when the inspection was finished, the great steamer got under way once more, and in the glorious sunlight of mid-forenoon we steamed up between south brooklyn and staten island, with the shipping, the houses, and the general contour of the harbor very plainly to be seen. on every hand were exclamations among the immigrants over the oddity of wooden-built houses, over the beauty of the staten island shore places; and when the gigantic skyscrapers of lower manhattan came into view, a strange serrated line against the sky, the people who had been to america before cried out in joyful tones and pointed. a low murmur of wonder was heard from the newcomers. nunzio giunta, at my elbow, said:

“antonio told the truth.”

then there was a rush to port to see the statue of liberty, and when all had seen it they stood with their eyes fixed for some minutes on the great beacon whose significance is so much to them, standing within the portals of the new world and proclaiming the liberty, justice, and equality they had never known, proclaiming a life in which they have an opportunity such as never could come to them elsewhere.

the majority of the immigrants aboard who had been over before had landed previously at the battery, and few knew ellis island to be the immigrant station, so that comparatively little attention was paid to it. another 206odd thing was the effect the sight of the magnificence of new york had on the people who were destined for western and new england points. more than one expressed a desire to remain in new york. if it be considered that nine out of every ten immigrants are of rural birth, and that the city is always most fascinating to country people, it can be understood why immigrants are so prone to congregate in the cities aside from the considerations of convenience to labor and opportunities for small trading. i have found many jews who went out of new york on their first trip, and on their second stayed in the city, returning with their entire families and with all plans made for a permanent residence in the metropolis.

in what seemed a very short space of time we had steamed up the harbor, up north river, and were being warped into the north german lloyd piers in hoboken. there were only a few people down to meet friends of the third-class, but the usual crowd awaited the first-cabin passengers. some of the italians bore extra overcoats to give to the shivering “greenhorns,” as they call them,—an american word which is current throughout the south of italy and in the italian quarters of american cities.

part of the author’s party—all eyes to the statue of liberty

what seemed to the eager immigrants an unreasonably long time of waiting passed while the customs officers were looking after the first-class passengers and they were leaving the ship. when the way was clear, word was passed forward to get the immigrants ready to debark. first, however, boarding inspector vance held a little tribunal at the rail forward on the hurricane deck, at which all persons who had citizens’ papers were to present them. i watched him carefully as he proceeded with his task of picking out genuine 207citizens from the other sort and allowing them to leave the ship at the docks; and if all officials are as thorough and as careful as he, then is the law enforced to its limit, and the many evasions of it which seem to exist are things no official or set of officials can prevent operating on this side of the water. here, again, i could not help seeing that deceit, evasion, and trickery were possible, inasmuch as the inspector can only take the papers on the face of them, together with the immigrant’s own statement; and if the gangs who smuggle aliens in on borrowed, transferred, or forged citizens’ papers have been careful enough in preparing and coaching their pupils, there is no way of apprehending the fraud at the port of arrival, nor would there be at the port of embarkation; but there would be no chance for any such practices if the examinations were made in the community of the immigrant’s residence.

those whose citizenship was doubted by the inspector, and who had their families with them, were compelled to go to ellis island with them, or allow the families to go through the process alone.

at last we were summoned to pass aft and ashore. one torrent of humanity poured up each companion-way to the hurricane deck and aft, while a third stream went through the main deck alley-way, all lugging the preposterous bundles. the children, seeing sufficient excitement on foot to incite them to cry, and being by this time very hungry, began to yell with vigor. a frenzy seemed to possess some of the people as groups became separated. if a gangway had been set to a rail-port forward, there would have been little of the hullabaloo, but for a time it was frightful.

the steerage stewards kept up their brutality to the 208last. one woman was trying to get up the companion-way with a child in one arm, her deck chair brought from home hung on the other, which also supported a large bundle. she blocked the passage for a moment. one of the stewards stationed by it reached up, dragged her down, tore the chair off her arm, splitting her sleeve as he did so and scraping the skin off her wrist, and in his rage he broke the chair into a dozen pieces. the woman passed on sobbing, but cowed and without a threat.

as we passed down the gangway an official stood there with a mechanical checker numbering the passengers, and uniformed dock watchmen directed the human flood pouring off the ship where to set down the baggage to await customs inspection.

the scene on the pier had something impressive in it, well worthy of a painter of great human scenes. the huge enclosed place, scantily lighted by a few apertures, and massive with great beams and girders, was piled high in some places with freight, and over all the space from far up near the land end, where a double rope was stretched to prevent immigrants from escaping without inspection, down to the pier head, where the big door was open to allow the immigrants to pass out and aboard the barges waiting to convey them down the river again to ellis island, was covered with immigrants, customs inspectors, special treasury detectives, ellis island officials, stevedores, ship’s people, dock watchmen, and venders of apples, cakes, etc.

the dock employees were all german, some of them speaking very little english, and none that i saw using italian. while their plan of keeping the immigrants in line in order to facilitate the inspection of baggage was 209all very good and quite the proper thing, the brutal method in which they enforced it was nothing short of reprehensible. the natural family and neighborhood groups were separated, and a part of the baggage was dumped in one place and a part in another. when the dock men had herded the off-coming immigrants in a mass along the south side of the pier with an overflow meeting forward of the gangway on the north, it was the natural thing for the parties to begin to hunt for each other, and for leaders of groups to endeavor to assemble the baggage. women ran about crying, seeking their children. men with bunches of keys hurried hither and thither searching for the trunks to match in order to open them for customs inspection, and children fearsomely huddled in the heaps of baggage, their dark eyes wide with alarm. the dock men exhorted the people in german and english to remain where they were, and, when the eager italians did not understand, pushed them about, belabored them with sticks, or seized them and thrust them forcibly back into the places they were trying to leave.

one massive german speaking good english was endeavoring to prevent our party from going to the spot where we saw our baggage, and where the customs inspectors were already at work. camela and concetta were in advance, antonio was assembling the hand baggage, and my wife was guarding the camera, inoperative here for lack of light, so that there was no one with the party that understood german or english.

“get back there, get back there!” he shouted in english.

“i must go unlock my trunks,” said camela in 210italian, understanding from his gesture that she was called to a halt.

“i’ll knock the brains out of a few of you dirty —— — —— with this club. g— —— your —— souls to —— any way. i’ll break your neck if you leave that line again, —— —— ——,” etc.

so saying, he thrust his open palm into her face and forced her back. i got up just in time to set him back on a fig-case and inform him that we had stood for brutality on a foreign soil and on shipboard, but we were through taking it mildly.

“wot! i’ll fix you for buttin’ in, you —— dago!”

“hold on, that fellow’s a secret-service man. he’s no dago. he speaks too good english,” said another dock man who hurried up to the first man, who had risen and was preparing to “do” me.

his manner changed.

“’scuse me, mister, but ye see these —— would make anybody mad; they ain’t got no sense at all, don’t mind what you tell ’em, and ’d run all over hoboken if you let ’em.”

i gave him a little good advice on how to treat well-meaning human beings, and we passed on.

croatians and italians—swedes arriving—loading the barges, new york

in a few minutes we were having one more wrestling-match with the baggage. by this time the customs men had passed our heap, and when i did get an inspector and got it looked into, two trunks were held up for customs charges on account of all the provender packed in them, and the two musical instruments antonio had bought in naples were held. unfortunately the marks of the prices asked by the neapolitan dealer were still on them, and though antonio had got them for just about one third, the customs 211appraiser later set a duty on them that totaled more than half the original cost. when we were through with the trunks, we found that the inspectors had passed over a part of the hand baggage. two men standing by offered to mark it with chalk just as the inspectors mark it to show it has been inspected, and i was about to allow them to do it and then hand them over when my wife came up with the camera, and they turned and hurried away, going aboard the ship. i think they were either ship’s people, or part of the crew from some other boat at the north german lloyd piers.

while we were waiting to get an inspector, we had time to buy something to eat from the fruit and cake venders. though it was mid-october, five cents each was asked for apples to be bought at any street corner in new york for one cent, and ten cents a slice for a thick yellow cake that was the worst mess of coloring-matter, adulterated flour, and soda, i have ever set my teeth into. it was as heavy as a stone and equally gritty. even the neapolitan boys would not eat it. on top of all this, when we paid for it in italian silver money, the venders allowed only seventeen cents for a lire, when taking them at nineteen cents would have been at a profit. many baskets of such food at such prices were sold to the immigrants that day, for we passed the remainder of the morning and part of the afternoon on the dock, there being four ships laden nearly as heavily as ours in ahead of us, and the barges run by contractors to carry immigrants from the various docks to ellis island had more than they could do. so we waited. few of the people aboard had eaten any breakfast, because it was rumored among them they would land in 212time for breakfast, and they had been looking forward to a good meal on shore.

i think it was about two o’clock when we were finally allowed to go aboard the barges at the end of the pier. i observed two men following my wife and myself and surveying us critically. at the gangplank they stopped us and examined our bit of baggage very carefully.

“you may save yourself some inconvenience by telling us who you are,” said the one man very courteously to me.

“who are you?” i said in broken english, expecting the appearance of some grafting game.

“i am a special customs inspector, and we spotted you two as queer. what are you?”

“we are writers making a study of the immigration question. what did you spot as queer?”

“we thought you were dagoes all right, but this lady is the first woman i have ever seen in the steerage with such well-kept finger-nails, and we were a little suspicious.”

in the work of hustling the immigrants aboard the barges the dock men displayed great unnecessary roughness, sometimes shoving them violently, prodding them with sticks, etc., and one young apulian who paused to look around for his father aroused the ire of the dock man nearest him, who planted a by no means gentle kick in his fundamentals, observing,—

“oh, get down there; you’re too damned slow!”

one barge with power and another without, if i remember correctly, were lashed together, or there may have been a tug on the outer side of the second craft. antonio and camela, with the larger portion of the party, were hustled into the second barge, while my 213wife and i squeezed into the second, little ina with us. the great improvements in the way of heating, seating, and hospital accommodation for the sick which commissioner william williams and his assistant allan robinson were then making were not yet in evidence in the barge on which we rode. we had either to squat on the floor or sit on our baggage, already mashed and crushed till the point of utter dissolution seemed not far away, so we stood up.

slowly we steamed down the river in mid-afternoon, and when we reached the slip at ellis island we merely tied up, for there were many barge-loads ahead of us, and we waited our turn to be unloaded and examined.

as the second craft cast off and moved away, ina saw her mother and antonio going with it, and the big tears came into her lovely eyes. she watched them till they were gone from sight, and then turned away so that neither my wife nor i could see her face. every now and then her sleeve would go up to her face, but she was very quiet. soon she turned around, and the signs of tears were gone, but in a moment she turned away again. she was struggling bravely against her wish to cry.

“what is the matter, ina?” said my wife at last, when the tears began to roll faster. ina forced a smile and said,—

“oh, nothing truly, except the sun hurts my eyes.”

waiting, waiting, waiting, without food and without water; or, if there was water, we could not get to it on account of the crush of people. children cried, mothers strove to hush them, the musically inclined sang or played, and then the sun went down while we waited and still waited. my wife and one of the 214boys had walked into the space roped off around the plank which had been put aboard. just then some of the youngsters who had been trying to steal off the forward end of the barge, boylike, were chased back by the barge men, one of whom began rushing and pushing the people in the open space back into the crowd—a very needless procedure, as there was no reason why what room there was should not be utilized.

“what are you doing, mate?” called one of the other men outside.

“oh, i’m driving these animals back,” and he swore foully.

just at that instant he caught my wife by the arm, menacing her and the boy with a short bit of board he had in his hand.

“take your dirty hands off me this instant,” said my wife, white with anger. the fellow stepped back, amazed at her resentment and her english.

“meant no harm, lady,” he deprecated. “you’ve got to be rough with this bunch. i get so sick handling these dirty bums coming over here to this country, i’m going to get in trouble some time for rousting ’em, i s’pose.”

“if that is so,” she answered, “you had better get another job, for you are not fit to handle even wild animals, let alone kind-hearted, sensitive people like these, who are not to be blamed if everything, even your speech, is strange to them.”

rushing immigrants on barges—inspectors and immigrants at ellis island