American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [118]
HIAS officials continued to lobby the government on behalf of Jewish immigrants. At Ellis Island, immigrants were too often reduced to words on a sheet of paper: transcripts of hearings, summaries of fact by officials, and medical inspection records. Immigrant aid societies were able to add the human element to this often two-dimensional bureaucratic story. Though immigrants were barred from having lawyers represent them at board of special inquiry hearings, men like Irving Lipsitch served as combination defense attorney and lobbyist.
While it was the job of William Williams and his inspectors to execute the law faithfully, immigrant aid societies became the immigrants’ advocates, tilting the scale in the immigrants’ favor when no one else would.
WILLIAM WILLIAMS SET OUT to rigorously enforce the law against those he considered undesirable, especially those deemed likely to become public charges. Rather than focusing on markers of personal character to determine desirability, as Theodore Roosevelt had encouraged, Williams increasingly linked undesirability to southern and eastern Europeans. As the enforcement of the law at Ellis Island became tighter and the rhetoric of the commissioner more pointed, opposition to Williams was building. More and more people came to believe that something had to be done to stop “Czar Williams.”
Chapter 11
“Czar Williams”
The more humanely the immigrant is treated at Ellis Island, the more humanely he will deal with us when he becomes the master of our national destiny.
—Edward Steiner, 1906
A saint from heaven actuated by all his saintliness would fail to give satisfaction at this place.
—Robert Watchorn, 1907
GEORGE THORNT ON HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE T O ARRIVE at Ellis Island in October 1910. The Welsh miner and widower was accompanied by his seven children, ranging in age from two to nineteen. The family had over $100 with them and was headed to George’s sister in Pittsburgh. However, George was missing fingers on one of his hands, suffered from a hernia, and was therefore certified as likely to become a public charge. He and his family were ordered excluded.
It was Thornton’s luck that when William Williams heard the family’s appeal, sitting in the commissioner’s office was all three hundred and twenty pounds of the president of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt had handpicked William Howard Taft to be his successor and continue his policies, so it is no surprise that Taft emulated his predecessor and paid a presidential visit to Ellis Island. If Roosevelt braved torrential rains and near-hurricane-force winds to arrive at Ellis Island, Taft had to make his way by ferry across New York Harbor through dense fog. Once there, Taft threw himself into the visit, spending almost five hours examining the entire process.
Taft listened to a number of appeals that day and took a special interest in the nicely dressed Thornton family. He proceeded to question the elder Thornton, who was unaware of the identity of his new interrogator inquiring about the singing abilities of the Thornton children. Taft then asked George if he knew who the head of the U.S. government was. “The President,” replied George. Did he know his name? “Mr. William H. Taft,” responded George. The scene must have given the president a good laugh, as he then revealed his identity to the shocked Thornton. “It appears to me that this respectable-looking family . . . will all grow up to be good, self-supporting citizens of the country,” Taft concluded. The family was allowed to land.
The poignant story of the Thornton family barely saved from deportation by the intervention