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new plantations. For instance, when the annexation of Hawaii 
was talked of, we were told it was the best coffee country in the 
world, and that great coffee plantations would be opened upon 
the annexation of that country to the United States. But there is 
no duty on coffee from any country to the United States, while we 
have levied a duty of almost 2 cents a pound upon sugar.
The result is that since annexation the sugar business, which is 
exceedingly profitable, has taken the place of the coffee business; 
and we no longer hear about the raising of coffee in Hawaii, but 
they are plowing up the coffee plantations and putting them into 
sugar. In fact, the profits of raising sugar are enormous under the 
bonus we give in the way of a remission of duties to the sugar 
planters of Hawaii, amounting this year to nearly $12,000,000, 
which we would collect upon a like amount of sugar from any 
other country. This enormous bonus goes to a few planters who 
have absorbed all the land of that country and who pay the most 
meager wages to the slave labor which is employed to raise the 
sugar.
Mr. GALLINGER.   Will the Senator permit an interruption?
Mr. PETTIGREW.   I will.
Mr. GALLINGER. I was interested when the Puerto Rican bill 
was under consideration in the committee of which I chance to be 
a member to learn the fact that in Puerto Rico they only produce 
from 1 to 2 tons of sugar per acre, while in Hawaii they
E
roduce from 6 to 11 tons per acre. That is very productive sugar 
industry, perhaps the most productive in the world. I want to ask the 
Senator, who I think has been in Hawaii and has investigated 
these matters, if' these poor Asiatics are not taken there as con-
tract laborers, would they voluntarily go and labor there under 
better conditions than surround them as contract laborers - their 
lot seems very hard, according to the statement of the Senator, as 
contract laborers - would they go in sufficient numbers to meet 
the requirements of the planters in Hawaii for ordinary laborers?
Mr. PETTIGREW. Undoubtedly they would go there if the 
wages were high enough to induce them to go, although I believe 
none have gone heretofore, practically, except those who have gone 
under contract.
Mr. SPOONER.   I desire to ask the Senator a question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. NELSON in the chair). Does the 
Senator from South Dakota yield?
Mr. PETTIGREW.   Certainly.
Mr. SPOONER. I tried to obtain recognition before I asked the 
Senator to yield. I desire to ask the Senator whether the labor 
contracts referred to reserve the right to " dock" the laborers, as 
he used that word?
Mr. PETTIGREW. Oh. yes, Mr. President; and I have the report 
here of the secretary of the bureau of immigration, Mr. Taylor, who 
examined two of these plantations, and in his report showed the 
methods pursued. In one case the contract called for twelve dollars and 
a half a month, the laborers to board themselves; but he says in his 
official report that they only receive from six to seven dollars a 
month, because the superintendent would dock ' them if they were 
slow, if the men did not move quite fast enough for him.
Mr. SPOONER. If the Senator will permit me, I put the question 
to him for the reason that, perhaps, in his absence the bill has been 
amended, partly on motion of the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. 
NELSON] who occupies the chair for the moment, so as to provide 
that no suit or proceeding shall be maintained to enforce 
specifically any contract heretofore or hereafter entered into for 
personal labor or service; nor shall any remedy exist or be en-
forced for a breach of any such contract, except a civil suit, 
brought solely to recover damages for such breach. While that, of 
course, guards against almost all of the hardships and evils 
which we want to reach, it would not guard necessarily against 
the right reserved in the contract, if it is in the contract, to 
arbitrarily dock laborers because they are not fast enough; and it 
was with a view to ascertaining whether the amendment which 
has already been adopted was sufficiently explicit and broad to 
extirpate these troubles that I put my question to the Senator; and 
I should be glad to have him answer in that view.
Mr. PETTIGREW. I was aware of the amendment we have 
already adopted, but it is not satisfactory to me for the reason that 
it provides a civil remedy. The legislature over there is quite liable to 
be controlled by the vast interests we have built up there. We have 
remitted duties to the amount of $80,000,000 to the sugar planters 
there; we have taken that money out of the pockets of the people 
of the United States and paid it over to them, because their 
importation of sugar did not reduce the price in the United States 
one mill. By this bonus we have built up that vast interest. and that 
vast sum of money is taken out of the people of the United States and 
paid to those sugar planters, and it can be used for any purpose they 
choose. They can control the legislature of Hawaii, and that 
legislature can enact laws by which, if the penalty is simply one 
of civil damages, the planters can get judgment against


those people and then proceed to provide that they shall work out the 
judgment.
Mr. SPOONER. I should be sorry to have my friend think I am 
antagonizing his proposition -  - 
Mr. PETTIGREW. I am simply trying to answer the Senator's 
question.
Mr. SPOONER. Because I admit that, if the contracts are as 
stated by the Senator from South Dakota - I asked that question the 
other day in his absence - the amendment which has been adopted 
would not cover the entire trouble.
Mr. PETTIGREW. Here is a further difficulty. These plantations 
are on remote islands, and they are generally visited by steamboats 
only when they go to take off the sugar. The boat goes there simply 
in the interest of the owner of the plantation; and these poor 
laborers have no chance to hear from the world or to have the world 
hear from them; and they will never hear of this law, if we enact it, 
unless it is somebody's duty to go and notify them.
Mr. SPOONER.   I agree to that.
Mr. PETTIGREW. Therefore, they would be held, as they are 
being now held, by force and punished and abused, and this disgrace 
continue under our flag. It is for the purpose of remedying that that I 
have offered my amendment.
I will read an extract from the report of the secretary of the 
immigration bureau:
The men receive $12.50 a month, but oat of this $1.50 is remitted to the 
board of immigration toward paying the laborer's return passage when he 
desires to return to China. That leaves him $11, but there are very few that 
receive over $6 or $7, and some of them even less than that, on account of the 
persistent docking - for what they are at loss to understand. It would be of no 
use to say anything to the manager; he is always deaf to any of their com-plaints. 
Their next complaint was with regard to the number of hours they ha veto 
work. The contracts call for ten hours in the field. In this matter I find that the 
men are turned out earlier than they ought to be, and sometimes are a little late in 
being sent home. I do not know what particular time is kept on the plantation, 
but I am very much under the impression, from what I gathered, that the mill 
clock is one of a kind that moves quickly or slowly, as required. The men told 
me that since the fight the clock had changed.
On this plantation the men rebelled and some people were killed. 
That led to an investigation. I think this is a fair sample of the 
whole system. I have another report from another plantation, 
which is as full as that.
Mr. GALLINGER.   From what has the Senator been reading?
Mr. PETTIGREW. I have been reading from the official report 
signed by Mr. Taylor, who is secretary of the bureau of 
immigration.
Mr. GALLINGER.   Of Hawaii?
Mr. PETTIGREW. Of Hawaii. This report was made April 27, 
1897. I received it from Joseph O. Carter, who is one of the most 
capable citizens of that country, and a man of very high character. 
I think that this statement will be corroborated by all classes of 
people in Hawaii.
The report shows that the overseer would take one of these Japs by 
the hair, lift him up, and throw him upon the ground; that he would 
go along with a club and strike and knock them down; that he 
would punch them in the side, and variously abuse and maltreat 
those people in that country.
I ask, however, without further reading, unless some Senator 
desires to have it read, to have this report published in the RECORD. 
If any Senator desires to have it read I shall ask to have the Secretary 
read it.
The report referred to is as follows:
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, BUREAU or IMMIGRATION,
Honolulu, H. I.,  April 27, 1897.
SIR: In accordance with your instructions, I left Honolulu on the steamer 
Mikahala Wednesday, April 21, and proceeded to Lihue, Kauai, for the purpose 
of investigating the causes that led up to the recent riot on Lihue plantation, and 
which resulted in the death of a Chinese contract laborer and the arrest of 
fifteen others on the charge of rioting. Ng Chan, a Chinese interpreter, 
accompanied me.
Arriving at Lihue on the 22d, at 4 p. m., I at once made myself known to Mr. 
Carl Wolters, the manager, and stated to him the object of my visit, and then had 
a long conversation with him. At the time of my arrival all was quiet on the 
plantation.
Early next morning I was out in the fields among a large pang of Japanese and 
Chinese laborers. I picked out the following men: Lau Pow, Leong Chin, 
Chung Hop, Shun Bun, Chin Yow, Fook Lung, Dung Mee, and Wong Duck; 
took them one by one and examined them through the interpreter in regard to 
the recent trouble, as well as to how they had been treated on the plantation 
since their arrival. The testimony was very much the same in each case.
Their chief complaint was directed against the head luna, William Zoller, 
who, they say, was at all times very hard in his treatment of them. When they 
would line up for work in a morning, waiting to receive their tools, if they did 
not move quite fast enough to suit him, he would knock them about or else kick 
them. Sometimes he would poke them in the back with the handle of a hoe. 
When in the field they wore at work doing their best, he would yell at them to 
work quicker, in fact, he was at them pretty much all the time they were out in 
the fields. He rarely spoke to them through an interpreter, and as a 
consequence they could not understand what he said, as they are not 
acquainted with the English language.
On the morning of the row, they testified that after lining up, and while 
waiting for their tools, the luna, instead of giving out the tools, shouted out 
something, which they afterwards understood was an order to go and pick up 
rocks. At the time they did not understand the order, and this, they claim, is 
what started the whole row and led to the fight, as they were pretty well

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