The new Ellis Islanders
Tim Congdon
In the early years of the 20th century there were two ways of entering the United States through New York. The first method, which applied to firstand secondclass passengers on the liners, was to disembark at the Verrazarto Narrows, corn: plete some perfunctory formalities and proceed. The second applied to third-class and steerage passengers, who were much more numerous. They had to land at Ellis Island and undergo a series of tests to check that they were suitable as immigrants. On a recent visit to New York, I took an excursion to Ellis Island in preference to the more popular alternative trip to the Statue of Liberty. I am glad that I did. The tour gave me some insights into the American character and also, incidentally, into the workings of the market economy.
Almost as soon as they landed at Ellis Island, after a sea voyage of over 4,000 miles, the immigrants were required to run up several flights of stairs. At the top was a health inspector who watched to see if they panted or coughed. If they did, he put a chalk mark on them to indicate that they might have tuberculosis or bronchitis; if they did not, he put on a chalk mark to indicate that they were all right. A variety of other health tests followed, all involving chalk marks. If any immigrant failed and it was decided that he could not recover in an Ellis Island hospital, he was sent back to Europe on the same 4,000-mile journey he had just completed. If they passed the health tests, the entrants were asked about their legal status and political beliefs. They had to convince immigration officials that they were not criminals or anarchists. As their command of English was frequently poor, the wrong reply might be given and a 'Special Inquiry' would be instituted to ensure their reliability.
Once they had overcome these obstacles, the immigrants had their first exposnre to the American way of life. Ellis Island had a canteen where they would he given a free meal. Although most immigrants were able to cope with the food, some were not. A group of Poles, given hamburgers on paper plates, ate both the hamburgers and the plates, while some Lithuanians threw away the pith of a banana in the conviction that the skin was more nutritious. The next hurdle was to change what money they had into American currency. Until 1902, when abuse was stamped out by the civic authorities, exchange clerks, often cheated the new arrivals. As they did not know what a dollar looked like, they would accept rouble notes for lire or Swedish kronor for marks. Only when they reached New York itself did they discover that the paper was worthless. Ellis Island officials also had the task of directing immigrants to their eventual destination in the US. Friends or relatives might have sent instructions and addresses back to Europe, which had to be interpreted by the officials. Unfortunately, language difficulties sometimes complicated matters. There was one case of an immigrant, with a letter referring to Houston Street in New York, being sent to Texas. If any economic forecaster or government planner had been asked in 1900 or 1910 what Would happen to the influx of new Americans, he would surely have given a pessimistic assessment. They lacked rudimentary communications and technical skills, including even knowledge of the English language, and they were about to join a ruthless hire-and-fire labour market. The outcome was obvious. They would be unemployed once they landed and they would remain unemployed for years. They were plainly incompetent to acquire the know-how necessary for successful participation in a sophisticated economy. However, events turned out very differently. The 30 years to 1929 were a period of exhilarating economic growth, character ised by rapid productivity advance and plentiful job opportunities. Unemployment was usually not a problem. Keynes remarked enviously in 1925: 'The United States lives in a vast and unceasing crescendo. Wide fluctuations, which spell unemployment and misery for us, are swamped for them in the general upward movement.' The total number of immigrants accepted by Ellis island between 1890 and 1924 was 12 million. The total number of jobless in Britain today is just over two million. The favourite polemical tactic of the Government's critics is to ask how and where these two million people will find work. As they are well aware, opponents of reflation have a struggle identifying industries whose expansion in the next few years can absorb the unemployment pool, • The lesson of America in the early 20th century is that it is impossible to forecast the precise evolution of a market economy. Anyone who thinks he can is subject to what Hayek has called the `synopic delusion', the naive belief that a single individual can assemble as a surveyable whole all the data which enter the social order. The forecaster-cum-planner on Ellis Island could not' have predicted what industries would employ the 12 million immigrants or what living standards they would achieve. Equally, a forecaster-cum-planner in Britain today cannot make accurate predictions about the destinies of the two million unemployed. A valid and legitimate answer to those who demand Where will they find jobs?' is simply I don't know'.
It will no doubt be objected that the circumstances of the 12 million Ellis Island immigrants and the two million unemployed are diffefent. This is quite correct. The two million unemployed are in a much better position. Many of them may be unskilled or possess skills made obsolete by technical change, but it is not common for registrants at job centres in Britain in the 1980s to eat paper plates, confuse pound notes with roubles or admit an inability to speak English. The immigrants did, how ever, have one advantage: they did not assume that it was the government's respon-. sibility to give them employment. In fact, some of them were political refugees and, as such, understandably sceptical about the general notion of governmental benevolence. The importance of this in American attitudes even today— comes as something of a revelation.
Many of the 12 million married native Americans, had children who in turn married and had children, and so on. In consequence a high proportion of Americans have relatives, normally a grandparent or great-grandparent, who underwent an Ellis Island experience. In my group visiting the island was a lady whose grandfather, with a family of nine, entered in 1912. They were fleeing the Armenian massacres. It took them a day to satisfy the immigration officials, and for a few hours the parents were uncertain whether all their children would be allowed through. The story has been passed on for two genera tions and will no doubt pass through several more. The lady's husband today is a computer technician who frequently crosses the Atlantic in the opposite direction to visit a company in High Wycombe.
Because the immigrants had no expectations, except that things would be better than where they came from, they may have been more flexible than the unemployed in an advanced industrial society. This is not a recommendation that anyone made redundant should be subjected to the same humiliating ordeal as an Ellis Island immigrant. But it is to suggest that, if the government does not fabricate artificial 'job opportunities', the unemployed may be encouraged to seek skills which in the long run will be of most benefit to them and society.
To say that only government can help the unemployed is not a kindness. It is a slur on their versatility and adaptiveness. The 12 million people vetted by Ellis Island officials in the early 20th century were much more ignorant, poor and distressed than the two million workless in contemporary Britain. But they contributed to 'a vast and unceasing crescendo' of economic growth. Why cannot a vast and unceasing crescendo of economic growth develop in Britain?
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