The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1908-11-07
Celebration For
House of Refuge

| NEW YORK, Nov. AT Carnegie
Hall tomorrow civic celebration will
be held to commemorate the silver ju-
| bilee of the Irish Catholic Mission at
Battery park, where for a quarter of
century the incoming immigrant girls
have been met and cared for until they
could secure positions or find relatives.
One hundred thousand young women
have been cared for at the mission
during that period and thousands OF
girls have doubtless been saved from
the clutches of the human vultures and
"white slave dealers who haunt the
waterfronts of the metropolis, always
on the search for unsOphisticated and
innocent girls to offer as a terrible sac
rifice on the altar of the black beast of
lust.
When the tide Of emigration from
Ireland was at it's height in 1883 Miss
Charlotte O'Brien, a Protestant Irish
woman. noticed the bad conditions that
prevailed and in order to be able to
suggest practical remedy. made the
Journey across the Atlantic as a
storage passenger under an assumed
name Arriving on this side she spent
some time in the boarding houses
whose runners besieged every inc om
ing ship.
Her experience was appalling and
the outcome of her labor was an ap
peal to the Irish-Americans to estab
lish home where protection from i'm
position and crime could be assured
until other and proper arrangements
were made.
Strange to say, the immediate results
of the protestant lady's work was the
founding of the Irish Catholic mission.
The others that have followed as the
need grew, are also monuments to her.
The old Colonial house at No. II
State street. once the home of the Van
Rensselaer, family, was bought for this
| purpose by Rev. j. j. Riordan. the first
director. The premises are also his
! tOrical in that they served as offices
| for cOmmissary department for the
| troops encamped in Battery park dur
| ing the civil war. Located at the center
| of the curve, made by State street in
| front of the park, its Outspreading roof,
| jutting balconies and Dutch stoop with
| two flights of steps leading to the
| sidewalk at both sides of the platform,
| bespeak welcome that surmOunts the
main entrance. The interior is COM
Portable although antiquated. Our
platform is cleanliness and kindli-
ness, says Rev. NJ. j. Henry. the pres
ent director.
n11
sort, has existed 25 years. In that time
more than 100000 girls have received
hospitality for a night. a week, or a
| month, as the case demanded, and
| for 10000 of these, positions have been
secured. No distinction is ever made
because of the race or creed of the
| applicant and no charge is ever asked
for the benefits conferred, which is in
accordance with the wishes of Miss
O'Brien, that "home" not a hotel,
| should be established The work is
supported principally by contribution
of 25 cents a year given by the mem
bers of a society composed mostly of
the Irish girls of the country. Thus
the spinsters mite speaks.
| In 1890 the care of the immigrant
was transferred from the state to the
federal government. and with the re-
moval of the work Of inspection from
Castle Garden to Ellis Island many
bad influences that obtained in Man
haitian are now impossible. Before this
date it can hardly be said that there
was real inspection as the word is
| now understood.
1t was then a sanitary question and
now it is an economic one. But the
moral part played by the different mis-
sion houses is the same