90 Ellis Island Throughout much of its history, corruption was one of Ellis Island’s biggest problems In 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt fired several high-ranking officials including the commissioner of immigration and the head of the Bureau of Immigration Investigation found frequent instances of immigrants being pressured into bribing inspectors, with many being detained if the immigrants questioned the need for the bribe or did not (or were not able to) produce the money Attractive young women, having survived the passage in steerage, were forced to grant sexual favors to inspectors to guarantee admittance to the country Inspectors sold items such as lunches and railroad tickets at exhorbitant prices, forcing the new immigrants to pay, with the officials and inspectors taking the additional revenue for themselves Workers frequently lied about the exchange rate, pocketing the extra money, while other inspectors sold fake immigration citizenship certificates, giving a cut of the proceeds to ship officers To Roosevelt’s mind such corruption could not stand and needed to be stopped Roosevelt appointed William Williams, a New York lawyer, as commissioner in April 1902 Williams created an environment in which the immigrants were treated with respect, consideration, and kindness Signs were posted throughout the island promoting kindness and respect and serving as a constant reminder to workers on how to conduct themselves Williams’s duty was to undo the damage caused by corruption Many European immigrants came to the United States during World War I, but passage was eventually prohibited Many immigrants stayed on Ellis Island because they could not be sent back to their home countries, and the island served as a confinement center for 1,500 German sailors and 2,200 secret agents and foreigners Travel by ship was hazardous because of the frequency of submarine attacks, and many European nations shut down their borders Additionally, the navy took over the island’s large hospital during the war in order to care for injured naval soldiers and sailors As a result, from 1918 to 1919 many immigrants and suspected subversives were taken off the island and sent elsewhere During the Red Scare immigrants suspected of involvement with radical organizations or under suspicion of fomenting revolution were deported from Ellis Island Such views were enhanced by the sabotage inflicted on Ellis Island on July 30, 1916 The Black Tom Wharf on the New Jersey shore was located about 300 yards from Ellis Island Here there was a railroad yard and a place for barges to load cargo On July 30 several railroad cars and as many as 14 barges were loaded with dynamite, ready to have their cargoes transferred to waiting freighters The cargoes exploded early that morning, causing extensive damage to Ellis Island and creating a blast that was felt as far away as Pennsylvania The damage to Ellis Island was estimated at $400,000—broken windows, jammed doors, and demolished roofs During the chaos 125 workers transferred nearly 500 immigrants to the eastern part of the island and ferried them over to the Manhattan Barge Office Ellis Island reopened in 1920 Throughout the history of Ellis Island, laws and regulations were enacted to decrease the number of immigrants entering the United states For instance, the Immigration Restriction League and other similar organizations created the Exclusion Act of 1882, prohibiting Chinese immigration for 10 years This act continued to be reassessed and passed until 1943 In 1917 the Alien Contract Labor Law came into effect, further reducing immigration, while mandatory literacy tests in the same year allowed for the exclusion of more and more potential immigrants While these acts did limit the number of new people entering the United States, more than half a million passed through Ellis Island in 1921 alone In 1924 quota laws and the National Origins Act were passed through Congress; these laws allowed for limited numbers of specific ethnic groups to be given entry into the country as determined by the 1890 and 1910 censuses Some 33 different classes of immigrants to be denied entrance were named in the legislation In effect, the laws differentiated between northern European settlers and what were at the time immigrants from predominantly southern and eastern European countries Adding an additional layer of bureaucracy for potential immigrants, following World War I it became necessary to apply for visas in one’s home country before being allowed to enter the United States This increased the complexity of the immigration process, as it required a great deal of paperwork and medical inspection before arrival to the United States Following 1924 Ellis Island stayed in use, but as more of a quarantine and detention center than a center for the processing of immigrants Those who stayed on Ellis Island tended to be those with complications in their medical records or those who had been displaced Immigrants in general entered the United States through other locations Proposals were made as early as 1924 to close down the island, but this did not occur until 1954 Before that, Ellis Island was used as a place to confine enemy foreign nationals during World War II In 1986 the island underwent a significant restoration