Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1913-07-10


Declared Senator Thomas
Two of them operating in Colorado
represen. collectively a capital of
$4,000, 900. s3O.0OO,O00 of which is
water pure and simple. Yet they have
paid dividends constantly upon their
preferred stock. and for large part
of the time on their watered stock,
and one of them has surplus in the
treasury in excess of S10,000,000.
This fight merely means that these
hugely overcapitaliZed industries want
TO retain their franchise to rob the
people by taxing the necessaries of
life, to the end that they may pay
profits upon the capital that they
have manufactured with printing
presses and fountain pens.
Senator Thomas ringing challenge
to the sort of public opinion these
bloated corporations have manufacture
ed deserves TO be read in the public
schools as an example of the new,
rugged patriotism which now has con-
troll of congress. He said:
Mr.. President, while have the most
profound respect for petitions sent to
myself while l am a member of the
senate, l want to say here and now,
and l think I speak for my colleague
(Mr. Shafroth) as we'll as myself, that
l was sent here by the people of my
state, by the producers and by the
consumers, by men and women who
are not organized, who have no lobby,
who are possessed with no great fund
to go out through the highways and
byways of the state seeking and OBJ.
tanning favorable action in their be.
half by the great banks and associa-
| tions.
They are the toilers and the tax.
payers, the common people" as Mr.
Lincoln called them. It is their in
| terest and their welfare, their wants
/ and their desires that | propose to rep
resent and promote in the senate OF
/ the United States to the best of my
ability. They look to us for relief
and we shall not disappoint them.
a land of oppression, misery, anc
sorrow, that is the picture drawn OF
/ the Hawaiian sugar plantations By
testimony brought out by the senate
lobby investigation.
The very crowd of men whose Iegis
lative activities in Washington brought
forth the recent lobby accusation
from President Wilson are the repre-
sentatives of rich planters whose
cruel exploitation of their wag,
slaves has no counterpart under tn,
stars and stripes.
These sugar growers, earning profits
Of so to 80 per cent, and asking TO
the continuance of tax of over 800,
100000 annually on the American PEG
pie, that they may continue to real
their golden rewards, are coming be
fore congress in the name of "protec
ton against the pauper labor o
Europe all the while they maintain
labor standard that is a blot OIL
American civilization.
So terrible are working condition
in Hawaii that European and Asiati
laborers, deceived into coming to tn
island, literally starve themselves il
order to save up passage money TO
Jan I tAAlNAoNOs anu SSOdD6 Tie TIA
into which they have been inveiglec
/, A horde of these pauper laborers ar
beginning to arrive in California, i
their extremity willing to work for an
, price, thus depressing wages of Amer
, cans on the Pacific coast.
Incidentally, Senator Reed of Mi
souri,, a member of the lobby commi
- tee, showed that a report exposing thi
, condition was written by Daniel T
Keefe, commissioner of immigration
t who went to Hawaii at the request {
} Samuel GOmpers, president of th
l American Federation of Labor. I
| study the industrial conditions. TIL
| report, however, was never publishe,
C 1t was suppressed by the Taft admit
I istration. The bureau of labor sent
e man to Hawaii to get out another r
r port on labor conditions. This repol
: flattered the planters and was pu
= iished.
: The government investigator WI
wrote the whitewashing report Wa
!. shortly thereafter given a good jc
/ with the Hawaiian territorial COVER
I ment, While Secretary Nagel later bu
J. led himself preparing charges lookir
t TO the removal of Keefe.
$ Senator Reed, however resurrecte
L the suppressed report and brought
I before the lobby committee. tt
= planters have been loudly proclaim
ing the fact that no peonage exists
e Hawaii. After reading the report,
+ am convinced it would be better f,
q the wretched plantation and sugar m
( laborers if they were poems or actu
slaves. They would be better treatt
p by their owners.
/ Wages run from IS per month f
J. children up to s26 for white adult me
y Hours are 10 and y a day. The Ell
t ployes live in miserable shacks pr
II vided by the companies. The men bl
S food from company stores, whe
prices range from 10 to 20 per &c
s higher than average food prices
IS New York, Washington Chicago al
d San Francisco. The food is sold
e the plantation stores by Honolu
s. wholesale houses, owned for the mo
part by the plantation owners.
b Doctors employed by the compani
l. have gone TO visit sick laborers "a
% As hours after being called, sOmetim