National Affairs: The Open Road

“Big Jim” Larkin, Irish labor agitator, who was pardoned from Sing ‘Sing by Governor Al Smith of New York after having served more than two years of a ten year sentence for criminal anarchy, was deported to Ireland.

He sailed as a steerage passenger on the White Star liner Majestic, disillusioned but cheerful. At Ellis Island one of the attendants jokingly inquired for his baggage. “Everything I own is on my back,” said Larkin. “I’m like the man in Whitman’s poem: ‘Free and light-hearted I take to the open road!'”