Ellis Island

an island in New York Bay. It has been used by the national authorities since 1890 as a receiving station for immigrants. Castle Garden, the old landing station, became too straitened for the thorough medical examination which was found necessary, so a new building with adequate facilities for handling a crowd was erected on Ellis Island, a mile out in the bay. The buildings are extensive, and, indeed, there is need of space, for the annual influx of immigrants that at present passes through the guarded doors of Ellis Island is equal to the population of Boston, Cambridge, and Lynn combined. Enough unskilled laborers come in yearly to duplicate the population of Cleveland or Cincinnati.

The work of the station officials is systematic. The ship is first examined by a quarantine officer. If pronounced free from contagion the ship comes into harbor. The first class passengers go ashore by means of a steam barge and get their effects through the custom house. The steerage passengers, each provided with a numbered manifest of source, finance, and destination, get their baggage and children together with incredible din, and in evident fear of losing something. They are guided down a wide gangway and are conveyed by a barge to the broad steps of Ellis Island. The real ordeal begins here. The throng surges slowly forward. Guides able to speak the languages, push, pull, and shout directions. Lynx-eyed surgeons and detectives, each at his post, size up the immigrants as they pass in line, and chalk their clothing with a letter. A central hall of great dimensions is divided by railings into lettered compartments. Attendants guide the newcomers into these compartments. "Compartment F" is filling up with able-bodied Italians. Perhaps they have a leader. As soon as the count is complete--possibly one or more may have been sent to a detention compartment for stricter medical inspection,--this lot is conducted to a barge and sent on via the Pennsylvania Central to dig an irrigation canal in the Far West. These women, struggling up the stairway with bundles on their backs, bundles in their hands, children clinging to their skirts, and health tickets held in their teeth, are duly inspected and chalked and bunched in "Compartment K." Before nightfall they will be on their way to join their Finnish husbands, who have sent back wages earned in the iron mines of Minnesota. Two days and they will be the center of an excited Finnish mining colony, everybody talking at once; a week and they will be housekeepers in wooden shacks, and the children will be in school, on the way to become Americans.

But all do not get away from Ellis Island. "S. I." on the lapel of a lame man sends him to a board of special inquiry. He may be a cripple whom "friends" have sent to America to escape the expense of supporting him. "L. P. C." means an inquiry lest the bearer be liable to become a public charge, in which case the steamship company is required to take him back to the old country again.

One stairway leads up from the steamer landing to the great floor. Three stairways known as the "Stairs of Separation" lead down another way. One of these leads to the barge which conveys immigrants to the Battery and to the freedom of New York City. A second leads to a barge that conveys passengers to the great railway stations for transportation farther on. A third leads to a waiting room where impatient friends may be in waiting. Pathetic reunions take place and heart-breaking separations are of daily occurrence. Brothers and sisters go their several ways on the "Stairs of Separation," never to meet again. Families leave behind them the feeble and aged, whom they cannot take farther because they cannot show that they are able to support them. Lovers, looking forward to a home in the New World, may be separated; for the strong may enter, but those afflicted with certain contagion must go back.

Now and then a criminal is arrested or barred. A matron scans the women closely. The officials are described as kindly, but firm. Europeans find it cheap riddance to pay the passage of paupers and the infirm. Our shores must not be made a dumping ground for European distress. The work of inspection is necessarily rapid and keen, for a thousand immigrants is not a large day's work. As high as 11,000 have landed in a single day. Those who can show a fair bill of health and an ability to care for themselves are given a bag of food and are sent on promptly to their destination. Others receive a special hearing; they are allowed to send for friends; and, if error there be, it is likely to be made on the side of leniency.

See Alien; Immigration