The New York Tribune Sept. 21, 1919 The Keeper Of America's Gate Has No Use For Stowaways Dry thy tears, Aunt Clarissa, and weep no more - Little Michael is not all that he seems, or perhaps, it might be better said, he is more. Little Michael GILHOOLY is a stowaway. No figment of a salty reportorial fancy is he, with his 110 corporal pounds of Belgian-Irish blood and bone. Let us say rather that he has been introduced to his public - for Mike has a public - through the rose colored light of heart-affecting publicity. This little stowaway, known as Michael, gathers his public through the phenomena of printed words. He is pictured as a bright little boy, fascinated by the trappings of war, and one who would gladly follow soldiers to the end of the earth. At length he reaches Ellis Island bearing the status of an admitted stowaway, declaring allegiance to a new found country and expressing a desire to become a citizen. But Ellis Island stops him, Ellis Island, the sieve through which the immigrating nations of the earth are strained, holds up a hand. Now there is a tumult of sympathy. Letters come from dozens of kind hearted grownups ogering to adopt little Michael. Telephonic solicitation is made in his behalf, Little Michael has become the dead centre of a tiny whirlpool that sometimes is referred to a public sentiment. While this sympathy swirls and gyrates about the diminutive person of Michael, the Ellis Island officials ship him back to Europe. There is some mental anguish at the time on the part of Mike's public. But in a week he is forgotten and so will remain-until he comes again. Now, what are the facts about Little Michael, or rather about stowaways generally? Briefly, he is mentally inferior and of a psycho-neurotic trend. He has admitted, perhaps to Superintendent Percy A. BAKER, the busiest man on Ellis Island, that he does not wish to be adopted; that he abhors the thought of a city residence or a home on a farm; that he is following his true bent, that of a seeker of romance, through the medium of the sea. If admitted to the U.S. under bond the average stowaway will quickly prove his unfitness - has done so, indeed, many times. He will tire of guardianship and become unmanageable . Then he will break forth with the same spirit that made of him originally a juvenile derelict, and, if in his nature there is anything of the emotional defective, he has a capacity for genuine harm. In sum, while there is no want of picturesqueness about these little Michaels, there is considerable lack of practicality and an extended study of the stowaway situation and experiments conducted have convinced Ellis Island authorities that in ninety percent of all cases of this kind their judgment is sound. "I recall an Episcopal minister, among many, who had gone to no little trouble to secure the admission of a little Italian boy who was a stowaway upon an incoming ship among whose passengers was this rector," said Superintendent Baker last week. "We watched the boy while he was being detained and found that he was no different from hundreds of other stowaways whom we deem it unwise to admit. If he was dissimilar it was in his capacity to act. He was a very good actor. The minister visited us on several occasions in behalf of the boy and upon each of these trips when called into the Super- intedents office the boy's conduct underwent an heroic change. He was soft of voice and quiet of manner. He seemed in every way desirable. "Consequently this stowaway was at length admitted to bond, and with much thanksgiving he departed to the home of the minister. In two weeks the minister wrote informing us that he had underestimated the mission which he had undertaken and that he had been deceived in the character of the boy. In other words, he reiterated what we had told him. The bond was forfeited, and the boy sent back. "This treatment is not cruel. Very often it precisely coincides with the wishes of the bonded stowaway. It is love of adventure, the call of the sea, or what you like, that prompts the actions of the great majority of stowaways, and once on the sea they quickly lose their picturesqueness and revert to their normal instincts. As such they are not desireable. Isn't it better to make sure that American boys are developed under favorable circumstances than to become too solicitous about the welfare of one who has run away from any development provided for him at home?" Round A Corner Down in the temporary detaining room, or the "T.D." room, as it is dubbed, we were permitted to observe two feminine stowaways. We rounded a corner and came upon them unexpectedly. One had a cigarette in her mouth and a lighted match in her hand, her companion shielding the fire from the wind which sweeps down the bay and across Ellis Island. They promptly made off to a quieter corner of the big concrete yard. Reassured at length, they walked back, the smaller of the stowaways smoking her cigarette saucily and blowing clouds of smoke into the air. While she spoke no word, DUGAN, one of the Ellis Island guards, vouchsafed the comment that she was a "bad actor." "Indeed," said he, "When they are really bad, of all female stowaways deliver me from the tongue of the Irish or the Scotch." A little later, while we were ascending the stairs that led up from the "T.D." quarters, this particular stowaway, who was Scotch, sat languidly on a wooden bench, puffing her cigarette and exchanging pungent repartee with the less deadly of the species cooped on the third floor of the main building. No doubt these temporary detaining quarters provide a delightful study in racial character- istics. Here is the blood of the Old World met upon an equal plane. Three Irish women, dressed in what was indubitably their Sunday best, sat stiffly upon a wooden bench, though, to be sure, in the eye of one of them there was a twinkle. As steerage passengers they were waiting for friends to call for them, and in spite of their inhibition it was evident that they looked with faster beating pulse upon the great adventure which should carry them into the United States. But when it came to sitting stiffly and in holiday attire suitable to the occasion, nothing quite approached the degree of queenly isolation attained by two Jamaica negresses. High shoes shining like new-washed mirrors, picture hats that drooped over dusky brows, and colorful dresses bought recently from a West Indian shop created the impression that here were ladies who intended entering the United States with the sartorial dignity befitting the act. A group of Italian women sprawled over benches, sewing for and minding their children, garrulous beyond description and unmindful of visitors or other incident that broke upon the routine of the day. An English woman in black sat upon a cane suitcase, writing a letter, holding supremely aloof from a party of Slavs hard by. It was to be observed that the feminine groups kept severely to themselves and separated along racial lines. While the "human interest" cases are looked into by Superintendent Baker, he is not so interested in them as in those plentiful instances which require some nice application of the immigration laws to determine, and many is the yarn he can spin about these. Yet they would be more in place in a law journal. The Fatal Wedding "How about romance?" he was asked. The superintendent scratched his gray head and was inclined to sidestep. "Oh, that!" he answered. It was plain that he was willing to leave romance to the ship news reporters. "What was the biggest romance you recall?" The superintendent continued to run his fingers through his hair. "I remember," he said, "one case where romance went wrong, or rather where Cupid directed his arrows with a new aim. It was in the matter of an Italian boy living in Illinois, who had sent passage money to Italy to bring over his future wife. You will understand that often the fiancee never has been the fiancee. He tells one of his countrymen journeying homeward to pick him out a wife, and the act being done, he forwards the transportation. "This case was like that. The bride to be arrived in the US on schedule and investigation proved that she had taken the train for the West at the Grand Central Station. At length we received a letter from the Italian youth in Illinois that his fiancee had failed to arrive, and he solicited an investigation. "We looked into the matter and found that the Italian girl had ridden as far as Buffalo, but that the remainder of her ticket was uncancelled. Further investigation proved that she had returned from Buffalo to the Grand Central Station - the immigrant rarely becomes lost when he is not so minded - and, hiring a taxi cab at the Grand Central Station for the sum of $20, she had been driven to an address in Brooklyn, where she was joined by an Italian youth she had met aboard sip and to whom she was married that very day. "She had gone through with the fiction of starting for the West merely to satisfy the immigration officials, but her heart directed her along a different route. There was nothing to be done. The girl was legally married. The Illinois boy was out the price of a single passage. Tourful Italians The Italian is an interesting, if sometimes eccentric, immigrant. Thousands of him journey across the ocean and back again each year. Most of these are day laborers who work in the U.S. during the warm months, contrive to save a little and go back to Italy during the winter to live up their savings. Some like the U.S. and decide definitely to foresake their native land. But many more are inveterate tourists and keep the port officials busy with their comings and goings. Occasionally one is injured at work in this country, returns to Italy and then tries to come back to the U.S., which previously he has entered several times. In the event that his injury places him under the ban there are many cries of injustice and little of understanding. The Italian, indeed, is the most tourful of all tourists. Immigration under normal conditions totals 1,000,000 a year, while the emigration average is 581,810. In the three years of 1916-1918 inclusive there were 580,454 departures, less than the average for one year in peace times. During the years of 1912-13-14 the departures averaging more than 600,000 annually, aggregated 42 percent of the arrivals. This abundant travel indicates the attraction of the high wage scale in the U.S. for foreigners. The war virtually stopped immigration and also curtailed, because of the submarine menace, emigration. The business of Ellis Island is now at low ebb, with a total of less than 250 who are awaiting deportation or an official adjustment of their cases, as against a normal of some 1,500. It is an interesting island, for it is the gateway that leads into the U.S. and a new world- or from it - and here the inspector is an arbiter who decides whether or no the immigrant is of that stuff necessary to make a citizen of the U.S. While we were conversing a few doors down the corridor the youthful members of the Vatican Choirs, with theat Eton collars, velvet suits and bare legs, were having their cases adjusted that they might be admitted. Upstairs there was a putative grand opera singer and artist, viewed through the rose colored spectacles of sympathetic publicity, who was detained at the pier and held because it is believed his is an instance that violates the contract labor clause of the immigration laws. As a matter of fact, the superintendent said, he was a $16 a week chorus member. These cases reach print. They have popular appeal. Yet Maggie O'Hara, who has come over to cook and is intercepted by a guard in blue uniform, probably thinks, as she is detained upon Ellis Island, that her capacity for making a useful citizen is as indisputable as anyone's.