The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1901-06-07


and play It loudly."-New York World
SAN JUAN. Porto Rico, May 2l-Nin,
hundred cmlgrants embarked on th'
steamer California at Guanicn for lla
wall today leaving 400 more ready tC
sail. Joyous manifestations accompanied
the departure Of the cmigrauts. Four
teen weddings and forty-eight baptisms
took place Sunday. The emigration
agents are spending, 1t is estimated
labuut $4,000 In recruiting and maintain
ing tho cmgrants Favorable reports
from Hawaii have caused "a continuation
of the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Press Dis
patch.
The mass Of transformation concern
ing Hawaii and the efforts being made
by the Sugar Planters Association to
fill the cane fields with labor. makes
the quotations above peculiarly peril
nent at this time. The editorial from
the New York World was prirGed at
the time of the sailing of the Zealandia
from Port Los Angeles, the news para
graph was sent out by the Associated
Press and printed throughout the coun-
try May 81.
The World in introducing the para
graphs quoted, refers to the alleged
horrors of the trip across Texas and
California, the foul character of the
cars in which the Porto Ricans travel
ed. and their generally desperate con-
dition, calling these things "a vivid OBJ
Iject lesson in what is happening in
Porto Rico" This taken in connection
with the lurid accounts of the starva-
| ton which followed the hurricane in
that island, undoubtedly gives the i'm
preston that the little people from the
West Indies are doomed by nature to
suffer. whether in one cline or another,
and as surely has aroused much sym
patty over their unfortunate condi-
| ton. Many persons, ordinarily just
| in their methods of reasoning and with
an unbiased mind, reading the stories
| of the Joy of the people over pros
pective change, have Joined the anti
administration howl against the powers
which be.
| with this state OF mind obtaining,
what must have been the effect in the
| East Of the serio-comic performance in
: the Legislature, when the sympathetic
member from the Fifth District filed
his tear bottle to overlooking when he
| described to his colleagues what he
! saw on Quarantine Island when the
Porto Ricans had been landed from
| the Peru. Was not the statement he
made taken by the calamity howlers
as a Confederation of all that they had
uttered and vindicatiOn of their
prophecies as to slavery conditions
which mark the residence here Of the
newly procured laborers?
! Instead of squalor. of the legree with
his whip, the facts are that good food
| fresh air proper medical attendance
and sanitary surroundings have had
the effect of making the Porto Ricans
satisfied with their new homes, to the
| extent, as told in the news dispatch,
that they have sent home reports which
made 1t matter of rejoicing among
, the friends of the departing laborers
that there was a land of promise at
the end of their journey.
Labor consideration shows that it
could not be otherwise. In Porto
Rico the total population in 1899 was
953 243 of whom 1896 We're engaged
in gainful occupation. OF that num-
Der less than 100000 We're engaged in
agricultural pursuits. Forty-one per
cent of the cultivated area was in cof-
fee and 10 per cent only in sugar. In
the absence of official data as to wages
earned, the unofficial statement that
an ordinary laborer earns less than %
cents. day must be accepted, and that
the surplus accruing to the laborer Is
nil, IL strong by the fact that after
the hurricane of March, 1898. the local
government fed $50 900 INDECENT per-
sons. What does 1t mean to people liv-
ing under such conditions that home
where fair wages may be earned is Of
fered? From an island where one
fourth of the population must be fed
by charity after a calamity such as
that hurricane, to a home where the
regular wages per month exceeds what
could be asked formerly in a season,
must mean the transition from misery
TO happiness, If the migrant is reas-
enable person; that the Porto Ricans
have sent home such reports as to in
duce their friends to come in large
numbers, must AT least give them the
stamp Of conservative reason
Between the attacks OF anti-admin-
istration organs in the East and the
vaporinEs OF snlvelinE statesmen at
home II is small wonder that an err
ronous idea OF the conditions surround
ing labor here obtains. That It is so
has much To do perhaps with the dis
inclination OF young American work.
men, farmers boys and the second gen
GRAFTON OF European immigrants To
seek homes here. The Porto Ricans
are making homes for themselves rap
idly, The first corners have been here
long enough 10 feel the change. II would
be a means OF allaying the irritation OF
unjust criticism II there was published
throughout the United states accurate
reports ~ the condition OF these new
ly-acquired peoples, Illustrating the
vast difference between the truth and
the fiction
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