PEONAGE. INTRODUCTORY. The Immigration Commission was already planning an investigation of alleged peonage cases in which immigrants were concerned, when, on March 2, 1908, the following resolution was passed by the House of Representatives: That the Immigration Commission be requested to make an investigation into the treatment and conditions of work of immigrants on the cotton plantations of the Mississippi Delta, in the States of Mississippi and Arkansas, and upon the turpentine farms, lumber camps, and railway camps in the States of Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other States, and to report them at as early a date as possible. Many complaints of peonage and ill treatment had been made by immigrant laborers working in southern States. Reports of conditions in that section, which had appeared in magazines and newspapers, had inspired the resolution copied above, which was a combination of two resolutions introduced by two southern Congressmen. It was denied that peonage existed in the South, and no suggestion or intimation was made, during the debate in the House upon the resolution, that any condition of peonage had ever existed either in the East or in the West. As is evidenced by the Congressional Record, the phrase "and other States" was inserted so as to avoid the appearance of sectionalism. Under the act providing for its organization, the Immigration Commission possessed full power to investigate "the treatment and conditions of work of immigrants" in the United States, without restriction to any territory or to any particular class of complaints. Upon the passage of the special resolution the subject of peonage was set apart and was made the object of a separate investigation. A subcommittee was appointed, known as the peonage committee of the Immigration Commission, to follow out the wishes of the House. The word "peonage" does not appear in the House resolution, the Commission having been requested "to make an investigation into the treatment and conditions of work of immigrants." It was evidently intended, however, that an examination should be made of complaints and cases in which peonage had been alleged, and the peonage committee has confined its work chiefly to such matters. While general observations have been made of "the treatment and conditions of work of immigrants" in the various States and Territories of the Union, the special purpose of this particular investigation has been to discover the real facts relating to peonage and involuntary servitude as prohibited by the thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution. |