Introduction
Today in your town the post has brought many letters from America. One letter is for you. It comes from your husband who has been living in the United States, in Detroit, Michigan, for eight years. When you open the letter and read it, you are very happy. You call your children to hear father’s letter. There is good news in it for he writes:
My dear Wife and Children:
At last I find I can send for you to come to me in America. 1 have steady work now. I have saved enough money to pay for ship cards for you, my dear wife, and for our four children. I am now a citizen of the United States. I shall make my home in Detroit, and I want my family with me. Write me when you are ready and I will send you the papers and the money you need for the journey.
How happy you are! You run to tell your neighbor, Ghana. She too has a letter. She is a young girl of twenty. Her parents are dead. She has one brother in America. And her letter is from her brother. He tells her he can give her a good home if she will come to him. But he does not want her to travel alone. If she knows a family that is going to America from her village, she should go with them. What good fortune! You and Ghana and the children can go together.
You answer your husband’s letter and tell him you are ready to leave as soon as the papers and tickets come from him. You and Ghana must now make your plans. There are many things to do. You know that you must have enough money. You know that last year two families from your town went to America, and one family, after being away for five months, came back. They were not allowed to go on the ship. One of the girls could not read. A little nine-year old boy had trachoma. No, you do not want to have such trouble, God forbid!
Read this little book. It will tell you what to do. It is written for people who wish to come to America. Some people must never come. If you study this pamphlet carefully, you will know what kind of people may come to America, and what kind of people must stay at home. You will know if America will open its doors to you. You will know if it is wise for you to leave your old home for a strange one. And you will know where to go for information and whom to ask for advice. You will know what steps to take to prepare for your journey.
Do not start journey until prepared.
Can You Read?
It is always good to know how to read. A person who cannot read is like a blind man. Some countries will not let you enter if you cannot read. America is one of these countries. Of course, if you are a wife going to your husband you may come to the United States even if you cannot read.
Who else besides wives going to husbands may enter the United States if they can not read?
Boys under 16 going to their parents.
Old men over 55 going to their children or grandchildren.
Unmarried or widowed daughters going to their parents.
Women going to their children or grandchildren.
These are the only people who will be allowed to come to the United States even if they cannot read.
What kind of people must be able to read to enter the United States?
All boys more than 16 years old. All men under 55 years of age.
All men over 55 years of age who are not coming to children or grandchildren.
All single girls over 16 or widows who are not coming to parents.
If you can read and understand Yiddish or Hebrew, Polish or Russian, German or Hungarian, or any other language or dialect, you will be able to pass the literacy test.
During the past year many women who could not read were sent back after they reached Ellis Island. One woman, forty years old, who came to her nephew, had to go back because she could not read. Her home is in the Ukraine. She cannot go back to her old home. She is now in Constantinople. She has no friends there. She cannot find work. Her life is broken. What will become of her?
Learn to read before you begin on your journey.
Are You in Good Physical Condition?
Before you plan to start for America, make sure that your health is good. Are the children feeling perfectly well? You know that the trip to America from your home city is a long one. Unless you and the children are strong and healthy when you leave your home town, you will have trouble on the way. The trains are slow. Many of them are not clean. All of them are crowded.
Sometimes you have to wait for weeks in hotels and lodging houses in big cities until you get all your papers. The food is not as good as you cook it at home. The children do not like it. These things make children weak. It is easy to catch sickness when one is weak.
One woman started from her home with her five children. The youngest, a beautiful girl of six years, had been sick with measles. By the time they were ready to go, the little one was better, so the mother thought it would not harm her to travel. But the trip was long, and the little girl was weak. She took a bad cold. When they were on the ship she was very sick. And when the family came to Ellis Island the child was taken to the hospital. She died one week later. The mother was heart-broken. Last year many children died on the ships and at Ellis Island.
A long journey makes weak people sick and sick people become very ill when they travel.
Sometimes one of the children may be deaf or dumb or cannot see. The child may have been born that way or have become that way from some sickness. If the child is under 16 and is going to his father, the child may be allowed to come into the United States. But the father must deposit money with the immigration officials to keep his word that he will never ask public help for the care of such a child.
Men and single women who are deaf or dumb or blind will not be allowed to come in because they cannot find work. Such people cannot earn a living for themselves and must ask for charity, and America will not admit paupers.
Go to your doctor. Have him examine you and the children. He will tell you if you are strong enough to stand the journey. And when you are examined by the doctor, find out if you or any of the children have any defects. Make sure they are not bad defects. Because many men, women and children are turned back if they have bad defects.
It is better not to leave your home than to go away and then be forced to come back.
What Are Bad Defects
There are six very bad ones. They are:
Insanity
Feeble-Mindedness
Vile Skin Diseases
Favus
Trachoma
Tuberculosis
Some are defects of the mind and some are defects of the body. The two sicknesses of the mind are insanity and feeble-mindedness. You know how people act when they are crazy. But you yourself cannot always tell when a child is feeble-minded. Sometimes children’s bodies grow big, but their minds are like babies. They do not grow with the body.
If one of your children is like that, stay at home. Or leave that child with your relatives and go with your other normal children. Even if both parents of a feeble-minded child are in America already, even if the parents are citizens, their feeble-minded or insane children can never, never come to America to live. This is not only true of children but holds good for older men and women as well.
Absolutely no feeble-minded or insane man, woman or child will be allowed to come and live in the United States.
Many, many people who have weak minds were sent back last year. In one case it cost the father of a young girl over three thousand dollars. And these poor people who are so helpless have to suffer for months until they get back to their old home. They are always in terrible danger. Many times whole families must go back to Europe because one of the family has a weak mind.
Be warned: Have pity on these poor unfortunates. Do not take them with you when you start for America.
Remember:
Even if the doctors in Europe pass these people they will be deported when they reach Ellis Island.
Skin Diseases
If some one in your family has a vile skin disease which is catching— let that person remain at home. If you have no relatives or friends who will take care of such a person, then you must stay at home with him until he is cured. People who have venereal diseases will not be allowed to enter America, and you may have to go back with them if you bring them over.
It may be that the doctor tells you one of the children has a disease of the scalp. If the child has any bald spots on his head, it is generally a sign that he has what is called favus or ringworm of the scalp. Do not start from your home with the child until he is cured. If you have no good doctor in your town, go to the nearest big city. And after the child has had treatment from a specialist, have him examined by another doctor. He must be cured before you break up your home and start on your long journey.
One little boy nine years old left Kovno to come to his father in Boston. The doctors at the immigration station found he had ringworm of the scalp. His father wished him to be treated and cured at the hospital at Ellis Island. He was willing to pay. But the little boy was not allowed to stay. He was sent back to Kovno. Now he must live with strangers until he is cured!
When children have favus or ringworm of the scalp, the doctors ‘electriziere’ or x-ray the scalp. This makes all the hair fall out and the child is bald. Wait until the hair grows in again before you start for America. Then have your doctor make a final test to see if the child is cured. If you come with bald-headed children, even if they are cured, you will have to wait for many weeks at Ellis Island until their hair grows in. One woman waited there over three months before she could go to her husband in Chicago.
Let the doctor look at your finger-nails. It may be that you have ringworm of the nails. If you have this sickness it does not take long to cure it. The doctor cuts the nail off. Wait until the nails grow back on your fingers before you start.
Attend to these matters before you
begin on your long and hard journey.
Keep Clean
Unclean People, Unclean Houses
Make Vermin! Vermin Carry Disease!!
You have taken the children to your doctor. He finds that every one of you is healthy. Even though you have no bad defects, you must remember one very important thing. You must be clean. It is hard to get soap sometimes. But do all you can to keep yourself and the children clean.
Before you leave your home to start on your journey examine the children’s heads. Examine your own head. If you find any lice or nits in the hair or in the clothes, use plenty of coal oil or kerosene and kill the vermin.
You know that vermin carry and spread sickness. Typhus comes from vermin.
Last year many people who came to America were held on steamers or in quarantine for days and sometimes for weeks because the doctors found lice on some of the passengers. When many people live together in one room; when many people ride together in one train; when people eat and sleep and dress in the same room; it is hard for them to be clean and free from vermin.
America wants people who are clean: Because clean people do not bring sickness with them.
So remember two things:
To be well you must be clean.
Dirt brings disease!