. To the ferry and New York.
N. Telegraph office.