An Interview with Commissioner Robert Watchorn on U.S. Immigration (1906)

📌 Gain valuable insights from an interview with Commissioner Robert Watchorn, as he discusses U.S. immigration policies, the role of steamship companies, the inspection process at Ellis Island, and the economic impact of immigration in 1906.

An Interview with the Commissioner of Immigration - 1906

Overview and Relevance to Immigration Studies 🌍📚

The article "An Interview with the Commissioner of Immigration - 1906" provides an insightful conversation with Robert Watchorn, the Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island. Through this interview, Watchorn offers his perspective on immigration trends, the processes at Ellis Island, and the economic implications of immigration.

The article is valuable for teachers, students, genealogists, historians, and anyone researching early 20th-century immigration. Watchorn’s insights help contextualize the immense challenges and benefits associated with the massive waves of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island during the early 1900s.

Hon. Robert Watchorn, Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island. Robert Watchorn (1858-1944) was Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island 1905-1909. Dun's Review, International Edition, July 1905. GGA Image ID # 1464c05b41

Establishing predictions upon present figures, it may be stated upon the authority of Immigration Commissioner Robert Watchorn that the present fiscal year ending next June will record the greatest Immigration in the history of the United States. It will exceed the immigration figures for last year -- 821,169 -- by many thousands.

Is this fact a cause for National alarm, or is It a cause for National rejoicing? The urgency of the Immigration problem cannot be overstated. It vitally requires a solution. What is this problem after all? Is it a bugaboo that we have reared, a national cry of a wolf in which there is no genuine economic basis or adequate foundation?

These questions and many like unto them may be set down as the result of a strenuous and delightful morning spent with Commissioner Watchorn at the height of the early Spring immigration rush at Ellis Island, a rush that last week brought more than 25,000 aliens to our shores. His insights are invaluable in understanding the complexities of immigration.

"I have not the time to sit here and talk to you," said the Commissioner, "but if you do not mind running as you read, so to speak, I should be happy to have your company. " This, in fact, was just what the visitor desired.

And he ran, and he read, and an illuminating summary of what he read may be presented in a series of utterances on the part Of the Commissioner which are almost if not quite epigrammatic, and which at all events throw a sane and reasonable light upon this absorbing and timely topic of immigration. Here are some of them:

"We cannot have too much of the right kind of immigration; we cannot have too little of the wrong kind. We see to it that we get the right kind of that, and I am confident we get the right kind of that. Consequently, increased immigration of the type we admit to our shores not only makes for the National weal, but also holds promise for a brighter future."

Prime Cause of Immigration

The prime cause of immigration is the letters foreigners in this country write to relatives, friends, and foreign newspapers. These letter writers have thrived, and they spread the news of their success abroad. The result is an influx of bright, ambitious men and women, the brawn and backbone of any country.

Stop the United States mail to Europe for one year, and you would bring foreign Immigration to an abrupt, almost absolute close.

Aliens, arriving through Ellis Island last year, brought money aggregating $938,000. Shake more than 800.000 Americans together and send them abroad, and I doubt if they would make a good, certainly no better, showing.

Of the 41,412 immigrants arriving here last January, 34,363 were between the ages of 14 and 41 years -- formative years of youth and manhood; splendid years Five thousand two hundred and seventy-two of the January total were under 14 years of age, and only 1,837 were over 44 years of age. So what did we get therefore? Was it not the youth and strength and vigor and ambition of foreign lands?

Seventy percent of the aliens arriving here go straight out West, out into the open spaces where they are needed. Eighteen percent go to the New England States and only 12 percent stay in New York City.

In New York State, there are 12,000 vacant farms at present. This is the case to a greater or lesser extent in other States. Why? Because the native-born youth are hurrying to the cities, the foreigners take their places in the farmlands and open spaces. Can you detect anything that saves an economic advantage in this arrangement? An advantage that cannot but fail to accrue to the National Welfare?

If a steel mill were to start in a Mississippi swamp, paying wages of $2 a day, the news would hum through foreign lands in a month. That swamp would be a beehive of humanity and industry in an incredibly short time.

American wages are the honey pot that brings the alien flies.

Background of Commissioner Watchorn

From all this, it would appear that Commissioner Watchorn is a man who has gained something from his work. He impresses you as that sort of man. He is a man of brawn, a man who knows how to use his hands in both the sporting and Industrial sense of the phrase. He grew up with the people; he was a coal miner as a boy and young man.

Later, he became the chief factory inspector in Pennsylvania. Then he drifted into the immigration service, studying the alien problem for this Government at its sources in foreign lands.

At one time, he was an under Inspector at Ellis Island, and then, from 1901 to 1905, he was in charge of immigration at the Canadian border, the back-door route to the United States.

He has been Commissioner at Ellis Island for just one year. Overall, his experience may be accepted as giving anything he says about immigration peculiar weight.

As quoted above, he has said that he views immigration in an essentially optimistic light—and he is a laboring man, heart and soul.

Examining and Passing 9,000 Immigrants a Day

As he talked, he stood in the great examination room, through which 5,030 aliens were passing without confusion, without noise, without the slightest disorder of any kind.

Of this five thousand-odd, 1,102 came from the steamship Prinz Oskar, 1,230 from the Calabria, 518 from the Caledonia, 1,001 from the Carmania, 1,179 from La Gascogne. The steamship Republic was steaming up the bay with 2,700 more, but --

"We don't get the Republic's 2,700 until tomorrow," said the Commissioner, "although we would not care much if they did come today. We often pass 7,000 in a day here; at a pinch, working nine hours, we can examine and pass 9,000 under the system we have now instituted.

Organizing Arriving Immigrants for Processing

The water is too shallow for steamships to land the aliens directly on this island, so they stay on the steamship until it docks. Then, steamboats and barges bring them here.

The steamship companies used to dump their steerage passengers upon us in no order. As a consequence, the work of examining and passing them was tedious and dilatory.

However, after a vigorous three-month fight for wages, the steamship companies arranged them in batches of thirty. Each batch of thirty is accounted for on a sheet, giving statistics and all facts.

Each batch of thirty is lettered, A, B, C, etc., and the sheet that applies to a special batch bears a corresponding letter. Thus, you see, we are able to proceed with speed and precision.

So far as the steamship companies are concerned, they are very loath to inaugurate innovations. Still, sooner or later, they come to our way of thinking for one reason or another.

Penalties for Undesirable Immigrants

One very important fact that they have lately digested is that it does not pay for them to ship any old sort of immigrant to this country. They have learned this because we catch the undesirable aliens on this island and make the company take them back at its own expense, plus the cost of maintaining them while they are in this port.

We sent back so many persons in this way that the steamship companies finally issued letters to their agents all over the world saying that it was useless for them to send on would-be Americans who were ailing in body or mind or who were otherwise ineligible to land under the Immigration laws of the United States.

"The refusal of steamship companies to carry undesirable immigrants is one of the greatest checks upon pernicious immigration that I know of. Last year, for instance, the various steamship companies refused to bring 20,000 aliens to this country, not through any deep regard for our laws, of course, but simply for their interests, knowing that we would have sent them back even if they had brought them here.

This action on the part of the steamship companies has eliminated much of the distress and suffering we used to see on this Island—the tearing apart of wives and husbands, mothers and children, and the like.

When a husband, mother, or child is refused passage at some foreign port, the rest of the family usually refuses to sail, too. If the steamship company allows a family passage, ailing member and all, then we have to send the ailing one back. Of course, the family cannot go back with this ailing member free of charge, so they go on to their destination while the undesirable member is deported.

All this, of course, is pathetically disagreeable all around. But, as I said, the recent stand by steamship companies has obviated much of this distress.

Here are the figures, which I give out for the first time, showing the number of persons rejected by the steamship companies of their own accord in the six months ended December 31 of 1905, excepting the number rejected by the North German Lloyd Line, which covers the calendar year of 1905.

Having abstracted the above figures from his pocket, the Commissioner swept his glance over the room, finally leading the reporter's eye to the overhead balconies, from either extreme of which depended huge American Flags.

It shows them what the colors are and what colors we expect them to love hereafter," observed Mr. Watchorn, who approves of nothing. And they do come to love those colors, and in a year, they will fight for them as heartily and bravely as any native-born son.

Improvements in the Examination of Immigrants

We have made many improvements in this room. When they land from the barges, they are placed in a general reception from downstairs, and thence, they are brought up into this examination room.

This place is divided by steel fences into twenty-two aisles, each aisle being lettered. As each batch of thirty immigrants comes up, they are shunted by ushers into the aisles corresponding in letter to those which the batches bear.

A doctor stationed at each aisle examines the aliens, and then they are sent through the aisle to the other end of the room, where they are brought up against the desk of an Inspector, one at each aisle. The inspector examines their financial condition, moral standing in their own country, and other important considerations.

"If they are satisfactory, the Inspectors pass them out of this room into various rooms as their destinations suggest -- the railroad room, the New England room, the New York City room.

Those who are not satisfactory are confined in the detention room, where, in good time, one or the other of our four boards of inquiry gives them the opportunity to show cause why they should not be deported.

Cases held up by the surgeons are placed in another detention room, where they are examined more in detail. If the results of the superficial examination are borne out, they are ordered departed.

The chief changes in this room, which I spoke about a minute ago, are the increasing number of aisles from fifteen to twenty-two and the widening of them from two feet six inches to four feet six inches, with the installation of seats.

Formerly, immigrants laden with their bundles had to stand for hours in these narrow spaces. Now, they have ample room, with the added advantage of being able to sit down while they wait.

Mr. Watchorn said further that the work in this room, so far as the amount was concerned, as well as the present increase in immigration over last year -- the greatest immigration year on record -- might best be appreciated by the following table, which he compiled for the New York Times:

Fiscal Year 1905

Month | Admitted | Debarred

• July 1904 | 45,487 | 598
• August 1904 | 46,470 | 370
• September 1904 | 34,793 | 400
• October 1904 | 57,395 | 331
• November 1904 | 55,861 | 384
• December 1904 | 49,939 | 613
• January 1905 | 46,231 | 1,321
• February 1905 | 53,176 | 640
• March 1905 | 105,115 | 422
• April 1905 | 112,178 | 435
• May 1905 | 104,928 | 723
• June 1905 | 89,534 | 967

Fiscal Year 1906

Month | Admitted | Debarred

• July 1905 | 61,509 | 1,061
• August 1905 | 52, 028 | 913
• September 1905 | 63,055 | 379
• October 1905 | 69,068 | 198
• November 1905 | 50,082 | 381
• December 1905 | 52,082 | 274
• January 1906 | 43,064 | 222
• February 1906 | 57,033 | 256

You will see from this that almost every month of the present year shows an increase in immigration, said Mr. Watchorn, and the record from now on will show a still more decided increase, which will continue, no doubt, until a panic or hard times send foreigners scuttling back home again. However, not all of our work here is confined to the steerage.

Of the 821,169 aliens who arrived here last year, 98,428 came in the cabin. Of this number, we took 2,882 passengers to Ellis Island and, after thorough examination, deported 102 of them.

Of the 722,741 steerage passengers, we departed 7,078, and the number of deportations would have been almost twice as great had it not been for the steamship companies' refusal to pass questionable applicants.

An Appeal from the Special Inqury Board to Commissioner Watchorn at Ellis Island. Aliens or Americans?, 1906. GGA Image ID # 1464cbebce

Not merely are the dangerous elements refused admission, but those who, for ill health of mind or body or inability to work, are likely to prove a hindrance rather than a help.

Mr. Watchorn continued, There is another significant point that I would like to impress upon you in connection with this immigration question." That is, from the immigration figures for any year, the alarmist must deduct at least 40 percent from the total. I say this not only because of the deportations but also because of the outflow of aliens to their motherland each year.

It is enormous. In five months of 1905, for instance, 19,803 aliens left here in the steerage for British ports, 25,546 aliens for Continental ports, and 16,436 aliens for Mediterranean ports—a five-month record, remember? When we tabulate the total outflow of steerage passengers for 1905, I have no doubt you will find that it exceeds the total for 1904 - 365,149.

New York Times, Interview with Immigration Commissioner Watchorn of the Ellis Island Immigration Station at New York, June 1906

Key Highlights and Engaging Content ✨

Commissioner Watchorn’s Perspective on Immigration Trends 🌍📈

The article opens with Watchorn’s prediction that immigration numbers for the fiscal year would surpass 821,169 immigrants, establishing a historical record. This projection sets the stage for contemporary debates about the impact of immigration on American society.

📚 Engaging Insight: Watchorn's optimism about increased immigration being beneficial for the U.S. economy, as it brings in youth, strength, and ambition, is a powerful argument for those studying economic migration patterns.

Prime Causes of Immigration ✉️💼

Watchorn attributes the primary cause of immigration to letters from immigrants already settled in the U.S. to their relatives in Europe, describing how stories of success draw more people across the ocean. This phenomenon plays into broader ideas about diaspora communities and family networks in migration.

📸 Noteworthy Image: "Hon. Robert Watchorn, Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island" — The portrait of Commissioner Watchorn adds personal context to the interview, humanizing the policies discussed.

The Immigrant Profile: Age, Strength, and Destination 💪🚜

The Commissioner highlights that immigrants are predominantly young, strong, and in their formative years, with the majority heading West to work on farms or in the open spaces where labor is needed. This is a key aspect of labor migration during the period, showing how immigrants helped fuel America's industrial expansion.

📚 Key Insight: Watchorn’s comment that 70% of immigrants head West, taking up vacant farmlands, offers a compelling look at how immigrants were integrated into rural economies at a time when native-born Americans were moving to urban areas.

Ellis Island's Efficiency and the Examination Process 🏙️🩺

One of the most engaging aspects of the interview is Watchorn's praise for Ellis Island's efficiency in processing immigrants. He boasts about the speed and precision with which 9,000 immigrants can be processed in a day, using a batching system organized by the steamship companies.

📸 Noteworthy Image: "Immigrant Inspection Card" from RMS Oceanic — This visual aids in understanding the official paperwork immigrants had to present, reinforcing the bureaucratic nature of the immigration process.

The Role of Steamship Companies in Immigration 🚢💼

Watchorn discusses how steamship companies have increasingly become involved in screening immigrants before they even arrive at Ellis Island. Due to the penalties for shipping undesirable immigrants, companies became more diligent in avoiding sending ill or unfit individuals to the U.S.

📚 Key Insight: The rejection figures from major steamship lines (e.g., Cunard and Hamburg America Line) help reinforce the idea that the economic interest of shipping companies aligned with the goal of improving the quality of immigrants, reducing the burden on the U.S. immigration system.

The Detention and Deportation Process 🛑🚫

The Commissioner also describes the process by which undesirable immigrants—such as those with physical or mental defects, or the possibility of becoming public charges—were detained and either sent to the Board of Special Inquiry or deported.

📚 Engaging Insight: The emotional toll of separating families or sending unsuitable immigrants back is made clear through stories about refused families and the tears that were sometimes shed as immigrants were detained.

📸 Noteworthy Image: "Immigrants being held at Ellis Island for Return to Their Country of Origin" — This image powerfully conveys the human cost of the immigration policies being discussed, emphasizing the personal stories behind the numbers.

Humanitarian Efforts and Charity 💖👐

The interview also touches upon the work of charitable organizations at Ellis Island, offering support to immigrants during their detention. These groups helped ensure that immigrants were not taken advantage of by exploitative figures or left to suffer.

📚 Key Insight: Watchorn’s acknowledgment of the work by organizations like the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary highlights the collaborative nature of immigrant integration during this time.

Educational and Historical Insights 📘🎓

📌 For Teachers and Students: The article offers a primary source account of immigration policies and the day-to-day operations at Ellis Island, providing valuable content for those studying American history, immigration studies, and economic migration. Teachers can use this to spark discussions on the ethics and humanitarian aspects of immigration laws.

📌 For Genealogists: The article is a useful reference for anyone researching their immigrant ancestors. By understanding the screening process and detention procedures, genealogists can better interpret records and immigration documents they may encounter.

📌 For Historians: This article is an essential piece of immigration history, shedding light on the economic motivations behind immigration and the systems in place to manage it. The firsthand insights from Watchorn are invaluable in exploring the historical context of U.S. immigration policies.

Final Thoughts 🌟

An Interview with the Commissioner of Immigration - 1906 provides a comprehensive look at the immigration system of the early 20th century through the eyes of Robert Watchorn, the Commissioner of Immigration. His reflections on the mechanics of immigration, the immigrant profile, and the collaborative efforts of steamship companies and charitable organizations give readers a holistic view of how immigration was managed at Ellis Island.

This article is a valuable historical resource for understanding the policies and personal stories that shaped America's immigration landscape during a period of intense change and expansion.

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