The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-09-29
EUROPE PIPING
ITS PEASANTRY
TO u. S. SHORES
Motley Hoards Crowd
Atlantic Liners For
Passage to Golden
America.
By GEORGE KENT

united States Not record of an
cient nations is in existence which
can tell tale of such flow of hu
manity.
From Italy is heard the repor
that no less than million hav,
booked passage for the dreamland
Wherever a liner docks in Europe
sweaty peasants, burdened witt
striped and shapeless baggage, wine
their way into the storage. II
every nation the poor are forsakine
the reality of their own soil for the
dream of America, free golden Amer.
lea.
When the war was over there was
a scampering for passports and q
flocking back to the homeland oil
immigrants of pre-war days. Polish
Italian, Czecho-Slovak, Irish and
British-all, hungering for breath
of mother soil, departed. But it. is
J not what once it was-over there.
And they are coming back, olsen
chanted. These form goodly part
of the steerage populations.
Immigrant Tide Swells
The tide of immigrants has swelled
week by week until last week the
brusQue but kindly gates by which
all aspirants for entrance must pass.
clogged and choked. Five giant lin
ers attempted to unload their human
cargoes on the island at once. The
bikes were down, as it were, and
Ellis Island was jammed. So an
embargo was imposed. For forty
eight hours no bright-eyed immi-
grant climbed down on the island
from steerage gangway.
Those that had landed were
packed into the narrow sleeping
quarters. The island is tight little
island in any event, and the quar-
tiers were never meant to accommo-
date thousands.
A curious body might tip-toe into
the quarters at night. They are
sleeping tight against one another,
legs flung out and twisted one over
the other in an indecipherable
tangle.
Gawky boys, gay keerchers muf-
lering their neck, lean against posts
and walls, and try to sleep. Strange,
but they succeed. They are very
tired.
The washing facilities of ships
steerage are not ample and in
cramped Ellis Island they are also
lacking. The stencil of the steerage
and curious horsy smell clings to
the men and women. 1t is the
smell that heralds the approach of
smell by which they
may be recognized.
In the women quarters gaiety of
coloring might strike the eye, were
1t not for the squalor and the dis
comfort. One might stop and admire
the broad red shawl draping the
shoulders of a castilian beauty, and
perhaps, pity her high raven head
dress, squashed against a bundle of
luggage upon which her head is
resting as she sleeps.
Little children might too attract
The eye.
A story is told of a family of
.hree, come from Cracow, and pre-
vented from leaving by the illness
If the six-year-old child. The child |
was born in concentration camp
where the parents had been kept |
~ the Austrians.
'He had never known the taste
If milk, never known sugar."
noaned the mother. He was a war
,aby, in all the pathetic meaning of
he word. Last week the child died.
The family is released. They are
rec to do as they wish in the new
and at the expense of their child.
Cases of equal pathos constantly
rop up, and are passed over as part
f the days work by the officials
N the island.
Officials Kept Busy
All day yesterday and today Off
ials worked over the newcomers,
all vigorously, working on
teamers-working on the island
Lself
Commissioner Wallis today de-
Jared that the choke at the gate is
elieved and the sunburned sons and
aughters Of Old Europe are stream
ng through.
In little while the commissioner
xpects his staff to be augmented
y about two hundred. He also ex-
ects the erection of a new building,
he length of the island The &C
ommodations are at present not big
nough by half, he says.
There was concert for the i'm
Migrants on the island today. Drowsy
len and women heard songs sung
, their own languages.
Louis F. Post, assistant secretary
labor, waved an American flag,
nd pleaded that the aliens be re-
arded as visitors, as honored guests.