Lower East Side Residents Condemn Immigration Commissioner

Citizens Committee of Orchard, Rivington, and East Houston Streets, New York City to William Howard Taft (1912)

More than 600,000 immigrants passed through Ellis Island in 1912, the year residents of the Lower East Side wrote this letter to President Taft criticizing the disparaging remarks of the New York commissioner of immigration. Unlike earlier waves of immigration, increasing numbers hailed from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Jews and other groups that many Americans feared as radical and inassimilable. This anxiety led to a study published in 1911 by the Dillingham Commission recommending immigration restriction, which would later be enacted in the early 1920s. Here, a citizens’ committee of the Lower East Side responds by affirming their identity as Americans.

Hon. WILLIAM H. TAFT,

President of the United States of America,

Washington, D.C.

Sir: —

The undersigned are residents of Orchard, Rivington, and East Houston Streets, in the Borough of Manhattan, City of New York. As such they respectfully call your attention to the following statement contained in the annual report for the year ending June 30, 1911, of William Williams, Esq., Commissioner of Immigration for the Port of New York:

“The new immigration, unlike that of the earlier years, proceeds in part from the poorer elements of the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe and from backward races with customs and institutions widely different from ours and without the capacity of assimilating with our people as did the early immigrants. Many of those coming from these sources have very low standards of living, possess filthy habits, and are of an ignorance which passes belief. Types of the classes referred to, representing various alien races and nationalities may be observed in some of the tenement districts of Elizabeth, Orchard and Rivington, and East Houston Streets, New York City. * * * They often herd together, forming in effect foreign colonies in which the English language is almost unknown.” …

Although this report of Mr. Williams is supposed to relate solely to Ellis Island affairs, fully two pages are devoted to matters having no bearing whatsoever upon the affairs at Ellis Island, but are evidently interpolated for restrictionistic purposes.

While the individual views of the Commissioner are no concern of ours, we are vitally interested in that portion of his report which undertakes to reflect upon us, as indicated in the foregoing excerpt. We deny emphatically that there is any truth in the strictures imposed by this public official upon the inhabitants of Orchard, Rivington and East Houston Streets. A large proportion of them are citizens of the United States, loyal to their country and to its institutions, seeking by their industry to add to the well-being of the community in which they reside. Those who are not citizens, intend to become such at the earliest opportunity. Although most of the residents of these streets are of foreign birth, they have come to this country for the purpose of establishing permanent homes, of rearing and educating their children as good Americans, and of enjoying the blessings of freedom, at the same time assuming and performing the obligations which residence and citizenship entail.

A survey of the district whose good name is involved in the strictures contained in Mr. Williams’s report, indicating the nationalities and the moral, social and industrial activities of the population included in such district, is hereto appended. It is believed that the statistics thus presented for your consideration will demonstrate, not only that the statements made by Mr. Williams are false, but that they are libelous, and that no public official should be permitted with impunity thus to malign a large and populous section of this great city.

Remarks of this character, emanating from one occupying the official position that Mr. Williams fills, are calculated to do great injury to those who are included within them. They are particularly objectionable because they are apt to arouse unwarranted prejudices against immigrants, and especially among immigration inspectors, who are his subordinates and who, as has been pointed out by the Congressional Immigration Commission, are at present disposed “in a greater or less degree to reflect in their decisions the attitude of the commissioner,” thus “tending to impair the judicial character of the board.”

Under the circumstances we are impelled, not only for self-protection but because we believe it to be our duty as citizens, to protest against these wanton and unjustifiable reflections upon us; against this attempt on the part of a public official to discriminate among those who have passed through the gate at Ellis Island, and who have become absorbed in the general population of this country.

Moreover, we consider the remarks to which we have taken umbrage as a gratuitous insult, because in making them Mr. Williams did not deal with any matters which came within his jurisdiction, which is confined to Ellis Island, but has seen fit, either maliciously or without knowledge of the conditions which he seeks to describe, to animadvert upon us and those whom we represent, all of whom are striving to the utmost of their power to maintain the respect and good will of their fellow citizens.

We therefore respectfully pray, that such action may be taken in the premises as will vindicate our reputation and that of our families and neighbors, and will result in the retraction of the libelous charge of which we complain.

Dated, New York, April 9, 1912.

Respectfully submitted,

CITIZENS COMMITTEE

of

ORCHARD, RIVINGTON AND EAST HOUSTON STREETS, NEW YORK CITY.

Citizens Committee of Orchard, Rivington, and East Houston Streets, New York City to William Howard Taft, April 9, 1912, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85, National Archives, ARC 3854680.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS