CHAPTER III.

EMPLOYMENT OF EAST INDIANS IN COAST STATES.

IN LUMBER MILLS AND ROPE FACTORY.

When the East Indians came to the State of Washington they found their first employment in the lumber industry. In 1906 they were employed in considerable numbers in the mills between Tacoma and Bellingham. Reports of higher wages received in the United States soon brought a large number from British Columbia.

The East Indians met with little difficulty in entering the lumber industry because there was a scarcity of men to do the rougher and heavier work. It appears they were not used to undermine the existing wage scale or to replace striking lumbermen. In spite of their general willingness to work for less, East Indians have often been paid the same as white men, lest the latter should object on the ground that the wage scale had been undermined. Of 53 men employed in 6 mills visited, 1 received $1.50 per day; 3, $1.55; 16, $1.60; 17, $1.65; 6, $1.70; 2, $1.75; 2, $1.80; 3, $1.85; 3, $2. The average was $1.67, which is somewhat more than the Japanese, but less than white men, are paid. That the East Indians have not been worth this wage has been one cause of their decreasing number in this industry. At the time of this investigation they were found in 6 mills. Their general disappearance, however, has been due primarily to the hostile attitude of the white workmen. This prejudice against them is due partly to race feeling and partly to a dislike of the East Indian dress, religion, and manner of living, and, further, it may be attributed to the fact that they were cheap laborers in British Columbia and had been employed by a railroad company as strike breakers in Tacoma. At Bellingham, where most of the East Indians were employed, there was rioting against them, and they left the community fearing bodily injury. This experience has caused them to be generally discriminated against by employers. It is now difficult for them to find employment in the lumber mills of Washington.

A few East Indians have been employed in the lumber mills of Oregon and California, but not many are now so employed.

The members of this race have been employed only as common laborers, usually in the lumber yards. There is a difference of opinion among those who have employed East Indians at labor of this kind. One employer, whose East Indians had been soldiers in the British army, found them strong and industrious, but unadaptable and unprogressive, and hence capable only of doing the rougher kinds of work. As common laborers he found them less desirable than the Swedes and Norwegians, but more desirable than the class of Americans employed. Another employer found difficulty in giving the orders because of their limited knowledge of English. A third ranks them after Americans, Scandinavians, and Germans in

desirability. A fourth regards them as the least desirable of the many races he has employed because they are so slow to comprehend instructions given. Two others agree with the latter opinion, while another found them too weak physically to do the heavy work required.

În Oregon 20 or more East Indians are working in a rope factory. They have been operating machines for a year. This is one of the few instances where they have found "inside" employment. In this cordage plant 1 receives $60 per month, another $50 per month, 1 $1.85 per day, and 17 $1.75 per day.

The following table gives the average yearly earnings of 63 men employed in the lumber mills and rope factory investigated:

TABLE 6.-Yearly earnings (approximate) of East Indians 18 years of age or over, by number of months employed.

Of the 63 reported, 38 worked twelve months and earned $532.76 as an average. For the whole number the average number of months worked during the year was 10. Nine of the 63 earned less than $300 during the year. On the other hand, 34, or almost five-ninths of the entire number, earned $500 or more during the twelve months. These yearly earnings must be accepted as perhaps the largest made by East Indian laborers in the West, for the rates of wages were among the highest paid to laborers of that race and the amount of lost time during the year the least.

IN RAILROAD WORK.

As the East Indians in British Columbia very soon went into railroad work, so, also, in the United States they early entered that field of employment as common laborers. In 1907 they were employed at Tacoma to replace some striking Italians. A small number are still working on railroads in Washington. The East Indians who went south to Oregon and California also found employment with the railroads. At various times large numbers of them have been employed in construction work on the Ocean Shore, Western Pacific, and Southern Pacific in California, but at the time of this investigation few were found in construction work. It is reported that many of the East Indians arriving directly from India during the fiscal year

1910 have been employed by a railroad company in California in constructing a new line. Because of inefficiency, due primarily to physical weakness and lack of endurance, caused by poor and inadequate food, the East Indians have not long been employed in any piece of construction work.

In 1909, in the maintenance of way of railroads in the Western Division of the United States, 73 East Indians were reported out of a total of 34,919 employed in that department. Comparatively few of them are employed as section hands, for they are generally regarded as absolute failures, largely because of insufficient strength and endurance.

IN AGRICULTURAL WORK IN CALIFORNIA.

The majority of the East Indians have migrated from Washington and Oregon to California because of the warmer climate and because the opportunities for finding employment as farm laborers are greater in the last-mentioned State. The first of these immigrants coming from the north located near Marysville and Chico in 1907. They found employment temporarily in the industries of the community and with the railroads, but during the summer of 1908 they were principally engaged in agricultural work.

During the summer of 1908 about 500 of them made their appearance in the Newcastle fruit district, east of Sacramento, where they were more favorably received than they had been elsewhere. The orchardists, being short of help and being thoroughly tired of the Japanese because of their monopoly control of the labor supply, were glad to hire them. The fruit crop was large and the presence of the East Indians greatly relieved the labor situation. Their employment was in picking fruit and hoeing the weeds from the orchards. In 1909 this race was still present in the district, but not in such large numbers, as most of them had gone to other districts in the autumn of the preceding year and many did not return the following summer. Some, however, found employment here throughout the year 1908–9 in cutting wood, clearing land, etc.

At first the East Indians worked in this district for any rate of wages offered, and averaged about 50 cents per day less than the Japanese and white men in 1908, but they have been demanding higher wages until in 1909 they were usually paid only 25 cents a day less than Japanese. Of 40 East Indians on day-wage basis from whom personal data were obtained in 1909, five received $1.25; 16, $1.50; and 1, $1.60 per day, without board. Japanese were paid from $1.50 to $1.85 per day, without board. White men received $1.25 to $1.50 per day with board, or $1.50 to $2 without board. The difference of 25 cents per day in wages is probably no greater than the difference in the amount of work accomplished by the East Indians and the other races. It should be added, however, that a large percentage of the employers in this district who have employed both Japanese and East Indians were found to prefer the latter.

During the summer of 1908 some 300 East Indians were induced by a large shipper and grower of fruit to go into the Vaca Valley to work in the orchards. They served as a check on the Japanese, who were the most numerous race of laborers. The East Indians received at fruit picking 25 cents per day less than white men and Japanese.

Of 103 East Indians on the ranches visited in 1908, 86 were paid $1.25, and 17, $1.50 per day. The usual wage paid to white men and Japanese was $1.50 per day. The East Indians were regarded as dear at the lowest wages paid them.

Many East Indians secured work in the beet fields near Hamilton this same summer. They were employed in thinning, hoeing, and topping beets. In the Hamilton district where it was hard to get laborers in 1909, 425, or three-fourths of the total number of handworkers, were East Indians.

Late in the fall of 1908, 400 or 500 East Indians went farther south into the fruit sections of the San Joaquin Valley. Most of these were employed about Fresno as grape pickers. In picking grapes, which is paid on a piece basis, the East Indians have not been found very satisfactory. They are slow and require much supervision, as they can not be made to understand the work. On account of their slowness their earnings were far below those of the Japanese. In this district, also, they succeeded in getting work only because help was scarce during the busy season and many ranchers wished to show the Japanese they were not entirely dependent upon them.

From the Fresno district many of the East Indians went back north to work on the railroads, while a number went farther south to the Tulare County citrus-fruit district and found work picking oranges. It was in the fall of 1908, also, that the East Indians began to move down into the lower Sacramento River Valley. There were several hundred of them working in the delta lands of the lower Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers during the spring and summer of 1909. They were engaged in hoeing and other hand work in connection with the growing of beans, asparagus, and other vegetables. The East Indians were first paid less than the Japanese and Chinese in this work, receiving $1.10 and $1.25 per day as against $1.50 for the other two races. In 1909 all wages were higher. Of 139 East Indians on ranches visited in 1909, 47 per cent were paid $1.50, 32 per cent $1.55, and 19 per cent $1.60 per day, while 55 per cent of the 667 Japanese received $1.65 and 37 per cent received $1.75 per day. It is practically universal for employers to discriminate against East Indians in wages. They are generally considered the least desirable race of immigrants.

One grower of fruit and asparagus who paid white men $30 a month with board (which is regarded as equal to $1.65 per day without board), and Japanese $1.70, paid East Indians $1.10 per day without board, but discharged them when they wanted $1.50, as he says they were not worth $1.10 per day. Another grower of asparagus and vegetables preferred East Indians to Japanese, though he states that the East Indians are the least desirable race to have in the community, and they require a great deal of supervision. Another grower, disappointed with the other races he has hired, prefers the East Indians after one year's experience with them. A fourth rancher who hired East Indians to hoe beans found them so slow that he put a pace setter to work with them, but he had to discharge them, and they threatened violence to the pace setter unless he would slow down to their pace.

In the spring of 1909 the East Indians were also found in southern California for the first time. At Highgrove a group of East Indian

Mohammedans were picking oranges. They had wandered through the surrounding districts without success in finding anyone to employ them. It is stated that they were then growing desperate and practically demanded work of various employers. At Highgrove they had been employed only a few days previous to the agent's visit. They were paid $1.50 per day, while Japanese working for the same company received $1.75 and white men $2 per day. To avoid the prejudice of the people of the community against East Indians the employer was calling them "Turks," and the agent of the commission first heard of these East Indians as "Turks" through the Japanese, who were jealous of their new competitors. They were provided with lodging 2 or 3 miles from town in a deserted house, away from all neighbors. Their condition was pitiable. They claimed that they were hungry, and having been unable to find work, had nothing to eat.

In Orange County a gang of about a dozen East Indians had recently come from the northern beet fields and were employed in thinning beets. Labor was scarce, so they easily found work, and proved satisfactory.

Near Oxnard a gang of 25 East Indians was employed in hoeing beets in the spring of 1909. The sugar company operating there had expected a shortage of Japanese labor that season and had hired these East Indians to work in a new community where beets had not previously been grown. These three groups were the only East Indians in southern California in the spring of 1909.

The following table shows the earnings per day of 371 East Indians engaged in agricultural work and from whom personal schedules were obtained:

TABLE 7.-Number of male East Indian employees 18 years of age or over earning each specified amount per day.

Some of these earnings are reported on a piece basis. Indeed, this is true of all of those in excess of $1.75 per day, which is the maximum paid to any East Indians working on a time basis. It will be noted that 149 of the 371 earned less than $1.50 per day, and that an equal number earned $1.50 but less than $1.75 per day. Comparisons have been made between the earnings of the members of this and other races in the preceding paragraphs.

The wage data given were collected during the months when there was the greatest demand for labor in the several agricultural districts visited. They are materially higher than the rates paid at other times. Data for the yearly earnings and the number of months of the twelve employed were not secured for East Indian agricultural laborers. They are engaged in seasonal occupations, and,