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The Public Is Never Wrong
distance away. There I poured my heart out again. The superintendent questioned me closely and I could see that he suspected I had done some wrong and wished to escape to America.
He checked up by writing to my boss. But Herman Blau replied that I had done no wrong and he wished me good luck. I had already told him of my ambitions.
The Orphans' Bureau did not give the money directly to me, but to my brother, who was attending the University of Berlin. I was given only a ticket to Berlin and a little money to keep in my pocket for food on the way. After my brother had bought a steamship ticket he made an exchange of the balance into United States money. There was forty dollars and a few pieces of change. We sewed the forty dollars into my vest and he warned me not to take the vest off or touch the money until I had arrived in America.
These instructions I religiously observed, and the vest was still on me when I arrived at Castle Garden, the point at which immigrants then debarked. No sooner did I put my foot on American soil than I was a newborn person. The reader will understand from my background that I am not using an empty phrase in saying that I felt the freedom in the air.
There must have been fifty or more express wagons waiting to take the immigrants to destinations. In my notebook was the address of friends of my parents. On the boat, and long before, I had been trying to learn English. But at Castle Garden no one understood what I said, and I don't blame them.