American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [63]
An interpreter at the Barge Office testified that Lederhilger was in the habit of asking women about their sexual activity. Sometimes the interpreter, who was forced to translate these questions, had to clean up his language. Another interpreter complained that Lederhilger’s interviews of French girls were obscene. The interpreter refused to interpret for him on a number of occasions when he wanted the following question asked: “Who fucked her on board the ship?”
The report also blamed Lederhilger for the suicide of one Italian woman, who suffered “under the mortification and distress incident to her being held and examined as a procuress [madam].” If Lederhilger thought a woman was possibly a prostitute, it gave him license to molest her physically. Pointing to a woman’s breast, Lederhilger allegedly said: “Open that dress and see if you have anything in that pocket.” Another witness claimed he saw Lederhilger and other officers open the clothing of women and “thrust their hands in their bosoms and in other ways improperly handle their person.”
Treasury Department officials sat on the report for two months. Meanwhile, Powderly drew up formal charges against thirteen individuals, including McSweeney. His superiors quashed the charges, leading Powderly to accuse McSweeney’s friends in Treasury of protecting him. By September, McSweeney felt confident enough to write to Archbishop Michael Corrigan that although unscrupulous persons had attempted to discredit his work, his bosses in the Treasury Department had foiled the plot.
The report was certainly slanted in Powderly’s favor. Both Rodgers and Campbell were Powderly allies and most witnesses were Powderly’s friends at the Barge Office. McSweeney was the main target of the report, and he called the investigation “a persecution, of which I was the proposed victim,” while Fitchie said it was “conceived in iniquity and born in sin.” Yet it is hard to believe that all of the charges and testimony in the massive report were simply fabricated to frame McSweeney.
Edward Steiner, a Grinnell College professor and immigrant from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, traveled a number of times across the Atlantic Ocean in steerage collecting material for his books on immigration. “Roughness, cursing, intimidation and a mild form of blackmail prevailed to such a degree as to be common,” Steiner noted at this time. On one trip, an inspector approached Steiner and hinted that he might have difficulties getting through inspection. A little money, the inspector intimated, might make the problem go away. A Czech girl told Steiner in tears that an inspector promised to pass her through inspection if she agreed to meet him later at a hotel. “Do I look like that,” she asked Steiner through her embarrassment. The inescapable conclusion is that, even accounting for the personal vendetta between Powderly and McSweeney, a lot of petty corruption and abusive behavior was being tolerated at the Barge Office.
Even as the Treasury Department tried to bury the report, excerpts were leaked to the press. Now that the charges were aired publicly, Washington needed to act. In a classic case of creating scapegoats to protect higher-ups, officials fired a handful of minor Barge Office workers, gatemen, and messengers, charging them with taking bribes and treating immigrants roughly. In a tragic footnote, one of those dismissed was a fifty-five-year-old black messenger named Jordan R. Stewart. In addition to bribery, Fitchie also accused Stewart of being repeatedly drunk on the job.
Stewart had been born a slave and served as a lieutenant in the 73rd U.S. Colored Infantry in the Civil War. During Reconstruction,