Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1888-08-21
FREE LABOR.

Committee on Immigration.
New YORK, August 2O.-Collector Ma.
gone was the first witness examined to-
day before the Congressional Committee on
Immigrant Abuses.
Witness says he never uses authority in
prohibiting undesirable persons from land
ing unless the Emigration Commissioners
call his attention to the matter. He cited
and read sections of the amendatory law
to support his action.
While Mr.. Magone was testifying, Gen
eral Master Workman T. V. Powderly, of
the Knights Of Labor, entered the room
and took a seat.
Witness had report some two months
ago that some stone cutters had arrived
under contract. He notified the Emigra-
tion Board and received reply that the
stone cutters had not come under contract.
Witness claimed that the responsibility of
allowing immigrants to land rested entire
ly with the Emigration Commissioners
He thought the enforcement of the law
should be left solely to the Federal author
titles. Witness had investigated Captain
Bells stories about false naturalization
and found them false.
General Master Powderly was next sworn.
He said that the order was in flourishing
condition, and numbers about 600, 600 mem
bers in the United States. He said it ex-
cludes from its ranks bankers, lawyers,
rumsellers, loafers and professional politi-
clans. A professional politician, he said,
was man who WAS 10 be seen on election
day with hand stretched out for Doodle.
On the subject of imported contract labor,
Mr.. Powderly said the system was most
reprehensible one. Those foreigners who
come here under such conditions are grossly
immoral, and the influence which ordinary
foreigners meet in this country never reach
these competitors with honest labor. They
are brought here under promises of lands
and great prosperity, which they never
realize.
Describing the condition Of workers in
the Pennsylvania mines, Mr.. POwderly said
it was scarcely describable. In the coal re,
gions the native miners have been driven
out of their employment by Hungarians and
other cheap foreign workingmen, who live in
q filthy state.
The Hungarians, witness said, live on
pork and water and sleep like hogs in a
pen. In opposing the theory advanced by
the circular recently issued by Henry
Clews & Co., he held that the present labor
evil was caused by the ARRIVAL of large ship
loads Of foreigners, Mr.. POwderly here
grew eloquent. He said: '1 do not con.
slider q man can eyer become good citizen
who travels over the Pennsylvania Rail
road with brass tag hung
to the band of his trousers. These people
never learn the English language. They
bring their filthy customs with them, and
observe them while they stay among rs.
They never learn to read the Constitution
OF the United States, aud in my opinion no
man should be allowed the right Of fran
chise until he first learns TO read the Con-
stitutiou. They will take starvation wages
and live on the vilest food. If they run
short of food they will starve."
In speaking of the case Of the Rev. Mr..
Warren, the preacher who, it is charged,
came here under contract, Mr.. Powderly
said that the proceedings taken in that
case were solely for the purpose of making
the law odious. When Mr.. Powderly's
father landed here he had shilling in his
pocket.
Violations and evasions of the law, he
said, should not be punished by fine, but
imprisonment Mr.. Oats asked the wit
ness to inform the committee of cases of the
importation of contract labor which came
within his knowledge, and he instanced
the Barbour Flax Mills as place where it
was in practice.
In reply TO question from General
Spinola, Mr.. Powderly said that trusts in
this country are q menace to the welfare
Of the public generally and are organised
in the interest of the few to control the
output, limit the production and smother
small aggregstions Of capital in the same
business or crush him ont entirely. He
had personal knowledge Of coal trusts and