Imported Americans / The Story of the Experiences of a Disguised American and His Wife Studying the Immigration Question

by Broughton Brandenburg

From the steerage galley, which was on the level of the main deck forward under the fo’c’s’le head, the cooks and stewards began to lug great tanks of food and baskets of bread. These they lined up in a narrow passage-way between the hatch and the bulkhead of the galley. The tanks were huge tinned things holding about twenty-five gallons each, and from the first there was ladled out macaroni Neapolitan, from the next chunks of beef the size of one’s fist, from the next red wine, and then came the bread-baskets and the boiled-potato tank.

As we had come aboard and got the blankets, as I have told, we were each handed a red card bearing an inscription that it was “Good for One Ration,” just as on the Lahn, and advised that the passengers form themselves into groups of six and elect a capo di rancio, who should manage the mess, and would, when elected and given the six ration cards of his group, be issued a two-gallon pan and a gallon flask-bucket for coffee or wine. When the blanket was enrolled, each person found inside a fork, spoon, pint tin cup, and a flaring six-inch-wide, two-inch-deep pan out of which to eat, identical with those on the Lahn.

The plan, or rather the ship’s company’s ideal of it, is that the capo di rancio shall take the big pan and the bucket, get the dinner and the drinkables, and distribute the portions to his group. But it works out that one or two assistants are needed to carry the bread if it is not desired to soak it by dropping it into the mess in the pan, and a woman with a baby in her arms cannot very well carry a full pan and a full bucket. When the meal is over, some one of the group is supposed to collect the tin utensils from whatever part of the steerage quarters the group has chosen to eat its meal in for that time, take them to a wash-room under the fo’c’s’le head, where there are several tanks with running water, and wash them ready for the next time. But the crowd in the wash-room after meals was so great that about one third of the people chose to rinse off the things with a dash of drinking-water; others never washed their cups and pans; and still others waited till the next meal and then washed their kit just before they ate. When I say that the water supplied for washing kits was raw sea water and cold at that, any housewife will understand instantly why none of the cups, pans, spoons, or forks were clean and fit for use after the first meal, if they were even then. Yet the emigrant pays half the first-cabin rate for fighting for his food, serving it himself, and washing his own dishes.

This night we had little trouble, for Antonio and I understood the order about the groups of six, and we did everything in order; but the mob was two hours in getting its supper satisfactorily, by which time that portion of it which had been hot was unfit to eat.

Just before the bell was rung there came down from the boat deck a trim young man in the uniform of an Italian naval officer, and as he passed me I saw that he was of surgeon’s rank and knew he was Dr. Piazza, the surgeon detailed by the government to the Prinzessin Irene to look after the welfare of the emigrants, just as an Italian naval doctor travels on every emigrant ship leaving Italian ports. The Italian government does about twenty times as much for the emigrants as the United States, yet the condition of health and finance in which they arrive in America is of concern here and not in Italy, for they become a part of us. It is to our interests that they should not be oppressed, underfed, robbed, or given unsanitary treatment.

The young officer went to the door of the galley. The chief steerage cook threw a clean towel over the serving-board that barred it, and on it set clean china dishes, into which the doctor put portions of each sort of food, and ate enough to test the quality. He drank a little of the wine. Every meal thereafter he did the same thing. I had had the opportunity of watching the Italian doctor on the Lahn on the voyage to Italy, and I must say that both men did their work in a most commendable manner. As to the food itself, it was in its quality as good as the average Italian gets at home, but the manner in which it was messed into one heap in the big pan was nothing short of nauseating. Every pound of food and ounce of drink is regulated by Italian law, both as to amount per day and proportion of kind and variety. If there was a failure to live up to the law on the Lahn and Prinzessin Irene, it was in the wine and fish.

Giovanni Pulejo was chosen capo di rancio of our family group, and Nicola Curro, the little cabinet-maker and trombonist, headed the one in which were Nunzio Giunta, Gaetano Mullura, and the other Gualtieri-Sicamino and Socosa boys, while Giuseppe Rota from Avellino, who had joined us at Naples, headed a third group. The others were divided among groups of other friends.

On the occasion of this first meal the emigrants began doing what is the bane of life in the steerage; throwing the refuse from their meal on the deck instead of over the side or into the scuppers. It being the first night out of port, the deck watch was too busy securing derricks, storing mooring-gear, and putting the ship to rights, to scrub the deck with hose and soogey-mougie when supper was over, so that I remember traversing the main deck on the port side about eleven o’clock that night much as I would cross a slippery glacier, for it was covered with a layer of unctuous filth that made footing very uncertain.

It was an extremely hot night, and, though I was weary almost to exhaustion, the air in the crowded compartment was so foul that I could not sleep. The men and boys about me lay for the most part like logs, hats, coats, and shoes off, and no more, sleeping the sleep of the ineffably tired. I rolled and tossed on the hard pallet till at last I went on deck, and, seeking a deeply shaded corner on a hatch, I sat watching the sea and the night. Possibly twenty minutes had passed when from the mouth of the alley-way that led to the companion-way of the women’s compartment a figure emerged and made its way forward cautiously; for after certain hours all steerage passengers are supposed to be below decks. As the figure came near me, I saw that it was my wife. She, too, had been unable to breathe the air below, and had stolen up, bringing with her a heavy shawl. She said the babies in her compartment were crying in relays of six, and that she had had a grand row with the women of the group who occupied the section of bunks next to the women of our party.

The trouble arose over the filthy habits of the other women. They were Neapolitans of the lowest class, and when they were eating their supper had chosen to portion it out while they sat in their bunks, and the result was that bits of macaroni, meat, and potatoes were scattered all over their beds, the beds of their neighbors, and on the floor. The other women who were minded to be cleanly made no protest, merely looking askance, but my wife interposed. She brought down a storm of Neapolitan vituperation on her head.