The San Francisco call., 1905-03-16
CANAL DICCERS
NOT CONTENTED
City of Para Brings Word of
Unsatisfactory Condition OF
Affairs at the Isthmus
WANT FAIR TREATMENT
Engineers. Clerks and Labor
ers Claim They Are Victims
OF Gross Misrepresentation

The steamship City of Para, which
arrived yesterday from Panama and
way ports, brings word of a condition
of serious discomfort among the men
employed at the isthmus in connection
with the work of digging the canal.
Laborers, clerks and engineers voice in
chorus a protest against the treatment
accorded them by the Canal Commits
sion. There is said to be difference of
from 40 to so per cent between the pay
promised at the time of hiring and sthe
amount of salary actually paid. Engi-
neerS who left the United States eX-
pecting to receive $150 a month find
that $50 a month would be a fair esti-
mate of their actual remuneration.
Many of those who could afford it have
returned TO the United States and others
will leave as soon as they have saved
enough to pay for transportation. From
one end of the isthn1us TO the other,
skilled and unskilled labor clerks and
stenographers, are performing their
work in half-hearted manner.
A reduction of the first-class fare
from Panama to New York to $50 is
said to have been contemplated for the
benefit of those employed by the Canal
Commission. 1t was discovered how
ever, that so general was the discon-
tent that a $50 fare to New York would
have meant wholesale exodus from
the isthmus of all classes of labor. The
making of the proposed reduction has
been indefinitely postponed.
ENVY STREET CLEANERS.
The lot of the white-garbed street
cleaners of New York is said to be en-
Wed by Yale and Harvard graduates
who went to Panama as civil engi-
neers. The street cleaners 81 a day is
H.
commission is paying for work of a
much higher class.
The expense and discomfort of life
on the isthmus are said to be greater
than represented and the outlook for
Improvement is dim and uncertain. In
President Roosevelt's dissatisfaction
with conditions the men engaged in
doing the actual hard work see ray of
hope, and a reorganization of the COM
mission with a square deal for subor-
dinates is what they expect when the
chief executive gets things as he wants
them.
Those of the dissatisfied who resigned
were not allowed transportation back
TO the United States, and many clerks
and engineers are said to have returned
to New York as steerage passengers.
ONLY as CENTS A DAY.
The dusky laborers recruited in the
Central American republics are also
complaining. One Dr. Taber, who act
ed as labor agent for the French Canal
Company, is employed by the United
States Commissioners in a similar ca
pacity. Taber has been gathering men
in Nicaragua. He shipped seventy
eight to the isthmus on the City of
Peking, and the City of Para took sew
enty-nine from Corinto. These men ac-
cuse DIR. Taber of having persuaded
them to go TO Panama by means of
misrepresentation as to the pay. At
Corinto they were able to earn So a
day, Mexican money. All they are paid
on the isthmus for much harder work
is 81 so a day in Colombian money, or
about Is cents gold for days work.
These men are returning to Nicaragua
as fast as they can get away from Pan
anna.