The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-07-29
At WORLDS KISSING POST
ELLIS ISLAND, WHERE TEARS OF
JOY AND SORROW ALTERNATE.
Scenes of Human Interest Enacted
Every Day at Port Where Immi-
grams Enter United States.


grams Enter United States.
From kissing post to the vale of
! tears is but a step at Ellis Island,
where thousands of immigrants land
each year, where hundreds are turned
( back at the very portal of the Won
derfuI land of freedom and where
hundreds more are united with dear
ones who had preceded them thither.
! 1t is called the kissing post because
, it is the post just beyond the gate
where incoming wives and sweet
hearts fall into the arms Of husbands
and lovers who have come before to
make a home for them in the new
land. Tears are never very widely
separated from Ellis Island, tears of
sorrow or tears of joy, For, despite
the way they herd them and pen them
and feed them at Ellis Island the
newcomers are human beings with
love and affection and ambition char
acterizing them. After you have left
your first or second cabin and been
turned over to the tender mercies of
the customs men on the pier the
steerage is emptied into a barge
alongside the great liner at the New
York dock and towed to Ellis Island,
where those who would become
Americans are sifted, the undesira-
bles shunted to one side, the admissi-
BILE let in and the questionable held
for further examination.
While there is pathos aplenty at
the kissing post, when families that
have been separated for years are re-
united. there's real pity for those who
find the ambition of years thwarted,
who must return to the old home to
take up the old life of misery and
oppression. There is pity, too, for
those who are detained, who are
waiting for the coming of an expected
friend who is to be sponsor for them.
There is a pretty black-eyed Irish
girl in the detention pen waiting for
her Mike from Colorado, who would
surely meet her. She sits patiently
for two days, then she hears her
name called out, and pressing for
ward, expecting to be greeted with
the we'll known face of her lover re-
ceives only telegram stating he will
not arrive until tomorrow. The dis
appointment is too great to bear.
Nora is dissolved in tears. At last
the morrow comes and with it Mike,
the same Mike she loved in the old
country. Again the tears come; this
time they are tears of joy.
Left behind her in the detention
pen is an old woman from Bulgaria.
Her husband was killed in the recent
war in the Balkans and her Oldest
son; but in the United States she has
a son, who she has not seen in ten
years, not since he was a little boy.
She knows he will come for her, and
all the while Nora waited the wrink-
led old lady strained her poor eyes
to catch a glimpse Of her boy. On a
day he came, tall, bronzed, with the
marks of a successful farmer. Her
mother eyes grew wide with won
der as she clasped him again to her
bosom with little cry. There were
tears, but they were of joy, and the
words she said, according to the in
terpreter, were, MY little boy. my
young one"
A strapping big Italian, bound for
Rochester, displayed photograph OF |
himself on a prancing steed with the
helmet and uniform of a cuirasseur. |
''Tripoli!" he exclaims, and you read
in it the story of soldier of King |
Emmanuel in the African campaign. !
After he gets enough ahead in the
new land he is going to send for his
wife and children.
Among those who are chalked |
passed" is a group destined for the
Canadian wheat country who will
toll that there may be bread for the
eater. They are filled with anticipa-
ton and joy. And so day follows day
at Ellis Island, as the thousands pour
in. The hight of heaven and the dis
may of the depths here meet; the
greatest joy, the opportunity to live
in America, which we take so lightly,
the greatest despair to be obliged to
go back. denied an entrance into the
land of bright promise.
OF
HEALTHY KIDNEYS.