The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-03
STORIES MUCH EXAGGERATED
Trouble Began With the Importa-
 tion of Laborers.
Oficers of the Jackson Lumber Conn pany Tell of CondItiOns-In One Instance Man Was Brought
 Back to Alabama from
 the State of Florida.
ax VIII T. sheehar,.

Elorala, Aug. i.-tSpecidi SV.re ,e broadcast as to the illegal treatment of workmen who coms frSnrn from N9rtnSSfn 1rmSer camps. " The stories are neither all false. nor are they all true. There IS more of falseness to them than there The startling stories published as to son Lumber companys logging camp; truth for a basis, but, like the stories of Alabama peonage of three years ago, which were given such widespread exaggsrated that the man who reads u newspaper gets only a distorted idea of the true situation.
 against the Jackson Lumber Company are ia the courts, where the workmen who make the. charges and the, com pany officers who deny them. will each have a day. In the meanwhile, thorough investigation made on behalf of The Advertiser has convinced me that while some of the accounts of the harsh treatment received by the men are true. that many of the sensational statements they, made to the court and to the Pensacola newspapers, are not true. I believe that men fleeing from Alabama have been captured and brought back into Alabama. If this is will be declared illegal. Employees of the company admit that in at least one instance this was done: u Citizens or or the Jackson Lumber Company's log ging camp, assert that 1t has been done a half dozen or more times They say will be willing to say so in court re- mains to be seen.
 Hungarians and Bowery boys, who came to the camp in a consignment of laborers from a New York employment agency, say that they were cruelty and bprtaiy badeg beaten Tsn Witn whips and DuEgy officers of the company enter an abso- lute denial to this. The company of fieers deny this most no S Sempnaticaiiyi one One ever, said that there had been so much stealing going on among the rin-ran of humanity that the men themselves some of their members who were found guilty of stealing.
 The Court Will Find Out.
 Whether the men were. or were not beaten in camp can not be said with positiveness. The court will have to lind it out.
 told about the camp-many of the statements have been proven to be ab- solutely false. Tn the first place. these who fled from the logging camp to Pensacola, swore that theye were ReTy tme G% Sey S ed to som S fsy ss At Laurel Hill and made these assertions. they had in their pockets a duplicate of the contract they had signed. plainly ceive a dollar and a half a day with put board. and a dollar day with what wages were being paid, including the Polish Jews and the Hungarians. because 1t was printed plainly in the contract in English, German and in
 Nor was there any truth in the as- sertion of the men that they were al but starved in the camp. The men oi Laurel Hill. who have been in sym pathy with the workmen who ran aWaN and who helped them on their way tC Pensacola, and who are not regarded as friendly to the company, have no hes itancy in declaring that these state ments by the runaways are false. The whole country praises the way in whici the logging men are fed in camp An investigation in camp showed, too, tha; the men were fed much better than the men who serve in the United States army, and that is said to be the fines, army ration in the world.
 Nor is there any truth in the state ment that the foreigners and New Workers were kept in camp all the time bv armed deputies with pistols buckled around them. Men who work in the logging camp go to Florala seven miles away, freely and without guard. saw some of them. The people of Flor. ala say that the loggers are coming and going all the time. I questioned n number of the men in camp and there was not one who did not say that the men were permitted to visit Lockhart and FIoraIa whenever the inclination moved them. It is possible that some of the men who came down in the last consignment of laborers were kept at camp against their will. but if they were, there is no evidence of it ex- eept their word.
 These are the convictions which come of an investigation made of the stir ring stories sent out of the treat ment of the men at the logging camp by officers of the lumber company. The Investigation was made at the request of Manager J. W. Harlan of the Jack son Lumber Company. MT. Harlan claimed that an injustice had been done him in publishing accounts of the trou- ble sent The Advertiser by a responsi- ble correspondent
 The Advertiser. under the circum- stances, took the pains and expense of sending a special representative to make a thorough investigation of the affair in all its phases In the pursu- ance of this investigation. I visited Pensacola, and had access to the official testimony in the eases now pending before United States Commissioners F. W, Marsh, in which employees of the