American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [36]
—Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, 1896
COL ONEL JOHN WEBER WAS BURSTING WITH RIGHTEOUS anger. The commissioner of Ellis Island had braved the cold January winds coming off New York Harbor to witness the procession of some seven hundred immigrants who had arrived on the steamship Massilia. What disturbed Weber was that many of those passing by him were clearly in bad health. These were no rosy-cheeked young Irish girls like Annie Moore. Instead, many of those now crossing the same gangplank to Ellis Island as Moore had four weeks earlier were sick and emaciated—not the hearty lot most Americans hoped for in their future neighbors.
Weber was not resentful toward these predominantly Russian Jewish immigrants. A few months earlier, he had witnessed the tragic plight of oppressed Jews throughout the Pale of Settlement and seeing a similar neglect and obvious lack of concern here at an American port fueled his anger. He was upset that steamship officials had forced these sickly passengers to cross the harbor to Ellis Island in an open barge in frigid weather. The normally even-tempered Weber was so outraged at the lack of care given to these newcomers that he fired off an angry letter to the steamship company, accusing them of “inhuman, if not criminal” behavior and promising to fight for legislation to punish steamships for any future incidents of “brutality and inhumanity.”
Among those worn refugees parading past Weber was the Mermer family: Fayer, her husband Isaac, and their five young children. The Mermers had managed to survive both the trip to Ellis Island and the inspection process and would soon begin their lives in America at a temporary lodging house at 5 Essex Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, provided for them by the United Hebrew Charities.
Twelve days after their arrival, the Mermers’ world was thrown into even greater turmoil. City health officials forcibly entered their Essex Street tenement, dragging Fayer, already sick with fever, out of the building kicking and screaming. Along with her son Pincus and daughter Clara, Fayer was forced into quarantine as city officials moved quickly and brusquely to deal with a highly contagious typhus fever outbreak. One week later, Fayer would be dead, though her children would recover. This outbreak was believed to have originated with the Massilia immigrants and was spreading throughout the lodging houses of lower Manhattan.
How the Mermer family and 265 other Russian Jews ended up in America in the first place—and how their case ignited a national panic—is a story of its time.
The Massilia had departed from the port of Marseilles on January 1, 1892, with 270 Russian Jewish passengers. Since the spring of 1891, many had been wandering the continent, landless and countryless, unwanted throughout Europe. Some of them were originally Turkish subjects who, years earlier, had migrated to Russia for better opportunities. With the increasing repression of the Jews in Russia, they found themselves expelled. After their expulsion, they landed in Constantinople with hopes of heading to Palestine. Instead, Turkish authorities refused them passage. For three months, they were trapped in the city’s Jewish ghetto. In December 1891, Turkish officials expelled them, and they headed for Smyrna. Their travails had exhausted what few funds they originally had, leaving them paupers. With the assistance of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, founded that year to assist east European Jews, they made their way from Smyrna to Marseilles and from there boarded the Massilia for New York.
Along with its Jewish passengers, the Massilia also carried fine French wine headed for sale in New York. Instead of leaving directly for America, the ship next made its way southeast toward Naples, where it loaded up on more cargo: macaroni, fruit, and 457 Italians traveling in steerage to America.
The ship would be at sea for over three