The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-05-02
BY FRANK c. CARPENTER

->~> VA n NJ M LII | l It's food than a family of the same class In the United States. Many of the people eat only one full meal day. and that m the evening after they have stopped work. They will have cup of tea or tea and piece of dry bread upon rs- ing, and perhaps another cup of tea and bread at noon. If they are Italians or Spanards they may take wine instead of tea; and if they are Argentinos they will pegin the morning with cup of mate, as the Paraguayan tea is called
 The Italians make excellent immigrants The most of them have come from the farms of Lombardy and they are good-ag- rieulturists. They are not afraid of work and are thrifty Many of them send ' large proportion of their savings back to Italy, Where they rent farms they live meanly, saving their money to buy land. and adding to their possessions until they finally accumulate a respectable es- tate Large numbers of them come with out expecting to stay. They fit back and forth across the ocean as the swallows do over the land, working for year or so and taking their earnings back home. There is a fixed class of such men, known bread at non. If they are Italians or as swallow immigrants. Out of 7S2, 600 inn migrants who arrived here in three years, more than 300,000 went back It is esti- mated that each of those who returned carried away with him about s150. making total of s45, ,000,000 thus taken out of the country.
 The Argentine of good family, and, in fact about all Argentinos, look down upon work as degrading. They object to working with their hands and it is the ambition of all to be landed proprie- tors. The poor restrict their labor large ly to the ranches and to the live stock Industry, serving as cowboys or gauchos They like to work with cattle, and be- fore the ora of fences began they herded their stock upon horseback. They are poor mechanics, and about all of the me chanical work and hard manual labor are done by foreigners. The Italians and Span iards have built railroads and they are the masons, carpenters and mechanics of Buenos Aires. They are good workmen
 
 the United States Here are the current wages as collected several years ago. They are but little higher today: Carpen- ters. s to ss.5e, and ironworkers about $3 per day. The boot and shoe factories have been paying from s2 to S3 per day The marble works, $3.50 for cutters and the cabinet makers about s3 per day In the match factories skilled laborers get $2; in the machine shops and iron foun- aries about 20 cents per hour, and in the knitting mills from $1 to s3 per day. Typesetters are paid from g to 8 a day, and those who work on composing a little more. Tailors get from s2 to s day, and cutters and finshers from $50 to s250 per month. The average working day is eight or nine hours. varying as to the trade.
 Of late years the labor organizations have been growing in number and power; but they are still rather political ma chimes than trades unions proper. They have no sick funds or benevolent features. and strikes are generally short The chief labor unions are associated with the rail- ways. and among them is Brotherhood or Locomotive Engineers and Bremen. This union has made itself felt in a polti- cal way, and during the past year bills have been introduced into Congress to establish state pensions for railway men, All employees are to be pensioned in case of accidents of certain kinds. and after time they are to be retired with a pen sion. The government is asked to issue bonds to the amount of S4, ,O00.009 as a guarantee that such pensions will be paid when t1pN become ment is to enforce the collection of the taxes therefor. If the bill should pass the money for the pensions will come from a 10-cent tax on all first-class tickets and Accent tax on all tickets costing s1 or more. All employees receiving more than s4 per month will have to give to the fund per cent of their salaries, and