about $20, all told, for the month, this cannot be considered a valuable concession. He calculated if he should be compelled to build shanties, it would require four for the 600 men, and they would cost about $165 each. Guiseppe would, of course, own the lumber at the termination of the contract, so that the total net cost of his shanties would not exceed $100, and if the contract should continue four months he would capture by this management, $2,000 net profit.

THE MEN IN the PADRONE'S GRIP.

Having thus consigned his ignorant countrymen to rough-board shanties-150 men to a shanty and straw beds. like so many sheep, "Banker" Gallo binds them to his sutler tent with fetters of steele. The proposed agreement, which is only a sample of scores of others proposed by these "bankers," compels the contractor to deduct the amount of the bills made by the men at the commissary department, furnished by the "banker," and to discharge at once any one of the men caught buying supplies at any other place. "Banker" Gallo agreed upon his part to furnish within twenty-four hours from 10 to 200 men to take the places of anyof those discharged on the sutler's demands. As an additional inducement to the contractor to agree to this arrangement, which virtually made slaves of the men, and placed their wages at the mercy of Gallo's agent at the commissary department, he agreed to allow the contractor to retain five per cent. of the total amount of the bills which the men run up at the sutler's tent during the month. Some of the checks from contractors for supplies furnished by Gallo to 300 Italians amounted to between $6,000 and $8,000 per month, which would indicate that his monthly check for supplying 600 men would amount to $10,000 or $12,000. In addition to this and to the $600 a month for the barn and the straw and the store bills, there would also be deducted from the men's first month's pay about $2,400 for car fare from New York to Lebanon, and this money would be paid to the "banker."

HOW MORE FAT IS FRIED OUT.

It is only fair to say that "Banker" Gallo is a sample of this class. He is no better and no worse, and The Record has the names and addresses of many others found in a two days' trip through the Italian quarter of New York, who wanted to do about the same thing. One of the friends of Gallo said that he would have offered the supposed contractor ten per cent. on the monthly bills had he been pressed.

AMERICAN LABOR CANNOT STAND THIS.

Nearly all the Italian bankers are agents for the ocean steamship lines, and they make an honest penny off the poor immigrants by selling them tickets for their friends in Europe. What money does not reach the sutler's till is often confided to the "banker," who is not responsible to the State, and who often pays no interest, and does not always pay the principal. The Italian Vice-Consul, Senor Monaco, yesterday gave the Congressional committee some interesting information of a general character upon this phase of the "bankers'" character. He said that they would send to their friends in Italy and tell them to send over men and pay their passage-about $24 each. The passengers would be sent to certain people in New York, who placed them at work, generally at from $1 to $1.25 a day. They would be required to pay back to their employers on this side the price of their passage and a liberal interest therefor. The amount the immigrants would have to repay would be as high sometimes as $50, and the advance on the ticket was never less than $5. These contractors generally kept the immigrants at their places on Mulberry street. Those places were generally ornamented with a "banco" in the front and a saloon in the rear. These contractors or labor bosses, according to the Vice Consul, received the wages of the immigrants they were employing, and deducted what they saw fit for passage, board, etc., and then gave the immigrants the balance. Sometimes the bosses or contractors "skipped" after receiving the immigrant's wages, and left them in the lurch altogether.

PENNSYLVANIA OVERRUN WITH THE CONTRACT LABOR.

Gangs of these contract laborers swarm all over Pennsylvania, Whenever there is a railroad being constructed, or digging work of great magnitude being done, there the Italian contractor has sent out his gang, and the shanty, the beds of straw, and the bloodsucking sutler leech flourish, while the helpless immigrant works ten hours a day to fill the coffers of the "Banca Italiana" in Mulberry street. As a result of this system also the coal-mining regions are filled with cheap European labor, just emancipated from the grip of the padrone, and ready, with its past experience with the shanty and the sutler, to work at rates upon which the American miner and workmen will starve. In a recent trip through the anthracite coal region a Record reporter attempted upon many occasions to be directed on the road, but could not make himself understood by the miners whom he met because they could not speak a word of English. These men are crowded in the places of the old miners whenever the work becomes so easy that men of little or no experience can undertake it.

CROWDING OUT GOOD MINERS.

Two weeks ago four experienced miners threw up their positions at one of the mines near Hazleton. The story of their experience illustrates the methods by which the coal barons as well as the railroad contractors-all of whom get red in the face on the workingman's account when tariff reduction is suggested to them-utilize the cheap and

tractable foreign labor at the mines, which has drifted there after having been sucked dry by the padrone and the sutler on a railroad or other dir-digging contract. These four miners had worked at a breast in the mines until a solid vein was reached which did not require any experience to work. They thus had an opportunity, after having worked through the slate, to make a handsome month's wages. They were not given a chance. Four Hungarians were put in their places to work out the easy coal, and the old miners were given another breastful of stone and difficult to manage. They refused to be thus treated and left the mine. The Hungarians are still there.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF LEAGUE-HOW ITS PRESIDENT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE LAWS TO IMPORT CHEAP LABOR.

From the New York Herald, July 29.

Nothing can illustrate better the evils of importing foreign labor to be employed in certain stated localities than the condition of a large part of the factory help at Paterson and Passaic, And the worst instances of depreciated pay are to be found in the establishment of Mr. Edward H. Ammidown, the gentleman who poses as the champion of American manufactures and incidentally as the friend of labor.

Some five years ago owners of woolen mills in Passaic began to send for men in Europe to take the places of those in their employ who refused to submit to starvation wages. Hungarians were found to be most available, and after a few months Castle Garden swarmed with them.

The direct importation of Hungarians for the purpose of being employed at Passaic was begun by Mr. Bash and Mr. Waterhouse, proprietors of woolen mills. Mr. Ammidown soon after benefited by what they had done to the extent of placing in his own establishment a number of the men whom they had brought over through their agents from the old country. The process of importation continued year by year and the unwelcome leaven spread until now Mr. Ammidown has in his own factory about two hundred imported Hungarians and the other establishments a good many more.

But not all have come directly from Hungary. A considerable percentage-and this further peculiarly illustrates the tendency of that tyranny which the tariff barons seek to perpetuate-a considerable percentage, who were expected to do the rudest and most ordinary work, were brought to Passaic from the coal regions of Pennsylvania.

Note this stage of evolution in the process of oppressing labor.

It is notorious that the Pennsylvania coal miners have been crushed down to the very lowest grade of human misery, and that it is impossible to further reduce their pay without making them worse in condition than the most despised beasts of burden. This result was brought about by Republican protection.

FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK PER FAMILY.

The Hungarians from the coal fields exacted only the merest pittance for the support of life, and they got it. The wages of the class to which they belong at Ammidown's mill are bas d to-day on this inexorable standard. Ev ry American citizen should shudder when he reads of this. The average rate of wages is $5 a week!

Think of that for grown up men, a great proportion of whom are married and have children!

And this is one of the beneficent fruits of the zeal of American protectionists for the welfare of labor.

Many of the American mill workers who had the alternative of submission or starvation have been forced down to the level of these imported slaves.

A reporter yesterday drew these facts from the lips of an intelligent employe of Mr. Ammidown, who, while perfectly just and loyal to the latter, was fearless enough to wish openly that the truth might prevail and that the voters of the country might know how the monstrous theory of taxing the many for the benefit of the few works in reference to the helpless poor man who has no opportunity to exercise the grasping right of the mightier. This man is not a Knight of Labor, and, apart from his employer's public advocacy of the system of oppression called protection, he speaks of the latter with a good deal of respect

A PREMIUM ON POOR STUFF.

Said he: "The employers can no longer pull the wool over the eyes of their men. We know that protection enables the master to rob us instead of being the means of our own protection. We know that to the development of the woolen industry in this country free wool is absolutely necessary. The Republican tariff has simply been a premium on the manufacture of the coarsest and the worst grades of woolen cloths. What are these boasted cheap suits which are made of domestic woolens? Why, they are goods. of a grade which importers would never think of bringing to this country. The price that is paid for them here would on the other side buy clothing of at least three times their rea, value. I know what I am talking about. The market is glutted with domestic goods of abominable quality, and those foreign goods that are at all of a desirable quality are placed beyond our reach by the rich man's tariff.

You want to know how these Hungarians live on an average of $5 a week? I'll tell you. The wives of the married men board their countrymen. As a rule they hire a mean little apartment of two or at most three rooms. Yes, they are just as cramped as that even out here in a suburban town, where space is supposed to be cheap, or, if it is not, ought to be. About the lowest rent that can be had is $6 a month, and that is what they usually

pay. A dozen persons may live in one of these places. The boarders buy their own food and the woman of the house cooks it. For this service and the privilege of sleeping there they pay her a dollar each per week. That is how the families are supported. God only knows how they manage, even then, to keep soul and body together! Added to this, nearly all of these Hungarians drink enormously of beer. Yet, on the other hand, some of them, by living in the most abject filth and misery, contrive to save a little, for when they get into trouble with the police and are called upon to pay a fine they generally go down somewhere in their clothes for the money, and it is forthcoming. Much of the fuel and food that the women obtain for the household is picked up in the streets and around the freight depots and stores.

THE ENGLISH BOSS DOES BETTER.

"Some of these Hungarians have been put at the finer kinds of work in the factories but as a rule they are not numerous. They are fit only for what is comparatively unskilled labor. Yet skilled labor cannot be reduced any lower in price than it is and still live. It is customary for the protection people to prate about the contrast in wages as between this country and those of Europe. The weavers receive in Ammidown's mill about $9 a week. The looms average about eighty-five picks a minute. Thomas Dolan, in Philadelphia, pays his weavers an average of $19 a week. His looms average between eighty-five and ninety picks a minute. In the mills of Patrick T. Martin, at Huddersfield, England, the weavers get $7 50 a week, but the looms only make sixty-five picks a minute. Now make a comparison. Dolan pays his weavers $2.50 a week more than Martin, but he gains by their produce twenty picks a minute. This amounts to about six yards a day for each loom, or something like $9 in marketable value. So much for the credit that is claimed by the manufacturer for paying higher wages. On the other hand, no one who knows the subject can dispute that $7.50 in England, with the cheaper means of living, is worth considerably more than $10 in the United States.

"Yes, sir; the situation of labor in Paterson and Passaic is such that I do not see how any laboring man here who has a vote at the next election can fail to cast it for the tariff reform platform.

Benjamin Harrison, Republican candidate for President, never showed his real feeling toward the men who toil for wages more fully and convincingly than in his attack on the street laborers, made in this city on October 4, 1874. These are his words as given by his organ, the Indianapolis "Journal," on the morning of October 5, 1874:

"My fellow-citizens, a short time ago I happened to be in a place where, without inconvenience, I could see these fellows working, and it was as good as a circus to see how they went about it. They had about a dozen in the gang, and a boss-they must have a boss, even if there are only two or three of them. They were laying a stone crossing across a street, and I do believe that any wo stalwart men could have done more in a day than that gang did in three. They were all smoking. Almost every fellow had a pipe in his mouth. Now, it is usually inconvenient for a man to work and smoke at the same time; the pipe is in his way if he is in a dead earnest about his work. If you men have to smoke, you do so when you are through work at noon. But these fellows, whom the Democratic council are paying out of taxes, had plenty of time to smoke. One of them would take out his tobacco and roll it in his hands to grind it up fine, and leisurely tuck it in his pipe. Well, after striking a light he would take his shovel and start off toward the gravel pile. Instead of bringing the gravel where they wanted it, they had it about a rod away. If it had not been so far away that man would not have had exercise enough that day to keep him healthy. He would go to the pile and get his shovel about half full, look carefully at the place where he was to put it, set his shovel down on the ground and look around. And then another fellow would come and borrow his shovel to do something with, and he would sit there until the fellow came back with the shovel. Now, my fellow-citizens, you know what that means. This is the Democratic reform party that is in power now."

Observe, if you please, that he saw this "without inconvenience"-otherwise we might not have had this pleasing bit of humor recorded. Observe that it grieves his industrious soul that a man should smoke while working. Observe that these men are all "fellows." Observe that the listening crowd are convulsed with merriment by his remarks,

Observe that the statement that these events occurred under Democratic rule is an intimation that nothing of the kind will be allowed when Republicans come in. Oh, what fine slave-driving we shall have then! Work faster, there, fellow! Ben Harrison is looking at you. Drop that pipe, fellow! Ben. Harrison is looking at you. Don't stop to rest for a moment, fellow! Ben. Harrison is looking at you.

Do you suppose that Benjamin Harrison ever dreamed for a moment that lolling "without inconvenience" on the cushions of his carriage, or standing in his luxurious office, and watching these men was a very different thing from going out under the hot sun and doing their work? Do you suppose Benjamin Harrison ever shoveled dirt for his living for a single day, much less a week, a month, a year, a lifetime? Do you suppose he knows what it is for the muscles to ache or the nerves to quiver from the strain of protracted labor? Do you suppose he could comprehend the fact that if a man should shovel dirt as fast as he was able the labor would kill him within a year? Oh, shame, Benjamin Harrison. Even with your life of professional employment you might have had more feeling for the toiling millions than this. You might at least have learned to conceal your feelings if you could not avoid having them. You might have remembered this: "Let not ambition mock their useful toil; Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor."

The ball which Mr. Harrison set in motion did not stop for several months. The Indianapolis Journal of October 5, 1874, refers to his remarks as "graphic and amusing. Similar scenes can be witnessed all over the city." The Journal was then, as now, the open foe of organized labor. In its editorial columns, on October 6, 1874, in response to a question from a labor paper printed here as to whether it favored a law "requiring the payment of employes once a month," it said: "It (the Journal) makes such contracts with its employes as it deems best, and recognizes the perfect right of all others to do the same." To the Journal, Mr. Harrison's method of attacking the laboring man was an inspiration, and it fell briskly in the same line. Here are some of the results:

"It is notorious that the lowest class of men, men who are of little account for any other purpose, display a remarkable regularity in the discharge of their political duties. Elections never come too often for them. The alacrity with which they walk up to the ballot-box and exercise the highest prerogative of an American citizen would be surprising if the act required any greater physical effort than it does. Probably this excessive appreciation of suffrage by all classes of rascals and loafers has had much to do with bringing it into disrepute among moral and intelligent men."-Journal, October 12, 1874.

"The amount of naturalization now going on is only exceeded by the amount of labor put upon the streets."-Journal, October 12, 1874.

"When you are around near policemen and other suspicious characters to-day it would be well to keep your eyes open, or you might get them closed."-Journal, October 13, 1874.

"In connection with the disreputable Irish police force, the Irish Catholics of the southwestern portion of the city will undoubtedly attempt this year by bullying, brawls and intimidation, to repeat the tactics so successfully used in the fifth and twelfth precincts last year."-Journal, April 17, 1875.

Now, laboring men, and particularly Irish laboring men, you know what Mr. Harrison and his organ thought of you in 1874-75. To-day they are posing as the champions of the workingman, and are particularly solicitous for the welfare of the Irishman. Why this change? Do street gangs work faster now? They say that tobacco is a necessity for the workingman and must be made cheaper. Does smoking a pipe interfere less with work now than it did in 1874? Has the Catholic Church amended its doctrines? Has the Irish countenance changed its features? We know of no such change. Is it possible that these people are only anxious to get your votes?

X.

LABOR DENUNCIATIONS OF HARRISON.

THE INDIANA FEDERATION OF LABOR, WHICH KNOWS HIM, EXPOSES HIS METHODS.

On the 7th of August, 1888, the State Federation of Trades of Indiana held its annual convention at Indianapolis. An attempt was made by the Republicans to capture the convention, as is shown by the following circular-letter sent out by the Republican State Central Committee of Indiana:

REPUBLICAN STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF INDIANA,

Room 4, Denison House.

INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 4, 1888.

Dear Sir-We have reliable information that the State Federation of Trades meets here next Tuesday, and that the Democrats have determined to capture it and get a resolution through against Harrison. We are told that any member of a labor organization having credentials, so as to prove his membership thereof, will be entitled to admission.

We urgently request you to send here as many laboring men, opposed to this scheme, as may be possible.

There will be reduced railroad rates on that day. I hope that you will act with great discretion and promptness. Yours truly,

J. N. HUSTON, Chairman.

This letter aroused much anger on the part of the representatives of organized labor, and there was general agreement in the desire to frustrate any attempt on the part of a political party to thus interfere with the freedom of action of a secret organization. There were 147 delegates in the convention whose credentials were pronounced genuine. The convention was a harmonious and hard-working body, and so successfully and harmoniously did it act that it concluded its deliberations in a single day.

HARRISON AND MORTON DENOUNCED AS ENEMIES OF LABOR.

Before adjournment it passed the following resolutions.

WHEREAS believing that the policies of government should be general in their benefits and not fixed for the advantage of the few; and, further, that under laws now existing this principle has not been followed; and believing that the laboring masses are now interested in the success of such principles and policies as will give them a more equal chance with the employing class than of the success of any political party.

2. That we condemn the policy of legislation beginning in 1861, which has been to enable the bankers and bondholders of the nation to secure for government pledges obtained with greatly depreciated paper money (generally about 50 cents on the dollar), though bearing interest in gold on a full 100 cents, a redemption of those pledges in coin at a fabulous premium, while every other obligation to soldier, sailor or citizen was legally payable in the paper money of the United States.

3. That we are opposed to all laws which have steadily and almost wholly transferred the enormous burdens of oppressive taxation from the money kings of the country to the great army of consumers, until to-day the latter class is practically the sole packhorses of this boasted republic of freedom and popular rights, while yet producing all its wealth and enjoying all its comforts.