Saturday, June 5, 2010

Saturday, June 5, 1920

We have another fine day, but the wind is very strong. We have been out one week to-day. I wonder if the men, who one time watched a tree-top drift down the river and caught a fore-gleam of an ocean steamer, if in his wildest flights of imagination, ever even dreamed what a great ocean palace of to-day would be like!

I was through a part of the steerage quarters the other day, on my way to the hospital to assist in preparations for Mrs. McKay’s funeral and I was not pleased with living conditions. Surely things could be put in a more sanitary condition and the passengers themselves could help keep it so. I talked with a Belgian and his wife who live in New York and are returning from a visit home. They had made the trip repeatedly and he had come over as a steerage passenger once and he gave me some interesting points. My sympathies are with the foreign born neighbors who are leaving war-torn, blood-swept Europe and coming to our shore. May America indeed prove to be the “Promised Land” of their hopes and dreams.

No comments:

Post a Comment