employment for which the alien's labor is desired is quite clearly designated. Therefore this class of operations is within the spirit as well as the letter of the contract-labor laws. However, it is seldom possible to secure proof which can be accepted as "legal evidence," and the result is that the operations of padrones are carried on persistently and systematically.

OPERATIONS ABROAD.

The operations carried on abroad for the purpose of inducing emigration to the United States are primarily neither to assist the emigrant to establish a new home nor to supply American employers with labor. The purpose of steamship ticket agents engaged in such operations is mainly to increase the number of passengers carried by the lines they represent, and preferably to secure a class of emigrants who will sooner or later return to their former homes, and thus further add to the revenue of the transportation lines.

Among the numerous methods employed by the steamship agents to induce immigration into this country one of the most effective is the employment of so-called " traveling labor agents," themselves usually alien common laborers, who travel between the United States and their native villages, where they encourage emigration by pointing out the benefits that await the immigrant laborer in America.

By these means groups of peasants are induced to emigrate. The traveling labor agent is usually elected as the leader and paid by the emigrants so much per head to lead them to America. În addition to this (but unknown to the emigrants) he is compensated by the steamship agent for forming the group, and also receives a commission from either labor agents or employers in America to whom he delivers the groups of laborers. Most steamship agents of prominence have a large number of these traveling labor agents in their employ.

Numerous other methods are employed by the steamship agents, among them the distribution of circulars of their own, those of socalled American land companies, and those of labor agents. They advertise or inspire leading articles or discussions in local papers calculated to excite the imaginations of potential emigrants. They employ, in addition to the traveling labor agents, a large number of agitators or runners, who travel from one village to another for the purpose of inducing groups of peasants to emigrate to America. It is also the duty of these runners to coach and instruct the members of such groups how to evade the contract labor laws by false answers to the immigration inspectors at American ports of landing. These agents also deliver lectures, distribute literature, and carry on well organized and effective campaigns for the promotion of emigration. Prominent citizens, social leaders, and even some government functionaries in small communities are often steamship subagents or are otherwise employed to lend their influence to induce emigration to America. In countries where the open promotion of emigration is prohibited, native secret agents are employed, who know how to evade or otherwise overcome interference on the part of local authorities.

The steamship agents cooperate or work in collusion with local usurers or money lenders, and a large proportion of the induced

emigrants are transported to the United States on what may be called the "credit system." The agents charge the emigrants more than the usual price of transportation, burden them with the cost of the propaganda, and when working in collusion with local usurers the exploitations of emigrants are frequently most exorbitant.

All operations to import or to induce the immigration of alien labor carried on in the United States, excepting only direct importations of skilled labor by employers, are in a sense only auxiliary to the more extensive operations that are carried on abroad by steamship companies and their agents and employees. These operations have become so extensive and systematic and so well organized, and the number of laborers they furnish is so large, that most of the American immigration promoters find it quite unnecessary to operate directly or independently, except in special cases.

It may be said that direct operations in the United States by labor agents to induce immigration of common labor are gradually diminishing and that such persons are now confining their activities to cooperating with and assisting the steamship agents, and to procuring employment for immigrants in connection with the operations carried on abroad.

An exposition of the purposes, methods, and extent of the operations carried on by steamship companies and their agents and employees is contained in the report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for 1909, pages 112–113:

The truth of the matter is that the peasants of the countries mentioned have for a number of years supplied a rich harvest to the promoter of immigration. The promoter is usually a steamship ticket agent, employed on a commission basis, or a professional money lender, or a combination of the two. His only interest is the wholly selfish one of gaining his commission and collecting his usury. He is employed by the steamship lines, large and small, without scruple, and to the enormous profit of such lines. The more aliens they bring over the more there are to be carried back if failure meets the tentative immigrant, and the more are likely to follow later if success is his lot. Whatever the outcome, it is a good commercial proposition for the steamship line. To say that the steamship lines are responsible, directly or indirectly, for this unnatural immigration is not the statement of a theory, but of a fact, and of a fact that sometimes becomes, indeed, if it is not always, a crying shame. It has been proven to at least a moral certainty, by statements that have been made to the Bureau by its agents, detailed abroad in past years, some of which have been quoted in previous reports. It has been demonstrated in both a moral and a legal sense by a report and accompanying documentary evidence submitted to the Bureau during the past year by Contract Labor. Inspector John Gruenberg, who spent several months in Europe and in this country in the conduct of a quiet but deep investigation, covering the entire field of "artificially induced " immigration. If space permitted, the Bureau would quote extensively from his several excellent and convincing reports, but it is feasible to give only a brief statement of the findings made by the Bureau from a consideration of one of the most important reports, all of which are founded upon practically conclusive proofs.

He shows quite clearly that all of the steamship lines engaged in bringing aliens from Europe to this country have persistently and systematically violated the law, both its letter and spirit, by making use of every possible means to · encourage the peasants of Europe to purchase tickets over their lines to this country. They have issued circulars and advertisements and made use of extensive correspondence, through their own agents in this country and in Europe and of private correspondence, some of it spurious in character, to impress the peasants with the belief that employment at high wages could be promptly secured on landing in the United States. Some of them have joined hands with money lenders and other sharks for the purpose of exploiting the prospective

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passengers, providing them with passage, under a credit system which amounted almost to robbery, and insuring themselves against loss by taking mortgages and joint notes; some of them have quite evidently operated regular employment agencies in this country in connection with their transportation business and have used these agencies not only as a means of placing the aliens in employment (in which, of course, they could have no direct interest), but to further the transportation business by making the fact of their securing prompt employment the basis for effective communications, written and oral, to other parties they desired to immigrate.

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The * * record and the exhibits * * * are well worth reading, and, it is believed, are absolutely convincing that the steamship companies, in their eagerness to compete successfully with one another, have made no effort to control their agents and subagents to keep them within the limits of the United States immigration law, but have rather encouraged than discouraged their unlawful practices in inducing an artificial immigration.

The immigration law aims to prevent such operations as are above described on the part of steamship agents abroad, as will be seen from the following section of the act of February 20, 1907:

SEC. 7. That no transportation company or owner or owners of vessels, or others engaged in transporting aliens into the United States, shall, directly or indirectly, either by writing, printing, or oral representation, solicit, invite, or encourage the immigration of any aliens into the United States, but this shall not be held to prevent transportation companies from issuing letters, circulars, or advertisements stating the sailings of their vessels and terms and facilities of transportation therein; and for a violation of this provision, any such transportation company and any such owner or owners of vessels, and all others engaged in transporting aliens into the United States, and the agents by them employed, shall be severally subjected to the penalties imposed by section five of this act.

The penalty imposed for violation of this section is a fine of $1,000 for each offense, but no prosecutions have been conducted under it. It will be noticed that there is no provision to exclude the aliens who come here in consequence of any of the activities prohibited by section 7, and, as a matter of fact, the law affords little or no protection from the results of such activities.

THE GREEK PADRONE SYSTEM IN THE

UNITED STATES.

The complete report of the Immigration Commission on this subject.