American Passage_ The History of Ellis I - Vincent J. Cannato [87]
Williams, however, continued to speak out against what he saw as the large numbers of undesirable immigrants streaming through Ellis Island. His writings showed the strain of dark pessimism exhibited by New England restrictionists. “It is full time, however, for us to appreciate the fact that the settlers who made the country great belonged to a totally different class of people from those described and came here with loftier views of their prospective future,” Williams wrote, “and that a desire to emigrate can no longer be regarded as evidence of initiative, thrift, or courage.”
As proof, Williams offered a story about a family of eight from eastern Europe. The family had little money and was heading to a tenement district in New York City. When asked how he intended to provide for his family, the father responded by saying that his family did not care for a big house and would be satisfied with one room to sleep in: “That is all we want; that is the way we did it in Russia.” To some, this might be a sign of an appropriately humble immigrant who was not demanding great riches from his adoptive country. Perhaps the father thought such a modest answer would impress officials. If that was the case, he thought wrong. To Williams, the family’s aspirations were too narrow, and he sent the entire clan back to Europe.
Though Roosevelt said more about immigration than any previous president, he remained remarkably quiet about the issue during the 1904 campaign. “There seems to be a good deal of uneasiness as to saying anything about immigration this year,” he wrote to Lodge. “It is not believed it would help us to getting legislation. There is no question but that there will be a sharp lookout kept to see if they cannot catch us tripping on it.” Roosevelt may have wanted tougher immigration laws, but he felt it was best not to make any such references in the party’s platform.
Roosevelt’s campaign manager heard rumors that a Democratic operative had gone to Ellis Island to investigate conditions and warned Williams that Democrats saw the potential to make Ellis Island a campaign issue. A month later, Williams complained to Roosevelt about Congressman Richard Bartholdt. Though a Republican, the Germanborn former newspaper editor represented a heavily immigrant district in St. Louis. “He is very hostile to the Ellis Island administration, although he has been here, seen things as they are and had ample opportunity to satisfy himself that the Staats-Zeitung articles are false and malicious,” Williams wrote. He warned that Democrats had recently produced a campaign document that attacked Ellis Island based on the Staats-Zeitung articles and using Bartholdt’s comments.
All of this meant little to Roosevelt’s reelection bid. He handily won reelection over a lackluster Democratic candidate, winning every state north of the Mason-Dixon line. While he lost heavily immigrant and Democratic Boston and New York City, Roosevelt ran well nationally among Germans, Poles, Italians, and Jews.
Roosevelt could be all things to all people. Restrictionists were heartened by the selection of Williams to run Ellis Island and the president’s words calling for continued regulation and sifting of good immigrants from bad immigrants. However, immigrants and ethnic communities could also find comfort in Roosevelt’s words and deeds.
In the end, it was not the accusations of insensitivity toward immigrants that ultimately drove William Williams out of Ellis Island. It was Joe Murray. The patrician Williams simply could not stand the unsophisticated machine politician. He described Murray as lazy and dull-witted and complained that he was “unable to write any kind of a letter. He can neither write nor speak correctly.” Murray arrived late to work, could not complete basic tasks given to him, and, according to Williams, failed “to show any intelligent interest in anything that was going on to give me the slightest assistance in rooting out deviltry.”
It galled