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THE DEMOCRAT
(Continued from Yesterday)
Then a "Dash of Spanish."
Three years ago E. R. Staekable,
of the Port of Honolulu, was sent
to Europe to drum up labor for the
plantations. He sent in several shiploads
of Portuguese and Spaniards. The
Portuguese, as previously stated, have
done well in Hawaii, and promise to
make good eitizcns in the second and
third generation. The Spaniards, however,
are not so satisfactory. One shipload
of them arrived by the steamship
Ileliopolis on April 27, 1907. They
were small but wiry people and have
demonstrated their ability to stand
fairly well the hard work of the plantations.
But few of them, for many
years, anyway, will ever be anything
but plantation laborers. They have little
initiative and are afraid to take
on any proposition that looks big to
them. A few of them have taken out
their first citizenship papers and filed
on Government land, but the large majority
are still working for the pitiful
wage paid by the plantations, which, in
many instances, is only eighteen dollars
for twenty-six days' work in the month.
The Spaniards arc an immense improvement
over the Porto Ricans, but
there are few, even of the plantation
men, who have the assurance to proclaim
that they are liable to make good
American citizens as Americans understand
the term.
Welcome, the Little Brown Brother.
President Taft ought to be delighted
at the appreciation of the little brown
hrother that is being shown by the sugar
planters of Hawaii. They have
within the past two years developed a
mighty affection for his proteges and
are not happy unless they have plenty
of them about. Almost every steamer
that arrives at Honolulu from the Orient
brings a consignment of Filipinos
for the plantations, and thousands of
them are now working in the cane fields
of the Territory.
As the Philippines are part of the
United States, the laws against the employment
of contract labor do not apply
to immigrants from those Islands,
nor have the Federal immigration authorities
any jurisdiction. Consequently.
Hawaii can bring in all the Filipinos
that enn be induced to leave their native
home, and there is no one to forbid.
This being the case,y it is not necessary
for the planters to work through
the Territorial Board of Immigration.
They can send their own agents to the
Philippines to recruit labor, and this is
what they are doing. The labor bureau
of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association
has two special agents, L. E.
Pinkham and 0. A. Steven, in the Philippines
enlisting laborers, and they
have been fairly successful, so far as
the number of laborers sent to Ilono-
IMPORTING A POPULATION
BY EDWARD P. IRWIN,
;j , In the Paoiflo Monthly
lulu is concerned, hi fuel, they have
been so successful that for months the
Manila press litis been protesting vigorously
against the Hawaiian agents being
pillowed to take out of Ihe country
the laborers which the Philippines need
as badly as Hawaii does.
The Filipinos who have been brought
to the Territory have given little or no
trouble since their arrival, and they
work fairly well in the cane fields,
though on account of their small size
and lack of strength, they cannot do the
work of a sturdier race. t
Unless the United States finds some
dignified way of losing the Philippines,
we may have to greet the little brown
brother as a fellow citizen but he hardly
seems exactly the material that one
would naturally choose to aid in the
Americanization of the Hawaiian Islands.
Yet he is part of the concoction
that some of the disinterested and patriotic
financiers would have their fellow
citizens accept as evidence of the
"Americanization of Hawaii."
In the year 1900 a small experiment
in the importation of Tyrolese was
made, a special agent, named Joe Lucca,
bringing in a few people of this nationality
from Austria. The number
imported, however, was so small that
no judgment can bo formed as to their
desirability.
Latest Experiment Most Disastrous.
The latest experiment in the importation
of material wherewith to create a
population for the Hawaiian Islands has
proved to be the most disastrous and
vexatious.
Last summer a Russian, named A.
Perelstrous, a well-educated and intelligent
man, who, so he said, had been a
big contractor in Siberia, went to the
Territorial authorities and the heads of
the sugar planters' association and
made a proposition that they turn to
Manchuria for laborers. There were in
that country, he said, many thousands
of sturdy Russian peasants who had
been sent out there by their home Government
to populate the country and
make it thoroughly Russian. But the
Government had failed in its promises
1o provide them with land, tools and
the means of sustenance, and they
were, consequently, in an almost starving
condition. These people, he was
sure, could easily be persuaded to migrate
io Hawaii if their passage were
paid.
The proposition looked good to the
labor-hungry planters, and a contract
was entered into with Perelstrous, by
the lerms of which. he was to go to
Harbin and enlist fifty families, totaling
about 2.")0 persons, as a sample of what
he had to offer. A. L. 0. Atkinson, formerly
Secretary of the Territory, was
sent with Perelstrous to represent the
Territorial Board of Immigration so
that everything should be legal and ac
cording to the requirements of the Federal
immigration authorities ostensibly
so, at any rate.
The two special agents went and got
the fifty families, who, a few months later,
arrived at Honolulu. They were a
sturdy-looking lot of men, women and
children, and the planters and Government
officials were delighted.
and Atkinson reported that any
number required, even up to 100,000 or
more, could easily be obtained on the
same terms. So they were sent back for
more.
A Threating Cloud.
But even before the second lot arrived
a cloud considerably larger than
a man's hand had appeared on the Russian
labor horizon, and it spread rapidly
until now it has overcast the whole
industrial sky.
The second lot of Russians were met
at the wharf by their fellow countrymen
and were told awful tales of what
they might expect on the plantations.
The work, complained the first arrivals,
was very hard, the wage too small to
live on, the houses given them were not
fit to live in in short, all the promises
of the planters and the immigration
agents were being ruthlessly disregarded
by the plantations. In short, everything
was wrong and Hawaii no place
in which to hope for anything better
than they had left in Manchuria.
Without further investigation, the
new arrivals accepted the word of their
countrymen and flatly refused to go to
work on the plantations. And every
steamer from the Orient brought more
PAGE THREE
Russians to swell the ranks of the discontented.
Diphtheria, contracted in Kobe,
broke out among the new immigrants,
and it was necessary to place them all
in quarantine. This they took as an indication
of the tyranny of the Government
and they became more dissatisfied
and rebellious than ever. When the
disease was finally eliminated and they
were told that they might leave quarantine
and go to work, they refused to do
so. They said the planters, and the
Government owed them a living, having
brought them to the Islands, and
they would stay right where they were
and collect that living.
The Governor and his assistants argued
with them, pleaded with them,
reasoned with them, pointed out how
they might better their condition by going
to work. All to no effect. They
didn't want to work and they wouldn't
work.
Meanwhile, the board of health and
the board of immigration had been
feeding them and providing them with
shelter while the Governor and Secretary
handled them with gloves and
dealt out soft words. As a last resort
it was decided to stop this, the officials
believing that starvation might drive
the Russians to the plantations. So they
were cast out of Eden driven from the
quarantine shed where they had been
taking life easy, and were told that they
must shift for themselves. Their miserable
bundles were moved off the quarantine
reservation and dumped on the
ground outside.
(To be Concluded)
A SURE WINNER
OWL CIGARS
NOW 5 CENTS
anila Cigars, Finest Brands
FiTZPATRICk BROS., FORT STREET
Sole Agents for the Famous
Adelina Patti Cigars
THE CRITERION
mm1"
HOTEL AND BETHEL STREETS
COURTEOUS SERVICE, COMFORT, ELEGANCE
AND BEST DRINKS
PETE PEACOCK
Proprietor
DEMOCRATIC MEETINGS
Tonight, November 2nd
AT KALIHI PUMP, WAIPAHU AND AIEA
THE FOLLOWING CANDIDATES WILL SPEAK
AT KALIHI PUMP
B. G. RIVENBURGH
IOELA KIAKAHI
LESTER PETRIE
CHAS. II. ROSE
W. W. THAYER
JACK S. KALAKIELA
W. H. McOLELLAN
WM, P. JARRETT
S. H. TRENT
..'a'Jrt
W. S. EDINGS
J. J. FERN
M. C. PACHECO
M. E. SILVA
CHAS. BAKER
AT WAIPAHU AND AIEA
EDWARD HANAPI
ROBERT PAHAU
H. H. PLEMER
J. 0. ANDERSON
i i
