The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-31
TO RESUME SEWER work.
savannah Labor VIII BE Employed
If 1t Can BE Had.

The house drainage work will be resum-
ed this morning and with Savannah labor.
Contractor Delaney received a telegram
yesterday from Mr.. E. c. Harmon, who
had gone to Montgomery for the purpose,
stating that he had a large force of la
borers and masons ready to leave for Sa-
vannah Sunday.
Mr.. Delaney would probaly have wired
Mr.. Harmon to bring his force to Savan-
nah, but he showed the telegram to his
friends Mr.. James Mcclure, who advised
against il, and assured him that there was
plenty of Savannah labor ready and will
ing to work at 81 per day.
Mr.. Mcguire agreed TO have a force on
hand to begin work this morning, the
force to be increased during the day
Mr.. Delaney accepted this offer and
work will be resumed on the sewer with
Savannah labor.
az am ready and anxious to push the
work. said Mr.. Delaney to a Morning
News reporter yesterday. 81 believe there
is plenty of labor in Savannah willing to
work, and that We should have no trouble
in getting all the men We need for the
work here OF course if we cannot get
them here we will have to bring them from
elsewhere. The report about monthly pay
days is wrong. The men will be paid by
where they please. As TO those who doubt
my financial ability, / will simply refer
them to the Germania Bank, where l have
money TO my credit. | have not had 10
borrow a dollar in Savannah yet. Doubt
less l shall have to do so ~ the course OF
the work, but 1 have not yet done so. We
are simply waiting on council TO give US
the river outlet, and then the work Will
be pushed right along"
The drainage committee and the engi-
neers in charge of the work will probably
arrange the matter of the river outlet to-
day.
This obstacle to the work will be re-
moved.
Mayor Meldrim was asked yes
terday if ii were true that he
had notified the contractors not to
import men here from Montgomery or else
where. He said that such was not the
case. He had not been approached in 70
| gard to the matter.
The whole matter of house drainage
is in the hands of the supervising engi-
! neers," said Mayor Meldrim. I'VE have
one Of the best firms of engineers in the
country engaged for this purpose and we
can safely eprust the matter to their
hands. Should they report to council that
there is unnecessary delay in the prose-
| cution of the work council would take
action in the premises, but not otherwise.
This matter is left exclusively to the en-
gineers."
The troubles of the house drainage con-
tractors in Savannah recalls the fact that
the drainage contractors in Brunswick had
similar troubles with their labor in prose
cutting the work there. The troubles were
so repeated that the contractors claimed
that they were unable to do anything with
the Brunswick labor, and as result about
200 Italians were imported from New York
and put on the work remaining until its
conclusion.
The Italian laborers were housed and
fed like cattle and created a very unfav-
orable impression in Brunswick The
treasury department made the matter a
subject of special investigation. The of
ficials of the department appeared TO be
under the impression that the contractors
had brought on the repeated strikes in
order to have an excuse to import the
Italian labor, which could be controlled
by the padrone system. and were entirely
under the control of the contractors
through the padrones
1t was supposed that the treasury de-
partment wanted the information for the
purpose of showing the need of more re-
strictive laws in the matter of immigra-
ton.