The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-11-27

Times reporter when he first began hic
investigation of the refining of sugar
according to the Sugar Trust methods.
What becomes of these poor fellows
when they get old9 he asked himself.
Later on the answer came to him: Men
who work in a sugar factory, especially
of the sugar trust kind, seldom live to
grow old.
The bulk of sugar is brought from
New Orleans in bags and casks and by
sailing and steam vessels. The unload.
ing of these great bags and casks is
intrusted to a stevedore who has a con
tract with the Havemeyers and pays
his longshoremen twenty five cents
per hour when he has work for them.
The average weekly earnings of the
'longshoremen, meagre as they are,
cause them to feel themselves blessed
compared with those who labor within
the doors of the refinery. Says the
Times reporter:
81 askedone great fellow as he wiped
his brow with his rough sleeve why he
did not go to work inside, and he
looked at me and shook his head in a
manner which plainly said:
"'You do not know anything about
what work inside means or you would
not ask that question:
."Workmen in the refinery are prin-
cipally Germans and are paid 81 As per
day for the first year. Then they re-
ceive a raise of 5 or 10 cents per day.
After the man has been hired he is
assigned to one Of the different depart
ments, and he trembles lest the super
intendent shall tell him that he is ex-
pected to go to the dryroom. But if
''dryroom" is the edict, the man re-
ceives the information with that stolid-
ity characteristic of his race and thanks
his stars that he is given even such a
miserable opportunity as this to earn
enough to keep him and his family
from starving.
Perhaps you have stuck your hand
in the oven of the kitchen range just
before the cook was ready to bake
bread. If so, imagine yourself thrust
into an oven over ten times as large
and you have an idea what it means to
work in the rooms where the sugar is
dried. In some of these rooms the
men can stay for only ten minutes at
a time without falling down utterly
Frustrated. No n is rel allowed in
these rooms but workingmen. No one
else aver has the hardihood to go there
when the heat is on
You al notice from the outside that
nearly all of the windows are closed
sc that no heat will escape. Toe men
do not even have the opportunity to
rush into the open air after q ten min
utes' battle with the heat, as they can
at the iron mills. They wear nothing
but shoes and an apron, and at the few
windows which are permitted to remain
open you see them standing half naked
and with their hair and bodies as wet
as if they had plunged into the East
river. At 8 o'clock in the morning
they have their breakfast down by the
sides of the buildings, as near the river
as they can get, looking more like men
who have been in a shipwreck than
men who are ready to return to nine
hours more hard labor. During the
summer heat prostrations in the dry
ing room are so frG quent that it is diff
cult to find men enough to do the work.
Last summer the lei dropped like
dogs and weTe carried out by dozens.
At that time there was much talk in
the newspapers about the brutality
with which the men thus Frustrated
we're treated. 1t was all justified. The
dry o Is hell.
"~Prostrations at all times of the year
are almost everyday occurrence. As
many as sixty two men have been laid
out in a day. Sometimes a man is
killed, but it does not get into the news
papers unless there is some slip in the
discipline of the company. Many of
men who are Frustrated by the heat
die, but there are more to take their
places, and the fate of their predeces-
sors is not known to newcomers. Even
when men are killed and newspaper
men learn Of it they r not allowed to
enter the buildings. One enterprising
fellow nee got as far as the third story
before he was headed off There is a
guard armed with a club for every
building, and his especial business Is to
see that no n crosses the threshold
and to wer no questions strangers
may ask him"
This is the trust which is suspected
of having subsidized the United States
Senate, and to have received in return
the privilege of extorting from the
masses a tax of one cent per pound on
the product of it's r~efineries. Rich
mOnd Star.
Somebody wrote to an editor to ask
him ''how to break an OK" The editor
answered as follows: IF only one OK,
a good way would be to hoist him by
means of a log chain attached to his
tail, to the top of a pole forty feet from
the ground, then hoist him by a rope