American Passage (62 page)

260
Vera’s problems began
: Vera married for a third time in 1930 to seventy-fiveyear-old millionaire Sir Rowland Hodge. In 1934, she asked for a divorce. The Earl of Craven died in 1932 in France at the age of thirty-five.

261
Immigration officials declared
: Quoted in
Black’s Law Dictionary
, 7th ed. (St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1999), 1026.
261
The term entered American
: Jane Perry Clark,
Deportation of Aliens from the United States to Europe
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), 164, 171; Brian C. Harms, “Redefining ‘Crimes of Moral Turpitude’: A Proposal to Congress,”
Georgetown Immigration Law Journal
15 (2001).
263
Vera could now attend to
:
NYT
, March 16, 1926.
264
Angry at the reception
: The Vera Cathcart story was prominent enough to warrant a mention in Frederick Lewis Allen’s popular history of the 1920s, where it was listed as a notable event of early 1926, along with Byrd’s flight over the North Pole and the disappearance of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. Frederick Lewis Allen,
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s
(New York: Perennial Classics, 1931; reissued 1990), 181.
264
Women of all nationalities
: Deirdre M. Moloney, “Women, Sexual Morality, and Economic Dependency in Early U.S. Deportation Policy,”
Journal of Women’s History
18, no. 2 (Summer 2006). Moloney claims that the “enforcement of immigration policies concerning women’s sexuality differed according to their race and ethnicity.” She offers only anecdotal, but not statistical, evidence for the claim.
264
Giulia Del Favero
: Document No. 16129, Box 23, Entry 7, INS.
265
Sometimes, though, those vultures
: Campbell and Rodgers Report, June 2, 1900, to Secretary of the Treasury, Boxes 157–158, TVP.
266
Immigration officials continued
: File 52388-59, INS.
266
A young Serbian woman
: File 52388-77, INS.
267
Young women who transgressed
: File 53155-125, INS.
268
Immigration officials also
: Some scholars have seen the imposition of morality tests as specifically targeted against women. One historian, discussing the exclusion of a pregnant, unmarried woman named Dolan, argued that, “it was highly unlikely that the man who impregnated her would have been similarly excluded. Dolan’s story painfully illustrates how the incorporation of patriarchal heterosexual imperatives into immigration policy resulted in the exclusion of women who violated its order.” Of course, for practical reasons, had the father of the child entered alone, there would have been no way for inspectors to tell that he had fathered an illegitimate child. Had the father of the child entered with his pregnant girlfriend, however, both man and woman would have been excluded or forced to marry before entering the country. Eithne Luibheid,
Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 3–5.
268
“I had approved exclusion”
: Oscar Straus Diary, Box 22, OS.
268
In another case
: File 52279-14, INS.
268
Sometimes women could use
: File 53257-34, INS.
270
Oftentimes, the moral turpitude
: William M. Sullivan, “The Harassed Exile: General Cipriano Castro, 1908–1924,”
Americas
33, no. 2 (October 1976); J. Fred Rippy and Clyde E. Hewitt, “Cipriano Castro: ‘Man Without a Country,’ ”
American Historical Review
55, no. 1 (October 1949).
270
In December 1912
:
NYT
, December 31, 1912.
271
He arrived on
:
New York Herald Tribune
, August 18, 1942.
271
At his hearing
: File 53166-8, INS.

1913, Folder 39, Box 59, CN.
272
Meanwhile, New York Democrats
:
NYT
, February 16, 1913.
272
Castro returned to America
: On Castro’s 1916 visit, see File 53166-8C, INS. 272
This time, however, officials
:
NYT
, December 8, 1924.
273
The solicitor of the Department
: File 53371-25, INS.
273
The case of Marya Kocik
: File 53148-19, INS.
274
Officials became
: File 53986-67, INS.
274
Eva Ranc provided officials
: File 54050-228, INS.
277
Eva Ranc’s case shows
: Quoted in Francesco Cordasco and Thomas Monroe

Pitkin,
The White Slave Trade and the Immigrants: A Chapter in American Social History
(Detroit: Blaine Ethridge Books, 1981), 26.
277
There was a term for this
:
Outlook
, November 6, 1909.

277
The imagery implied
: Jane Addams, “A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil,”
McClure’s Magazine
, November 1911.
277
Reports began to filter
: Edwin Sims, “The White Slave Trade,”
Wo m a n’s Wo r l d
, September 1908.
278
Ellis Island inspector Marcus Braun
: File 52484-1-F, 1-G, INS.
278
French authorities complained
: Letter from Marcus Braun to Commissioner General of Immigration, September 16, 1909, File 52484/1-F, INS.
279
McSweeney focused on
: Letter from Edward F. McSweeney to Terence V. Powderly, July 27, 1898, Box 125, Series 2, TVP.
279
In 1908, the case
: Mark Thomas Connelly,
The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 114–115;
U.S. v. Bitty
, 208 U.S. 393 (1908).
280
Former New York police commissioner
: Gen. Theodore A. Bingham,
The Girl That Disappears: The Real Fact About the White Slave Traffic
(Boston: Richard G. Badger, Gorham Press, 1911), 15.
280
He found that talent
: George Kibbe Turner, “The Daughters of the Poor,”
McClure’s Magazine
, November 1909. For more on the Independent Benevolent Association, see Timothy J. Gilfoyle,
City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), 261–262.
280
The fight against
: Mara L. Keire, “The Vice Trust: A Reinterpretation of the White Slavery Scare in the United States, 1907–1917,”
Journal of Social History
35, no. 1 (2001).
280
Some, like Theodore Bingham
: Quoted in Cordasco and Pitkin, 22. For more on Bingham, see James Lardner and Thomas Reppetto,
NYPD: A City and its Police
(New York: Henry Holt, 2000), 141–142.
281
Despite the increased
: File 51777-303, INS.
281
The 1911 Dillingham Commission
: “Importing Women for Immoral Purposes: A Partial Report from the Immigration Commission on the Importation and Harboring of Women for Immoral Purposes,” 61st Congress, 2
^nd
Session, Document No. 196, 1909, 68.
282
On the other hand
: “Importing Women for Immoral Purposes,” 58–59.
282
Single French women
: Edward J. Bristow,
Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery, 1870–1939
(New York: Schocken Books, 1983), 166.
282
The charge of
: On the relationship between Jews and prostitution, see Lloyd Gartner, “Anglo-Jewry and the Jewish International Traffic in Prostitution, 1885– 1914,”
AJS Review
7 (1982); Egal Feldman, “Prostitution, the Alien Woman and the Progressive Imagination, 1910–1915,”
American Quarterly
, Summer 1967; and Bristow,
Prostitution and Prejudice
.
282
The link between
: Bristow,
Prostitution and Prejudice,
156–157, 160. 283
Were most prostitutes
: “Importing Women for Immoral Purposes,” 60; Ruth Rosen,
The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1982), 139–140; Gilfoyle,
City of Eros
, 292. 283
Were large numbers
: Rosen,
The Lost Sisterhood,
118; Bristow,
Prostitution and Prejudice,
156–157.
283
The Dillingham Commission
: “Importing Women for Immoral Purposes,” 51, 54–55.
283
William Williams also believed
: Letter from William Williams to Commissioner-General of Immigration, December 18, 1912, File 52809-7E, INS. 284
Williams was probably
: Rosen,
the Lost Sisterhood,
118, 133–134, 137. On the debate over whether white slavery was myth or reality, see Connelly,
The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era
, Chapter 6, and Rosen,
The Lost Sisterhood
, Chapter 7. Connelly argues that white slavery was largely a myth that scapegoated immigrants for the problems in American cities. Rosen argues that “a careful review of the evidence documents a real traffic in women, a historical fact and experience that must be integrated into the record.” Rosen writes that various contemporary investigations showed that “the sale of some women into sexual slavery is an inescapable fact of the American past.” Another historian agrees with Rosen. “Even a superficial sampling of contemporary evidence leaves no doubt that a white-slave traffic existed in the United States.” But while the prostitution business was a reality, “no nationally organized white slave syndicate existed.” Roy Lubove, “The Progressives and the Prostitute,”
Historian
, May 1962.
284
The public may have
: File 53155-144, INS.
285
On June 9, 1914
: File 53986-43, INS.
286
The Supreme Court failed
: “Redefining ‘Crimes of Moral Turpitude’: A Proposal to Congress.”
286
The reach of
: INS: I-94W Nonimmigrant Visa Waiver Arrival/Departure Form.

289
At a few minutes
: On the Black Tom explosion, see Jules Witcover,
Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany’s Secret War in America, 1914–1917
(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1989); Tracie Lynn Provost, “The Great Game: Imperial German Sabotage and Espionage against the United States, 1914–1917,” PhD dissertation, University of Toledo, 2003;
NYT
, July 31, August 1, 1916;
NYW
, July 31, August 1, 1916. Witcover called the Black Tom explosion “the centerpiece of one of the greatest and most cunning deceptions ever perpetrated on the United States by a foreign power.”

290
On Manhattan’s Lower East Side
: “Why Dveire Kept Her Head,”
Jewish Immigration Bulletin
, November 1916.
291
The few barges
:
Survey
, August 5, 1916. An explosion on the Jersey piers in 1911 also caused damage at Ellis Island. The cause of that explosion was either the careless handling of explosives being loaded onto ships at the Jersey pier or an explosion in a ship’s boiler, which set off ten thousand pounds of black powder. See Files 53173-26 and 53173-26B, NA and
NYT
, February 2, 1911. 292
The road to
: Quoted in Witcover,
Sabotage,
310–311.
293
Any male over
: “President’s Proclamation of a State of War, and Regulation Governing Alien Enemies,”
NYT,
April 7, 1917. For more on the implications of the detention of German alien enemies in World War I, see Christopher Capozzola,
Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
294
The German officers
: Frederic C. Howe,
The Confessions of a Reformer
(Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967), 272.
294
One exception was
:
NYT
, June 20, 1917.
295
Another detainee
: File 54188-473E, INS.
295
Not everyone felt
: File 54188-468M, INS.
295
Most were not
: “Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration,” 1918, 14.
296
Other cases were
: File 54188-468H, INS.
296
The militarization of
: “U.S. Immigration Service Bulletin,” April 1, 1918, Folder 6, File 1133, IRL; Thomas Pitkin,
Keepers of the Gate: A History of Ellis Island
(New York: New York University Press, 1975), 120;
NYT
, September 23, 1918. 297
The man in charge
: On Howe’s pre–Ellis Island career, see Kevin Mattson,
Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998) and Howe,
Confessions of a Reformer,
240–251.
298
Howe sought to humanize
: Howe,
Confessions of a Reformer,
256–257;
Survey
, October 17, 1914;
Outlook
, October 21, 1914; Pitkin,
Keepers of the Gate,
113– 114.
298
“Aliens traveling in the cabin”
: Memo from William Williams to Inspectors, Jan. 22, 1912, and Letter from William Williams to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Jan. 22, 1912, File 53438-15, INS.
299
News of this inspection
: File 53438-15, INS;
NYS
, January 22, 1912. 300
With Ellis Island overflowing
: File 53139-13B, INS; Frederic C. Howe, “Turned Back in Time of War,”
Survey
, May 6, 1916.
301
At Bennet’s urging
: “Ellis Island Immigration Station, Hearings Before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 64th Congress, First Session, July 28, 1916.”
301
One case that aroused
: “Ellis Island Immigration Station, Hearings,” 54. 301
At the hearing
: “Ellis Island Immigration Station, Hearings,” 53. 301
Not only was Howe
: Howe,
Confessions of a Reformer,
270–271.
302
Alice Gouree
: File 54188-482, INS.
303
Then there was
: “Ellis Island Immigration Station, Hearings,” 42–43; Howe,
Confessions of a Reformer,
270. In the book, Howe does not refer to Lamarca by name, but the reference is clear. The unnamed woman was “an Italian girl, had been married in Algeria and brought to this country. Her husband had taken her clothes away from her and had kept her in confinement. She had been forced by him to receive men. She was arrested and brought to the island. The husband had not been arrested.”
303
Giulietta seemed
: On the case of Giulietta Lamarca, see File 53986-43, INS. 304
Bennet charged
:
NYT
, July 19, September 6, 1916.
304
Howe described
: “Ellis Island Immigration Station, Hearings,” 55–56. 304
Howe’s inattention
: Letter from Frederic C. Howe to Woodrow Wilson, December 8, 1914, Series 2, and Letter from Frederic C. Howe to Woodrow Wilson, December 31, 1917, Series 4, WW. For Howe’s outside interests, see
NYT
, April 28, 1915.
305
Howe spoke out
:
NYT
, June 11, 1915.
305
Even the
Times
:
NYT
, June 21, 1916.
306
Even Howe’s choice
: Sandra Adickes,
To Be Young Was Very Heaven: Women in New York Before the First World War
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 59–61, 151.
306
Randolph Bourne believed
: Randolph S. Bourne, “Trans-national America,”
Atlantic
, July 1916. See also, David A. Hollinger,
Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism
(New York: Basic Books, 1995).
307
For Bourne
: “Americanization,”
New Republic
, January 29, 1916.
307
The president had
: Arthur S. Link,
Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace, 1916–1917
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), 327–328.
308
The literacy test
: Letter from Byron Uhl to Fiorello La Guardia, June 16, 1917, Folder 8, Box 26C7, FLG;
NYT
, March 28, 1917.
308
Instead of rejoicing
: Barbara Miller Solomon,
Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New England Tradition
(New York: Wiley, 1956), 202.
309
The targeting of Germans
:
NYT
, April 7, 1917, August 2, 1918; Witcover,
Sabotage,
66–67.
309
Then there was
:
NYT
, December 10, 1915, September 23, 24, 1917, September 2, 3, 1918; “Brewing and Liquor Interests and German Propaganda,” Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-Fifth Congress, Second Session.