The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

46 MARCH 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL him to pass a Civil Service exam and become an interpreter at Ellis Island, while concomitantly attending law school in New York. Moving on to Fiume In the fall of 1903, when Raymond Willey, who had helped LaGuardia secure the clerkship in Budapest, resigned to return to private business in the United States, he recommended Fio- rello to replace him as consular agent in Fiume. Frank Chester secured approval from Washington; however, because LaGuar- dia was still a minor, he could not be commissioned until he turned 21. In the interim, he served as acting consular agent until February 1904, when he received a commission from Secretary of State John Hay. Fiume was then a thriving city of about 30,000 and the second-largest port, after Trieste, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Because Croatia was administratively part of the Hungarian portion of the dual monarchy, the incumbent in Fiume reported to the consul general in Budapest—in this case Chester, Fiorello’s old boss. The consular agent’s office-cum-residence consisted of two rooms, one of which was used as an office and the other as a private bedroom. The small apartment had no kitchen or bath- room; the incumbent had to use a communal bathroom down the corridor and take his cooked meals in restaurants and tavernas. The apartment, however, was conveniently located on the Corso, the city’s main street. LaGuardia received a guaranteed salary of $800 a year, more than $20,000 in today’s dollars. This was paid out of the consular fees he collected for various services; but if the collec- tions exceeded $1,000, the balance had to be turned over to the Treasury Department. LaGuardia assured Washington that he could manage well on his salary. A few months after his arrival, in June 1904, LaGuardia assisted an American citizen from Scranton, Pennsylvania. While in Croatia to visit his parents, the immigrant had been conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. LaGuardia drafted a note of protest to the highest local official, called on him, and made a demarche on behalf of the unlucky citizen. Basing his arguments on the clauses of the 1870 treaty then in force between the United States and Austria-Hungary, LaGuar- dia eventually secured the young man’s discharge from the Austro-Hungarian Army. Making his report on the affair to Budapest, he expected to be commended. Instead, Fiorello received a strongly worded reprimand for having acted without consulting his superiors and securing prior guidance and approval. In his free time in Fiume, LaGuardia studied the local political situation. In an effort to keep their multiethnic sub- jects cowed, he observed, the authorities practiced a policy of “divide and rule,” encouraging ethnic, racial, national and religious discord. Once he was even challenged to a duel after a brawl with a Hungarian Army reserve officer over a girl. Fortunately, on the day of the duel, the affair was resolved. The Consular Agent Shows Initiative One of LaGuardia’s major tasks in Fiume was dealing with ships and immigrants bound for the United States. The British Cunard Lines had just instituted a bimonthly service from Fiume to New York, catering to prospective immigrants from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The only guidance he could find in the meager references he had in the office was that he had to “certify to the health of all passengers and crews and give the ship a certificate that it had cleared from a port free from contagious diseases or illnesses subject to quarantine regulations and that bedding and other household goods had been properly fumigated.” If generally satisfied that these con- ditions had been met, he was then obligated to issue a consular certificate to that effect. LaGuardia believed that performing a medical examina- tion of each prospective immigrant before they arrived at Ellis Island would better fulfill the purpose of the quarantine regula- tions, while also saving money and effort for both the United States and the prospective immigrants, who could otherwise be found inadmissible on arrival in the United States. After obtaining authorization from the consul general in Budapest, LaGuardia selected a reputable local doctor to conduct such examinations at embarkation. When he advised Cunard Lines of the new procedures he was instituting, its officials were incensed and would not let the doctor “look at an emigrant.” However, when LaGuardia then declined to issue the sanitation certificate, they were One official reportedly labeled LaGuardia “the worst headache in the history of the [State] Department.”