In résumé I have hastened to make known to your excellency by this means
the following:
For about three months the Royal embassy has been learning from the
verbal accounts of numerous laborers coming from the South that they
themselves have been and many others now in the employ of the said
company are the victims of abuses and maltreatments of every kind. Being
impressed by the concordance and by the details of the declarations made
by these laborers, it caused investigations to be made on the spot by
three different bureaus. The result of these investigations fully
substantiates the complaints. There is a large construction company
which, having procured, through recruiters who are mostly unscrupulous,
hundreds of laborers in New York and elsewhere, assigns them to the
various fields of labor; deprives them of their liberty either by unjust
systems of payment of wages or by direct coercive measures; allows its
agents to become, through methods and treatments which are certainly not
commendable, the excessively rigorous enforcers of their rules; and
permits the laborers to be subjected to abuses of every kind.
On the one hand, dissatisfaction calls forth protests from the oppressed
laborers who wish to quit the place and demand payment for work
performed, and, on the other, the company, through its agents, refuses
this request in its determination to safeguard its own interests by
every means, even though it be contrary to law. A condition is created
which is likely to bring about occurrences of serious consequences. A
misunderstanding, a mistake or an error of any kind may furnish the
motive. This explains why there occurred on May 14 last at Marion, Va.,
a bloody row in which, according to the account of the Italian consular
agent who investigated the matter, among a group of 60 peaceful Italian
citizens 2 were killed and 5 seriously wounded, while 9 more who were
unhurt were put in jail, but being afterwards found innocent, were
discharged. Mr. Alfred T. Holton, United States district attorney, who
proceeded thither at the same time as the Italian official, instituted a
thorough investigation regarding the tragic event and the facts leading
thereto on his own account and in the interests of justice. He gives
assurance that he will report on the matter to the Attorney-General at
Washington. Meanwhile the abnormal and dangerous situation continues
within the sphere of influence of the Spruce Pine Company.
Recognizing the gravity of the bad state of affairs thus ascertained, as
well as the serious aspect of the consequences which have occurred
[Page 920]
or may occur, and the
necessity of applying a prompt remedy and averting the worst that
threatens, I have deemed it proper to enter into details in my
memorandum. I take the liberty of calling your excellency’s special
attention to the contents of the document in order that the Federal
Government may be informed of the state of affairs at least at the
beginning.
If, as it appears, an official of the American Department of Justice has
proceeded to inform himself of the occurrences and taken the first steps
toward a preparation of the case for trial, and if (provided he has not
already done so) he intends to inform the superior authorities so that
he may be given the proper orders, there is no doubt but that every
point of the question will be made clear, and that the guilty ones or
those responsible, wherever or whoever they may be, will be tried and
punished in accordance with the law. If this should not prove to be the
case, I trust that the Federal Government, with that spirit of
righteousness and equanimity which dictates all its acts will cause
measures to be taken commensurate with the case for the purpose above
mentioned. In either case it is my earnest hope that the action of the
magistrate may be of a general character, and that the apparently casual
causes of the lamentable incident of May 14 be investigated to their
real sources, and that the responsibility be determined and the
violators of the law in regard to the relations between the company and
the laborers be punished; and consequently that, with the assistance of
the State authorities, the most effective remedies be devised of having
the supremacy of right fully and surely reestablished there where it
seems to be at present ignored and disregarded.
Meantime I express to your excellency my sincere thanks in advance for
whatever may be done in the above-indicated sense, and I take pleasure
in availing myself of the opportunity of renewing, etc.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]
memorandum.
From the middle of the month of March, and for several weeks, there
appeared at the consulate attached to this embassy, in groups of
three, five, eight, etc., Italian laborer refugees from North
Carolina claiming the assistance and protection of the Italian
authorities. As shown from the numerous affidavits which I took care
to have made out in support of their statments, they agreed in
declaring that they had been at different times enlisted in New York
by well-known employment agents on account of the Spruce Pine
Carolina Company. Being then sent to their destination, they soon
found that they had (in most cases) been deceived regarding the
locality (which was much farther than indicated), regarding the kind
of work (which was harder than announced), regarding the price for
the journey, which was charged against them (being higher than had
been declared to them), and being sent to the various regions to
perform their work, they became discontented at these abuses and
were subjected to ill treatment of every kind, being badly fed and
at high prices, being lodged in unhealthy dwellings, being obliged
to work constantly and by compulsion twelve hours a day, being bound
down to the place owing to the system of payments at long intervals,
and, if they decided to leave, sacrificing all that was due them,
being threatened with retaliation, which actually occurred when,
having fled, they were arrested by armed guards of the company and
forced to return to work. In short, they were deprived of their
liberty and reduced to a state of peonage. The condition in which
they appeared was the most pitiful, their bodies being broken down
by the hardships of the long journey made in
[Page 921]
great part on foot and by lack of food, and
they being stripped of their goods and demoralized.
At first caution was had in giving credence to such reports, but the
details being carefully confirmed the embassy could not help being
impressed by the gravity of the facts stated to it, and having taken
due measures to afford the unfortunates adequate material assistance
it deemed proper, through the offices under it, to institute
inquiries and order them at the same time to take measures to
prevent the repetition of the abuses on the part of the dishonest
recruiters and to devise the most effective means of putting an end
to the lamentable state of things at the place of occupation, for if
about 200 laborers, sacrificing their goods, had succeeded in
escaping by flight 1,500 more of them still remained in the service
of the Spruce Pine Carolina Company.
It was thus that, at the instance of the proper Italian office, grave
complaints were made to the commissioner of licenses of New York,
who, in turn, did not fail to adopt the measures demanded by the
case, which were of course restricted in their effectiveness by the
limits of the means at his disposal, which are inadequate to furnish
the remedy which the circumstances require. And in the same manner
three different investigations were begun at the place where the
railroad construction company carries on its operations through the
Italian consulate general at New York, through the labor information
office for Italians of the same city, which is an American
protective institution, and finally through the Italian consular
agent at Charleston, S. C.
The reports, drawn up by three different persons, and on
investigations conducted without limitation as to place, throughout
the sphere of influence of the Carolina company, agree in confirming
with a wealth of details systematically set forth the serious
denunciations made for the last three months to the royal embassy
and the consular authorities subordinate thereto. If the length of
these reports did not forbid, it would be well to reproduce them in
full in order to show still better the enormity of the abuses which
are committed in defiance of the laws of liberty of the great
American nation and in violation of human rights. A few extracts
will serve to give an idea of the result of the inquiries, it being
left to the proper ones to judge their scope and consequences and to
devise the most appropriate means of putting an end to such an
abnormal state of affairs.
After stating that the Carolina Company is engaged in extending the
tracks of the South and Western Railway Company S. S. to northwest
within the radius of three sections known as the spruce pine section
(camps 1–7) in North Carolina, the Marion section, (camps 8–9) near
Marion, Va., and the Clinch Port section (camps 1–9) in Virginia, it
is proper to note that ever since April 17 last the Italian consular
agent at Charleston had been addressing letters to the governor of
North Carolina, to the United States district attorney, and to the
director of the company, denouncing to them the abuses of which the
Italian laborers were the victims and demanding prompt action in
order to put a stop to it. In the report addressed to the Royal
Embassy the principal points of those communications were repeated,
and they may be summed up in the following lines:
“The treatment all these Italians received was practically that of
slaves. They were, as I have said, guarded day and night by armed
guards, and not allowed to leave the premises. They were compelled
to do underground work when they had contracted to work above
ground, leveling ground. When they refused to do this work, which
under the contract they could not be compelled to do, they were
whipped and suffered other abuses.”
“They were compelled to buy all their supplies at the companies’
stores at rates higher than those they could obtain elsewhere in the
neighborhood, and which were so high that they took all the earnings
of the laborers. In this way the company got their work and then got
back all the wages paid these people.”
“The letters from their families were withheld at the pleasure of the
employing company.”
“They were unable, on account of the guards, to seek any vindication
of their rights or to withdraw when the employing company broke its
contracts. The four men making the complaint had to escape secretly
and were compelled to leave all their belongings behind them.”
On his part the agent of the labor information office for Italians,
having proceeded to the spot during the first days of last May,
carefully visited many labor camps in which Italian laborers are
employed, and ascertained that there
[Page 922]
did in fact exist there abuses and
objectionable conditions, some of a general and permanent nature and
others accidental and temporary.
In reference to the former the report says:
“Unjust is the system adopted by the company for the payment of
salaries, which are paid at the end of the month on a certain day.
It thus happens that a workman who desires to quit the work at the
middle of the month is compelled to wait fifteen days before being
paid for his work. Some are thus prevented from moving about with
freedom and according to their interests and aspirations. Others are
obliged to sue, through the consul or lawyers, for the payment of
their wages when they have quit work before pay day. Others,
finally, resign themselves to the loss of the product of their toil.
Some consular agents have affirmed that the sums thus given up and
forfeited by the Italian laborers amount annually to a considerable
sum.”
“Deplorable is the absence of honest, conscientious, and intelligent
persons to serve as interpreters in the labor camps between the
workmen and the company. Thence arise many misunderstandings and
errors, which generally give rise to ill humor, diffidence, ill
treatment, and the flight of laborers as well as the diffusion of
alarming reports and complaints to the Italian authorities.”
“Worthy of censure is the circumstance that many workmen are subject
to a tax in order to insure themselves compulsorily against
accidents during work, but when an accident occurs it is very rare
that the person receives the insurance premium, either because the
receipt for his premium has been lost or owing to the ignorance of
the laborer who sells the receipt for a few cents.”
Among the numerous abuses and objectionable conditions which are
accidental and temporary the agent of the above-mentioned American
protective institution noted “the fact that in some labor camps
brutal and wicked bosses often indulge in ill treatment and violence
toward the workmen, thus causing them to complain to the
authorities.”
Still more impressive is the report of the person charged with
inquiry (made in May) by the Italian consulate-general in New York.
The author is an American citizen, a well-known lawyer in that
metropolis, and a learned publicist who knows by experience the
problems connected with immigration in this country. His report is
very sober and has the merit of bringing out clearly the defects
ascertained, the recital thereof being accompanied by logical
reasoning showing the causes and the consequences.
After having hastily enumerated the objectionable features connected
with the insufficiency of the quarters assigned for the lodgings of
the workmen, the not always good quality of the food furnished at-a
high price by the company or by persons authorized by it to sell it,
the deceptions imposed on the immigrants by the unscrupulous
recruiters, etc., he presents and sifts his remarks as follows:
“Far more important, because affecting not only the complainants, but
many laborers brought to work in the South, are the complaints
regarding certain systems pursued by the company in getting and
keeping its men.
“These may be divided into three main heads—
“First. The false or fraudulent promises or statements made by
laborer agents to laborers to induce them to go to the said
camps.
“The agents involved are (———).
“In employment contracts like this to be carried on in distant and
isolated places, companies, in their own interest, should insist
that their agents be very specific and exact, even though the law
may not require it. For the misrepresentation or the silence of the
agents in this regard the company may not be liable, although it is
morally responsible. But if the company will continue to employ such
agents after their methods have been shown it will cease to be
entitled to the present opinion that it did not counsel such
deception.
“On one item of information furnished the laborers by agents the
company ought to make good. The employment contract issued by the
agents to the laborer states that ‘transportation is $9 advanced.’
As a matter of fact the transportation charged by the company is
$13, and only if men remain three months is the transportation
charged reduced to $9. In the fifty-odd cases represented by me in
the collection of wages the company deducted $13, although advised
that the written contract furnished the men by the company’s agent
stated the amount would be $9.
“I think, therefore, that the company, as an evidence of its good
intentions to right things, should either pay the difference between
$13 and $9 and deduct it from whatever it owes the agent or compel
the agent to refund it to the men.
[Page 923]
“Second. A general class of complaints is the system in force at the
paymaster’s office. This, briefly, is that wages earned in any given
month are paid on the first Friday or Saturday after the 20th of the
month following. Thus, if a man begins working on May 25 he will
receive nothing until after June 29, and then only the amount due
for six days’ work in May.
“This system is, I believe, in force in most ‘camps’ in the South.
The officers of the Carolina company say that such a system is
necessary on account of the many men employed and their being
scattered in different places. I fail to see the necessity of such a
system. I belive, instead, the real reason of its use is as a means
of holding the men, for no matter how responsible an employer is no
employee likes to leave without getting all the money that is due
him. But there is what may be called an ‘ugly’ side of the system.
It extends the time during which the laborer is technically in debt
to the company for trans-portatoin and maintenance. In the example
given above the company owes the man on June 20 (if he works at
$1.50 a day) six days for May, or $9. But he owes the company a sum
much in excess of this for transportation, shanty, doctor, and
supplies, although he has worked twenty days additional in June. The
‘ugly’ side to this is that while there is such a ‘debt’ the laborer
may be arrested under the ‘boarding-house act’ if he attempts to
leave. And here we find the first evidence of that unexpressed but
generally present tendency to forced labor, which I fear is common
in southern camps, and which is the third general complaint.
“Third. It is constantly said that the South needs men for its farms.
I think it needs them still more urgently for its construction work,
for developing its timber and coal lands. The tremendous efforts to
get men and the evident lack of the supply speak for themselves.
With a constant market for the laborers in the North, the South can
only get the ‘second best,’ and by paying the transportation of the
men. By advancing the transportation instead of paying it, it opens
wide the door for abuse.
“When a company advances $10 apiece to transport 100 men from New
York to North Carolina, it has invested $1,000. It is just and
reasonable that it should endeavor to protect such investment. It is
natural that the company should dislike (to use a phrase in vogue
with the officers of the company) to see $1,000 walk out of the
camp. But so impressed is the company with the necessity of
protecting its investment that it overlooks the fact that it can not
prevent the violation of a civil contract by enforcing it through
its unlawful act. If I am hired to go to work and my transportation
is paid me, and when I reach the camp I quit, I am civilly liable
for the breach of my contract, but I am nevertheless a free man. And
if in the exercise of that right of personal liberty I am in any way
restrained, then whoever restrains me commits a crime. It matters
not whether that restraint is by physical force, or by the threat of
the use of the physical force, or by creating in me the fear of
physical force; it matters nothing whether I am threatened with a
pistol (and I believe such threats were made to laborers), or
whether I am followed by a man who stops me when I attempt to move
(and I believe such attempts were proven), or whether I am put in a
shanty with a guard outside (and this has been admitted), or whether
I am given the choice of going back or being arrested; in any case
my right to freedom is invaded.
“I find upon all the evidence (including what officers and employees
of the corporation have admitted) that the Carolina company did
prevent divers Italian laborers from exercising their clear right of
personal liberty by some or all of the above methods, and I charge
that in such cases it did it without even the color of law, there
having been no warrant of arrest issued. While the Carolina company
might invoke the aid of the law to keep some of the men under the
guise of a debt contract, under the boarding-house act there is no
provision of the law granting the right of arrest for failure to pay
railroad transportation advanced. Hence, where the company attempted
to hold men on arrival when they wished to go and before they had
become indebted for board, the violation of the law was especially
serious.
“It will be said by the company that these laborers try to ‘beat’ the
company out of its transportation, and they have no sense of
contractual responsibility. The answer to this is that if the object
of the men who run away was to get free passage and to go to work
elsewhere in the neighborhood, 90 per cent of them would not, at
their own expense, have returned immediately to New York, and some
of them have undergone the hardship of walking a long part of the
distance. Nor need much be said on the point of contractual
responsibility
[Page 924]
in view of
the fact that evidence produced before the commissioner of licenses
at New York against the labor agent who sent the men to the company
shows clearly that they were deceived in at least one important
particular.
“We can well understand the position of the company and its desire
not to lose money, and we certainly must regret any loss it may
sustain, but you, sir, or any officer charged with the duty of
enforcing the law or seeing to it that it is enforced, can not allow
that any ‘business necessity’ or ‘business expediency’ justifies the
violation of a personal right. If the protection of an investment of
a thousand dollars advanced for transportation justifies false
imprisonment, where shall we draw the line between right and wrong,
law and lawlessness, in the presence of ‘business necessity?’
“The depositions of the laborers are, therefore, fully confirmed and
are in unison with the results of the three investigations, the
agreement of which also precludes the possibility of the facts
related being exaggerated. Under such conditions, so favorable to
discontentment, disagreements, protests, and repressions, it was no
wonder that unpleasant occurrences should take place. In reality the
fear was fully justified by an incident at once serious and
deplorable, and which it becomes opportune to set forth, both for
the purpose of still better depicting the situation and in order
that serious measures may be adopted in order to prevent a
repetition of similar events.
Being urged by the insistent complaints made to him by the Italian
laborers employed by the Spruce Pine Carolina Company, and having
learned of a shocking occurrence of bloodshed which took place at
Marion, Va., in which some of his countrymen had lost their lives
and others had been seriously wounded, and being authorized by his
superior Italian authority, the Italian consular agent at
Charleston, S. C., repaired about the first of the present month to
the spot mentioned, and having met by previous agreement Mr. Alfred
T. Holton, United States district attorney, he began an
investigation, of which he gave a detailed report to the Royal
embassy. In short, this Italian official, after having ascertained
that almost all of the officiate of McDowell County are employed by
the Carolina company, in whose interest they naturally act, reported
that on May 34 last a group of Italian laborers in the employ of the
company, numbering about 60, being tired and demoralized by the
abuses of the company’s agents, and also because they had been
without bread for a week, decided to quit work and in a proper
manner and by gestures asked to be paid (for they did not speak
English). A certain Mr. Cross, the walking boss to whom they
addressed their demand, becoming irritated, replied that he had
asked instructions by telephone of the central office of the Spruce
Pine Company, and would inform them accordingly. Shortly afterwards
he assured them that about 7 o’clock in the evening he would go
personally to their shanties and pay them all. Having thus reassured
the Italians, Cross went to a deputy sheriff (who also appears to
have been employed by the company) and told him that about 60 of
these laborers had asked for their wages, and, with one Vincenzo
Martone at the head, had given him to understand by signs and
threats that if they were not paid by evening of that same day they
would certainly kill him, and that the central office of the Spruce
Pine Company had instructed him that no laborer should be paid his
money before June 20.
Mr. Cross, because of the risk he was running (in his own
imagination), requested the deputy sheriff to gather a sufficient
number of citizens (most being in the employ of the company), all
armed with rifles and revolvers, and at the head of them he appeared
about 7 o’clock at the shanties where the peaceful laborers were
engaged in cooking something to eat. Having walked up to the place
with revolver in hand, he called “Jim” (Giuseppe Marzone) by name,
took hold of him by the arm and threatened to fire, when the
assaulted man succeeded in wresting himself away and in fleeing. At
that same moment the group of persons who had accompanied Mr. Cross,
among them being the deputy sheriff, fired a volley of shots at the
unfortunate laborers, who were guilty only of having demanded their
pay and expressed their desire to go elsewhere. Meanwhile, Giuseppe
Testa, 49 years of age, fell dead, and 4 or 5 others were wounded,
one dying two days afterwards, while a third is still in a serious
condition. Nine of the unhurt, having sought refuge in the woods,
were arrested, put in jail, and charged by the justice of the peace
(also employed by the company) with “assault, battery, and
conspiracy.” Both the United States district attorney and the
Italian consular agent learned of various irregularities in the
procedure against these prisoners, against whom no valid proof could
be adduced to justify the charge and the proceedings begun. The fact
is that, upon the formal demand
[Page 925]
of these two officials and on the formal
declaration of the arrested men that the signs made by some of them
to Cross were not threats of death, but made merely to explain their
pitiful situation of being unable to either obtain food or
recuperate themselves without their pay, the order to release them
from jail was issued and soon carried out.
This is the essential part of the report of the Italian consular
agent, who terminates it by informing the Royal embassy that the
district attorney has assured him that he will make a detailed
report on all he has learned to his excellency the Attorney-General
at Washington, in order that, according to the orders and
instructions which he shall receive from the latter, he may fulfill
his duty of proceeding rigorously against the persons guilty of the
abuses complained of and of the bloodshed which occurred.
Finally, this very day, two Italian laborers who were witnesses of
the deplorable event of May 14 last appeared at the royal consulate
in Washington. They also confirmed the particulars noted, making
appropriate depositions, in which are repeated the complaints of ill
treatment of which the laborers employed by the Spruce Pine Carolina
Company are victims, both regarding individual freedom and the
absolutely inequitable systems of payment employed.
The situation within the sphere of influence of the Spruce Pine
Carolina Company still remains unchanged, and there is reason to
fear that unless energetic measures are adopted by the authorities
in order to restore there the supremacy of the law and the guaranty
of personal rights, not to speak of the condition in which these
unfortunate laborers ought not to be left, more painful incidents
will inevitably occur.
Washington, D.C.. June 18, 1906.
