HTML by Louis S. Alfano
Originally published in The New York
Times, June 3, 1900
People who visit Battery Park for the first time and see the big crowd in from of the Barge Office cuffed about by policemen ask this question. The policemen, if the question is put to them, inform the inquisitive ones that it is none of their business, while the Barge Office officials themselves are wont to treat any complaints with silent and contemptuous disdain.
The state of affairs that is witnessed by casual lookers-on outside is a fair index of what is transpiring within the building and on the further side of it at the water's edge, except that the discomfort to which immigrants are subjected in the interior is caused rather by a lack of room than by willful intent. Those in authority say that the completion of the new buildings at Ellis Island will mark an end to the misfortunes that newly arrived immigrants are overwhelmed with, and that after the new quarters are opened there will be no necessity for herding together the incomers like sheep.
From the time a foreigner leaves his native land to seek a new home in the United States until he runs the gantlet of the blue-coated guardians of the New York Barge Office's front door, his lot is anything but a pleasant one. On shipboard, whether the officers who look after the steerage be lenient or harsh, there is necessarily much unhappiness, for the quarters prepared for that class of travelers, even in the finest steamships, are by no means palatial. In crowds and amid the nauseating odors that indigent humanity exhales the traveler spends the weary days dreaming of a new land, where there is the freedom, plenty, and contentment.
WHEN THE SHIP ARRIVES.
When a load of immigrants is brought into port, they are transferred from their vessel to the lower end of Manhattan Island in river boats kept by the Bureau of Immigration for that purpose, and as the boats are towed along the river, the chatter of many strange tongues and the melancholy wails of babies are borne to the ear.
Upon reaching the pier that forms a rear porch to the Barge Office, the boats are unloaded. The process, however, is often a slow one, and there may be such a crowd inside as to make it necessary to detain the new ones until room can be made by the discharge of those who arrived first. Sooner or later, however, the occupants of the boats are hustled out and into the back door of the building. All the while the air echoes with the shouts of "Move on, move on," and gradually the confused group of temporary prisoners is pushed and shoved up stairs to the "pens."
There, after a long wait that is due rather to the limited space than to any negligence on the officials' part, it is ascertained who is entitled to enter the country and who is not. Much "red tape" is wound and unwound, but it is said, apparently with truth, that this is necessary, and that it will not be noticeable or troublesome when space for the proper discharge of business becomes available on Ellis Island.
As the immigrants "qualify," either through the possession of the requisite cash or by reason of having relatives in the country who will guarantee their support, they are released. But their troubles are not over. Outside, lining the pavements and street and waiting for relatives or else watching the scene as a matter of curiosity, are many people. On days when the number of incomers is large, the crowd goes far into the hundreds, and there are two or more police officers present to "keep order." These officials walk to and fro along the pavement, yelling and swinging light canes. If an overenthusiastic relative pushes his way across the gutter on seeing the face of a kinsman appear at the Barge Office door, he receives some smart blows and is forced to withdraw behind the line, after which the new arrival is pushed bodily into the midst of the multitude and the arms of those who await him.
Then follow kisses and embraces, and soon the participants in the scene slip out of the crush and disappear in the direction of Broadway, while still others arrive, take their dose of blows, and finally go away. During all this commotion the baggage men, whose wagons line the street a little further down, play a conspicuous part, canvassing for trade from the newcomers and often dragging them away from their friends and into the vehicles, bag and baggage.
OFFICIOUS OFFICIALS ON HAND.
Such is life in front of the Barge Office on almost every Spring day, and while the regular policemen and the crowd play their parts, there are many other individuals, of more or less authority, who help to complete the picture of disorder. Sometime a detective in plain clothes stands at the entrance to the Ellis Island Ferry landing and seems to be testing the capacity of his lungs. He, too, carries a stick, and his cries are, if anything, even louder and more vicious than those of his brass-buttoned associates. He beats, or pushes, or shakes as occasion demands, sending the venturesome trespassers flying back into the street in terror, and making a flush of resentment or fear rise to the cheeks of the women. For there is no regard for sex at the lower end of Battery Park.
"Cripps," the Battery fixture, who sleeps in a box on the pier or in the engine room of the Barge Office, has his share in the management of the crowd.
He yells as savagely as the rest, and, being fiercer of countenance, his orders are more quickly obeyed than those of the authorized guardians of the peace. Nobody dares face the glitter in the eye of "Cripps," and before his gaze Italians, Huns, Greeks, and men of various nationalities wither away in mortal fear and venture no more in reach of his eye or cane. He, without a smile and confident of his supreme authority over all "furriners" never flinches in his duty.
To the spectator who looks for the first time on the abuses at the door of the Bureau of Immigration, the treatment of women by the policemen is probably the most noticeable feature. They, like the men, are subjected to knocks in abundance, and it is not uncommon for some Italian, Irish, or German girl to be seen stifling the rising tears after being roughly pushed back by an officer, though the Irish are better treated, on the whole, than other people.
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