The Corvallis times. (Corvallis, Or.) 1888-1909, 1906-07-24

OF q great factory. Many of the
work men chew tobacco and spit
freely on the floor. On rainy days
their boots bring in the mud of the
street. On some floors the men
wear no shoes and 60 about in bare
fest. Drawing-room manners are
hardly to be observed where the
temperature is always above loo
degrees and men are working day
and night with brute strength.
On the mixing floor, where the
raw sugar first is dumped from the
bags, and on the packing floor,
where the refined product Is run in
to barrels, the refuse is deep. 1t is
like a hardened bed of cement, a
sticky brown mess that has become
solid as street pavement.
The men dig it up In cakes and
blocks. From other floors come
the drippings. Not pound of su.
gar is wasted. The rough brown
bags that have brought the raw
product from Cuba are put through
a steaming process and every drop
of clinging swe etness drained from
them.
Is this sticky, dirty mess Of
sweepings of the refineries thrown
away or put to some baser use? No,
indeed. Back into the boiling watts
it goes; on through the CHARTERS
and the drying drums it runs until
it comes out the white lump of su-
gar that you drop in your morn.
ing coffee. You touch it only with
the silver tongs and handle it go
daintily. The treatment of that
lump has not always been so care.
fol. @ +s-
Labor in the sugar refineries Is
as near to slavery as can be devised
by modern business methods. No
man is forced to work there, nor Is
he obliged to remain. So far as
physical restrain is concerned, he
is free; but once caught in the
meshes of the sugar system he be.
comes a slave, body aud soul, sweat
ing his life away for pittance wages
and struggling every waking hour
to make money enough TO buy food
and shelter. The Poles no longer
write home urging their country
men to come over and enter the su-
gar pens.
will your son go ino the sugar
houses when he grows up?" was
asked of one worker.
The man raised bis eyes toward
heaven and stretched out his arm
in GESTURE to shield the lad
"God forbid" he said. "Any-
thing but that.
Out in the jungle of Chicago's
stockyards there are other Pult s
and Lithuanians. They slaughter
cattle end pack meat. Their life
and their hardships have been pic
tured in miuute detail recently.
They labor hard for 10 hours day
but they are able to rise to better
pay positions. Yet the whole world
has raised in indignation and hor
ror over their condition.
There is no Jungle around the re-
6neries of Brooklyn. There is dirt,
but no indescribable filth. There
is no decaying of meat nor sicken.
ing smells. But the Lithuanians
and Poles who labor here suffer
more than their brothers in Chica.
go; they work harder; they work
longer hours for lees pay, and in
the heat of their factory the giant
of the jungle would become as weak
as a babe.
In these torrid days of summer
the refineries become boiling, siz-
zling caldrons of intense heat, in
which thousands Of men are labor.
ing with might and main, stripped
almost to nakedness. The hot all
seems to scorch their lungs as they
breathe it in. The sweat runs from
them in tiny streams. Their skin
j. eac. ed white. Their muscles
become tired and weak. Their
heads grow dizzy; things begin tt
90 round and round before theil
|eyes. Then they drop to the floor
"Get him to the ice-box," com.
mands the foreman. The uncon
seious sufferer is thrust into a rough
box packed around with ice. The
boiling blood inside his veins il
cooled. Sometimes be revivss
sometimes he does not. The am
bulance dashes deep into the. rein
cry. 1t is only three short blocks
to the hospital. The foreman mere
ly notes the hour. The victims pay
stops when he falls.
The refneries are simply hug,
steam kettles. Always it is boil
boil, boil. steam, bake and dry
with temperatures of loo. $50, 20,
and even 24o in. the great caldrons
vats and pipes. Around them stsnt
the workmen, who earn IA l..
cents per hour, or $1.74 per day,
they work from 6 A. M, to 6 p. M