The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-17
PE0NS IN ILLINOIS
GOVERNMENT DIGS UP CASE IN
 WEST.
Employes of Big Concern at summit Tell fUsuaI Narrowing Story Which the Lawyers
 Swallow.

Chicago, Dec 1s.--A peonage case involving, it is alleged, a hfteen-foot stockade, practical Imprisonment of Iaborers under a system calculated to keep them in debt to the owners of the stockade. armed guards and escapes by tunnelling. will be presented to the Federal Grand Jury here tomorrow.
 This story. which, if 1t is substan- tiated win take rank with any charged against the turpentine camps of the South, became public today when subpoenaes were issued to compel the attendance of thirty witnesses who are said to have lived within the stock ade.
 Indictments for peonage under .,the Federal law will be asked by District Attorney Sims. The stockade sts al- legged to be situated near Summit, town about thirty miles from Chicago. Here it is said company Is spending many millions in the erection of 8 manufacturing plant The laborers, 1t Is alleged, are furnished and main tained by St. Louis concern.
 Witnesses who have been interviewed byA Federal auth horities are said to have told a remarkable story. Most of them say they were hired at, $l.6b a day and found themselves at the start in debt to the extent of S2 commission to the agency which gave them their jobs, and for overalls and other goods which they were compelled to pur- chase before beginning work. Accord ing to these witnesses, they were charged 25 cents for. a shave. 50 cents for a pair of socks worth cents and S5 for board worth much less than that They paid. they state, 40 cents monthly to a hospital fund when there was no hospital in the stockade, and were taken to free public. hospitals when injured.
 The main point of the story. as told, is that they were not permitted to leave the stockade while in debt to their employers, while getting out of debt was a difElcult matter owing to the high tariffs at which everything had to be purchased within the stock ade. There was a high. tight plank fence, topped with barbed wire, and guarded by armed sentries. A num- Der of laborers are said to have es- caped by tunneiling under 1t and few by braving the guards and sealing 1t.
 George E. Chamberlain. who has general supervision of the building of the plant near Summit, put the stockade in a. different light when in formed of the impending grand jury probes. He declared that malicious reports had been made before and had. been found untrue by inspectors from the State Board of Health and by state food and factory inspectors.
 They found" said Mir. Chamber lain, that the camp is the most mod ern and improved ever maintained on large construction work. There ts a fence around the 124 acres because we have to take steps to keep what belongs to us within the premises and to. keep labor dlsturbers and thieves out. We have been operating. an open shop and attempts have been made to disturb us.
 There are no armed guards; nobody ever has been shot and we invite in- vestigation by the authorities and the newspapers, We have had no strikes. and now that the wok Is nearly half over, the trouble brewers have been dtsven to desperate means. We had hha to establish a camp because we are building out on the prairie. and otherwise there was no place for the I,a5e persons employed to eat and sleep. Employees can go in and. out through the gates at will day and night.
 "A shave costs 10 cents. not 25, and nobody is compelled to shave at that. We. have a completely equipped emer- gency hospital, and the food furnished the men is clean, wholesome and suf- dctent."