American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [188]
The British seemed especially perturbed by being forced to interact with other, seemingly inferior, immigrants. British subjects held at Ellis Island considered other immigrants to be foreigners and refused to sleep in the same room as them. Britain’s undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, Roland McNeill, complained that the facilities at Ellis Island were basically for people “of a low standard of conduct” and a hardship for those of “any refinement, especially women.”
A female British journalist named Ishbel Ross traveled through Ellis Island to report on conditions for the New York Tribune. She seemed quite animated by the prospect of mixing with the “steerage hordes,” those poor immigrants who not only lacked the proper social graces, but who had also gone without a bath for a long time. “It must unquestionably shock immigrants of any degree of refinement to come into intimate and enforced contact with the strange assortment of humanity that seethes into the country through the gates of Ellis Island,” Ross noted.
There had been a long litany of complaints by British subjects at their treatment at Ellis Island, but now the issue reached the British Parliament. Speakers there likened Ellis Island to “the Black Hole of Calcutta.” As the Literary Digest put it: “Ellis Island a Red Rag to John Bull.”
The British continued to argue that they were entitled to special privileges, including the right not to be mixed with uncouth and less cultured immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. But despite the ideas of Nordic and Anglo-Saxon superiority that floated through the air, most American officials had little compunction about subjecting the British to the immigration laws. To the Americans, most of the British aliens coming through Ellis Island were just that: aliens.
What the British wanted was to be segregated from others at Ellis Island. There was already some segregation by class at Ellis Island. While all detainees ate at common tables in the dining hall, sleeping accommodations were structured like steamships. First-class and second-class passengers, noted Ishbel Ross, possessed smaller rooms with fewer people; first-class passengers were even allowed to sleep in individual beds. Both classes received mattresses instead of canvas, with clean sheets and pillows with pillowcases. Detainees who arrived in steerage received more spartan accommodations.
Yet this was not enough for the British. In late 1922, the British ambassador, A. C. Geddes, made a tour of Ellis Island and reported his findings to Parliament. Contrary to some of the criticisms of his fellow Englishmen, Geddes’s report was moderate in tone and sympathetic to the plight of immigration officials. Like many British critics, Geddes blamed other immigrants for much of the problem. “Many of the immigrants are innocent of the most rudimentary understanding of the meaning of the word ‘clean,’ ” he reported. “If they were all accustomed to the same standards of personal cleanliness and consideration for their fellows, Ellis Island would know few real difficulties.” This “pungent odor of unwashed humanity” mixed with more general odors to give Ellis Island a “flat, stale smell” that lingered with Geddes for thirty-six hours after he left.
“I should prefer imprisonment in Sing Sing to incarceration on Ellis Island awaiting deportation,” wrote Geddes, clearly affected by what he had seen. He provided a list of suggested improvements, including fresh paint, better ventilation, and a thorough cleaning of the facility. Geddes thought Ellis Island was too small to handle large numbers of aliens. Rather than just build a new and larger facility, Geddes suggested a number of separate and smaller inspection stations for different classes of aliens.
It soon became clear just what kind of