In February 1921, New York health officials sounded an alarm over the way immigrants were being inspected before entering the city.
Dr. R. S. Copeland, New York’s health commissioner, believed the system had failed. According to his complaint, people had been cleared by federal immigration authorities only to be examined afterward by city officials and found to be carrying vermin, which officials feared could spread typhus.
Copeland claimed that, within two weeks, two immigrants with early signs of typhus had been allowed to land. In response, city health authorities began examining arrivals themselves.
One group of 550 immigrants was inspected, and twenty-eight people were ordered to be deloused before they could continue on.
Immigration Methods Defective
NEW YORK CITY, NY. — Asserting that there is something defective in our immigration methods, Dr. R. S. Copeland, health commissioner of New York, today telegraphed Joseph P. Tumulty, President Wilson’s secretary, asking assistance to exclude vermin-infested immigrants from landing.
He declared immigrants had been passed by the immigration authorities and that subsequent examination by city officials revealed vermin carriers of the typhus germs.
He complained that during the last two weeks two immigrants with incipient typhus had been permitted to land.
All immigrants as they landed today were examined by the city authorities, who found eleven men and seventeen women in a group of 550 to have vermin. They were ordered deloused.
Source: Albuquerque Morning Journal. Albuquerque, N.M. February 14, 1921.
