American Passage

by Vincent J. Cannato

  Two days after being released from prison, Matthew announced his newest scheme. NEGRO would ask the Nixon administration to turn over control of Ellis Island to the organization under a “lend-lease” agreement. Matthew and his followers would then create an experimental community for one thousand black families.

  Six months after Matthew’s release from prison, there still was no formal agreement with the federal government on NEGRO’s plan for the island. So Matthew and some sixty other members of the group began quietly squatting on the island. Unlike the earlier attempt by American Indians, the Coast Guard did nothing to drive them away. It appeared that the Nixon administration had given tacit approval to the move. Matthew’s followers, many of them on welfare or recovering drug addicts, began to clear away the thick brush that had begun to take over the island. They hoped that the government would see this as a good-faith effort and grant them permanent control over the island.

  The secret settlement on Ellis Island would soon end when a traffic helicopter for a local television station noticed laundry hanging out to dry at the supposedly deserted island. The press attempted to land on the island to interview the squatters, who were reluctant to cooperate. The unwanted publicity meant the end of the experiment, and after thirteen days, the small band left the island.

  This did not deter Matthew, who offered a new and more detailed proposal that the National Park Service approved just a few weeks later. NEGRO received a special five-year permit for the island for no money. In turn, Matthew would turn the deserted island into an Eden of black capitalism. NEGRO would first rehabilitate the island and create “a living memorial to the American immigration experience on Ellis Island.” Decaying buildings would be restored, crumbling seawalls rebuilt, and the grounds cleared. The second, and more important, goal was the creation of a “rehabilitative community” for drug addicts, alcoholics, welfare recipients, and ex-cons, who would learn skills that would aid their reentry into mainstream society. Ellis Island would become a self-supporting community: NEGRO would build factories that would make shoes, costume jewelry, and metal castings. The money made from these enterprises would allow NEGRO to expand its efforts to help more people. Matthew saw a future island with 1,700 workers, 700 hospital patients, and 100 schoolchildren.

  Matthew continually referred to blacks as “new immigrants.” If Ellis Island marked the rebirth of European peasants in the New World, Matthew sought to transfer that symbolism to American-born blacks. In his vision, Ellis Island could serve as a gateway for dispossessed and unskilled blacks to reenter American society, essentially turning them into immigrants in their own country. That poor American-born blacks should become like immigrants, new and old, has been a controversial trope in American history, adding further tensions between immigrants and native-born blacks.

  Not surprisingly, Matthew’s utopian plan never bore fruit, despite support from the Nixon administration. Part of the problem was the disconnect inherent in the idea that blacks were new immigrants. But the real problem was Matthew himself. Part opportunist, part genuine humanitarian, and part con artist, the doctor had a vision that far outstripped his managerial abilities and business skills. Matthew was unsuccessful in raising funds to bring his dream to fruition, and few blacks seemed ready to sign up for the arduous work of rehabilitating Ellis Island.

  Only a handful of people remained on the island through the winter of 1970–1971. Conditions—a lack of potable water and inadequate heating and plumbing—hampered the efforts, and Matthew’s group showed little aptitude for rectifying those problems. By the spring of 1971, a safety engineer found that the “deteriorated, dilapidated, unsanitary” conditions at Ellis Island could cause disease, injury, or even death to NEGRO members. The engineer recommended revoking NEGRO’s permit to use Ellis Island.

  Since the mid-1960s, Matthew had received at least $11 million in federal loans, grants, and contracts, and the Nixon administration, eager to aid the cause of black capitalism, refused to pull the plug on the Ellis Island operation. In the end, they didn’t have to—the ineptitude and grandiose vision of Dr. Matthew did that for them. By the summer of 1971, only five people remained on the island; by the fall that number had dwindled to three. Instead of a vibrant industrial community with schools and hospitals, Ellis Island remained as it had been before: deteriorated and largely abandoned.

  As the Ellis Island colony was falling apart, Matthew’s Interfaith Hospital in Queens was drawing attention for its filthy conditions and poor treatment of patients. Reports suggested that top Nixon administration officials had refused to cooperate with, and even impeded, investigations into the business practices and contracts of NEGRO. In April 1973, Matthew was arrested on charges of illegally diverting $250,000 in Medicaid payments designated for Interfaith Hospital to other NEGRO projects.

  By this time, Richard Nixon had been driven from office, Ellis Island remained a fallow wasteland, and Thomas Matthew’s dreams of black capitalism—part scheme and part dream—had long since died.

  In the flawed vision of Thomas Matthew, the renewed racial pride of African-Americans could not redeem a decaying and forgotten Ellis Island. Yet black power did bestow a peculiar—and unintended—gift on the descendants of white immigrants. The civil rights and black power movements challenged the concept of the melting pot, noting that black Americans were not so easily melted into the larger American stew. Race was a marker that white Americans did not seem to want to ignore and blacks seemed not to want to forget.

  Around the same time, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan published a study of New York racial and ethnic groups entitled Beyond the Melting Pot. If, as the authors suggested, ethnicity had never completely disappeared in the melting pot, the growth of black power and racial pride among African-Americans helped spur white ethnic groups to more public displays of their own identity. “Kiss Me I’m Irish” and “Kiss Me I’m Polish” buttons appeared. By the 1960s, differences became badges of honor, not shame. Ethnic-themed novels like Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and Mario Puzo’s The Godfather climbed the bestseller list.

  Ethnic pride and ethnic defensiveness went hand in hand. A young writer of Slovakian descent named Michael Novak published a jeremiad called The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics. Defending white ethnics from a variety of charges, Novak also lashed out against “Nordic prejudices” and moralizing, liberal WASPs. It was now the children and grandchildren of the Ellis Island immigrants who found themselves in conflict against “progressive” Nordics and Anglo-Saxons. Outright prejudice and discrimination may have disappeared, but cultural and political conflicts remained.

  In the early twentieth century, Americans debated who should or should not be allowed to enter the country at places like Ellis Island. By the second half of the twentieth century, Ellis Island had been forgotten and sat in New York Harbor as a rotting symbol of a bygone era. Before the twentieth century ended, it would be reborn under a different guise—as a museum and a national monument. But the debate over its meaning would continue.

  Chapter 19

  The New Plymouth Rock

  Once I had set foot again on Ellis Island, I knew that I had come to one of God’s places, and that those of us who had been there were tied to it forever.

  —Mark Helprin, Ellis Island and Other Stories

  LINO ANTHONY IA COCCA HAD MUCH T O BE PROUD OF on the night of July 3, 1986. At age sixty-one, he already had a successful career in the auto industry, running Ford Motor Company before guiding Chrysler out of bankruptcy—with a little help from Uncle Sam. His recently published autobiography had sold more than 5 million copies. He received as many as five hundred letters a day from average Americans asking him for advice or thanking him for providing inspiration in their own lives. Newspapers called him a folk hero for the 1980s. And he had just overseen a nationwide campaign that raised almost $300 million for the renovation of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

  On this patriotic Fourth of July weekend, Iacocca pre
sided over a glitzy celebration in New York Harbor that featured the relighting of the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty on its hundredth anniversary. Politicians, celebrities, and other dignitaries filled the stands to watch the fireworks display. President Ronald Reagan was on hand to pull the switch that would light the statue. It arguably could not have been done without Iacocca, and the shrewd salesman was not shy in letting everyone know it.

  That was not a shabby record for the son of Italian immigrants who had grown up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Iacocca was an Italian-American mix of Horatio Alger and Dale Carnegie. With his craggy features and gravelly voice, Iacocca was an icon of modern-day America. Had they been alive, immigration restrictionists Francis Walker or Prescott Hall would have been shocked at the presence of an Italian-American head of a major U.S. corporation.

  Some wondered how a private businessman ended up in charge of the restoration of public icons like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was partly a matter of timing. The federal government had neglected Ellis Island for thirty years. Then Ronald Reagan rode into the White House on a wave of antigovernment sentiment. “Government is the problem, not the solution,” he said, tapping into a national mood that had less faith in government after the social, political, and economic turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. Rather than relying on the public sector, the Reagan administration pushed for what it called “public-private partnerships.”

  In this vein, the National Park Service began to solicit private assistance to raise funds to restore Ellis Island in 1981. Richard Rovsek, a marketing executive who produced the Easter egg rolls at the Reagan White House, founded the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation to raise private money to restore both monuments in New York Harbor. Thus, the private half of the public-private partnership was born.

  To oversee the fundraising efforts, Interior Secretary James Watt created the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Centennial Commission in 1982. Here was the public half of the equation. As implied by the commission’s name, it was hoped that the Statue of Liberty could be restored by its hundredth anniversary in 1986 and Ellis Island by its hundredth anniversary in 1992. Watt named Lee Iacocca to chair the new commission. Not happy with the largely advisory role of the Centennial Commission, Iacocca soon maneuvered to become head of the private foundation as well.

  Iacocca also maneuvered to make the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation the sole fundraiser for the project, despite the existence of other organizations, such as Philip Lax’s Ellis Island Restoration Commission. In the end, Iacocca had become the boss of both the fundraising and the restoration efforts.

  Although restoration of the two monuments was linked, it was clear that Ellis Island would play second fiddle. The centennial anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 made its renovation a more pressing matter, but also it was far better known to the public. “Ellis Island, in the public mind, was a poor cousin to the Statue of Liberty,” wrote F. Ross Holland, who was involved in the fundraising and restoration effort. “The foundation had publicized Ellis Island, but it was evident the public was more interested in the Statue of Liberty.”

  The Statue of Liberty therefore became the center of Iacocca’s fundraising. A master salesman, he wasted no time. While individual donations would be important, he knew that if he wanted to raise $200 million he would need to solicit corporate sponsorships—which he did. Coca-Cola, USA Today, Stroh’s Brewery, Chrysler, Kodak, Nestlé, Oscar Mayer, and U.S. Tobacco were all granted exclusive rights to use the Statue of Liberty in their advertisements. The public seemed to respond to the fundraising effort. When American Express promised to donate a penny from each purchase, AmEx card use jumped by 28 percent.

  The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were now bound up with the larger political and ideological controversies of the day. It was the height of the Reagan Revolution, whose championing of free-market capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit did not sit well with everyone.

  In November 1985, the left-wing magazine The Nation began a series of articles by journalists Roberta Gratz and Eric Fettmann attacking Iacocca and his fundraising campaign. The first article, “The Selling of Miss Liberty,” was accompanied by a cover featuring a cartoon of Iacocca dressed as the Statue of Liberty, smoking a cigar and holding a money bag in place of the usual torch. Gratz and Fettmann argued that the fundraising effort was trashing an American icon. “What follows is the story of a corporate takeover of a national shrine at a time when corporate raids are an everyday occurrence,” Gratz and Fettmann wrote.

  Despite the criticisms, fundraising continued at a record pace, culminating in the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty on the night of July 3, 1986. The event was a huge spectacle. While Iacocca’s efforts had made the night a reality, television producer David Wolper was in charge of the entertainment. The producer of Roots put together a star-studded lineup for the weekend that included Frank Sinatra, Helen Hayes, Neil Diamond, Gregory Peck, and José Feliciano. There were song-and-dance numbers as well as historical films, fireworks, tall ships in the harbor, and the release of balloons and doves. Chief Justice Warren Burger swore in 2,000 new citizens—including Mikhail Baryshnikov—at Ellis Island, while 38,000 more participated by video hookup. All 40,000 would simultaneously join in the singing of “America the Beautiful.”

  For some, it was all too much. Jacob Weisberg, in a dyspeptic anticipatory piece for The New Republic, wrote that the celebration was “likely to be remembered as the most revolting display of patriotic glitz and tacky pageantry in this country’s history.” Despite this, most Americans seemed happy with what they saw of the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty. The criticisms of Iacocca, however, did not end.

  Months before Liberty Weekend, Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel, who replaced Watt, had fired Iacocca from the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Centennial Commission. The businessman still remained as head of the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation. Some suggested that Republicans feared that the politically ambiguous Iacocca might use his celebrity as a platform to run for office as a Democrat. Others suggested that the administration was not happy with Iacocca’s plans for Ellis Island.

  Whatever one thought of the Liberty Weekend extravaganza or of Iacocca, there was still more work to do. Ellis Island was still far from being ready for its public unveiling. By March 1987, Iacocca’s foundation had raised over $300 million from private sources. By 1991, the figure would reach $350 million.

  If the public seemed to be more captivated by the Statue of Liberty, Iacocca made it clear that the driving force behind his work was Ellis Island. For him, the statue was “a beautiful symbol of what it means to be free,” but Ellis Island was the “reality.” If you want to prosper, Iacocca wrote, “there’s a price to pay. . . . Apply yourself. . . . It isn’t easy, but if you keep your nose to the grindstone and work at it, it’s amazing how in a free society you can become as great as you want to be.” For Iacocca, Ellis Island had become a symbol of immigrant success and American greatness.

  His father, Nicola Iacocca, had come to America in 1902 at the age of twelve and eventually ended up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Nineteen years later, Nicola returned to Italy to bring back a wife. When the newlywed couple arrived at Ellis Island, according to Iacocca family lore, the bride was sick with typhus fever and had lost her hair. When inspectors tried to hold her for further examination, Nicola, an “aggressive, fast-talking operator,” convinced them she was just suffering from seasickness. It worked and the couple was allowed to land. It is not a terribly plausible story—especially considering the fear that typhus fever had caused in the past—but one that Iacocca often repeated.

  Because Ellis Island had great meaning in the Iacocca household, Lee saw his fundraising work as a “labor of love for my mother and father.” For him, the Great Hall took on near-religious significance. It was “a cathedral, a churchlike setting, a place to pray. It brings tears to your eyes.” Iacocca wrote in his autobiography that Ellis Island
“was part of my being, not the place itself, but what it stood for and how tough an experience it was.”

  “Hard work, the dignity of labor, the fight for what’s right—these are the things the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island stand for,” Iacocca argued. Although the Iacocca family’s experience at Ellis Island was one of potential pitfalls and tragedy averted, it had now become a symbol of pride and success for the descendants of immigrants who passed through there. For Iacocca and many others with similar backgrounds, Ellis Island was increasingly entwined with their vision of the American Dream.

  To others, that vision had distinct political and ideological implications. Some historians did not want the museum’s theme to be about the old melting pot, but rather about cultural pluralism. Gratz and Fettmann, who criticized the fundraising for the Statue of Liberty, also took on the restoration of Ellis Island. “Should Ellis . . . portray the history of the great immigration wave, warts and all, or will it become . . . ‘an ethnic Disneyland’?” The authors worried that its history might be “prettified” and wondered how “historical appropriateness” would be balanced with “commercial hucksterism.” Deeply suspicious of the private sector, Gratz and Fettmann could only see the “logoization” of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. “As often happens when private control is substituted for public accountability, the unifying power of the public good is diminished,” they wrote. “A great opportunity was lost to place our common heritage above private gain.”

  A historian made a similar point, worrying that the new museum would reflect corporate values and become nothing more than “a Disney-like ‘Immigrant Land’—with smiling native-garbed workers selling Coca-Cola to strains of ‘It’s a Small World After All.’ ” Even worse, the museum might actually end up glorifying Ellis Island immigrants in a kind of “ethnic populism.”