THE UNITED AMERICAN
Page Twelve
VIEWING THE IMMIGRANT’S AMERICANIZA
TION FROM ELLIS ISLAND
(Continued from Page Seven)
a case of helping ourselves, if we are to be helped.
The first thing that hits us right between the
eyes at Ellis Island is the ever-recurring indication
that “Americanization” of the foreign-born in America
is looked upon as a task to be accomplished entirely
by Americans—as though we were a great West Point,
training alien rookies to be American soldiers, under
rigid military discipline! Well, is that so? Has the
foreigner nothing to do with it at all? Has he no
sensibilities, inherited affections, or opinions as to the
speed with which he shifts his loyalties? Is he just
a shadow in gray, doing endless guard mount over
the Hudson, by command, and with a pounding exact
ness down to the last inch of the length of his pace?
Or is he a human being, who may or may not be doing
or wanting to do, a little about it himself?
*
*
*
Curiously enough, it was at Cherbourg, in far-off
France, only a few months ago, that I found the
foreigner making his own groping attempts at Ameri
canization—before ever he had set foot on American
soil, and long before any American had ever got hold of
him. In the immigration station behind the old French
forts of Cherbourg there were several hundreds of
foreigners, from every part of Europe, Asia and Africa,
wanting to come to America as soon as the new quotas
might open. Some had been there for months, some
for only a few days. But, as they waited, one by one
they began getting ready, as best they could, to meet
the test that awaits them at the dreaded gate overseas
—at Ellis Island. They tried to learn the language,
customs, ways of America. Slow work it was, for
though there are plenty of French in the hills that
rise behind the breakwaters of Cherbourg, there are
less than half a dozen marooned Americans to serve
as teachers of “Americanism.” It was slow, until
an enterprising merchant set up a clothing shop against
the walls of the immigration station. A rickety little
shack it was—but a shack with a mission.
“Come into the American bazaar !” barked the
proprietor, in a medley of continental languages.
“Walk into the great American clothes emporium!'
Hats, coats, pants—a nickel, a half a dime, the
twentieth part of a dollar—come in and change your
foreign money for fine American clothes! Come in
a foreigner, go out an American! Hurry up now!
Selling fast! Going, going—!”
Wearily the immigrants wandered in. In twos
and threes, then by the dozen they harked to the chant
of the spider. And were there doings within? The
forts of old Cherbourg never made more outcry than
rose from the strife of the trafficking in that “Ameri
canization” shack. Nor had the Kearsarge and the
Alabama of 1864 anything on those immigrants of
1924! A battle is a battle, whether it be fought with
guns, or with kronen, lire, francs and pesetas.
Then the immigrants began to come out. The
first of them wore a sunburned derby or dicer, of
the vintage of 1892.
“Ah, yes! I am becoming yet an American,” he
murmured, as his head winced under the prison grip
of the dashing derby. At the same time he looked
SEPTEMBER 1925
longingly at the loose, black smock of Russia that
still hid his form down to the knees.
On the dome of the next immigrant reposed a
topper of the Daniel Webster variety, badly ruffled
but still shining, here and there. “Italiano-Ameri
cano !” The five-foot son of Caesar grinned tri
umphantly as he bent under his smoke-stack burden.
Then came a Greek woman with a waist that split
hopelessly at the middle, but made up for it by the
upward, wing-like projections of the sleeves, with
their 1898 suggestion of tailored angles.
Saddest of all, a serious Swede clasped to his
bosom a revolving dickey, resplendent in its hori
zontal red, white and blue stripes, but with an irrepres
sible inclination to revolve, instead of staying put.
Sadly the Swede strove; bravely he held his own;
without heritage of minstrels or vaudeville, without
help of any sort, he came, saw and conquered. The
dickey stayed put. Some day he will be a viking, or
an aiderman.
So passed the first lesson in Americanization—
and never an American who had aught to do with it!
They were doing their best, those immigrants, all
by themselves, just as the barking merchant was also
doing his best by himself. Some day, perhaps, I
shall see those hats again at Ellis Island. Are they
on their way, perchance? Will the dickey revolve,
at the gate? Or have the sailors thrown the whole
array brusquely overboard, to give poor porpoises a
taste of auld lang syne?
“But give us a chance!” you will say. “We cannot
put an American picket in every old clothes shop
abroad, to save the immigrant from adopting the
American foibles of the roaring forties!” No, wte
cannot. But the other day I saw an American come
pretty near to it.
At Ellis Island there is a stout pillar which stands
between the immigrant who has been admitted and the
friend or relative in America who comes here to take
the immigrant in tow—to meet, greet, coddle and
comfort the new arrival. It is an important old post,
that tall pillar. The reunions, the comedies, the
tragedies of it—ah well, that is an old story every
day, at Ellis Island! But it is a careful old post. For
old people, and for young girls in particular, it stands
on guard until we know for sure that these helpless
wards of our government are falling into good hands.
Those who come to receive these innocents from abroad
must prove beyond peradventure their identity, and
their good intentions. Then, when all is clear and
safe, the immigrant comes from one corner and the
welcomer from another, and, at the post, they meet!
For years the old post has been called “The Kissing
Post.” For years it has seen more of human life at
a tense moment than all the grandfather’s clocks of
a whole countryside put together. For years it has
held its peace. After all, it is a private affair.
But, the other day, it was not so private. There
were two long-limbed lasses, embraced in a strangle
hold of unabashed delight, in the shadow of the old
post. One hug followed another, until even the old-
timers at the island began to take out their watches,
to see if another record was on its way to being
shattered. Then, when it began to seem as though
the clutch had been thrown in to. stay, there was a