The average hourly rates of wages in 1905 for laborers in industries other than those shown in the above table were as follows for all the

In

In the slaughtering and meat-packing industry, principally at Chicago, the Bureau of Labor reported the rates of wages of 10,664 common laborers employed in addition to 14 skilled occupations. A large proportion of the laborers were of the Slavic races. 1905 the average rate of wages paid was 16.87 cents per hour, which was more than half a cent less per hour than in 1904, and 4.7 per cent higher than the average paid for the ten years from 1890 to 1899.

In 1905 the railroads of the United States employed 311,185 track laborers. The highest average rate in 1905 was $1.50 per day in the New England States, and the lowest average rate was $1.02 per day in the Southern States. The numbers and rates for the year 1905 were as follows:

AVERAGE RATES OF WAGES OF RAILROAD TRACK LABORERS, 1905.

In New York, Pennsylvania, and other Northern States the rates have been increased since those given above.

New York City contractors, engaged in surface and building excavation, tunnel building, and deep foundation work, report the wages they paid Italian and other laborers in 1906, as follows:

WAGES PAID ITALIAN AND OTHER LABORERS ENGAGED IN SURFACE AND BUILDING EXCAVATION, TUNNEL BUILDING, AND DEEP FOUNDATION WORK IN NEW YORK CITY, 1906.

per day of 9 hours.

Union scale, Italian excavators, $1.75 per day of 9 hours. Union scale, Italian rock men, $2.47 Italian and Austrian freight handlers, New York depots, $1.90 per day of 10 hours, with time and a half for overtime and Sunday work.

In another part of this article it is shown that, according to the report of the bureau of industrial statistics of Pennsylvania for 1905, more than 43 per cent of the anthracite mine workers of that State who reported their nationality were Slavs, Hungarians, and Italians. A very large number of these have stepped out of the ranks of unskilled laborers and have become miners, and, excluding Italians, about 50 per cent of the inside mine workers are Slavs.

The statisticians of the Anthracite Coal Commission, after a minute examination of the coal companies' books, showed that for 1901-2 the average earnings of contract coal miners working at tonnage or car rates were, for five of the principal companies, $2.41, $2.47, $2.48,$2.36 and $2.57 per day, respectively.

The award of the commission added 10 per cent to these earnings, and the operation of the sliding scale increased this still further for each year. The average increase for 1903, on the basis of the sliding scale, was 3 per cent, 4.3 per cent for 1904, 4 per cent for 1905, 5 per cent for 1906, and 6 per cent for the month of January, 1907.

According to the report of the bureau of industrial statistics for 1905 in the bituminous coal and coke regions of Pennsylvania the Slavs, Hungarians, and Italians are over 51 per cent of all mine workers reporting their nationality. The total number in 1905 was 153,141.

THE PADRONE COMMISSARY SYSTEM.

The act of Congress of July 4, 1864, has often been charged with being responsible for the introduction of the padrone system into the United States. It was entitled "An act to encourage immigration."

It provided among other things that immigrants while abroad might make contracts pledging the wages of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months, to repay the expenses of their immigration, which should be valid in law and might be enforced in the courts of this country; that no such immigrant should be compulsively enrolled for military service during the existing insurrection (the civil war) unless he declared his intention to become a citizen.

On account of the industrial depression beginning in 1893, the Secretary of the Treasury, on June 13, 1894, appointed an "immigration investigating commission," to inquire into the effect of the laws, and especially to investigate and report, among other things:

"Whether the padrone system exists in this country; and if so, to what extent and among what classes of immigrants, and what measures can be taken under existing laws to break it up and protect American laborers against its evil effect upon wages."

On October 7, 1895, the commission reported on "The Padrone System," saying: "The act of 1864 for the encouragement of immigration, which gave contractors, manufacturers, and employers power to contract with and import laborers from Europe to take the places of American workmen, is partially responsible for the beginnings of this system. It was only natural that during a period of practically unrestricted immigration purely commercial motives should have the fullest play and that human beings should thereby be victimized. The Italians were the first to be exploited in large numbers by the contractors."

"There is little doubt that a similar padrone system exists among Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians," was the opinion expressed by the commission, and that the subject "demands a far more thorough investigation than the commission has yet been able to make."

The statement of the immigration commission's report of 1895 has often been reprinted, namely, that the immigration act of 1864 was followed by the dispatch of agents to Italy to secure Italian cheap labor through the padrone.

The tables following give statistics of immigration for the years following the passage of the law of 1864. The first table shows that during the five years 1864 to 1868, when the law was in force permitting such contract laborers to come in, only 5,740 Italian immigrants of all ages and both sexes came into the United States in a total of 1,289,323 immigrants, averaging less than one-half of 1 per cent of the immigrants of all nationalities.

ITALIAN, SLAVIC, AND TOTAL IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES DURING THE LIFE OF THE ACT OF CONGRESS AUTHORIZING THE HIRING OF LABORERS IN EUROPE UNDER CONTRACT, 1864 TO 1868.

[Compiled from Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for the year ended June 30, 1905,

1864. 1865.

1866.

1867

1868.

Total..

page 38.]

The law was repealed in 1868, and for fourteen years after, or until 1882, there was no United States law governing immigration, and not until 1885 was there any law prohibiting contract labor. During the seventeen years following 1868 the total, the Italian, and the Slavic immigration are shown in the following table:

ITALIAN, SLAVIC, AND TOTAL IMMIGRATION, 1869 TO 1885.

[Compiled from Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for the year ended June 30, 1905, pages 38 to 40.]

This table shows that in the period when contract laborers were brought in without let or hindrance, during the twenty-two years from 1864 to 1885, in a total immigration of 7,817,168 only 175,389 Italians, or 2.2 per cent, took advantage of the inducements offered, and the Slavs constituted only 4.7 per cent of the total immigrants. The Italian padrone, boss, or middleman developed in the United States after 1885, when the Italians began coming in largely in

creased numbers. He did not follow any similar occupation in Italy, since the conditions of living, of wages, and of employment in that country were such that employment agencies of this character could not exist. He was shrewder, cleverer, and more unscrupulous than his fellows. He improved on the systems of swindling he found, creating the American padrone system, and perfecting it by establishing intimate relationship through agents, friends, and correspondence in Italy and this country with Italian laborers coming and returning.

What the padrone system was in the years preceding 1895 is told in the report of the immigration investigating commission under date of October 7, 1895. At page 26 it says:

A contractor who had a large enterprise on hand, and desired to secure labor therefor at the lowest possible price, appealed to an Italian banker. The banker, through agents in Italy, engaged the necessary number of laborers and brought them here on prepaid tickets, from each of which he received a commission. On landing, the men were taken in hand by his agent, distributed among boarding houses under his control, and charged extortionate rates for board. When the banker finally assigned them to their work, he collected a commission for so doing, both from them and the contractor. While employed they were forced to live together in shanties owned or hired by his agent, to pay exorbitant rents, and to buy all their provisions from this agent at enormous prices. All money sent home by them was transmitted through the banker, and for this service a large fee was charged in addition to the rate of exchange. When they were ready to return to Italy the banker secured another profit on the return tickets. In a word, from the time these migratory laborers were engaged in Italy till they returned thither, they were under the control of the banker and a constant source of profit to him.

The commission has knowledge that within five years padroni having from 500 to 600 people employed on sewers and waterworks deducted from their wages 10 and 15 cents a day for procuring them the employment, and practiced on them most of the impositions already noted.

Actual dishonesty on the part of the banker, though less frequent than extortion, was not uncommon. Commissions were charged for securing work when no work was secured. Men were turned away without cause, that more commissions might be collected from new men. Payment was refused for the last few days' work on a job. Fees were charged for sending to Italy money which really landed in the bankers' pockets. Only last year [1894], in fact, not less than $100,000 was actually stolen from Italian workingmen by half a dozen bankers in New York, Boston, and Newark.

The report states that "even after the passage of the contract labor law" of 1885 the importation of Italian labor continued, and that circulars were sent throughout the State of Wisconsin in 1886 by an Italian company in New York advertising gangs of men for