Angel Island Immigration Station

The Federal Sundry Civil Appropriation Act of March 3, 1905, included $200,000 for erection of the Angel Island Immigration Station, and Walter J. Mathews was selected as architect for the facility. Work begun at the North Garrison area of the island was interrupted by the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, and the facility was completed in October of 1908. The complex included an administration building, power house, hospital, and detention building, with a wharf and dock storehouse at the beach below.

The Angel Island station officially opened on January 21, 1910. The next morning at 9:00 a.m., 101 people from the *S.S. Siberia* (including 84 Chinese men, 1 Chinese woman, 3 Japanese, and 4 East Indians) who had not been allowed to debark in San Francisco were removed from Pacific Mail Company's wharf and transferred to the island. The Chinese immigrants on the *S.S. China* followed, and by the end of the day, over 400 passengers, mostly Chinese, had been moved to the insular facility without incident.

The opening of the facility moved the influential Chinatown newspaper *Chinese World* to reflect on past treatment of the community and to anticipate its future reception. On January 22, 1910, it editorialized:

> Ever since the establishment of this wooden shed at the wharf, the mistreatment of us Chinese confined there was worse than for jailed prisoners. The walls were covered with poems [expressing feelings about being incarcerated]; traces of tears soaked the floor. There were even some who could not endure the cruel abuse and took their own lives. The ropes they used to hang themselves are still visible. Those seeing this cannot help but feel aggrieved and gnash their teeth in anger. Now the Chinese had been moved from this wooden shed. From now on we will be confined on a barren offshore island.
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During the first decade of the facility's existence, major internal problems troubled its administration. A few months after its opening, the immigration commissioner supervising the station, Hart North, was suspended from his post. One of the charges leveled against him was that he was partial to Japanese and Hindu immigration.

In 1917 a major scandal developed when a graft ring was discovered to be stealing and manipulating Chinese records at the station in connection with illegal entries. Eighteen people were indicted (including eight from the Immigration Service), and seven were found guilty. As well, the San Francisco law firm of Stidger and Kennah, which handled numerous Chinese cases, was banned from practicing at the Bureau of Immigration. Subsequently, no large scandals reached the station, although from time to time the occasional dismissal of interpreters and other employees indicated that petty graft was by no means completely eradicated.

It also did not take long for the government to tacitly agree with the Chinese that the insular location of the station was unsatisfactory, although they came to the conclusion for different reasons. A few months after the facility's opening, acting commissioner Luther Steward submitted reports highly critical of the many physical and sanitary drawbacks in the facility's design. As early as 1913 the visiting secretary of labor observed that Angel Island was located too far from San Francisco to be convenient as an immigration station, suggesting that Fort Mason or Alcatraz Island might be better sites. Last year, Immigration Commissioner Edward White declared that the facility's structures were like tinder, and he proposed removing the station to the mainland to cut expenses.

> The plant has practically nothing to commend it. It is made of a conglomeration of ramshackle buildings which are nothing but firetraps. They are illy arranged, and inconvenient. The sanitary arrangements are awful. If a private individual had such an establishment he would be arrested by the local health authorities. The whole place is . . . not worth spending any money on.
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> Commissioner General of Immigration W. W. Husband