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.
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.