American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [55]
from singling out any specific ethnicity or nationality for exclusion. Among its proposals, the IRL lobbied for increasing the head tax
from $1.00 per immigrant to at least $10, and possibly as high as $50; a
consular certificate for each immigrant, acknowledging his or her character and desirability; and a mandate that every immigrant had to read
and write in his or her own language. However, the IRL thought an
education test in English would be unfair.
For a young man not yet thirty, holding no political office, and with
no past accomplishments beyond his Harvard degree, Prescott Hall
managed to receive a good deal of attention and deference from newspapers and government officials. Just a few months after the founding
of the IRL, he received a written assurance from the superintendent
of immigration, Herman Stump, that he was “determined to restrict
immigration to the most desirable classes. You will observe this by the
great number of those now arriving who are detained for special examination.”
Like so many other Americans with an interest in immigration,
Prescott Hall and the rest of the Immigration Restriction League saw
Ellis Island as the focus of debate. The young reformers were allowed
to visit Ellis Island on at least three occasions in 1895 and 1896, where
they were given near carte blanche to conduct their own unofficial investigations. In April 1895, Hall visited Ellis Island and deemed its operation greatly improved over previous years, although he still saw too
many illiterate, unskilled workers, especially Italians, during his visit.
“As nearly as I could judge in the case of the Italians whom I saw at
Ellis Island,” Hall told the Boston Herald, “there was in general a close
connection between illiteracy and a general undesirability.” In mid-December 1895, Charles Warren and Robert Treat Paine Jr.
visited Ellis Island, bringing pamphlets in English and other languages.
Once there, the young Bostonians were granted remarkable access as
they handed out their pamphlets to immigrants who had already told
officials they could read. According to Warren and Paine, 9 to 10 percent of those claiming to be literate were lying. Over three days, the
two men examined immigrants from six separate ships, most hailing
from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia. All the Germans and
Bohemians they interrogated could read and write. However, 48 percent of Russians, 37 percent of Hungarians, 62 percent of Galicians, and 45 percent of Croatians could not read. Despite their unusual access, the IRL deemed the investigation a failure since during the visit not a single Italian immigrant passed through Ellis Island, and no investigation would be complete without assessing the vast throng of illiterate
and unskilled Italians pouring into the country.
So in April 1896, IRL members visited Ellis Island again immediately after the mini-riot of Italian immigrants. This time, Prescott Hall,
Robert DeC. Ward, and George Loring Briggs came at the invitation of
Commissioner Senner. The three men spent several days on the island.
It must have been a sight to see the young Brahmins, holding their
pamphlets as tightly as their prejudices, set out among the dazed and
dirty crowd of immigrants. We have no record of how the immigrants
felt about the well-dressed young men thrusting pamphlets in front of
them, but we do know what Hall thought about the immigrants. In its April 1896 investigation, the IRL committee examined 3,174
Italian immigrants at Ellis Island and found that 68 percent of them
were illiterate. Yet, much to the dismay of the IRL team, only 197 of
these Italians were excluded from entry. In just a few days, officials at
Ellis Island had let in almost