farms. They, too, come with wives and children from places as far distant as 100 miles, and after cranberry harvest they return to their farms for the remainder of the year.

The sugar-beet laborers are chiefly Belgians, but in Wisconsin several races are represented. Nearly all are recruited from neighboring cities, where they make their headquarters. In Wisconsin the Bohemians and Germans frequently bring their families with them; the Belgians and Japanese are single men or men without families in the United States. The beet fields furnish employment from May 1 to July 15, and from about September 25 to November 1. The six weeks' interval takes many back to the cities, but some find employment on farms in the locality. In the winter they enter various occupations the Belgians become lumbermen in Michigan or employees in the plow works or machine shops in Wisconsin, Indiana, or Illinois; the Japanese cut ice, work for farmers, or find employment as section hands on the railroads. The Bohemians and Germans are beginning to purchase tracts of wild land in some neighborhoods, while others return to the St. Louis breweries whence they are recruited. Some of the beet hands are efficient laborers and earn fair wages in industry. Others are typical unskilled day laborers and earn very little in any occupation.

The farm laborers in western New York are of two types: First, South Italians and Syrians, recruited from New York City, Buffalo, and other cities and brought to the locality in family groups by producers. Many of these remain the entire season, from June to October, at work either in the canning factories or on the farms of the canning companies; second, South Italians and Poles, who may be called settled agricultural laborers. These live near their places of employment in small cities or towns, own some property in the villages, and work almost the entire spring and summer on farms in the neighborhood. They are farm laborers and have practically no other employment. The Poles are especially worthy of study in this regard, and might well find a place in the division of this report devoted to settled rural groups, except that they are engaged not in independent agriculture but in seasonal farm labor.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT.

Wherever Italian laborers are recruited from cities at some distance from the place of employment, the padrone system is in operation. The padrone acts as a go-between for both laborer and employer. He receives an order from the employer for a gang of men, solicits them in their city quarters, brings them out to the farm, and acts as spokesman, general manager, and boss of the gang while at work. He is held responsible for the good behavior of his group, and the members of the group look to him to uphold their interests in any contingency that may arise. The padrone usually receives a certain sum per capita for securing the laborers, which varies somewhat according to conditions, and occasionally he collects a fee from both laborer and employer. For his work as foreman he receives a stipulated daily wage. In general the abuses found strictly attributable to the padrone or the padrone system were few. Most of the laborers know where employment can be obtained, and many are able to do without the services of a padrone. Some farmers (most of them Italians) do not engage help through such agents, and much less

money than formerly passes through the hands of professional padrones.

The padrone, as a general rule, seems to be of very little assistance to the members of his gang. The wages, hours, and conditions of labor are well established and a gang leader can do little to change them. The most complete account of the present padrone system is found in the description of the Hammonton berry pickers in the Commission's complete report. Labor agents or gang foremen are also employed in securing Indian and Polish cranberry pickers in Wisconsin. There no complaint was made by the pickers concerning injustice or harsh treatment. Agents of the beet-sugar companies recruit their laborers for the beet fields, and the cranberry growers of Massachusetts seem to be able to get enough pickers without solicitation. When additional cranberry pickers are wanted, the bog owners apply to labor agencies in Boston, Providence, or New Bedford.

In

The laborers in the sugar-beet fields are frequently handled in small gangs of 4 to 10 men, one of whom is by courtesy called "foreman." He has no authority, but acts as spokesman and takes the orders for his gang from the farmer or the sugar company. cranberry picking, the gangs are larger, running up to about 40 pickers under one foreman. The foremen are experienced men, employed by the growers, and are infrequently of the same race as the laborers. Foremen or "bosses" are essential in the cranberry industry when foreign, unskilled pickers are employed.

Wages and hours vary greatly, and earnings vary both with the wages and with the length and character of the season. Piece wages are the rule in berry picking and in the cultivation of sugar beets; sugar-beet men are paid by the acre, either for the season or for one or more operations. The sugar company guarantees the wages, which are fixed by contract between grower and laborer. In Wisconsin the wage is $20 an acre, and 10 acres are about as many as one laborer can take care of, even by working long hours. The hours are as long as the laborers wish to make them, and some ambitious beet hands work literally night and day. The earnings are about the same as in general agriculture, for though the daily wages may be greater the season of actual labor is short.

In western New York, on both the general farms and those owned by canning companies, wages for adult males range from $1.25 to $1.75 per day of ten hours; for women and children, who are employed both on the farms and in the canning factory, the wages on the farms are less, but their earnings at piece wages in the factory practically equal those of the men. As a whole, wages are better in western New York in the industries cited below than in other industrial day labor; when the cost of living is considered, the foreign laborers who have their homes in the locality earn more than their countrymen occupied in cities. The South Italian families of four or five members who work from April to November on farms average from $350 to $450 for the season. The Poles earn about $18 to $20 per month and board the year round when they work as general farm laborers. Piece wages for men and women bring in $1.25 to $1.75 a day during the summer. When weeding, gathering peas, beans, or other vegetables, picking cherries, plums, or apples, the women often earn as much as the men. Berries of all kinds are

picked by the women, and wages depend upon quickness and skill quite as much as upon strength.

The length of day in blackberry gathering depends on the schedules of freight trains, since all berries are shipped the day they are picked; picking ceases for the day just before the last afternoon freight or express train is due. Blackberries may be gathered early in the morning, and some padrones get their laborers into the field by daylight. The grass and bushes are frequently damp enough to wet the clothing of the pickers, but no bad results were reported either by laborers or growers. Cranberries can not be gathered when there is dew or dampness on the vines, hence the cranberry pickers' day extends from fate in the morning, 8 or 9 o'clock usually, until the dew begins to gather. The laborers for the New York canning companies work nine or ten hours when employed by the day, and the regular cranberry bog hands and general farm laborers have a nine and a ten hour day, respectively.

HOUSING CONDITIONS.

Three systems of housing, varying widely in detail, convenience, and comfort, prevail:

(1) The permanent dwelling houses owned or rented the year round by the laborers themselves. This condition exists where, as in Geneva and in Orleans County, N. Y., many of the Poles and Italians live in small towns or cities near their place of employment and return to their homes every evening. There the conditions do not differ much from those surrounding the settled farmers of the race. A few of the black Portuguese live in miserable huts not far from the cranberry bogs on Cape Cod.

(2) The permanent quarters built by farmers or canning companies to shelter gangs of laborers during the season, or, in some instances, individual cottages or huts for the same purpose. The best of these company houses or "barracks" inspected were those erected by canning companies in western New York. They were well built, fairly well ventilated, sanitary in arrangement, and carefully inspected and cleansed at frequent intervals. The number of persons assigned to a house varied, and frequently large numbers were "bunked" in one building. The sexes were separated, however, and in but few instances was there any marked congestion. The water supply was satisfactory and the toilets (dry closets), at some distance from the buildings, were kept clean by the employers.

In Wisconsin the owners of the large cranberry bogs provided quarters for Polish pickers, and on some of the more extensive Massachusetts bogs the company houses were similar. The provision made for housing the berry pickers of New Jersey is less satisfactory. The houses which the Italian growers and many natives furnish for housing laborers were not originally designed for the purpose and are very inadequate. Barns, granaries, old outbuildings, stable lofts, and one old schoolhouse were some of the makeshifts utilized for the purpose. The houses especially constructed for pickers were but little better. Ventilation was not adequate. There was much congestion at times; whole families were crowded into bunks about 6 feet square or 6 by 8 feet, and in a number of instances no provision was made for separation of sexes except by a shawl or curtain thrown over a cord. Most growers made little or no effort to maintain sanitary quarters, and many of the houses and surroundings were

deplorably filthy. The chief defense made by the employer of the houses he provides is that the pickers will not preserve sanitary quarters even if provided; that the season is short, and better buildings are expensive when occupied but six weeks in a year; that good quarters are neither desired nor appreciated by the pickers, who are South Italians.

The houses occupied by the Bravas, where single families or where two families live in one two-story dwelling, are somewhat more satisfactory so far as ventilation and congestion are concerned, especially when some effort is made by the owners to insist on cleanliness and sanitary measures. In numerous instances where the Bravas are left to live as they please there is much filth, impurity, and foul odor about the miserable houses. The conviction forced itself, however, after investigation of several localities, that sanitary and moral conditions depended less on the race than on the interest, care, and effort of the owner or manager to maintain wholesome conditions.

(3) The portable houses provided by the beet-sugar companies for the use of their laborers. These are "shacks" on wheels, designed to serve as cooking, sleeping, and living quarters for a gang of 4 to 10 men. Since the shanties do not remain long in one place, little refuse or débris can gather around them; there is plenty of ventilation and, except for the crowded condition of the sleeping quarters, they are rather good houses to live in. When sufficiently well built to keep out rain and give protection from the early frosts in the fall, little complaint is made by the inmates. In fair weather the laborers. spend little time in them.

STANDARD OF LIVING.

In the communities where the Commission's investigations were conducted the standard of living of seasonal migratory laborers was lower than that of permanent, settled agricultural laborers of the same race. There are exceptions, but the breaking up of the home, moving here or there at short intervals, being necessarily deprived of the accessories of a fixed abode, and living in an unconventional atmosphere, seem to make the laborers, especially those with families, content to live very primitively. The South Italian berry pickers live much more cheaply than their Sicilian employers. The food of the Bravas, Italians, Greeks, Syrians, and Japanese is largely vegetable, obtained very cheaply in the country in summer; the Belgians and Slavs eat more meat. The Sicilians and Calabrians, with their Italian bread, macaroni, and peppers, sometimes get along on as little as 25 cents per week in New Jersey; on the New York cannery farms they expend from 50 cents to $1 a week. The Bravas live almost as cheaply, perhaps quite as cheaply, the first year of their residence in the United States; later their food improves both in quantity, quality, and variety.

The Belgians while on the beet farms live on canned products, vegetables, meat, and eggs. Generally one of the men in the gang acts as cook one week, and another the next. The evening meal is the only one of much importance, but the quantity of food is always sufficient.

Poles live much as they do in settled rural districts. Their food is simple, coarse, and abundant, with more meat, cabbage, and potatoes than most other races use. Cost of living in one New

York settlement has been closely estimated at $12 per month for a family of four or five when the family raise their own meat and vegetables, and about $20 per month when all food has to be purchased.

Earnings are low per individual, owing to the lost time, although daily wages frequently run as high as $3. The earnings per family are fairly good, since usually there is little or no rent to pay, fuel costs nothing, vegetables are cheap, and there is little opportunity to spend their earnings. The Poles, Bravas, Belgians, and most sugarbeet laborers save some money. Many of the Italians do not seem to make much progress in material welfare, although a small percentage are thrifty and lay up something. The thrifty are likely to give up berry picking after a few years. The permanent pickers are the least frugal and ambitious.

The Bravas are the best savers among those investigated. From the beginning they hoard their earnings, usually in savings banks, to take back with them to their island homes. The propensity to save is one of the most striking characteristics of the Brava.

AMERICANIZATION.

Except the Bravas, all of the groups of seasonal laborers interviewed expressed their intention to remain permanently in the United States. Many are migratory, but their homes are in America. The Brava has been in the habit of returning to his home in the Cape Verde Islands after a few years of residence here, taking his earnings with him. He does not become a citizen, cares nothing for American institutions, and takes little thought for anything except to save money for carrying away. The Bravas constitute the only adequate available source of supply of cranberry bog laborers, but they rise to nothing higher, as a rule. They are efficient, faithful under close supervision, but very illiterate, and neither resourceful nor intelligent.

As a rule, there are fewer citizens among seasonal laborers_than among settled farmers of the same races. In the case of the Bohemians, Germans, and to some extent the few Japanese interviewed who are engaged in sugar-beet labor, the seasonal work is a steppingstone to the acquisition of property, and they content themselves with this occupation for a few years only. With many of the South Italians seasonal labor is apparently a permanent status.

The moral effect of the miscellaneous housing and the unconventional life can not, to put it mildly, be very satisfactory. School authorities assert that the itinerary breaks in on the school routine with very detrimental results educationally. Certain medical and hygienic authorities declare with conviction that the exposure to rain, cold, and malarial atmospheres is provocative of fevers and tuberculosis and that neither the water supply nor the unhygienic surroundings are conducive to physical well-being. These matters have been made the objects of investigation by state and city organizations in New Jersey. On the whole, the situation seems in almost every respect to be more satisfactory than that surrounding contract gangs of the same laborers on railroad and other construction work, but the limited duration of the employment, except in a few occupations, has prevented a great influx of foreigners into the agricultural industries. There is no organization among the seasonal laborers and no unanimous demand for better conditions. Occasionally a gang strikes