Justa few days agoto be specific. the Friday before Congress convenedI visited a ship in New York Harbor. It was the Providence. out of Palermo. 14 days at sea. and 3 days in the harbor. There were 1.931 steerage passengers on that vessel. The conditions were horrible. � The people were crowded. lining up for their meals. if you could say " lining up." because they were in a solid mass in a space no larger than that from the rail to the front row of seats here. It was almost impossible for anybody to get through. We went downstairs to the sleeping quarters. The room that we got into happened to be the womens sleeping quarters. but we were not intruding upon anyones privacy. because there is no privacy in the steerage of such a vessel. There might possibly have been room to. turn around in front of the doubletiered bunks if the space had not been full of squirming children almost too weak and miserable to squhil. And the stench of the whole place was enough to fairly stifle your breath.
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steerage