63 Op. cit., note 53, p. 755. 64 Op. cit., note 53, p. 756.

65 Op. cit., note 53, p. 757.

66 "The Diagnosis of Insanity in Immigrants." Assist. Surg. Thomas W. Salmon. U. S. Public Health Service Report, 1905, pp. 271-278.

67 Rosenoff, A. J. "Manual of Psychiatry," 1920, pp. 17-18. "Some Neglected Phases of Immigration in Relation to Insanity." American Journal Insanity, lxxii, July 1915.

See also Waldman, Morris D. "The Alien as a Public Charge with Particular Reference to the Insane." Annual Report, New York State Board of Charities, vol. 1, Albany, New York, 1913.

See also, Pollock, H. M. "A Statistical Study of the Foreign Born Insane." New York State Hospital Bulletin, April 1912.

Charles M. Burr, M.D. "The Foreign Born Insane." Journal American Medical Association, lxii, pp. 25-27.

James V. May, M.D. "Mental Diseases," 1922. Chap. ix, "Immigration and Mental Diseases." Here the author tries to show how differing racial characteristics seem to call forth differing mental diseases. He gives interesting tables by races taken from the records of the New York State Hospitals. The per cents of admissions show that the 3 highest races in 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, run each time in the following order: Irish, German, Hebrew.

68 "Studies in Evolution and Eugenics." S. J. Holmes, pp. 212-213. 69 "Feeble-mindedness and Immigration." H. H. Goddard. The Training School Bulletin, vol. 9, 1912–13, pp. 91-94.

CHAPTER IV

REVIEW OF THE PROCEDURE AT ELLIS ISLAND

For the better understanding of the reports1 which will follow, it is perhaps well now to describe, with certain comments, the actual procedure at Ellis Island, the successor to Castle Garden as the Immigrant Station in New York Harbor. That Castle Garden still lives, however, must not be overlooked; because many times in mental examinations, in answer to the question, "What place is this?" the answer comes very promptly, "Castle Garden," and is counted as correct.

In a book entitled "Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York," by "Friedrich Kapp, one of the said Commissioners," published in 1870, there are to be found "Rules and Regulations of the Emigrant Landing Depot, Castle Garden," which in their headings show themselves to be the ancestors of the system of today.

I quote them:

1. Emigrants

2. Boarding House Keepers.

3. Missionaries.

4. General Rules. [For the government of Landing Depot.]

5. Rules and Regulations. [For government of Information Office

for friends of arriving

6. Rules and Regulations.

emigrants.]

[For government of the Labor Exchange

and Intelligence Offices.]

7. R.R. Department.

8. Exchange Brokers.

9. Restaurant and Bread Stands.

10. Wash Rooms.

11. Hospitals.

These were the groupings of the regulations of May 18, 1867.

They might with little change of wording and with slight extension be used today. The main administration building contains aside from its offices, the reception station for the Medical Division, as well as that of the Immigration section proper. It has

47

detention rooms-the day quarters with their outdoor porches, and the dormitories. It has dining rooms, it has temporary detention rooms, and rooms for special inquiry hearings. It hums with the work of railroad offices, and money exchanging, of welfare societies, of meeting places for relations who come to take in charge the admitted immigrant, or to visit the one detained. Three neighboring buildings house the large hospital which during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1923, had a grand total of 11,057 admissions. Yet there is sore need of greater extension still, for the carrying on of the immense amount of work that must be done. Commissioner Curran, in a public statement, has referred to an appropriation of over $2,000,000 which he has requested of Congress through the Commissioner General of Immigration. The suggested improvements begin with an enlarging of the island itself.

The Commissioner states that the Ellis Island receipts for head tax, steamship fines, and detention charges, totaled over $3,000,000, while the expenses of the island were but slightly over $1,200,000, leaving a profit tor the year ending June 30, 1923, of over $1,800,000. It must be remembered, however, that smaller stations probably show no such proportionate balance, and that the money question for the Immigration system as a whole, would present quite different results.

That much criticism of Ellis Island has come from outside is true, the most notable example being the published report of the British Ambassador to the United States. Yet the fact remains, as to British Immigration, that while according to the figures of the 1922 report," the United Kingdom sent to this country but 42,670 persons, or 55.2 per cent of its allotted 77,342, the year 1923 saw the quota exhausted in May, and for 19247 it was practically filled as early as November.

In commenting on this fact, Commissioner General Husband said, that last year 63 per cent of the incoming immigrants were of the "old stock," with the remainder being from the South East of Europe. This, he said, was a realization of what Congress had hoped that a holding back of the "new," would encourage the old to come. That other factors, aside from the quota law enter here, is, of course, true; but the law surely has great bearing on

the results. If there had been no restrictions, Commissioner Husband declared, we should probably have had the largest British immigration for forty years.

To return to the consideration of the island, we have then, to remember that the hospital at one time may contain in its various sections, its hundreds, and the detention station its "more than a thousand." These numbers in combination with the many workers in all divisions, make of this "Immigrant Station" almost a town of its own. In considering what happens, when the tide sweeps through, and the sifting process works, these numbers have always to be remembered. No steamship company may send its passengers to the Island, until the Commissioner gives the word that he is ready to receive them. If too many ships arrive at one time, they come in turn, and until its turn arrives the steamship company has to care for its own.

It will perhaps serve best to explain what happens, if we follow an immigrant through. He is brought to the island from his steamship on a barge one of several operated by a company which is in charge of this transportation, and whose agent has an office on the island. It is supposedly made clear to him that his baggage, with certain exceptions, may be checked if he so desires. That he often, in fact you might say, "generally," does not so desire to any great extent, is due to his own customary methods of procedure, rather than to lack of given opportunity.

As the barges draw near the landing place, let us suppose that an "intensive" examination has been decided upon, in the Medical Division. No steamship company can know just how any given examination will be run, as the physicians themselves do not know in any given case, until the word is "passed" by the Chief Line Officer. From the barges then, usually in single file, which is surveyed most critically by the Chief Line Officer himself as it advances, in times when he wishes to watch for some particular danger, the immigrants walk with their ever present baggage into a large room where benches stretch in lines on all sides.

People, here again, often criticize the partitions or pens, as they call them, which are used to make the immigrants go in the right direction, or to keep them in the appropriate place. If these critics had once tried to stop a stampede into the wrong place,

when 15 different languages would have been needed to make all understand, and when there was no way of knowing which language would cause the desired effect on the leading man, they would need no explanations of the great usefulness of all partitions, not only for the convenience of the examiners, but for accomplishing the greatest saving in the immigrant's time and comfort. If two ship loads are to be in the waiting room at once, the officer in charge uses great care to keep them apart, by moving benches to act as fences; for counting and lists have always to be reckoned with.

One feels conscious always in the workings of our Immigration system, that it is not the work of one time, or of one man. It is a growth, and day by day, "this" is tried and abandoned, "that" tried and kept. The only written signs anywhere in this whole process, are those on the toilet room doors, and they prove the utter uselessness of printed signs, for some language in them has to come first, and anyone not understanding that first word, takes it for granted that the sign is in English, and looks no further. For the most part too, spoken language is not used either in guiding this carefully planned advance, as the line starts its progress. The barred off pathways, and motioning guards have been found most effective for the movement of the mass.

When the line begins to move for the waiting room, it passes through a gate one at a time, when each landing ticket is stamped, or if a certain "number" is to be held up for some reason or other, it may be here picked out. Those who pass through are at once in another smaller waiting room, where each is made to deposit all his baggage-men here, women there-and where the sixty men and forty women and children, or whatever number it may. be that has been passed through, sit to wait for the next move, in groups of twenty or twenty-five, into the physicians' examining

rooms.

Now, of course, this is a time of tension, and specially so for the women, in that the children, who always go with the women, are restless-often hungry and fretful. This causes added worry to the mother, who is herself, many times, not used to taking initiative. For this reason, the women doctors have a rather different problem in this intensive examination, from that found by the