Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-12
At THE WHITE HOUSE
Allegations of Slavery in South
ern Florida.
WHITE MEN AND NEGROES
Held in Bondage by Various Business
Companies.
THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
May Send Special Agent to Investigate
the Affair and Bring Prosecutions
Against Parties Responsible.
THE DEPARTMENT OF JUsTIC.

Sensational allegations of the existence Of
slavery in southern Florida have been made
to the President and the Department of
Justice, and determination will be reach
ed as to whether the department will send
a special agent to that section to aid Jo-
seph N. Stripping, the United States at
torney of the southern district of the state
In ferreting out the facts and bringing
prosecutions in the federal courts under
the peonage statutes. The United States
attorney has not the force nor the money
to place detectives in the wild portion of
Ior1da below Tampa to run down the
violators of the law and to bring about the
liberation of many hundreds of men who
are declared to be in a state of slavery
both white and colored.
The latest informant as to affairs in
southern Florida says that the conditions
of slavery are not enforced on negroes
solely, and that there are number of ma
tive white men who are in bondage. 1t is
further declared that the men responsible
for this awful condition are not southern
ers, but mostly northern men and COM
panies engaged in the turpentine and lum-
Der business, and in the mining of phos-
plate rock. The real southerner is said to
be opposed to anything of the kind and to
be DESTROYS of having his section freed
from the accusation of again countenanc-
ing slavery.
Sheriffs Said to Be Parties.
The sheriffs of many of the counties in the
southern part of the state are said to be
parties to the enslaving of negroes in the
phosphate mines. turpentine farms, lum-
Der mills, etc, but the vast majority of
negroes who are kept in prison barracks
and not allowed to escape are from Georgia
nv,1 Of how .trfo
enticed into Florida and put to work in
such a way that they must remain for in
definite periods, awed by brutal bosses
armed with rifles and ready to use them
without hesitation.
1t is stated that the people who live in
the sparcely populated section are afraid
to give information against the offenders
as murder is not uncommon and little time
would be lost Is visiting punishment AS
a rule, too most of the people living in the
vicinity of the works know little about
what is going on inside the barracks and
are not allowed communication with those
working under direction of the guards.
The suggestion is made that if the De-
partment of Justice ever expects to ascertain
the truth of the deplorable conditions it will
have to send special agents and detectives
into the section.
The Department of Justice has been at
work for more than year on somewhat
similar cases in number of states the
Lat latest trial being at Cape Girardeau, Mo.
this kind until the practice is broken up.
Some New York Visitors.
There We're several New York visitors at
the White House today. Paul Morton for
mer secretary of the navy and now head
of the Equitable Life Assurance Society.
being the most important. Mr.. Morton.
who was in the city for day, was a guest
of the President at luncheon. Mr. Morton
talked over the New York political Sjtua
ton with the President, but he said that
he was in business now and did not care to
get into politics again.
William l.. Ward. national committeeman
of New York, and J. N. Wainwright. an
assemblyman, were the other callers Mr.
Ward was not running over with sanguine-
ness as to the prospects of Hughes, and
suggested that the fight would have to he
kept up until the last vote was counted.
Maj. Russell B. Harrison of Indianapolis.
son of the former President, called on Pres
ident Roosevelt today and was cordially
received.