The Detroit times., 1911-11-18
HOROtS OF PAUPtR LABOR
ARE FLOWING INTO THIS
, COUNTRY FROM MEXICO
Torrent of New Arrivals viii
Compete With American
Workers in Southwest.
CONTRACT LAW VIOLATED.
Some of Uncle Sans Agents
Along the Silvery Rio Grande
May Go To Jail.
CONTRACT LAW VIOLATED.
By w. c. SHEPHERD.

rent OF poison is flowing into the
United States to fatten the dividends
oi the Southern Pacific and Santa Re
and the Rock Island railroads.
The poison is peon labor.
The alien contract labor law pro-
vides $1,000 fine for any employer
who encourages foreign laborer TO
come 10 the United States.
But a million Mexican poems have
been brought into the United States
for these railroads.
Each railroad worked through an
employment agency. One OF the re-
wards OF these agencies was the feed
ing and clothing OF the peons--con-
Quoting the commissarles of the rail-
roads.
Up TO a year ago these agencies
had labor "rustlers" i'm Mexico. who
went so far as to advertise in Mexi-
can newspapers and make speeches
TO the poems from the rear platforms
OF trains, urging them TO go 10 Juarez
where they could find work
Hundreds OF thousands of poems
focked TO Juarez.
Penniless, and bewildered they
4 NClN dlNdChtu at Tue
Juarez railroad station by a pack OF
railroad "rustlers" fighting for the
best specimens of physical strength.
Come 10 my hotel, "rustler"
would urge. 1T won't cost you any
thing. n you haven't any money. The
peon would be told next morning 10
cross the river into the United States
and that somebody from the hotel
would be there TO meet him.
That was surely violating the allen
contract labor Jaw Where was Uncle
Sam? When all the truth comes out
some OF Uncle Sans officials along
the "silvery" Rio Grande may go TO
Jail. And II there are any govern
ment officials brave enough, ii isn't
too late TO send some OF these EN-
ployers OF railroad laborers TO Jail,
either.
y The poems crossed the river in great
crowds. sometimes 900 a day. In the
red brick immigration building, the
United States officials went through
the farce OF admitting them as tran
sients,
No government official seemed TO
think that they were alien laborers,
crowding to compete with Americans
and lower American standards. But
they might look out of the nearest
window and see the pack OF human
wolves from the labor agencies.
At certain hours. the doors OF the
detention room would be thrown open.
The labor agents would begin to yell
and beckon. In their rush for strong
workmen, the agents would fight, pull
and tear clothes.
i've seen poems have their clothes
torn of their backs" said one old
time immigration official.
The peon paid SO for his job TO the
agent: so cents month TO the rail-
road for medicine. He received from
81 TO $1.25 for a 10-hour day. He
was forced TO work six months or run
the chance OF never getting money
enough to get back TO Mexico.
n II he was taken Ill the railroad
fred him. In thousands OF cases he
became pauper. He lived In mis-
cradle hut and was charged such ex-
cessive prices at the commissary for
his food and clothes that he was prac-
tically forced to live as poorly as in
his own country where he received
371a cents day.
Every southern city on the Pacific
coast has been forced TO care lot
physically wrecked poems. Race riots,
enlarged slum districts, crime, suf-
fering, starvation-every such city has
It's stories of these, growing out OF
peon importation.
Pretty bad, wasn't II?
The same thing is going on today,
except that the immigration authori-
ties at FL Paso claim that they have
ended the "rustling"
Since June, about $4,000 poems have
crossed the bridge at FL Paso.
The department OF commerce and
labor is preparing to ask the railroads
next January, TO take better care OF
the poems The department has also
closed the labor agency hotels" on
the Juarez side and does not permit
the agents TO tear clothes or fight
over the poems any more.
But the evil is growing and is
spreading eastward In October n
Rock Island agent reported that he
took IS poems to work In Ohio.
And lately the railroads have be-
gun to demand only poems with fami-
lies. A peon with family TO sup
mort on 81 day is a helpless
k.c.kIo h0nalaaa slave