Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-25
IN HAWAlI.
Contract Labor system Conn ended
by u Government Agent.
St. Paul Pioneer Press (repD

St. Paul Pioneer Press (rep)
Hawaii was formally annexed to the
United States July 6, 1898. For more than
a year and a half the stars and stripes have
floated over the archipelago. And today
they float over a hundred thousand slaves!
To the slaves held under so-called 'labor
contracts at the time OF annexation it is
declared that 81, 900 more have since been
added by fresh importations of coolies. The
system under which they are held is worse
in some respects than the negro slavery
which formerly existed in our southern
states. Under the latter the master had
some interest in preserving the health and
the lives of his slaves. since to replace a
negro killed by overwork cost a large sum
of money. Under the contract labor system
no such such incentive to humane treatment
exists, the interest of the master being
best served by getting the most possible out
of his hands at the smallest possible cost.
If one of these drops in his tracks, a small
fee paid one of the Chinese slave dealers
or an Italian "padrone" will secure another.
The male laborers get 80 cents a day; the
females 25 cents. They are paid only for
actual working time, receiving nothing dur
ing periods Of disability. Yet if they desert
their masters they are arrested. The ty-
rannv of overseers, the poor food and the
E! scanty apparel NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. OF
! these recall the horrors of which we used
to read in the days before our civil war
| forever removed the curse of slavery, as
was thought, from American soil. But Ha-
wall has been American soil for a year and
a half.
As an added disgrace TO that which rests
on the American nation through the failure
of congress to act promptly in recognizing
| the government and revising the laws of
Hawaii, there now comes an official report
| from Mr.. Harold Sewall, special agent Of
The United States government in the islands.
unfolding the contract labor system as pre-
ferable to free labor, and by implication
| recommending the continuance of the for
mer, He denounces free labor as "fuctuat-
ing and uncertain; being free to work or not,
the laborer may be here today and there to-
morrow. always shifting about" In short
he uses. to defend the Hawaiian infamy, all
the arguments once so familiar in the
mouths of the defenders of American slav-
cry.
And vet this Mr.. Harold Sewall, though
the son of the democratic vice presidential
candidate of 1895. calls himself a republican!
He is also a New Highlander. Does not this
statement recall. the fact, so often cited be-
fore 1.-The sixties that the hottest advo-
Gates of slavery in the south, and the cruel
est oversoers, were renegade New England
ers?
There was no reason-absolutely none
, for the liberation of slavery in Hawaii for
a month after the passage of the annexation
( resolution, save the Incidence or negligence
of congress. . " . A powerful lobby ic
said to be- at Washington in the interest OF
the Hawaiian planters, charged with the
duty of thwarting adverse congressional
action; or, if no more can be done, of seCur-
ing further delay, The more delay, the
more blood money for Shareholders. Bul
any senators or representatives who shall
permit themselves to be made the instru-
ments of that lobby should be marked, I'm.
mediate action removing the dark infamN
nov resting on the islands Is the only thinl
which will satisfy the moral sense of thC
American DeOple.