The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-03-03
CLARK BITTER IN HIS SPEECH Florida Representatives on
 Peonage. HE LASHES B0NAPARTE House Adopts Resolution to Make Investigation. Mrs. euackenbos and C. W. Russell of Department of Justice are De-
 noanced in the Most se-
 were Terms.

Washington, March 2.-An investiga- tion by the Immigration Committee of labor conditions in the turpentine camps. plantations and other industries of the South, especially the existence of peonage. Is provided for in a reso- lution taken up by the House today under suspension of the rules, and Mir. Clark of Florida contributed bitter speech on the subject
 Mir. Williams of Mississippi. said the circulation of stories abroad regarding peonage had done harm to the South and he desired an investigation by an important body. In reply to question by Mir. Mann of Illinois, he said he believed the sto- ries had been put out by labor agents in New York in order to divert innli- grants to other sections of the coun- try.
 Mir. Humphreys. of Mississippi. sup ported the resolution. He charged that a systematic campaign had been waged for the past twelve months throughout the press of the country "by those whose interests could be best served in that way" for the pur- pose of discouraging immigration to the south.
 Stories of peonage and white slavery, he said. had been conjured up and gwen to the press with sensational coloring and the state of Mississippi especially held up to the world as a slave camp.
 Agents of the Italian government he said. had busied themselves. "tu concocting and circulating these stor- 1 ies.
 "when I deny them as do now most vehemently deny them." he said, T want some tribunal created and authorized to swear witnesses and hear testimony, and before which the issue who have uttered these libels may be compelled to appear and either sub stantiate them or stand convicted as common slandArers." 3<
 sunnysiae Is Defended. The paFtiaH1aF colony against Whieh these shafts had been leveled. MT. Humphreys charged. was Sunnysids. and the reason for that was that it was the largest. the most prosperous and the best known of all the south arn colonies. He quoted several arts- cles and reports made by different stu- dents who had visited Sunnyeide dur ing the past few years. which showed a prosperous condition there and hs read at length from a paper written by Alfred Ho1dstone who had made an exhaustive study of the Italian and negro as tenants on the same planta- tion and under identical conditions Mfr. Holdstone's testimony. he declared. completely refuted every charge of peonage and msstreatment that had been made and heraldod abroad. with brass band accompaniment-"
 He also read a letter from Dr. A. Bushnell Hart. of Harvard College written to President Roosevelt after recent visit to Sunnyside in which he spoke in the highest terms of the treatment and general conditions there and expressed his opinion that there was not now and never had been any peonage there. Mir. Humphreys said he was not advocating immigration.
 ,"So far as am concerned" he de- clared, T have no quarrel with the Italian government for endeayoring to check Immigration from her shores. On the other hand bid her God speed in her undertaking. But do object to having my native state, known to the other countries of the world as land of crime and slavery to be avoided as a. thing unclean."
 While not opposing the resolution. MT. Chadwick. of Georgia. decided that it was entirely unnecessary. inasmuch as the Immigration Commission already had full authority of law to conduct the proposed investigation.
 1ss to 1sS.
 Speech of MT. Clark.
 In speech bitterly criticizing the Government and some Of its offi- cials. Mir. Clark of Florida. de- clared that the State of Flof- ida was prepared to answer the "ac- counts of peonage." slavery" 'lnvol- untary servitude," brutal and inhu- man treatment of laborers'' and other publications which smell of the "slums'' and in some of the most remarkable documents enamating from the de- pertinent of justice of the United States. which he charged. were abso- lutely false in all essential particu- lars.
 The people of Florida, he asserted. courte6 the fullest investigation of a matter which had been of so much injury to the fair name of their state. He predicted that these people will ''come through the ordeal of investiKa- ton" without the smell of fire upon their garments and in spite of the bat teries of islander which for the past year have been belchinK their infa- nous "slum- -begotten" fabrications.
 The department of justice. Mir. Clark charged. had never been specially dis tinguished flor the legal knowledge of the alleged lawyers who are gem orally supposed to be housed therein" but he said that usually something of a lawyer had been at its head. He feared that the country had fallen into ''evil times" with deference to the "big chief" of that department. Whatever may be the qualifications of Attorney General Bonaparte, he said that official had been unfortunate in the selection Of some of his interiors to whom mad been committed peonage prosecutions in Florida and other states.
 He referred to Attorney General 1. legged French nobility" who had be- come acquainted with a lady bear ing the euphonions cognomen of Mrs. Henry Grace Quackenbos whose field of labor previous to her acquaintance with the great Baltimore lawyer was "in the slums of the East Side" or dear old Manhattan Isle" He presumed therefore that Mir. Bonaparte consid- cred this great slum worker a very proper person to send to Florida to regulate the conditions in the South
 DenunciatiOn of Russell.
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