The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-11-12
VICAR|OUS
SUFFERING
Porto Ricans Who Are
Willing to Work
Rebuffed.

F. ]. Dutra has been investigating
the condition of the Porto Rican colony
in and about Honolulu and has come to
the conclusion that many of them are
being crushed morally and physically
| under the weight of sins committed by
the hardened criminals of the same
nationality.
Food, work, clothing and even homes
are among the necessaries of life which
he claims to have found lacking among
many better disposed Porto Ricans, and
for them he makes an appeal to the
people of Honolulu to be 1enient and
to give them some assistance.
1t is work these people want. 1t is
the lack of it, the rebuffs they receive
from people in general, which he claims
is driving them to stealing and the
women to depravitv.
Plantations now refuse to take them
as laborers and drive them away with
curses, so says Mr.. Dutra. Householders
drive them from their gates whenever
they put in an appearance. The result
is moneyless pockets, hungering babes
and desperate women.
Mr. Dutra says no one knows the
amount of misery prevailing amongst the
Porto Ricans. In his rounds among the
poorer habitations of Honolulu he has
found Porto Ricans living in dismal
shacks Children In them are almost
naked One evening he found young
squalid Chinese shack He spoke to her
in Spanish, noticing she was Porto
Rican, and asked her why she was there.
She answered that she was waiting
to get something to eat from the
Chinaman. She was waiting for
piece of fruit or something-no matter
how rotten it might be, it would be ac-
ceptable. She wanted the food for her
little child which she said had had
nothing to eat all day. She was asked
whether she had husband. She answer
ed IN the affirmative, adding also that
he had been out all day from 7 o'clock
in the morning looking for any kind of
work at any price that he might get food.
He had come home penniless and she
had left him crying at their home.
The woman also told Mr.. Dutra that
they. had walked to plantation near
Honolulu carrying the child and had
asked for work, but were ordered away.
They started for the city again and
tranped in through the rain and mud,
all three arriving soaked to the skin
Mr.. Dutra found young man, who
had been employed as clerk in Porto
Rico at $40 month, but was induced
to come to Hawaii, by what Mr.. Dutra
terms were the rosy reports of the agents
who were there. He was unable to do
plantation work and injured one of his
hands. Since then he has made effort
after effort to obtain decent and steady
employment, but, being a Porto Rican,
he has been barred. He was almost in
a starving condition when Mr. Dutra
found him and Investigated his case.
The matter is serious one said
Mr.. Dutra yesterday Children are dy-
ing for want of food and good women
are going to the bad because starvation |
stares them in the face, and all this in
a community which processes to, be char
table. Not all Porto Ricans are bad |
True, many of the laborers brought here |
came out of jailS and prisons and deserve
to be behind bars. Miranda, the man
recently executed, came out OF prison |
and he was a bad man.
Something should be done to anchor |
ate the condition of the worthy ones" |