Today, the Statue of Liberty Commemorative Half Dollar Coin remembers April 17, 1907, the busiest day for Ellis Island’s immigration process.
On that day, Ellis Island processed 11,747 individuals whereas on an average day they processed about 5,000. According to the Ellis Island Foundation, “During this historic month [April 1907] of American immigration, the Port of New York received 197 ships and more than a quarter-million passengers from around the world. Most of these arrivals were immigrants intent on establishing a new life in America.”
For the 1907 year, Ellis Island processed 1,004,756 immigrants.
Some insights into the processing method can be found in an article by Frederick A. Wallis, United States Commissioner of Immigration for the State of New York, published in the Current History magazine collection for April – September, 1921.
An excerpt:
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Nothing more affects the political, social, economic and industrial conditions of this nation than the foreign-born, and no problem is greater than that of the immigrant.
He is the most vital, the most profoundly serious subject that confronts Congress today.
Our problem is the immigrant, not immigration.
The wide spread antagonism to immigration unquestionably lies in the lack of a true understanding of its importance to our present economic system.
The problem of the immigrant himself, both socially and economically, can best be met by scientific selection, intelligent distribution, and broad assimilation.
Europe has ninety-one persons to the square mile more than the world’s average, while North America, peculiarly blessed with earthly resources of great wealth, has thirteen persons to the square mile less than the earth’s average.
It requires no science of logarithms and differential calculus to estimate that, even should immigrants come to this country at the rate of a million per annum, it would require centuries to bring about an equality with Europe in the matter of population to the square mile.
It is quite obvious that in view of the great number who would like to come, there is no reason why this nation should not have the privilege of picking its 1,000,000.
In other words, we can skim the cream off European immigration, taking the finest and the best, and still have more immigration than the ships can possibly handle, should we desire the maximum.
Alarmist statements, either by the open door advocates or the total exclusionists, will, in my opinion get us nowhere along the path of a correct solution of the important problem of immigration.
The immigrant is here, has always been here, will always be here.
The nation itself is largely the work of his hand and brain.
He founded the country, cleared the forests, developed its resources, fought for it, died for it, and the last war proved that the new immigrants were not greatly different from the old.
Face to face with the immigrant on Ellis Island, day in and day out, a businessman learns to look upon immigration as a very simple business proposition after all.
As one looks upon the up turned faces of the great throng of aliens in the inspection hall and finds all eyes fixed upon the desk of the inspector as though it were some holy shrine of deliverance, one’s mind turns back countless pages of history to the chapter of Genesis, which tells how Cain crossed over into the land of Nod; or to the book of Exodus, when the Israelites fled Egypt; or to that chapter in our own national history about the Pilgrim fathers.
It is the same old story; the immigrant of today is coming here to better his condition.
To let him do so without lowering our standards of living is the whole question, and it is the purpose of this article to discuss the methods with which the nation has equipped its immigration service to meet the task.
At the nation’s main gateway on Ellis Island, the Government, at a cost of many millions, has established its immigration station.
There are two main buildings, one for inspection and detention of immigrants, the other a hospital for treating or holding under observation the mentally or physically defective.
The hospital is under the direction of the Public Health Service, a bureau of the Treasury Department.
The immigration building is a part of the immigration service, which is a bureau of the Department of Labor.
When immigrants arrived in New York Bay, those of the steerage class are taken to Ellis Island.
The cabin passengers are inspected aboard ship, and if passed on preliminary inspection are permitted to land directly from the ship without having to go to Ellis Island.
But if there is a doubt about the admissibility of a cabin passenger he, too, must be taken across the bay to the immigration station for closer inspection.
When the immigrant lands upon Ellis Island he, or she, is taken first to the medical inspection rooms.
Lined up in single file, the aliens appear one by one before the doctors, who stand ready to look them over.
These doctors wear the khaki-colored uniforms of the army and are thoroughly informed upon all matters of medical science, particularly upon the maladies which disqualify, under our laws, an alien seeking admission to the United States.
By turning back the eyelids of the immigrant the doctors make inspection with a view to detecting trachoma, a most common stumbling block of the alien at our gates in point of physical fitness.
The scalps of the aliens are closely inspected with a view to detecting favus and ringworm.
Never have we had so many scalp cases. Because of the contagious nature of these diseases many aliens are denied entrance to our country.
Cripples are carefully studied to ascertain whether they may or may not become public charges, and mental defectives are promptly certified and barred.
But a real, thorough examination of the alien will never be made until our Government orders every alien stripped and examined physically from head to foot.
Only suspicious cases, showing some outward sign of inward disability, are stripped, and many of the great social loathsome diseases go by undiscovered.
Having passed the medical inspection, the line of aliens proceeds upstairs to the great hall of inspection.
Some twenty or thirty tall desks stand in a row at one end of this large room; behind each desk are an inspector, an interpreter and a guard or matron.
This little group composes a court of preliminary inspection.
To them is entrusted the task of measuring the law to the immigrant. This duty is not as easy as it may seem.
The immigrant must be registered; his passport must be carefully scrutinized to see if it has been properly issued by his own Government and whether it has been visited by the American agent nearest his home and again by the American Consulate at the port of embarkation.
It must be borne in mind that we are still enforcing the wartime regulation about passports and will probably continue to do so for a long while to come, because it is by this means only that we can practice any handpicking on the other side, where it is so essential.
We are presented with hundreds of passports whose visas are “faked;” our Government revenue stamps upon them are also often counterfeit.
Counterfeiters and producers of fake visas are working overtime in Poland, Greece and Italy, and many immigrants are heartbroken at this station to find that they are scheduled for immediate deportation because of imperfect passports or visas.
The long trip has been made and all their money has been spent with the sole result that they are rejected at the gateway.
Then the literacy test must be applied. The immigrant must show that he can read forty words of some language.
It is not required that he read English, but any language he may select, or any dialect.
Psalm texts, or some of the books of the Old Testament, are usually handed to the immigrant, printed in whatever language he may select, and if he fails to read the requisite amount he is held for further examination by what we call a Board of Special Inquiry.
The literacy test does not apply to children under 16 years of age, for it is assumed that they will be sent to school under the system of whatever State may be the future home of their parents.
The immigrant must answer the preliminary inspector’s question as to whether he is under contract to do any kind of work in this country.
This we call the contract labor law, and so rigidly is it enforced that if an alien should say that a friend or relative had written him, saying he could get employment at any specified place for any specified pay, the alien is held as a contract laborer under the law, and is detained for the Boards of Special Inquiry to deal further with his case.
Under the classification “liable to become a public charge,” a great majority of the women and children now coming to the United States have their greatest difficulty in passing.
Herein lies one of the many inconsistencies of our immigration laws.
If a person shows that he or she has positive assurance of a means of making a living, the contract labor law is a pitfall.
If that person shows that he or she has no such means of earning a living, then comes the danger of being classed as liable to become a public charge.
Both requirements are necessary, even though they seem to be absurdly inconsistent.
It is quite the fashion to find fault with our immigration laws, but my observation has been that this criticism is due mainly to popular ignorance of the letter of the law.
With a few exceptions, such, for instance, as the literary test, which was passed by Congress under wartime stress over the veto of President Wilson, and which had been vetoed by two other Presidents, Cleveland and Taft, the close student of our immigration laws will find little to criticize and much to approve.
Outside the literacy test, which is alleged by many to be nothing short of a farce, the national immigration law could hardly be improved, if vigorously enforced in letter and in spirit.
Under the law at present we are empowered to exclude the following classes of aliens:
All Idiots, Imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers, professional beg gars, vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form, or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons who have ever been convicted of any crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who practice or believe in polygamy; anarchists or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of any Government, or persons who affiliate with organizations founded upon such beliefs; prostitutes, or persons coming into the United States to practice immorality; persons likely to become a public charge; persons whose passage is paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign Government, either directly or indirectly; stowaways, except that any such stowaway, if otherwise admissible, may be admitted in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor; all children under 16 years of age unaccompanied by, or not coming to one or both of their parents, except in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor.
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His article went on to describe Excluding the Unfit, The Illiteracy Test, Cheering Up the Newcomers, Letting In the Right Ones, Cleaning Up the Island, Wrongs Done to Immigrants, Hundreds of Stowaways and Problems of Quarantine.
The Statue of Liberty Commemorative Half Dollar Coin shows with an image of immigrants being served a meal at Ellis Island.
