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3714
I am willing to grant an amnesty to the American members of this 
distinguished junketing commission if it will do them any good, bat 
can not under the proof grant them an acquittal. In the report of the 
Bureau of Immigration of December. 1898, signed by Wray Taylor, 
our United States Hawaiian officer, we find among others the 
following, November 3, 1898:
Applications for 5,935 Japanese laborers were approved at this meeting, on the 
understanding that no more applications were to come in until April, 1899, from 
plantations represented at or obtaining permits at this meeting.
Mr. Sewall, who makes the report on the labor conditions of Hawaii, 
was formerly our minister to the islands.
[Mr. Sewall's report.   Labor In Hawaii.   United States Consular Reports, 
February, 1900.] The purpose of the following is  *   *  *   to trace an outline and fill 
in just enough detail to Rive a correct view and intelligent idea of Hawaiian 
labor conditions as they exist to-day.   *   *   * Contract labor, consisting of 
Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Italian, Hungarian, Hawaiian, and others, is held 
under contract for three years when coming direct from foreign countries under 
agreement, and for the same or a shorter period when contracting after a 
previous sojourn in this country.   *   *   * When contract laborers are needed 
from abroad, application is made to the government for permission to import 
laborers of the desired nationality. *   *   *   The order to recruit them is given to 
immigration companies authorized by law.   *   *   *  These companies are then 
responsible for the delivery of the men.   *   *   * In obtaining European labor the 
planters have the benefit of the authority, forms, ana official connection of the 
board of immigration.   *   *   *   Expenses are met by the planters in the first 
instance, afterwards a sum, not to exceed $130 for each family, is paid by the 
government to cover recruiting expenses and passage of women and children 
accompanying the immigrants. In this case the immigrant contracts with the 
board of immigration and signs his agreement before the Hawaiian consul at 
the port of departure in his own country.   *   *   *   The board of immigration 
assigns these laborers to their several employers.   *  *   * The only other laborers 
now imported are Japanese.   The companies supplying these are chartered by the 
Japanese Government and have their principal offices in Japan.   *   *   * 
Laborers are shipped from the recruiting offices' to the immigration company, 
which then bears all expense and responsibility for maintenance, transportation, 
quarantine expense, etc., until assigned and delivered to the planter 
employer.   In order to protect themselves against desertion, these companies 
exact securities in the shape of mortgage, bond, or deposit from the laborer or his 
friends to an amount equal to all expenses.   *   *  * *   *   *   The laborers are 
apportioned to their several employers, signing their special contracts before an 
authorized Hawaiian official assisted by interpreters. *   *   *  His photograph is 
taken for identification, and he is then assigned to a particular corporation. *  *  * 
'Chinese, being single men, are housed in barracks with from 6 to 40 men in a 
room.   Single Japanese are often provided for in the same way.   *   *   * These 
quartern furnish only a shelter and a place of rest,   In barracks where many 
single men are collected a platform 6 to 8 feet wide and raised 2 feet above the 
floor runs the length of the building, and each man has about 3 feet in width of 
space for himself to sleep on.   *   *   *   Again, tiers of shelves 8 feet wide along 
the sides of the room, sometimes three or four tiers high, with some slight low 
partitions give about 3 by 6 feet for a man. Contract laborers are expected to do 
agricultural and mill work.   *   *   * From the contract-labor class the carpenter, 
blacksmith, engineers, and sugar boilers select their assistants.   *  *  * *   *   *   
In a few places men nave been allowed to take small pieces of land and cultivate 
them at their leisure.  In order to do this they are compelled to work early and 
late, Sundays and holidays, and the mill buys the cane at a fixed rate per pound. 
Between one-third and one-half of the women work in the field and about the mill 
at the lighter kinds of labor.   *   *   * The number of hours is settled in the 
contract, being usually ten hours in the field and twelve in the factory.   *   *   * *   
*   *   A rising bell or whistle wakes, the men at, say, 4.30 a. m.   At 5.30 they are 
ready to proceed to the field, and at 6 o'clock the work day commences.  *  *  * 
The mill man begins at 5.30 a. m. and is relieved by the night shift at 6 p. m.   *  
*   *      *  *  *   The contract price is now $15 per month for oriental and $18 for 
European laborers.   *  *  *  Women receive $7.50 to $10 per month.   Only actual 
time spent in labor is paid for.   A man receives no pay for enforced idleness, 
whether caused by sickness or anything else.   *   *  * *   *   *   The individual 
presents his identifying tag and receives the amount that is to the credit of 
that number.    *   *   *   Men work in gangs,   *   *   *  supervised by an overseer, 
who directs their work, corrects mistakes,   *  *   *  stimulates the lazy.   He leads 
them out in the morning.   *   *   *                       Force  *   *   *   is fast giving 
place to other methods.   *   *  *   Recourse to legal fines and imprisonment are the 
means used. The physician employed by a sugar corporation occupies a peculiar 
position with reference to his patients and his employer.   It must be remem-
bered that usually in the rush to make the progress of the work match with the 
season the management demands every available man among his employees, 
and looks with suspicious and jealous eye upon anyone who claims exemption 
through sickness.   *   *   *   Now. it becomes the duty of the medical man to 
determine between the really ill and the malingerer, and naturally the malingerer 
often goes away dissatisfied.   *   *   *   Treatment is unsatisfactory and is carried 
out with very little aid from the patient.   *   *   * To take a general view of the 
real state of affairs one must consider that every labor camp is a busy hive.   
Work is going on, and work is paid for and is what the men come here for. Now, 
what are the hardships?  The main one is compulsory work under a master.   Here 
the law compels.   At home need held the whip.   They expected to work when 
they came; but the comparison with free men makes compulsion seem a 
hardship.   *   *   *   Sunday is a day for rest in most
*  *   *   Let some real or fancied grievance break the monotony, and the scene 
changes.   A tin pan is beaten noisily to alarm and summon the camp. The motley 
crowd gathers, generally at night.   The leaders harangue their followers, and the 
mob, most of them ignorant of the real cause, rush off to demand redress or 
punish the offender. The grievance is generally an assault by the overseer upon 
some laborer, a fine considered unjust, a compulsion used to obtain unwilling 
work, or a privilege withdrawn.   *   *   * The question may be asked. "Why, if they are contented, do they desert?"

There are several reasons.   Natural causes may render the work disagree able 
and burdensome, as rain, cold, mud. and overgrowth of weeds.   A severe 
overseer will render all discontented, and the boldest will desert. 
Accumulated debt is a prolific cause.   *   *   *   The prospect of getting better 
wages   *   *   *   entice many away from their contract master. *   *   *   A 
Japanese will live on from $4 to $6 per month, a Chinaman from $9 to $11 per 
month, and a European, $11 to $13.   *   *   * The foregoing is a brief and 
unadorned statement of facts as found.   *   *   * Plantations furnish all that the 
law demands, but are not carried on primarily for the purpose of elevating the 
laborer to the standard of Western civilization and morals any more than other 
corporations.   *   *   *
I gladly give currency to the recent utterance of Senator MORGAN, one 
of the Hawaiian commission:
We extend over those islands the laws and Constitution of the United States in full 
force, so that there is not a shred of a contract left standing in Hawaii if it is 
opposed to the laws of the United Slates. *       *         *                 *                 *                
*                 *                 * But contracts have been made since, and the amendment of 
the Senator from Massachusetts, 1 believe, invalidates those contracts.   That 
amendment in its present form is an outrage upon the Constitution of the United 
States, for the reason that men have made contracts in Hawaii with companies in 
Japan for the purpose of importing labor.   Those contracts can not be, or ought not 
to be, invalidated by any act of Congress.   *   *   *   How can we afford to say 
that contracts which were valid, made since the 12th day of August, 1893, shall 
be made invalid by the operation of positive law!   *   *   * We are cutting into 
them in such a way as would be utterly disastrous if we had any power to do it.   We 
are merely raising questions that we have no power to enforce, for I take it that, 
after all, the Supreme Court of the United States, when it comes to sound this 
question to the bottom, will hold that the Constitution of the United States operates 
as a prohibition upon Congress to invalidate any contract that was valid at the 
time it was made.   I think so.
Does the Constitution of the United States govern the Hawaiian 
Islands?   Does it cover our whole land, or are we part free, part 
slave - slavery sicklied over with the pale cast of words of inter-
pretation?   If the Constitution governs in the islands, then strike 
these contracts down as unconstitutional.   Does the Hawaiian 
constitution, adopted on July 3, 1894, govern.   Then strike them 
down as contrary to it, for it provides that neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude shall exist except for crime. If neither govern, 
then strike them down as un-American, as against public policy, 
as inhuman.    You need not search for causes in the codes of 
law, morality, humanity.    Compel the courts to enforce the law, a 
custom that has not been followed for many years. Will you take 
refuge from your duty by the provision in the American 
Constitution that no law shall be passed impairing the obligation of 
contracts?   But here is a contract against the thirteenth 
amendment, which provides that involuntary servitude shall not 
exist in the United, States nor in any of the Territories subject to its 
jurisdiction. This confronts you if the Constitution prevails; and if 
it does not, then it does not protect these labor contracts, and you 
have the original right of governing in all things, past, present, 
and future, by the right of acquiring.   Yon struck  down all  treaty 
rights of  Hawaii with  other nations and substituted your own.   
Will you now save its slave-dom?   Do your duty and sweep away 
a plague more dreadful than the leprosy among those 1,200 people 
on one of our Hawaiian Islands; more dreadful than the bubonic 
plague that has swept so many from the face of that country. Was 
this refusal to pass a law prohibiting contract labor in Hawaii in 
last Congress, and so far in this Congress, by the ruling party caused 
by a doubt whether the Constitution shall prevail over our country 
- over our territory?   Are you doubtful whether the flag represents 
freedom, the Declaration, the Constitution, and free labor?            
Do you hesitate, and will you write in words in the Constitution, in 
our statutes, in our Supreme Court decisions, that will make the 
words "United States" mean less than our whole country? If you do 
this, labor will rise up to plague you, to haunt you, to defeat you.   
Will our Constitution be the constitution of those islands; of those 
contract laborers?   I do not know; you do not know; no one 
knows.   Such is the chaotic condition created by a departure from 
our traditions. Let me describe this contract-labor system in the 
Hawaiian Islands.   It is cheaper and more profitable to the 
landlords and mill owners than free labor; and as it is encouraged in 
every form, it unfortunately exists and shuts out American labor. If 
a corporation - mill or plantation - wants men, its agent applies to 
the government for laborers, and the board of immigration, a 
government department, then makes application through a 
Japanese immigration company, that, under the regulations and 
officialdom, has a monopoly, the plantation advancing the money 
and the laborer signing a contract to the shipping company, which 
contract is transferable, and thereafter is transferred to the 
corporations purchasing the laborers.   The usual term of the 
contract is three years, but thousands have been rushed in since 
the United States controlled the islands whose contracts run from 
three to five years. On arrival they are photographed, and a brass 
tag completes their badge of identification, their badge of slavery, 
and they are taken out to the plantation - laborers, indeed.

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