The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-08-18

Henry H. Sprague, chairman of the
board, and is in the form of an inter-
view regarding the report made to the
Clinton Business Mems Association.
A section of the report, copied verba-
tim from The Spy, in which it was ex-
clusively published, was printed by a
Boston newspaper Wednesday morning.
The interview with Mr.. Sprague was
attached.
The interview represents Mr. Sprague
! as saying that if anybody has any
grievances, and will specify to the board
just what they were, the board would
try and see that they are remedied.
Mr.. Sprague said the board had in
vestigated instances where several men
had been discharged and had always
found that there was good and suffi-
Gent cause for such action.
The clipping was shown to Mr.. Tate,
who said: Chairman Sprague is such
well-known man, and occupies such
an exalted position in the common
wealth, that person of no Importance,
like myself, may well hesitate before
venturing to disagree with him And 1
would not disagree with him, if I was
not convinced that Mr.. Sprague knows,
as well as I do, how insineere this ILL
terview is.
I'm the first place, he speaks and af-
fects to believe that no grievance has
been alleged, except that laborers are
un1ustly discharged. To which he re-
plies: That the board has investigated
instances where several men have been
discharged and had always found that
there was a good and sufficient reason
for such action
THE unjust discharge of men is O
mere outcropping of the padrone sys-
tenn of employing labor, and is not the
m oil ffO,,
Sprague every opportunity to be sin
cere with himself and the people Of the
commonwealth, invite him to say If it
is not fact that contractors now en-
ployed by the board on the work in this
vicinity are procuring their help by en-
gagement with padrones, and in return
for the service giving to the padrones
the sole privilege OF boarding the men
thus employed?
IF Mr.. Sprague will begin here. he
will find that 1t follows as a matter of
course that laborers who do not fulfil
the compact between the padrone and
the contractor are discharged.
1T has never been claimed, to my
knowledge, that men are not discharged
from employment by the contractors
for just cause.
But it is carrying Goals to Newcastle
to attempt to tell the metropolitan
water board what is going on in the
Wachusett reservoir. The work swarms
with their employees.
Travel over the surface of the great
basin in any direction that you will,
every few rods there is an engineer
and every few feet an inspector, not to
mention the mounted police, who con-
stantly patrol the territory.
"A visitor may look long, however, be-
fore his eye meets the face of citizen
laborer. The work is being done by
Italian aliens who are paid $1.215A a
day, and the board is prepared in the
takes away from them an undue pro-
portion of their small earnings.
THE grievous errors of Mr.. Sprague
and his fellows are summed up in the
statement that they are tolerating, per-
hitting and maintaining the padrone
system. Everybody knows what that
is 1t has been mathematical in a
third of the states of the union.
THE legislature undertook to prevent
the introduction of the padrone and his
ignorant alien laborers into the work
on the reservoir, when it passed
measure saying that the preference in
employment shall be given to citizen
laborers.
II am an humble man and no proph-
ct, but say to Chairman Sprague that
the day is not far distant when he will
have to explain to the people of this
state why the preference in employ
ment on a great public work has been
given to alien laborers, in defiance of
the law. And he will have to explain
the organized system of extortion to
which these laborers are subjected"