The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-10


 are left behind in the fatherland. Get an agricultural laborer from Italy or south eastern Europe, and 1t makes little dif- ference whether he is on a sugar planta- tion in Louisiana, in the cotton fields of the Yazoo delta or cultivating grain Tn Kansas. These immigrants are ignorant of our country, but they know perfectly well when they are we'll treated and when there is a prospect for bettering their condition.
 'The great problem is to make homes for these people where they will become permanent additions to the community. After the stream of immigration is turned away from the tenements and toward the farms and the factories, you will not have to pay any passage money. and above all you will not have to keep any immigrant solicitors in Europe. The pros porous settler will surely attract his friends and relatives to him. If the con- ditions are right, the hundreds of thou sands of Europeans now pouring into this country will not stop at the seaboard, where living is unpleasant. where sani- tary conditions threaten. and where the demand for labor is small, but they will go on to that sectionl of the country where there is land to be had for cultivating, where school systems are being built up. where the laborer is a free agent, and where the newly arrived white settler feels that his children at least have fair chance to become healthy and prosperous American citizens"
 ''But is it not true that state organiza- tions, particularly in the south, have been seeking to do this very thing, whereas the government by instituting prosecu- tions for alleged peonage has given the h1a Plx aV fha lQhOr cantarS of Europey
 ''In the first place, as regards peonage, that is condition of affairs which never should exist. If there was no peonage there would be no prosecutions. No one has assumed for minute that European immigrants in the south were generally mistreated or were sent to the chain gang. If such things have happened in defiance of the law it is the duty of the govern ment to put an end to it, and as this matter is in the hands of the department of justice, l cannot say more on that sub ject.
 Excellent Efforts.
 The southern states have made some excellent efforts to secure foreign labor. In some cases they may have trans gressed the contract labor law. In other instances there has been serious defect in the mode of distribution of the immi- grants. In still other cases the interests of the planter, or the manufacturer have been carefully guarded, but the immigrant himslef has been neglected. Transporta- tion companies on the water and in this country may sometimes have been im- posed upon. In other cases in the their zeal to secure business they have misled the new settler as to conditions he has a right to expect on arrival at his new home. The immigrant himself in many cases has been to blame. He has received an advance from a planter or manufac- a,turer to tide him over the time until he pcould be self-sustaining. and then he has attempted to run away to escape respon- sibilty for an honest debt. In some cases an interruptions employer has induced an ignorant foreigner who could not speak English to sign contracts. the terms of which he could not possibly comprehend When the laborer ignorantly violated the letter of his contract or for good cause failed to pay his debt, he was sometimes punished with undue severity, and the re- suit inevitably was @ letter sent home de- nouncing Americans. and particularly those in that immediate vicinity
 You will see from this brief state ment," said Mrs. Quackenbos that there has been a complete failure to attack the problem on the basis of cooperation of all the interests involved My own attention to conditions in the south was first attracted through my work on the East Side in the protection of immi- grants against the vicious practices of un- scrupulous labor agents. Since then. I have come to learn and to believe that the south offers splendid field for the peasant of southeastern Europe, and I desire to do all in my power to help the people of the soIth secure the labor they need. because aC the same time we shall also diminish some of the evils of the congested tenement districts of the northern cities. There must be CO., operation to attain such end and the experience of the last year or two has given me an idea for an organized eff fort in this direction. I would much rather prevent peonage than punish 1t, and I believe that if the southern peo-