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FRONI  B.  OF  L.  t 

CLEVELAND.  OHlQ^^^ 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 


FORCED  LABOR 

IN  THE 

UNITED  STATEf 


by 
WALTER  WILSON 


With  an  Introduction  by 
THEODORE  DREISER 


INTERNATIONAL  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK 


BOOKS  ON  AMERICAN 
LABOR 

This  book  is  one  of  several  prepared 
under  the  direction  of  the  Labor  Re- 
search Association.  These  include  the 
Labor  Fact  Book  and  the  volumes  in  the 
Labor  and  Industry  Series: 

LABOR  AND  STEEL 

By  Horace  B.  Davis 
LABOR  AND  COAL 

By  Anna  Rochester 
LABOR  AND  TEXTILES 

By  Robert  W.  Dunn  and  Jack 
Hardy 
LABOR  AND  LUMBER 

By  Charlotte  Todes 
LABOR  AND  AUTOMOBILES 

By  Robert  W.  Dunn 
LABOR  AND  SILK 

By  Grace  Hutchins 

Other  volumes  in  this  series  are  planned 
on  clothing,  food,  leather  and  shoes,  con- 
struction, transportation,  in  addition  to 
special  volumes  on  Labor  in  the  South 
and  on  Women  in  Industry. 


Copyright,  1933,  by 
INTERNATIONAL  PUBLISHERS  CO.,  INC 

Printed  in  the  US^. 
This  book  is  composed  and  printed  by  union  labor 


CONTENTS 
Introduction         7 

CHAPTER 

I.   What  Is  Forced  Labor? 9 

Making  a  "Free"  Contract,  12;  Capitalism  as  a 
More  Efficient  System  of  Exploitation,  16;  Forms 
of  Labor  Under  Imperialism,  17;  Borderline  Types 
of  Forced  Labor,  19. 

II.    Convict  Labor 24 

Who  Are  in  Prison  To-day?,  24;  Big  Crooks  Go 
Free,  27;  What  Are  the  "Crimes"?,  29;  Third  De- 
gree, 30, 

III.  Exploiting  Convict  Labor 34 

Convict  Labor  in  State  Prisons,  36 ;  Farm,  Road  and 
Construction  Work,  2>7\  Local  and  County  Convict 
Work,  38;  Systems  of  Employing  Prisoners,  39; 
Prison-Made  Commodities,  41;  "Manufacturers"  of 
Prison  Goods,  43;  Marketing  Convict-Made  Goods, 
43;  Competition  with  "Free  Labor,"  46. 

IV.  "Making  Good  Citizens'* 50 

Prison  Wages,  51 ;  Accidents  and  Occupational  Dis- 
eases, 52;  Hours  and  Tasks,  54;  Punishment,  55; 
Prison  "Home"  Life,  58;  Strait- Jacket  and  Other 
Tortures,  59 ;  Young  Convict  Workers,  61 ;  Revolts 
and  Struggles  Against  Prison  Labor,  62;  Struggles 
in  1931-32,  65. 

V.   The  Chain  Gang 68 

The  Guards  Are  Killers,  72;  Man  Hunting,  73; 
Chain  Gang  Tortures,  73;  A  Few  Killings,  79; 
Prison  Farm  Tortures,  82. 

VI.   Peonage 84 

What  Is  Peonage?,  85;  Peonage  Is  Legalized,  91; 
Emigrant  Agency  Law,  94;  "Jumping  Contract" 
Law,  95. 

VII.    Peonage  Exposed 100 

Catastrophes  Expose  Peonage,   104;  Other  Recent 
Peonage  Cases,  106 ;  Peonage  on  Government  Job, 
107;  Rebellion  and  Struggle,  109;  Peonage  Among 
Mexicans  in  the  United   States,  114. 
5 


6  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII.  Forced  Labor  in  the  Colonies  .  .  .  .  ii8 
Products  of  Forced  Labor,  120 ;  Forced  Labor  in  the 
West  Indies,  122;  Imported  Forced  Labor  in  Cuba, 
124 ;  in  Black  Haiti,  127 ;  in  Central  America,  128 ; 
Peonage  in  Guatemala,  129;  Liberia — a  Rubber  Col- 
ony, 131 ;  Contract  Labor  in  Hawaii,  136 ;  Peonage 
in  the  Philippines,  139;  Struggles  Against  Forced 
Labor  in  the  Colonies,  141. 

IX.  "Forced  Labor"  in  the  Soviet  Union  .  .  145 
Who  Charges  Soviet  Forced  Labor?,  146;  Some  of 
the  Charges,  148;  the  Answer  to  the  Charges,  149; 
Americans  Also  Deny  Forced  Labor  Charges,  151; 
Labor  Turnover  and  the  Labor  Code,  154;  More 
About  Soviet  Timber,  156;  the  Kulaks  and  Forced 
Labor,  158;  the  Status  of  Soviet  Convict  Labor, 
159;  Socialist  Labor  vs.  Capitalist  Labor,  162; 
Stimuli^  for  Increasing  Production,  166;  Socialist 
Competition  and  Shock  Brigades,  167;  Soviet  Labor 
Unions,  170;  Hours,  Wages  and  Social  Insurance, 
171;  Education  and  Culture,  173. 

X.    Summary  and  Conclusion 176 

Reference  Notes 183 

Index „ .     187 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege  to  write  an  introduction  to 
this  book.  Because  of  the  outcry  against  the  products  of 
forced  labor  presumably  being  shipped  into  this  country 
by  Soviet  Russia  in  order  to  undermine  honest,  well-paid 
American  labor,  Mr.  Wilson  set  himself  the  task  of  estab- 
lishing that  forced  labor  is  one  of  the  outstanding  character- 
istics of  the  American  business  world,  and  of  its  colonial 
extensions. 

In  his  very  interesting  chapter.  Forced  Labor  in  the  Colo- 
nies, Mr.  Wilson  devotes  disturbing  but  also  convincing 
space  to  the  forced  labor  phases  of  the  businesses  of  the 
United  Fruit  Company  and  the  General  Sugar  Company 
in  Cuba,  the  Firestone  Rubber  Company  in  Liberia,  the 
Guggenheim  tin  mines  in  Bolivia,  and  other  American  com- 
panies having  heavy  investments  in  Central  and  South 
America,  Haiti  (The  National  City  Bank),  Hawaii  (Sugar 
Planters  Association),  the  Philippines.  In  this  connection, 
he  particularly  emphasizes  the  section  of  the  1930  Tariff 
Act  banning  importation  of  goods  produced  by  forced  labor,* 
which  he  points  out  was  especially  contrived  to  injure  the 
Soviet  Union. 

As  regards  forced  labor  actually  in  existence  within  the 
United  States,  he  dwells  chiefly  on  convict  labor,  peonage  and 
chain  gangs,  an  awful — in  the  best  meaning  of  that  word^ 
assemblage  of  horrors.  He  makes  a  point  of  the  fact  that 
our  prison  laborers  are  chiefly  recruited  from  the  ranks  of 
poverty,  and  for  small  offenses,  mostly  petty  thieveries  due 
to  poverty.  The  victims,  through  framed  charges,  forced 
confessions  and  the  like,  are  finally  landed  in  the  ranks  of 
the  prison  workers. 

He  seeks  to  establish  that,  outside  our  prisons,  there  are 
forms  of  contract  and  provisions  of  government  and  chari- 
table relief  which  preclude  free  labor.  And  he  adds  the 
Marxian  argument  which  makes  it  perfectly  clear  ithat,^ 
under  capitalism,  labor  is  bound,  in  any  case,  to  be  ex- 
ploited, as  it  is. 

I  know  that  it  will  be  argued  that  in  comparing  labor  con- 
ditions in  Russia  and  America  he  is  presenting  conditions 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION 

not  exactly  parallel.  It  will  probably  be  said  that  in  America 
it  is  taken  for  granted  that  people  must  work,  but  that  there 
is  no  legal  compulsion.  Whereas  in  Russia,  they  are  com- 
pelled by  law  so  to  do,  if  they  want  to  eat.  And,  while, 
frankly,  there  is  involved  here  a  fundamental  difference 
between  freedom  and  tyranny,  the  actual  result  is  that  there 
is  tyranny  here  and  not  in  Russia,  That  which  will  be 
ignored  in  this  argument  is  the  absolute  proof  that  the  funda- 
mental business  of  the  Soviet  government,  its  philosophy  as 
well  as  its  official  and  technical  structure,  is  devoted  to  the 
principle  that  it  is  truly  of,  by  and  for  its  people,  and  that 
all  of  the  rewards  of  a  properly  functioning  government 
must  and  do  redound  to  the  physical  and  mental  welfare 
of  all  of  its  people.  Whereas  in  America  there  have  always 
been  especial  rewards  and  class  privileges  not  for  the  really 
mentally  gifted,  but  rather  for  the  money-bag,  the  individual 
who  centered  on  the  business  of  accumulating  money  in  its 
most  tangible  form,  besides  the  direction  and  control  of  the 
government  itself.  For  this  would  secure  these  properties 
and  privileges  for  themselves  and  for  their  wives,  children, 
relatives  and  friends  to  the  third,  fourth  and  seventeenth 
generations. 

Mr.  Wilson,  throughout  his  carefully  documented  and 
verified  study,  lays  very  great  stress  on  punishment,  inhu- 
mane conditions  and  torture  in  the  United  States  and  its  colo- 
nies, and  there  is  no  escaping  the  force  of  his  argument  any 
more  than  the  volume  of  his  data.  It  is  overwhelming.  In 
certain  cases,  it  is  of  such  nature  as  to  be  not  only  depressing 
but  discouraging.  And  were  it  not  for  the  Marxian  analysis 
of  the  inevitable  process  and  failure  of  capitalism,  it  would 
be  reason  for  complete  social  despair.  But  there  is  this 
philosophy,  Marx*  destructive  analysis  of  the  waste  and  the 
futilities  of  capitalism.  And  with  this  in  the  foreground, 
and  taking  into  account  whatever  modifications  so-called 
human  nature  in  its  race  and  state  form  may  require,  there 
is  still  the  possibility  of  a  more  equitable  and  hence  a  better 
state  than  we  have  yet  seen.  I  congratulate  the  author  on  his 
labors,  and  bespeak  for  the  volume  a  wide  reading. 

Theodore  Dreiser. 


CHAPTER  I 
WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR? 

The  holy  crusade  of  the  past  two  or  three  years  against 
"forced  labor"  in  the  Soviet  Union  has  had  one  result  cer- 
tainly not  desired  by  those  who  initiated  the  crusade.  It 
aroused  general  interest  in  the  problem  of  forced  labor, 
which  in  turn  led  to  the  "discovery"  that  much  forced 
labor  exists  in  every  capitalist  country.  In  the  United  States, 
for  example,  where  more  discussion  of  forced  labor  has  been 
generated  than  at  any  time  since  the  Civil  War,  it  has  be- 
come evident  that  one  need  not  go  thousands  of  miles  to 
Africa  to  witness  forced  labor  in  all  its  forms:  there  is 
enough  first-hand  material  at  home  to  satisfy  the  most  thor- 
ough student  of  the  problem.  The  old  story:  beams  and 
motes,  people  in  glass  houses,  boomerangs,  and  chickens 
coming  home  to  roost. 

Of  course  every  one  knows  that  there  is  some  forced  labor 
in  the  United  States  but  how  widespread  is  the  practice  is 
not  generally  recognized.  This  writer  himself,  who  had 
done  some  work  on  the  problem,  never  quite  realized  the 
extent  until  he  made  a  special  investigation  during  the  past 
two  years.  Put  a  dot  on  the  map  of  the  United  States 
wherever  you  find  forced  labor  and  you  will  find  the  fair 
face  of  this  country  covered  with  a  close-mottled  rash. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  term  "forced  labor"?  Gen- 
erally speaking  we  understand  it  to  mean  work  that  is  done 
by  a  worker  in  the  absence  of  a  "free"  contract  between 
himself  and  the  employer.  The  United  States  Tariff  Act 
of  1930  (section  307),  prohibiting  the  importation  of  goods 
made  by  "forced  labor"— including  convict  labor — ^and  aimed 

0 


10  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

at  the  Soviet  Union,  adopted  the  definition  of  forced  labor 
given  by  the  League  of  Nations.  This  definition,  made  by 
the  Draft  Convention  of  the  Fourteenth  International  Con- 
ference of  Labor  at  Geneva  in  1930,  states :  "For  the  pur- 
pose of  the  present  convention  the  term  *  forced  or  obligatory* 
labor  shall  mean  all  work  or  service  which  is  extracted  from 
a  person  under  the  menace  of  any  penalty,  and  for  which  the 
said  person  had  not  offered  himself  voluntarily." 

By  implication,  this  definition  considers  wage  labor  under 
capitalism  to  be  voluntary  or  free  and  uncoerced  by  "the 
menace  of  any  penalty."  In  reality,  as  we  shall  show,  wage 
labor  under  capitalism  differs  from  forced  labor  as  the 
League  of  Nations  defines  it,  not  in  content  but  only  in 
form.  Forced  labor  in  the  generally  accepted  meaning  of 
the  term — ^as  applied  to  such  types  as  convict  labor,  peonage, 
and  chattel  slavery — is  a  form  of  labor  in  which  the  "menace 
of  a  penalty"  is  more  open  and  direct,  in  which  all  the  ele- 
ments of  compulsion  are  unconcealed  and  evident  to  all. 

Even  when  they  enjoy  personal  freedom  and  outwardly, 
at  any  rate,  enter  into  a  "free"  contract  with  employers, 
the  labor  of  all  workers  in  capitalist  countries  is  forced 
labor.     Karl  Marx  clearly  shows  why: 

.  .  .  Capital,  in  the  social  process  of  production  corresponding 
to  it,  pumps  a  certain  quantity  of  surplus  labor  out  of  the  direct 
producer,  or  laborer.  It  extorts  this  surplus  without  returning 
an  equivalent.  This  surplus  labor  always  remains  forced  labor 
in  essence,  no  matter  how  much  it  may  seem  to  be  the  result 
of  free  labor.^ 

Under  capitalism  the  employer  hires  the  worker,  that  is, 
buys  his  labor  power.  But  he  hires  the  worker  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  making  as  much  profit  out  of  him  as  possible. 
So,  whether  the  fact  is  known  or  not,  the  worker  actually 
toils  a  part  of  the  time  for  himself  and  a  part  of  the  time 
without  pay,  producing  surplus  value  and  piling  up  profits, 
for  his  employer.  Under  chattel  slavery  the  worker  received 
food,  shelter,  clothes  and  medical  attention.     But  no  "free" 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  11 

contract  on  wages  and  other  matters  was  made.  Under 
serfdom  the  serf  worked  a  certain  number  of  days  without 
pay  for  a  lord  and  then  was  allowed  to  work  the  rest  of  the 
time  for  himself.  Under  capitalism  the  worker  is  made  to 
believe  that  he  enters  into  a  contract  freely.  But  when  pay 
day  comes  he  is  given — ^in  the  aggregate — ^barely  enough  to 
buy  food,  clothes,  and  shelter  which  the  slave  or  serf  re- 
ceived for  his  work  without  worrying.  Marx  put  it  this 
way: 

In  point  of  fact,  however,  whether  a  man  works  three  days  of 
the  week  for  himself  on  his  own  field  and  three  days  for  nothing 
on  the  estate  of  his  lord,  or  whether  he  works  in  the  factory  or 
workshop  six  hours  daily  for  himself  and  six  for  his  employer, 
comes  to  the  same,  although  in  the  latter  case  the  paid  and 
unpaid  portions  of  labor  are  inseparably  mixed  up  with  each 
other,  and  the  nature  of  the  whole  transaction  is  completely 
masked  by  the  intervention  of  a  contract  and  the  pay  received  at 
the  end  of  the  week.  The  gratuitous  labor  appears  to  be  vol- 
untarily given  in  the  one  instance  and  to  be  compulsory  in  the 
other.    That  makes  all  the  difference.^ 

It  is  this  surplus  value  produced  by  the  workers  and  taken 
by  the  capitalists  without  giving  any  equivalent  that  is  the 
main  characteristic  feature  of  all  labor  in  capitalist  coun- 
tries. Working  for  another  class,  producing  surplus  valuej 
for  the  exploiters — ^this  is  the  essence  of  forced  labor.  ^  . 

But,  it  might  be  asked,  where  is  the  coercion  in  the  pro- 
duction of  surplus  value?  The  worker  is  free,  he  is  not 
kept  under  arrest,  he  is  free  to  take  any  kind  of  work  he 
pleases,  or  not  to  take  any  at  all. 

Under  capitalism  the  worker  is  a  proletarian,  that  is,  he  is 
deprived  of  the  means  of  production  and  depends  for  a 
living  solely  upon  his  wages.  He  is  without  security  for 
the  future.  He  must  take  work  from  a  capitalist  to  secure 
an  income  to  exist.  He  is  in  no  position  to  refuse  to  accept 
the  employment  offered  him.  He  may  escape  working  for  a 
particular  employer  but  he  must  work  for  some  one  some- 
where in  the  system.    Because  he  is  propertyless,  because  he 


12  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

lacks  the  means  of  production  he  is  compelled  to  sell  his 
own  labor  power,  to  offer  it  for  sale  on  the  market  like 
any  other  commodity.  The  penalty  for  refusal  to  work  is 
death,  death  by  starvation.  "Freedom"  to  work,  or  not  to 
work,  narrows  down  to  precisely  that.  It  is  the  whiplash 
of  hunger  that  serves  as  a  most  effective  form  of  coercion, 
forcing  the  proletarian  to  work  for  another  class. 

The  compulsion  to  work  by  hunger,  created  by  the  capi- 
talist monopoly  of  the  means  of  production  and  distribution, 
was  recognized  by  the  earliest  of  the  capitalist  economists. 
Karl  Marx  quotes  one  who  said: 

Legal  constraint  (to  labor)  is  attended  with  too  much  trouble 
and  noise  .  .  .  whereas  hunger  is  not  only  a  peaceable,  silent, 
unremitted  pressure,  but,  as  the  most  natural  motive  to  industry 
and  labor,  it  calls  forth  the  most  powerful  exertions.^ 

Thus,  under  capitalism,  there  is  no  thought  of  abolishing 
forced  labor,  but  merely  of  changing  the  methods  of  coercion 
to  force  workers  to  labor  for  another  class.  Instead  of 
using  direct  force,  depriving  the  workers  of  freedom,  a  more 
"peaceable,  silent,  unremitted"  method  of  coercion  is  em- 
ployed— ^hunger. 

Making  a  "Free"  Contract 

Let  us  try  to  picture  the  way  in  which  a  wage  worker 
in  a  company-owned  American  textile,  coal  or  lumber  town 
ienters  into  one  of  these  "free"  contracts,  implying  an  agree- 
ment between  equals,  made  "without  duress"  and  "with  full 
understanding  of  all  the  obligations  assumed."  The  steps 
taken  by  the  "party  of  the  first  part,"  the  capitalist,  to  pre- 
pare the  minds  and  bodies  of  the  "party  of  the  second  part," 
the  workers,  to  sign  this  "free"  contract  are  somewhat  as 
follows. 

A  company  in  one  of  these  towns  shuts  down  its  plant. 
Thousands  of  the  workers  suffer  months  of  unemployment. 
The  company  threatens  to  import  other  workers  at  lower 
wages  to  take  the  jobs  of  those  formerly  employed.    It  pre- 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  13 

pares  blacklists  of  those  who  may  have  criticized  the  com- 
pany or  attempted  to  organize  a  union.  It  cuts  off  credit 
at  the  company  store.  It  may  even  evict  workers  from 
company-owned  houses.  Finally  gun  thugs,  policemen  and 
detectives  attempt  to  terrorize  the  workers. 

When  the  workers'  ragged  clothes  hang  limp  on  their 
starved  bodies  and  when  they  have  been  terrorized  suffi- 
ciently, the  company,  with  the  aid  of  its  high-priced  lawyers, 
draws  up  a  contract.  Usually  the  document  consists  of  sev- 
eral pages  of  fine  print  which  are  full  of  "whereases"  and 
conditions  of  every  sort — ^all,  of  course,  in  the  company's 
favor. 

At  last  all  is  ready  for  the  signature  of  the  "free  worker." 
Hundreds  or  perhaps  thousands  line  up  in  front  of  the 
employment  office  in  response  to  a  notice  that  the  plant  is 
about  to  resume  operations.  All  of  them,  according  to  capi- 
talist theory,  are  waiting  their  turn  to  "bargain  freely"  with 
the  corporation !  Usually  the  procedure  of  hiring  the  whole 
line  of  workers  takes  only  a  few  minutes.  As  soon  as  they 
sign  their  names  or  make  their  mark  they  pass  inside  the 
factory  gates — ^hired  after  having  exercised  their  right  to 
make  a  "free"  contract.  And  not  a  line  or  a  word  of  the 
form  contract,  drawn  up  by  the  lawyers,  has  been  changed ! 

In  practice,  the  worker  is  often  forced  to  trade  in  the 
company  store,  to  accept  as  pay  scrip  which  is  redeemable  / 
only  at  the  company  store  at  a  discount,  and  to  live  in  a 
company  house  from  which  he  can  be  evicted  at  the  com* 
pany's  will.  To  incur  the  displeasure  of  the  boss  in  one 
of  these  company  towns  means  to  be  driven  from  the  com- 
munity. 

The  worker  is  bound  to  abide  by  the  contract.  In  addi- 
tion to  hunger  there  are  other  penalties  which  prevent  hini 
from  breaking  it.  Among  them  are  the  clubs  of  company 
thugs  and  policemen,  the  bayonets  of  the  militia,  poison 
gas,  and  the  enslaving  orders  of  the  courts.  An  example 
of  the  latter  is  the  injunction.    The  ultimate  purpose  of  the 


14.  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

injunction  is  to  keep  workers  in  a  condition  bordering  on 
involuntary  servitude,  and  its  immediate  purpose  is  to  break 
the  resistance  of  workers  who  try  to  bargain  collectively. 
A  great  many  cases  of  injunctions  might  be  cited  which 
have  prevented  union  members  and  others  from  leaving,  or 
threatening  to  leave,  their  employment  without  the  consent 
of  their  employers.*  And  very  closely  related  to  the  injunc- 
tion is  the  yellow  dog  contract — a  contract  whereby  workers 
"agree"  not  to  join  in  any  collective  attempt  to  better  wages 
or  conditions  no  matter  how  bad  these  may  be. 

The  most  notorious  yellow  dog  contract  of  the  frankly 
anti-union  type,  and  the  form  most  widely  used,  is  that 
which  was  employed  by  the  Hitchman  Coal  &  Coke  Co. 
against  the  once  militant  organization,  the  United  Mine 
Workers  of  America.  It  was  upheld  by  the  U.  S.  Supreme 
Court  in  1917,  and  reads  as  follows: 

I  am  employed  by  and  work  for  the  H.  C.  &  C.  Co.  with  the 
express  understanding  that  I  am  not  a  member  of  the  U.M.W.A. 
and  will  not  become  so  while  an  employee  of  the  H.  Co.;  that 
the  H.  Co.  is  run  non-union  and  agrees  with  me  that  it  will  run 
non-union  while  I  am  in  its  employ.  If  at  any  time  I  am  em- 
ployed by  the  H.  Co.  I  want  to  become  connected  with  the 
U.M.W.A.  or  any  affiliated  organization,  I  agree  to  withdraw 
from  the  employment  of  said  company,  and  agree  that  while  I  am 
in  the  employ  of  that  company,  I  will  not  make  any  efforts 
amongst  its  employees  to  bring  about  the  unionization  of  that 
mine  against  the  company's  wish.  I  have  read  the  above  or  heard 
the  same  read.^ 

To  give  the  appearance  of  mutual  gain  the  contract  h5rpo- 
critically  pretends  that  it  is  at  the  worker's  special  request 
that  the  company  agrees  to  run  non-union !  Some  anti-union 
contracts  go  further — ^the  worker  "agrees"  in  addition  to  have 
no  dealings,  communications,  or  interviews  whatsoever  with 
any  agents  or  members  of  a  labor  union. 

But  on  the  other  hand  the  "party  of  the  first  part,"  the 
employer,  is  not  bound  in  any  way.  He  has  the  privilege 
of  interpreting  the  contract.    He  has  the  power  to  terminate 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  15 

it  with  or  without  notice  and  with  or  without  reason.  He 
can  fire  the  workers  in  mass  or  individually.  All  that  is 
necessary  is  to  say,  "Hey,  there,  you're  fired !" 

Thus  the  worker  through  his  "inalienable"  right  of  con- 
tract is  whipped  into  signing  himself  into  what  amounts  to 
forced  labor  just  as  surely  as  Negro  slaves  were  whipped  to 
their  tasks  in  the  South  in  pre-Civil  War  days.  Friedrich 
Engels  brilliantly  summed  up  the  whole  illusion  of  freedom 
of  the  "free"  contract  when  he  wrote : 

The  bourgeoisie  have  seized  the  monopoly  of  all  the  means 
of  life  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  word;  the  proletarian  can 
obtain  the  things  he  requires  only  from  this  bourgeoisie;  they 
have  the  power  of  life  or  death  over  him;  they  offer  him  the 
means  to  live,  but  in  exchange  for  a  certain  equivalent,  his  labor ; 
they  even  allow  him  to  harbor  the  illusion  that  he  is  acting  on 
his  own  free  will,  without  any  constraint,  like  an  adult  person 
entering  into  a  contract  with  them.  But  what  a  fine  sort  of 
freedom  it  is  if  the  proletarian  has  no  other  choice  but  to  accept 
the  terms  offered  by  the  bourgeoisie  or  die  of  starvation,  of  cold, 
to  live  naked  among  the  beasts  of  the  forest. 

The  very  existence  of  the  capitalist  state  is  proof  of  the 
existence  of  forced  labor.  The  state  is  the  organ  of  class 
domination,  the  organ  of  oppression  of  one  class  by  another, 
"the  national  war  engine  of  capital  against  labor."  ®  It  is  the 
chief  instrument  of  the  capitalists  in  forcing  the  workers  to 
submit  to  class  exploitation.  The  simplest  economic  struggle, 
the  smallest  strike  brings  police  to  the  factory  gate  to  dis- 
perse meetings  and  arrest  strikers. 

The  capitalist's  life  and  death  control  over  the  "free" 
worker  is  shown  most  clearly  in  an  economic  crisis  or  at  any 
other  time  when  the  capitalist  chooses  not  to  operate  his 
factory.  At  such  a  time  the  worker  finds  the  factory  door 
shut  in  his  face  and  no  opportunity  to  do  any  work  no  matter 
how  much  he  "volunteers."  We  have  seen  the  methods  of 
coercion  used  in  forcing  workers  to  toil.  Now  during  the 
deep-going  world  economic  crisis  we  see  more  clearly  than 
ever  the  absolute  power  of  the  capitalist,  who  decides  when 


16  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

the  worker  shall  and  when  he  shall  not  be  employed.  The 
worker  is  forced  to  acquiesce  and  lapses  into  involuntary 
idleness.  Mass  suffering,  starvation  and  suicide  follow. 
Marx  pointed  this  out  when  he  said  : 

But  capital  not  only  lives  upon  labor.  Like  a  master,  at  once 
distinguished  and  barbarous,  it  drags  with  it  into  its  grave  the 
corpses  of  its  slaves,  whole  hecatombs  of  workers,  who  perish 
in  the  crises^ 

Capitalism  as  a  More  Efficient  System 
OF  Exploitation 

It  has  long  been  recognized  that  a  worker  in  an  industrial 
society  does  better  and  more  efficient  work  when  he  is  made 
to  believe  that  he  is  working  of  his  own  free  will.  It  is  an 
accepted  fact  that  the  system  of  wage  labor  has  proved  to 
be  more  efficient  in  the  exploitation  of  labor  than  outright 
slavery.    Marx  stated  this  fact  tersely  when  he  said : 

Capital  has  developed  into  a  coercive  relation,  whereby  the 
working  class  is  constrained  to  do  more  work  than  is  prescribed 
by  the  narrow  round  of  its  own  vital  needs.  As  a  producer  of 
diligence  in  others,  as  extractor  of  surplus  value  and  exploiter 
of  labor  power,  capitalism,  in  its  energy,  remorselessness  and 
efficiency,  has  outscored  all  the  earlier  systems  of  production, 
those  that  were  based  upon  forced  labor.® 

John  Adams  discerned  the  illusory  character  of  freedom  in 
wage  labor  under  capitalism,  as  is  shown  in  his  speech  in  the 
American  Continental  Congress  of  1777  when  he  said: 

It  is  of  no  consequence  by  what  name  you  call  the  people, 
whether  by  that  of  freemen  or  slaves;  in  some  countries  the 
laboring  poor  are  called  freemen,  in  others  they  are  called  slaves ; 
but  the  difference  as  to  the  state  is  imaginary  only.  What  mat- 
ters it  whether  a  landlord  employing  ten  laborers  on  his  farm 
gives  them  annually  as  much  money  as  will  buy  them  the  neces- 
saries of  life  or  gives  them  those  necessities  at  short  hand?  .  .  . 
The  condition  of  the  laboring  poor  in  most  countries — that  of 
the  fishermen  particularly  of  the  Northern  states — is  as  abject 
as  that  of  slavery. » 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  17 

Even  southern  slave  owners,  in  defending  their  own  sys- 
tem of  chattel  slavery  during  the  slavery  controversy  in  the 
United  States  in  the  1850's,  repeatedly  pointed  out  the? 
coercive  character  of  "free  labor'*  exploitation.  Senatoij 
J.  H.  Hammond  of  South  Carolina,  for  one,  expressed  this 
view  in  a  speech  in  the  United  States  Senate,  March  20, 1858: 

The  senator  from  New  York  said  yesterday  that  the  whole 
world  had  abolished  slavery.  Ay,  the  name,  but  not  the  thing 
.  .  .  for  the  man  who  lives  by  daily  labor,  and  scarcely  lives 
at  that  and  who  has  put  his  labor  on  the  market,  and  takes  the 
best  he  can  get  for  it,  in  short  your  whole  class  of  manual  hireling 
laborers  and  "operatives,"  as  you  call  them,  are  essentially  slaves. 
The  difference  between  us  is,  that  our  slaves  are  hired  for  life, 
and  are  well-compensated;  there  is  no  starvation,  no  begging,  no 
want  of  employment  among  our  people,  and  not  too  much  em- 
ployment either.  Yours  are  hired  by  the  day,  not  cared  for, 
and  scantily  compensated.  .  .  . 

That  such  arguments  by  defenders  of  slavery  were  re- 
garded very  seriously  is  evidenced  by  the  papers  and  pam- 
phlets that  were  circulated  by  the  defenders  of  wage  labor 
trying  to  disprove  the  arguments. 

The  Maharaja  of  Nepal,  having  been  "educated"  by  im- 
perialism to  recognize  that  wage  labor  can  be  more  effec- 
tively exploited  than  slave  labor,  said  in  a  speech  in  1924: 

The  slave  must  be  fed  and  clothed  whether  he  works  ill  or 
well,  he  must  be  nursed  in  illness,  and  at  death  or  desertion  his 
value  will  have  to  be  written  off  as  a  loss.  The  slave  will  require 
more  constant  supervision  than  the  free  laborer,  because,  sure 
of  a  bellyful  whether  he  works  or  not,  he  will  naturally  prefer 
to  do  the  least  possible;  you  cannot  starve  him,  because  his 
physical  weakness  will  be  your  loss.  The  superiority  of  free 
labor  to  slave  labor  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  speculation.  History 
has  proved  it  and  I  doubt  not  that  the  experience  of  those  who 
have  occasion  to  use  both  descriptions  of  labor  in  this  country 
will  bear  out  the  fact.^° 

Forms  of  Labor  Under  Imperialism 

Capitalism  resorts  not  only  to  indirect  coercion  in  the  case 
of  wage  labor  but  also  to  physical  force  when  need  arises. 


18  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Police,  gangsters,  prison,  attacks  on  demonstrations,  arrests 
of  strikers  and  even  murder  are  among  the  common  weapons 
used  to  protect  property  and  profits  and  to  prevent  the 
workers  from  eflFectively  waging  a  fight  to  better  their  con- 
ditions. 

But,  in  addition  to  this  type  of  coercion,  capitalism  has 
need  of  other  forms  of  forced  labor.  As  one  of  its  contra- 
dictions it  also  makes  use  of  all  the  more  direct  types  of 
forced  labor,  in  which  open  physical  and  legal  restraint  is 
used.  In  every  capitalist  country  direct  forced  labor  is  used, 
including,  with  variations,  chattel  slavery,  serfdom,  peonage, 
convict  labor  and  imported  contract  labor. 

Although  both  "free"  wage  and  direct  forced  labor  exist 
side  by  side  in  every  capitalist  country,  it  may  be  said  that 
"free"  wage  labor  predominates  in  advanced  capitalist  coun- 
tries and  direct  forced  labor  in  the  colonial  countries,  espe- 
cially the  more  backward.  It  is  estimated  that  there  are 
between  5,000,000  and  6,000,000  chattel  slaves  in  the  colonies 
to-day,*  chiefly  in  Africa  and  Asia. 

The  trend  of  labor  under  modern  imperialism  is  toward 
a  subtle  transition  from  "free"  to  coerced  labor  in  the 
highly  industrialized  countries.  The  emphasis  during  the 
nineteenth  century  was  on  freedom  of  contract  and  other 
"freedoms."  But  during  the  past  few  years  these  "freedoms" 
are  being  more  and  more  openly  curtailed  as  world  capitalism 
finds  itself  in  a  permanent  crisis.  We  see  extreme  examples 
of  this  under  fascism  in  Italy  and  in  the  Balkans  where  all 
free  associations  of  workers  are  prohibited,  and  the  state 
drops  its  cloak  of  democracy  entirely  to  reveal  the  naked 
dictatorship  of  the  capitalists.  In  England  a  great  many 
restrictions  have  been  put  on  the  right  to  strike,  especially 
since  the  British  general  strike  of  1926.  .  In  the  United 
States  the  use  of  the  injunction,  the  yellow  dog  contract, 
compulsory  arbitration,  and  the  police  and  courts  place  labor 
more  and  more  under  coercion,  abrogating  many  of  the  civil 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  ISl 

and  political  rights  which  had  been  won  by  the  working 
class  during  many  years  of  struggle. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  trend  in  the  colonies  is 
just  the  opposite — from  open  and  above-board  forced  labor 
to  less  open  forms.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  agitation  at 
present  against  chattel  slavery.  This  reflects,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  fact  that  a  different,  more  efficient  type  of  labor 
is  needed  to  man  the  new  industries  in  the  colonies.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  reflects  the  struggle  of  the  colonial  masses 
against  enslavement  by  the  imperialists.  Such  "humani- 
tarians" as  those  in  the  League  of  Nations  and  Secretary 
of  State  Stimson,  in  their  recent  outcries  against  chattel 
slavery,  merely  voice  the  need  for  a  more  concealed  form  of 
forced  labor  as  a  more  efficient  means  of  capitalist  exploita- 
tion. They  also  hope  their  hypocritical  protests  will  help  to 
placate  the  rising  tide  of  colonial  revolt.    ^ 

Borderline  Types  of  Forced  Labor 

In  the  United  States,  as  in  every  other  industrialized 
country,  the  predominating  form  of  labor  is  "free"  or  wage 
labor,  which,  however,  exists  side  by  side  with  much  direct 
forced  labor  as  defined  by  the  United  States  Tariff  Act  of 
1930.  Other  types  of  labor  are  also  used,  which  are  on  the 
borderline  between  wage  labor  and  direct  forced  labor.  As 
we  do  not  develop  these  borderline  cases  elsewhere  in  this 
book,  a  few  words  are  necessary  here  to  clarify  the  problem. 

During  the  present  world  economic  crisis  of  capitalism  a 
great  deal  of  semi-direct  forced  labor  has  developed  in  con- 
nection with  unemplo)mient  relief.  No  study  of  the  volume 
or  effect  of  this  type  of  forced  labor  has  yet  been  made  in 
the  United  States  although  we  know  that  it  reaches  enormous 
proportions.  Scarcely  a  day  passes  but  that  the  press  re- 
ports such  cases. 

This  unemployment  "relief"  forced  labor  is  of  two  gen- 
eral kinds — ^work  for  a  private  or  government  agency,  and 


20  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

work  for  a  private  employer  who  secures  his  labor  through 
some  government  agency. 

Work  for  agencies  or  institutions  may  range  from  the 
time-honored  wood-cutting  of  the  Salvation  Army  to  road 
building  for  the  state  or  Federal  government.  Usually  eight 
hours  or  more  of  hard  labor  are  required  in  return  for 
enough  food  for  just  bare  subsistence  and  a  bed  in  a  "flop" 
house,  or,  if  the  worker  has  a  family,  for  enough  coarse 
food  to  maintain  life  and  a  shack  or  dingy  room  to  sleep  in. 
Under  a  plan  used  in  California  three  thousand  men  were 
recently  forced  to  build  a  thousand  miles  of  motor  roads 
and  mountain  trails  for  the  state.  An  American  Legion 
official  in  Michigan  has  proposed  a  plan  for  that  state  which 
he  says  is  modeled  on  that  of  California,  under  which  labor 
camps  would  be  established  where  workers  would  do  road 
work  without  wages.  But  they  would  be  given  food  wortH 
22  cents  and  a  shelter  worth  three  cents  for  a  day's  work. 

Perhaps  most  of  this  type  of  forced  labor  for  a  private 
employer  is  to  be  found  in  connection  with  unemployment 
"relief"  through  the  so-called  public  works  programs. 
Municipalities  and  states  allocate  sums  from  public  funds  for 
the  construction  of  roads,  bridges,  canals,  etc.,  "to  provide 
work  for  the  unemployed."  The  contracts  are  given  to 
private  contractors,  who  offer  the  unemployed  a  chance  to 
work  at  wages  from  40  to  60%  lower  than  the  usual  rates 
for  similar  work.  Those  who  refuse  to  go  to  work  under 
such  conditions  are  removed  from  the  register,  deprived  of 
further  relief,  and  even  in  extreme  instances,  arrested  or 
threatened  with  arrest  for  vagrancy.  Workers  have  also 
had  their  names  removed  from  the  list  of  registered  as  a 
penalty  for  their  activity  in  the  unemployed  councils.  In 
some  cities  unemployed  who  refuse  to  work  for  flop  house 
fare  are  "deported"  from  the  city  limits  in  droves. 

One  of  the  most  recent  and  typical  reports  of  forced  labor 
in  the  form  of  unemployment  "relief"  is  from  Bakersfield, 
California.     Labor  groups  there,  according  to  a  Federated 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  21 

Press  report,  June  3,  1932,  had  protested  that  employers, 
including  well-to-do  farmers,  were  using  the  relief  agencies 
as  employment  offices.  "The  welfare  bureau,"  says  the  re- 
port, "because  it  has  the  power  to  bestow  relief  where  and 
how  it  desires,  can  force  men  to  work  even  though  the  wage 

is  not  sufficient  to  buy  food  for  the  family What  is  it 

but  forced  labor  to  tell  a  man  with  wife  and  children  that 
he  must  work  for  15  cents  an  hour  if  he  wishes  the  county 
to  aid  him  ?" 

Similar  reports  on  "work  relief"  have  come  from  over  a 
hundred  communities  including  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  Mil- 
waukee (Socialist-controlled),  Cleveland,  Baltimore,  Kansas 
City,  Pittsburgh,  Houston,  Hartford,  Indianapolis,  Louisville, 
Buffalo,  Toledo  and  Trenton.  Still  other  reports  reveal  the 
same  conditions  in  agricultural  sections,  especially  in  the 
South  during  the  cotton-picking  season. 

And  one  of  the  chief  offending  agencies  is  the  Red  Cross, 
which  during  the  1930  drought  gave  out  a  dole  of  $1.55  a 
month  per  person  to  the  neediest  cases  in  the  stricken  sec- 
tions of  the  South.  U.  S.  Senator  Burton  K.  Wheeler 
charged  that  the  organization  was  forcing  laborers  to  ac- 
cept work  for  private  employers  at  15  cents  an  hour.  It 
was  also  charged  that  the  Red  Cross  made  the  workers  pay 
off  private  debts  by  this  kind  of  enforced  labor  before  relief 
was  given. 

Such  use  of  forced  labor  is  not  new  in  the  history  of 
capitalism.  Marx,  in  describing  the  cotton  crisis  of  1861- 
1865,  said : 

The  cotton  employees  willingly  offered  themselves  for  all  pub- 
lic labors,  drainage,  road-building,  stone  breaking,  street  paving, 
which  they  did  in  order  to  get  their  keep  from  the  authorities 
(although  this  amounted  practically  to  an  assistance  for  the 
manufacturers).  The  whole  bourgeoisie  stood  guard  over  the 
laborers.  If  the  worst  of  a  dog's  wages  were  offered,  and  the 
laborer  refused  to  accept  them,  then  the  Assistance  Committee 
struck  him  from  their  list.  It  was  in  a  way  a  golden  age  for 
the  manufacturers,   for  the  laborers  had  either  to  starve  or 


22  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

work  at  any  price  profitable  for  the  bourgeois.    The  Assistance 
Committees  acted  as  watch-dogs.^^ 

Less  recognized  but  very  important  sources  of  forced  labor 
in  the  United  States  are  orphan  homes,  religious  homes  for 
children,  government  schools  for  Indian  children,  poor- 
houses,  insane  asylums,  and  similar  institutions.  Some  of 
them  are  veritable  slave-driving  institutions.  Unfortunately, 
no  study  has  ever  been  made  of  them  but  it  is  commonly 
recognized  that  they  all  exploit  direct  forced  labor,  in  fact, 
hard  labor  imposed  on  inmates  of  these  institutions  is  an 
American  tradition.  An  example  of  the  sort  of  thing  we 
mean  is  indicated  by  an  admission  from  Mrs.  Franklin  D. 
Roosevelt,  who  is  connected  with  the  Rome  School  for  mental 
defectives,  that  girls  from  that  institution  were  being  ex- 
ploited in  private  homes  for  60  cents  a  day,  the  "wages" 
being  paid,  not  to  the  girls,  but  to  the  state.^^ 

We  are  more  fortunate  in  having  definite  documentary 
evidence  of  the  lot  of  some  38,000  American  Indian  children, 
v.ards  of  the  government,  between  the  ages  of  six  and  18 
years,  who  are  forcibly  taken  from  their  reservation  homes 
and  parents  at  the  age  of  six  and  put  in  government  boarding 
schools  several  hundred  miles  away.  There  they  are  made 
to  perform  all  sorts  of  forced  labor  under  conditions  of 
unbelievable  horror — often  for  private  profit.  In  the  summer 
many  of  them  are  forced  to  work  in  the  beet  fields  of  Kansas 
and  Colorado  as  child  laborers  where  they  are  often  beaten 
and  confined  for  not  doing  their  work  "properly."  Many 
of  them  contract  tuberculosis  and  trachoma  in  these  govern- 
ment institutions.^^ 

Another  type  of  forced  labor  in  the  United  States  is  that 
performed  in  connection  with  floods  and  other  disasters 
during  which  both  private  and  public  employers  conscript 
workers  to  build  and  repair  levees  and  do  other  emergency 
work.  The  least  little  freshet  in  the  Mississippi  River  or  any 
of  its  southern  tributaries  serves  as  an  excuse  for  conscrip- 
tion of  Negro  and  white  workers.     The  writer  personally 


WHAT  IS  FORCED  LABOR?  23 

remembers  workers  who  were  afraid  to  go  to  the  vicinity  of 
Hickman,  Kentucky,  during  a  flood  for  fear  of  being  con- 
scripted, and  their  danger  is  even  greater  in  such  states  as 
Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Arkansas,  and  Alabama.  Forced 
labor  similar  to  levee  building  is  found  in  connection  with 
fighting  forest  fires  in  the  West. 

The  difference  between  the  various  systems  of  exploitation 
of  labor  is  not  that  forced  labor  exists  under  one  system 
and  not  under  another.  The  difference  lies  in  the  method  of 
coercion  used  for  extracting  surplus  labor  from  the  workers. 
For  the  purposes  of  this  study,  we  may  accept  the  definition 
of  forced  labor  as  used  in  the  Tariff  Act,  keeping  in  mind, 
however,  that  this  definition  covers  only  direct  forced  labor, 
and  by  implication  considers  wage  labor  under  capitalism  to 
be  really  free.  In  our  concluding  chapters  we  will  have 
occasion  to  point  out  under  what  conditions  free  labor  can 
exist  when  we  analyze  the  charges  about  "forced  labor"  in 
the  Soviet  Union  and  contrast  the  form  of  labor  there  with 
that  under  capitalism.  The  main  purpose  in  this  book  is  to 
consider  the  forms  of  direct  forced  labor  in  the  United  States 
and  in  the  colonies  directly  or  indirectly  imder  its  domination. 


CHAPTER  II 

CONVICT  LABOR 

Who  Are  in  Prison  To-day? 

Under  capitalism  forced  labor,  in  one  form  or  another, 
is  recruited  from  free  labor,  so  that  both  forms  of  labor  are 
to  be  found  side  by  side.  As  the  world-wide  economic  crisis, 
which  began  in  1929,  deepens  and  leaves  its  indelible  and  fatal 
marks  on  American  capitalism,  causing  decay  in  all  phases 
of  economic  and  social  life,  retrogression  to  the  older  and 
more  direct  form  of  forced  labor  becomes  more  and  more 
accentuated. 

To  meet  the  economic  crisis  American  capitalism  has  forced 
the  working  masses  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  burden  in  the 
form  of  unprecedented  unemployment,  one  wage-cut  after 
another,  the  split  up  of  available  jobs  among  a  larger  number 
of  workers  with  corresponding  reduction  in  average  earnings. 
This  impoverishment  of  the  working  class  has  caused  a  great 
increase  in  the  prison  population.  Individual  workers,  on  the 
one  hand,  have  been  forced  to  commit  "crimes  against  prop- 
erty" in  order  to  remain  alive.  Other  workers  have  been 
thrown  into  prison  on  political  charges  for  participating  in 
struggles  growing  out  of  the  workers'  battle  against 
starvation. 

Prison  labor  forms  one  of  the  largest  and  most  constant 
sections  of  forced  labor,  and  it  has  always  been  recruited 
almost  entirely  from  the  working  class  and  poor  farmers. 
Most  of  the  inmates  of  prisons  are  not  "criminals"  at  all  but 
victims  of  capitalism.    A  great  many  are  young  workers.* 

♦Police  Commissioner  Edward  P.  Mulrooney,  of  New  York,  in  a 
speech  reported  in  the  New  York  Times,  May  9,  1932,  said:  "The 
majority  of  our  criminals  to-day  are  only  boys.    The  records  of  the 

24 


There  hav     ^   ^T 


^T  LABOR 


25 


spokesmen,  o 
population.    I 
an  editorial  in 
cember  2y,  193 

Look  at  the  ch 
the  country  and  s 
Either  education  a 
lions  against  the  c 
measure  of  justice 


y": 


intelligent  and  ignor       c5^  ^  v-* 
Almost  without  ex       "^        ^ 


k  admissions,  even  by  capitalist 
is  class  analysis  of  the  prison 
»sions  is  more  outspoken  than 
C,  News  and  Observer,  De- 
crial : 


id  other  penal  institutions  in 

e  at  one  of  two  conclusions. 

•>  of  the  strongest  fortifica- 

ne,  or  there  is  a  different 

the  poor,  white  and  black. 


O 


-3 


tions  of  correction  ai 
more  than  a  grammai 
found  to  be  of  the  p6\ 
which  is  easily  explicabl 
rich,  and  few  educated,  N\ '^  <^* 

Many  other  such  adniy  \J^^%  ^ 
cated  and  rich"  could  be  cWj  <^  %  ^ 
B.  Stone,  principal  keepeA^  ^  V-* 
declared  the  recent  unprecec^  ^  cv 
Jersey  institutions  was  caus^ 
of  the  persons  convicted 
Warden  Lewis  E.  Lawes  in 
Sing  Sing  says  that  most  of 
Sing  were  convicted  of  robbery\ 


oners,  91.7%  of  the  17-year-oldk     tn  '^j,  o. 


81%  of  the  19-year-olds.    One 


•^^ 


of  such  statements.    Who  are  thd    *  ^'y^  % 
likely  to  have  to  steal  to  live  ? 

Austin  H.  MacCormick,  assistant' 
States  Bureau  of  Prisons,  recently  st\ 
120,000  prisoners  investigated  over  7( 
ceived  organized  training  for  an  occupc 
number  are  unskilled  workers.     Nearly^ 

New  York  City  department  show  that  almost 
persons  arrested  for  felonies  in  the  last  year  wer 
the  ages  of  17  and  20." 


tes  of  our  great  institu- 

-  classes,  seldom  having 

1.     Moreover,  they  are 

good  many  are  black, 

bet  that  there  are  few 

h. 

ranks  of  the  "edu- 

^e,  Colonel  Edward 

Q  sey  State  Prison, 

^  isoners  into  New 

'^  ent.    Over  half 

for   stealing. 

sand  Years  in 

>ners  at  Sing 

^ar-old  pris- 

S-year-olds, 

nplications 

Who  are 


^^. 


^ 


United 

about 

er  re- 

that 

oca- 

the 


CHAPTER  II 

CONVICT  LABOR 

Who  Are  in  Prison  To-day? 

Under  capitalism  forced  labor,  in  one  form  o 
IS  recruited  from  free  labor,  so  that  both  forms  of 
to  be  found  side  by  side.    As  the  world-wide  econoi 
which  began  in  1929,  deepens  and  leaves  its  indelible 
marks  on  American  capitalism,  causing  decay  in  a 
of  economic  and  social  life,  retrogression  to  the  c 
more  direct  form  of  forced  labor  becomes  more  a 
accentuated. 

To  meet  the  economic  crisis  American  capitalism  hs 
the  working  masses  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  burde 
form  of  unprecedented  unemployment,  one  wage-c 
another,  the  split  up  of  available  jobs  among  a  larger 
of  workers  with  corresponding  reduction  in  average  c 
This  impoverishment  of  the  working  class  has  cause< 
increase  in  the  prison  population.  Individual  worker 
one  hand,  have  been  forced  to  commit  "crimes  agaii 
erty"  in  order  to  remain  alive.  Other  workers  hj 
thrown  into  prison  on  political  charges  for  partici| 
struggles  growing  out  of  the  workers'  battle 
starvation. 

Prison  labor  forms  one  of  the  largest  and  most 
sections  of  forced  labor,  and  it  has  always  been  1 
almost  entirely  from  the  working  class  and  poor 
Most  of  the  inmates  of  prisons  are  not  "criminals"  a 
victims  of  capitalism.    A  great  many  are  young  w 

*  Police  Commissioner  Edward  P.  Mulrooney,  of  New  "V 
speech  reported  in  the  New  York  Times,  May  9,  1932,  sa 
majority  of  our  criminals  to-day  are  only  boys.    The  recor 

24  i- 


CONVICT  LABOR  25 

There  have  been  a  few  frank  admissions,  even  by  capitalist 
spokesmen,  of  the  truth  of  this  class  analysis  of  the  prison 
population.  None  of  the  admissions  is  more  outspoken  than 
an  editorial  in  the  Raleigh,  N.  C,  News  and  Observer,  De- 
cember 27 y  1930.    Said  the  editorial: 

Look  at  the  chain  gangs,  jails  and  other  penal  institutions  in 
the  country  and  state,  and  we  arrive  at  one  of  two  conclusions. 
Either  education  and  wealth  are  two  of  the  strongest  fortifica- 
tions against  the  commission  of  crime,  or  there  is  a  different 
measure  of  justice  for  the  rich  and  the  poor,  white  and  black, 
intelligent  and  ignorant. 

Almost  without  exception,  the  inmates  of  our  great  institu- 
tions of  correction  are  from  the  lower  classes,  seldom  having 
more  than  a  grammar  school  education.  Moreover,  they  are 
found  to  be  of  the  poorer  classes.  A  good  many  are  black, 
which  is  easily  explicable  in  view  of  the  fact  that  there  are  few 
rich,  and  few  educated,  Negroes  in  the  South. 

Many  other  such  admissions  from  the  ranks  of  the  "edu- 
cated and  rich"  could  be  cited.  For  example.  Colonel  Edward 
B.  Stone,  principal  keeper  of  the  New  Jersey  State  Prison, 
declared  the  recent  unprecedented  flow  of  prisoners  into  New 
Jersey  institutions  was  caused  by  unemployment.  Over  half 
of  the  persons  convicted  were  imprisoned  for  stealing. 
Warden  Lewis  E.  Lawes  in  his  Twenty  Thousand  Years  in 
Sing  Sing  says  that  most  of  the  younger  prisoners  at  Sing 
Sing  were  convicted  of  robbery:  all  of  the  16-year-old  pris- 
oners, 91.7%  of  the  17-year-olds,  70%  of  the  18-year-olds, 
81%  of  the  19-year-olds.  One  can  easily  see  the  implications 
of  such  statements.  Who  are  the  unemployed?  Who  are 
likely  to  have  to  steal  to  live  ? 

Austin  H.  MacCormick,  assistant  director  of  the  United 
States  Bureau  of  Prisons,  recently  stated  that  out  of  about 
120,000  prisoners  investigated  over  70,000  "have  never  re- 
ceived organized  training  for  an  occupation,  and  about  that 
number  are  unskilled  workers.     Nearly  40,000  have  voca- 

New  York  City  department  show  that  almost  70  per  cent  of  the 
persons  arrested  for  felonies  in  the  last  year  were  young  men  between 
the  ages  of  17  and  20." 


26  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

tional  training  that  is  inadequate  in  terms  of  their  intelligence 
rating."^  In  other  words  this  authority  says  that  at  least 
110,000  of  a  prison  population  of  120,000  are  unskilled  or 
poorly  trained  workers.  This  estimate  is  very  conservative. 
MacCormick  in  a  still  more  recent  address  stated  that  60% 
of  all  American  prisoners  have  not  gone  beyond  the  sixth 
grade;  25%  are  virtually  illiterate,  and  10%  completely  il- 
literate. To  interpret  these  facts,  ask  the  question:  who 
is  likely  to  be  illiterate  in  the  United  States? 

Bennet  Mead,  statistician  of  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Pris- 
ons, has  found  that  property  crimes  showed  a  big  increase 
from  1910  to  1927.  The  economic  crisis  has  caused  a 
further  great  increase  in  petty  property  crimes.  For  example, 
officials  of  the  New  York  City  Department  of  Correction 
have  admitted  that  the  city's  18  penal  institutions  are  over- 
crowded with  almost  6,000  inmates,  though  their  total  capacity 
is  about  5,300.^  This  record  has  not  been  approached  since 
19 1 4.  Officials  of  the  Department  were  forced  to  admit 
that  a  large  part  of  the  increase  resulted  from  petty  crimes 
which  could  be  traced  more  or  less  directly  to  poverty  and 
unemployment.  Some  prisoners,  they  added,  committed 
small  crimes  deliberately  to  obtain  food  and  shelter  for  several 
months. 

The  New  York  World-Telegram,  August  28,  193 1,  carried 
a  survey  by  George  Daws,  staff  writer,  which  said :  "Three 
of  every  four  men  who  go  to  Sing  Sing  Prison  from  New 
York  City  pass  through  the  big  gates  because  of  crimes  in- 
volving money And  the  money   for   which   these  men 

risked — and  lost — ^their  liberty  averaged  only  $30  for  each 
crime."    And  an  editorial  in  the  same  paper  commented : 

No  wonder  the  Wickersham  Commission  threw  up  its  hands 
and  refused  to  make  a  report  on  the  causes  of  crime.  Most 
"crimes"  are  crimes  against  property.  The  causes  are  chiefly 
economic.  To  state  those  causes  is  to  indict  our  mis-named 
Christian  civilization  and  to  expose  the  barbarity  and  the  ineflfi- 
ciency  of  our  dog-eat-dog  economic  system. 


CONVICT  LABOR  27 

Poverty,  slums,  unemployment,  and  social  injustice  are  the 
crimes  of  our  system  against  the  individual — yet  we  call  our 
victims  "criminals."  Prohibition  laws  and  other  such  unenforce- 
able laws  are  merely  secondary  and  passing  breeders  of  lawlessness. 

The  Wickersham  Commission  had  aroused  even  this  capi- 
talist paper's  ire  by  reporting,  "We  find  it  impossible 
comprehensively  to  discuss  the  causes  of  crime."  The  Com- 
mission did  not  explain  why  it  found  it  impossible.  Cer- 
tainly not  because  of  lack  of  facts. 

Big  Crooks  Go  Free 

Under  capitalism  the  petty  crooks  and  racketeers  give  a 
"cut"  out  of  their  spoils  to  the  really  big  crooks — ^politicians, 
capitalists  and  government  officials.  When  a  racketeer  is  sen- 
tenced, which  is  very  rare,  it  is  usually  not  for  criminal 
activities  but  for  not  paying  his  tribute  to  the  government 
and  its  officials.  Witness  Al  Capone  and  scores  of  others, 
including  American  Federation  of  Labor  "business  agent" 
racketeers,  who  have  collided  with  the  "law"  for  falsifying  in- 
come tax  reports.  Take  as  an  example  of  the  "business  agent" 
racketeer  type,  Theodore  M.  Brandle,  New  Jersey  (A.  F.  of 
L.)  labor  "leader."  On  April  4,  1932,  he  pleaded  guilty  to 
defrauding  the  government  in  income  tax  reports.  He  and 
his  partner,  Joseph  F.  Hurley,  a  former  state  Assembly- 
man, were  forced  to  pay  to  government  and  court  officials 
$88,721.65  of  their  loot  in  taxes,  interest  and  fines. 

A  cabinet  member  like  Albert  B.  Fall,  former  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  steals  and  receives  bribes  of  $100,000  and  */ 
over.  He  is  sentenced  to  only  one  year's  imprisonment.  In 
prison  he  is  treated  like  a  distinguished  visitor.  After  serv- 
ing nine  months  and  19  days  he  is  released.  A  part  of  his 
sentence  was  a  fine  of  $100,000  and  he  was  to  remain  in  jail 
until  the  fine  was  paid.  But  the  authorities  waived  a  small 
matter  like  a  $100,000  fine  and  permitted  him  to  go  free. 
The  fine  stands  as  a  judgment  to  be  paid  when,  and  if,  he 
gets  the  money,  which  observers  say  is  doubtful.     He  was 


28  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

not  even  required  to  take  the  customary  pauper's  oath.  Harry 
Sinclair,  oil  magnate,  also  went  to  prison  for  a  short  rest 
for  stealing  Teapot  Dome  oil  lands.  He  was  given  prac- 
tically all  the  comforts  and  services  expected  in  a  first-class 
hotel. 

Wholesale  bribery  in  federal  prisons,  by  which  wealthy 
convicts  have  won  transfers  from  Atlanta  and  Leavenworth 
to  the  comparative  comforts  of  army  detention  camps,  was 
recently  exposed.  Among  those  transferred  in  this  way  were 
George  Graham  Rice,  convicted  in  the  sale  of  $3,500,000 
worth  of  valueless  securities;  Larry  Goldhurst,  financial  ad- 
viser to  Bishop  James  Cannon,  Jr.,  in  his  Wall  Street  gam- 
blings— Cannon  went  free;  and  John  Locke,  sentenced  to 
three  years  after  the  $8,000,000  failure  of  the  brokerage 
house  of  Cameron,  Michael  &  Co.® 

It  is,  of  course,  only  in  the  most  exceptional  case  that  a 
rich  man  goes  to  jail,  even  to  be  showered  with  such  atten- 
tions and  courtesies.  The  cases  of  imprisonment  of  wealthy 
persons  are  so  rare  that  when  one  occurs  the  capitalist  news- 
papers almost  invariably  contend  that  democracy  has  been 
vindicated.  "There  is  one  justice  for  the  rich  and  poor," 
they  chorus. 

But  what  about  workers  ?  A  starving  worker  steals  a  ham 
for  his  family  as  did  Oscar  Josey,  a  Negro  of  DeKalb 
County,  Ga.,  in  1930.  He  got  20  years  at  hard  labor  on  the 
chain  gang.  Caspar  Wright  of  Asheville,  N.  C,  steals  a 
pound  of  butter  and  gets  a  long  "gang"  sentence.  John 
Creek,  an  Annapolis,  Md.,  Negro,  steals  a  chicken  and  gets 
five  years  in  the  pen  for  it.  In  North  Carolina  in  1931  a 
Negro  was  sentenced  to  death  and  then  given  a  commutation 
to  life  imprisonment  for  stealing  a  pair  of  shoes. 

It  often  happens  that  a  court  gives  a  small  fine  to  a 
worker  for  a  petty  property  law  violation.  Court  costs  are 
added  to  the  fine  and  the  worker  goes  to  jail  for  a  long 
term  to  work  ofiF  both  the  fine  and  court  costs.  In  one  case 
in  Alabama  a  young  boy  was  fined  $1  but  got  court  costs 


CONVICT  LABOR  29 

assessed  against  him  of  $75.  There  are  thousands  of  Ameri- 
can Jean  Val  Jeans  who  steal  for  starving  families  and  get 
long  forced  labor  sentences. 

What  Are  the  ''Crimes"? 

What  are  some  of  the  common  crimes  that  fill  the  prisons 
with  victimized  workers?  They  include  petty  property 
crimes,  liquor  law  violations,  vagrancy,  union  organizing,  vio- 
lation of  injunction,  strike  and  other  labor  activities.  Be- 
sides these  there  are  the  various  frame-up  charges.  Scores 
of  examples  of  the  use  of  the  frame-up  against  class  war 
prisoners  could  be  cited.*  Among  the  best  known  are  those 
of  Sacco  and  Vanzetti,  Mooney  and  Billings  and  the  Scotts- 
boro  boys.  Working  class  girls  have  been  framed  up  by  the 
vice  squad  of  New  York  and  other  cities.* 

"Sedition"  and  "criminal  syndicalism"  are  other  crimes 
fastened  by  the  ruling  class  on  rebellious  workers  in  rail- 
roading them  to  the  penitentiary.  An  example  of  a  "sedition" 
charge  was  the  case,  in  a  Pennsylvania  steel  town,  of  Peter 
Muselin,  Milan  Resetar  and  Tom  Zima,  workers  who  were 
sentenced  to  five  years'  imprisonment  and  $500  fine  each 
for  the  "crime"  of  possessing  and  reading  Communist  litera- 
ture. In  October,  1931,  Resetar  died  of  tuberculosis  con- 
tracted while  in  the  Allegheny  County  Workhouse — a 
notorious  forced  labor  prison — ^after  all  efforts  to  obtain  ade^ 
quate  medical  treatment  for  him  had  failed. 

A  good  illustration  of  the  use  of  a  "criminal  syndicalism" 

law  to  fill  the  jails  with  workers  is  shown  in  the  coal  strike 

in  Harlan  County,  Kentucky,  in  1932.     Every  striker  or 

S)mipathizer  was  considered  guilty  of  this  "crime"  and  scores 

were  arrested  and  thrown  into  jail  with  this  as  the  only 

charge. 

♦Judge  Samuel  Seabury  in  his  report  on  the  investigation  of  the 
New  York  Magistrates'  Courts,  in  referring  to  the  vice  squad,  third 
degree,  etc.,  was  forced  to  admit  that  "The  abuses  that  have  been 
disclosed  do  not  strike  at  people  of  wealth  and  power.  They  oppress 
those  who  are  poor  and  helpless.  .  .  ." — New  York  Times,  April  3, 
1932. 


80  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

But  one  may  ask:  "What  about  justice?  The  worker  has 
recourse  in  the  courts,  hasn't  he?  He  has  the  right  to  trial 
by  a  jury  of  his  peers  ?  How  is  injustice  possible  under  such 
conditions?"  Liberals  still  have  illusions  about  "justice" 
and  "equality"  under  democracy  and  under  capitalist  laws, 
but  workers  are  beginning  to  understand  that  there  are  two 
kinds  of  "justice"  in  this  country — one  for  the  poor  and  one 
for  the  rich.  The  courts  are  stacked  against  the  workers. 
For  every  witness  that  the  worker  brings  forward,  the  state 
and  the  prosecutors  can  hire  a  dozen  perjurers,  as  they  have 
done  repeatedly  in  frame-up  cases  against  militant  workers. 
Other  practices  like  denial  of  counsel,  mistreatment  of  wit- 
nesses, improper  jury  lists — especially  no  Negroes  on  juries 
in  the  South — ^and  scores  of  other  abuses,  the  Wickersham 
Commission  found  to  be  "habitual  and  routine  practices." 
One  hundred  and  fifty  cases  were  reported  to  this  commis- 
sion where  trial  came  so  soon  after  arrest  that  no  time  was 
permitted  for  defense. 

Third  Degree 

But  one  of  the  chief  methods  by  which  workers  are  forced 
into  prison  labor  is  through  their  own  "confessions."  These 
"confessions"  are  secured  by  torture — by  the  third  degree. 
As  the  Wickersham  Commission  was  forced  to  admit  in  its 
report  on  law  enforcement,  third  degree  tortures  are  reserved 
especially  for  the  unemployed,  the  unskilled,  the  foreign-born, 
the  Negro,  and  militant  union  workers. 

The  courts,  the  prosecuting  attorneys,  the  capitalist  news- 
papers, and  the  police  would  have  us  believe  that  the  tortur- 
ing of  helpless  prisoners  in  the  jails  of  this  country  are 
isolated  events,  a  "perversion"  of  police  powers.  Such  is  the 
purpose  of  all  the  "investigations."  Particularly  horrible 
third  degree  methods  come  to  light  and  immediately  the  "in- 
vestigators" get  busy.  They  find  evidence  which  eliminates 
certain  policemen  and  police  officials  from  their  jobs.  But 
the  effect  of  such  investigations  is  to  cover  up  the  fact  that 


CONVICT  LABOR  81 

the  third  degree  is  an  established  institution  and  a  useful 
weapon  under  a  capitalist  system. 

The  third  degree  is  applied  with  special  ferocity  to  Negro 
workers,  both  in  the  North  and  the  South.  Consider  the 
recent  case  of  Yuel  Lee  (Orphan  Jones)  who  was  tortured 
by  Maryland  police  for  i6  hours  without  sleep.  A  club  was 
broken  over  his  head ;  he  was  tied  and  a  light  flashed  in  his 
eyes.  When  he  was  too  exhausted  to  know  what  he  was 
doing,  he  was  made  to  sign  a  paper  which  he  did  not  read. 
The  police  claimed  that  this  was  Lee*s  "confession." 

Another  example  of  this  refined  democratic  court  pro- 
cedure against  workers  was  the  shooting  in  a  Birmingham 
jail  of  Willie  Peterson,  framed-up  Negro  worker  and  ex- 
soldier,  by  a  white  lawyer,  Dent  Williams,  while  the  prisoner 
was  being  subjected  to  the  third  degree  by  the  sheriff,  police 
and  Williams. 

In  Arkansas,  two  years  ago,  it  was  found  that  the  Sheriff 
of  Helena,  as  well  as  a  long  line  of  sheriffs  before  him,  had 
used  an  electric  chair  as  a  part  of  the  third  degree,  care 
being  taken  not  to  give  enough  "juice"  actually  to  cause 
death. 

The  Wickersham  Commission  reported  the  case  of  a  Negro 
boy  in  Arkansas  who  was  whipped  for  six  consecutive  days. 
It  found  that  in  Texas  Negroes  charged  with  crime  or\ 
arrested  on  suspicion  were  flogged  with  heavy  leather  whips' 
on  bare  buttocks.  This  whitewash  "investigation"  commis- 
sion found  many  specific  cases  of  third  degree  torture.  A 
woman  was  taken  from  a  sick  bed  to  the  Denver  police  sta- 
tion and  kept  awake,  starved  and  grilled  from  2  a.m.  Sun- 
day until  Thursday  night  under  unspeakably  filthy  conditions. 
A  prisoner  in  Miami,  Florida,  was  chained  to  a  floor  in  a 
room  infested  with  mosquitoes.  New  York  prisoners  were 
beaten  by  police  with  baseball  bats.  Of  166  recorded  cases 
of  the  third  degree  in  New  York  City  in  1931,  more  than 
half  were  for  first  offenders  and  (ij  were  boys  between  15 
and  20. 


82  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

No  torture  is  too  severe  or  bestial  for  the  guardians  of 
"law  and  order"  to  use  to  obtain  "confessions"  from  workers. 
Police  choke  suspects,  pour  water  through  their  noses,  beat 
them  with  rubber  hose,  strike  men's  sex  organs,  keep  pris- 
oners awake  for  days,  terrorize  them,  handcuff  them  upside 
down,  spray  them  with  tear  gas,  and  not  infrequently  murder 
them. 

The  worst  third  degrees  and  prison  tortures  generally  are 
reserved  for  the  political  prisoners.  Political  prisoners  are 
working  class  fighters  and  organizers  who  are  thrown  into 
prison  because  of  their  convictions  and  activities  in  the  labor 
movement.  In  prison  they  are  given  the  hardest  and  most 
disagreeable  work  to  do.  They  are  punished  severely  for 
minor  infractions  of  rules.  They  are  deprived  of  privileges 
and  kept  under  constant  surveillance  and  suffer  many  other 
special  disabilities. 

The  harsh  treatment  given  politicals  in  the  Allegheny 
County  Workhouse  at  Blawnox,  Pennsylvania,  is  typical  of 
treatment  given  such  prisoners  all  over  the  country.  There 
have  been  22  mine  strikers  incarcerated  in  this  workhouse. 
A  newspaperman  who  visited  there  recently  wrote: 

In  the  workhouse  there  are  many  men  sentenced  to  as  high 
as  five  years,  particularly  in  the  case  of  class-conscious  workers. 
Ordinarily  persons  sentenced  to  two  to  five  years  are  sent  to 
the  Western  Penitentiary  in  Pittsburgh.  However,  this  is  con- 
sidered too  easy  punishment  for  striking  miners  and  they  are 
sent  to  the  workhouse  where  conditions  are  much  harder  and 
the  food  much  worse. 

Thus  it  is  clear  that  victimized  members  of  the  working 
class  furnish  the  prison  forced  labor.  They  are  secured  by 
the  operation  of  discriminatory  laws,  by  frame-up,  by  the 
third  degree  and  other  practices  resulting  from  conditions 
inherent  in  capitalist  society.  This  important  class  fact  has 
been  largely  overlooked  or  covered  up  not  only  by  capitalists 
but  by  liberals,  prison  reformers,  and  even  by  the  official 
labor  movement  as  represented  by  the  top-leadership  of  the 


CONVICT  LABOR  33 

American  Federation  of  Labor.  All  these  groups  have  shed 
maudlin  tears  about  protecting  the  "public"  from  convict- 
made  goods  but  about  protecting  the  unskilled  worker  or 
about  the  welfare  of  the  convict  slaves  little  has  been  said 
and  nothing  done. 


CHAPTER  III 
EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR 

Of  all  the  many  kinds  of  forced  labor  in  the  United  States, 
one  of  the  most  important  is  the  use  of  convicts.  Its  extent 
can  be  partially  grasped  by  looking  at  some  official  and  un- 
official estimates  of  the  total  annual  value  of  merchandise 
made  in  the  prison  factories,  mills,  shops,  and  farms  of  the 
United  States. 

When  one  attempts  to  secure  such  figures  one  finds  that 
very  few  official  studies  have  been  made,  and  none  of  them 
recently.  The  figures  issued  by  the  United  States  Bureau 
of  Labor  Statistics  in  1923  are  still  the  most  comprehensive 
ever  brought  together.*  According  to  these  estimates,  the 
total  value  of  commodities  produced  in  104  state  and 
federal  civilian  prisons  for  adults  in  1923  was  $75,622,983. 
The  value  of  goods  placed  on  the  market  amounted  to 
$44,843,355.  Goods  consumed  in  state  or  governmental  in- 
stitutions and  public  works  accounted  for  the  rest.  The  above 
commodities  were  produced  by  51,799  convicts  out  of  a  total 
prison  population  at  that  time  in  the  104  prisons  of  84,761. 
This  estimate  does  not  include  juvenile  reformatories,  city 
or  county  prisons,  federal  military  prisons,  or  the  maintenance 
work — ^prison  upkeep,  cleaning,  laundry,  repairs,  cooking  and 
so  on — done  in  every  prison.  About  25,000  convicts  were 
used  for  maintenance  in  1923. 

The  state  with  the  greatest  value  of  prison  goods  produced 
in  1923  was  Alabama  with  close  to  $7,500,000.**    Next  came 

*The  United  States  Bureau  of  Foreign  and  Domestic  Commerce 
attempted  in  1926  to  bring  some  of  the  1923  figures  up  to  date,  but 
the  1923  study  by  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  is  still  recognized 
as  containing  the  most  authentic  and  comprehensive  data. 

**Road  work  is  included  in  these  estimates. 

34 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  36 

Kentucky  with  over  $7,000,000.  Georgia  was  third  with 
over  $5,000,000.  Other  leading  prison-labor  states,  each 
producing  over  $2,000,000  worth  of  goods  in  1923,  follow  in 
the  order  of  their  importance:  Michigan,  Maryland,  West 
Virginia,  Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Connecticut,  Tennessee  and 
Oklahoma. 

The  latest  estimates  conservatively  give  the  population  of 
the  same  type  of  prisons  studied  in  1923  as  140,000  on 
January  i,  1932.*  It  is  estimated  that  at  least  70,000  of 
these  are  productively  employed,  as  against  slightly  over 
51,000  in  1923.  Almost  35,000  of  the  1931  prisoners  were 
employed  at  maintenance  and  the  remainder  were  either  not 
reported  or  were  reported  incapacitated  or  idle. 

Because  of  the  greatly  increased  number  of  prisoners  em- 
ployed, and  because  of  the  improvements  in  machinery  and 
methods  of  emplo3mient,  prison  production  of  goods  in  1930 
was  undoubtedly  considerably  greater  than  in  1923.  But 
because  commodity  prices  and  rates  paid  to  the  state  for  the 
use  of  convicts  have  dropped  so  sharply  since  the  beginning 
of  the  economic  crisis  the  dollar  value  of  the  goods  may  not 
be  very  much  greater.  However,  if  a  recent  unofficial  esti- 
mate is  anywhere  near  correct,  then  both  the  volume  and 
value  of  goods  were  much  greater  in  1930  than  in  1923.  This 
estimate,  made  by  the  Associated  General  Contractors  of 
America  at  their  San  Francisco  convention  in  1931,  gave 
75,000  as  the  number  of  employed  convicts  in  1930,  producing 
goods  with  a  market  value  of  $100,000,000.  Additional 
weight  is  given  this  estimate  by  a  statement  two  years  ago 
by  Senator  Harry  B.  Hawes  of  Missouri  that  $40,000,000  to 
$50,000,000  worth  of  convict-made  merchandise  moves  in 
interstate  commerce  annually. 

*  American  Year  Book,  1931,  p.  535.  Note  the  gain  in  prison  popu- 
lation. There  were  7.5%  more  prison  commitments  in  1931  than  in 
1930.    Prisons  are  now  about  70%  overcrowded. 


36  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Convict  Labor  in  State  Prisons 

Minnesota  does  an  annual  business  in  prison-made  farm 
machinery  and  binder  twine  of  around  $3,000,000.  The  twine 
output  amounts  to  over  20,000,000  pounds  annually,  along 
with  3,000  rakes,  3,000  mowers  and  the  same  number  of 
binders.  These  goods,  incidentally,  are  sold  principally  in 
Minnesota,  North  and  South  Dakota,  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
Nebraska  and  Montana. 

Alabama  has  one  completely  integrated  prison  textile  indus- 
try. Cotton  which  is  grown  on  the  prison  farm  is  ginned, 
dyed,  woven  into  cloth  and  made  into  shirts  in  Kilby  Prison. 

The  warden  of  the  state  prison  at  Michigan  City,  Indiana, 
reports  that  1,806,804  shirts,  71,875  pieces  of  furniture, 
23,572  pairs  of  shoes,  8,800  rugs,  in  addition  to  many  other 
commodities,  were  produced  in  that  prison  in  1928. 

Warden  Lawes  of  Sing  Sing  Prison  in  New  York  recently 
admitted  that  the  fiscal  year  1931-32  has  been  the  most  pros- 
perous the  Sing  Sing  factories  have  ever  known.  For  the 
first  nine  months,  beginning  with  July,  1931,  sales  totaled 
$860,000,  as  against  total  sales  of  $800,000  the  previous 
year.^  Auburn  Prison  also  produces  annually  about  $1,000,- 
000  worth  of  goods  consumed  by  state  departments.^ 

Massachusetts,  according  to  the  Boston  Evening  American, 
which  recently  ran  a  series  of  articles  on  prison  industry  in 
that  state,  does  an  annual  prison-goods  business  of  over 
$1,000,000.  Kentucky  in  a  single  year  produced  1,102,295 
shoes,  in  addition  to  large  amounts  of  other  goods,  of  which 
95%  was  sold  outside  the  state. 

San  Quentin  prison  in  California,  where  Tom  Mooney  and 
other  political  prisoners  are  held,  made  3,996,947  jute  bags 
during  the  fiscal  year  ended  June  30,  1927.  The  return  to 
the  state  was  $399,644.  Mooney  himself  every  day  of  the 
year  sits  in  a  small  unventilated  washroom  and  peels  potatoes 
for  700  meals  a  day. 

A  report  of  an  investigating  committee  from  the  Tennessee 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  37 

legislature  in  1931  said:  "In  this  time  of  depression  this 
prison  (Nashville  State  Penitentiary)  has  not  only  been  self- 
sustaining  but  it  has  actually  been  paying  a  profit  into  the 
state  treasury  which  last  year  was  over  $100,000."  Profits 
for  this  prison  in  1927-28  amounted  to  $266,697. 

Farm,  Road  and  Construction  Work 

The  big  prison-farm  states,  Texas,  Arkansas,  Louisiana, 
and  Mississippi,  work  their  convicts  largely  in  agriculture. 
Nearly  250,000  acres  of  land  in  the  United  States  are  under 
cultivation  by  convicts.  Texas  alone  has  83,407  acres  farmed 
by  prisoners,  raising  products  which  were  valued  in  1927  at 
$1,362,958.  Louisiana  in  1926  had  an  income  from  her  prison 
system  of  $1,557,715.  This  income  from  the  forced  labor 
of  prisoners  obviously  helps  to  keep  down  the  tax  rates  on 
the  big  plantations  in  these  states  and  is  hence  heartily  ap- 
proved by  the  capitalists  and  big  landowners. 

Professor  N.  B.  Bond  of  the  University  of  Mississippi,  in 
reply  to  a  recent  questionnaire  sent  him  by  the  writer,  said : 
"Many  thousand  bales  of  cotton  are  grown  each  year  by 
convicts.  Sale  is  made  to  the  highest  bidder.  The  cotton  is 
shipped  anywhere  the  buyer  wishes."  In  a  four-year  period 
ending  June,  1928,  Mississippi  prison  farms  paid  $2,354,260 
to  the  state,  while  stocks  accumulated  and  cash  on  hand 
amounted  to  $375,687. 

In  1923  work  done  by  convicts  on  roads  and  other  public 
jobs  was  valued  at  over  $15,000,000  for  the  entire  country. 
In  1927  prisoners  in  Virginia  alone,  according  to  Warden 
R.  M.  Youell  of  the  State  Penitentiary  at  Richmond,  did 
$4,000,000  worth  of  road  work. 

There  is  also  a  great  deal  of  construction  work  done  by 
convicts  for  government  institutions.  Out  of  98  institutions 
listed  in  the  Handbook  of  American  Prisons  and  Reforma- 
tories for  1929,  35  were  using  convicts  on  construction  work. 
The  largest  of  these  undertakings  are  the  $7,200,000  prison 
at  Attica,  N.  Y.,  the  new  Eastern  Penitentiary  at  Gratersford, 


38  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Pa.,  the  new  Illinois  State  Penitentiary,  the  new  Michigan 
State  Prison  at  Jackson,  the  State  Prison  Colony  in  Norfolk, 
Massachusetts,  and  others,  including  the  $3,000,000  job  on 
the  U.  S.  Industrial  Reformatory  at  Chillicothe,  Ohio. 

Local  and  County  Convict  Work 

Much  less  is  known  about  the  convict  work  in  city  and 
county  lockups,  workhouses  and  gangs.  Dr.  Hastings  H. 
Hart,  prison  authority,  reports  that  there  are  10,860  such 
city  and  village  prisons  in  towns  with  500  population  and  up. 
In  addition  there  are  about  3,000  county  prisons.  Accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Hart,  1,600,000  prisoners  were  committed  to  these 
prisons  from  January  to  June,  1930. 

The  jobs  done  by  prisoners  in  these  jails  in  all  parts  of  the 
country  range  from  the  crudest  common  labor,  such  as 
crushing  rock,  to  highly  skilled  typographical  work.  They 
include  road  and  bridge  work,  construction  of  buildings,  and 
manufacturing,  especially  furniture  and  clothing. 

In  the  South,  in  particular,  city  and  county  prisoners  are 
exploited  to  the  utmost  on  roads  and  farms  as  well  as  in 
other  prison  industries.  Florida,  Georgia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  and  Tennessee  have  a  large  number  of  pris- 
oners convicted  of  misdemeanors — usually  law  violations 
carrying  a  sentence  of  less  than  one  yearns  imprisonment — > 
doing  road  work  under  county  management.  In  Georgia 
69%  of  all  those  convicted  of  misdemeanors  are  so  employed. 
Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Texas  have  farm  work  largely  for 
this  type  of  prisoner. 

Outside  the  South  we  find  such  cities  as  Toledo,  Columbus, 
and  Dayton,  Ohio,  working  their  prisoners  on  farms.  In 
Massachusetts  eight  of  the  local  jails  and  houses  of  correc- 
tion work  their  convicts  in  chair,  shoe,  and  shirt  making. 
Most  misdemeanants  in  New  Hampshire  do  farm  work. 
Connecticut  has  10  county  jails  doing  work  ranging  from 
chair  making  to  laundry  work  for  women. 

In  Pennsylvania  eight  counties  employ  prisoners  at  road 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  39 

work  and  other  public  jobs,  such  as  bridge  building  and 
construction.  Nine  counties  employ  prisoners  at  farm  work. 
The  Philadelphia  County  Prison  has  2,906  prisoners  at  vari- 
ous kinds  of  work.  The  Allegheny  County  Workhouse, 
which  serves  Pittsburgh  and  where  a  number  of  political 
prisoners  are  now  incarcerated,  has  a  broom  factory,  a  carpet 
factory,  a  chair  factory,  laundry,  upholstering  shop,  and  farm. 
Although  there  has  never  been  any  estimate  of  the  total 
value  of  work  done  and  goods  produced  by  convict-slaves  in 
these  city  and  county  institutions,  it  must  amount  to  tens 
of  millions  of  dollars. 

Systems  of  Employing  Prisoners 

This  great  volume  of  convict-made  goods,  valued  at  around 
$100,000,000  for  state  and  federal  institutions  alone,  and  at 
many  millions  in  addition  for  city  and  county  institutions,  is 
produced  under  several  different  systems.  The  most  impor- 
tant systems  are  the  "contract,"  the  "state  account,"  "state 
use,"  "public  works,"  and  "lease."  There  are  a  few  others, 
either  combinations  of  the  above  or  schemes  devised  to  get 
around  state  laws  regulating  the  marketing  of  convict-made 
goods. 

The  "contract"  system  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  dis- 
reputable of  all  the  convict  labor  systems.  As  early  as  1867 
prison  contractors  were  flourishing  in  all  except  three  prisons 
in  the  country.  Under  this  system  a  private  business  man  or 
firm  contracts  with  the  state  for  the  use  of  a  certain  number 
of  convicts.  The  private  contractor  then  sets  up  machin- 
ery in  the  prison,  provides  raw  material  and  sets  his  convict- 
slaves  to  manufacturing  some  commodity.  The  state  feeds, 
shelters,  guards  and  otherwise  takes  care  of  the  prisoners 
for  the  contractor,  who  sells  the  products  made  by  the  con- 
victs in  the  open  market  wherever  he  can.  In  1923,  prisons 
in  19  states  used  some  form  of  contract,  and  goods  valued 
at  around  $30,000,000  were  produced  for  contractors  and 


40  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

sold.    There  has  been  very  little,  if  any,  change  in  the  use 
of  this  system  since  1923. 

Then  there  is  the  "state  account"  system  under  which  the 
state  goes  into  business  on  its  own,  manufactures  or  produces 
goods  and  sells  them  on  the  open  market  in  competition  with 
other  goods  made  by  "free"  labor.  Oftentimes  the  states 
set  up  dummy  companies  to  market  the  goods  for  them. 

Under  the  "state  use"  system  convict-made  goods  are  not 
sold  in  the  open  market  but  consumed  in  the  state's  institu- 
tions. In  1923  only  11  states  used  this  system  exclusively 
and  there  has  been  little  change  since. 

Under  the  "public  works"  system  convicts  are  used  in 
construction  or  repair  work  on  public  jobs,  such  as  roads, 
public  buildings,  and  the  like. 

The  "lease"  system  has  perhaps  the  longest  and  most 
sordid  record  of  all.  Under  it  a  convict  is  rented  or  hired 
out  entirely  in  the  custody  of  a  private  business  man  or 
company.  The  prisoner  virtually  belongs  to  the  contractor, 
who  has  complete  authority  to  guard,  feed,  discipline  and 
exploit  him  as  he  sees  fit.  The  modern  lease  grew  out  of 
the  Civil  War.  Prior  to  that  time  convicts  in  the  South 
were  white  workers  and  farmers.  .But  after  the  "freeing" 
of  the  slaves  the  prison  population  rapidly  became  black 
workers  and  peasants.  Negroes  convicted  of  minor  "crimes" 
were  hired  out  to  private  business  men  under  slavery  condi- 
tions. It  was  undoubtedly  a  deliberate  move  by  the  ruling 
class  to  secure  forced  labor  on  a  large  scale  as  a  partial 
substitute  for  chattel  slavery. 

The  best  citizens  and  biggest  companies  made  fortunes  in 
the  traffic  and  exploitation  of  leased  convict-slaves.  Confed- 
erate generals,  colonels,  senators  and  justices  of  the  supreme 
court  were  among  the  big  dealers.  General  Joseph  E.  Brown, 
ex-chief  justice  of  Georgia,  and  his  son,  Julius,  the  late  Gen- 
eral Joseph  M.  Brown,  and  General  John  B.  Gordon,  ex- 
United  States  Senator,  are  Georgia's  outstanding  examples  of 
convict-slave  leasers.  The  Tennessee  Coal,  Iron  and  Railroad 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  41 

Company,  now  a  subsidiary  of  the  United  States  Steel  Cor- 
poration, was  one  of  the  biggest  companies  to  be  founded 
on  convict  labor.  This  company,  as  well  as  others,  dealt  in 
convict  labor  "futures"  in  the  same  way  that  gamblers  deal 
in  wheat  and  corn  "futures." 

It  is  no  overstatement  to  say  that  the  conditions  inevitable 
tinder  the  lease  system  have  been  more  horrible  than  under 
any  other  penal  system  in  the  modern  world.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  lease  is  "illegal"  in  several  states  it  is  still  used 
to  some  extent  and  is  legal  for  certain  types  of  convicts  in 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Arkansas,  Louisiana,  Flor- 
ida, and  Kentucky.  Florida  legislated  against  the  lease  sys- 
tem— for  almost  all  of  its  prisoners — ^in  1923,  following  the 
whipping  to  death  on  a  chain  gang  of  a  young  North  Dakota 
boy,  Martin  Tabert.  Alabama  abolished  the  lease  in  1928, 
following  the  exposure  of  the  death  of  a  young  white  convict 
named  Knox,  who  was  deliberately  scalded  to  death  in  a 
laundry  vat  at  the  Flat  Top  mine  operated  by  the  Sloss- 
Sheffield  Steel  Co.  Prior  to  the  scalding  he  had  been  brutally 
whipped  with  a  steel  wire  the  thickness  of  a  man's  finger. 
After  his  death  the  warden  who  witnessed  his  death  had 
bichloride  of  mercury  pumped  into  the  body  to  simulate  sui- 
cide. He  was  murdered  because  he  could  not  perform  the 
amount  of  work  required. 

Prison-Made  Commodities 

The  wide  range  of  prison-made  goods  includes  almost 
everything  imaginable  from  baby  buggies  to  coffins,  from 
lumber  to  flags,  and  from  farm  machinery  to  cotton.  Work 
clothing  is  the  most  important.  In  1923  production  in  this 
one  field  was  valued  at  around  $18,000,000.  According  to 
one  of  the  foremost  authorities  on  the  subject,  A.  F.  Allison, 
of  the  International  Association  of  Garment  Manufacturers, 
the  competition  in  the  work-clothing  line  has  grown  steadily 
since  1923.  The  National  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs 
estimated  in  1926  that  41%  of  all  work  shirts  and  35%  of 


42  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

all  work  pants  were  convict-made.  A  single  prison  contract- 
ing firm  in  1923  produced  in  its  17  prison  factories  about 
16,000,000  shirts. 

Next  in  importance  among  prison-made  commodities  is 
twine  and  rope  valued  at  $5,543,000  in  1923.  Of  all  binder 
twine  made  in  the  United  States,  21%  is  prison-made.  The 
value  of  work  done  by  prisoners  on  farms  amounted  to 
$5,200,000.  Close  after  farming  came  shoemaking  valued 
at  $5,363,000.*  Prison-made  furniture  was  valued  at  $2,970,- 
000.  Then  came  brooms  and  brushes,  $1,604,000;  hosiery 
and  underwear,  $1,565,000.  Lumber,  which  was  valued  at 
$728,000,  is  further  down  the  list  but  is  mentioned  here 
because  of  its  special  interest  in  relation  to  the  cry  of  Soviet 
"dumping"  of  allegedly  convict-cut  timber.  In  addition  to 
the  above,  road  construction,  repair,  and  general  work  on 
public  jobs  were  valued  at  over  $15,000,000. 

Several  hundred  commodities  are  made  in  prisons.  Prob- 
ably the  most  extensive  list  of  them  was  that  sent  to  the 
70th  Congress,  First  Session,  by  a  group  of  about  75  prison 
wardens.  But  even  this  list  was  by  no  means  complete.  The 
wardens'  statement  reads : 

In  the  southern  states  cotton,  grain,  sugar  cane  and  live- 
stock are  produced  by  convict  labor;  in  others  turpentine  and 
lumber;  in  others  granite,  marble  and  agricultural  limestone  is 
quarried;  in  Missouri  and  other  central  states  sheep,  hogs  and 
cattle  are  raised  and  slaughtered  on  penal  farms  and  the  surplus 
sold.  In  Oregon  flax  is  raised  on  farms  and  processed  by  con- 
vict labor.  In  many  other  states  fruit  and  vegetables  are 
canned  on  penal  farms  and  gardens ;  in  the  great  wheat-growing 
states  of  Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Kansas,  Indiana,  Oklahoma, 
Missouri  and  the  two  Dakotas  binder  twine  and  farm  implements 
are  manufactured  by  convict  labor  and  sold  to  the  farmers  in 
those  states;  in  other  states  scrub  brushes,  rat  traps,  rag  rugs 
and  rag  carpets  are  made;  in  others  work  shirts,  work  clothing, 
overalls,  shoes,  brooms  and  mops;  in  a  few  states  coal  is  mined 
from  state-owned  coal  mines  by  convict  labor.     In  some  states 

♦Coal  was  mined  in  1923  which  was  valued  at  over  $4,000,000,  but 
declined  in  1928  when  Alabama  took  its  convicts  out  of  the  mines. 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  43 

juvenile  offenders,  male  and  female,  are  employed  making  knit 
goods,  embroidery,  baskets,  books  and  a  variety  of  other  wares. 

The  wardens  might  have  mentioned  also  many  other  kinds 
of  convict  work,  especially  roads,  bridge,  and  general  con- 
struction work,  as  well  as  the  huge  new  industry  manufac- 
turing license  tags  for  automobiles. 

"Manufacturers"  of  Prison  Goods 

A  large  part  of  the  convict-made  merchandise  is  made 
under  contract  for  and  distributed  by  many  concerns,  some 
of  them  well  known.  The  following  list  gives  only  a  few 
companies  among  the  many  engaged  in  this  business ; 

Salant  and  Salant  Mfg.  Co.,  Inc.  (shirts).  New  York 
City,  which  has  contracts  in  several  prisons,  including  Flor- 
ida, Tennessee  and  Iowa;  the  Reliance  Mfg.  Co.  (shirts) 
of  Chicago,  with  several  subsidiary  companies;  the  Worthy 
Mfg.  Co.  of  Chicago,  with  contracts  in  Connecticut,  Indiana 
and  Kentucky  prisons.  Then  there  is  Oppenheim  &  Co. 
of  New  York  City,  which  contracts  for  a  part  of  Delaware's 
prison  labor.  The  Kentucky  Whip  and  Collar  Co.  of  Eddy- 
ville,  the  Hoge  Montgomery  Shoe  Co.  of  Frankfort,  and  the 
Meyer  Bridges  Co.  of  Louisville  have  contracts  in  Kentucky 
prisons.  The  Jones  Hollow- Ware  Co.  of  Baltimore  contracts 
for  labor  in  Maryland,  Gray  and  Dudley  Hardware  Co.  of 
Nashville  in  Tennessee,  the  Parker  Boot  and  Shoe  Co.  in 
Missouri.  The  Dearborn  Furniture  Mfg.  Co.  of  Chicago 
contracts  in  Iowa.  The  Schoonmaker  Chair  Co.  of  Concord 
uses  a  part  of  New  Hampshire's  prisoners,  the  Ascutney  Co. 
(shoes)  of  Windsor,  a  part  of  Vermont's.  There  are  many 
other  companies  in  many  different  lines.* 

Marketing  Convict-Made  Goods 

r  Many  ingenious  and  effective  devices  have  been  developed 
for  getting  rid  of  the  enormous  quantities  of  goods  produced 
in  the  prisons  of  the  United  States.  For  instance,  states 
which  are  not  allowed  by  law  to  hire  out  their  convicts 


U  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

directly  have  established  the  "piece  price"  system,  which  the 
Wickersham  Commission  called  an  "attempt  to  circumvent 
restrictions  of  the  contract  system."  The  Commission  called 
it  more  iniquitous  than  the  infamous  contract  system.  Under 
this  system  a  state  buys  raw  material  from  a  contractor  and 
works  it  into  manufactured  articles  which  it  then  sells  back 
to  the  same  contractor.  Other  states  have  been  known  to 
establish  dummy  companies  to  handle  their  convict-made 
goods,  selling  them  with  their  prison-made  character  con- 
cealed. 

Prisoners  are  commonly  forced  to  sew  what  they  know 
to  be  false  labels  on  garments  and  other  goods.  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  record  that  prisons  of  various  states  have  supplied 
large  mail-order  houses,  chain  stores  and  department  stores 
with  great  volumes  of  prison-made  shoes,  stoves,  brooms, 
furniture,  house-dresses,  overalls  and  aprons  which  have  been 
sold  under  false  labels.  Thus  the  prisoners  are  being  "re- 
formed" by  being  forced  to  put  false  labels  on  goods  they 
have  made. 

In  1927  practices  of  this  sort  came  to  the  attention  of  the 
Federal  Trade  Commission  and  it  was  forced  to  investigate. 
One  case  reported  was  that  of  the  Commonwealth  Manufac- 
turing Co.  of  Chicago.  This  company's  only  facilities  for 
"manufacturing"  were  a  15  by  20  foot  office  and  a  single 
desk.  Yet  it  advertised  far  and  wide  the  prison-made  shoes, 
clothing  and  binder  twine  that  it  claimed  to  have  "manu- 
factured." 

The  Commission  reported  that  the  shoes  sold  by  this  com- 
pany "contained  branded  on  the  soles  thereof  the  letters 
*U.  S.'  .  .  .  surrounded  by  the  shield  of  the  United  States, 
below  which  appeared  the  brand  *Munson  Army  Last,'  with 
the  full  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  warden  of  the  Indiana 
State  Prison." 

The  most  cunning  of  all  tricks,  however,  is  that  of  using 
popular  and  "patriotic"  labels.  Masquerading  under  this 
guise  an  enormous  volume  of  goods  move  in  the  markets  of 


I 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  45 

nearly  every  state.  What  "patriot"  wouldn't  buy  Gray  and 
Dudley's  "George  Washington  Stoves,"  or  the  "Liberty 
Stove,"  both  of  which  are  made  in  the  Nashville  peniten- 
tiary ?  Similar  convict-made  brands  of  work  clothes  are  the 
"Uncle  Sam,"  the  "American  Eagle,"  the  "Big  Yank,"  the 
"Army,"  and — as  a  special  appeal  to  southerners — "Dixie 
Dan."  If  one  can  be  so  disloyal  as  not  to  fall  for  an  appeal 
to  flag  and  country  there  is  the  "Gridiron"  or  "Big  Nine" 
for  sportsmen.  But  for  solid  comfort  get  the  "Roomy  Rich- 
ard." All  of  these  are  prison-made  shirts.  And  on  the  4th 
of  July  one  can  buy  a  flag  and  help  the  prison  industries! 
In  1925  a  single  women's  reformatory  in  Massachusetts  made 
4,368  state  and  national  flags. 

Incidentally,  convict  labor  was  used  for  other  "patriotic" 
purposes  in  1 930-1 931  in  the  following  instances:  clearing 
underbrush  from  Kings  Mountain  in  North  Carolina  in  prep- 
aration for  Hoover's  prosperity  speech  there  in  1930;  work 
on  streets  in  historic  old  Arlington,  Virginia,  home  of  the 
"unknown  soldier";  and  work  on  the  Arlington  Memorial 
Bridge  across  the  Potomac  leading  to  the  Lincoln  Memorial 
in  Washington,  D.  C.  Prisoners  were  also  used  on  the  Lee 
Memorial  Boulevard  in  Virginia. 

Not  only  are  prison-made  goods  sold  in  the  home  markets. 
They  are  also  dumped  abroad  in  huge  quantities.  It  has  been 
unofficially  estimated  that  10%  of  all  convict-made  merchan- 
dise is  exported.  Members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
from  the  big  prison-farm  states  declare  that  of  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  bales  of  cotton  produced  by  prisoners,  about 
65%  is  exported.  The  cotton  is  not  labeled  and  is  sold  in 
the  general  market. 

In  1927  Canada  stopped  the  importation  of  convict-made 
goods  from  the  United  States.  The  action  followed  the  in- 
dignant protests  of  Dominion  manufacturers  at  the  dumping 
of  prison-made  hosiery  and  work  garments  into  Canada  by 
prison-labor  contractors  on  this  side  of  the  border. 


46  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 


Competition  with  "Free  Labor" 

Arthur  Brisbane,  the  popular  bourgeois  columnist,  has 
recently  been  quoted  as  saying  that  "We  don't  let  our  convict 
labor  compete  with  free  labor;  and  ought  not  to  allow  Rus- 
sian convict  labor  to  compete."  The  second  part  of  this  state- 
ment relating  to  the  Soviet  Union  we  will  deal  with  in 
Chapter  IX.  But  as  for  the  first,  Mr.  Brisbane  obviously  has 
not  read  the  official  bulletin.  Prison  Industries,  made  public 
by  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Foreign  and  Domestic  Com- 
merce in  1929.    Speaking  of  convict-made  goods  it  said: 

The  effect  of  placing  on  the  open  market  a  volume  of  goods 
which  has  been  produced  below  normal  costs  is  to  lower  prices 
and  demoralize  the  market.  While  at  any  time  this  practice 
tends  to  bring  about  unfair  competitive  price  conditions,  the 
effect  is  more  keenly  felt  when  there  is  over-production.  The 
increase  in  prison  production  which  is  predicted,  will  make  it 
difficult  if  not  impossible  for  manufacturers  employing  free 
labor  to  continue  operation  in  trades  where  the  prison  output 
becomes  heavy.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  the  volume  of  displacement 
of  some  prison-made  products  is  small,  does  not  mean  that  the 
effect  on  the  market  is  negligible.  But  it  may  be,  and  often  is, 
a  serious  factor  in  demoralizing  price  levels. 

Mr.  Howard  B.  Gill,  superintendent  of  the  State  Prison 
Colony,  Norfolk,  Massachusetts,  recently  said: 

The  reports  [of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics.— PT.  W."] 
for  1905  and  1923  devote  considerable  space  to  the  effect  on 
free  industry  of  competition  of  convict-made  goods,  setting  forth 
an  array  of  evidence  which  leaves  no  doubt  that  prison  indus- 
tries, by  underselling,  by  dumping,  by  false  labeling,  by  unfair 
advertising,  by  unscientific  accounting,  by  brutal  treatment  of 
labor,  and  by  bad  management,  have  been  able  to  take  advan- 
tage of  free  industry  to  the  detriment  of  both  labor  and  capital. 
The  evidence  presented  is  not  confined  to  any  one  system  of 
production,  distribution  or  management.  It  persists  under  the 
State-Use,  the  Public  Account,  and  the  Public  Works  and  Ways 
systems — all  government-controlled,  as  well  as  under  the  Con- 
tract, the  Lease,  and  the  Piece-Price  systems  which  are  under 
private  control."* 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  47 

The  fact  that  all  systems  of  convict-merchandise  produc- 
tion offer  competition  to  "free  labor"  is  not  generally  recog- 
nized. The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  the  state  use  system, 
which  is  popularly  supposed  to  furnish  no  such  competition, 
in  reality  does  offer  the  same  competition  as  any  other  system. 
It  is  obvious  that  if  the  prison  industries  did  not  make  auto 
license  plates,  school  desks,  and  other  goods,  then  "free 
labor"  would  get  the  job  of  making  them. 

As  pointed  out  in  Prison  Industries,  "Certain  of  the  major 
factors  in  the  normal  cost  of  production  which  must  be  met 
by  all  manufacturers  are  entirely  absent  in  the  case  of  prison 
industries."  These  frequently  include  rent,  taxes,  light  and 
power,  and  labor  costs,  which  are  always  lower.  For  the 
use  of  its  convicts  the  state  usually  receives  from  the  con- 
tractor from  one-sixth  to  one-third  of  "free  labor"  costs. 

Julian  Leavitt,  a  well-known  student  of  the  prison  labor 
problem,  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  American  Magazine 
some  years  ago  described  a  contract  in  the  New  Haven 
(Conn.)  County  Jail.  He  reported  that  "For  the  sum  of  8 
cents  a  day  the  New  England  Chair  Company,  alias  the 
Ford- Johnson  Co.,  has  been  getting  the  labor  of  an  able- 
bodied  man  together  with  food,  clothing  and  shelter  for  the 
man ;  together  with  a  factory  building  in  which  the  man  might 
work ;  together  with  heat,  light  and  power  and  armed  guards 
^  and  keepers  to  see  that  the  man  works." 
K  Kate  Richards  O'Hare,  after  a  prison-labor  survey  in  1925, 
told  of  a  contract  that  the  Oklahoma  State  Prison  at  McAles- 
ter  made  with  a  large  work  clothing  contractor.  It  provided 
that  the  prison  should  establish  a  plant  for  the  manufacture 
of  work  shirts  and  women's  house-dresses;  that  the  state 
should  provide  a  suitable  shop  and  storage  rooms,  heated, 
lighted  and  ventilated;  furnish  the  necessary  electric  power 
to  operate  the  plant ;  furnish  cutting  tables,  benches  and  other 
necessary  fixtures,  keep  the  inmates  fed,  clothed,  housed  and 
under  good  discipline,  enforce  the  "task"  set  by  the  contrac- 
tors, and  transport  all  raw  and  finished  materials. 


48  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Some  idea  of  the  effect  of  dumping  convict-made  goods 
on  the  market  is  shown  in  the  case  of  an  inland  state  which 
during  the  early  part  of  1925  sold  over  a  million  dollars' 
worth  of  work  clothes  for  what  they  would  bring.  The 
market  was  demoralized  for  more  than  a  year  and  a  half. 

Another  effect  of  cut-throat  prison-labor  competition  on 
"free  labor"  was  brought  out  at  the  convention  of  the  Asso- 
ciated General  Contractors  of  America  in  193 1.  In  the  states 
of  Virginia,  Florida  and  Alabama  wages  of  free  labor  are 
beaten  down  to  10  and  15  cents  an  hour  by  prison-labor 
contractors  seeking  contracts  in  competition  with  other  con- 
tractors. Due  to  prison  competition  in  South  Carolina 
contractors  are  now  able  to  hire  "free"  unskilled  labor  for 
as  little  as  75  cents  a  day. 

In  Oklahoma  Governor  "Alfalfa  Bill"  Murray,  during 
193 1>  was  selling  prison-made  ice  at  20  cents  a  hundred 
pounds  cheaper  than  ice  made  by  "free  labor."  He  has 
threatened  also  to  enlarge  the  prison  bakery  and  sell  prison 
bread  in  all  parts  of  the  state. 

Another  example  of  the  direct  effect  of  such  competition 
was  shown  by  Peter  J.  Salmon,  official  of  the  American 
Foundation  for  the  Blind,  in  hearings  before  Congress  in 
1928.  Mr.  Salmon  testified  that  "there  has  been  set  up  a 
competition  with  which  neither  the  blind  nor  any  other  free 
labor  can  compete.  .  .  .  Prison-made  brooms  are  sold  so 
cheaply  in  the  open  market  that  they  constitute  a  menace 
to  the  large  number  of  blind-made  brooms,  the  principal 
industry  for  the  blind."  Other  fields  where  the  blind  are 
meeting  serious  prison-labor  competition  are  in  making  rugs, 
brushes,  mops  and  chairs. 

Convicts  have  even  been  used  a  number  of  times  as  strike- 
breakers. One  of  the  first  examples  was  in  the  Coal  Creek 
strike  in  Tennessee  in  1891-92.  When  the  forces  of  the 
state  had  overpowered  the  miners,  after  an  intensely  bitter 
war,  an  official  of  the  Tennessee  Coal,  Iron  and  Railroad 
Co.,  in  an  interview  with  the  New  York  Times,  said :  "One 


EXPLOITING  CONVICT  LABOR  4^ 

of  the  chief  reasons  which  first  induced  the  company  to  take 
up  the  system  [convict-lease]  was  the  great  chance  it  offered 
for  overcoming  strikes.  For  some  years  after  we  began  the 
lease  system  we  found  that  we  were  right  in  calculating  that 
the  free  miners  would  be  loath  to  enter  upon  strikes,  when 
they  saw  the  company  was  amply  provided  with  convicts.  .  .  . 
I  don't  mind  saying  that  for  many  years  the  company  found 
it  to  be  an  effective  club  over  the  heads  of  the  free  miners."  ° 

In  1926  legislation  to  abolish  the  lease  system  in  Alabama 
was  defeated  largely  because  certain  industrial  interests  in- 
sisted that  the  law  must  allow  convicts  to  be  used  in  emer- 
gencies such  as  strikes. 

During  1928,  in  a  molders'  strike  at  Nashville,  Tennessee, 
convicts  were  put  to  making  stoves  and  doing  foundry  work. 
Finding  that  they  were  not  getting  enough  production  in  that 
way,  the  stove  companies  arranged  to  have  the  convicts  pa- 
roled into  the  outside  plants.  Several  men  were  actually  so 
paroled  as  strike-breakers.  There  have  been  many  other 
such  cases ;  but  such  incidents  are  often  kept  out  of  the  press. 


CHAPTER  IV 
"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS" 

One  of  the  most  important  factors  determining  penal 
methods  in  every  capitalist  country  and  especially  in  the 
United  States  is  the  desire  to  make  profit  out  of  the  convicts. 
The  claim  that  capitalist  prisons  are  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
forming convicts  is  ridiculous.  In  a  recent  speech  before  the 
American  Prison  Congress,  Judge  Andrew  Bruce,  professor 
of  law  at  Northwestern  University  and  a  former  judge  of 
the  Illinois  Supreme  Court,  "declared  that  reform  schools  do 
not  reform  and  prisons  do  not  correct.  He  cited  Al  Capone 
as  a  product  of  the  reform  school."  ^ 

John   McGivney,   editor   of   the   Tacoma    (Washington) 

Labor  Advocate,  in  a  recent  issue  of  his  paper  said:  "In 

some  states  crime  and  criminals  are  being  made  a  source  of 

profit  to  such  an  extent  that  the  herding  of  convicts,  the 

/imprisonment  of  human  beings,  has,  in  order  to  secure  a 

A  labor  supply  for  those  profiteering  states  and  firms,  become 

•^  /  quite  an  industry." 

Howard  B.  Gill,  superintendent  of  the  State  Prison  Col- 
ony in  Norfolk,  Massachusetts,  recently  admitted:  "During 
the  150  years  which  have  elapsed  since  Vilain,  the  burgo- 
master of  Ghent,  erected  his  famous  Maison  de  Force  in 
1771-1773,  prison  administrators,  in  America  at  least,  have 
been  more  concerned  with  developing  a  profitable  system 
than  in  directing  it  toward  the  reformation  of  the  individual." 

The  "vocational"  training  given  prisoners  is  often  worth- 
less. Garment  making — especially  work  clothes — for  in- 
^  stance,  is  the  largest  prison  industry.  The  types  of  garments 
made  in  prison  are  practically  all  made  on  the  outside  by 
women.     So  a  man  may  make  shirts  in  prison  for  20  years 

60 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS*'  61 

and  yet  not  learn  a  thing  that  will  help  him  earn  a  living 
when  he  gets  out. 

Prison  Wages 

One  would  suppose  that  if  the  idea  of  rehabilitation  entered 
at  all  into  this  country's  prison  program  the  prisoners  would 
get  some  reward,  possibly  wages,  for  their  hard  work.  But 
10  states  pay  nothing  at  all;  a  few  give  a  small  bonus  as 
compensation  for  doing  more  than  the  allotted  task.  In 
other  states  a  small  weekly  or  monthly  wage  is  paid,  which 
in  65%  of  the  cases  is  below  25  cents  a  day  and  is  frequently 
less  than  five  cents  a  day. 

On  this  point,  the  Wickersham  Commission  reports: 

It  should  be  remembered  that  wages  either  have  not  been  paid 
in  our  prisons  or  if  paid  have,  with  very  few  exceptions,  been 
of  negligible  significance.  Existing  wage  payments  have  been 
made  still  more  negligible  by  a  system  of  fining  prisoners  for 
violation  of  prison  rules.  There  are  cases  on  record  in  the  state 
of  New  York  in  which  prisoners  who  earned  one  and  a  half 
cents  a  day  were  fined  five  dollars  at  a  time.^ 

In  her  study.  Welfare  of  Prisoners'  Families  in  Kentucky,^ 
Ruth  S.  Bloodgood  found  that  the  "actual  amount  of  money 
sent  to  the  families  was  pitifully  small  as  compared  with 
their  needs.''  She  showed  that  the  most  the  family  of  a 
prisoner  might  expect  to  receive  from  a  prisoner  regularly 
employed  during  the  entire  year  was  $23.40.  This  would 
be  true  if  the  father's  entire  year's  earnings  were  sent  to 
the  family.  But  out  of  such  earnings  the  prisoner  had  to 
buy  certain  necessities.  Out  of  82  families  studied,  26  re- 
ceived less  than  $10  each.  Only  seven  families  received  as 
much  as  $20. 

But  in  addition  to  the  money  "wages"  the  prisoners  receive 
other  "rewards."  For  doing  their  work  well,  the  most  ef- 
ficient workmen,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Tennessee 
convicts,  are  denied  their  paroles  when  due!  The  speedy 
workers  are  valuable  both  as  producers  and  pace-setters  and 
the  contractors  see  to  it  that  the  parole  applications  of  these 


^ 


52  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

men  are  rejected,  even  when  the  prisoner  is  eligible  for  pa- 
role. In  Tennessee,  in  193 1,  Parole  Officer  J.  C.  Acuff  of 
Nashville  admitted  that  he  had  embezzled  funds  collected 
under  the  parole  provisions  which  require  prisoners  to  pay 
$2  a  month  to  the  state  to  be  held  until  the  prisoners  are 
released. 

But  Tennessee  is  not  alone  in  such  parole  practices.  In  a 
recent  hearing  before  the  Committee  on  Labor  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  members  brought  out  that  many  men  were 
"refused  parole  because  they  worked  too  well."  Just  a  few 
months  ago  Benny  Sabbatino,  an  ex-convict  in  the  Great 
Meadow  Prison,  Comstock,  New  York,  won  an  award  of 
$7,500  against  two  former  members  of  the  parole  board  who 
kept  him  in  prison  three  years  beyond  his  time.* 

Accidents  and  Occupational  Diseases 

An  absolute  lack  of  care  in  protecting  the  life  and  limb 
of  convict  slaves  is  one  of  the  outstanding  features  of  prison 
practice  in  this  country.  Fire  hazard  is  one  of  the  most 
serious  dangers  under  which  prisoners  work.  In  the  Ohio 
Penitentiary  at  Columbus,  for  example,  318  prisoners  were 
cremated  in  less  than  an  hour,  when  fire  raged  through  it, 
April  21,  1930.  Incidentally,  the  prison  housed  at  the  time 
4,300  prisoners  and  was  designed  for  but  1,500.  On  March 
7,  1 93 1,  eleven  Negro  prisoners  died  screaming  in  agony 
when  flames  swept  the  prison  at  Kenansville,  N.  C.  An 
"investigation"  after  the  criminal  tragedy  revealed  that  it 
was  known  all  along  that  the  prison  was  a  fire  trap.  In  Coral 
Gables,  Florida,  in  1931,  one  convict  was  burned  to  death 
and  several  maimed  for  life  in  a  serious  fire."  Another  of 
the  most  serious  fires  of  the  country's  prison  history  was 
that  in  the  Banner  mines  in  Alabama  in  April,  191 1.  In  this 
fire  123  prisoners,  leased  as  coal  miners  to  a  private  com-~^ 
pany,  and  all  of  them  at  work  on  the  job,  were  killed  like 
vermin. 

Accident  hazard  is  also  prevalent  in  all  prisons.     In  the 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS''  53 

Brushy  Mountain  coal  mine  prison  at  Petros,  Tennessee,  for 
example,  between  1928  and  1930,  there  were  42,854  hospital 
cases  among  less  than  800  prisoners  at  any  one  time.  An 
official  investigating  committee  of  Tennessee  reporting  on 
the  Brushy  Mountain  Penitentiary  in  193 1  said  that  if  a  fire 
should  break  out  in  the  prison,  which  it  thought  likely,  a 
tragedy  would  occur  "the  like  of  which  has  probably  never 
been  seen  in  an  American  prison." 

Occupational  disease  usually  gets  the  prisoners  who  escape  i^^»^ 
being  burned  to  death  or  maimed  by  accident.  The  jute  mill 
in  San  Quentin  Prison,  California,  is  one  of  the  most  hated 
of  all  prison  factories.  More  has  been  written  about  it, 
possibly,  than  any  other.  A  guard  recently  told  a  newspaper 
man  who  was  visiting  Tom  Mooney,  "They  don't  last  long 
in  the  jute  mill.  Jute  gets  into  the  lungs  and  causes  pul- 
monary trouble.  After  one  year  their  health  is  broken." 
Tuberculosis  is  one  of  the  most  feared  of  all  these  prison 
diseases. 

There  is  no  recourse  in  law  or  anywhere  else  for  prisoners 
or  their  families  in  cases  of  accident,  disease  or  death.  The 
courts  have  often  held  that  in  the  absence  of  statutory  pro- 
vision, the  state  is  not  liable  for  injuries  sustained  by  a  con- 
vict working  outside  or  inside  the  place  of  imprisonment. 
These  same  decisions  hold  that  in  the  absence  of  a  statute 
there  is  no  liability  to  a  prisoner  who  becomes  diseased  or 
who  dies  as  a  result  of  unhealthy  conditions  in  a  penal 
institution.  These  decisions  are  based  on  practical  consid- 
erations, for  otherwise  many  of  the  states  would  face 
"innumerable  suits  involving  the  injuries  of  prison  inmates, 
so  precarious  are  the  conditions  of  the  penal  institutions, 
especially  the  road  camps  of  the  South."  ®  Courts  in  New 
York,  a  state  with  so-called  model  prisons,  have  ruled  like- 
wise. 

Only  three  states — Maryland,  Wisconsin,  and  New  Hamp- 
shire— have  any  sort  of  workmen's  compensation  for  con- 
victs.    The  compensation  in  these  states  is  based  on  the 


54  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

"wages"  received  by  the  convict  laborers  which  at  best  are 
a  few  cents  a  day.  Then  from  this  meager  compensation 
are  legally  deducted  charges  of  various  sorts — ^board,  main- 
tenance and  other  items.  Very  little,  if  anything,  is  left  for 
the  prisoner.  The  law  is  much  more  interested  in  protect- 
ing the  prison  against  loss  because  of  disabled  workers  than 
in  protecting  the  workers  against  disability. 

Hours  and  Tasks 

Convicts  in  the  southern  states  are  usually  worked  from 
10  to  12  or  even  more  hours  a  day.  In  some  of  them,  espe- 
cially on  the  chain  gangs  and  farms,  the  hours  are  measured 
by  the  sun.  "We  work  from  sun  to  sun,"  is  the  way  the 
prisoners  express  it,  which  means  that  work  begins  at  day- 
break and  ends  at  sundown.  But  hours  are  long  also  in  the 
central  prisons  or  penitentiaries  of  the  South.  An  official 
in  the  Nashville  prison  has  often  been  heard  to  laugh  and 
say,  "Oh,  yes,  we  work  our  men  eight  hours  a  day — eight 
hours  before  noon  and  eight  after."  This  is  the  "full  day" 
which  this  prison  reports  to  investigators. 

In  prisons  in  northern  states  and  other  sections  of  the 
country,  where  the  most  efficient  methods  of  prison  labor 
exploitation  have  been  worked  out,  the  day's  work  is  fre- 
quently as  low  as  eight  or  nine  hours. 

The  task  system  is  common  to  all  prisons  in  the  United 
States— North,  South,  East  and  West.  It  is  the  "outside" 
system  of  piecework  and  speed-up  transplanted  into  prisons. 
In  a  certain  number  of  hours  a  prisoner  is  required  to  do 
a  certain  amount  of  work.  As  it  is  developed  in  the  more 
efficient  prisons  it  becomes  similar  to  the  "belt"  or  "line" 
in  a  Ford  plant.  The  task  is  set  by  a  skilled  pace-setter. 
It  is  the  same  for  all  prisoners,  skilled  and  unskilled.  Each 
worker  is  then  required  to  do  that  amount  of  work  each  day. 
Among  the  devices  used  to  insure  that  he  not  only  "does 
task"  but  exceeds  it  is  a  bonus  for  overproduction.  This 
bonus  consists  of  petty  favors  such  as  a  small  bag  of  smoking 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS"  65 

or  chewing  tobacco  or  stamps,  or,  in  some  cases,  a  few  cents 
a  week  extra.*    Another  device  is  torture. 


Punishment 

All  who  have  made  the  slightest  study  of  prison  labor 
know  that  throughout  the  country  the  great  majority  of  prison 
punishments — from  75  to  90%  of  the  cases — are  given  for 
not  doing  task. 

After  an  extensive  survey  of  prison-labor  conditions,  Kate 
Richards  O'Hare  reported:  "If  the  women  convicts  failed 
to  make  task,  and  all  of  them  did  fail  more  or  less,  they 
were  punished  with  fiendish  cruelty — ^beaten,  starved,  frozen 
in  winter,  roasted  in  summer,  strung  up  by  the  wrists  with 
handcuffs,  gagged,  subjected  to  beastly  sex  perversion,  and 
left  to  rot  in  dungeons."  A  prominent  leader  in  the  Alabama 
League  of  Women  Voters  recently  told  the  writer  that  women 
tuberculars  in  Alabama  prisons  were  flogged  when  they  failed 
to  do  enough  work  or  when  their  work  did  not  suit  the 
officials. 

Warden  A.  A.  McCorkle  of  Nashville  prison  admitted  to 
the  Tennessee  legislative  investigating  committee  in  193 1 
that  he  frequently  ordered  men  given  as  high  as  30  to  40 
blows  with  a  heavy  strap  "as  a  last  resort  for  not  pulling 
task." 

A  Tennessee  convict,  Harry  Good,  who  was  released  from 
the  Nashville  prison  in  December,  1930,  told  of  his  experi- 
ences in  that  "reform  institution."  "I  saw  a  friend  of  mine," 
he  said,  "taken  to  the  whipping  room.  I  heard  him  scream 
for  half  an  hour.  When  he  came  to  the  hospital  where  I 
was  confined,  his  back  was  bleeding  and  all  the  flesh  had  been 
torn  away.    His  clothing  stuck  to  torn  and  jagged  flesh." 

To  escape  the  inhuman  punishment  meted  out  for  inability 
to  do  the  required  quota  of  work,  men  frequently  mutilate 

♦Prison  labor  contractors  have  also  been  known  to  supply  "dope" 
to  convicts  to  get  more  work  out  of  them.  Cf.  E.  Stagg  Whitin, 
Penal  Servitude,  p.  79. 


56  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

their  bodies.  In  this  way  they  gain  sanctuary,  for  a  time 
at  least,  in  the  hospital.  Workers  in  Alabama  mines,  up  until 
1928,  frequently  put  dynamite  caps  in  their  boots  and  blasted 
off  toes  or  feet,  or  attached  the  caps  to  fingers  and  then 
smashed  them  with  a  rock.  When  the  officials  found  too 
many  such  cases,  they  discouraged  it  by  giving  the  men  severe 
lashings  as  soon  as  they  were  partially  recovered  from  their 
injuries. 

Harry  Good,  the  Tennessee  convict,  told  of  a  friend  of 
his  who  was  being  driven  insane  by  the  toil  and  monotony 
of  the  treadmill  labor  in  the  shirt  factory.  The  friend  told 
Good,  "I  borrowed  a  hatchet,  laid  my  hand  on  the  block  and 
off  came  John  Thumb — it  didn't  hurt  much.  Anyway,  it 
was  worth  it."  Atlother  of  his  fellow-convicts,  who  worked 
in  a  foundry,  poured  molten  lead  into  his  shoe  and  had  to 
keep  his  leg  in  plaster  of  Paris  for  several  weeks  and  ended 
up  a  cripple. 

George  Bricker,  ex-prisoner  in  the  Brushy  Mountain  coal 
mine  prison,  spoke  of  his  experiences  with  the  task  system. 
He  said:  "It  has  not  been  told  how  four  strong  men  are 
called  in  to  hold  a  man  to  the  floor  while  he  is  lashed  with  a 
nine-pound  whip  for  *in fraction  of  rules,'  and  *in fraction  of 
rules'  usually  means  failure  to  get  task  ...  I  was  whipped 
three  times,  each  time  receiving  15  to  2"]  lashes  for  'not  get- 
ting task'." 

Tennessee  is  not  the  only  state  that  has  such  conditions 
in  its  prisons.  The  writer  simply  happens  to  be  more  familiar 
with  the  situation  in  that  state.  In  other  states  conditions 
are  found  to  be  practically  the  same.  For  example,  in  San 
Quentin,  where  Tom  Mooney  has  rotted  away  over  16  years 
of  his  life,  and  in  Folsom  Prison,  where  his  fellow  frame-up 
victim,  Warren  K.  Billings,  is  incarcerated,  men  are  kept  in 
solitary  confinement  in  dungeons  on  a  few  ounces  of  bread 
and  water  for  11  days  at  a  time  and  longer.  And  lime  is 
spilled  over  the  floor  of  the  dungeon,  giving  off  a  suffocating 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS*'  57 

odor.  Prisoners  claim  that  this  punishment  is  given  for  not 
performing  task. 

Details  of  fiendish  tortures  at  the  Wichita,  Kansas,  Prison 
Camp  continue  to  seep  out  despite  the  denials  by  those  in 
charge  of  the  farm.  Failure  to  perform  forced  labor  either 
because  of  sickness,  weakness  or  any  other  cause  is  punished 
by  bread  and  water  rations  and  a  50%  reduction  of  the 
credit  given  for  working  out  fines.  One  prisoner,  Peter  J. 
Gentile,  who  had  been  kept  on  bread  and  water  for  35  days, 
was  recently  taken  into  the  potato  field  to  work.  He  was 
too  weak  to  hoe  and  started  for  the  shade.  A  guard  attacked 
him  and  with  a  blackjack  scalped  a  long  piece  of  skin  from 
Gentile's  head. 

A  short  time  ago  tales  of  torture  of  convicts  working  in 
the  Connecticut  State  Prison  at  Wethersfield,  became  a 
national  scandal  when  Miss  Genevieve  Cowles,  engaged  for 
several  years  painting  murals  in  the  prison  chapel,  and  Chap- 
lain William  H.  Smith  exposed  conditions  there.^ 

Miss  Cowles  is  convinced  that  prison  slavery  tends  to  turn 
men  into  criminals.  In  her  report  on  the  Wethersfield  prison 
she  said  that  under  the  Connecticut  statutes.  Section  1978, 
revised  1930,  "the  warden  is  authorized  in  case  prisoners  are 
disobedient  or  disorderly  or  do  not  faithfully  perform  their 
tasks  to  put  fetters  and  shackles  on  them  or  confine  them 
in  dark  and  solitary  cells."  These  cells,  called  "Black  Holes," 
each  have  two  metal  doors  with  a  few  slots  as  big  as  dollars 
for  "ventilation."  There  are  no  mattresses  in  the  punishment 
cells. 

Chaplain  Smith  likewise  charges  that  slavery  exists  in  the 
Wethersfield  prison.  He  says,  "Like  slaves  you  go  to  your 
task;  the  monotonous  routine  deadens  your  faculties;  utter 
helplessness  makes  you  rebellious;  the  ceaseless  repression 
drives  you  frantic."  Both  Miss  Cowles  and  Mr.  Smith  de- 
clare that  driving  and  merciless  labor  accounts,  in  part,  for 
dozens  of  mental  cases  in  the  cell  blocks. 


68  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Prison  "Home"  Life 

The  preceding  paragraphs  on  conditions  tell  of  convicts 
toiling  on  the  job.  But  what  of  their  "home"  conditions? 
Surely  when  their  day's  heavy  toil  is  over,  when  their  long 
hours  of  exploitation  are  ended,  they  should  come  back  to 
good  food,  a  nice  rest  under  pleasant  surroundings,  and  good 
treatment — all  of  which  should  characterize  a  real  "reform** 
institution. 

But  that  would  cost  money  and  decrease  the  profits  of  this 
capitalist  institution.  Actually  one  finds  that  convict  laborers 
are  given  not  only  an  insufficient  amount  of  the  cheapest  food 
obtainable,  but  even  this  is  usually  badly  prepared.  A  former 
convict  in  a  Tennessee  prison  says  that  "not  once  during 
the  time  I  served  in  Nashville  prison  were  the  prisoners,  out- 
side the  hospital,  given  butter  or  milk/'  Another  convict, 
describing  a  southern  prison,  declares,  "we  were  sent  into 
the  mines  on  food  which  consisted  of  half-done  rice,  water 
gravy  and  old  corn  bread,  which  was  our  breakfast  every  day 
in  the  week.  When  we  wanted  anything  else  we  had  to 
cook  it  in  our  shovels,  dirty  and  filthy  with  coal  dust.  Rusty 
water  we  had  to  drink  if  we  could  get  it  before  the  mine 
mules  did."  One  Alabama  county  makes  the  boast  that  it  is 
much  cheaper  to  feed  its  convicts  than  its  mules — it  costs 
55  cents  a  day  for  a  mule  and  only  14  for  a  convict!  And 
food  allowances  for  convicts  all  over  the  country  have  been 
cut  sharply  during  the  economic  crisis  just  as  wages  have 
been  cut  and  living  standards  of  workers  reduced  on  the 
"outside."  Sing  Sing  recently  reduced  its  allowance  10% 
and  at  present  23  cents  a  day  is  allowed  each  convict  for 
food.  Prisons,  like  other  capitalist  institutions,  increase 
profits  at  the  expense  of  the  workers. 

When  the  Tennessee  investigating  committee  was  inspect- 
ing the  Brushy  Mountain  Penitentiary  they  found  138  suffer- 
ers from  influenza  and  pneumonia  among  the  800  prisoners  in 
the  place.    No  attempt  was  made  to  segregate  the  sick  from 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS''  69 

the  well.  The  committee  reported :  "They  have  a  little  shack 
called  the  pest  house,  which  would  not  possibly  accommo- 
date more  than  three  beds  and  that  was  not  even  in  use."  It 
was  reported  recently  that  on  a  single  prison  farm  in  Missis- 
sippi there  were  19  cases  of  spinal  meningitis  arising  out  of 
unsanitary  conditions.  It  is  an  established  fact  that  in  few, 
if  any,  of  the  prisons  of  the  country  is  there  an  adequate 
system  of  physical  examination  and  segregation  and  treat- 
ment of  such  contagious  diseases  as  tuberculosis,  gonorrhea, 
syphilis,  trachoma,  influenza  and  others. 

Another  "home"  condition  forced  upon  Tennessee  convict- 
miners  was  described  by  the  official  committee  in  1931 : 
"Sodomy  is  practiced  promiscuously.  The  younger  prisoners 
are  often  forced  to  submit  to  the  hardened  old  types."  A 
well-informed  labor  official  of  Tennessee  told  the  writer  that 
these  conditions  of  sex  perversion  exist  with  the  knowledge 
and  connivance  of  prison  officials  who  assign  "gal-boys"  to 
model,  hard-working  prisoners.  Of  all  the  prisoners  in  the  . 
institution  60%  were  found  to  be  infected  with  loathsome  ! 
venereal  diseases.  "Many  young  boys,"  reported  the  Com- 
mittee, "are  infected  with  gonorrhea  and  syphilis."  The 
venereals  are  not  segregated  but  work  alongside  the  other 
prisoners  and  use  the  same  wash  basins,  towels  and  beds. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact — ^though  not  agreeable  and  there- 
fore not  often  mentioned — ^that  sex  perversion  of  the  type 
described  in  Tennessee  exists  in  every  prison  in  the  United 
States.  A  few  years  ago  a  deputy  warden  of  the  Federal 
penitentiary  at  Leavenworth  was  indicted  for  practicing 
sodomy  on  inmates  of  that  prison.® 

Strait- Jacket  and  Other  Tortures 

For  the  slightest  sign  of  revolt  against  these  working  con- 
ditions prisoners  are  subjected  to  all  sorts  of  tortures.    At  ]  ^ 
least  eight  states  legalize  the  lash  and  many  more  use  it  ' 
though  it  is  "illegal."    In  addition  we  find  such  torture  instru- 


60  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

merits  and  "disciplinary  punishments"  as  the  stocks,  solitary 
confinement  on  bread  and  water,  confinement  in  "sweat 
boxes,"  hanging  on  cell  walls,  drenching  with  cold  water, 
and  many  others.  But  of  all  tortures  none  has  been  so 
well  described  as  the  strait- jacket.  Jacob  Oppenheimer, 
former  prisoner  in  San  Quentin,  gives  his  experiences  with  it : 

I  had  not  been  in  it  fifteen  minutes  when  sharp,  needle-like 
pains  began  shooting  through  my  fingers,  hands  and  arms,  which 
gradually  extended  to  my  shoulders  .  .  .  within  half  an  hour 
these  pains  shot  back  and  forth  like  lightning.  Cramping  pains 
clutched  my  bowels;  my  breath  pained  with  a  hot  dry  sensation. 
The  brass  rivets  ate  into  my  flesh,  and  the  cord  ground  into 
my  back  until  the  slightest  movement,  even  breathing,  was  an 
added  agony.  My  head  grew  hot  and  feverish,  and  a  burning 
thirst  seized  me  which  compelled  me  every  few  minutes  to  ask 
the  guard  for  water.  ...  As  the  hours  and  days  passed  the 
anguish  became  more  and  more  unbearable.  I  slept  neither 
night  nor  day.  .  .  .  The  bodily  excretions  over  which  I  had  no 
control  in  the  canvas  vice,  ate  into  my  bruised  limbs,  adding 
pain  to  pain.  My  fingers,  hands  and  arms  finally  became  numb 
and  a  paralyzing  shock  stunned  my  brain.  .  .  . 

Had  I  been  offered  a  dose  of  poison  I  would  have  drunk  it 
with  gratitude.  This  I  suffered  for  4  days  and  14  hours  inces- 
santly. .  .  .  Released,  I  reeled  off  to  my  cell  where  I  sank  on 
my  mattress  in  utter  collapse.  ...  I  managed  to  drag  off  my 
saturated  clothes.  .  .  .  What  a  sight  I  beheld.  My  hands,  arms 
and  thigh  were  frightfully  bruised  and  had  all  the  colors  of 
the  rainbow.  My  body  was  shriveled  like  that  of  an  old  man 
and  a  horrible  stench  arose  from  it.^ 

In  order  to  cover  up  and  distract  attention  from  such 
conditions  which  prevail  for  convicts  both  while  on  the  job 
and  during  rest  hours,  various  publicity-seeking  prison  offi- 
cials give  the  convicts  a  treat  about  once  a  year.  These 
treats  include  entertainments  of  various  sorts — ^turkey  din- 
ners, speeches  by  social  workers,  movie  stars  and  so  on.  The 
latest  scheme  is  to  have  football  games.  Thus  the  New 
York  Times,  November  18,  1931,  carried  an  editorial  prais- 
ing Sing  Sing's  football  eleven.  But  less  than  two  weeks 
later  the  same  paper  reported  that  additional  tear  gas  equip- 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS^*  61 

ment  was  being  sent  to  the  Great  Meadow  Prison  (in  the 
same  state)  and  that  30  additional  guards  had  been  requested 
by  Warden  Joseph  H.  Wilson. 

Young  Convict  Workers 

It  IS  not  only  adult  prisoners  who  are  subject  to  daily 
abuses.  Juvenile  delinquent  workers  in  American  prisons 
also  undergo  maltreatment  and  even  torture,  and  fatal  con- 
sequences are  often  reported.  Writing  of  conditions  in  the 
Washington  State  Reformatory  at  Monroe,  the  Wickersham 
Commission's  investigator,  Dr.  Miriam  Van  Waters,  said: 
"Punishment  in  the  dark  cells  is  given  for  trivial  as  well  as 
serious  offenses:  not  standing  at  count,  speaking  in  the 
dining  room,  laughing  in  the  cell  block,  making  loud  pop- 
ping noises  with  the  mouth,  were  listed  on  some  of  the 
discipline  slips  of  the  federal  cases  studied."  Dr.  Van  Waters 
was  told  by  a  member  of  the  staff  of  one  reformatory  that  a 
young  prisoner  was  found  dead  in  one  of  the  punishment 
cells. 

Concerning  the  industrial  reformatory  at  Chillicothe,  Ohio, 
Dr.  Van  Waters  charged  that  "a  few  minor  offenses  noted 
in  the  records  as  punished  by  from  three  to  six  days  in  the 
guard  house  were  possession  of  a  two-cent  stamp,  talking  in 
mess  line,  concealing  an  apple  in  the  bimk,  kicking  a  refuse 
can,  stealing  five  eggs  from  the  kitchen." 

During  the  six  months  ending  December,  1930,  there  were 
2,243  boys  and  girls  under  18  in  federal  prisons.  (The 
picker  sham  report  did  not  deal  with  the  vast  number  of  state 
and  local  delinquents.)  Of  this  number  44.2%  were  in  for  vio- 
lation of  liquor  laws.    Eighteen  were  under  14  years  of  age. 

Many  children  are  doing  long  sentences  at  hard  labor  also 
in  state  institutions.  Julian  Leavitt  some  years  ago  reported 
that  in  the  Greendale  House  of  Reform  in  Kentucky,  200 
children  under  15  were  leased  out  at  three  cents  an  hour  to 
the  Kentucky  Furniture  Co.,  a  subsidiary  of  the  Ford-John- 
son Co.  of  Cincinnati. 


u 


62  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

The  Tennessee  legislative  investigating  committee  in  1931 
investigated  also  some  boys'  and  girls'  reformatories,  includ- 
ing one  for  Negro  children.  It  was  found  that  these  chil- 
dren were  contracted  out  to  private  establishments.  Salant 
and  Salant  Mfg.  Co.,  shirt  manufacturers  of  New  York, 
were  using  most  of  the  prisoners  in  the  State  Agricultural 
and  Training  School  for  Boys  at  Nashville  where  the  youth- 
ful inmates  are  beaten  for  not  "pulling  task." 

Governor  Charles  W.  Tobey  of  New  Hampshire  in  July, 

;  1930,  charged  that  young  girls  working  in  the  State  Indus- 

/ /{ trial  School  at  Manchester  were  given  the  "whipping  cure" 

of  over  a  hundred  lashes  apiece  on  their  naked  bodies.    Some 

of  the  girls  were  also  found  confined  in  boxes  covered  with 

chicken  wire. 

Women  prisoners  in  the  United  States  are  not  treated  with 
any  more  consideration  than  work  animals.  A  part  of  the 
Tennessee  investigating  committee's  report  in  1931  dealt  with 
treatment  of  women  convict  workers.  It  declared  that  "In 
the  Nashville  penitentiary  in  the  women's  building  women  are 
required  to  work  in  a  hosiery  mill  and  certain  tasks  are 
assigned  to  them.  We  found  women  being  handcuffed  and 
hung  on  pegs.  .  .  .  The  inmates  state  that  this  was  done 
for  failure  to  perform  task."  The  women  testified  that  they 
were  frequently  left  hanging  for  10  hours.  We  have  already 
referred  to  the  flogging  of  tubercular  women  in  Alabama 
prisons  for  not  doing  enough  work.  There  are  also  instances 
of  the  strait- jacket  and  solitary  confinement  being  used  on 
women.  At  the  New  York  State  Reformatory  for  Women, 
Bedford  Hills,  New  York,  women  inmates  unaccustomed  to 
heavy  work  were  required  to  put  up  fences,  clear  ground  and 
pour  concrete. 

Revolts  and  Struggles  Against  Prison  Labor 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  has  opposed  only  that 
part  of  prison  labor  which  turns  out  products  made  by  its 
skilled  craft  unions.     This  policy  was  summarized  in  the 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS"  68 

statement  of  President  William  Green  at  the  A.  F.  of  L. 
convention  in  1931  to  the  effect  that  it  is  "satisfactory"  for 
prison  laborers  to  make  bricks  but  not  to  lay  them.  In  other 
words,  the  A.  F.  of  L.  will  oppose  prison  labor  only  when 
it  does  work  of  the  same  kind  as  that  performed  by  the  craft 
unions  that  make  up  the  federation. 

Although  the  A.  F.  of  L.  has  done  little  or  nothing  to 
fight  for  better  conditions  for  the  workers  in  the  prisons 
of  this  country,  the  latter,  on  their  own  initiative,  have 
waged  some  bitter  struggles  against  the  conditions  we  have 
outlined  in  this  chapter.  In  some  cases  these  prison  revolts 
have  been  aided  by  workers  on  the  outside  who  were  acting 
in  their  own  interest  as  well  as  out  of  sympathy  for  their 
imprisoned  and  victimized  fellow-workers. 

Leased  or  bound-out  prisoners  were  in  most  of  the  revolts 
of  indentured  servants,  convicts  and  slaves  before  the  Revo- 
lutionary War.  Since  then  they  have  engaged  in  many  fights. 
In  the  period  from  1881  to  1900,  for  example,  there  are  22 
recorded  strikes  against  convict  labor  in  coal  mines.^°  Most 
of  them  have  been  forgotten  as  very  few  records  were  kept, 
or  because  the  whole  matter  was  hushed  up  by  the  ruling' 
class  at  the  time  it  occurred. 

Perhaps  the  most  significant  of  all  such  revolts  was  the 
Coal  Creek  Rebellion  in  1891-92  in  the  coal  mines  of  East 
Tennessee.  Following  a  combination  lock-out  and  strike, 
convict  strike-breakers  were  brought  in  by  the  Tennessee 
Coal,  Iron  &  Railroad  Co.  (now  a  subsidiary  of  the  United 
States  Steel  Corp.),  which  leased  an  average  of  1,500  to 
1,600  convicts  from  the  State  of  Tennessee.  The  company 
paid  to  the  state  an  average  of  $42  a  year  for  the  use  of  an 
able-bodied  worker.  Naturally  with  such  cheap  labor  power 
huge  profits  were  piled  up.  It  may  be  said  that  this  com- 
pany was  built  upon  the  trade  and  exploitation  of  convict 
slaves. 

The  president  of  the  corporation  at  that  time  was  Thomas 
C.  Piatt,  Republican  boss  of  New  York  in  the  1890's.    Mem- 


64  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

bers  of  the  New  York  legislature  and  other  northern  capi- 
talists owned  stock  in  the  company.  However,  the  convicts 
were  bound  out  to  Mr.  Piatt,  the  Republican,  by  the  south- 
ern Democratic  legislature  and  governor  of  Tennessee. 

The  miners,  Negro  and  white,  aided  by  the  farmers  of 
East  Tennessee,  drove  out  the  guards,  burned  the  prison 
stockades  throughout  East  Tennessee  and  released  the  con- 
victs who  escaped  to  the  hills.  Governor  Buchanan  sent  in 
the  militia  to  subdue  the  workers.  After  a  pitched  battle  the 
entire  force  of  soldiers  was  captured  and  driven  out  after 
being  disarmed  and  after  promising  never  to  return  to  the 
mining  section.  The  struggle  had  begun  in  earnest.  It 
lasted  from  July  14,  1891  (Bastille  day),  to  November,  1892, 
with  a  few  skirmishes  as  late  as  1893. 

Before  the  struggle  was  over  nearly  a  dozen  prisons  were 
burned  to  the  ground  and  over  1,000  convicts  given  their 
freedom,  food  and  clothing.  Many  convicts  chose  to  remain 
and  fight,  risking  recapture.  Most  of  them  escaped  into  the 
hills  of  Kentucky,  West  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  and 
were  never  recaptured. 

Three  commanding  officers,  a  general,  a  colonel  and  a  cap- 
tain were  captured  as  well  as  several  hundred  soldiers,  in- 
cluding whole  train  loads  at  a  time.  Many  of  the  soldiers 
were  very  easy  to  "capture"  as  they  openly  sided  with  the 
miners  and  convicts.  Even  the  United  States  War  Depart- 
ment was  forced  to  admit  that  most  of  the  people  of  Ten- 
nessee, "including  the  militia,"  were  in  sympathy  with  the 
miners. 

Negroes  and  whites,  men  who  fought  for  the  North  and 
men  who  fought  for  the  South  in  the  Civil  War,  farmers 
and  miners,  convicts  and  "free"  men,  stuck  together  in  the 
face  of  the  entire  armed  forces  of  Tennessee.  Approxi- 
mately 10,000  soldiers  and  members  of  business  men's  posses 
were  used  to  crush  the  revolt.  Workers  and  convicts  stormed 
forts  and  cannons  and  died  together.  But  they  died  with  the 
knowledge  that  they  had  killed  a  great  many  more  of  the 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS"  65 

common  enemy  than  the  enemy  killed  of  them.  Over  500 
miners  were  arrested  after  the  workers  had  been  disarmed. 

Before  the  lease  system  was  adopted  in  Tennessee,  in  1889, 
convicts  were  worked  under  contract  for  private  contractors 
at  Nashville.  But  after  the  convicts  burned  the  prison  on 
several  occasions  and  with  it  all  the  manufactured  goods  in 
the  place,  the  employers  repudiated  their  contracts.  It  was 
then  that  the  convicts  were  leased  to  the  coal  mines. 

The  1 93 1  Tennessee  legislative  committee  in  its  report  on 
conditions  in  Tennessee  prisons  referred  to  the  Coal  Creek 
Rebellion  and  declared  that  unless  conditions  are  improved 
similar  trouble  would  be  expected  in  connection  with  the 
state-owned  prison  coal  mine  at  Brushy  Mountain. 

Struggles  in  1931-32 

Revolts  and  strikes  have  broken  out  in  prisons  all  over  the 
United  States  during  1931  and  1932.  Many  of  them  were 
not  reported,  or  if  reported  were  "played  down"  or  called 
"riots."  There  were  strikes  in  at  least  three  reformatories 
for  girls  in  the  South  and  the  institutions  were  wrecked  or 
burned.  The  two  most  important  of  these  fights  occurred 
at  the  Samarcand  "House  of  Correction"  near  Charlotte, 
N.  C,  where  350  revolted  and  at  the  Alabama  "Training 
School  for  Girls,"  near  Birmingham.  There  were  many  riots 
in  other  sections  of  the  country. 

The  most  important  chain  gang  strike  in  1931  occurred  in 
Loudon  County,  Tennessee.  The  Negro  and  white  convicts 
there  asked  for  an  8-hour  day  and  better  food.  Two  guards 
quit  in  sympathy .^^  In  July,  1932,  seventy  convicts  on  the 
Sunbeam  prison  chain  gang  in  Florida  went  on  strike  against 
brutal  conditions  and  won  a  transfer. 

On  December  13,  193 1,  the  boiler  crew  in  Leavenworth 
refused  to  work.  Two  strikes  were  reported  in  New  Jersey 
in  1 93 1.  The  most  important  occurred  in  the  Reformatory 
at  Rahway,  August  24.  Striking  to  raise  their  wages  to 
four  cents  a  day — ^they  had  been  three  cents — ^the  prisoners 


66  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

defied  the  officials.  All  convicts  were  locked  in  their  cells  and 
deprived  of  any  sort  of  exercise.  About  50  of  the  most 
active  men  were  thrown  in  dungeons  on  bread  and  water. 
Unemployed  civilians  were  brought  in  as  strike-breakers. 
On  August  31,  the  strike  was  broken  and  about  half  of  the 
816  striking  convicts  went  back  to  work. 

A  strike  occurred  on  a  Richmond,  Indiana,  gang  in  Feb- 
ruary 23,  1932,  when  800  workers  on  the  gang  protested 
against  a  cut  in  wages  which  were  paid  in  scrip  and  groceries. 

Under  a  headline  reading :  "Attempted  Use  of  Sweat-Box 
Brings  Prison  Camp  Strike,"  a  Florida  dispatch  to  the  New 
York  American,  October  28,  1932,  reports  the  most  recent 
revolt  of  prison  inmates.  Continuing,  the  report  speaks  of 
30  or  40  "white  convicts  at  a  road  camp  near  Indiantown  .  .  . 
[who]  have  gone  on  strike  and  are  being  held  at  bay  in  a 
fenced  enclosure  by  guards  and  armed  trusties."  This  State 
Road  Camp  at  Indiantown  is  also  the  place  where  two  mili- 
tant workers,  Angel  Carbrero  and  Ismael  Cruz,  Tampa  politi- 
cal prisoners,  are  now  confined. 

Thus  the  convicts,  in  some  cases  helped  by  "free"  workers, 
have  struggled  against  their  exploiters.  Thus  far  they  have 
fought  without  any  plan  or  leadership,  without  any  clear  idea 
of  what  they  expected  to  accomplish.  But  now  that  the 
class  character  of  prison  labor  is  being  recognized  and  the 
number  of  labor  and  political  prisoners  is  increasing,  such 
plans,  leadership  and  purposes  will  be  developed.  And  it  is 
certain  that  many  of  the  half  million  or  so  victimized  and 
imprisoned  members  of  the  working  class  will  be  among  the 
most  militant  fighters  against  capitalism.  As  immediate  de- 
mands the  militant  labor  movement  will  struggle  to  better 
prison  conditions ;  it  will  seek  to  expose  the  class  character  of 
prisons;  it  will  seek  to  secure  equal  pay  for  convicts  doing 
equal  work  with  "free  labor."  It  will  seek  to  eliminate  the 
special  concessions  given  prison  contractors  who,  because  of 
low  production  costs — no  taxes,  fuel  or  rent — can  undersell 
the  products  of  "free"  workers. 


"MAKING  GOOD  CITIZENS"  67 

Convict  labor,  one  of  the  most  lucrative  sources  of  state 

■■'"'■•    t/* 
and  even  private  income,  is  thus  accompanied  by  all  the  '^^  \\ 

methods  of  force  and  brutality  common  to  the  exploitation  --■'' 
of  direct  forced  labor.  And  it  leads  to  revolts  just  as  the 
exploitation  of  "free  labor"  leads  to  strikes.  The  prison 
system  in  the  United  States  is  a  specialized  part  of  the  whole 
system  of  capitalist  exploitation  and  oppression,  subjecting 
workers  who  are  victimized  by  the  more  indirect  system  of 
labor  exploitation  when  they  are  "outside,"  to  even  more  di- 
rect and  brutal  forms  of  exploitation.  Any  illusion  about 
"prison  reform"  in  the  capitalist  penal  structure  should  be 
completely  dispelled  by  an  examination  of  the  chain  gang, 
the  special  institution  established  by  the  Southern  Bourbons 
to  keep  the  masses— especially  the  Negro  masses — in  subjec- 
tion. 


'J 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  CHAIN  GANG 

Work  on  the  chain  gang,  one  of  the  chief  penal  institutions 
of  the  South,  is  the  most  brutal  type  of  convict  forced  labor 
in  the  United  States.  The  editor  of  the  Southern  Worker 
recently  wrote :  "Tsarist  Russia  had  its  Siberia ;  the  Balkans 
has  its  underground  inquisition ;  Venezuela  its  torture  cham- 
ber ;  France  its  Devil's  Island — and  America  its  Chain  Gang." 

Historically  speaking  the  chain  gang  has  been  largely  an 
instrument  with  which  to  terrorize,  torture  and  exploit  Ne- 
groes. It  was  adopted  on  a  grand  scale  at  the  end  of  the 
Civil  War  and  was  one  of  the  devices  consciously  developed 
by  the  former  slaveholders  to  put  the  newly  "freed"  Negroes 
back  into  bondage.  Before  the  Civil  War  most  convicts  in 
the  South  were  whites,  but  soon  after  the  war  this  situation 
was  reversed  and  Negro  prisoners  were  in  the  overwhelming 
majority  for  many  years. 

During  the  past  few  years,  however,  the  number  of  white 
prisoners  on  chain  gangs  has  grown  considerably.  This  may 
be  attributed  largely  to  the  economic  crisis  and  the  chronic 
agricultural  crisis  since  the  World  War,  resulting  in  a  further 
impoverishment  of  white  as  well  as  Negro  workers  and 
farmers,  and  an  increase  in  petty  property  law  violations. 

When  some  of  the  inhuman  tortures  and  murders  that 
constantly  occur  on  the  gangs  are  forced  into  the  light,  re- 
formers and  liberal  apologists  for  capitalism  are  "shocked" 
and  call  for  investigation.  The  investigation  usually  white- 
washes the  prison  system  as  a  whole  by  pinning  the  blame 
on  one  or  two  subordinate  guards  who  are  dismissed.  The 
reformers  then  go  into  ecstasy  over  their  "victory." 

In    1923   Martin   Tabert,    a   young   white   convict,    was 

68 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  69 

whipped  to  death  in  a  privately  owned  lumber  camp  in  Flor- 
ida. When  the  news  leaked  out  reformers  and  even  state 
officials  were  horrified.  To  think  of  such  conditions  existing 
in  the  United  States  in  1923 !  An  "investigation"  was  held. 
It  resulted  in  the  prosecution  of  a  few  prison  guards  and 
the  "abolition"  of  whipping.  This  was  considered  a  "vic- 
tory"! But  in  1932  the  papers  were  full  of  the  details  of 
how  Arthur  Maillef  ert,  a  young  New  Jersey  boy  on  a  Florida 
chain  gang,  was  whipped  unmercifully  and  then  placed  in 
a  sweat-box  with  a  chain  around  his  neck  until  he  died. 
Where  was  the  great  "victory"  of  1923?  It  had  long  since 
been  forgotten.  A  Florida  state  official  has  recently  been 
quoted  as  saying:  "I  read  about  this  torture  stuff  happening 
a  hundred  years  ago,  but  I  never  dreamed  it  could  happen 
right  here  in  America  in  this  day  and  age."  He  evidently 
had  never  heard  of  the  Martin  Tabert  case  of  1923. 

There  have  been  .other  great  "victories."  A  few  years  ago, 
after  a  series  of  particularly  brutal  chain  gang  murders  were 
revealed  in  North  Carolina,  Governor  O.  Max  Gardner 
abolished  the  lash  by  proclamation.  The  hats  of  the  reform- 
ers sailed  skyward  as  they  cheered  this  liberal  governor. 
But  their  silk  top-pieces  had  barely  been  retrieved  when 
Willie  Bellamy,  a  frail  Negro  boy  still  in  his  teens,  was 
whipped  into  unconsciousness  and  then  placed  in  a  sweat-box 
where  he  died. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  numerous  cases  which  may 
be  cited  to  show  that  the  "victories"  won  by  the  reformers 
in  securing  "investigations"  do  not  affect  the  prison  system 
in  any  way.  And  in  8  southern  states  whipping  is  still  openly 
legalized.  The  chain  gang  exists  primarily  to  exploit  labor 
and  to  terrorize  workers  on  the  outside  into  accepting  their 
lot  without  complaining. 

Chain  gang  prisoners  are  usually  worked  on  the  repair 
and  construction  of  roads  or  similar  public  works  for  the 
state  or  for  private  contractors  who  profit  richly  from  this 
super-exploitation  of  labor.    It  is  reported  that  the  state  of 


70  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Georgia  alone  made  a  profit  of  $3,270,000  on  the  operation 
of  chain  gangs  in  four  years. 

The  convict-slaves  are  usually  hobbled  with  chains  which 
they  must  wear  at  all  times  even  while  at  work  or  asleep. 
The  chains  are  riveted  around  the  legs  and  can  be  removed 
only  with  a  cold  chisel  on  the  prisoner's  release  from  the 
gang.    Hence  the  name  "chain  gang.'* 

A  vivid  picture  of  how  convicts  live  on  a  South  Carolina 
chain  gang  is  contained  in  Georgia  Nigger,  John  L.  Spivak's 
novel  of  peonage  and  chain  gang  life  in  the  deep  South. 

In  Buzzard's  Roost  [a  Georgia  chain  gang — W.  WJ]  there 
were  vermin  and  stench,  cursings  and  beatings  and  stocks  but 
out  of  Slatternville  seventeen  Negroes  went  into  the  wilderness 
of  the  South  Carolina  hills  in  a  floating  cage,  a  cage  drawn 
by  four  mules,  a  swaying,  creaking,  rumbling  prison  of  thick 
wood  with  no  bars  or  windows  for  air  on  nights  that  choked 
you,  and  bunks  of  steel  with  rungs  for  master  chains  to  lock 
you  in  at  night.  Bedbugs  slept  with  you  in  that  cage  and  lice 
nestled  in  the  hair  of  your  body  and  you  scratched  until  your 
skin  bled  and  the  sores  on  your  body  filled  with  pus.  Meat 
for  the  floating  kitchen  wrapped  in  burlap  bags,  stinking  meat 
swarming  with  maggots  and  flies,  and  corn  pone  soaked  by  fall 
rains,  slashing  rains  that  beat  upon  the  wooden  cage  through 
the  barred  door  upon  the  straw  mattresses  until  they  were 
soggy. 

Gaunt-eyed  convicts,  stinking  like  foul  creatures  long  buried 
in  forgotten  dungeons.  .  .  . 

Men  toil  on  these  gangs  from  sim  to  sun,  from  10  to  14 
hours  a  day,  according  to  season.  They  are  slaves  without 
any  capital  value.  Beaten  and  killed — it  really  doesn't  mat- 
ter to  their  masters.  Other  workers  can  be  brought  to  take 
their  places.  The  men  slave  at  crushing  rock,  felling  trees, 
building  levees,  digging  ditches,  building  roads.  Brutal 
guards  with  whips  and  guns  watch  to  see  that  the  stripe- 
clothed  convicts  work  speedily  and  continuously.  Blisters 
and  sores  from  worn-out,  ill-fitting  shoes,  and  swollen,  blis- 
tered, calloused  hands  are  inevitable.  Infections  are  frequent 
as  a  result. 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  71 

Housing  conditions  in  the  chain  gang  camps  are  the  worst 
imaginable.  One  form  of  house  for  the  prisoners  is  a  cage- 
like cell,  mounted  on  wheels,  so  that  it  can  be  moved  from 
place  to  place  as  the  camp  follows  the  jobs.  The  cage  is 
about  13  feet  long,  8  feet  high,  7  feet  wide,  and  looks  more 
like  a  cage  for  ferocious  animals  than  anything  else  in  the 
world,  except  that  the  convict-animal  cage  is  not  gilded  as 
are  those  of  the  animals  in  a  circus.  Such  a  cage  is  "home" 
for  about  20  men.  During  the  hot  summer  nights  the  men, 
packed  sardine-like  into  this  cage,  sweat  and  stink,  but  rarely 
sleep.  When  night  comes  the  tired  workers  come  from  work 
to  find  a  piece  of  coarse,  dirty  cloth  stretched  over  lumpy 
straw,  usually  alive  with  bugs.    This  is  their  bed. 

All  the  men  are  forced  to  lie  down  on  their  bunks  in  rows. 
A  long  chain  is  then  run  through  the  short  leg  chains  which 
are  riveted  to  the  legs  of  the  men.  Thus  every  man  is  se- 
curely fastened  to  every  other  man,  and  can't  get  out  of  the 
chain  even  to  go  to  the  toilet — a  hole  in  the  floor  of  the 
cage — without  waking  all  the  men  on  the  chain.  In  case  of 
fire  the  men  are  held  together  until  unlocked  from  the  long 
chain.  In  several  cases  fires,  under  such  circumstances,  have 
resulted  in  loss  of  life. 

Another  method  of  housing  is  in  tents  pitched  on  the 
ground  near  a  creek  or  spring.  Around  both  types  of  camps 
flies  and  mosquitoes  swarm  in  clouds.  Near  by  are  uncov- 
ered sewerage  pits.  All  convicts,  venereals  and  tuberculars, 
sick  and  well,  use  the  same  wash  basins,  towels  and  beds. 
There  is  no  attempt  to  segregate  sufferers  from  contagious  ^ 
diseases,  despite  pretty-looking  laws  providing  for  such 
segregations. 

Food  for  the  chain  gang  victims  is  usually  worse  than  in 
other  types  of  prisons.  It  consists  at  best  of  corn  bread  and 
grits,  grease  gravy,  beans,  black  coffee  for  one  meal,  occa- 
sionally salt  pork,  and  infrequently  vegetables  of  some  sort. 


72  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

The  Guards  Are  Killers 

The  men  in  charge  of  the  gangs  are  brutal  and  ignorant. 
Most  of  them  have  had  experience  as  guards  for  private 
employers  in  turpentine  camps,  levee  building  jobs,  or  for 
other  private  peon  exploiters.  A  prime  qualification  to  get 
a  job  as  a  guard  is  to  know  how  to  "handle  niggers  and 
bloodhounds."  It  often  happens  that  white  convicts  are 
made  trusties  and  used  to  guard  other  convicts,  especially 
Negroes.  Frequently  they  are  used  to  chase  escaped  pris- 
oners with  bloodhounds  and  guns.  Sometimes  a  new 
prisoner,  especially  a  Negro,  who  arrives  in  camp,  not  know- 
ing the  ropes,  is  encouraged  to  "escape"  by  trusties  and  other 
guards  who  hope  to  split  the  bond  money  or  to  get  a  reward 
or  a  pardon  for  recapturing  or  shooting  the  escaping  pris- 
oner. In  Mississippi  trusty-guards  shot  so  many  prisoners 
"trying  to  escape,"  that  legislation  had  to  be  passed  to  stop 
the  rewards. 

The  most  notorious  of  these  trusty-guards  was  Cecil 
Houston,  known  as  the  "Killer  of  Flat  Top,"  an  Alabama 
convict  serving  a  life  term  for  murder.  A  prison  investiga- 
tion in  that  state  in  1926  revealed  that  this  killer,  together 
with  others  like  him,  was  used  to  enforce  the  speed-up  by 
the  state  and  private  coal  companies  which  had  leased  the 
prisoners.  It  was  proved  that  Houston  killed  several  fellow 
prisoners  and  had  broken  both  arms  of  at  least  seven  others. 
His  favorite  method  was  to  slip  up  behind  an  unsuspecting 
convict  and  with  a  heavy  hickory  pick-handle  knock  him 
cold.  Then  before  his  victim  regained  consciousness  Houston 
would  break  both  his  arms,  thereby  preventing  any  resistance. 
The  investigation  revealed  that  90%  of  the  convicts  exam- 
ined exhibited  scars,  reminders  of  brutal  taskmasters.  These 
brutal  methods  were  used  primarily  to  make  the  prisoners 
work  faster  and  produce  more  coal. 

Houston  was  given  a  special  bonus  for  all  coal  that  was 
produced.    By  driving  the  men  he  was  thus  able  to  support 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  73 

his  family  in  style  on  the  outside  and  put  money  in  the  sav- 
ings bank  every  month.  Although  imprisoned  for  murder 
he  was  given  many  special  privileges.  When  the  murders 
in  the  prison  were  exposed,  Houston,  who  had  helped  com- 
mit them,  was  out  in  the  city  on  a  week's  vacation ! 

Man  Hunting 

Man  hunting  has  always  been  a  favorite  sport  of  the  south- 
ern ruling  class.  Formerly  the  sport  was  in  chasing  escaped 
slaves ;  now  it  is  in  hunting  escaped  convicts — hunting  "nig- 
gers" with  bloodhounds.  "Why,  it's  just  like  fox  hunting," 
a  guard  declared,  "and  it  gives  the  young  dogs  such  valu- 
able training,  too."  Several  cases  of  guards  using  prisoners 
as  a  means  of  training  dogs  to  hunt  escaped  prisoners  have 
appeared  in  the  press  in  spite  of  efforts  to  keep  them  quiet. 

A  prisoner  who  has  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  guards 
is  forced  to  get  some  distance  ahead  of  the  guard  who  is 
holding  the  dogs.  Then  the  dogs  are  released  and  chase  the 
prisoner  who  barely  has  time  to  take  refuge  up  a  tree.  From 
the  tree  he  is  forced  to  tease  the  dogs  who  have  "treed"  him 
by  throwing  at  them  or  striking  them  with  a  long  pole. 

When  the  guards  feel  that  the  dogs  are  savage  enough 
the  convict  is  forced  to  jump  from  the  tree  among  them. 
If  he  is  hesitant,  the  guards  make  him  jump  by  shooting  at 
him  from  a  distance  with  small  bird  shot. 

Chain  Gang  Tortures 

Punishment  of  chain  gang  slaves  nine  times  out  of  ten  is 
for  not  doing  enough  work — not  keeping  up  with  pace- 
setters. The  punishment  includes  binding  in  cuffs  and 
shackles,  flogging  (as  high  as  lOO  blows  with  a  heavy  leather 
whip),  confinement  in  "dog  houses"  or  sweat  boxes,  club- 
bing and  binding  in  stocks  which  suspend  the  body  by  the 
legs  and  arms  in  the  manner  of  stocks  used  in  New  England 
in  the  early  days. 

The  sweat  boxes  are  small  coffin-like  cells  just  large 


74  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

enough  to  suspend  a  man  in  an  upright  position.  A  small 
hole  the  size  of  a  silver  dollar  lets  in  the  only  air.  The  cell 
is  placed  in  the  hot  tropic  sun,  or  sometimes  a  metal  plate 
underneath  is  heated  with  fire.  It  is  one  of  the  worst  of  all 
prison  tortures. 

In  the  appendix  of  documents  and  photographs  to  John  L. 
Spivak*s  Georgia  Nigger  are  shocking  forms  of  torture  wit- 
nessed and  photographed  by  the  author.  An  official  report 
from  Banks  County,  Georgia,  dated  September,  1931,  re- 
cords that  one  Grover  Hammond  was  "put  in  barrel"  for 
"disobeying  guard."  The  use  of  iron  halters  around  the 
necks  of  convicts  is  recorded  in  a  photograph  taken  by  the 
author  in  Muscogee  County,  Ga.,  and  the  use  of  spikes  was 
photographed  in  Decatur  County,  Ga.  Spivak  describes  them 
thus : 

David  sat  on  the  ground  and  held  first  one  foot  and  then 
the  other  on  a  block  of  wood  while  the  spikes  were  being 
riveted.  The  eye  between  the  two  steel  prongs  fitted  closely 
around  the  ankle,  with  just  enough  space  for  pants  to  be  pulled 
through  when  changing  clothes.  The  weight  on  his  feet  was 
heavy  when  he  rose.  With  his  first  step  the  projections  clashed 
noisily  against  each  other. 

"Spread  yo'  laigs,"  the  blacksmith  cautioned. 

David  gained  the  steps  of  the  Negro  cage  walking  straddle- 
legged.  Spikes  was  the  warden's  answer  to  his  mad  effort  to 
run  away,  steel  to  remind  him  at  each  step  that  he  was  marked 
for  special  attention,  sharp  points  of  steel,  bayonets  of  steel 
before  him  and  bayonets  of  steel  behind  him — ^because  Chickasaw 
county  wanted  him  to  finish  a  road  for  a  white  planter. 

These  20-pound  weights  permanently  riveted  around  the  legs 
are  a  drawn-out  torture  leading  to  exhaustion.  During  the  day 
they  rub  against  the  legs,  creating  sores  which  often  become 
infected.  Such  infections  are  known  as  "shackle  poison."  At 
night  the  convict's  rest  is  repeatedly  broken  by  the  need  of 
raising  his  legs  whenever  he  turns  in  his  bunk. 

A  form  of  torture  the  horror  of  which  shocked  the  civilized 
world  when  it  was  inflicted  in  the  Belgian  Congo  upon  slaves, 
also  is  used  in  Georgia,  and  Spivak  describes  a  convict  under- 
going it: 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  76 

David  saw  him  lying  near  the  stocks  in  the  blaze  of  sun, 
trussed  up  like  a  pig  ready  for  slaughter.  His  head  lay  loosely 
on  the  red  soil  as  though  the  neck  had  been  broken.  His  eyes 
were  closed.  His  legs  and  arms,  tied  with  ropes,  pointed  to 
the  sky,  the  whole  body  kept  motionless  by  a  pick  thrust  between 
the  tied  limbs.  His  mouth  was  open.  The  veins  in  his  temples 
and  arms  stood  out,  swollen.  And  swarming  over  the  face  and 
arms  and  neck  were  myriads  of  tiny  red  ants. 

But  the  extreme  torture  of  breaking  convicts  on  the 
Georgia  rack,  witnessed  and  photographed  by  Spivak  is  re- 
corded both  in  pictures  and  a  vivid  description: 

Through  the  bar  figures  could  be  seen  moving  silently  and 
swiftly  before  the  white  post.  The  warden,  an  absurd  figure 
in  his  underwear,  held  a  flare  high. 

The  unresisting  Negro,  with  his  back  to  the  post,  was  laced 
to  it  from  ankles  to  hips  with  a  rope  and  the  one  tied  to  the 
cuffs  slipped  about  the  second  post.  The  guard  pulled  sharply. 
The  convict's  torso  jerked  forward,  bending  at  right  angles,  his 
arms  outstretched.  His  head  drooped  between  the  arms.  The 
sweat  on  his  back  and  arms  glistened  in  the  light. 

"Stretch!"  the  warden  ordered  harshly. 

The  guard  pulled  until  the  rope  was  as  taut  as  a  tuned  violin 
string. 

"Oh  Jesus !"  the  Negro  screamed.    "Yo*  pullin*  my  arms  out  I" 

The  rope  was  wound  around  the  post  and  tied,  leaving  the 
convict  stretched  so  the  slightest  movement  threatened  to  wrench 
his  shoulders  from  their  sockets. 

A  committee  of  women  investigating  a  prison  camp  in 
Alabama  about  two  years  ago  used  an  order,  authorizing 
the  investigation  by  the  Governor  to  compel  guards  to  break 
open  a  sweat  box.  A  man  was  suspended  in  it  by  the 
wrists.  His  weight  was  on  his  numbed  arms.  He  was  un- 
conscious. Lime  had  been  placed  in  the  bottom  of  the  box  , 
and  had  eaten  into  his  feet,  which  were  swollen  to  twice  their  I 
natural  size.  When  released  the  worker  pitched  forward  on 
his  face. 

A  good  idea  of  torture  can  be  had  by  analyzing  condi- 
tions in  a  typical  gang.  In  1925  Nevin  C.  Cranford,  a  chain 
gang  superintendent  of  a  Stanley  County,  North  Carolina, 


76  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

gang  was  indicted  on  charges  of  murdering  at  least  six  pris- 
oners. An  investigating  committee  took  sworn  testimony 
from  many  of  the  prisoners  in  the  camp.  Among  the  testi- 
mony we  find  such  items  as  follows :  Grady  Sides,  a  prisoner, 
stated  that  his  wrist  was  broken  while  cranking  a  tractor; 
that  no  surgical  attention  was  given ;  that  his  arm  was  jerked 
straight  but  not  dressed;  that  no  doctor  saw  him;  that  he 
was  made  to  continue  at  work  with  his  broken  arm  hanging 
useless  at  his  side.  D.  Cage  Hahn,  a  citizen,  testified  that 
Cranford  knocked  a  Negro  prisoner  into  the  creek  while 
he  was  heavily  shackled  and  ordered  two  other  prisoners  to 
jump  in  and  drown  him.  Cranford  admitted  that  he  threw 
Arthur  Butler,  Negro  prisoner,  into  the  creek.  It  was  also 
charged  that  Cranford  made  three  prisoners  hang  William 
Layton,  another  prisoner,  by  the  heels  with  a  steel  wire  for 
two  hours,  blood  streaming  down  into  his  face. 

A  complete  sworn  statement  by  one  of  the  victims,  Harold 
Parks,  gives  a  graphic  picture  of  typical  prison  guards  in 
action.    Parks  swore: 

That  on  the  26th  day  of  June,  1924,  he  was  tried  in  the  County 
Court  of  the  aforesaid  county,  and  convicted  for  an  assault 
with  a  deadly  weapon,  and  sentenced  to  the  chain  gang  for  one 
year.  That  he  was  driving  a  wheeler  a  short  time  thereafter 
when  a  breast  chain  broke.  He  called  Captain  Cranford  telling 
him  what  had  happened,  he  said  I  will  fix  that,  ran  up,  began 
to  beat  upon  him  with  a  large  hickory  stick  four  or  five  feet 
long,  an  inch  through,  beat  until  he  was  all  bloody,  clothing 
beat  into  strings,  about  that  time  some  white  men  was  coming 
in  sight.  He,  Crawford,  ordered  the  affiant  to  get  a  feed  sack, 
cut  an  arm  hole,  and  put  it  on  like  a  coat  so  as  to  cover  up 
the  bloody,  tattered  clothing.  He  received  three  more  beatings 
with  a  lash,  15  licks  each  time,  cutting  blood  each  lick,  scars 
all  over  the  body,  some  scars  yet. 

At  another  time  he  saw  the  following:  Arthur  Butler  (Negro) 
was  beaten  with  a  leather  strop  almost  every  day,  knocked  down 
with  a  big  stick,  beat  on  the  ground,  stomped,  shot  two  times; 
he  was  not  doing  a  thing,  hanged  up  by  the  wrist  with  sharp 
wire  for  four  hours  until  the  blood  would  run  down  his  arms; 
then  make  to  jerk  until  he  got  away;  made  to  eat  food  with  a 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  77 

box  of  epson  salts  upon  it  when  sick.  If  he  got  sick  at  the 
stomach  and  threw  the  food  up  (vomited)  it  was  caught  in  a 
pan  and  he  was  made  to  eat  it  again,  the  Captain  standing  over 
him  with  his  big  whip.  This  man  was  treated  worse  than  an 
animal. 

Henry  Wooten  (Negro)  was  brought  up  to  the  camp  late 
one  evening.  The  first  word  Cranford  said  to  him  was,  "Yes, 
you  are  the  very  man  I  have  been  wanting.  I  am  going  to  get 
even  with  you.  I  will  fix  you.  I  have  not  forgot  how  big  you 
drove  past  me  when  I  was  working  on  the  New  London 
road.  You  came  near  hitting  some  of  the  mules."  The  next 
day  he  knocked  him  down  with  a  big  hickory  walking  stick ;  beat 
him  on  the  ground.  This  he  did  almost  every  day  and  at  night 
or  morning  while  in  the  camp.  He  would  whip  him  with  the 
big  strop  or  buggy  trace,  until  he  had  his  back  cut  to  pieces; 
after  about  two  weeks  he  continued  to  beat  him.  Henry  got 
so  weak  he  could  not  work  or  walk.  He  would  knock  him 
down,  stomp  him.  On  one  day  he  knocked  him  down  and 
trampled  him  in  the  stomach  and  chest.  The  blood  ran  out 
of  his  mouth  and  nose.  He  could  not  do  anything.  Cranford 
got  off  some  eight  or  lo  steps  and  took  his  pistol  and  shot 
several  times  through  his  hat  and  clothing  to  see  if  he,  Henry, 
would  move.  He  did  not.  Captain  Cranford  then  ordered  the 
tractor  put  in  front,  hitched  it  to  his  leg  chains  and  would 
drag  him  over  the  rocks,  stumps  and  bumps;  his  back  was 
almost  skinned.  This  was  done  many  times.  Afterwards  the 
deceased,  Henry  Wooten,  was  stomped  in  the  chest  and  stom- 
ach. He  was  never  able  to  do  anything  or  had  he  been  able 
for  many  days  before.  But  the  blood  continued  to  run  out 
of  his  mouth  and  his  bowels  would  not  act,  the  food  worked 
out  of  his  mouth  mingled  with  blood.  This  affiant  waited  upon 
the  deceased  for  the  last  few  days  of  his  life.  When  he  was 
not  able  to  sit  up  and  take  his  medicine.  Captain  Cranford 
stomped  him  for  not  getting  up  and  beat  him.  For  many  days 
before  he  died  his  back  and  body  was  beaten  into  holes  and 
they  stunk  so  you  scarce  could  stand  it.  His  ankles  where  he 
had  been  double  shackled  were  bad.  The  shackles  had  cut  the 
skin  and  flesh  to  the  leaders  or  tendons  and  his  legs  to  his 
knees  were  swollen  and  bursted  until  they  smelt  bad.  His  last 
words  was  to  me,  he  said,  "I  cannot  live,  I  must  die,  I  have 
been  beaten  to  death,  Cranford  has  killed  me."  And  this  affiant 
knows  that  he  was  beaten  to  death  for  no  mortal  man  could 
Stand  what  was  inflicted  upon  this  man.^ 


78  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

The  prison  doctor  always  helped  the  prison  authorities 
cover  up  or  whitewash  such  conditions.  When  Wooten  died 
the  doctor  pronounced  the  cause  of  his  death  as  "acute  bowel 
trouble."  Carl  Meadows,  a  white  prisoner  who  was  also 
murdered  by  Cranford,  was  examined  by  the  doctor  and  he 
too  was  found  to  have  had  "acute  kidney  trouble." 

Witnesses  in  Cranford's  trial  testified  that  he  once  killed 
a  prisoner,  John  Quincy  Leake,  and  buried  him  secretly. 
The  prison  authorities  and  the  state  were  responsible  for 
such  conditions  just  as  much  as  Cranford.  The  state  legal- 
ized the  lash.  G.  D.  Troutman,  chairman  of  the  road  com- 
mission, told  an  investigator  of  the  state  Charities  Board 
that  he  was  satisfied  as  long  as  the  men  received  the  same 
treatment  as  mules.  Both  he  and  County  Attorney  W.  E. 
Smith,  said  "the  only  way  to  appeal  to  a  nigger  is  through 
his  hide." 

Many  examples  of  such  forced  labor  tortures  could  be 
cited.  Cranford  committed  his  tortures  and  murders  in 
North  Carolina  in  the  years  before  1925.  The  writer  visited 
three  Marion,  North  Carolina,  textile  strikers  who  were 
sentenced  to  the  Hendersonville  chain  gang  in  1930  for  strike 
activities.  "While  it  was  so  hot,"  one  said,  "the  prisoners 
worked  until  they  fell,  completely  exhausted.  Then  they 
were  carried  to  the  shade  for  a  few  minutes.  If  they  were 
sick,  they  were  allowed  to  stay  in  the  shade  until  the  doctor 
came ;  then  if  he  ordered  them  to  work  they  had  to  go  or  get 
whipped.  I  have  heard  strong  men  crying  and  begging  for 
mercy  as  they  were  beaten  with  a  heavy  leather  strap."  This 
beating  with  a  strap  occurred  long  after  Governor  O.  Max 
Gardner  had  issued  an  "order"  for  no  more  whipping !  Soon 
afterwards  Willie  Bellamy,  a  young  Negro  convict  on  a  Wake 
County  gang,  was  whipped  and  clubbed  and  then  smothered 
to  death  in  a  sweat  box.  But  it  was  a  "great  victory"  to  have 
the  Governor  "abolish"  whipping  by  proclamation. 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  79 

A  Few  Killings 

Toiling  on  the  gangs  men  frequently  die  from  sunstroke 
during  the  hottest  summer  days.  More  often,  however,  they 
are  worked  to  death  or  shot  or  whipped  until  they  die.  In 
such  cases  the  officials  whitewash  the  real  cause  of  death 
and  conceal  it  in  their  reports  by  saying  that  such  and  such 
a  prisoner  died  of  "sunstroke,"  or  merely  "died  of  natural 
causes."  Occasionally  such  cases  crop  up  in  the  press.  An 
tmemployed  Spanish-American  War  veteran  was  whipped 
to  death  on  a  Memphis,  Tennessee,  gang  in  1932.  The  cause 
of  his  death  was  reported  as  "a  blocked  artery,"  but  the 
undertaker  discovered  evidence  of  a  terrible  flogging.  Odell 
Johnson,  a  19-year-old  Augusta,  Georgia,  youth,  died  on  a 
Greenwood,  South  Carolina,  gang  from  "sunstroke"  in  July, 
1 93 1.  Later  fellow  prisoners  charged  that  he  was  mur- 
dered and  Governor  Ibra  C.  Blackwood  ordered  an  "inves- 
tigation." 

Thomas  Farmer,  a  young  convict  in  a  Georgia  prison  camp, 
died  from  a  "heat  stroke"  in  1931.  Later  it  was  brought 
out  that  Farmer  was  maltreated,  including  being  chained 
to  a  post  and  left  while  sick.  In  June,  193 1,  Cecil  Lafferty, 
17-year-old  inmate  of  a  Boonesville,  Missouri,  prison  camp, 
died  as  a  result  of  a  beating.  Delph  C.  Simons,  director  of 
penal  institutions,  said  the  preliminary  investigation  indicated 
that  Lafferty  was  whipped  because  he  was  "stalling"  while 
at  work  in  the  field. 

In  1932  a  big  scandal  came  to  light  in  Alabama  when 
a  disabled  World  War  veteran,  James  C.  Kirby,  was  severely 
beaten  by  a  heavy  leather  whip  on  the  Ardmore  prison  gang.\ 
His  crime  was  failure  to  work  hard  enough.     Kirby  said  I 
he  was  unable  to  perform  the  strenuous  gang  work  because/ 
of  having  been  gassed  in  the  war.    He  had  been  fined  $25 
for  trespassing — probably  walking  along  a  railroad  track- 
but  when  court  costs  were  added  he  owed  the  county  a  total 
of  $85.    To  pay  the  fine  and  costs  he  had  to  serve  loi  days 


80  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

at  hard  labor.  After  an  "investigation"  Governor  B.  M. 
Miller  declared  that  "neither  the  law  nor  prison  regulations 
had  been  violated  in  whipping  Kirby"  for  not  working  hard 
enough.  Thus  the  Governor  frankly  admitted  that  the  whip- 
ping torture  is  legal. 

One  of  the  most  recent  chain  gain  scandals  comes  from 
Florida  where  Arthur  J.  Maillefert,  19-year-old  youth  from 
New  Jersey,  was  severely  beaten  and  then  hung  in  a  sweat 
box  by  a  trace  chain  until  he  choked  to  death.  Before  being 
whipped  and  placed  in  the  sweat  box  young  Maillefert  had 
been  stripped  naked  and  placed  in  a  barrel  which  had  strips 
nailed  across  it  so  that  the  prisoner  was  locked  in,  though 
with  legs  and  head  protruding.  The  Sunbeam  prison  camp 
where  he  was  confined  is  in  the  heart  of  mosquito-infested 
swamps. 

Governor  Doyle  E.  Carlton,  who  was  a  member  of  the 
Florida  legislature  which  passed  the  law  legalizing  peonage, 
publicly  defended  the  prison  system  after  this  killing.  He 
said  that  the  incident  is  "a  rare  exception  in  the  prison  life 
of  Florida.  .  .  .  On  the  whole  our  prisoners  are  well  cared 
for  and  well  treated."  But  prisoners  in  Florida  chain  gangs, 
who  should  know,  talk  differently.  Michael  Tansey,  a  former 
Florida  prisoner,  for  example,  said : 

I  was  riding  a  freight  in  Florida  at  the  time.  I  was  heading 
for  a  job  picking  oranges  along  with  a  lot  of  others.  We  were 
arrested  outside  of  Tallahassee,  Florida,  when  the  train  stopped 
and  we  were  sentenced  to  from  90  days  to  eight  months  in  the 
camp. 

We  were  sent  to  the  swamps  to  do  logging  and  lay  rails. 
After  24  hours  there  we  prayed  for  death.  ...  If  we  did  not 
work  fast  enough  we  were  whipped  cruelly.  The  louder  a  man 
screamed  the  more  lashes  he  got.  If  we  could  keep  quiet  we 
would  get  off  with  15  or  20.  And  after  beating  us  all  week, 
Higginbotham  [guard  captain]  and  his  guards  would  come 
around  on  Sunday  and  make  us  sing  and  dance  for  them. 

Another  prisoner,  James  Travis,  described  the  treatment 
Maillefert  received  before  his  death.    He  said  that  in  beating 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  8l 

Maillefert  guard  captain  George  W.  Courson,  a  200-pound 
man,  had  used  a  heavy  "air  hose"  and  then  had  knocked 
the  youth  down,  although  he  was  helplessly  bound  with 
shackles  and  "spur."  Courson  had  wielded  the  air  hose 
with  both  hands  and  with  great  force,  according  to  Travis. 
When  asked  if  a  doctor  had  been  called  to  treat  Maillefert 
for  the  injuries  inflicted  upon  him,  Travis  replied:  "You 
don't  get  no  doctor  in  them  camps  when  you  get  beat  up." 
Travis  exhibited  an  ugly  scar  on  his  head,  the  result  of 
treatment  by  guards,  and  declared  that  he  had  been  ruptured 
by  two  guards  kicking  him.  Pointing  to  his  right  ear,  he 
said :  "They  smashed  the  side  of  my  head  with  a  pine  sapling 
and  now  I'm  deaf  in  this  ear." 

Another  prisoner,  William  Roberts,  testified  that  he  had 
seen  15  or  20  men  whipped  in  prison  camps  in  Florida. 
Thus  in  spite  of  what  the  Governor  said  prison  brutalities 
are  common  in  Florida's  prison  gangs.  The  prison  reform- 
ers having  won  a  "great  victory"  in  1923  promptly  forgot 
about  prison  horrors  until  the  Maillefert  case  demonstrated 
that  conditions  to-day  are  just  as  bad  as  they  were  ten  years 
ago.  And  it  is  not  only  in  Florida  that  such  prison  condi- 
tions are  found;  they  exist  in  almost  every  chain  gang  in 
the  South. 

In  Florida  prison  camps  and  chain  gangs  in  1932  there 
were  11  of  the  14  Tampa  prisoners  who  were  imprisoned 
for  terms  ranging  from  one  to  ten  years  for  helping  to 
organize  workers  into  the  Tobacco  Workers  Industrial 
Union.  These  prisoners  have  received  particularly  brutal 
treatment  because  they  were  militant  workers.  Some  have 
been  put  through  the  sweat  box.  One  of  them,  J.  E.  Mc- 
Donald, serving  10  years  on  the  Raiford  chain  gang,  has 
received  the  worst  treatment.  After  a  month  of  torture 
he  lost  30  pounds.  His  lips  were  blistered  from  fever  and 
his  ruddy  complexion  was  sallow.  Although  recently  having 
passed  through  an  appendicitis  operation,  he  was  forced  to 
push  a  plow  all  day  long  under  the  boiling  sun. 


82  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

The  threat  of  a  year  on  the  chain  gang  hangs  over  all 
organizers  of  the  Communist  Party  and  Trade  Union  Unity 
League  in  Birmingham,  Alabama.  There  the  police  arrested 
organizers  (who  were  employed  by  their  organizations  and 
received  wages  for  their  work)  and  charged  them  with 
vagrancy  which  carries  a  sentence  of  one  year  on  the  chain 
gang.  One  Negro  organizer  in  Chattanooga  was  rushed  to 
the  county  chain  gang  after  being  convicted  on  a  political 
charge  before  an  appeal  against  the  sentence  could  be  filed, 
although  intention  to  do  so  was  declared  at  the  trial.  His 
release  was  forced  by  the  International  Labor  Defense  and 
the  sentence  defeated.  One  organizer  was  arrested  while 
asleep  in  his  hotel  room  by  city  detectives  in  Birmingham 
and  charged  with  vagrancy ! 

Prison  Farm  Tortures 

On  the  big  prison  farms,  especially  in  Arkansas,  Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana  and  Texas,  failure  to  "do  task,"  and  the 
punishments  for  it,  so  closely  resembles  the  chain  gang — - 
indeed  the  men  are  often  worked  in  chains — ^that  no  special 
attention  will  be  given  them  other  than  to  mention  conditions 
on  a  few  typical  farms. 

In  May,  1931,  Mrs.  W.  A.  Montgomery,  head  of  Missis- 
sippi's prison  trustee  board,  reported  that  an  entire  gang 
of  convicts,  picking  cotton,  were  thrown  across  the  rows  and 
lashed  because  they  complained  to  visiting  trustees  that  they 
were  not  getting  water  enough  while  working.  She  reported 
also  that  a  new  prisoner,  a  bookkeeper  in  civil  life  (voca- 
tional training!),  and  suffering  from  a  chronic  illness,  was 
forced  to  pick  cotton  until  he  died  in  the  field  with  a  cotton 
sack  about  his  neck.  The  reported  cause  of  his  death  was 
that  common  chain  gang  illness,  "blocked  artery." 

Here  is  a  case  within  the  writer's  personal  knowledge. 
In  1926,  Wiley  Zeigler,  a  white  railroad  worker  and  union 
man,  was  whipped  and  spurred  to  death  by  a  mounted  guard 
on  the  prison  farm  near  Houston,  Texas.    The  writer  saw 


THE  CHAIN  GANG  83 

Zeigler's  body  as  it  lay  in  the  morgue.    His  back  was  criss-\ 
crossed  with  long,  deep,  bloody  cuts.     On  his  neck  were  | 
many  tiny  holes  made  by  the  rowel  of  the  guard's  spurs,  j 
111  and  unused  to  farm  work,  Zeigler  had  failed  to  get  "on ' 
the  row" — keep  up  while  hoeing  cotton  under  the  hot  Texas 
sun.     The  Houston  Press  in  April,   1932,  uncovered  the 
grewsome  story  of  how  a  Texas  convict,  A.  D.  Swor,  was 
beaten   to   death   on   the   Eastham   Prison    Farm,    Hardin 
County,  six  years  after  the  "investigation"  and  trial  over 
Zeigler's  death. 

To  serve  one's  sentence  on  these  prison  gangs  and  prison 
farms  does  not  always  mean  that  one  has  been  completely 
"reformed,"  according  to  the  Handbook  of  American  Prisons 
and  Reformatories  for  1929.  In  Georgia,  for  example,  "men 
are  turned  loose  without  any  cash  and  given  a  railroad 
ticket  to  the  point  from  which  they  were  sentenced.  On 
arrival  without  funds  or  jobs  they  are  subject  to  arrest  I 
as  vagrants  by  the  police  force  and  to  trial  by  court  officials, 
who  are  paid  on  the  fee  basis  for  conviction." 

The  chain  gang,  the  peculiar  penal  institution  of  the  South, 
has  its  setting  in  that  part  of  the  country  which  has  remained 
predominantly  agrarian  and  where  the  Negroes  are  bound 
by  the  chains  of  the  semi- feudal  tenant  system  to  big  white 
landowners.  Its  brutality  is  an  inevitable  concomitant  to 
the  system  of  super-exploitation  whose  victim  is  the  Negro 
people.  Super-exploitation  needs  super-oppression  to  keep  its 
victims  in  "their  place."  The  chain  gang  serves  as  a  weapon 
to  enforce  white  ruling  class  domination  and  peonage,  of  \ 
which  we  shall  have  more  to  say  in  the  next  chapter.* 


*For  a  succinct  and  graphic  description  of  chain  gang  conditions, 
see  John  L.  Spivak,  On  the  Chain  Gang,  International  Pamphlets, 
No.  32. 


w 


CHAPTER  VI 
PEONAGE 

In  addition  to  the  use  of  convicts  there  are  other  systems 
of  forced  labor  in  the  United  States.  The  most  widespread 
is  peonage,  involving  as  it  does  many  thousands  of  workers 
and  farmers,  chiefly  Negroes.  It  is  especially  prevalent  in 
the  South  where  planters  and  employers  developed  it  as  a 
substitute  for  the  kind  of  slavery  which  was  abolished  with 
the  Civil  War.  Indeed,  peonage  is  nothing  more  than  a  con- 
comitant of  the  tenant  farming  system  which  was  delib- 
erately and  carefully  established  by  the  southern  ruling  class 
to  perpetuate  slavery  under  a  different  name.  This  tenant 
system  is  in  many  respects  worse  than  the  slavery  it  suc- 
ceeded, for  it  combines  absolute  dependency  on  the  part 
of  the  tenant  with  very  little  responsibility  on  the  part  of 
the  landlord. 

Before  "freedom"  the  slaves  lived  in  cabins  back  of  the 
"big  house"  and  toiled  in  the  fields  for  their  masters.  After 
the  Civil  War  they  lived  in  the  same  cabins,  picked  cotton 
in  the  same  fields — ^which  often  belonged  to  the  same  masters 
— ^and  suffered  practically  all  the  evils  of  chattel  slavery.  For 
although  the  Negro  demanded,  and  was  even  promised  for 
a  time  by  his  northern  allies,  "40  acres  of  land  and  a  mule," 
he  never  obtained  the  land  which  he  had  tilled  in  slavery 
and  which  should  have  been  his  if  emancipation  was  to  mean 
anything.  Without  land  the  freedman  was  in  a  completely 
dependent  position  and  at  the  mercy  of  his  former  master 
or  some  other  employer. 

During  the  first  two  years  after  the  Civil  War  the  de- 
feated slaveholders  made  their  first  onslaught  against  the 
newly  freed  Negro.     During  this  period  southern  legisla- 

84 


PEONAGE  85 

tures  met.  They  passed  a  series  of  restrictive  measures 
generally  known  as  the  Black  Codes.  These  included  va- 
grancy laws,  laws  against  a  worker  breaking  his  contract, 
laws  regulating  employment  agencies,  the  employment  and 
migration  of  Negroes,  apprenticeship  laws  for  Negro  chil- 
dren, and  pauper  laws — all  aimed  at  securing  a  supply  of 
forced  labor  in  place  of  slavery.  Each  law  was  flexible 
enough  to  include  tenant  farmers,  farm  laborers,  and  in- 
dustrial workers  During  the  intervention  of  Federal  troops 
these  laws  were  not  enforced  for  a  brief  period,  but  by  1877 
they  were  again  in  force,  and  with  the  help  of  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan  and  methods  of  terror  *  the  Negroes  were  thrust  into  a 
new  bondage — peonage. 

What  Is  Peonage? 

The  term  "peonage"  is  now  generally  applied  in  the  United 
States  to  any  method  by  which  a  person  is  physically  or 
legally  held  in  involuntary  servitude,  with  the  exception,  of 
course,  of  convict  labor.  The  Supreme  Court  has  called 
it,  "A  status  or  condition  of  compulsory  service,  based  upon  i 
the  indebtedness  of  the  peon  to  the  master." 

The  operation  of  peonage  in  the  case  of  tenant  farmers  ** 
or  farm  laborers  is  fairly  typical  of  peonage  in  all  indus-  ^ 
tries.     In  191 9  the  Memphis  Commercial-Appeal  carried  a 
letter  from  a  southerner  which  gives  a  good  description  of  it : 

In  certain  parts  of  the  South,  men  who  consider  themselves 
men  of  honor  and  would  exact  a  bloody  expiation  of  the  one 
who  would  characterize  them  as  common  cheats  do  not  hesitate 
to  boast  that  they  rob  the  Negroes  by  purchasing  their  cotton 
at  prices  that  are  larcenous,  by  selling  goods  to  them  at  extor- 

*  Lynching  as  a  widely  used  ruling  class  weapon  dates  from  this 
period.  The  World  Almanac  for  1932  gives  the  figure  of  4,308 
persons  lynched  from  1885  to  1930.  These  are  recorded  lynchings. 
Many  are  not  recorded.  See  Lynching,  by  Harry  Haywood  and 
Milton  Howard,  International  Pamphlets,  No.  15. 

**The  term  "tenant  farmer"  is  used  here  to  include  all  tenants — 
those  that  pay  a  certain  amount  of  cash  for  the  use  of  land,  known 
as  renters,  and  those  who  give  a  share  of  the  crop  for  the  use  of  the 
land,  the  share  croppers. 


86  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

tionate  figures,  and  even  by  padding  their  accounts  with  a  view 
of  keeping  them  always  in  debt.  A  protest  from  a  Negro 
against  tactics  of  this  kind  is  met  with  a  threat  of  force.  Justice 
at  the  hands  of  a  white  jury  in  sections  where  this  practice 
obtains  is  inconceivable.  Even  an  attempt  to  carry  the  matter 
into  the  courts  is  usually  provocative  of  violence.^ 

This  letter  describes  how  a  landlord  "buys"  the  tenant's 
share  of  the  crop  and  how  he  gets  the  tenant  in  his  debt. 
The  process  is  somewhat  as  follows:  A  contract  is  made 
between  a  tenant  and  a  landlord.  Customarily  a  provision 
is  included  in  the  contract  that  the  landlord  shall  furnish 
the  tenant  supplies  which  may  include  food,  clothes,  feed 
for  stock,  money  or  any  other  thing  of  value.  These  ad- 
vances are  to  be  used  only  in  making  the  crop.  Without 
such  help  the  tenant  would  not  be  able  to  put  in  a  crop  as 
he  is,  in  most  cases,  completely  without  funds.  The  planters 
usually  have  "commissary  stores"  which  furnish  these  sup- 
plies at  whatever  prices  the  owners  see  fit  to  charge.  The 
tenant  has  no  credit  elsewhere  and  would  be  forbidden  to 
trade  there  if  he  had.*  He  usually  is  not  permitted  to  have 
a  vegetable  garden  because  the  planter,  or  a  merchant  in 
collusion  with  the  planter,  wants  to  sell  as  much  as  possible 
to  the  tenant  to  keep  him  in  debt.  The  tenant  has  no  re- 
course. At  the  time  he  makes  his  purchases,  he  is  refused 
an  itemized  bill  of  the  articles  purchased  and  the  commis- 
sary-keeper enters  on  the  books  his  own  figures.  Matters 
go  on  thus  during  the  work  season.  When  the  crop  is 
harvested  and  sold,  and  settlement  time  comes,  the  tenant  gets 
a  slip,  simply  stating  "balance  due."^ 

Many  workers  in  turpentine,  lumber,  and  various  other 
kinds  of  labor  camps  in  the  South  are  defrauded  and  held 
in  debt  in  much  the  same  manner  as  the  tenant  farmer.  One 
of  the  customary  ways  of  recruiting  workers  for  these  camps 

*  How  well  tenants  are  fed  can  be  seen  in  figures  on  deaths  from 
pellagra,  a  starvation  disease.  In  North  Carolina  in  1929,  according 
to  the  State  Health  Department,  there  were  981  deaths  from  this 
disease. 


PEONAGE  87 

IS  for  an  employer  to  go  to  some  large  center  where  unem- 
ployed workers  are  seeking  jobs.  He  promises  them  good 
wages  and  conditions.  After  arriving  on  the  job,  the  workers 
find  that  they  are  in  debt  for  transportation.  Then  they  go 
still  deeper  into  debt  for  food,  clothes  and  additional  sup- 
plies. In  some  states  they  are  legally  bound  to  pay  off  their 
debts  before  leaving  the  job;  in  others  they  are  held  by 
physical  force  and  terrorism.* 

Contrary  to  popular  belief,  peonage  exists  not  only  in  the 
South,  but  in  the  North  also.  Thus  on  August  12,  1932, 
the  Newark  (N.  J.)  News  reported  that  "the  padrone  sys- 
tem of  handling  farm  labor  is  flourishing  again  this  summer 
in  five  agricultural  counties  of  South  Jersey."  The  report 
then  explains  the  "padrone"  system  as  follows : 

The  padrone  system  is  a  type  of  peonage  by  which  farm 
hands — men,  women  and  children,  mostly  of  Italian  extraction — 
are  virtually  enslaved  to  an  employment  agent.  The  agent  finds 
work  for  them,  hauls  them  to  the  fields,  feeds  them,  sells  them 
merchandise  from  his  store  and  so  indebts  them  to  him  that  when 
he  collects  their  wages  from  the  farmer-employer  he  usually 
has  to  return  little  or  nothing  to  the  laborers  .  .  .  the  padrone 
system  ...  is  said  to  be  worse  this  year  because  of  unemployment 
than  ever  before.  Farmers  employing  large  numbers  of  laborers 
find  it  a  convenient  system  because  it  saves  them  annoyance  in 
handling  this  type  of  labor.  Employment  agents,  or  padrones, 
become  prosperous  under  the  system.  The  sufferers  are  farm 
hands,  who  lose  their  freedom  gradually  and  fall  under  a  mental 
or  actual  compulsion. 

In  the  fact  that  a  peon  is  bound  to  pay  off  his  debt  before 
he  can  leave  his  employer  we  find  the  latter' s  motive  in 
keeping  his  employee  deeply  in  debt.  For  the  employer  is 
not  interested  in  collecting  the  debt;  he  wants  to  hold  the 
employee  in  bondage  by  means  of  it.  By  falsifying  the  ac- 
counts,— ^the  employer  keeps  all  the  records  of  debts,  pay- 

*  Some  of  these  "free  contracts"  contain  provisions  that  the  laborer 
consents  to  allow  himself  to  be  locked  up  in  a  stockade  at  night 
and  "at  any  other  time  when  the  employer  sees  fit  to  do  this."  Carter 
G.  Woodson,  The  Rural  Negro,  pp.  72-73. 


88  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

ments,  contracts — ^by  charging  exorbitant  interest  rates,  and 
by  similar  practices  he  keeps  the  employee  perpetually  in 
debt. 

Interest  rates  charged  to  southern  tenant  farmers  are 
equivalent  to  outright  robbery.  Arthur  M.  Hyde,  Secretary 
of  Agriculture,  estimates  that  the  tenant  pays  25%  on  store 
credit  and  35%  on  fertilizer  debts.  But  even  this  high  esti- 
mate is  very  conservative  compared  with  that  made  by  the 
North  Carolina  College  of  Agriculture  after  a  study  of  Pitt 
County  farms  in  1928.  Its  figures  show  that  interest  rates 
ranged  from  19.1%  for  cash  advances  to  72.1%  for  sup- 
plies advanced  by  merchants. 

A  peon  thus  held  in  debt  slavery  dares  not  attempt  to 
leave  his  employment.  If  he  is  foolhardly  enough  to  escape, 
a  man-hunt  is  organized.  Even  the  "law"  takes  an  active 
part  in  these  modem  hunts  for  runaway  slaves.  Sheriffs 
have  frequently  been  known  to  cross  state  lines  in  order 
to  bring  back  escaped  peons.  And  when  the  peons  try  to 
leave  in  large  numbers  they  are  held  by  mass  terrorism. 
For  instance,  during  and  after  the  World  War,  there  was 
a  considerable  migration  of  Negroes  from  the  South  to  the 
North.  In  their  efforts  to  stop  it,  planters  and  business- 
men's posses  halted  trains  and  dragged  Negroes  from  them, 
dispersed  crowds  of  Negroes  waiting  for  trains  to  take 
them  North,  lynched  the  discontented,  and  arrested,  mobbed, 
and  fined  labor  agents  who  dared  hire  the  Negroes. 

Several  factors  aid  the  employers  in  keeping  workers  or 
tenant  farmers  in  peonage.  Usually  the  tenant  or  Negro 
worker  in  the  peonage  sections  of  the  country  is  unlettered 
and  untraveled,  and  knows  nothing  about  the  outside  world. 
Naturally  it  is  hard  for  him  to  break  with  the  old  life.  And 
even  if  the  tenant  or  worker  does  know  of  a  better  place, 
what  can  he  do?  He  has  no  money,  no  clothes,  no  means 
of  transportation.  He  is  not  skilled  and  is  by  no  means 
sure  of  getting  any  kind  of  work  elsewhere. 

Some  of  the  farm  contracts  specify,  too,  that  if  the  cropper 


PEONAGE  89 

or  renter  fails  to  perform  his  contract  in  every  detail  he 
loses  not  only  his  crop  but  all  his  personal  property  which, 
little  as  it  is,  may  include  house  furnishings  and  personal 
effects.    A  typical  contract  of  this  sort  reads  in  part : 

Said  tenant  further  agrees  that  if  he  .  .  .  neglects,  or  aban- 
dons, or  fails  (or  in  the  landlord's  judgment  violates  this  con- 
tract or  fails)  to  properly  work  the  land  early  or  at  proper 
times,  or  in  case  he  should  become  physically  incapacitated  from 
working  said  lands  or  should  die  during  the  term  of  this  lease, 
or  fails  to  gather  the  crops  when  made,  or  fails  to  pay  the 
rents  or  advances  made  by  the  owner  when  due,  in  which  event 
...  all  indebtedness  of  the  tenant  shall  at  once  become  due 
and  payable  to  the  owner  ...  in  which  event  the  owner  is 
hereby  authorized  to  transfer,  sell  or  dispose  of  all  the  property 
thereon  the  tenant  has  any  interest  in.  .  .  .^ 

Naturally  the  tenant  prefers  to  stick  it  out  in  the  hope 
of  salvaging  something,  even  if  his  very  life  is  endangered. 
Indeed,  planters  have  been  known  deliberately  to  force  ten- 
ants to  move  after  the  crop  is  made  and  laid  by.  Thus  the 
planter  gets  the  entire  crop  and  does  not  have  to  feed  the 
tenant  through  the  dull  months.  Under  such  circumstances 
the  tenant  gets  nothing  for  his  year's  work.  However,  this 
happens  only  when  the  labor  supply  is  plentiful.  Usually 
the  planter  is  more  interested  in  keeping  the  peon  on  the 
land  and  employs  every  means  to  this  end. 

As  a  last  resort  in  holding  an  adequate  supply  of  labor 
the  planter  may  keep  the  tenant's  children  or  wife  as  hos- 
tages.* Or  he  may  frame  up  fake  court  charges  in  order 
to  intimidate  the  serf.  Such  charges  as  "rape,"  "swearing 
before  a  female,"  "shooting  across  a  public  road,"  "va- 
grancy," and  "theft"  are  among  those  commonly  used.'' 

A  county  judge  in  Florida  recently  told  an  investigator, 
"don't  you  know  there's  lots  of  ways  of  holding  niggers? 
Listen,  and  I'll  tell  you  how  it  is  done.  A  boss  hires  a 
nigger  and  gives  him  a  pint  of  whisky  to  celebrate.  A  guard 
goes  around  and  arrests  him  for  having  whisky.  The  boss 
tells  the  nigger  he'll  bail  him  out  of  it,  but  if  the  nigger 


90  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

runs  away  the  boss'U  let  the  law  jail  him  for  having 
whisky  r« 

Then  there  is  the  gentlemen's  agreement  among  the  planters 
not  to  hire  each  other's  croppers,  especially  if  the  croppers 
are  in  debt  as  they  usually  are.  In  this  way  an  effective 
blacklist  is  maintained  and  the  tenant  becomes  even  more 
entangled  in  the  web  which  holds  him  in  slavery.  But  if, 
in  spite  of  these  legal  restrictions  and  practices,  any  one 
should  try  to  take  laborers  or  tenants  from  a  planter  or 
employer  of  any  sort,  he  would  be  mobbed  or  shot.  A 
typical  case  of  this  sort  was  reported  in  the  press  in  1929. 
The  trouble  started  when  J.  T.  Wilson,  white  manager  of 
the  Wirewood  plantation  near  Greenwood,  Mississippi,  went 
to  Macon  in  that  state,  signed  up  23  families  and  chartered 
two  freight  cars  to  move  them.  "When  local  business  men 
and  planters  found  out  what  was  going  on"  a  large  posse 
was  formed  and  Wilson  was  given  10  minutes  to  leave  the 
county — without  "his"  families.'^ 

The  fact  that  the  life  of  a  peon  is  hazardous  and  any 
attempt  to  escape  fraught  with  danger  has  been  admitted 
by  official  government  publications.  An  investigator  for  the 
U.  S.  Department  of  Labor  said: 

According  to  the  law  of  the  state  [Mississippi],  only  the 
landlord  can  give  a  clear  title  to  the  cotton  sold.  This  gives 
rise  to  the  frequently  deferred  settlements  of  which  the  colored 
people  complain  bitterly.  Apparently,  in  order  to  secure  his 
labor,  the  landlord  often  will  not  settle  for  the  year's  work 
till  late  in  the  spring  when  the  next  crop  has  been  "pitched." 
The  Negro  is  then  bound  hand  and  foot  and  must  accept  the 
landlord's  terms.  It  usually  means  that  it  is  impossible  for  him 
to  get  out  of  the  landlord's  clutches,  no  matter  how  he  is  being 
treated.  In  many  cases  the  Negro  does  not  dare  ask  for  a 
settlement.  Planters  often  regard  it  an  insult  to  be  required, 
even  by  the  courts,  "to  go  to  their  books."  A  lawyer  and 
planter  cited  to  me  the  planters'  typical  excuse:  "It  is  unneces- 
sary to  make  a  settlement,  when  the  tenant  is  in  debt."  As  to 
the  facts  in  the  case  the  landlord's  word  must  suffice.  .  .  .  The 
beating  of  farm  hands  on  the  large  plantations  in  the  lower 


PEONAGE  91 

South  is  so  common  that  many  colored  people  look  upon  every 
great  plantation  as  a  peon  camp;  and  in  sawmills  and  other 
public  works  it  is  not  at  all  unusual  for  bosses  to  knock  Negroes 
around  with  pieces  of  lumber  or  anything  else  that  happens 
to  come  handy.® 

Peonage  Is  Legalized 

Apologists  for  capitalism  will  admit  that  peonage  existed 
in  the  past  and  that  it  may  still  have  some  hold  at  present. 
But  they  usually  say  that  this  is  true  in  spite  of  laws;  that 
the  law  is  not  being  enforced.  The  fact  is,  on  the  contrary, 
that  peonage  is  legalized  in  several  states  through  the  opera- 
tion of  three  kinds  of  laws — ^vagrancy,  emigrant  agency,  and 
laws  penalizing  failure  on  the  part  of  a  tenant  farmer  or 
industrial  worker  to  perform  a  contract  after  having  received 
advances. 

Vagrancy  laws  are  used  to  secure  forced  labor  especially 
in  the  southern  states.  Any  person  without  work  and  with- 
out visible  means  of  support  is  a  vagrant  at  the  discretion 
of  the  judge.  The  laws  are  used  only  against  the  poorest 
tenant  farmers  and  industrial  workers  as  well  as  labor  or- 
ganizers. South  Carolina's  vagrancy  law  goes  out  of  its 
way  specifically  to  include  tenants  by  saying  that  it  also 
applies  to  "persons  who  occupy  or  being  in  possession  of 
some  piece  of  land,  shall  not  cultivate  enough  of  it  as  shall 
be  deemed  by  the  trial  justice  to  be  necessary  for  the  main- 
tenance of  himself  and  his  family."  In  Arkansas  any  person 
above  14  years  of  age  without  work  may  be  arrested  for 
vagrancy  under  certain  circumstances.  Vagrancy  laws  are 
on  the  statute  books  of  nearly  every  state,  but  they  have 
been  used  especially  in  the  South. 

Carter  G.  Woodson  has  given  the  history  of  these  vagrancy 
laws.    He  says : 

Immediately  after  the  emancipation  of  the  Negroes  in  1865 
the  devastated  States  hoped  to  secure  labor  by  vagrancy  laws 
which  compelled  every  freedman  to  enter  the  service  of  some 
one  and  to  remain  therein  for  such  wages  as  the  ruling  classes 


92  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

agreed  among  themselves  to  pay.  Those  freedmen  who  con- 
tinued to  loiter  thereafter  were  arrested,  condemned  and  put 
to  work  on  the  public  highways  or  leased  to  planters. 

That  the  law  is  still  being  put  to  its  intended  use  is  evi- 
denced by  the  fact  that  at  present,  in  order  to  escape  impris- 
onment as  vagrants,  tenants  and  laborers  are  forced  to  accept 
work  under  any  conditions.  For  example,  the  Associated 
Press  carried  a  dispatch  from  Macon,  Georgia,  August  23, 
1930,  which  read : 

Macon  police  were  continuing  Saturday  their  efforts  as  a  vol- 
unteer employment  bureau  for  middle  Georgia  growers.  J.  H. 
Stroud  of  Alma  appealed  to  Chief-of-Police  Ben  T.  Watkins  for 
50  to  60  unemployed  to  serve  as  cotton  pickers.  Stroud  was 
here  Saturday  to  take  the  pickers  back  with  him.  .  .  .  The  city 
police  are  rounding  up  loiterers  and  offering  them  jobs  or  the 
view  of  the  passing  throngs  from  the  inside  of  the  jail.  [The 
charge  under  such  arrests  would  have  been  vagrancy. — W,  W.'\ 

Another  and  more  recent  example  is  contained  in  the 
following  news  item  from  the  New  York  Times,  September 
26,  1931: 

Little  Rock,  Ark. — Police  action  to  force  unemployed  men 
to  help  pick  this  year's  bounteous  cotton  crop  to-day  had  ex- 
tended from  Helena,  in  Eastern  Arkansas,  to  Bowie  County, 
Texas,  on  the  southwestern  border. 

Helena  and  Phillips  County  officers  already  have  started  a 
drive  to  get  cotton  pickers  to  the  fields  by  threats  of  vagrancy 
charges  and  Bowie  County  officials  to-day  said  a  similar  cam- 
paign would  start  there  next  Monday. 

Cotton  planters  in  various  sections  of  the  State  have  com- 
plained that  they  were  unable  to  obtain  an  adequate  number  of 
pickers,  despite  an  unusually  large  number  of  unemployed 
persons. 

They  attributed  the  situation  to  the  prevailing  low  rate  of 
30  to  40  cents  per  hundred  pounds  being  paid  to  pickers,  but  said 
a  higher  price  could  not  be  paid  because  of  the  low  price  of 
cotton. 

Helena  was  free  of  loiterers  to-day,  although  many  Negroes 
had  gone  outside  the  city  limits  to  escape  the  officers. 


PEONAGE  93 

Several  truckloads  of  Negroes  were  captured  and  sent 
out  to  the  cotton  fields.  The  sheriff  and  other  officers  fol- 
lowed to  see  that  none  escaped. 

The  following  news  story  from  Louisiana  in  1930  will 
make  it  clear  why  unemployed  have  to  be  hunted  down  and 
put  under  guard  to  work: 

At  a  meeting  of  50  leading  planters  of  Caddo  and  Bossier 
parishes  at  the  call  of  Jack  P.  Fullilove,  chairman  of  the  agri- 
cultural committee  of  the  Shreveport  Chamber  of  Commerce, 
it  was  decided  that  50  cents  a  hundred  pounds  will  be  the  stand- 
ard price  to  be  paid  cotton  pickers  in  the  two  parishes  this  fall.^ 

Since  1930,  when  this  action  was  taken,  as  the  above  story 
on  Arkansas  shows,  the  price  for  cotton  picking  has  come 
down  to  30  and  40  cents  per  hundred  pounds.  Only  a  few 
years  ago  $2  per  hundred  \vas  being  paid.  Two  hundred 
pounds  of  cotton  a  day  is  a  high  average.  So  the  picker 
who  gets  the  rate  of  30  cents  a  hundred  makes  60  cents  a 
day.  And  then  he  has  to  run  the  risk  of  never  being  able 
to  collect  even  that  small  amount. 

When  one  of  these  workers — "bad  niggers"  and  "va- 
grants"— refuses  to  toil  10  or  12  hours  for  60  cents  a  day 
or  less  and  is  brought  before  a  judge  for  his  crime,  he 
hasn't  a  ghost  of  a  chance  of  being  acquitted.  The  sheriff 
and  court  officials  in  many  states  are  paid  by  the  notorious 
fee  system — so  much  for  each  arrest  and  conviction.  Elo- 
quent testimony  as  to  the  industry  of  such  officers  is  con- 
tained in  their  salary  figures.  In  1929  the  sheriff  of  Bolivar 
County,  Mississippi,  received  $24,350.70,  while  the  sheriff 
of  Harrison  County  received  $20,401.60  the  same  year. 
Other  sheriffs  averaged  aroimd  $20,000  a  year.^° 

There  are  other  uses  for  the  vagrancy  law.  Frequently 
county  road  building  jobs,  or  even  private  business  men 
such  as  planters  or  turpentine  camp  operators,  need  a  few 
hands.  Whoever  has  charge  of  the  work  looks  around  the 
neighborhood  and  selects  some  men — almost  always  Negroes 
— ^whom  he  would  like  to  have  work  for  him.     Then  he 


94  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

swears  out  a  warrant  for  them.  The  warrant,  of  course, 
is  based  on  a  vagrancy  charge.  A  typical  one  was  used  in 
Gilchrist  County,  Florida,  in  1930.  It  specifically  names 
six  persons  all  of  whom  are  in  equal  degree  "rogues,  vaga- 
bonds, idle  or  dissolute  persons,  people  who  use  unlawful 
games  or  plays,  common  pipers  and  fiddlers  .  .  .  persons 
who  neglect  their  calling  (sic),  or  are  without  reasonable 
continuous  employment,  or  regular  income  and  who  have 
not  sufficient  property  to  sustain  them  .  .  .  contrary  to  the 
statute  of  this  state."  On  the  basis  of  such  a  warrant  the 
sheriff  obligingly  arrests  them. 

Once  convicted  on  charges  of  this  kind,  the  newly-made 
convict  is  ordered  to  pay  a  heavy  fine  and  court  costs — 
which  the  court  promptly  pockets  imder  the  fee  system.  At 
this  point  the  employer  who  needs  the  workers  generously 
volunteers  to  pay  the  fines  and  costs  provided  the  victim 
will  sign  or  touch  his  pen  to  a  contract  agreeing  to  work 
out  the  amoimt  on  his  plantation  or  other  job. 

Emigrant  Agency  Law 

Another  law  that  is  a  direct  aid  to  peonage  practices  is  the 
"emigrant  agency"  law.  Such  laws  are  on  the  statute  books 
of  nearly  every  southern  state.  They  curtail  operations  of 
agents  who  would  ship  the  tenants  and  laborers  to  other 
sections  of  the  South  and  to  the  North.  Georgia's  law  is 
typical  of  this  sort  of  legislation  and  reads : 

If  any  person  shall,  by  offering  higher  wages  or  in  any  other 
way  entice,  persuade,  or  decoy,  or  attempt  to  entice,  persuade, 
or  decoy  any  servant,  cropper  or  farm  laborer,  whether  under 
a  written  or  parol  contract,  after  he  shall  have  actually  entered 
the  service  of  his  employer,  to  leave  his  employer  during  the 
term  of  service,  knowing  that  said  servant,  cropper,  or  farm 
laborer  was  so  employed,  he  shall  be  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor.^^ 

Texas,  which  also  has  its  emigrant  agency  law,  passed  an 
auxiliary  law  in  1930  which  forbade  any  one  moving  or  help- 
ing to  move  the  household  furnishings  and  other  property  of 


PEONAGE  95 

a  worker  or  tenant  after  nightfall.  The  effect  of  such  a  law, 
of  course,  was  to  prevent  peons  from  escaping  during  the 
night. 

"Jumping  Contract"  Law 

The  favorite  legal  device  used  by  the  southern  ruling  class 
to  maintain  a  supply  of  forced  labor  is  the  law  which  makes 
it  a  criminal  offense  for  a  laborer  or  tenant  to  accept  "ad- 
vances'* as  part  of  a  contract  and  then  fail — for  any  reason — 
to  perform  that  contract  to  the  employer's  satisfaction.  Such 
laws  are  often  referred  to  as  "peonage  laws/*  "contract 
jumping"  laws  or  "false  pretense"  laws. 

The  significance  of  laws  of  this  kind,  on  the  books  of 
several  states  in  1932,  cannot  be  measured  by  the  number  of 
times  workers  or  tenants  are  prosecuted  under  them.  It  must 
be  measured  by  the  effect  they  have  as  swords  hanging  over 
the  heads  of  the  possible  victims.  For  the  worker  or  tenant 
who  makes  a  contract  and  accepts — ^as  he  must,  being  entirely 
penniless — a,  loan  or  supplies  of  any  sort,  and  then  fails  for 
any  reason  and  for  any  provocation  to  fulfill  that  contract,  is 
a  "criminal"  and  is  bound  for  the  chain  gang  at  the  pleasure 
of  his  employer. 

The  Georgia  law,  penalizing  the  breaking  of  a  contract  by 
a  worker  or  tenant,  was  passed  in  1903  after  years  of  ex- 
perimenting by  planters  and  turpentine  bosses  in  order  to  get 
a  law  that  would  secure  them  a  supply  of  forced  labor.  The 
law  reads  in  part : 

If  any  person  shall  contract  with  another  to  perform  for  him 
services  of  any  kind,  with  intent  to  procure  money  or  other 
thing  of  value  thereby,  and  not  to  perform  the  service  contracted 
for;  to  the  loss  and  damage  of  the  hirer,  or  after  having  so 
contracted,  shall  procure  from  the  hirer  money,  or  other  thing 
of  value  with  intent  not  to  perform  such  service,  to  the  loss 
and  damage  of  the  hirer,  he  shall  be  deemed  a  common  cheat 
and  swindler,  and  upon  conviction  shall  be  punished  as  for  a 
misdemeanor.^^ 


96  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Another  section  was  soon  added  which  defined  the  rules  of 
evidence  as  to  "intent  to  defraud" : 

Satisfactory  proof  of  the  contract,  the  procuring  thereon  of 
money  or  other  thing  of  value,  the  failure  to  perform  the 
services  so  contracted  for,  or  failure  to  return  the  money  so 
advanced  with  interest  thereon  at  the  time  said  labor  was  to  be 
performed,  without  good  and  sufficient  cause,  and  loss  or  damage 
to  the  hirer,  shall  be  deemed  presumptive  evidence  of  the  intent 
referred  to  in  the  preceding  section.^* 

Armed  with  this  statute,  and  controlling  the  courts  and  law 
enforcement  machinery  generally,  from  justice-of-the-peace 
to  United  States  Senator,  the  planters  and  other  employers 
obviously  have  the  tenant  or  laborer  at  their  mercy.  Of  what 
value  is  the  "without  good  and  sufficient  cause"  provision  of 
the  above  when  the  planter  practically  decides  what  is  good 
cause  and  what  is  not  ?  * 

This  law  legalizing  peonage  was  held  constitutional  by  the 
Georgia  State  Supreme  Court  in  191 2.  The  Georgia  law  has 
never  been  tested  in  the  United  States  Supreme  Court. 

However,  in  191 1  an  Alabama  law,  worded  almost  exactly 
like  the  Georgia  peonage  law  cited  above,  was  held  uncon- 
stitutional in  the  famous  case  of  Bailey  v.  State  of  Ala- 
bama.^* It  was  found  that,  as  was  intended,  every  case 
reported  under  the  Alabama  statute  involved  Negro  tenants 
and  laborers.  The  United  States  Supreme  Court  in  its 
decision  said  of  the  Alabama  law  that  "although  the  statute 
in  terms  is  to  punish  fraud,  still  its  natural  and  inevitable 
effect  is  to  expose  to  conviction  for  crime  those  who  simply 
fail  or  refuse  to  perform  contracts  for  personal  service  in 
liquidation  of  a  debt,  and  judging  its  purpose  by  its  effect 
that  it  seeks  in  this  way  to  provide  the  means  of  compulsion 
through  which  performance  of  such  service  may  be  secured." 

*  Because  of  fear  of  violent  retribution,  the  peonage  victim  natu- 
rally hesitates  to  testify  against  a  planter.  "Investigation  has  proven 
that  of  the  hundreds  of  Negroes  lynched  in  the  South  during  the 
past  half  century,  a  large  number  died  because  of  their  objection  to 
this  vicious  practice  of  debt  slavery."  (See  pamphlet,  Black  Justice, 
published  by  the  American  Civil  Liberties  Union.) 


PEONAGE  97 

In  short  the  Supreme  Court  found  that  the  law  legalized  in- 
voluntary servitude.  Yet  the  Georgia  law,  almost  identical, 
was  found  to  be  constitutional  by  the  Georgia  Supreme  Court 
in  1 91 2,  one  year  after  the  decision  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  in  the  Bailey  v.  Alabama  case. 

Compare  the  text  of  the  Georgia  law  cited  above  with  the 
Alabama  statute  which  follows : 

Any  person,  who  with  intent  to  injure  or  defraud  his  em- 
ployer, enters  into  a  contract  in  writing  for  the  performance 
of  any  act  of  service,  and  thereby  obtains  money  or  other  per- 
sonal property  from  such  employer,  and  with  like  intent,  and 
without  just  cause,  and  without  refunding  such  money,  or  pay- 
ing for  such  property,  refuses  or  fails  to  perform  such  act  or 
service,  must  on  conviction  be  punished  by  a  fine  in  double  the 
damage  suffered  by  the  injured  party,  but  not  more  than  $300, 
one-half  of  said  fine  to  go  to  the  county  and  one-half  to  the 
party  injured;  and  any  person,  who  with  intent  to  injure  or 
defraud  his  landlord,  enters  into  any  contract  in  writing  for 
the  rent  of  land,  and  thereby  obtains  any  money  or  other  per- 
sonal property  from  such  landlord,  and  with  like  intent,  without 
just  cause,  and  without  refunding  such  money,  or  paying  for 
such  property,  refuses  or  fails  to  cultivate  such  land,  or  to 
comply  with  his  contract  relative  thereto,  must  on  conviction 
be  punished  by  fine  in  double  the  damage  suffered  by  the  in- 
jured party,  but  not  more  than  $300,  one-half  of  said  fine  to 
go  to  the  county  and  one-half  to  the  party  injured.  And  the 
refusal  or  failure  of  any  person,  who  enters  into  such  contract, 
to  perform  such  act  or  service  or  to  cultivate  such  land,  or 
refund  such  money,  or  pay  for  such  property  without  just  cause 
shall  be  prima  facie  evidence  of  the  intent  to  injure  his  employer 
or  landlord  or  defraud  him.  That  all  laws  and  parts  of  laws 
in  conflict  with  the  provisions  hereof  be  and  the  same  are 
hereby  repealed.^" 

Now  compare  both  the  Alabama  and  Georgia  laws  with  one 
passed  in  Florida  as  late  as  191 9,  or  eight  years  after  the 
Alabama  law,  as  cited  above,  was  declared  unconstitutional 
by  the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  No  essential  difference 
can  be  seen  in  the  provisions  of  the  three.  The  Florida  law 
follows : 


98  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Any  person  in  this  state  who  shall,  with  intent  to  injure  and 
defraud,  under  and  by  reason  of  a  contract  or  promise  to  perform 
labor  or  service,  procure  or  obtain  money  or  other  thing  of 
value  as  a  credit,  or  as  advances,  shall  be  guilty  of  a  mis- 
demeanor and  upon  conviction  thereof  shall  be  punished  by  a 
fine  not  exceeding  $500  or  by  imprisonment  not  exceeding  six 
months. 

In  all  prosecutions  for  a  violation  of  this  section  the  failure 
or  refusal,  without  just  cause,  to  perform  such  labor  or  service 
or  to  pay  for  the  money  or  other  thing  of  value  so  obtained  or 
procured  shall  be  prima  facie  evidence  of  the  intent  to  injure 
and  defraud.^^ 

The  Florida  law  was  passed  under  the  Governorship  of 
Sidney  J.  Catts,  who  in  his  campaign  speeches  promised  "to 
put  the  niggers  in  their  places."  Catts  was  tried  in  Federal 
court  on  peonage  charges  soon  after  his  term  of  office  ex- 
pired but  because  of  his  influence  was  acquitted.  The  inter- 
ests back  of  the  law,  according  to  Orland  K.  Armstrong, 
former  head  of  the  Department  of  Journalism  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Florida,  who  made  an  investigation  of  the  law  and 
interviewed  members  of  the  1919  legislature  that  passed  it, 
were  the  turpentine  and  lumber  interests  of  the  state.  Arm- 
strong visited  turpentine  camps  operated  by  convict  labor 
where  there  were  many  "contract  jumpers"  (persons  con- 
victed of  violating  this  law).  Armstrong  says,  "It  is  safe  to 
assume  that  most  of  these  men  sentenced  to  the  gang  on  the 
basis  of  the  191 9  law  were  recruited  under  misrepresentation ; 
were  forced  to  work  imder  intolerable  conditions;  were 
caught  and  held  under  warrants  that  assert  a  misdemeanor 
under  an  unconstitutional  law,  and  sentenced  wdthout  a 
semblance  of  a  defense  for  fraud."  ^^ 

The  story  is  told  of  how  a  white  planter  in  a  county  in 
Georgia  had  a  young  Negro  arrested  for  failing  to  comply 
with  his  contract.  The  young  man  had  been  drafted  into  the 
United  States  Army  during  the  World  War.  He  pleaded 
that  that  was  the  reason  he  was  forced  to  break  the  contract. 
But  that  was  not  "a  good  and  sufficient  cause,"  so  he  was 


PEONAGE  99 

held.  A  Negro  farmer  was  in  the  act  of  signing  the  young 
man's  bond,  when  the  white  planter  flew  into  a  rage,  saying 
"No  nigger  shall  help  another  nigger  to  beat  me  out  of  my 
money,"  and  shot  the  farmer .^^ 

Several  other  states  have  laws,  similar  to  those  quoted 
above,  which  legalize  peonage.*  But,  of  course,  when  the 
ruling  class  of  a  section  endorses  peonage  it  makes  very  little 
difference  what  the  law  permits.  The  ruling  class  will  do 
what  is  to  its  advantage.  Senator  Walter  F.  George,  of 
Georgia,  for  five  years  a  member  of  the  Georgia  Supreme 
Court,  openly  admitted  this  when  he  wrote  in  Liberty,  April 
21,  1928: 

No  statutory  law,  no  organic  law,  no  military  law  supersedes 
the  law  of  social  necessity  and  social  identity. 

Why  apologize  or  evade?  We  have  been  very  careful  to 
obey  the  letter  of  the  Federal  Constitution — ^but  we  have  been 
very  diligent  in  violating  the  spirit  of  such  amendments  and 
such  statutes  as  would  have  a  Negro  to  believe  himself  the  equal 
of  a  white  man.  And  we  shall  continue  to  conduct  ourselves 
in  that  way. 


♦There  is  another  important  legal  practice  in  the  South  which  has 
a  bearing  on  peonage,  and  that  is  "legal  lynching."  Many  of  the 
"executions"  of  Negroes  are  only  subtle  lynchings  aimed  to  avoid 
adverse  criticism  which  would  follow  the  crude  rope  and  faggot 
method.  In  the  year  ending  July  i,  1931,  68  Negroes  were  "legally** 
executed  in  the  southern  states.  A  typical  example  of  how  everything 
is  made  ready  for  a  legal  lynching  is  seen  in  the  famous  Scottsboro, 
Alabama,  case. 


CHAPTER  VII 
PEONAGE  EXPOSED 

Some  idea  of  the  seriousness  of  the  peonage  problem  in 
this  country  can  be  gained  by  reviewing  a  few  of  the  actual 
prosecutions  since  1903.  For,  despite  precautions  taken  by 
the  planters  and  the  inactivity  of  the  Department  of  Justice, 
which  has  jurisdiction  over  such  cases,  and  in  spite  of  ter- 
rorism, stories  leak  out  and  prosecutions  are  forced.  The 
total  number  of  such  prosecutions  and  complaints  cannot  be 
learned,  as  in  recent  years  the  Department  of  Justice  has 
refused  to  make  public  its  report  on  this  phase  of  its  work. 
But  even  if  an  annual  report  of  prosecutions  and  reported 
cases  were  available  it  would  not  tell  the  smallest  part  of  the 
whole  story,  for  obviously  only  a  very  few  of  the  total  num- 
ber of  cases  are  prosecuted  or  even  reported. 

In  1903  the  Federal  Grand  Jury  at  Montgomery,  Alabama, 
returned  about  100  indictments  for  peonage.^  In  1907  there 
were  83  peonage  complaints  pending  in  the  Department  of 
Justice. 

At  that  time  many  white  families  and  individuals  were 
enmeshed  in  this  system  of  forced  labor.*  Collier's  maga- 
zine, July  24,  1909,  tells  the  story  of  Joseph  Callas,  a  Russian 
Jew,  who  was  arrested  in  Little  Rock,  Arkansas,  while  en 
route  to  California  in  search  of  work.  He  was  taken  to  a 
prison  in  southeast  Arkansas  where  145  Negroes  and  whites 
were  held.    A  sub-contractor  in  1907  hired  60  Poles  and  paid 

*  Contract  labor  is  here  classed  under  peonage.  This  form  of  forced 
labor  arose  toward  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  with  the  organization 
of  the  American  Irtinigrant  Co.  which  brought  immigrants  to  the 
United  States  under  contract  to  work  a  certain  number  of  years.  To 
enforce  the  contract  the  immigrant's  wages  could  be  legally  pledged; 
also  there  were  laws  penalizing  breaking  of  such  a  contract.^  EncyclO" 
pcedia  of  the  Social  Sciences,  Vol.  4,  pp.  342-44. 

100 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  101 

their  fare  from  New  York  to  Greenville,  N.  C,  where  they 
were  put  to  work  on  the  Norfolk  and  Southern  Railroad. 
They  soon  saw  what  they  were  up  against  and  quit,  where- 
upon a  local  justice  of  the  peace  issued  warrants  for  their 
arrest  for  "obtaining  goods  under  false  pretenses." 

The  situation  in  this  country  regarding  immigrants  became 
so  serious  that  the  Italian  government,  after  seeing  its  na- 
tionals enslaved  and  slain  in  Louisiana,  warned  natives  of 
Italy  to  stay  away  from  the  South.  Austria  and  Hungary  in 
like  manner  blacklisted  Mississippi  and  Missouri.^ 

The  publicity  that  arose  from  such  protests  and  exposures 
caused  Congress,  in  1908,  to  request  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission to  "investigate'*  immigrants'  conditions  on  cotton 
plantations,  turpentine  farms,  lumber  and  railway  camps. 
The  resolution  as  first  introduced  applied  only  to  the  South, 
but  the  outraged  southern  ruling  class  insisted  that  what  was 
going  on  in  the  North  and  West  was  just  as  bad  as  in  the 
South.  As  a  result  of  these  counter  charges  the  scope  of  the 
resolution  was  broadened  to  include  the  entire  country. 

The  subcommittee  on  peonage  appointed  by  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission  stated  that  "peonage  cases  in  the  South 
relating  to  immigrants  have  been  found  to  cover  almost  every 
industry — farming,  lumbering,  logging,  railroading,  mining, 
factories  and  construction  work." 

But  it  was  of  Maine  in  the  North,  that  the  investigating 
committee  of  1908  said:  "There  has  probably  existed  in 
Maine  the  most  complete  system  of  peonage  in  the  entire 
country."  In  1907  a  law  was  passed  in  this  state  which  made 
it  a  crime  for  a  laborer  who  had  received  "advances"  to  leave 
the  employment  before  he  has  worked  long  enough  to  repay 
the  employer.  The  investigating  committee,  after  an  examina- 
tion of  conditions  in  the  logging  and  lumbering  industries, 
reported,  "Considerable  peonage  has  resulted  from  the 
statute.  .  .  .  Involuntary  servitude  results  in  utilizing  this 
statute  to  intimidate  laborers  to  work  against  their  will.  .  .  . 


102  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

If  a  man  leaves  his  employer  before  settling  for  advances,  he 
will  be  pursued  and  apprehended." 

The  committee  also  found  something  close  to  peonage  in 
the  padrone  system  in  shoe-shining  establishments  reported 
from  many  parts  of  the  West.  Also  "in  some  of  the  lumber 
and  railroad  camps  in  Minnesota  and  North  Dakota  laborers 
were  held  in  a  state  of  technical  peonage."  It  gives  little 
exact  information  but  broadly,  it  says,  "undoubted  evidence 
has  been  discovered  that  peonage  has  been  practiced  in  the 
western  states,  and  the  indications  are  that  there  are  many 
cases  of  involuntary  servitude  in  that  section."  Summing  up, 
the  committee  says  that,  "in  every  state  except  Oklahoma 
and  Connecticut  the  investigator  found  evidences  of  prac- 
tices between  employer  and  employee  which,  if  substituted  by 
legal  evidence  in  each  case,  would  constitute  peonage  as  the 
Supreme  Court  has  described  it."^ 

Cases  of  this  type  can  still  be  found — ^and  outside  the 
South.  For  example,  the  Buffalo  Evening  News  recently 
won  a  prize  for  meritorious  news  reporting  when  it  exposed 
peonage  in  northern  New  York  in  August  and  October,  1931. 
It  existed  at  the  labor  camps  operated  by  construction  com- 
panies on  the  Sardinia-Springville  state  road  project  and  in 
the  building  of  the  new  Attica  prison.  Workers  were  re- 
quired to  live  in  cowbarns  in  which  as  many  as  96  double 
deck  cots  had  been  jammed.  Commissary  charges  were  de- 
ducted from  their  meager  wages,  though  a  state  law  forbids 
such  deductions.  Whisky  was  sold  and  the  price  deducted 
from  wages.  If  a  worker  bought  no  whisky,  he  was  charged 
for  it  just  the  same.  A  large  number  of  men  found  to  their 
surprise  that  they  had  no  pay  coming  to  them.  Eight  dollars 
a  week  was  charged  for  sleeping  room  in  the  bam.  Then 
acting  Governor  Lehman  was  "aroused  by  reports  that 
laborers  on  state  construction  jobs  lived  like  peons  and  were 
treated  like  coolies"  and  finally  ordered  state  officers  to  "in- 
vestigate." 

In  1920  widespread  peonage  was  reported  in  Early,  Dooly, 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  103 

Worth,  Decatur,  Toombs  and  Morgan  counties,  Georgia.* 
Governor  Hugh  M.  Dorsey  of  Georgia  followed  this  in  1921 
with  his  report  on  The  Negro  in  Georgia  in  which  he  listed 
almost  two  dozen  known  cases  of  peonage  in  its  worst  form. 
Shortly  after  the  Dorsey  report  the  notorious  John  S. 
Williams  "murder  farm"  cases  were  exposed.  It  was  found 
that  on  this  single  farm  at  least  11  croppers  were  killed 
because  "they  knew  too  much"  or  because  it  became  certain 
that  the  Department  of  Justice  would  be  forced  to  investi- 
gate. 

There  were  many  cases  prosecuted  in  1925.  Two  of  the 
best  known  were  those  of  four  men  from  Anderson  County, 
South  Carolina,  who  were  sentenced  to  Federal  imprisonment 
at  Atlanta.  M.  B.  Davis  and  Charles  Land,  turpentine 
operators  of  Calhoun  County,  Florida,  along  with  three  other 
men,  were  also  convicted  of  peonage  by  a  Federal  jury 
in  1925.* 

In  Corpus  Christi  and  Raymondville,  Texas,  four  white 
men  (the  sheriff,  two  deputies  and  a  justice-of-the-peace) 
were  found  guilty  of  peonage  practices.  Four  young  white 
boys,  all  under  21  years  of  age,  one  of  them  a  former  page 
in  the  National  House  of  Representatives,  went  to  a  cotton 
picking  job  where  they  had  been  promised  pay  of  $1.25  per 
hundred  pounds  and  free  board.  On  the  job  they  found  that 
they  were  being  forced  to  pay  board.  They  became  dis- 
satisfied and  left  and  were  arrested  in  Raymondville  on 
"vagrancy"  charges  and  given  the  alternative  of  working  for 
their  original  employer  or  being  prosecuted  and  sent  to  the 
chain  gang.^ 

In  1927  some  big  cases  were  exposed  in  Amite  County, 
Mississippi.  Two  wealthy  planters  of  this  county  went  into 
Louisiana  for  escaped  Negroes  and  brought  them  back  to 
Mississippi.  In  this  same  county  Webb  Bellue  and  John  D. 
Alford,  prominent  citizens,  were  convicted  of  selling  Craw- 
ford Allen,  fifty-year-old  Negro,  his  wife  and  three  children 
for  $20.^    Bellue  and  Alford  seized  Allen  and  his  family  for 


104  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

a  debt  of  $20  and  transported  them  to  a  farm  near  Fluker, 
Louisiana,  where  they  were  forced  to  work  several  weeks 
without  pay.  Afterwards  they  were  sold.  A  short  time  later 
W.  D.  Arnold,  a  middle  Georgia  planter,  was  indicted  on 
peonage  charges  for  holding  a  white  man,  Claude  King,  and 
a  Negro,  John  Vanover. 

Catastrophes  Expose  Peonage 

A  big  "act  of  God"  is  a  better  investigator  of  peonage, 
apparently,  than  the  Department  of  Justice,  for  such  catas- 
trophes usually  bring  to  light  peonage  cases  by  the  wholesale. 
In  1927,  for  example,  the  Mississippi  River  flooded  a  vast 
territory  including  much  of  the  peonage  country.  Several 
hundred  thousand  white  and  black  tenants  and  laborers  were 
thrown  on  the  doles  of  that  "Wonderful  Mother,"  the  Red 
Cross.  It  is  a  matter  of  record  that  the  planters  at  first  re- 
fused to  let  their  tenants  be  removed  from  the  plantations 
for  fear  they  might  escape.  Then  when  the  waters  began  to 
enter  the  cabins  a  deal  was  made  between  the  Red  Cross  and 
the  planters  by  which  the  Red  Cross  agreed  to  have  the 
National  Guard  stand  guard  over  the  tenants,  and  when  the 
waters  subsided,  to  deliver  them,  even  against  their  will,  back 
to  the  plantations  whence  they  came.^ 

In  the  encampments  the  croppers,  renters,  and  laborers 
were  closely  watched  by  guardsmen.  No  one  could  leave  the 
camp  without  a  permit.  Several  of  the  flood  victims  were 
shot,  some  while  trying  to  escape.  Still,  many  escaped. 
Thousands  were  conscripted  into  levee  building  and  work  for 
private  employers  on  other  jobs  without  pay.  When  the 
floods  receded,  the  Red  Cross,  the  National  Guard,  and  the 
overseers  from  various  plantations  staged  a  "round-up"  of 
the  reluctant  victims,  herded  them  into  barges  and  returned 
them  to  their  masters.  During  the  flood,  the  Arizona  Cotton 
Growers'  Association  applied  to  the  Federal  Employment 
offices  for  4,000  workers  from  among  the  refugees,  offering 
them  about  four  months'  work.    But,  according  to  the  general 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  106 

manager  of  this  Association,  the  employment  offices  refused 
to  negotiate  the  deal  because  "any  move  of  this  nature  would 
be  fought  by  the  different  users  of  this  class  of  labor  through- 
out the  districts  affected."  ^ 

Even  after  the  flood  the  doles  had  to  be  continued.  The 
Red  Cross  policy  of  local  autonomy  for  branches  in  giving 
out  relief  gave  the  planters,  of  course,  a  chance  to  have  their 
own  representatives  at  the  head  of  relief  distribution.  In 
order  to  facilitate  the  distribution  many  planters  "generously'* 
offered  the  use  of  their  plantation  commissaries  as  store- 
houses for  the  food  and  other  supplies.  Then  the  same  goods 
were  sold  or  given  away  at  the  planter's  discretion  and  to  his 
personal  advancement.^^ 

In  1930  came  another  "act  of  God."  This  time  God  dried 
up  the  same  country  he  had  flooded  in  1927.  One  of  the 
worst  famines  in  the  country's  entire  history  followed  a  pro- 
longed drought  in  the  southern  states  bordering  the  Missis- 
sippi River.  Widespread  peonage  was  uncovered.  Reports 
came  out  of  the  drought  country  that  terrible  conditions 
existed  especially  in  Louisiana  and  Arkansas.  More  specific 
locations  were  given  around  Bald  Knob  and  Searcy,  Arkansas, 
as  well  as  in  St.  Francis  County.  A  professor  in  one  of  the 
schools  in  Conway,  Arkansas,  told  Russell  Owen,  corre- 
spondent of  the  New  York  Times,  that  "Some  of  the  farmers 
. . .  had  been  in  debt  so  many  years  that  they  no  longer  sought 
a  statement  of  their  accounts.  They  were  in  bondage  so  deep 
they  did  not  care."  ^^ 

The  Times  reported  that  the  "share-cropper  made  nothing 
last  year.  He  owes  the  planter  for  his  food  and  clothing  and 
must  hope  to  work  it  out.  The  share-cropper  can't  move  to 
another  plantation  unless  his  debts  are  assumed  by  the  new 
planter."  It  was  found  in  other  sections  of  the  drought 
country,  as  well  as  in  Arkansas,  that  the  Negro  croppers  were 
living  as  well  on  the  doles — an  average  of  3J^  cents  per 
meal  per  person  ^^ — as  under  normal  conditions,  and  that  the 
planters  had  to  bargain  with  the  Red  Cross  to  restrict  the 


106  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

doles  in  order  to  keep  the  croppers  satisfied  on  the  planta- 
tions. Owen  reported  much  grumbling  about  the  "Red 
Cross  freeing  the  Negro." 

How  the  Red  Cross  freed  the  Negroes  is  well  illustrated 
by  an  Associated  Press  dispatch  from  Yazoo  City,  Missis- 
sippi : 

In  order  to  keep  laborers  from  deserting  farms  in  Yazoo 
County,  the  county  Red  Cross  Chapter  has  cut  down  on  drought 
relief  and  now  is  administering  only  to  cases  of  extreme  destitu- 
tion. Planters  requested  discontinuance  of  the  daily  distributions, 
saying  hundreds  of  laborers  were  leaving  farms.  .  .  .^^ 

In  other  places  the  Red  Cross  was  reported  to  have  told 
tenants  "if  you  leave  the  crop,  relief  will  be  cut  off."  In 
other  words,  acceptance  of  their  status  as  forced  laborers  was 
the  condition  for  receiving  relief. 

But  these  cases  of  wholesale  exposure  can  happen  only 
infrequently.  Less  spectacular  cases,  however,  continually 
crop  out  in  the  press.  Every  week  cases  of  shooting  affairs 
between  landlord  and  tenant  are  reported.  On  the  surface 
there  is  little  significance  in  such  happenings,  but  closer 
analysis  reveals  that  most  of  them  occur  over  divisions  of  the 
crop  and  as  a  result  of  peonage.  The  writer  has  hundreds  of 
newspaper  clippings  deaHng  with  such  cases,  including  many 
in  which  white  tenants  are  involved. 

Other  Recent  Peonage  Cases 

Some  recent  and  direct  cases  of  peonage  can  be  cited  to 
prove  that  no  later  than  a  few  months  ago,  this  system  of 
forced  labor  was  being  practiced  in  many  sections  of  the 
country. 

In  1928  Thelma  Duncan,  a  North  Carolina  school  teacher, 
reported  cases  of  peonage  in  that  state.^*  In  1929,  Orland 
K.  Armstrong,  university  of  Florida  professor,  made  a  damn- 
ing expose  of  peonage  laws  and  practices  in  Florida.  He 
cited  many  cases  of  Negroes  being  sold  to  turpentine  com- 
panies at  from  $50  to  $150  each.    He  was  surprised  to  find 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  lOT 

very  few  prosecutions  and  convictions,  and  asked  lawyers, 
legislators  and  business  men  for  the  reason.  A  typical  reply 
was  given  by  a  business  man; 

Do  you  want  to  know  why  they  can't  get  any  convictions? 
Harass  why — suppose  they  arrest  some  operators.  All  right. 
Now  bring  them  into  court.  They  are  men  of  wealth  and  re- 
spectability. They  own  big  property.  They  elect  the  county 
and  state  officers.  Who's  the  jury  ?  Men  who  owe  *em  money ! 
Accuse  'em  of  peonage.  They  bring  in  records  to  show  they 
don't  owe  a  Negro  a  penny.  The  owner,  the  boss  men,  the 
bookkeeper,  the  commissary  clerk  all  testify.  And  what  else? 
Every  big  company  has  favorite  Negroes,  who  get  good  wages 
and  act  as  straw  bosses.  They  put  them  on  the  stand.  They've 
been  working  for  that  company  for  years;  paid  every  month 
and  never  mistreated.  And  against  that  line-up,  you  got  a  poor 
devil  of  an  ignorant  nigger  off  a  chain  gang!  Think  you  can 
convict  ?  ^^ 

In  March,  1930,  James  E.  Piggott,  prominent  Washington 
Parish,  Louisiana,  planter,  pleaded  guilty  of  holding  Negro 
farm  workers  in  peonage.  Piggott  told  Federal  Judge  Borah 
that  "I  handled  Negroes  in  the  same  way  every  one  else  in 
the  South  does."  He  admitted  that  on  several  occasions  his 
croppers  escaped  into  Mississippi  and  that  Louisiana  officers 
went  after  them  and  brought  them  back  without  any  sort  of 
requisition  papers  or  warrants.^* 

Another  typical  case  in  Louisiana  occurred  in  1931.  J.  M. 
McLemore  of  Coushatta  was  charged  with  peonage  practices. 
The  investigation  disclosed  that  McLemore  habitually  carried 
a  pistol  with  which  to  shoot  any  one  attempting  to  escape. 

Peonage  on  Government  Job 

One  of  the  most  recent  exposes  of  peonage  involved  work 
done  for  the  United  States  government.  In  December,  1931, 
it  was  discovered  that  the  War  Department  was  using  com- 
pulsory labor  on  levee  work  under  its  supervision  along  the 
Mississippi  River.  Gross  brutality  was  charged  including  the 
flogging  and  beating  of  Negro  workers  with  leather  straps. 


108  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

clubs  and  pistol  butts,  for  not  doing  enough  work  or  for 
minor  infraction  of  camp  rules.  Men  were  forced  to  work 
12  to  1 8  hours  a  day.  The  pay  rate  was  from  75  cents  to 
$2  a  day  for  skilled  labor.  For  unskilled  it  was  much  less. 
Trading  in  the  commissary  was  compulsory  and  charges  for 
"stuff"  were  exorbitant.  There  was  an  arbitrary  deduction 
of  $4.50  a  week  from  each  man's  pay  for  commissary  sup- 
plies, whether  the  supplies  were  purchased  or  not.  Thirty 
contractors  with  offices  in  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis,  Kansas 
City,  Qeveland  and  Pittsburgh  were  declared  to  be  involved. 
Meanwhile  the  War  Department  has  ordered  an  "investi- 
gation." ^^ 

This  record  of  peonage  prosecutions  and  exposes  bears  out 
the  results  of  a  peonage  questionnaire  recently  sent  by  the 
author  to  about  150  prominent  teachers,  lawyers,  state  offi- 
cials and  other  professional  people  in  every  part  of  the  South. 
The  majority  of  replies  showed  that  peonage  does  exist  in 
these  states.  A  former  member  of  the  Texas  Senate  said, 
"the  system  of  binding  tenant-croppers  to  the  soil  does  not 
exist  in  Texas  in  theory.  It  is  recognized  by  force,  has  a 
firm  hold  and  terrorizes  the  tenant."  A  former  deputy  labor 
commissioner  of  Texas  also  admitted  that  "Peonage  actually 
exists  in  this  state."  Replies  from  other  states  were  similar. 
The  editor  of  a  Louisiana  weekly  said,  "in  the  sugar  districts 
the  condition  of  labor  is  that  of  out-and-out  peonage,  and  it  is 
the  same  in  the  lumber  industry."  Officials  in  the  department 
of  charities  and  public  welfare  in  several  states  said  peonage 
existed  to  some  extent.  In  almost  every  case  those  who 
replied  to  this  questionnaire  asked  that  their  names  should 
not  he  published. 

Peonage  is  not  a  thing  of  the  past.  It  exists  now  in  many 
sections  of  the  United  States.  It  is  legal  in  several  states 
and  is  practiced  in  others,  though  "illegal."  There  is  evi- 
dence that  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  economic  crisis, 
employers  in  the  peonage  country,  in  order  to  secure  lower 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  109 

labor  costs,  have  increased  their  exploitation.  At  the  same 
time  an  increasing  number  of  small  farmers  are  losing  their 
small  holdings  and  entering  the  ranks  of  the  tenant.  Accord- 
ing to  the  last  census  over  60%  of  all  southern  farmers  are 
tenants. 

Rebellion  and  Struggle 

The  workers  and  tenants  held  in  peonage  have  waged  many- 
militant  battles  against  these  conditions.  In  many  of  these 
struggles  Negroes  and  whites  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder. 
The  landlords  and  other  employers,  with  the  help  of  the  law 
and  the  courts,  have  drowned  in  blood  most  of  the  attempts 
at  organization. 

No  adequate  study  of  organization  and  struggle  among 
workers  and  tenant  peons  has  ever  been  made.  The  records 
on  the  subject  are  poor  and  scattered  and  no  attempt  has  been 
made  to  gather  even  these.  However,  a  brief  summary  of 
some  of  the  most  important  struggles  can  be  given  here. 

In  Sander sville,  Georgia,  in  1884,  it  was  reported  that  a 
man  had  arrived  from  Louisville,  Kentucky,  for  the  purpose 
of  organizing  Negro  tenants  and  farm  workers  into  unions 
to  get  higher  wages  and  better  conditions.  The  report  con- 
cluded typically  enough  with  this  sentence :  "The  militia  have 
been  sent  for." 

The  experiences  of  Hiram  F.  Hoover  who  came  to  middle 
Georgia  from  Hickory,  North  Carolina,  in  1887  to  organize 
the  share  croppers  show  that  organizers  at  that  time  were 
treated  just  as  harshly  as  to-day.  At  Warrenton,  Georgia,  he 
was  shot  by  a  posse  of  planters  and  left  for  dead.  Although 
half  his  face  was  blown  away,  he  survived.  When  it  was 
learned  that  he  still  lived,  an  Augusta  paper  said,  "The  gen- 
eral verdict  here  is  that  they  should  have  killed  him." 
Hoover  continued  in  his  "crimes"  of  organizing  the  Negroes 
and  moved  to  Madison  where  he  was  told  by  the  best 
(wealthiest)  citizens  to  leave.  It  was  reported  that  while  he 
was  recovering  from  his  wounds  his  wife  continued  his  work 


110  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

— so  a  committee  "waited  on  her."  He  tried  to  work  in  sev- 
eral other  places  but  was  continually  hounded  and  persecuted. 
Finally  he  was  driven  out  of  the  South. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  the  early  efforts  to  organize 
southern  tenant  farmers  on  a  large  scale  was  the  attempt  in 
1891  to  form  a  Colored  Farmers  Alliance  of  the  United 
States.  Its  headquarters  were  in  Houston,  Texas.  A  cotton 
pickers'  strike  was  called  for  September  12,  1891.  Southern 
newspapers  became  alarmed  over  the  "threat."  The  official 
Farmers  Alliance  (white),  dominated  by  wealthy  farmers  and 
business  men,  immediately  attacked  the  Negro  organization, 
condemned  the  strike  and  helped  the  planters  to  defeat  it. 

One  of  the  more  recent  and  most  brutal  suppressions  of  a 
tenant  farmers*  union  took  place  at  Elaine,  Phillips  County, 
Arkansas,  in  191 9.  The  Arkansas  union  was  very  conserva- 
tive. The  charter  was  drawn  up  by  Williamson  and  William- 
son, white  lawyers.  Members  of  this  tenant-farmers'  union 
had  to  be  churchgoers  and  swear  to  defend  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States.  But  the  union  was  militant  in 
wanting  to  wage  a  fight  on  peonage  which  was  particularly 
vicious  in  Phillips  County.  When  the  union  met  in  a  church 
to  lay  plans  and  to  retain  a  lawyer — a  white  man,  who  had 
been  a  Federal  attorney  and  former  postmaster — it  was 
attacked  by  an  armed  mob  of  planters  and  business  men. 
The  church  was  burned  to  the  ground  and  the  croppers 
hunted  down  like  wild  beasts.  It  is  estimated  that  close  to 
200  were  slaughtered.  The  Negroes  resisted  and  though  they 
were  poorly  armed  killed  some  white  attackers. 

Hundreds  of  the  croppers  were  then  arrested  charged  with 
insurrection,  murder  and  other  crimes.  Not  a  single  white 
man  was  arrested.  After  a  "fair  trial"  at  which  the  croppers 
were  "defended"  by  a  lawyer  appointed  by  the  court,  12  were 
sentenced  to  death  and  6y  to  long  term  imprisonment.  The 
trial  lasted  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  It  took  a  jury  of 
planters  or  their  hirelings  seven  minutes  to  condemn  12  men 
to  death.     Not  a  single  Negro  was  on  the  jury  or  on  the 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  111 

jpanel ;  a  threatening  mob  and  troops  were  present ;  the  crop- 
pers' lawyer  had  no  preliminary  consultation  with  the  de- 
fendants; he  never  called  a  single  witness  even  though  they 
were  available.  Shortly  after  the  arrest  of  the  croppers  a 
mob  marched  to  the  jail  to  lynch  them  but  was  prevented  by 
the  Committee  of  Seven  and  other  leading  citizens  and  offi- 
cials who  promised  if  the  mob  refrained,  they  would  execute 
those  found  guilty  in  the  form  of  law. 

Later  when  appeals  were  made  to  the  Governor  of  Arkan- 
sas for  clemency  the  American  Legion,  the  Lions  Club,  and 
the  Helena  Rotary  Club  held  meetings,  attended  by  repre- 
sentatives of  the  leading  industrial  and  commercial  enter- 
prises of  Helena,  passed  resolutions  asking  the  Governor  to 
ignore  the  appeal.  The  American  Legion  resolution  stated 
that  a  "solemn  promise  was  given  by  the  leading  citizens  of 
the  community  that  if  the  guilty  parties  were  not  lynched, 
and  let  the  law  take  its  course,  that  justice  would  be  done  and 
the  majesty  of  the  law  upheld."  ^^  Members  of  the  Legion 
were  very  active  in  the  man-hunts  in  which  scores  of  the 
croppers  were  killed.  Several  members  of  the  Legion  were 
also  killed. 

Later  one  of  the  chief  motives  of  the  planters  in  breaking 
up  the  tenants'  union  was  brought  out.  For  "Negro  prisoners 
are  said  to  have  confessed,  each  member  of  the  organization 
at  specified  times  was  to  take  a  bale  of  cotton  ...  to  certain 
prominent  landowners,  plantation-managers,  and  merchants 
and  demand  a  settlement."^®  It  will  be  recalled  that  the 
refusal  to  make  settlements  is  one  of  the  methods  of  enforc- 
ing peonage.  The  Negro  tenants  had  positive  evidence  that 
the  planters  of  Phillips  County  were  preparing  to  ship  off  the 
cotton — in  which  the  croppers  theoretically  had  a  share — and 
to  sell  it  without  settling  with  the  tenants  or  allowing  them  to 
sell  their  share  of  the  crop. 

Industrial  workers  have  also  struggled  against  actual, 
peonage.  On  November  22,  1919,  in  Bogalusa,  Louisiana, 
three  white  men  were  shot  dead,  and  a  number  severely 


112  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

wounded  in  such  a  struggle.  The  white  men  were  killed 
because  they  had  dared  walk  down  the  main  street  of  Boga- 
lusa,  with  guns  on  their  hips,  protecting  with  their  lives  and 
guns  the  life  of  a  Negro  labor  organizer .^^ 

The  Great  Southern  Lumber  Company  which  owns  Boga- 
lusa  had  an  auxiliary  organization  called  the  Loyalty  League. 
It  was  formed  during  the  war  and  made  up  of  business  men. 
The  chief  function  of  the  organization  was  to  see  that  every 
able-bodied  man — especially  Negroes — should  work  at  any 
task,  at  any  wage  and  for  any  hours  that  the  employer  might 
desire.  In  191 9  the  situation  was  such  that  a  labor  leader 
reported : 

They  have  been  continually  arresting  Negroes  for  vagrancy 
and  placing  them  in  the  city  jail.  It  seems  that  a  raid  is  made 
each  night  in  the  section  of  the  town  where  the  Negroes  live 
and  all  that  can  be  found  are  rounded  up  and  placed  in  jail 
charged  with  vagrancy.  In  the  morning  the  Great  Southern 
Lumber  Company  goes  to  the  jail  and  takes  them  before  the 
city  court  where  they  are  fined  as  vagrants  and  turned  over  to 
the  lumber  company,  under  the  guard  of  the  gunmen,  where 
they  are  made  to  work  out  this  fine.  There  is  one  old  Negro 
in  the  hospital  in  New  Orleans  whom  they  went  to  see  one 
night,  and  ordered  to  be  at  the  mill  at  work  next  day.  The 
old  man  was  not  able  to  work,  and  was  also  sick  at  the  time. 
They  went  back  the  next  night  and  beat  the  old  man  almost 
to  death  and  broke  both  of  his  arms  between  the  wrist  and 
the  elbow.2i 

It  was  out  of  such  conditions  that  a  hard-fought  strike 
arose,  in  which,  as  has  been  mentioned,  three  white  men  were 
killed  while  protecting  a  Negro  organizer,  thus  furnishing 
one  of  the  most  important  examples  of  solidarity  between 
white  and  Negro  workers  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States. 

In  the  summer  of  1931,  to  cite  another  and  even  more 
significant  case,  white  and  Negro  tenants  in  and  around  Camp 
Hill,  Alabama,  were  organized  by  the  Trade  Union  Unity 
League  into  a  militant  union.  The  main  purpose  of  this 
avowedly  militant  union  is  in  one  respect  no  different  from 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  113 

that  of  the  tenants'  union  in  Arkansas  in  1919,  namely — ^to 
fight  peonage.  Alabama  planters,  emulating  their  ruling  class 
brothers  in  Arkansas,  also  attacked  a  union  meeting  which 
was  being  held  in  a  church  near  Camp  Hill.  The  church 
was  burned  to  the  ground,  one  man  was  murdered  on  the 
spot  in  cold  blood  and  four  others  were  sent  to  "cut  stove 
wood,"  a  euphemistic  term  for  lynching.  Some  35  were 
rounded  up  and  arrested. 

Certain  liberal  organizations  and  individuals,  including  the 
National  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Colored  Peo- 
ple and  its  officials,  William  Pickens,  Walter  White  and 
W.  E.  B.  DuBois,  following  their  usual  policy,  played  into 
the  hands  of  the  lynchers  by  saying  that  the  Communists  were 
to  be  blamed  for  thus  disturbing  the  "good  relations"  between 
the  tenants  and  the  planters.  In  reality  peonage  was  respon- 
sible, and  the  Communists  must  be  credited  with  waging  a 
relentless  fight  against  peonage.  Students  of  the  labor  move- 
ment have  long  recognized  that  any  attempt  of  industrial 
workers  to  organize  in  unions  to  better  their  economic  position 
will  be  fought  by  employers  with  bullets,  clubs,  gas  and  every 
other  weapon  available.  The  same  principle  obviously  holds 
true  with  attempts  of  agricultural  workers  and  tenant 
farmers  to  improve  their  economic  position. 

The  Camp  Hill  union,  in  cooperation  with  the  International 
Labor  Defense,  was  able  to  win  the  freedom  of  all  the  35 
arrested  members.  And  for  the  first  time  in  the  long  history 
of  struggles  against  peonage,  this  Camp  Hill  union  was  able 
to  beat  back  the  attacks  of  the  employers  and  win  certain 
demands.  As  a  result  it  came  out  of  the  attack  stronger  and 
more  solidly  entrenched  than  ever.  It  has  even  been  able  to 
extend  its  organization  into  adjoining  counties,  organizing  a 
majority  of  the  Negro  croppers  in  many  localities. 

The  demands  of  the  Share  Croppers  Union  at  Camp  Hill 
were :  ( i )  continuation  of  food  allowance  which  had  been  cut 
off  July  I,  after  the  crop  was  cultivated  and  "laid  by,"  leav- 
ing the  cropper  to  starve  or  beg  until  cotton  picking  time  in 


114  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

September,  (2)  right  of  the  cropper  to  sell  his  produce  for 
cash  where  and  when  he  pleased,  rather  than  turn  it  over  to 
the  landlord  for  "division,"  (3)  cash  settlement  for  the  sea- 
son at  cotton  picking  time,  (4)  a  9-months'  school  for  Negro 
children  as  well  as  white  with  free  bus,  (5)  right  of  the 
cropper  to  have  his  own  garden.^  The  two  specific  demands 
won  were  extension  of  food  allowance  to  November  i  and 
permission  to  grow  gardens  for  the  use  of  the  tenant. 

Notasulga,  a  few  miles  from  Camp  Hill,  witnessed  a 
more  recent  armed  attack  upon  Negro  share  croppers.  On 
December  19,  1932,  the  sheriff  and  a  posse  came  to  the  home 
of  a  Share  Croppers  Union  leader  in  an  attempt  to  seize  his 
mule  at  the  behest  of  the  landowner.  Other  croppers  came 
to  the  defense  of  their  leader  to  resist  the  organized  terror 
of  the  authorities.  In  the  struggle  that  followed  a  number  of 
croppers  were  killed,  others  were  wounded  and  thirteen 
Negroes  arrested.  Two  of  the  union  leaders  died  a  few  days 
later  from  wounds  received,  after  having  been  turned  over 
to  the  police  by  the  officials  of  the  Tuskegee  Institute  to 
whom  they  had  come  for  hospital  treatment. 

Peonage  Among  Mexicans  in  the  United  States 

Just  as  intolerable  as  the  peonage  that  binds  Negroes  in 
the  South  is  the  peonage  to  which  Mexicans  are  subjected  in 
the  United  States.  Though  no  formal  study  has  been  made 
of  the  situation  it  is  well  recognized  that  much  of  the  work 
in  the  industries  in  the  Southwest — projects  in  the  Lower 
Rio  Grande  Valley,  the  Imperial  Valley  in  southern  Cali- 
fornia, big  ranches,  railroad  construction,  irrigation  jobs — 
has  been  done  by  Mexican  workers  slaving  under  peonage. 
Thousands  of  Mexican  forced  laborers  have  toiled  in  the  beet 
fields  of  Colorado,  Kansas  and  other  states. 

In  at  least  one  instance  the  United  States  government  has 
intervened  in  behalf  of  the  employers  in  the  Southwest  in 
order  to  enable  them  to  get  their  talons  on  forced  labor.  This 
action  included  the  Rainey  Amendment  to  the  Emergency 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  115 

Immigration  Bill  which  permitted  ranchers,  planters  and 
other  employers  to  import  a  large  number  of  Mexicans. 
Under  this  law  the  employers  were  to  guard  the  workers  so 
that  when  they  were  through  with  them  they  could  deport 
them  to  Mexico.  Under  the  law  these  workers  were  not 
permitted  to  seek  other  employment  or  leave  the  employment 
of  the  man  who  had  imported  them. 

To  create  divisions  between  Mexican  and  American 
workers  the  capitalist  sources  of  information  have  always 
been  used  to  build  up  a  myth  that  Mexican  workers  are  "in- 
ferior creatures."  But  when  business  men  of  the  Southwest 
wanted  an  even  larger  supply  of  forced  labor,  the  govern- 
ment obligingly  waived  all  immigration  restrictions,  including 
the  literacy  test  and  head  tax.  The  workers,  however,  were 
not  allowed  to  come  as  free  men  but  were  to  be  held  on  the 
job  on  which  they  were  imported  to  work.  No  matter  how 
intolerable  conditions  they  could  not  leave  it.  And  when  they 
were  no  longer  needed  they  were  to  be  deported. 

Under  the  Rainey  Amendment  the  Arizona  Cotton  Growers 
Association  alone  admitted  using  around  35,000  of  these  con- 
tract laborers.  Ranchers  under  this  law  also  arbitrarily 
seized  Mexicans  wherever  they  could.  Most  of  the  Mexican 
workers  did  not  speak  English  and  were  carried  into  sections 
where  the  ranchers  dominated  the  political  situation.  Ob- 
viously under  such  circumstances  the  workers  were  at  the 
mercy  of  their  employers. 

It  frequently  happened  that  these  peons  became  desperate 
and  tried  to  escape.  Then  posses  of  the  masters  "arrested" 
them  and  brought  them  back  or  in  some  cases  deported  them 
under  cover  of  guns.  The  threat  of  such  "arrests"  and  de- 
portations always  hung  over  the  workers  as  a  penalty  for 
protesting  their  lot.  Long  after  the  war-time  emergency  had 
passed  the  workers  were  still  being  held. 

Peonage  is  practiced  on  the  salmon  canning  fleets  of  the 
Pacific  Northwest.  Helpless,  unemployed  Mexicans  are 
forced  to  sign  a  contract  agreeing,  on  penalty  of  fines  from 


116  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

$io  to  $50  for  each  "offense,"  to  work  on  Sundays,  holidays 
or  nights  when  asked  to  do  so  by  their  employers.  They  also 
agree  that  if  they  quit  work  because  of  strikes  or  any  other 
reason,  all  their  wages  will  be  forfeited.^^  Officials  of  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Fisheries  made  an  investigation 
and  verified  the  charges,  and  in  addition  reported  that  after 
a  laborer  had  signed  a  contract  and  was  taken  to  a  canning 
factory  it  was  virtually  impossible  for  him  to  escape.  About 
29,000  Mexican,  Filipino,  Chinese  and  Japanese  laborers 
were  employed  in  such  canneries  in  1929  in  Alaska  alone. 

Texas,  like  other  southern  states,  has  its  law  restricting 
employment  agencies  which  would  ship  Mexican  and  Negro 
workers  from  Texas  to  other  sections  of  the  country.  The 
law  was  passed  as  a  deliberate  measure  to  keep  a  monopoly 
on  cheap  forced  labor.  The  State  Federation  of  Labor 
(A.  F.  of  L.)  supported  this  peonage  bill! 

An  officer  of  the  Texas  Department  of  Agriculture  re- 
cently wrote  the  author  that  the  state  had  about  400,000 
Mexican  farm  workers  or  tenants ;  that  they  were  paid  about 
half  the  wages  received  by  native  Americans.  He  described 
their  conditions  as  a  "shame  without  any  question."  Then, 
a  little  later,  an  official  of  the  Department  of  Labor  wrote, 
in  reply  to  a  questionnaire  on  peonage,  that  one  of  the 
worst  blots  on  the  state  was  the  peonage  practices  directed 
against  Mexican  workers.  He  explained,  moreover,  that 
very  few  prosecutions  arose  because  the  system  "was  so 
plausibly  explained"  as  to  dupe  both  Federal  and  State  au- 
thorities.   He  was  very  naive. 

The  general  solicitor  of  the  Sante  Fe  railroad,  E.  E. 
Mclnnes,  recently  admitted  before  a  Congressional  commit- 
tee, that  over  75%  of  all  their  track  workers  in  the  South- 
west are  Mexicans.  When  asked  by  Congressman  George 
J.  Schneider  of  Wisconsin,  "How  do  you  get  this  labor?" 
he  replied,  "Our  workers  are  furnished  by  Holmes  and  Com- 
pany of  Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco  without  charge." 
It  was  brought  out  that  the  reason  that  this  employment 


PEONAGE  EXPOSED  117 

agency  could  afford  to  supply  workers  free  was  that  it  was 
given  the  concession  to  operate  commissaries  in  the  railroad 
camps.  They  made  their  profit  in  that  way,  charging  what- 
ever they  chose,  falsified  the  accounts,  and  held  the  whip 
of  discharge  over  the  workers  through  cooperation  with  the 
railroad  company. 

In  face  of  such  conditions  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  officialdom  has  a  record  of  attacking  the  Mexican 
workers.  It  has  refused  to  organize  them  and  even  refuses  to 
admit  them  into  unions  when  their  applications  for  mem- 
bership are  presented.  There  is  a  gentlemen's  agreement  in 
many  unions  in  the  Southwest,  including  the  longshoremen 
(International  Longshoremen's  Association),  that  all  Mexi- 
can workers  shall  be  "black-balled." 

The  Mexican  cantaloupe  pickers  in  the  Imperial  Valley, 
California,  went  on  strike  in  1928  for  better  wages  and  to 
end  conditions  equivalent  to  peonage.  All  the  forces  of 
"law  and  order"  including  the  courts  and  the  sheriff  helped 
to  crush  the  strike.  Halls  were  raided  and  closed  without 
warrant.  Bail  for  arrested  workers  was  set  as  high  as  $1,000 
on  vagrancy  charges  based  on  the  fact  that  the  workers  were 
on  strike  and  therefore  not  working.  "The  purpose  was,  of 
course,  to  prevent  organization  of  the  Mexicans. .  .  ."  2* 

The  latest  strike  in  the  Imperial  Valley,  in  1930,  was  led 
by  the  Agricultural  Workers  Industrial  Union  affiliated  to 
the  Trade  Union  Unity  League.  The  same  sheriff  who  broke 
the  1928  strike  with  his  forces  finally  broke  this  strike.  Six 
organizers  were  sentenced  to  from  three  to  42  years  in  Cali- 
fornia's bastilles  for  their  activities.  Others  were  deported 
to  Mexico.  This  union  is  organizing  workers  in  the  Im- 
perial Valley  as  well  as  in  the  Colorado  beet  fields  where 
peonage  also  exists.^*'  On  May  16,  1932,  some  18,000  of 
these  Colorado  beet  workers  went  on  strike  under  the  leader- 
ship of  this  union.  They  struck  against  the  intolerable  con- 
ditions of  peonage  and  lowered  rates. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES 

1  Although  much  direct  forced  labor  exists  in  the  homeland 
\  of  every  capitalist  country,  it  prevails  to  a  much  greater  ex- 
1  tent  in  the  colonies.  In  nearly  all  colonial  and  semicolonial 
countries  there  are  laws,  regulations  and  practices  which  make 
it  compulsory  for  the  majority  of  the  native  population  to 
work  for  a  definite  time,  directly  or  indirectly,  for  foreign 
capitalists  without  pay  or  for  only  a  nominal  wage. 

How  are  forced  laborers  recruited  in  the  colonies?  The 
methods  employed  for  creating  forced  labor  here  are  similar 
to  those  employed  by  the  early  capitalists  in  creating  wage 
laborers.  Generally,  the  first  wage  laborers  were  created 
by  forcibly  robbing  the  peasants  of  their  means  of  livelihood, 
by  driving  them  from  the  land  and  often  burning  their 
homes.  Cut  off  from  their  accustomed  means  of  earning 
a  living  they  were  forced  to  accept  work  wherever  and 
however  offered. 

In  the  colonies  various  methods  have  been  used  to  take 
the  land  away  from  the  natives.  It  has  been  expropriated 
by  force,  either  outright  or  "legalized"  by  legislation.  The 
Union  of  South  Africa  provides  a  good  example  of  such 
land  theft.  Some  five  and  a  half  million  natives  are  herded 
into  reservations  consisting  of  some  60,000,000  acres  of  the 
worst  land,  while  the  1,500,000  European  population  (white) 
occupies  240,000,000  acres  of  the  best  land. 

One  of  the  shrewdest  and  most  "civilized"  methods  used 
by  the  imperialists  in  breaking  up  the  agricultural  system 
of  the  natives  and  converting  the  peasants  into  forced  la- 
borers is  to  impose  heavy  taxes  on  them.  There  are  many 
kinds  of  such  taxes:  tax  on  the  harvest;  a  poll  tax  which 

118 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   119 

often  must  be  paid  in  "kind,"  i.e.,  by  forced  labor;  taxes 
which  the  natives  pay  in  lieu  of  forced  labor;  and  others. 
This  heavy  taxation  gradually  ruins  the  natives  and  compels 
them  to  apply  to  the  large  capitalist  plantations,  factories, 
or  mines  for  work  in  order  to  secure  money  with  which 
to  pay  taxes.  //  they  are  not  paid  the  natives  are  jailed  and 
forced  to  do  penal  forced  labor. 

Among  the  other  methods  of  securing  forced  labor  is  the 
use  of  restrictive  laws  such  as  vagrancy  and  pass  laws  under 
which  persons  refusing  to  work  on  the  terms  offered,  or 
persons  without  credentials,  are  arrested  and  sentenced  to 
labor.  Besides,  native  chiefs  are  often  bribed  or  compelled 
to  supply  laborers.  Colonial  governments,  in  making  con- 
cessions to  foreign  capitalists,  often  agree  to  cooperate  in 
securing  a  plentiful  supply  of  forced  labor.  Often  direct 
conscription  or  armed  "recruiting"  is  resorted  to  by  such 
governments.  Such  "recruiting"  closely  resembles  the  early 
slave  raids. 

The  types  of  forced  labor  in  the  colonies  range  from  out- 
right chattel  slavery  to  various  types  of  labor  on  the  border- 
line between  forced  labor  and  wage  labor.  Of  the  five  or 
six  million  slaves  in  the  world  some  two  million  are  in 
Abyssinia.  There  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  them  in 
Arabia,  in  the  British  protectorate  of  Sierra  Leone,  in  China 
— it  has  been  estimated  that  there  are  two  million  child 
slaves  in  China — and  elsewhere. 

Of  much  greater  importance  is  the  peonage  system  which 
varies  in  form  according  to  the  economic  conditions  of  the 
particular  colonial  or  semi-colonial  country.  Peonage  is  the 
most  widespread  type  of  forced  labor  in  the  territories  over 
which  the  imperialist  regime  of  Wall  Street  holds  its  sway. 
Professor  E.  A.  Ross  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  de- 
clares that  from  the  Rio  Grande  down  the  west  coast  of 
South  America  to  Cape  Horn  "the  laborers  on  the  estates 
are  at  various  stages  of  mitigation  of  the  once  universal 


/ 


120  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

slavery  into  which  the  native  population  were  crushed  by 
the  iron  heel  of  the  conquistador." 

Other  types  of  forced  labor  used  in  colonial  countries, 
including  those  under  the  heel  of  American  imperialism, 
are  "contract  labor" — enforced  by  law,  violence  and  terror- 
ism— and  labor  on  "public  works"  for  colonial  governments, 
much  of  which  is,  in  reality,  done  for  private  capitalists. 
There  is  also  the  practice  of  forcing  peasants  to  grow  food 
for  the  use  of  forced  laborers  on  certain  jobs;  and,  of 
course,  convict  labor  which  is  performed  both  by  native 
prisoners  and  often  by  thousands  of  political  prisoners  exiled 
to  the  colonies  for  struggling  against  capitalism.  And  va- 
grancy laws  are  used  even  more  cruelly  than  in  the  imperial- 
ist countries.  In  the  Kenya  Colony  of  British  East  Africa, 
for  example,  these  laws  force  "vagrants"  and  juveniles  with- 
out parental  support,  into  practical  slavery. 

Products  of  Forced  Labor 

The  hypocrisy  of  the  United  States  in  its  policy  with 
.regard  to  forced  labor  was  clearly  illustrated  during  the 
discussion  on  Section  307  of  the  United  States  Tariff  Act 
of  1930,  which  bans  the  importation  into  the  United  States 
of  goods  produced  wholly  or  in  part  by  forced  labor.  This 
section  of  the  Tariff  Act  was  aimed  specifically  at  Soviet- 
American  trade.  However,  to  avoid  any  criticism  that  it 
was  discriminatory  legislation  much  righteous  indignation 
was  expressed  by  the  legislators  against  forced  labor  in 
general  and  the  law  was  at  first  prepared  to  apply  to  all 
countries  alike.  In  that  way,  it  was  felt,  the  ban  on  goods 
from  the  Soviet  Union  could  be  justified. 

Then  the  startling  fact  was  revealed  that  about  one-fifth 
of  the  total  imports  into  the  United  States  are  products 
which  in  whole  or  in  part  result  from  one  of  the  forms  of 
direct  forced  labor.  These  include  rubber,  coffee,  sugar, 
cocoa,  tea,  tobacco,  as  well  as  fruits  and  nuts  in  addition  to 
certain  oils,  spices,  minerals  and  related  products.     Coffee 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   121 

in  Brazil,  Guatemala  and  other  countries ;  rubber  in  Sumatra, 
Liberia  and  elsewhere;  fruits  in  Central  America,  the  land 
of  peonage ;  tobacco  in  Sumatra,  Cuba  and  other  countries — ■ 
these  are  some  of  the  countries  and  products  contributing  to 
the  imports  of  the  United  States. 

Imagine  the  consternation  of  the  big  sugar  refining  com- 
panies, the  coffee  dealers  and  roasters;  the  tire  manufac- 
turers— Goodyear,  Firestone  and  others;  the  United  Fruit 
Co.,  the  Anaconda  Copper  Co.,  the  Mellon  companies,  the 
Rockefeller  oil  interests  and  other  concerns  when  they  found 
that  the  ban  might  also  be  applied  to  their  goods.  The 
crusading  fervor  of  the  legislators  waned.  A  rider  was 
then  obligingly  tacked  on  the  Tariff  Act  providing  that  goods 
not  produced  in  the  United  States  in  sufficient  quantities  to 
satisfy  the  demand  were  not  to  be  included  in  the  ban  on 
forced  labor  products,  regardless  of  how  much  forced  labor 
was  used  in  their  production! 

While  a  considerable  part  of  these  forced-labor-tainted 
goods  are  produced  in  colonies  of  foreign  imperialists — ^those 
under  the  rule  of  England,  France,  Portugal,  the  Nether- 
lands, and  Belgium,  a  very  large  part  comes  from  colonies 
or  semi-colonies  of  the  United  States  or  countries  in  which 
a  huge  amount  of  American  finance  capital  is  invested.  In 
fact,  in  every  one  of  the  colonies,  semi-colonies  and  "independ- 
ent" countries  where  American  capital  is  invested,  Wall 
Street  imperialism  is  using  forced  labor  either  directly  or 
indirectly.  A  list  of  the  most  "respectable"  citizens  engaged 
in  this  exploitation  of  colonial  forced  labor  would  include 
some  of  the  biggest  capitalists  in  the  United  States  such  as 
Rockefeller,  Guggenheim,  Ford,  Mellon,  Morgan  and  many 
others.  They  super-exploit  this  labor  in  much  the  same  man- 
ner as  did  Herbert  Hoover,  who  was  for  many  years  an 
executive  in  the  Kaiping  mines  in  China,  where  he  discov- 
ered that  "the  disregard  for  human  life  permits  cheap  min- 
ing," and  where  he  said  that  it  was  cheaper  to  pay  30 


122  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Mexican  dollars  for  killing  "an  occasional  Chinaman"  than 
to  timber  the  mines.^ 

"Furthermore,  Mr.  Hoover  actually  helped  promote  one 
company,  the  Irtysh  Corporation,  a  year  before  the  war 
began,  and  it  was  a  concern  which  employed  3,000  Austrian 
prisoners  of  war  as  forced  laborers."^ 

In  1904,  the  Chinese  Engineering  and  Mining  Company, 
under  Mr.  Hoover's  management,  accepted  a  contract  for 
recruiting  and  shipping  Chinese  coolies  to  work  in  the  mines 
of  South  Africa.  The  company  undertook  to  ship  200,000 
of  these  contract  laborers  who  were  recruited  by  fraudulent 
advertisements.  Out  of  the  very  first  shipment  51  workers 
died  or  jumped  overboard.  They  were  shipped  at  the  rat^ 
of  2,000  per  shipload  in  vessels  that  by  regulation  were  only 
allowed  to  carry  1,000.^ 

In  the  Patino  tin  mines  of  Bolivia  owned  by  Mr.  Hoover's 
friends,  the  Guggenheims,  we  find  semi-slave  conditions  ex- 
isting among  the  Indians.  These  Indians  are  taken  forcibly 
from  their  villages,  transported  in  hordes  to  the  tin  mines 
where  they  work  under  contract  for  periods  ranging  from 
16  to  24  hours  at  a  stretch.  After  a  few  years  in  the  mines 
they  are  broken  down  with  tuberculosis  and  are  discharged 
for  inability  to  work.  They  then  return  to  their  villages 
where  they  die  slowly  of  the  plague  contracted  in  the  mines 
of  the  imperialists. 

The  semi-feudal  government  of  Venezuela,  supported  by 
warships  from  Washington  in  the  interests  of  the  Mellon 
oil  concessions,  likewise  employs  forced  labor.  Peons  and 
political  prisoners  are  forced  to  work  in  the  construction 
of  roads  and  in  the  native  haciendas  of  the  bloody  President 
Gomez. 

Forced  Labor  in  the  West  Indies 

Let  us  now  consider  some  of  the  leading  countries  in 
which  Yankee  imperialism,  by  an  even  more  direct  control 
than  in  South  America,  piles  up  profits  through  the  use  of 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   123 

forced  labor.  Take  first  the  group  of  islands  in  the  Carib- 
bean Sea,  gateway  to  Latin  America,  including  Cuba,  Haiti, 
the  Dominican  Republic,  Porto  Rico  and  the  Virgin  Islands. 
Wall  Street  dominates  throughout  this  area.* 

Cuba  was  formerly  a  country  of  small  farms,  producing 
chiefly  for  local  markets.  To-day  its  main  product  is  sugar, 
raised  on  great  plantations,  with  an  occasional  sugar  factory 
attached.  This  change  was  brought  about  through  the  virtual 
annexation  of  the  country  by  American  investors. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  over  85%  of  Cuba's  arable 
land  constitutes  the  sugar  companies'  domain  and  nothing 
but  sugar  is  allowed  to  be  planted  on  this  land.  Thus  the 
means  of  subsistence  have  been  taken  from  the  natives  and 
forced  labor  has  been  one  of  the  inevitable  results  of  this 
change.  The  brutality  with  which  the  native  small  land- 
holders are  being  dispossessed  is  described  in  an  article  in 
Current  History,  November,  1930,  by  Charles  W.  Hackett, 
professor  of  Latin  American  History  at  the  University  of 
Texas.    He  says: 

A  clash  occurred  between  citizens  and  troops  on  Sept.  19  at 
Sagua  de  Tanamo,  Oriente  Province,  when  Cuban  soldiers  ar- 
rested 37  residents,  who  were  accused  of  fomenting  a  disturb- 
ance after  more  than  4,000  persons  were  ordered  to  move  from 
the  land  of  the  Atlantic  Fruit  and  Sugar  Company,  which  they 
claimed  was  government-owned  and  on  which  they  declared  they 
had  lived  for  50  years. 

In  October,  193 1,  the  small  landowners  in  Cuba  demanded 
a  moratorium  saying  that  their  lands  were  rapidly  passing 
into  the  hands  of  foreigners.  Most  of  these  lands  are  mort- 
gaged to  American  capitalists.  Interest  rates  to  the  small 
landowners  range  from  8  to  12%.* 

*  New  York  Times,  October  19,  1931.  The  Times  of  November  29, 
1931,  reported  that  30,912  eviction  notices  were  filed  in  six  municipal 
courts  during  the  first  six  months  of  1931.  The  last  half  of  the  year 
was  expected  to  show  a  still  greater  increase. 


124.  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Imported  Forced  Labor  in  Cuba 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the  sugar  industry  the  Cuban 
toilers  struggled  against  their  exploiters.  They  refused  to 
accept  the  20  cents  a  day  which  was  often  offered  to  laborers, 
and  so  the  sugar  companies  hit  upon  the  expedient  of  im- 
porting Negro  workers  from  neighboring  countries  as  was 
done  in  the  days  before  slavery  was  legally  abolished.  The 
traffic  in  black  workers  proved  so  profitable  that  it  has  been 
continued  to  the  present  day.  Arnold  Roller,  a  first  hand 
investigator  of  Cuban  conditions,  describes  this  slave  trading 
in  an  article  in  The  Nation,  January  9,  1929: 

Cuba's  white  gold,  the  source  of  its  "national  prosperity," 
depends  for  its  future  role  in  the  national  economy  of  the 
country  on  the  size  of  its  black  population.  The  blacker  Cuba 
becomes,  the  more  white  sugar  will  it  be  able  to  pour  out  in 
competition  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  production  of  sugar 
in  Cuba  depends  entirely  on  black  labor,  most  of  it  imported 
from  Haiti,  Jamaica,  and  the  other  Antilles,  in  a  form  which 
differs  from  the  old  slave  traffic  only  by  a  few  legalistic  formali- 
ties. The  Negroes  are  brought  to  Cuba  in  ships  equipped  as 
the  slave  ships  of  old  and  delivered  for  a  premium  of  $15  to 
$20  each  to  the  sugar  companies  on  the  basis  of  labor  contracts 
signed  by  the  Negroes  with  a  finger-print 

It  is  easy  for  the  sugar  companies  to  circumvent  the  laws 
against  forced  labor  with  this  fiction  of  a  contract  made 
with  illiterate  Negroes  who  do  not  understand  the  language 
of  the  country  to  which  they  are  brought. 

As  recent  examples,  Roller  cited  the  cases  of  such  big 
American  corporations  as  the  United  Fruit  Co.,  which  have 
"made  their  own  laws,  disregarding  Cuban  laws,  and  are 
establishing  a  kind  of  industrial  extra-territoriality."  These 
companies  improved  upon  the  ancient  slave-trading  methods. 
The  General  Sugar  Co.  stimulated  the  trade  by  paying  $25 
for  every  Negro  delivered  on  its  reservations,  in  addition 
to  a  small  bonus. 

Once  in  Cuba  the  Negroes  are  kept  as  virtual  prisoners 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   125 

on  the  reservations  until  the  crop  is  gathered.  They  are 
imprisoned  in  large,  wooden  barracks  surrounded  by  armed 
guards.  They  cannot  leave  the  company's  reservation  during 
the  entire  time  of  their  contract.  They  must  buy  all  their 
provisions  in  company  stores.  Usually  at  the  end  of  the  crop 
they  are  indebted  to  the  contractor.  Often,  after  the 
season  is  over,  the  masters  "allow"  them  to  remain  in  the 
barracks,  without  having  to  pay  rent,  where  they  are  kindly 
"protected"  by  armed  company  guards  who  shoot  any  one 
trying  to  escape.  Thus  the  company  saves  the  additional 
expense  of  importing  new  workers  for  the  next  season's 
work. 

Since  this  modern  slave  traffic  began  the  influx  of  Haitians 
and  Jamaicans  under  contract  labor  has  increased  consider- 
ably. In  1912  less  than  1,000  entered  Cuba;  in  1920,  63,000; 
in  1 92 1  about  25,000.  There  was  a  big  drop  to  5,000  in 
1922,  a  year  of  crisis  in  the  sugar  industry.  The  impor- 
tation was  resumed,  however,  and  in  1924  the  number  rose 
to  26,000,  falling  to  17,000  in  1927.  The  Cuban  govern- 
ment recently  granted  the  United  Fruit  Co.  permission  to 
import  9,600  Negroes  for  its  Cuban  plantations.  Under  the 
arrangement  made  with  this  company,  in  order  to  get  around 
the  laws,  a  bond  of  $25  on  each  worker  must  be  posted  with 
the  local  authorities  at  each  plantation  district  to  guarantee 
that  the  Negro  will  be  shipped  back  home  when  his  term 
of  employment  ceases.  Since  it  is  cheaper  to  forfeit  this 
small  bond  than  to  return  the  laborers  and  then  import  new 
ones,  the  local  authorities  are  allowed  to  pocket  the  defaulted 
bonds ! 

During  the  current  economic  crisis  fewer  Negro  contract 
laborers  are  being  imported.  However,  Harvey  O'Connor, 
Federated  Press  correspondent,  wrote  from  Cuba,  March  20, 
1930:  "These  companies  intensify  the  chronic  unemployment 
on  the  island  by  importing  Negro  laborers — under  slave 
terms — from  Haiti  and  Santo  Domingo.    These  are  kept  in 


126  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

semi-military  compounds,  guarded  by  troops  and  denied 
every  civil  liberty." 

With  sugar  suffering  from  the  crisis,  President  Machado 
is  helping  to  take  the  drop  in  sugar  prices  out  of  the  living 
conditions  of  the  workers  and  peasants.  One-fifth  of  the 
sugar  supply  of  the  world  is  being  produced  in  Cuba  at  one- 
'fourth  the  cost  of  sugar  produced  elsewhere  while  the 
Cuban  workers  are  in  peonage  and  get  only  food  for  their 
work. 

Paying  workers  only  in  food  or  grocery  checks  was  pro- 
hibited by  the  Arteaga  law  some  years  ago,  but  on  Novem- 
ber I,  1929,  this  law  was  repealed  by  Machado's  personal 
decree.  "Since  then  workers  get  less  than  horses — ^their 
fodder  only  and  no  care."  '^ 

The  Cuban  ruling  class  and  the  foreign  capitalists  have 
provided  laws  devised  to  prevent  the  forced  laborers  in  Cuba 
from  struggling  against  these  conditions.  The  Monthly 
Labor  Review  of  September,  1929,  discusses  Article  268  of 
the  Penal  Code  which  provides  "indirectly  for  the  punish- 
ment of  strikes  on  farms,  declaring  that  'those  who  disturb 
the  public  peace  in  order  to  create  prejudice  against  any 
individual  shall  be  punished.*  The  same  penalty  is  pro- 
vided for  persons  who  cause  trouble  or  who  seriously  at- 
tempt to  disturb  the  order  on  farms  by  unwillingness  to  work, 
by  disobeying,  or  by  resisting  the  persons  in  charge  of  the 
management  or  administration." 

Another  way  in  which  the  government  helps  the  sugar 
planters  to  take  the  fall  in  sugar  prices  out  of  the  "hides" 
of  the  workers  is  shown  in  an  order  to  all  city  police  chiefs 
on  January  21,  1 931,  by  Captain  Frederico  Quintero,  Military 
District  Pinar  del  Rio : 

Sir:  The  sugar  harvest  finding  itself  in  full  activity  and  it 
being  a  notorious  fact  that  much  of  the  available  laboring  force 
is  showing  a  refusal  to  leave  the  city  ...  to  go  to  work  cut- 
ting cane,  which  goes  to  prove  a  lamentable  state  of  va- 
grancy. .  .  .  This  class  of  really  despicable  people  that  hates 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   127 

work  and  order,  you  must  notify  that  they  have  to  go  into  cane 
cutting  or,  if  not,  to  abandon  the  place  where  they  wish  to  live 
without  working.  ...  As  soon  as  you  have  rounded  up  the 
vagrants  and  parasites  of  the  city  you  belong  to,  you  must 
reach  an  agreement  with  the  various  labor  contractors  of  the 
sugar  mills  for  the  supply  to  them  of  the  men  you  are  able  to 

^^^^'  Yours  respectfully. 

Captain  Frederico  Quintero,  M.M., 
Cavalry  Captain,  National  Army, 
Provincial  Supervisor, 
Municipal  Police  Corps. 

In  Black  Haiti 

The  usual  imperialist  practice  of  robbing  land  from  peas- 
ant owners  has  also  operated  in  Haiti,  a  country  long  domi- 
nated by  American  bankers,  coffee,  sugar  and  fruit  barons. 
Despite  Haitian  laws  much  arable  land  has  been  taken  over 
by  these  American  interests.  The  peasants  must  work  under 
forced  labor  conditions  for  Wall  Street  financial  interests — 
notably  the  National  City  Bank— or  starve,  as  there  is  no 
other  way  to  earn  a  living. 

One  of  the  ways  of  getting  the  land  in  Haiti  was  to 
demand  of  the  peasant  proprietors  a  deed  showing  owner- 
ship. Such  deeds  cannot  be  produced  because  of  the  simple 
fact  that  there  are  no  such  deeds  in  existence  and  never 
have  been.  In  1804  the  Haitian  slaves  rebelled,  drove  out 
the  French  slaveholders,  and  confiscated  the  land.  Natu- 
rally, under  such  circumstances,  no  deeds  were  needed.  Writ- 
ing of  this  method  of  robbing  the  land  from  the  natives, 
L.  J.  De  Bekker,  an  authority  on  colonial  matters,  said  : 

No  lessor  can  prove  title  under  such  land  law  as  the  Marine 
Corps  will  understand,  and  when  it  comes  to  a  showdown  in  the 
new  Tribunal  de  Cassation  the  peasant  proprietors  will  find 
that  they  have  given  up  their  birthrights  .  .  .  and  will  be  lucky 
to  find  work  at  25  cents  a  day  on  what  had  been  their  own 
property,  inherited  from  father  to  son  for  more  than  a  century 
previous  to  the  American  occupation  .  .  .  these  peasant  pro- 
prietors, who  will  become  laborers  on  their  former  possessions 
or  find  themselves  in  the  chain-gangs.^ 


128  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

The  chief  form  of  out-and-out  forced  labor  in  Haiti  has 
been  on  road  and  construction  work.  Not  being  able  to 
secure  a  sufficient  supply  of  such  labor  by  other  means  the 
Wall  Street  invaders  under  General  John  H.  Russell  and 
the  U.  S.  Marine  Corps,  revived  an  ancient  and  obsolete 
Haitian  law  known  as  the  corvee,  which  required  that  the 
natives  work  a  certain  number  of  days  for  the  "government" 
building  roads.  While  nominally  this  was  work  for  the 
Haitian  government  it  actually  benefited  the  imperialists 
as  it  gave  them  military,  business  and  pleasure  roads. 

Ernest  H.  Gruening,  a  well-known  writer  on  this  sub- 
ject, describes  the  working  of  the  corvee  as  enforced  by  the 
brutal  U.  S.  Marines: 

Testimony  varies  as  to  the  extent  of  the  abuses  committed 
under  the  corvee,  but  it  seems  to  be  clearly  proved  that  Haitians 
were  (a)  seized  wherever  they  could  be  found;  (b)  transported 
to  other  parts  of  the  island;  (c)  compelled  to  work  under 
guard,  often  for  weeks;  (d)  placed  under  guard  at  night  to 
prevent  their  escape;  (e)  subjected  to  physical  violence  if  they 
resisted;  (f)  shot  if  they  attempted  to  escape.  Navy  Depart- 
ment testimony  admits  that  at  least  a  hundred  were  thus  killed. 
Haitian  figures  are  very  much  higher.^ 

In  Central  America 

In  the  "independent"  republics  of  Central  America,  domi- 
nated by  American  imperialism,  forced  labor  is  used  in  vary- 
ing forms  and  under  various  names.  Peonage,  however,  as 
we  have  indicated,  is  the  most  typical  form.  Indeed,  the 
South  and  Central  American  countries  are  the  traditional 
home  of  peonage.  American  capitalists  who  own  vast  sugar, 
banana,  and  chicle  plantations  in  Central  America  are  the 
foremost  exploiters  of  this  type  of  forced  labor.  They  also 
dominate  the  public  utilities,  wharves,  mines  and  other  indus- 
tries of  the  region. 

The  peons  are  mostly  native  Indians  recruited  with  the  aid 
of  local  authorities  and  political  bosses  for  the  large  native 
and  foreign  landowners.    Many  imported  Negroes  are  also 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   129 

held  in  peonage.  This  is  especially  true  in  Costa  Rica, 
Honduras  and  Panama,  which  are  now  populated  in  certain 
areas  with  Negroes  imported  by  special  labor  contractors 
from  the  West  Indies. 

The  peon  is  doubly  exploited.  Of  the  daily  wages  prom- 
ised him  at  least  two-thirds  and  often  three-fourths  is  de- 
ducted by  the  landlord  and  paid  out  to  the  political  boss  and 
contractor.  If  anything  is  left  after  paying  for  his  sub- 
sistence, the  local  authorities  see  to  it  that  the  peon  if  he  is 
out  of  work  again  is  fined  for  "vagrancy,"  to  the  full  amoimt  of 
his  "savings."  Or  he  may  be  arrested  for  "dnmkenness" 
or  "disorderly  conduct." 

Peonage  in  Guatemala 

Conditions  in  Guatemala,  where  about  50  million  dollars 
of  United  States  capital  are  invested,  are  typical  of  those 
found  in  almost  every  Central  American  country.  In  Guate- 
mala the  system  is  quite  open.  Even  the  1932  World  Al- 
manac admits  that  many  of  the  Indians — who  comprise 
about  60%  of  the  population — ^are  held  "under  a  system  of 
peonage."  The  Monthly  Labor  Review  of  May,  1930, 
quotes  the  International  Labor  Office  as  saying  that  the 
Guatemalan  government  is  engaged  in  the  forcible  recruit- 
ing of  labor  for  private  undertakings. 

The  workers  and  peasants  are  held  in  bondage  to  the  land- 
owners and  other  employers  through  a  system  of  debt.  Dana 
G.  Munro,  Chief  of  the  Division  of  Latin  American  Affairs 
of  the  U.  S.  State  Department,  writing  about  peonage  in 
Guatemala,  admits  the  operation  of  this  system,  describing 
it  as  follows: 

The  jornaleros,  or  day  laborers,  are  held  on  the  plantations 
under  a  peonage  system.  Theoretically  the  Indian  is  perfectly 
free  to  contract  himself  or  not  as  he  pleases,  but  when  he 
has  done  so,  he  may  not  leave  his  employer's  service  until  he  has 
completed  the  time  for  which  he  has  agreed  to  work  and  has 
repaid  any  money  which  the  patron  may  have  lent  him.     If  he 


130  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

attempts  to  escape  he  is  hunted  down  by  the  authorities  and 
returned  to  the  plantation;  and  the  entire  expense  of  capturing 
him  and  bringing  him  back  is  debited  in  his  account.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  refuses  to  work,  he  may  be  imprisoned  until 
he  is  in  a  more  reasonable  frame  of  mind. 

Those  who  still  prove  obstinate,  after  fifteen  days  in  jail,  may 
be  sent  at  the  request  of  the  employer  to  the  convict  labor  squads 
where  fifty  per  cent  of  the  returns  of  their  labor  are  set  aside 
for  the  benefit  of  the  creditors.  For  this  purpose  he  is  allowed 
a  limited  amount  of  credit  at  the  plantation  store  and  is  even 
loaned  small  sums  of  money  from  time  to  time  .  .  .  those  who 
leave  the  plantation  can  only  look  forward  to  similar  employ- 
ment elsewhere,  or  what  is  much  worse,  to  impressment  into  the 
army,  from  which  mozos  (laborers)  working  on  large  coffee, 
sugar-cane,  banana,  or  cacao  plantations  are  legally  exempt. 

.  .  .  The  combined  earnings  of  the  whole  family,  for  the 
women  and  children  are  usually  given  tasks  as  well  as  the  men, 
are  in  fact  hardly  sufficient  to  supply  the  necessities  of  life 
without  an  occasional  extra  loan  from  the  employer.  .  .  .  Indians 
are  often  induced  to  sign  contracts  by  misrepresentation  or  even 
actual  violence.  .  .  . 

Many  of  the  representatives  of  the  government  derive  a  large 
income  from  considerations  paid  them  for  service  of  this  kind 
and  from  tributes  which  they  exact  every  month  or  every  year 
from  the  planters  in  their  districts  as  the  price  of  official  support 
in  disputes  with  their  laborers.^ 

The  symbol  of  bondage  in  Guatemala  is  a  little  book  car- 
ried by  every  Indian  worker,  in  which  the  "wages"  and 
debts  of  the  worker  are  recorded.  For  a  work-day  of  14 
hours  these  workers  usually  receive  from  two  and  a  half 
to  eight  cents.  In  the  cover  of  the  book  is  the  copy  of  a 
contract  in  which  the  peon  agrees  to  work  off  all  debts  and 
fees  before  quitting  employment  and  agrees  not  to  accept 
work  elsewhere.  He  agrees  also  not  to  leave  for  any  reason 
without  permission.  Workers  are  charged  for  nearly  every 
conceivable  item  including  the  fee  to  the  labor  contractor, 
tools,  clothing  and  fines.  Their  land  having  been  stolen 
they  are  forced  to  accept  any  employment  offered  or  starve. 
One  of  these  little  books  recently  examined  shows  that  a 
worker  who  escaped  from  a  plantation  actually  earned  $88.07 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES       131 

from  October,  1920,  to  February,  1930!  With  such  incred- 
ibly low  wages  the  worker  is  forced  deeper  and  deeper  into 
debt  and  servitude.  Even  children  are  sometimes  held  in 
peonage  to  pay  a  dead  parent's  debt.  The  value  of  a  planta- 
tion is  often  estimated  on  the  basis  of  the  number  of  contract 
laborers  on  it. 

In  Guatemala,  as  in  other  Central  American  countries, 
dominated  by  United  States  imperialism,  concessions  to  for- 
eign capitalists  often  stipulate  that  the  government  shall 
supply  the  necessary  labor.  Guillermo  Rodriguez  describes 
the  resulting  forced  labor  in  his  book,  Guatemala: 

And  even  more  abusive  and  habitual  is  the  arrival  of  the 
mounted  and  infantry  escorts  to  capture  the  workers;  by  day 
and  by  night  in  their  homes  or  at  their  work,  without  asking 
permission  of  any  one,  they  hunt  them  down  like  deer,  they 
are  caught,  bound  and  carried  off.^ 

A  document  of  greater  authority,  and  more  conservative 
than  any  we  have  quoted  on  Latin  American  affairs,  is 
Tropical  Agriculture,  official  organ  of  the  Imperial  College 
of  Tropical  Agriculture  in  Trinidad.  Regarding  Guatemala, 
it  says  in  its  issue  of  August,  1924: 

A  sufficient  number  of  laborers  for  routine  work  live  in  set- 
tlements on  the  estates;  but  at  picking  time  larger  numbers  are 
required,  and  the  agents  enlist  them  in  the  villages  of  the  in- 
terior by  means  of  advances.  .  .  .  They  are  nearly  all  kept  in 
debt  for  control  purposes.  If  there  is  any  difficulty  in  recruiting 
labor  for  picking,  the  Guatemalan  officials  force  the  laborers 
under  threat  of  conscription  in  the  army,  or  even  impressment. 

Liberia — A  Rubber  Colony 

In  Liberia,  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa,  we  find  United 
States  imperialism  benefiting  by  a  still  more  terrible  type  of 
forced  labor.  In  this  case  there  is  actual  chattel  slavery — ^the 
buying  and  selling  of  human  beings  as  property.  Liberia 
was  founded  as  a  free  Negro  republic  in  1822  to  serve  as 
a  "haven"  for  Negro  freedmen  from  the  United  States. 
To-day  it  has  a  population  estimated  at  between  two,  and 


132  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

two  and  a  half  million.  Over  15,000  are  "Americo-Liberi- 
ans,"  that  is,  descendants  of  immigrants  from  the  United 
States.     The  remainder  are  native  Liberians. 

In  return  for  a  loan  to  the  Liberian  government  the 
Firestone  Rubber  Co.  secured  a  concession  of  1,000,000 
acres  of  rubber  land  in  1925.  This  deal  was  pushed  through 
with  the  aid  of  Herbert  Hoover,  who  was  then  engaged, 
as  U.  S.  Secretary  of  Commerce,  in  breaking  the  British 
rubber  monopoly.  The  land  given  Firestone  had  formerly 
been  held  by  natives  but  it  was  taken  from  them  without 
asking  their  views  in  the  matter. 

In  carrying  through  its  large-scale  plantations  project  the 
Firestone  company  has  been  confronted  with  two  major 
problems:  (i)  confiscation  of  native  lands,  and  (2)  an  ade- 
quate supply  of  cheap  labor.  The  Liberian  government, 
then  headed  by  President  King,  actively  cooperated  in  solv- 
ing both.  The  land  was  expropriated  and  attempts  of  the 
natives  to  escape  labor  on  the  plantations  were  defeated  by 
terroristic  methods.  Not  only  did  the  government  supply 
Firestone  with  forced  laborers,  but  it  supplied  other  im- 
perialists operating  in  other  parts  of  Africa  with  such  labor. 

The  Liberian  slave  trade  recently  became  such  an  inter- 
national scandal  that  even  the  League  of  Nations  was  forced 
to  make  a  gesture  of  protest.  An  international  commission 
of  three  members  was  appointed  to  look  into  the  matter. 
The  commission  made  its  report  in  1930.  Among  the  seri- 
ous charges  to  be  investigated  were  the  use  of  forced  labor 
on  roads  for  nine  months  in  the  year  and  the  selling  of 
slaves  to  the  near-by  Spanish  colony  of  Fernando  Po.  The 
investigating  commission  reported  that  slavery  as  described 
in  the  1926  anti-slavery  convention  of  the  League  of  Nations 
does  exist  in  Liberia.  "Pawning"  was  found  to  exist. 
Pawning  is  defined  as  "an  old  native  custom  which  is  sub- 
stantially an  arrangement  by  which  for  a  money  return  a 
human  being,  ordinarily  a  child  relative,  is  placed  in  servi- 
tude indefinitely  without  pay  or  privilege."    The  commission 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   133 

found  evidence  that  Americo-Liberians  often  used  female 
pawns  to  attract  male  laborers  to  their  land. 

A  large  percentage  of  the  contract  laborers  shipped  from 
Liberia  to  Spanish  Fernando  Po,  to  work  on  cocoa  planta- 
tions, and  to  French  Gabun  were  found  to  be  recruited 
under  conditions  similar  to  slave  raiding.  Forty-five  dollars 
for  each  "boy"  was  paid  to  Liberian  officials  plus  a  bonus 
of  $5,000  for  each  1,500  shipped,  the  report  declared.  The 
Vice-President  and  other  high  officials  of  the  Liberian  gov- 
ernment, including  county  superintendents  and  district  com- 
missioners, have  sanctioned  the  compulsory  recruiting  of 
laborers  "and  have  condoned  this  use  of  force  ...  to  con- 
voy gangs  of  captured  natives  to  the  coast  and  to  guard 
them  there  up  to  the  time  of  their  shipment."  When  native 
chiefs  could  supply  no  more  "boys"  they  were  heavily  fined 
and  even  flogged. 

It  was  also  found  that  the  government  gave  authorization 
to  the  use  of  forced  laborers  on  private  plantations.  Vice- 
President  Yancy,  President  King  and  several  commissioners 
were  found  to  be  using  such  slaves  on  their  own  estates. 
A  great  variety  of  work  was  found  to  be  performed  by  forced 
labor,  which  was  mainly  used  for  the  construction  of  motor 
roads,  for  building  military  barracks,  civil  compounds,  and 
other  construction.  It  was  used  also  for  porterage  and  on 
private  plantations.  None  of  these  workers  were  paid.  On 
the  contrary.  In  Maryland — a  Liberian  province — some  of 
the  workers  were  compelled  to  pay  large  amounts  to  the 
owners  of  plantations  to  obtain  their  release  from  a  term  of 
unpaid  and  unfed  labor.  The  workers  were  required  to 
feed  themselves  and  furnish  their  own  tools.^° 

The  League  commission,  however,  found  no  "evidence 
that  the  Firestone  Plantations  Co.  consciously  employs  any 
but  voluntary  labor  on  its  leased  rubber  plantations."  But 
the  commission's  work  may  not  have  been  so  "impartial" 
as  it  pretended  to  be.  For  in  the  preface  to  its  findings  it 
profusely  thanked  "Mr.  W*  D.  Hines  and  the  Firestone  Co. 


184  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

for  valuable  transport  and  other  facilities  much  appreciated 
by  the  Commissioners."  In  other  words,  this  commission, 
appointed  to  investigate  Firestone's  use  of  forced  labor, 
went  to  Liberia  and  put  itself  in  the  hands  of  Firestone  and 
was  shown  about  the  country  by  his  agents. 

In  the  concession  given  to  Firestone  by  the  Liberian  gov- 
ernment the  latter  agreed  to  guarantee  an  adequate  supply 
of  "suitable"  labor.  In  discussing  this  point,  R.  L.  Buell 
of  the  Foreign  Policy  Association  says : 

Agreement  Number  Two  provides  that  the  Liberian  govern- 
ment will  "encourage,  support  and  assist  the  efforts  of  the 
Lessee  to  secure  and  maintain  an  adequate  Labor  supply."  .  .  . 
In  the  spring  of  1926  the  government  established  this  Labor 
Bureau  at  the  head  of  which  it  appointed  a  Commissioner,  under 
the  control  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  According  to  this 
Commissioner,  the  Bureau  will  supply  annually  a  total  of  10,000 
men  to  the  Firestone  Plantations — ^two  thousand  men  from  each 
county.  By  June,  1926,  the  Bureau  already  had  supplied  the 
Plantations  with  six  hundred  men.  It  sent  out  requisitions  to 
each  Native  and  District  Commissioner  who  in  turn  divided 
up  contingents  among  the  chiefs.  According  to  the  Commis- 
sioner, the  Firestone  Plantations  paid  the  chiefs  one  cent  a  day 
for  each  boy,  and  the  same  sum  to  the  Government  Bureau. 

Thus,  under  this  system,  which  is  similar  to  that  which  has 
produced  wholesale  compulsory  labor  in  other  parts  of  Africa, 
the  Firestone  Plantations  Company  is  making  it  financially  worth 
while  for  the  government  and  for  the  chiefs  to  keep  the 
plantations  supplied.  ...  As  Liberian  officials  and  chiefs  are 
already  accustomed  to  imposing  compulsion  whether  in  securing 
men  for  road  work  or  for  Fernando  Po,  there  is  no  reason 
to  believe  that  they  will  employ  any  different  methods  in  ob- 
taining labor  for  the  Firestone  Plantations.  .  .  .^^ 

President  King,  who  was  found  to  be  a  slave-dealer  and 
exploiter,  worked  hand  in  hand  with  Firestone  and  their 
pictures  were  frequently  taken  together.  Lester  A.  Walton 
quotes  President  King  as  saying  in  his  1929  message  to  the 
legislature:  "Through  Mr.  W.  D.  Hines,  Mr.  Firestone's 
personal  representative  in  Liberia,  and  a  gentleman  of  most 
charming  personality,  the  most  cordial  relations  have  been 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   13S 

maintained  between  the  government  and  the  company.  .  .  .**  *' 

One  native  worker  who  testified  before  the  commission 
said  he  would  rather  go  to  Fernando  Po,  with  all  its  horrors, 
than  to  Firestone's  "where  payment  is  too  small  because 
they  pay  us  one  shilling  a  day  and  out  of  that  daily  shilling 
you  have  to  get  your  daily  bread.  .  .  ."  Workers  com- 
plained that  "we  got  nothing  when  Firestone  took  our  land. 
This  year  we  will  have  no  rice  because  Firestone  took  our 
land." 

Firestone  hired  the  conscripted  laborers  and  politely  asked 
no  questions.  In  return  the  government  was  often  allowed 
to  collect  the  workers*  wages  and  to  tax  them.  Naturally 
the  company  is  too  clever  to  have  it  appear  on  its  books 
that  the  laborers  are  slaves. 

Aside  from  its  actual  plantation  work,  the  Firestone  com- 
pany used  forced  labor  indirectly.  One  of  the  main  obstacles 
to  the  exploitation  of  the  country  was  the  lack  of  transpor- 
tation facilities.  The  only  means  of  communication  be^ 
tween  the  inland  sections  and  the  seaports  were  mud  paths 
with  no  bridges  over  streams.  Large-scale  American  effi- 
ciency production  of  rubber  was  impossible  under  such  con- 
ditions. So  Firestone  insisted  on  making  a  big  loan  to  the 
government,  stipulating  that  a  large  part  of  the  loan  was 
to  go  to  building  roads  and  similar  public  improvements. 
Forced  labor  was  used  in  constructing  these  roads  and  in 
other  public  works  beneficial  to  the  Firestone  interests. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  and  in  the  face  of  the  com- 
plete domination  of  the  country  by  Firestone,  the  League 
commission  found  that  Firestone  did  not  "consciously  use 
forced  labor."  Actually,  of  course,  Firestone  and  the 
United  States  government  are  as  responsible  for  these  slav- 
ery conditions  as  are  their  puppets — ^the  Liberian  officials. 
When  Secretary  of  State  Stimson  learned  that  the  com- 
mission would  report  findings  of  forced  labor,  he  came  out 
as  a  great  "humanitarian."  He  sent  a  "sharp  note"  to  the 
Liberian  government  condemning  forced  labor,  but  joined 


186  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

in  the  deception  that  Firestone  was  innocent  o£  engaging 
in  the  traffic. 

As  after  all  white-wash  "investigations"  nothing  was  done 
for  the  sufferers.  On  the  contrary,  an  observer  who  was 
in  Liberia  in  1931  found  that  none  of  the  Liberian  officials, 
including  President  King  and  Vice-President  Yancy,  had 
ever  been  arrested  or  brought  to  trial  for  their  proved  par- 
ticipation in  the  slave  traffic.  Yancy  was  still  living  like  a 
feudal  lord  on  his  plantation  near  Cape  Palmos.  This  in- 
vestigator also  found  that  workers  who  testified  before  the 
League  commission  had  been  victimized.  He  reported  a 
prospering  slave  industry  still  in  full  blast.  His  findings 
are  supported  by  a  cable  from  Geneva  to  the  New  York 
Times,  January  23,  1932,  which  reads: 

Liberian  natives  who  testified  before  the  League  of  Nations 
Commission  which  inquired  into  reports  of  slavery  and  economic 
conditions  in  the  Negro  republic  have  been  visited  by  severe 
reprisals,  representatives  of  humanitarian  organizations  reported 
to-day. 

Homes  have  been  burned,  they  said,  and  even  whole  villages 
of  those  who  reported  to  the  League  on  the  labor  situation  in  the 
republic  have  been  destroyed. 

Even  the  Liberian  government  admits  that  44  villages  have 
been  burned  and  81  men,  49  women  and  29  children  killed. 
Many  of  these  were  burned  to  death.  The  net  result  of 
the  League's  investigation,  aside  from  persecuting  the  natives 
and  white-washing  the  Firestone  Co.,  has  been  to  prepare  the 
ground  for  a  stricter  control  of  Liberia  by  Firestone.  The 
latest  move  of  the  League,  on  the  suggestion  of  Stimson,  is 
the  proposal  of  a  plan  to  appoint  a  foreign  "advisor"  with 
absolute  dictatorial  powers  over  the  country  in  the  interest 
of  Firestone. 

Contract  Labor  in  Hawaii 

The  recent  Massie  trial  in  Hawaii  has  served  to  emphasize 
the  stranglehold  of  the  United  States  over  these  islands  in 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   137 

the  Pacific,  so  indispensable  as  a  naval  base  and  as  a  source 
of  profit  to  the  imperialists  from  the  American  mainland. 
American  capitalists  are  the  beneficiaries  of  the  near-feudal 
system  that  cruelly  exploits  the  natives  and  the  labor  im- 
ported into  these  islands. 

Workers  were  imported  to  work  the  plantations  of  Hawaii 
as  early  as  the  i86o's.  During  a  period  of  20  years,  1865  to 
1886,  over  33,000  Chinese  coolie  contract  laborers  were 
brought  in.  One  writer  on  Hawaii  says  that  between 
1877  and  1890  some  55,000  immigrant  laborers  were  im- 
ported. They  came  under  contracts  which  were  to  pay  them 
an  average  of  $4  monthly,  but  that  does  not  mean  they 
received  that  much  in  actual  cash. 

A  writer  in  Asia  shows  that  this  importation  of  contract 
labor  is  going  on  even  during  the  present  economic  crisis. 
Although  workers  in  Hawaii  are  unemployed  the  sugar  com- 
panies are  constantly  in  the  market  for  cheaper  labor  and 
are  importing  from  100  to  300  Filipinos  every  two  weeks.^* 

To  insure  a  constant  supply  of  cheap  labor  about  50  sugar 
companies  united  to  form  the  Sugar  Planters'  Association 
whose  chief  duty  is  to  insure  contract  labor  for  member 
plantations.  Regular  solicitors  travel  from  country  to  coun- 
try, especially  in  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippines,  attempting 
to  entice  workers  to  the  "Pearl  of  the  Pacific."  After  work- 
ers arrive  in  Hawaii  they  are  told  that  their  contracts 
specify  that  they  must  work  three  years,  20  days  a  month 
and  10  hours  a  day.  The  contract  also  forbids  the  worker 
to  leave  the  plantation  to  which  he  is  assigned  until  at  least 
one  year  has  elapsed. 

Overseers  on  the  Hawaiian  sugar  plantations  have  stated 
that: 

If  a  contract  laborer  is  idling  in  the  fields  we  dock  him;  we 
give  him  only  one-half  to  three-fourths  of  a  day,  and  if  he 
keeps  it  up  we  resort  to  the  law  and  have  him  arrested  for 
refusing  to  work.  For  the  first  offense  he  is  ordered  back  to 
work  and  he  has  to  pay  the  costs  of  court.     If  he  refuses  to 


138  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

obey  orders,  he  is  arrested  again  and  a  light  fine  inflicted  whicK 
the  planter  can  pay  and  take  it  out  of  his  pay,  or  else  he  is 
put  on  the  road.  For  the  third  offense  he  is  likely  to  get  three 
months'  imprisonment 

In  1920,  following  a  strike  of  Japanese  workers  on  the 
Hawaiian  plantations,  the  Sugar  Planters*  Association  tried 
to  secure  permission  from  the  United  States  Congress  to 
import  Chinese,  regardless  of  immigration  restrictions.  Fail- 
ing in  this  they  began  to  import  Filipinos.  In  connection 
with  this  attempt  to  import  Chinese  laborers  even  the  con- 
servative Washington  Times  was  forced  to  say: 

The  House  Committee  on  Immigration  has  reported  a  most 
extraordinary  resolution  in  favor  of  permitting  the  planters  of 
Hawaii  to  import  50,000  Chinese  coolies  to  work  as  bonded 
slaves  on  the  sugar  plantations  for  five  years,  and  then,  if  de- 
sirable, to  be  deported  in  favor  of  another  batch.^* 

This  has  always  been  the  policy  of  the  rich  sugar  planters. 
They  import  illiterate  laborers  and  when  the  latter  discover 
after  their  arrival  in  Hawaii  that  they  are  held  in  peonage, 
they  go  on  strike.  The  planters  then  proceed  to  import  new 
workers  whom  they  attempt  to  use  as  strike-breakers.  Fol- 
lowing the  strike  of  Japanese  workers  in  1920 — between 
1922  and  1929—66,184  Filipinos  were  imported.^'' 

In  the  words  of  a  Filipino  labor  leader,  the  life  of  the 
"plantation  workers  in  the  Hawaiian  islands  is  a  series  of 
long  days  of  strenuous  toil,  under  the  blazing  heat  of  the 
equatorial  sun,  at  a  salary  that  is  often  too  low  for  the 
most  vital  material  necessities."  Even  during  the  pre-crisis 
days  of  1929,  male  workers,  who  were  in  the  overwhelming 
majority,  earned  on  the  average  $11.04  a  week  while  the 
women  averaged  only  $7.80,  according  to  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics.  No  extra  rate  was  paid  for 
overtime. 

But  to  understand  what  such  figures  mean  it  is  necessary 
to  know  that  Hawaii  imports  a  large  proportion  of  its  total 
food  supply  since  most  of  its  farm  land  is  planted  with 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   139 

money  crops  and  very  little  foodstuff  is  raised.  The  distance 
between  Hawaii  and  the  mainland  of  the  United  States  is 
so  great  that  the  cost  of  importing  food  and  other  necessi- 
ties adds  greatly  to  the  price  of  these  commodities.  Thus 
low  wages  must  meet  very  high  prices.  The  result  is  that 
the  workers  are  forced  to  live  largely  on  rice. 

Peonage  in  the  Philippines 

American  capitalists  have  invested  over  $400,000,000  in 
the  Philippine  Islands,  the  most  important  possession  of  the 
United  States  in  the  Orient.  In  this  country,  as  in  all  other 
colonies,  a  wide  expropriation  of  the  peasants*  land  has  taken 
place,  although  probably  90%  of  the  masses  are  dependent 
upon  agriculture  for  a  livelihood.  Over  325  plantations 
ranging  from  1,500  to  25,000  acres  each  are  operated  in  the 
Philippines.  Around  2,000,000  tenants  and  farm  laborers 
are  employed  on  them.  The  process  of  extending  the  large 
landholdings  is  still  going  on  and  it  is  only  logical  to  expect 
that  eventually  the  situation  will  be  like  that  in  Cuba  where 
American  sugar  corporations  have  swallowed  up  all  the 
best  sugar  lands. 

A  leading  United  States  business  journal,  in  describing 
the  life  on  the  big  rice  plantations,  cynically  remarked:  "It 
is  feudal  farming ;  the  manager  is  the  manor  laird,  and  these 
his  tenants  his  fief  lieges."^®  The  rich  landlords  usually 
contrive  to  involve  their  tenants  and  farm  laborers  in  debt. 
They  cannot  leave  their  employment  until  the  debt  is  paid. 
Interest  rates  range  from  10  to  20%  a  month. 

In  describing  the  peonage  which  is  the  most  important  type 
of  forced  labor  in  the  Philippines,  Dean  C.  Worcester,  a 
leading  authority,  said : 

The  rich  and  powerful  man,  commonly  known  as  the  cacique, 
encourages  the  poor  man  to  borrow  money  from  him  under 
such  conditions  that  the  debt  can  never  be  repaid,  and  holds 
the  debtor  and  frequently  the  members  of  his  family  as  well  in 
debt  servitude  for  life.    One  might  fill  a  score  of  volumes  with 


140  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

records  of  such  cases.  .  .  .  Peonage  is  so  common  and  wide- 
spread that  it  may  be  called  general.  ...  It  lies  at  the  very 
root  of  the  industrial  system  of  the  Philippines.* 

Writing  in   1928,  Dr.  Robert  W.  Hart,  of  the  United 
States  Public  Health  Service,  stationed  in  the  Philippines 
for  many  years,   declared  in   The  Philippines   Today    (p. 
154  ff)  : 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  borne  out  by  my  own  investigations  and 
those  of  others,  a  comparatively  small  proportion  of  laborers  in 
■the  rural  districts  receive  any  compensation  whatsoever  other 
I    than  the  right  to  a  mere  existence.  .  .  . 

Usury,  regardless  of  all  laws  to  the  contrary,  is  universal 
in  the  islands  and,  of  course,  the  more  ignorant  the  poor  Tao, 
caught  in  the  clutches  of  the  landholder,  the  more  difficult  it 
is  for  him  to  get  free.  ...  As  he  is  ignorant,  not  only  of  finan- 
cial matters,  but  of  his  legal  rights  as  well,  this  note  [money 
borrowed  from  a  landlord]  is  held  over  his  head  week  after 
week,  month  after  month,  and  year  after  year,  always  drawing 
an  excessive  rate  of  interest,  and  on  numerous  occasions  the 
>  interest  on  the  loan  amounts  to  ten  or  more  times  the  original 
principal.  In  lieu  of  actually  paying  such  a  debt  in  cash,  it  is  no 
infrequent  occurrence  for  the  laborer  to  "bind  out"  either  himself 
or  the  members  of  his  family  for  an  indefinite  period,  to  cover  it. 
;  As  a  result,  while  slavery  and  peonage  do  not  legally  exist  in  the 
islands,  the  end  result  is  actually  the  same. 

Necessarily,  no  figures  are  available  on  the  subject  [peonage], 

nor  is  there  any  way  of  obtaining  exact  information  regarding 

it.     The  landlord,  of  course,  makes  no  mention  of  it,  and  the 

poor  illiterate,  ignorant  Tao,  as  well  as  his  family,  are  held  in 

such  abject  terror  .  .  .  that  even  should  the  investigator  be  able  to 

speak  their  language  and  become  well  acquainted,  the  condition 

is  never  admitted,  through  fear  of  the  consequences.  .  .  . 

J      It  is  estimated  that  no  less  than  20%  of  the  total  laboring 

/  population  of  the  islands  are  held  in  practical  slavery.    It  is  true 

j  that  the  laborers  have  freedom  to  come  and  go,  to  associate  with 

whom  they  please,  to  marry,  to  raise  children  and  to  live,  yet  they 

are  essentially  slaves,  toiling  from  early  morning  until  late  at 

night  at  the  will  of  their  masters  to  whom  they  are  in  debt. 

*Dean  C.  Worcester,  Philippines,  Past  and  Present,  pp.  534-535- 
In  1914,  says  Worcester,  three  members  of  the  Filipino  legislature 
were  found  to  be  holding  workers  in  peonage.  Both  houses  of  the 
legislature  are  made  up  of  the  cacique  class. 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   141 

A  special  Mission  on  Investigation  to  the  Philippine 
Islands,  reported  October  8,  1921,  that: 

A  frequent  cause  of  complaint  is  against  extreme  action  taken 
under  the  provisions  of  Act  2098,  which  enables  employers  of 
labor  to  prosecute  their  laborers  for  a  breach  of  contract,  and 
in  many  cases  to  hold  them  against  their  will,  resulting  in  a 
kind  of  legalized  peonage.  .  .  .  Under  the  provisions  of  this 
act,  should  they  leave  before  completion  of  contract  they  can 
be  arrested  and  tried  for  violation  of  contract  and  for  obtaining 
money  or  supplies  under  false  pretenses.  During  the  fiscal  year 
1918  there  was  a  total  of  3,266  cases  of  this  nature. 

Struggles  Against  Forced  Labor  in  the  Colonies 

None  of  the  colonial  revolts  against  United  States  im- 
perialism have  been  more  significant  than  those  in  the  Philip- 
pines. After  fighting  a  desperate  guerilla  warfare  for  15 
years  the  Moros  (Mohammedan  peasants)  were  practically 
annihilated  by  the  United  States  and  native  troops  trained 
by  American  officers.  In  the  battles  of  Bud  Daho  and 
Bagstad,  waged  in  1906  and  1913  respectively,  the  women 
fought  alongside  the  men.  It  has  been  estimated  that  on 
the  Island  of  Luzon  alone  hundreds  of  thousands  of  women 
and  children  have  been  slaughtered  by  American  soldiers  or 
died  as  the  result  of  the  Wall  Street  wars  of  conquest.^^ 

There  have  been  many  rebellions  recently  against  the  same 
oppression  in  the  Philippines.  There  was  an  uprising  of  the 
Tayug  peasants  in  January,  1931.  Hundreds  of  men  and 
women  armed  only  with  clubs  and  cane  knives  marched  into 
the  town  of  Tayug,  Pagasinian  province.  They  set  out  for 
their  direct  exploiters,  those  who  collected  the  taxes.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  workers  had  no  guns  they  were 
fired  upon.  One  was  killed,  whereupon  the  angry  peasants 
and  laborers  killed  a  lieutenant  and  several  soldiers  who 
were  responsible.    A  pitched  battle  ensued  lasting  two  days. 

A  sympathetic  soldier  helped  the  rebels  break  into  the 
storeroom  where  arms  and  ammunition  were  kept.  After 
they  were  thus  armed,  they  took  over  the  city  of  15,000 


142  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

inhabitants  and  held  it  for  several  days.  All  deeds  and 
records  of  mortgages  were  burned.  The  movement  was  en- 
tirely spontaneous.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  Tayug 
uprising  was  the  decision  of  the  Philippine  Supreme  Court 
which  legalized  the  seizure  of  land  belonging  to  i,ooo  peasants 
by  the  foreign-owned  Esperanza  estate  which  already  con- 
tained 100,000  acres. 

The  revolt  was  finally  crushed.  Four  men  and  two  women 
were  killed.  Caesare  Abe  and  Pedro  Kalosa,  leaders,  were 
given  life  imprisonment.  Of  the  others,  37  were  condemned 
to  17  years'  imprisonment,  and  two  to  14  years,  among  theni 
two  less  than  15  years  of  age.  Two  judges,  an  American 
and  a  Filipino — symbolic  of  the  unity  between  Wall  Street 
and  the  Filipino  ruling  class — handed  down  the  sentences. 

To  hide  the  real  cause  of  this  uprising  it  was  called  "a 
revolt  of  religious  fanatics."  The  capitalist  press  said  it  was 
a  revolt  of  "Colorums,"  suggesting  a  mystical  religious  sect. 
While  the  revolt  was  being  crushed,  the  peasants  were  called 
"bandits."  This  is  the  stock  label  now  used  by  the  im- 
perialists to  designate  all  those  who  oppose  their  rule  and 
who  are,  therefore,  marked  for  persecution  and  slaughter. 

On  January  13,  1931,  the  New  York  Times  reported  threat- 
ened uprisings  in  the  towns  of  Santa  Maria,  Umingan  and 
Rosales,  while  the  public  peace  in  Nueva  Ecija  Province 
was  regarded  as  "none  too  secure."  August  13,  1931,  the 
Times  reported  another  uprising  of  peasants  in  the  same 
section.  "Reports  from  Nueva  Ecja,  which  is  the  center 
of  the  disturbance,  say  that  the  uprising  is  .  .  .  aimed  .  .  . 
against  rich  Filipinos,  who  are  charged  with  oppressing  the 
poor.  Many  of  the  wealthy  landlords  have  rushed  to  Manila. 
.  .  .  Land  and  credit  abuses  are  believed  responsible  for  dis- 
content in  Central  Luzon.  .  .  ." 

On  March  15,  1932,  the  same  paper  reported  that  125 
Tangulan  peasants  were  sentenced  to  imprisonment  of  from 
one  to  six  years,  in  addition  to  being  assessed  fines  ranging 


FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  COLONIES   143 

from  $ioo  to  $i,ooo  each.  They  were  charged  with  "con- 
spiracy to  commit  rebellion." 

But  the  Philippines  is  not  the  only  colony,  protectorate  or 
"sphere  of  influence"  of  Wall  Street  where  revolts  have 
broken  out  against  forms  of  forced  labor. 

We  can  make  here  only  brief  reference  to  a  few  of  these 
struggles.  Many  strikes  have  been  fought  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  especially  by  the  imported  Japanese  workers  in  1920 
and  by  the  Filipinos  in  1924.  During  the  latter  strike  at 
least  15  Filipino  workers  were  murdered  by  police;  many 
were  railroaded  to  prison  at  hard  labor.  The  sugar  com- 
panies had  special  police  in  their  pay. 

There  have  been  revolts  also  in  Haiti,  arising  largely  over 
the  corvee  law.  Even  the  officials  of  the  United  States 
Marine  Corps  are  forced  to  admit  that  3,250  Haitian  peas- 
ants were  killed  either  by  the  marines  or  by  the  marine- 
trained  native  troops  in  "pacifying"  the  country.  General 
Barnett,  commander  of  the  Marine  Corps,  admitted  that 
"practically  indiscriminate  killing  of  natives  had  been  going 
on  for  some  time."  " 

There  have  been  also  many  fights  against  forced  labor  and 
imperialism  in  Cuba,  carried  on  especially  by  the  agricultural 
workers  on  the  sugar  plantations.  Big  strikes  were  waged 
in  1906,  1920,  1925,  1926,  and  in  more  recent  years.  During 
the  1925  and  1926  strikes  hundreds  of  workers  and  peasants 
were  slaughtered.  Only  a  few  years  ago  60  Canary  Island 
farm  laborers  were  hung  in  Cuba  at  one  time  after  the  dis- 
appearance of  a  Camaguey  army  colonel  and  plantation  owner 
who  never  paid  his  workers.^^ 

In  the  past  25  years  thousands  of  poor  farmers  and  work- 
ers in  Cuba  have  been  murdered  and  more  than  5,000 
arrested  chiefly  on  the  orders  of  the  big  American  corpora- 
tions and  their  local  agents. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this  repression  the  Cuban  workers  and 
peasants  are  now  moving  in  a  new  revolutionary  wave,  and 
they  are  showing  that  they  have  learned  from  the  past.    The 


144!  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

bloody  battles  in  Havana  streets  on  December  14,  1929;  the 
political  strike  of  January  10,  1930;  the  general  strike  of 
some  200,000  persons,  March  30,  1930,  against  unemployment 
and  against  the  persecution  of  the  unions;  the  demonstra- 
tions on  May  i ;  the  strike  of  over  15,000  tobacco  workers 
which  was  betrayed  by  the  reformist  leaders ;  the  strikes  of 
the  street  car  men  and  sugar  workers — most  of  them  led  by 
the  National  Workers*  Federation  of  Cuba  and  the  Com- 
munist Party — ^these  mark  a  long  and  persistent  struggle 
against  imperialist  exploitation  with  its  attendant  forced  labor. 

In  many  countries  of  Central  and  South  America  there 
have  been  recent  uprisings  against  forced  labor  and  op- 
pression. 

In  Guatemala,  for  example,  spontaneous  revolts  of  the 
Indian  peons  take  the  form  of  mass  burning  of  their  slave 
books  in  which  their  perpetual  debts  are  recorded.  These 
books,  which  are  the  symbol  of  forced  labor,  are  bitterly 
hated  by  the  workers  who  express  their  rebellion  frequently 
by  burning  them. 

The  extent  of  forced  labor  in  Colombia  was  disclosed  by 
the  great  strike  of  the  banana  workers  of  the  United  Fruit 
Co.,  in  the  district  of  Santa  Marta  in  1928,  when  over  1,500 
men,  women  and  children  were  murdered  by  troops.  These 
Colombian  laborers  had  been  held  virtually  prisoners  on  the 
banana  plantations  and  were  not  allowed  to  leave  even  for  a 
short  time.  Workers  were  given  only  60%  of  their  wages, 
the  rest  were  held  at  the  local  offices  of  this  American  com- 
pany as  a  guarantee  that  the  workers  would  not  escape.  The 
workers  were  often  flogged  when  they  tried  to  escape  or  did 
not  do  enough  work.  They  live  in  company  houses;  buy 
food  from  company  stores ;  are  paid  in  scrip,  and  work  from 
sun  to  sun.  While  the  troops  were  suppressing  the  strike, 
two  United  States  warships  were  anchored  off  Colombia 
ready  to  give  aid  when  needed.  The  whole  brutal  sup- 
pression occurred  at  the  orders  of  the  United  Fruit  Co., 
backed  by  Washington. 


CHAPTER  IX 

"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  THE  SOVIET  UNION 

Year  after  year  the  capitalist  world  has  watched  the 
workers  of  the  Soviet  Union  speeding  industrialization  under 
the  stimulus  of  the  first  Five- Year  Plan.  As  the  country  of 
socialism  gained  in  power  and  in  the  sympathy  of  the  world 
proletariat,  the  economic  crisis  was  developing  disastrously 
in  the  rest  of  the  world — at  least  40  million  workers  imem'- 
ployed,  every  country  facing  financial  bankruptcy  and  an 
acute  sharpening  of  the  class  struggle.  The  capitalists  saw 
ruin  for  their  social  system  unless  something  was  done  and 
that  soon.    But  what  could  be  done  ?   And  they  asked : 

Cannot  we  settle  this  or  that  contradiction  of  capitalism,  or 
all  the  contradictions  taken  together,  at  the  expense  of  the 
U.S.S.R.,  the  land  of  the  Soviets,  the  citadel  of  the  revolution, 
revolutionizing  by  its  very  existence  the  working  class  and  the 
colonies,  preventing  us  arranging  for  a  new  war,  preventing 
us  dividing  the  world  anew,  preventing  us  being  masters  of  our 
own  extensive  internal  market,  so  necessary  for  capitalists,  par- 
ticularly to-day,  in  connection  with  the  economic  crisis?^ 

The  capitalists  have  answered  this  question  in  the  affirma- 
tive. Yes,  it  would  help  stabilize  capitalism  if  the  Soviet 
Union  were  destroyed.  It  would  be  a  crushing  blow  to  the 
working  class  internationally,  the  capitalists  reason.  Hence 
we  find  the  tendency  to  sporadic  armed  assaults  on  the 
U.S.S.R.  which  the  capitalists  hope  will  lead  to  armed  inter- 
vention, a  tendency  which  becomes  stronger  daily  as  the  eco- 
nomic crisis  deepens. 

The  capitalist  world  has  thus  felt  an  urgent  need  to  create 
a  sentiment  for  war  against  the  Soviet  Union  and  to  try 
to  prevent  the  successful  completion  of  the  Five-Year  Plans. 
To  this  end  it  has  tried  many  devices.     But  so  far  every 

145 


146  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

weapon  used  against  the  Soviet  Union  has  proved  a  boomer- 
ang. One  of  the  first  charges  was  that  in  the  Soviet  Union 
"women  were  being  nationalized."  That  lie  blew  up  quickly. 
Then  the  cry  of  "Russian  oil"  was  raised.  But  the  Soviet 
workers  answered  the  challenge  by  completing  the  Five-Year 
Plan  in  oil  production  in  only  two  and  a  half  years.  Next 
the  British  Tories  unearthed  the  fake  "Zinoviev  letter"  which 
resulted  in  temporary  severance  of  trade  relations  between 
England  and  the  Soviet  Union. 

Then  in  the  United  States  the  lurid  **Whalen  Documents" 
were  put  out  by  New  York's  fashion-plate  Police  Commis- 
sioner, Grover  A.  Whalen.  They  were  intended  to  link  the 
Amtorg  Trading  Corporation  (Soviet  trade  agency  in  the 
United  States)  with  "revolutionary  propaganda."  But  an 
alert  newspaperman  discovered  that  these  "documents,"  al- 
leged to  have  been  printed  in  the  Soviet  Union,  were  actually 
forged  by  monarchist  Russians  in  a  small  print  shop  on  the 
East  Side  of  New  York  City.^  Finally,  big  business  inter- 
nationally was  able  to  overcome  partisan  religious  lines  and 
Catholics,  led  by  the  Pope,  Jews  and  Protestants  went  into 
a  huddle.  Out  of  this  conspiracy  of  church  and  business 
came  the  accusation  that  the  workers  of  the  Soviet  Union 
were  "spitting  on  God."  This  attack,  based  on  the  contention 
that  "believers"  were  persecuted  in  the  Soviet  Union,  started 
off  with  a  bang.    It  soon  collapsed  of  its  own  weight. 

The  latest  charge — with  which  this  chapter  is  concerned — 
19  that  of  "dumping."  But  on  second  thought  the  capitalists 
saw  that  this  charge  by  itself  could  not  hold  water.  After 
all,  they  were  forced  to  admit  to  themselves,  dumping  is  a 
regular  capitalist  practice.  So  the  charge  of  dimiping  was 
changed  to  "dumping  of  goods  produced  by  convicts  and  other 
forced  labor." 

Who  Charges  Soviet  Forced  Labor? 

So  for  the  past  two  years  or  more  a  scurrilous  campaign 
has  been  conducted  by  the  capitalist  world  against  "forced 


"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  SOVIET  UNION     14j7 

labor"  in  the  Soviet  Union.  This  has  been  an  international 
campaign.  The  House  of  Lords  in  England;  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States;  the  French  Parliament;  journalists, 
socialists  and  bankers,  archbishops  and  rabbis,  patrioteers  and 
captains  of  industry  all  reechoed  this  charge.  The  same 
capitalists  who  lead  this  attack  have  a  most  unsavory  record, 
as  we  have  shown,  since  forced  labor  is  a  phenomenon  of 
capitalism  just  as  it  was  of  feudalism  and  other  social  sys- 
tems. The  capitalists  were  silent  when  the  Tsar  held  the 
great  mass  of  the  Russian  people  in  serfdom.  They  secured 
Allied  intervention  in  Russia  and  helped  finance  white  guards 
in  their  attempt  to  overthrow  the  Soviets.  Among  the  many 
socialist  "friends  of  the  workers"  who  joined  in  the  cam- 
paign were  Karl  Kautsky,  whom  Lenin  called  the  renegade, 
and  Rafael  Abramovitch,  the  Russian  Menshevik.  In  fact 
the  whole  Second  (Socialist)  International  participated  in 
this  new  attack  upon  the  Soviet  Republic. 

The  attack  has  been  especially  venomous  in  the  United 
States.  In  this  country  the  "Fish  Committee"  (Special  Com- 
mittee to  Investigate  Communist  Activities  and  Propaganda 
in  the  United  States),  the  National  Lumber  Manufacturers' 
Association,  the  American  Manganese  Producers'  Associa- 
tion, anthracite  coal  producers,  the  top  leadership  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  the  National  Civic  Federation 
— ^the  latter  two  outfits  being  represented  prominently  by 
Matthew  Woll — ^the  American  Legion  and  the  Daughters  of 
the  American  Revolution  have  been  most  active. 

For  a  time  it  looked  as  if  the  campaign  would  be  successful 
in  wiping  out  Soviet-American  trade — and  it  was  successful 
to  a  large  degree.  Largely  through  this  campaign  a  provision 
was  put  into  the  Smoot-Hawley  tariff  act  of  1930  forbidding 
importation  of  goods  produced  by  convicts  or  by  any  other 
form  of  forced  labor.  Ostensibly  a  general  measure  applying 
to  any  country,  the  real  purpose  of  the  bill  was  to  destroy 
the  market  for  Soviet  goods.  This  is  evidenced  partly  by  the 
many  efforts  to  get  a  law  passed  specifically  banning  all 


148  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Soviet  products  without  even  the  pretext  of  "forced  labor." 
It  was  thought  that  since  this  country  had  no  diplomatic  rela- 
tions with  the  U.S.S.R.  no  evidence  would  be  produced  ex- 
posing the  charges  of  forced  labor. 

Under  this  statutory  provision  the  Treasury  Department, 
which  has  jurisdiction  over  its  enforcement,  temporarily  held 
up  several  cargoes  of  Soviet  pulp-wood  imports  on  the  pre- 
text that  the  wood  was  suspected  of  having  been  produced 
by  convict  labor. 

Subsequently,  the  Treasury  Department  held  hearings  on 
the  matter  and  was  forced  to  admit  that  the  evidence  sub- 
mitted to  support  the  charges  of  convict  labor  was  "conflicting 
and  inconclusive,"  and  it,  therefore,  had  to  lift  the  embargo. 
This  was  the  first  time  the  false  charges  were  ever  reviewed 
by  an  official  body.  However,  the  threat  of  the  law  is  ever 
present  as  each  cargo  is  passed  upon  separately  and  there 
is  no  telling  just  when  the  Treasury  Department  will  cause 
expense  and  delay  by  stopping  another  shipment. 

Some  of  the  Charges 

Timber  experts  who  analyzed  the  specific  charges  of  the 
manufacturers  of  "forced  labor"  myths  in  connection  with 
Soviet  timber  found  them  to  be  false  on  their  face.  For 
instance,  it  was  found  that  two  alleged  timber  centers,  where 
convicts  were  supposed  to  be  employed  in  cutting  wood  for 
export,  did  not  exist  at  all ! 

One  absurd  charge  was  that  prisoners  were  forced  to 
work  1 6  to  1 8  hours  a  day  and  to  begin  work  in  the  forest 
so  early  that  matches  had  to  be  used  in  searching  for  the 
trees  to  be  cut!  Actually,  as  experts  pointed  out,  in  the 
northern  districts  during  the  felling  season  the  maximum 
daylight  lasts  six  hours  and  therefore  if  this  were  true  the 
prisoners  would  have  to  fell  trees  from  lo  to  12  hours  in 
darkness.  Any  logger  knows  this  would  be  practically  im- 
possible and  altogether  impractical.  The  trees  must  be  so 
cut  that  they  will   fall  where  they  can  be  trimmed  and 


"FORCED  LABOR'^  IN  SOVIET  UNION     149 

handled  easily.  In  order  to  throw  the  tree  in  the  desired 
spot  it  is  necessary  to  have  adequate  light  to  judge  the  way 
it  leans  and  the  position  of  other  trees.  If  the  tree  falls  in 
the  wrong  direction  and  hits  other  trees,  much  timber  is 
needlessly  ruined. 

Another  statement  was  that  each  prisoner  must  fell  a 
total  of  44  trees  a  day.  If  this  were  true  it  would  take 
only  10,000  men,  working  90  days,  to  produce  all  the  timber 
that  is  exported  annually  from  the  Soviet  Union!  But  look 
at  the  next  charge.  According  to  one  statement.  May  i, 
1930,  there  were  662,000  prisoners  producing  timber  in  con- 
centration camps.  At  the  work  rate  given  above  these  would 
produce  more  than  100  times  the  total  sawed  timber  exported. 
Another  "affidavit"  gave  a  still  more  impossible  figure  of 
55  to  60  trees  a  day.  These  trees,  according  to  the  same 
charge,  must  be  cut  at  soil  level — ^this  in  winter  and  with  sev- 
eral feet  of  snow !  Another  wild  rumor  had  it  that  5,000,000 
kulaks  had  been  sent  to  timber  cutting  in  the  north  country. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  193 1,  there  were  only  1,134,000 
workers  in  the  entire  lumber  industry. 

At  another  time  an  accusation  was  made  that  60,000  pris- 
oners were  toiling  in  two  timber  cutting  camps.  But  timber 
experts  point  out  that  lumber  camps  of  30,000  or  even  3,000 
men  cannot  exist.  Operations  on  so  vast  a  scale  would  be 
impossible,  for  all  the  timber  for  miles  around  would  soon 
be  used  up.  Another  "affidavit"  alleged  that  500  convicts 
were  being  used  to  load  each  small  vessel.  Those  acquainted 
with  timber  shipping  know  that  this  too  must  be  untrue. 
No  more  than  60  to  70  men  can  be  engaged  in  loading  one 
such  ship.  There  were  many  other  similar  inconsistencies 
in  this  organized  campaign  of  "revelation,"  exaggeration  and 
lying. 

The  Answer  to  the  Charges 

Dozens  of  statements  were  made  by  European  and  Ameri- 
can authorities,  all  of  them  voluntary,  refuting  the  charge 


150  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

of  the  use  of  convict  and  other  forced  labor  in  timber  cut- 
ting. These  statements  are  from  capitalist  and  liberal  as 
well  as  working  class  sources. 

In  a  letter  dated  January  29,  193 1,  Danishevsky,  chairman 
of  Exportles  (the  organization  in  charge  of  all  Soviet  timber 
exports),  said: 

...  I  am  in  possession  of  the  most  complete  and  up-to-date 
information;  and  I  am  in  a  position  to  state  that  not  a  single 
standard  of  timber  exported  from  the  Soviet  Union  is  produced 
otherwise  than  on  conditions  established  by  collective  agreements 
between  the  trade  unions  representing  the  workers  and  the  State 
timber-producing  trusts.  Neither  in  the  felling  and  preparing 
of  timber  for  export  nor  in  the  loading  of  it  into  ships  is  labor 
allowed  on  any  other  conditions  than  those  based  on  voluntary  con- 
tracts and  collective  agreements.  The  collective  agreements  which 
were  in  force  last  year  assured  the  workers  of  a  wage  double 
that  of  pre-war  days.  ...  It  is  ridiculous  to  represent  the  en- 
rolment of  these  workers  as  anything  approaching  compulsory 
recruiting,  whereby  workers  from  far-distant  localities  are  forc- 
ibly driven  to  the  extreme  north.  The  influx  of  workers  to 
the  timber  regions  is  a  permanent  phenomenon,  which  was  as 
common  in  pre-war  Russia  as  it  is  to-day,  and  is  an  important 
source  of  income  to  the  peasantry  of  vast  regions  in  the  coun- 
try. The  only  difference  in  this  respect  is  that  the  wages  and 
conditions  of  labor  are  now  incomparably  better  than  they  were 
then.  .  .  .8 

Lumberjacks  from  Finland,  Canada  and  various  other 
countries,  now  working  in  the  Soviet  Union,  have  added  their 
protest  to  that  of  workers  everywhere  at  the  attack  on  the 
Five- Year  Plan.  Even  several  influential  British  labor  lead- 
ers, some  of  them  members  of  Parliament  in  1931,  have 
admitted  that  the  charges  of  forced  labor  in  the  Soviet  Union 
were  false  and  aimed  at  the  defeat  of  the  Five- Year  Plan. 
Among  them  were  J.  Bromley,  M.P.,  secretary  of  the  Asso- 
ciated Societies  of  Locomotive  Engineers  and  Firemen;  Al- 
fred M.  Wall,  secretary  of  the  London  Trades  Council; 
A.  A.  Purcell  of  the  Manchester  and  Salf ord  Trades  Council ; 
George  Hicks,  secretary  of  the  Amalgamated  Union  of 
Building  Trades  Workers  and  A.  W.  Haycock,  M.P.* 


"FORCED  LABOR'*  IN  SOVIET  UNION     161 

But  aside  from  these  labor  sources,  of  which  only  a  few 
have  been  quoted,  there  are  many  others.  A  group  of  British 
investigators,  headed  by  E.  P.  Tetsall,  chairman  of  Messrs. 
William  Brown  of  Ipswich,  and  made  up  of  prominent  Eng- 
lish business  men,  including  W.  O.  Woodward,  and  William 
Thompson,  visited  Leningrad,  Kem,  Soroka,  Onega,  Keret 
and  Archangel  in  1931.  They  reported  that  they  were  unable 
to  find  the  slightest  signs  of  forced  labor.  On  the  contrary, 
"The  workmen  are  in  excellent  condition,  look  cheerful  and 
contented,"  they  reported. 

"Our  independent  inquiries  and  observations  convince  us 
that  the  labor  conditions  are  excellent  and  that  the  rates  of 
remuneration  agreed  with  the  unions  are  satisfactory  to  the 
workmen.  We  saw  Red  Cross  huts,  rest  rooms  and  large 
dining  rooms,  also  many  more  buildings  in  the  course  of 
erection.  The  most  careful  inquiries  fail  to  disclose  anything 
in  the  nature  of  forced  labor  now  or  at  any  time,"  reads 
their  report.  After  a  tour  of  the  Archangel  lumber  centers, 
the  delegation  reported  that  "there  is  not  a  scrap  of  evidence 
that  forced  labor  ever  existed."  It  further  stated  that  the 
people  were  found  well  nourished,  clean  and  happy.  Work- 
ers loading  ships  are  paid  at  a  double  rate  for  overtime. 
The  committee  particularly  noticed  the  care  given  children 
and  their  happy  appearance  and  the  cleanliness  of  nurseries 
and  schools.  Workers*  clubs  and  the  cheerful  and  eager 
demeanor  of  the  young  people  also  impressed  them  forcibly.^ 

Americans  Also  Deny  Forced  Labor  Charges 

Many  American  authorities  who  visited  the  Soviet  Union 
have  reported  that  there  is  no  forced  labor  in  the  timber 
industry.  Representative  Henry  T.  Rainey  of  Illinois,  ma- 
jority leader  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  who  visited  the 
Soviet  Union  in  1931,  declared  in  an  interview: 

I  particularly  investigated  the  question  of  forced  labor  in 
Russia  and  there  isn't  any  there.  Labor  is  freer  in  Russia 
than  in  any  country  in  the  world.    There  is  one  disadvantage 


152  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

under  which  Russia  now  operates — ^that  the  workers  have  more 
money  than  ever  before,  and  they  are  spending  it  liberally  in 
travelling,  literally  by  tens  of  thousands  of  people,  from  one 
job  to  another.  They  are  sure  of  their  employment  wherever 
they  stop,  and  they  can  go  back  to  their  original  employment 
any  time.^ 

H.  R.  Knickerbocker,  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  in  a  speech  over  the  Columbia  Broadcasting 
system,  June  21,  1931,  said: 

I  worked  as  correspondent  in  Moscow  for  two  years  and  last 
year  I  travelled  about  10,000  miles  through  the  Soviet  Union  to 
make  a  report  on  the  Five- Year  Plan  for  the  New  York  Evening 
Post  and  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger.  If  the  Russian  people 
are  in  chains,  they  have  put  them  on  since  I  was  there. 

Walter  Duranty,  who  has  lived  in  Russia  for  10  years  as 
the  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Times,  writing  about 
labor  discipline  and  the  tendency  of  workers  to  criticize  or- 
ders given  by  technical  superiors  instead  of  carrying  them  out, 
said:  "This  contrasts  somewhat  curiously  with  talk  abroad 
about  'forced  labor*  in  Soviet  factories  and  anthracite  fields. 
...  In  your  correspondent's  opinion  ...  as  an  American 
expressed  it  .  .  .  *labor  here  is  too  darned  free  and  too 
darned  talkative'."  ^ 

Testifying  before  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  January  28,  1931,  Colonel  Hugh 
L.  Cooper,  noted  American  engineer  and  builder  of  the  great 
Dnieprostroy  power  dam,  stated  that  "in  all  the  years  I  have 
spent  in  Russia,  I  have  never  seen  convicts  employed  in  any 
way  with  production."  At  another  time  he  declared  "investi- 
gations were  carried  out  by  some  of  the  leading  business 
men  of  this  country.  They  have  now  put  themselves  on 
record  refuting  the  forced  labor  allegations." 

None  of  these  reports  seems  to  be  as  exhaustive  as  the 
series  of  articles  by  Henry  Wales  of  the  Chicago  Tribune 
which  was  also  carried  in  the  New  York  Times,  beginning 
March  27,  1931 : 


"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  SOVIET  UNION     153 

I  have  just  completed  a  fortnight's  investigation  of  labor 
conditions  in  the  North  district  and  inspection  of  logging  camps 
along  the  Dvina  and  Pinega  rivers,  and  am  the  first  foreign 
correspondent  to  visit  this  region  since  the  wholesale  exile  of 
kulaks  (rich  peasants)  into  this  zone  last  year.  ,  .  . 

My  investigation  covered  three  phases — first,  convict  labor; 
second,  forced  labor  and,  third,  the  living  conditions  of  the 
kulaks  and  native  workers  here. 

The  initial  question  can  be  disposed  of  at  once.  Convict  labor 
is  not  employed  by  the  State  Timber  Trust  for  export  produc- 
tion. 

The  question  of  compulsory  labor  opens  various  aspects  and 
no  definite  conclusion  can  be  drawn  without  defining  more  clearly 
the  exact  terms.  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  region,  native  popu- 
lace as  well  as  the  exiles,  are  forced  to  work  to  make  a  living — 
they  must  labor  to  exist. 

But,  technically  speaking,  they  are  not  forced  to  perform  any 
specific  kind  of  labor — they  are  not  drafted  by  the  State  Timber 
Trust  or  required  to  execute  any  given  task.  .  .  . 

In  the  forest  near  Orletzy  I  visited  a  camp  where  thirty-five 
expert  Norwegian  lumberjacks  had  been  imported  to  teach  the 
most  efficient  methods.  The  Norwegians  use  the  model  ribbon 
saw  and  the  American  style  narrow-blade  axe.  They  told  me 
they  had  just  renewed  their  contract  to  remain  two  years  more 
in  the  Russian  forests  and  that  they  had  no  complaints  to  make 
with  living  or  working  conditions.  . .  . 

Everywhere  I  was  impressed  by  the  scarcity  of  soldiers — ^the 
militia,  as  the  local  police  and  members  of  the  GPU  are  called 
.  .  .  Despite  their  arduous  labor,  the  girls  manage  to  keep  them- 
selves looking  well,  preserving  their  hands  with  woolen  mittens 
and  leather  gloves.  And  they  do  not  need  lipstick  or  rouge  to 
give  them  the  rosiest  of  complexions. 

In  the  same  series  Wales  quotes  Michael  Tzetlin,  Vice- 
Chairman  of  the  executive  committee  of  the  Archangel 
Soviet,  as  saying: 

The  state  is  helping  them  [the  kulaks]  to  build  homes  and 
create  new  villages,  composed  of  kulaks  exclusively,  where  they 
can  hunt,  fish,  farm,  enter  the  timber  industry  or  do  whatever 
they  please.  The  government  is  giving  them  all  the  land  they 
want,  providing  lumber,  building  materials,  food  supplies  and 
clothing  and  establishing  postal,  telegraph  and  transportation 
services  in  the  newly  opened  territory. 


154  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Other  work  being  offered  the  kulaks  includes  railroad  and 
highway  construction,  draining  swampy  tundra  and  reclaim- 
ing rich  farming  land.  They  are  not  guarded  in  any  way. 
Their  death  rate  is  not  above  the  local  rate.  Intermarriage 
with  local  inhabitants  is  common. 

On  the  invitation  of  the  Soviet  timber  exporting  company, 
two  Americans,  Spencer  Williams,  Moscow  representative  of 
the  American-Russian  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  Myron  G. 
Doll,  American  engineer,  accompanied  by  Robin  Kinkead, 
New  York  Times  correspondent,  spent  a  part  of  June,  1932, 
visiting  the  timber  country  in  the  Archangel  district  and  the 
northern  Dvina  River.  They  afterwards  made  affidavits  as  to 
what  they  saw. 

In  Archangel  the  party  visited  sawmills  and  lumber  yards 
and  watched  the  loading  of  ships,  and  in  no  case  could  they 
find  anything  that  looked  like  forced  or  convict  labor.  The 
visitors  talked  directly  with  scores  of  workers — without  the 
use  of  an  interpreter — ^and  the  workers  were  unanimous  in 
agreeing  that  they  were  working  of  their  own  free  will  and 
could  leave  whenever  they  liked.  According  to  their  affi- 
davits the  young  workers  engaged  in  this  work  hooted  any 
suggestion  that  they  were  working  against  their  will.  They 
said:  "In  Soviet  Russia  every  one  must  work  if  he  wants 
to  earn  a  living — ^that  is  the  only  forced  thing  about  our 
labor."  « 

Labor  Turnover  and  the  Labor  Code 

The  high  labor  turnover  in  the  Soviet  Union  also  contra- 
dicts the  charges  of  "forced  labor."  Joseph  Freeman  points 
out  in  The  Soviet  Worker  that, 

As  a  matter  of  simple  logic,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  "armed 
guards"  with  an  absenteeism  so  great  that  it  endangers  the  "exe- 
cution  of  the  year's  plan."  The  tremendous  labor  turnover  in 
Soviet  industry — about  150  per  cent  a  year — would  seem  in 
itself  to  be  a  refutation  of  the  "forced  labor^'  charges.  It  is 
impossible  for  labor  to  be  "conscripted"  and  yet  to  move  from 
job  to  job  at  so  rapid  a  rate.    The  fact  is  that  the  special  inter- 


"FORCED  LABOR'*  IN  SOVIET  UNION     155 

ests  which  circulate  "forced  labor"  charges  make  little  effort  to 
be  either  accurate  or  consistent  (our  emphasis).^ 


Furthermore,  the  very  existence  of  the  Soviet  Labor  Code 
explodes  the  false  charges  of  "forced  labor"  in  the  Soviet 
Union.  As  Freeman  points  out,  "The  Labor  Code  guaran- 
tees the  freedom  of  labor  by  protecting  the  worker  against 
dismissal  without  valid  cause;  by  granting  him  the  right  to 
break  an  agreement  concluded  for  an  indefinite  period  regard- 
less of  whether  he  has  valid  cause  or  not;  and  the  right  to 
break  a  labor  agreement  without  notice  in  case  the  employer 
violates  the  conditions  of  the  agreement  or  the  labor  laws. 
Under  such  circumstances,  where  the  worker  has  freedom  of 
contract,  'forced  labor*  is  impossible." 

In  addition  to  the  Labor  Code,  however,  the  labor  agree- 
ments with  the  trade  imions,  safety  rules  and  social  insurance 
give  the  Soviet  worker  a  degree  of  protection  unequaled  any- 
where in  the  world. 

There  is,  however,  one  section  of  the  Soviet  Labor  Code, 
which  has  been  variously  misunderstood  or  willfully  misrepre- 
sented by  Soviet  enemies  as  requiring  forced  labor.  The 
provision  is  explained  by  Freeman: 

"Under  Soviet  law  there  exists  a  type  of  obligatory  labor 
in  cases  of  emergency  common  in  other  countries.  Paragraph 
II  of  the  Labor  Code  provides  that  under  extraordinary 
circumstances  involving  natural  calamities,  such  as  fighting 
the  elements,  or  in  case  of  a  shortage  of  labor  for  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  most  important  state  requirements,  citizens  may 
be  called  upon  to  perform  obligatory  labor." 

Thus  in  such  regions  as  Central  Asia  and  Transcaucasia, 
where  the  welfare  and  safety  of  the  community  depend  on 
keeping  the  canals  in  good  repair  or  the  building  of  new 
ones,  such  decrees  are  in  effect.  And  since  the  community 
as  a  whole  undertakes  to  keep  the  irrigation  works  in  proper 
shape,  the  individual  peasant  is  obliged  to  contribute  his  labor 
to  that  end.    Those  sharing  in  the  benefits  of  the  irrigation 


I 


156  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

systeiAs  who  live  too  far  away  to  work  at  the  communal 
tasks  contribute  in  the  form  of  a  tax. 

The  Labor  Code  provision  with  regard  to  obligatory  work 
in  case  of  labor  shortage  is  resorted  to  only  on  the  rare 
occasions  of  extreme  emergency — a  life  and  death  matter — 
in  which  some  particular  kind  of  work  is  indispensable  to  the 
national  safety.  Emergencies  of  this  kind  occurred  in  1931 
when  an  acute  need  arose  for  specialists  and  technicians  in 
railway  and  water  transportation,  and  similarly,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  spring  sowing  campaign  of  the  same  year 
when  there  was  an  urgent  need  of  agricultural  experts  and 
technicians. 

The  mobilization  of  the  transportation  experts  was  carried 
on  among  those  formerly  engaged  in  this  type  of  work  whose 
skill  was  needed  in  the  emergency.  It  did  not  apply  to  those 
already  employed  in  the  field.  In  many  cases  these  experts 
were  given  higher  wages  in  accord  with  the  greater  degree 
of  skill  required  for  their  tasks.  The  agricultural  experts 
were  paid  all  traveling  expenses  and  continued  to  receive  their 
salaries  from  the  institutions  which  employed  them  and  to 
which  they  returned  at  the  end  of  two  months. 

In  no  case,  however,  does  this  mobilization  imply  the  use 
of  force  or  compulsion.  The  worst  that  may  befall  one 
refusing  such  work  is  the  loss  of  the  job  held  at  the  time, 
in  which  case  he  may  earn  a  living  at  unskilled  labor.  He 
cannot,  however,  he  forced  to  accept  work  which  he  does  not 
desire.  With  the  present  acute  shortage  of  labor,  being 
struck  off  the  labor  exchange  list  can  scarcely  be  called  a 
grave  penalty. 

More  About  Soviet  Timber 

Most  of  the  charges  of  "forced  labor"  in  the  Soviet  Union, 
as  we  have  noted,  have  centered  on  the  northern  timber 
industry.  Such  charges  do  not  bear  up  under  examination. 
In  the  first  place  it  must  be  understood  that  lumbering,  even 
in  the  most  highly  industrialized  countries  and  under  the 


"FORCED  LABOR'^  IN  SOVIET  UNION     157 

very  best  of  conditions,  is  no  picnic.  In  no  country  have 
timber  cutting  conditions  been  worse  than  in  the  United 
States.  Indeed,  they  are  so  bad  in  this  country  that  only  the 
hardiest  men  can  stand  the  work.  The  writer  has  visited 
many  timber  camps  and  company  lumber  towns  in  East 
Texas  where  conditions  of  virtual  peonage  exist.  Fortunes 
piled  up  by  such  companies  as  the  Kirby  Lumber  Co.  and  the 
Great  Southern  Lumber  Co.  were  made  by  vicious  exploita- 
tion of  timber  workers.  Taking  the  facts  about  timber  pro- 
duction internationally  into  consideration,  Soviet  timber 
conditions  show  up  well  in  comparison. 

In  old  Russia  as  well  as  in  the  Soviet  Union  timber  work 
has  always  been  a  seasonal  industry.  It  has  always  been 
performed  largely  by  peasants  during  the  winter  season  and 
has  always  supplied  part  of  their  income. 

About  54%  of  all  the  seasonal  workers  throughout  the 
tsarist  empire  were  too  poor  to  pay  traveling  expenses  and 
were,  therefore,  obliged  to  walk  long  distances  from  their 
homes  to  find  employment.  It  has  been  estimated  that 
12,500,000  workdays  were  wasted  every  year  by  these  en- 
forced treks. 

A  lack  of  labor  legislation  under  the  old  regime  left  the 
peasant  seasonal  worker  completely  unprotected.  He  ob- 
tained employment  either  by  selling  his  labor  power  directly 
to  an  employer  or  by  becoming  a  member  of  a  group  hired 
by  a  contractor.  No  laws  regulated  the  number  of  hours, 
wages,  hiring  or  firing,  general  working  conditions  or  sani- 
tation. As  a  result  even  tsarist  government  reports  reveal 
grave  abuses. 

Until  the  October  Revolution  the  working  conditions  in  the 
Russian  timber  camps  were  as  bad  as  anywhere  in  the  world. 
The  men  worked  from  10  to  11  and  frequently  12  hours 
a  day.  At  present  Soviet  lumbermen,  like  other  Soviet 
workers,  put  in  a  little  over  seven  hours  a  day.  Since  the 
Revolution  such  conveniences  as  baths,  laundries,  first  aid 
stations,  drug  stores  and,  in  some  cases,  even  dental  labora- 


158  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

tories  have  appeared  in  the  woods.  To-day  there  are  facilities 
for  recreation  and  education — ^newspapers,  books,  writ- 
ing material,  radios,  sports,  movies  and  dances. 

An  interesting  and  informative  article  by  A.  L.  Gorsky 
on  Soviet  timber  conditions  appeared  in  the  May,  1932,  issue 
of  the  British  Rtissian  Gazette  and  Trade  Outlook.  It  said 
in  part : 

Under  the  Five- Year  Plan  now  nearing  fulfillment,  no  less 
than  35,000,000  rubles  will  have  been  spent  on  the  provision  of 
dwellings  for  the  workers  in  newly-developed  or  uninhabited 
forest  regions.  In  these  dwellings  provision  is  made  for  clubs, 
study  circles,  baths  and  drying  rooms,  whilst  medical  assistance, 
and  such  amenities  as  it  is  possible  to  provide  in  isolated  regions, 
are  also  placed  at  the  workers'  disposal. 

In  the  single  financial  year  1930-31  the  huge  sum  of  29,500,000 
rubles  was  spent  on  social  insurance  for  the  timber  industry 
alone.  This  insurance  provides  for  the  workers  during  tempo- 
rary disablement  of  themselves  or  their  dependents,  and  includes 
free  medical  attention.  They  are  provided  for  with  bonuses  to 
cover  the  expenses  of  the  birth  and  rearing  of  their  children 
through  various  stages  of  life  to  funeral  expenses  and  pensions 
for  their  dependent  relatives  on  the  death  of  the  wage  earner. 

The  article  reports  that  direct  wages  have  increased  in  the 
last  few  years  by  35.8%  for  sawmillers,  50%  for  lumbermen 
and  rafters,  and  26%  for  transport  workers  in  the  forests, 
while  the  cost  of  most  articles  of  consumption  is  gradually 
being  lowered. 

The  Kulaks  and  Forced  Labor 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  campaign  against  "forced 
labor"  in  the  Soviet  Union  reached  its  height  at  the  time 
when  the  movement  for  collectivization  in  Soviet  agriculture 
had  gained  great  momentum  and  the  kulaks  were  being 
"liquidated  as  a  class."  It  was  natural  that  the  class  of  well- 
to-do  village  sharks,  remnant  of  capitalism  in  a  society  build- 
ing socialism,  should  have  the  sympathies  of  the  capitalists 
abroad.    Accordingly,  many  of  the  charges  of  "forced  labor" 


"FORCED  LABOR'^  IN  SOVIET  UNION     159 

in  the  U.S.S.R.  were  linked  up  with  the  charge  that  the 
kulaks  were  being  "liquidated"  (eliminated)  by  harnessing 
them  in  forced  labor  under  conditions  calculated  to  wipe  them 
out.  Of  course,  it  was  not  a  question  of  actually  "liquidat- 
ing" the  kulaks  by  physical  extermination,  but  as  a  class,  i.e., 
by  changing  the  economic  organization  of  agriculture  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  impossible  the  existence  of  a  class  of  rich 
peasants  who  live  by  exploiting  the  poor  peasants.  Capitalist 
propagandists,  however,  deliberately  distorted  the  facts  and 
with  the  aid  of  white  guard  emigres,  socialists,  Mensheviks 
and  lie-manufacturing  centers  in  the  Baltic  countries,  spread 
stories  of  the  killing  off  of  the  kulaks.  The  great  majority 
of  the  kulaks  who  were  expelled  from  the  collectivized 
regions  by  vote  of  the  members  of  the  community  migrated 
to  other  districts  where  they  either  settled  on  the  land  or 
obtained  jobs  as  artisans  or  laborers. 

There  are  no  concentration  camps  and  no  forced  labor 
for  kulaks  or  former  kulaks  as  charged  by  the  capitalist 
propagandists,  nor  are  there  special  laws  against  kulaks  who 
commit  crimes  in  violation  of  the  penal  code,  such  as  murder 
or  arson.  After  conviction  such  a  person  is  a  prisoner  on 
the  same  basis  and  has  the  same  status  as  an  industrial 
worker  who  is  a  prisoner. 

The  Status  of  Soviet  Convict  Labor 

The  actual  status  of  convict  labor  in  the  Soviet  Union 
makes  a  significant  contrast  to  that  of  convict  labor  in  the 
United  States.  Penal  methods  in  the  Soviet  Union  are 
entirely  different  from  those  in  any  other  country  in  the 
world.  There  is  no  thought  of  degrading  and  breaking  the 
spirit  of  the  prisoners  in  the  Soviet  Union.  Prisoners  are 
treated  as  diseased  persons  or  as  victims  of  circumstances. 
Every  effort  is  made  to  rehabilitate  the  criminal  by  proper 
medical  and  social  treatment.  The  brutal  slave-driving  con- 
ditions under  which  convicts  work  in  the  United  States  are, 
therefore,  impossible  in  the  Soviet  Union.     Every  prison 


160  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

there  has  a  staff  of  trained  physicians  and  psychiatrists  who 
examine  and  treat  prisoners ;  schools  where  the  prisoners  are 
given  the  elements  of  education ;  and  workshops  where  they 
are  taught  useful  trades.  No  prisoner  leaves  illiterate  or 
without  a  real  vocation.  Work  in  prisons  is  not  designed 
to  punish  the  prisoner  or  to  humiliate  him.  Its  aim  is 
entirely  educational. 

Prisoners  are  usually  sent  to  Labor  Communes,  where  they 
/  live  in  healthful  surroundings.  Cultural  pursuits  are  en- 
couraged. For  instance  in  Commune  No.  2  the  members 
have  organized  cultural  circles,  orchestras,  dramatic  groups, 
literary  groups,  lectures,  radio  clubs,  sports,  a  summer  theater 
and  physical  training  groups.  In  Commune  No.  3  more  than 
54%  of  the  inmates  had  no  professional  training  before 
their  commitment  for  theft.  Yet  in  four  years  163  of  them 
completely  broke  with  their  old  habits,  were  accepted  in  labor 
unions  and  their  criminal  records  erased. 

Maxim  Gorky  in  describing  a  celebration  at  a  prison  com- 
mune where  25  young  men  received  prizes  in  recognition 
of  their  work,  where  36  were  given  back  their  civil  rights, 
and  74  given  union  cards,  said :  "I  sat  in  the  presidium  and 
saw  that  among  these  1,500  people  many  also  were  near 
tears — ^tears  of  joy  for  their  comrades.  They  had  been  res- 
urrected to  a  new  life,  people  who  before  the  October  Revo- 
lution would  never  have  known  resurrection — never.'* 

Major  C.  E.  Love  joy,  executive  secretary  of  the  Alumni 
Federation  of  Columbia  University,  told  of  conditions  in 
Soviet  prisons  in  an  interview  with  the  New  York  Times, 
August  22,  1 93 1.  Major  Love  joy  had  just  returned  from  a 
tour  of  the  Soviet  Union  as  leader  of  a  group  traveling 
under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Institute  of  Educational 
Travel.    He  said : 

What  amazed  me  most  is  the  system  of  rehabilitation  of  the 
prisoners.  There  is  a  school  in  the  prison  and  each  prisoner 
is  trained  for  some  profession,  so  that  when  he  is  liberated  he 
will  not  be  tempted  by  want  to  commit  crimes  again. 


"FORCED  LABOR'^  IN  SOVIET  UNION     161 

The  prison  cells,  according  to  Mr.  Love  joy,  are  open  from 
5  A.M.  until  10  P.M.  and  each  inmate  is  virtually  his  own 
"trusty,"  allowed  to  come  and  go  as  he  pleases  within  the 
confines  of  the  prison.  The  atmosphere  of  the  place  is  rather 
jovial,  the  prisoners  seemingly  being  quite  contented  with 
their  lot.  A  radio  was  found  in  every  cell.  The  visitors 
were  surprised  to  learn  that  prisoners  were  given  two  weeks 
vacation  annually  and  allowed  to  go  home  during  that  time. 

In  the  Soviet  Union  every  effort  is  made  to  solve  the  sex 
problem  of  prisoners  which  is  permitted  to  degrade  prison 
life  under  capitalism,  causing  widespread  homosexuality  in 
every  large  American  prison.  While  visiting  the  Lefortovo 
Prison  at  Moscow  a  United  Press  correspondent  found  that 
"men  and  women  convicts  respectively  are  allowed  to  spend 
week-ends  with  their  husbands  and  wives  in  special  cells 
belonging  to  the  prison."  ^° 

Roger  N.  Baldwin,  director  of  the  American  Civil  Liberties 
Union,  after  a  thorough  study  of  the  prison  labor  problem 
in  the  Soviet  Union,  reported : 

One  of  the  great  improvements  in  Russian  prisons  is  that 
work  is  available  to  almost  all  prisoners.  There  is  no  forced 
labor,  no  contract  labor,  as  in  the  United  States.  All  prisoners 
are  free  not  to  work  if  they  choose.  But  great  inducements  to 
work  lie  in  the  payment  of  wages  and  in  the  deduction  of  one- 
third  time  off  the  sentences  of  working  prisoners.^^ 

Walter  Duranty  substantiates  the  above  statements: 

...  in  view  of  the  possible  discussion  of  the  subject  in  the 
United  States  or  elsewhere,  your  correspondent  would  like  to 
put  the  following  statement  on  record: 

Criminals,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  are  better  treated 
in  the  Soviet  Union  than  in  any  other  country — ^with  due  al- 
lowance for  universal  shortage  of  living  quarters  and  commodi- 
ties. They  work,  but  they  get  trade  union  rates  for  their  labor, 
the  produce  of  which  is  sold  exclusively  within  the  Soviet  Union, 
and  they  have  "parole"  holidays  yearly,  which  they  almost  never 
break.i2 


162  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

All  these  experts  bear  out  what  Soviet  officials  themselves 
say  about  the  condition  of  prisoners  in  the  Soviet  Union. 
They  have  never  denied  that  prisoners  are  used  in  public 
works  such  as  roads  and  railroad  construction  and  other 
such  work,  as  well  as  in  manufacturing  certain  articles  none 
of  which  are  exported. 

Socialist  Labor  vs.  Capitalist  Labor 

In  the  first  chapter  of  this  book  we  analyzed  labor  under 
capitalism  and  found  all  wage  labor  to  be  forced  labor,  either 
indirect  forced  labor,  caused  by  the  whip  of  starvation 
wielded  by  the  capitalists  who  own  the  land  and  means  of 
production,  or  direct  forced  labor  where  open  physical  or 
legal  restraint  is  used. 

In  the  U.S.S.R.,  the  working  class  owns  all  the  means 
of  production ;  it  is  working  for  its  own  benefit  and  is  build- 
ing Socialism.  Hence,  in  the  U.S.S.R.,  labor  is  really  free. 
Workers  in  a  socialist  society  are  free,  for  they  are  not 
oppressed  by  a  ruling  class.  Marx  and  Lenin  have  shown 
that  any  other  sort  of  freedom  is  a  mockery  and  a  sham. 
Referring  to  labor  in  the  Soviet  Union,  Lenin  wrote: 

For  the  first  time,  after  centuries  of  compulsory  toil  for  the 
benefit  of  others,  of  labor  under  subjection  for  the  benefit  of 
the  exploiters,  it  becomes  possible  for  the  workers  to  work  for 
their  own  benefit,  to  work  on  the  basis  of  all  the  latest  achieve- 
ments of  technology  and  culture. 

The  defenders  of  capitalism  may  dispute  this  and  contend 
that  in  the  U.S.S.R.  the  constraint  to  labor  also  is  present, 
that  is  to  say,  the  constraint  of  hunger,  for  if  a  worker  does 
not  work  he  will  starve.  In  the  U.S.S.R.,  they  say,  the 
workers  also  produce  surplus  value,  for  which  they  are  not 
directly  paid  in  the  form  of  wages.  What  then  is  the  dif- 
ference between  capitalism  and  the  Soviet  system  of 
economy  ? 

Our  reply  to  the  first  point  is  that  not  only  individual 
workers,  but  the  whole  working  class  of  the  Soviet  Union 


"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  SOVIET  UNION     163 

would  die  of  hunger  if  it  did  not  work  to  produce  the  necessa- 
ries of  life.  We  must  draw  a  distinction  between  labor  called 
forth  by  the  natural  need  to  satisfy  human  requirements,  and 
labor  forced  by  a  hunger  which  is  deliberately  created  under 
capitalism  by  one  section  of  society,  the  ruling  class,  which 
monopolizes  the  means  of  production  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
pelling the  hungry  producers  to  work  for  the  benefit  of  the 
owning  class.  The  fact  that  the  producers,  the  workers,  are 
deprived  of  the  means  of  production,  creating  the  whiplash 
of  hunger,  lies  at  the  very  basis  of  capitalism.  In  the  Soviet 
system  of  economy  there  can  be  no  hunger  in  this  sense, 
as  under  this  system  all  the  means  of  production  belong  to 
the  producers  themselves.  Here  the  stimulus  to  labor  is  to 
produce  goods  for  the  satisfaction  of  human  needs  and  not 
for  the  profits  of  an  exploiting  class. 

Free  labor  in  a  socialist  society  does  not  mean  that  mem- 
bers of  that  society  may  work,  or  refuse  to  work,  just  as 
they  see  fit.  Socialist  society  is  not  a  society  of  laggards  or 
slackers.  It  is  based  rather  on  the  labor  of  all  members  of 
society — with  the  exception  of  children,  the  aged,  the  infirm, 
the  sick. 

Under  the  Socialist  economy  of  the  Soviet  Union,  that  por- 
tion of  the  total  labor  product  which  does  not  go  directly 
to  the  Soviet  worker  for  his  personal  consumption,  is  applied 
to  the  program  for  the  economic  betterment  of  the  whole 
social  order — thus  accruing  to  the  benefit  of  the  working 
class  as  a  whole — ^and  not,  as  in  capitalist  society,  to  the  sup- 
port of  a  parasitic  class  of  non-producers.  The  capital  ac- 
cumulation derived  from  the  total  labor  product  is  thus 
applied  to  the  improvement  of  the  economic  and  cultural 
status  of  the  working  class. 

As  for  "surplus  value"  this  point  is  made  clear  by  Joseph 
Freeman  when  he  says : 

.  .  .  Soviet  economists  emphasize  that  one  basic  difference 
between  the  capitalist  and  socialist  forms  of  economy  lies  in  the 
re-distribution  of  capital  accumulation.    "Surplus  value,"  in  the 


164  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

sense  in  which  it  exists  in  the  capitalist  economy,  does  not  exist 
in  Soviet  economy,  since  the  latter  eliminates  private  profit. 
Accordingly,  vv^hile  the  individual  w^orker  forgoes  part  of  the 
product  of  his  labor  so  that  basic  capital  may  be  accumulated, 
all  such  capital  is  spent  in  ways  which  accrue  to  the  benefit 
of  the  working  class  as  a  whole,  and  none  of  it  goes  in  the 
form  of  profits  to  unproductive  groups  of  the  population. 

Moreover,  it  has  never  been  maintained  by  Communists 
that  in  a  socialist  economy  the  worker  receives  for  his  own 
individual  consumption  the  full  product  of  his  labor.  The 
13th  congress  of  the  Russian  Communist  Party  in  April, 
1923,  in  discussing  the  problem  of  accumulating  basic  capital, 
stated  that  "only  that  industry  can  be  victorious  which  gives 
more  than  it  absorbs.  Industry  which  exists  at  the  expense 
of  the  budget  .  .  .  cannot  create  a  stable  and  lasting  support 
for  the  proletarian  dictatorship.  .  .  .  The  state  trusts  and 
combines  have  as  their  basic  problem  the  securing  of  surplus 
value  for  the  purpose  of  state  accumulation,  which  alone  can 
guarantee  the  raising  of  the  material  level  of  the  country  and 
a  socialist  reconstruction  of  the  whole  national  economy." 

In  his  Criticism  of  the  Gotha  Program,  Karl  Marx  ex- 
ploded the  theory  that  in  a  socialist  society  the  worker  receives 
as  his  individual  allotment  the  full  product  of  his  labor  for 
his  personal  consumption.  Marx  pointed  out  that  of  the 
total  social  product  of  labor  only  a  portion  is  distributed 
among  individual  producers  of  society  for  personal  consump- 
tion ;  a  considerable  part  of  the  labor  product  goes  to  satisfy 
the  "economically  necessary"  needs  of  society,  which  are 
listed  by  Marx  as  "First,  the  amount  required  for  the  re- 
placement of  the  means  of  production  used  up.  Secondly, 
an  additional  portion  for  the  expansion  of  production. 
Thirdly,  a  reserve  and  insurance  fund  against  mischance,  dis- 
turbances through  forces  of  nature,  etc." 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  "economically  necessary"  de- 
ductions from  the  total  product  of  labor,  Marx  lists  an  addi- 
tional group  of  deductions  which  might  be  termed  "socially 
necessary" :  "First,  the  general  administrative  expenses  that 


"FORCED  LABOR'*  IN  SOVIET  UNION     165 

do  not  form  a  part  of  production.  .  .  .  Secondly,  that  por- 
tion which  is  destined  for  the  satisfaction  of  common  wants, 
such  as  schools,  provision  for  the  protection  of  the  public 
health,  etc.  .  .  .  Thirdly,  funds  for  those  unable  to  work, 
etc.,  in  short,  for  what  now  belongs  to  so-called  public 
charity." 

Only  after  these  deductions — the  "economically  necessary" 
and  the  "socially  necessary" — are  made  from  the  total  product 
of  labor  do  we  finally  have  that  part  of  the  consumption 
fund  which  is  distributed  among  the  individual  producers. 

The  tasks  confronting  the  Russian  working  class,  which 
owns  the  industries  of  the  country  and  holds  political  power, 
are  thus  entirely  different  from  those  which  confront  the 
workers  in  other  countries  who  are  oppressed  and  exploited 
by  the  capitalists.  The  working  class,  as  the  owner  of  the 
means  of  production,  besides  striving  to  improve  its  own 
conditions  of  life  and  labor,  must  also  strive  to  develop 
socialist  production  to  the  utmost,  to  construct  giant  works 
according  to  the  latest  technical  achievements,  to  strengthen 
the  state  and  to  raise  the  whole  cultural  level  of  the  popu- 
lation. For  this  purpose  the  working  class  has  to  create  a 
social  reserve;  it  must  secure  means  with  which  to  make 
improvements  in  machinery  and  science  and  to  replace  worn- 
out  production  goods.  Does  the  creation  of  these  reserve 
funds  mean  that  the  working  class  is  exploited?  Certainly 
not.  The  working  class  creates  these  funds  not  for  an 
exploiting  class  but  for  itself.  Marx,  in  his  Criticism  of 
the  Gotha  Program,  emphasized  this  when  he  wrote :  "That 
which  the  producer  loses  as  a  private  individual  comes  back 
to  him  in  the  form  of  direct  or  indirect  benefits  as  a  member 
of  society."  Obviously  under  such  circumstances  there  can 
be  no  exploitation  of  the  worker;  there  can  be  no  forced 
labor. 


166  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

Stimuli  for  Increasing  Production 

Even  the  enemies  of  the  Soviet  Union  concede  that  tre- 
mendous results  are  being  achieved  in  developing  the  indus- 
tries and  agriculture  of  the  country.  Even  they  are  forced 
to  admit  that  the  first  Five- Year  Plan  is  being  successfully 
completed.  If  it  is  not  forced  labor  which  furnishes  the  in- 
centive for  such  accomplishments,  then  what  are  the  incen- 
tives? There  are  two  main  motives  which  make  the  Soviet 
worker  strive  to  increase  production.  The  first  is  class  stim- 
ulus— ^the  desire  to  advance  the  cause  of  the  working  class 
both  in  the  Soviet  Union  and  in  the  entire  world.  This  feel- 
ing was  expressed  recently  by  Joseph  Stalin,  secretary  of  the 
Communist  Party  of  the  Soviet  Union.    He  said : 

We  must  advance  so  that  the  working  class  of  the  whole  world, 
seeing  us,  may  say:  "There  is  our  vanguard,  there  is  our  shock 
brigade,  there  is  the  workers'  fatherland — ^they  are  working  for 
their  cause,  our  cause;  good,  we  shall  support  them  against  the 
capitalists  and  advance  the  world  revolution."  Shall  we  justify 
the  hopes  of  the  working  class  of  the  world?  Yes,  we  must, 
if  we  do  not  want  to  disgrace  ourselves  in  the  end. 

The  second  motive  is  the  desire  for  personal,  material  and 
cultural  gain  as  well  as  the  desire  to  receive  recognition  of 
personal  worth  as  a  contributor  to  society.  This  personal 
gain  includes  higher  wages,  shorter  hours,  social  insurance, 
education,  recreation  and  the  reward  of  honor  which  comes 
with  labor  well-performed  and  not  at  the  expense  of  others. 
In  the  capitalist  world  the  thing  most  desired  is  to  get 
money  and  become  a  parasite,  to  live  on  interest,  not  to  have 
to  work.  In  the  Soviet  Union  work  is  the  thing  which 
receives  social  approbation.  The  shock-brigader  in  industry 
becomes  the  hero  of  labor  and  he  is  highly  esteemed  by  his 
fellow  workers. 

The  wage  worker  under  capitalism  on  the  other  hand  is 
not  interested  in  increasing  production.  He  gets  no  social 
prestige  thereby,  as  manual  labor  especially  is  regarded  as 


"FORCED  LABOR''  IN  SOVIET  UNION     167 

degrading  and  is  not  done  by  the  "best"  people.  Nor  does 
he  receive  material  benefits  by  increasing  production.  To 
increase  the  productivity  of  labor  under  capitalism  means 
lower  wages  and  a  larger  army  of  unemployed.  The  worker 
is  not  interested  in  technical  improvements,  for  all  means  of 
production  under  capitalism  are  at  the  same  time  means  of 
exploitation ;  technical  improvements  only  increase  unemploy- 
ment. The  worker  is  not  interested  in  lowering  the  cost  of 
production  which  brings  gain  only  to  the  capitalist.  The 
worker  knows  that  the  sapping  of  his  health  and  the  reduction 
of  his  standard  of  living  are  only  means  of  increasing  the 
rate  of  profit  for  the  capitalists.  Consequently  the  only 
stimulus  to  labor  for  him  is  the  whip  of  hunger,  the  fear  of 
being  dismissed,  or  the  policeman's  club  when  on  strike. 

Socialist  Competition  and  Shock  Brigades 

A  new  spirit  is  already  evidenced  in  the  Soviet  Union  in 
what  has  become  known  as  "socialist  competition."  Under 
socialist  competition  a  group  of  workers  in  a  certain  factory 
competes  with  another  group  in  the  same  factory  to  see  which 
can  do  its  job  most  quickly  and  in  the  most  efficient  manner. 
Or  workers  of  an  entire  factory  challenge  and  compete  with 
the  workers  of  another  factory,  mine  or  farm. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  a  factory  or  an  industry  falls 
behind  in  its  allotted  task  under  the  plan  because  of  a  tem- 
porary lack  of  transportation  facilities  or  for  some  other 
reason.  To  meet  such  emergencies  "shock  brigades"  have 
been  organized.  These  are  groups  of  enthusiastic  workers 
that  volunteer  to  help  overcome  the  obstacles  in  the  lagging 
factory.  When  it  has  finished  its  job  the  brigade  transfers 
its  efforts  to  another  emergency.  Gay  celebrations  follow 
victorious  completion  of  a  particular  job.  Shock  brigaders 
are  rewarded  accordingly  and  are  given  prizes  among  which 
the  most  treasured  is  the  medal  of  the  Order  of  Lenin. 

To-day  socialist  competition  has  become  the  driving  force 
in  the  carrying  out  of  the  Five- Year  Plans.    At  the  begin- 


168  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

ning  of  193 1  there  were  2,500,000  workers  organized  into 
shock  brigades.  Besides  these  two  methods  of  increasing 
production  there  are  other  methods  of  competition  and  emu- 
lation. Thus  as  Stalin  said,  "Labor,  from  being  the  shame- 
ful, heavy  burden  it  was  considered  to  be  in  the  past,  becomes 
a  cause  of  honor,  of  glory,  of  gallantry,  and  of  heroism." 
The  Five- Year  Plans  are  not  being  achieved  by  the  fear  of 
loss  of  job  or  any  other  capitalist  coercion,  but  by  the  enthu- 
siasm, the  creative  activity  and  class-conscious  discipline  of 
the  broad  masses  of  workers. 

For  over  a  century  bourgeois  economists  have  argued  that 
socialism  was  impossible  because,  they  contended,  in  a  so- 
cialist society  there  would  be  no  incentive  for  further  devel- 
opment. Everything  would  remain  at  a  standstill.  There 
would  be  no  motive  for  work.  Their  stock  answer  was 
"competition  is  the  life  blood  of  trade."  The  capitalists  and 
their  agents  simply  cannot  "imagine"  labor  other  than  that 
produced  by  fear  of  starvation  or  some  other  form  of 
coercion. 

Therefore,  when  the  capitalists  are  forced  to  acknowledge 
the  tremendous  progress  in  the  Soviet  Union  they  shout  that 
it  is  only  possible  to  have  such  development  under  some 
system  of  coerced  or  involuntary  labor.  It  is  evident,  further- 
more, that  the  Soviet  workers  are  not  starving  else  they 
could  not  have  accomplished  such  an  enormous  amount  of 
work.  Accordingly  the  capitalists  and  their  agents  attempt 
to  dispel  the  favorable  impression  the  Soviet  form  of  labor 
might  make  on  their  own  forced  laborers  by  raising  the  cry 
of  "forced  labor"  in  the  U.S.S.R.  They  contend  that  "free" 
workers  under  capitalism  cannot  compete  with  "forced  labor" 
under  socialism. 

The  Soviet  workers  and  peasants  have  proved  to  the  whole 
world  that  the  capitalists  and  their  apologists  are  wrong,  that 
the  workers*  society  does  develop  science  and  invention,  that 
the  masses  are  able  to  manage  the  industries  and  the  farms. 
While  the  capitalist  world  is  hopelessly  stuck  in  the  mud  of 


"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  SOVIET  UNION     169 

an  international  crisis,  the  Soviet  Union  has  no  unemploy- 
ment and  marches  ahead.  In  the  space  of  a  few  years  they 
are  transforming  a  backward  agricultural  country  into  a 
highly  developed  industrial  country.  The  dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat  is  releasing  the  creative  energy  of  millions  of 
workers  and  peasants. 

This  creative  energy  of  the  masses  is  expressed  especially 
by  the  shock  brigaders  and  other  workers  engaged  in  socialist 
competition.  The  record  of  achievements  in  the  building 
of  Soviet  industry  and  in  the  reorganization  of  agriculture 
abounds  with  hundreds  of  cases  of  real  labor  heroism  by 
shock  brigades  whose  example  inspired  the  masses  of  work- 
ers to  greater  enthusiasm  and  made  possible  the  completion 
of  the  Five- Year  Plan  in  four  years.  Enthusiastic  oil 
workers  brought  about  the  completion  of  the  Five- Year  Plan 
in  that  industry  in  two  and  a  half  years.  The  workers  of 
numerous  factories,  such  as  the  Moscow  Brake  Works,  the 
Kolomensk  and  Kharkov  locomotive  plants  and  the  Moscow 
Electric  Works,  also  completed  the  first  Five- Year  Plan  for 
their  factories  in  two  and  a  half  years. 

And  when  the  Soviet  workers  overtake  and  surpass  the 
advanced  industrial  capitalist  nations,  the  wealth  and  power 
of  the  workers  will  be  higher  than  any  ever  known  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  This  will  be  a  glaring  contrast  to  what 
happens  when  one  capitalist  country  surpasses  another  capi- 
talist country,  which  is  done  only  by  more  intensive  exploita- 
tion of  the  workers,  longer  hours,  lower  wages  and  poor 
conditions  of  work. 

The  more  class-conscious  workers  and  more  advanced 
peasants  are  in  the  Communist  Party  and  in  the  Young 
Communist  League  (Komsomol),  which  are  the  center  of 
organization  and  inspiration  in  carrying  out  the  work  of 
building  socialism.  Komsomols  especially  play  a  decisive  role 
in  overcoming  the  anti-social  habits  inherited  by  the  workers 
from  capitalism  and  replacing  them  by  a  realization  of  the 
great  historical  task  which  has  fallen  to  the  working  class 


170  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

of  the  Soviet  Union.  A  free  working  class,  conscious  of  its 
freedom  and  its  role,  has  shown  in  the  Soviet  Union  how 
limitless  are  its  energies. 

Soviet  Labor  Unions 

Strong  labor  unions  safeguard  workers'  conditions  in  the 
U.S.S.R.  There  are  now  (1932)  nearly  17  million  trade 
imion  members.  The  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  con- 
trast has  less  than  2,500,000  actual  members  in  good  stand- 
ing. 

But  the  officials  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  still  contend  that  the 
Soviet  trade  unions  are  not  "free."  What  they  mean  is  that 
they  don't  support  Democrats  in  one  town  and  Republicans 
in  another ;  they  are  not  "business  unions"  and  rackets ;  they 
don't  subscribe  to  life  insurance  sold  by  Matthew  WoU; 
they  are  not  dictated  to  by  the  employers'  National  Civic 
Federation  and  the  American  Legion  fascists.  They  don't 
assist  a  capitalist  government  in  preparing  for  imperialist 
wars  for  plunder,  as  does  the  A.  F.  of  L. 

There  is  plenty  of  testimony,  even  from  bourgeois  sources, 
as  to  the  freedom  and  strength  of  the  Soviet  trade  imions. 
For  instance,  Sherwood  Eddy,  who  has  made  six  visits  to 
the  U.S.S.R.,  says  in  his  book.  The  Challenge  of  Russia: 

There  is  a  healthy  trade  union  democracy  among  the  workers. 
Economically  free,  independent  of  any  individual  employers,  ap- 
prehensive of  no  arbitrary  discharge  or  neglected  employment, 
the  laboring  class  at  least  is  encouraged  in  the  freedom  of 
expression  and  the  right  of  criticism  of  industry  or  the  govern- 
ment 

Another  observer.  Dr.  George  M.  Price,  director  of  the 
Joint  Board  of  Sanitary  Control  of  New  York,  and  an 
authority  on  factory  inspection  in  the  garment  industry,  re- 
ferring to  the  part  played  by  the  trade  imions  in  the  Soviet 
Union,  said : 

The  principal  function  of  the  unions  and  their  representatives 
in  the  provincial  district  councils  as  well  as  within  the  establish- 


"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  SOVIET  UNION     171 

ment  itself  is  the  protection  of  the  individual  workers  in  their 
economic,  political  and  other  rights. 

All  wage  contracts,  individual  and  collective  agreements  are 
made  through  the  Factory  Committee  and  through  the  organs 
of  the  unions,  which  see  to  it  that  the  worker  is  placed  in  as 
high  a  wage  rank  as  possible,  and  as  he  is  entitled  to. 

The  union  also  protects  the  worker  in  all  matters  of  dispute, 
conflict,  and  questions  of  right  of  discharge,  which  may  come 
up  during  employment.  The  union  through  its  organs,  and 
especially  through  its  social  insurance  activities,  takes  care  of 
the  workers  during  sickness,  unemployment,  invalidity,  or  in 
case  of  death.  .  .  .^^ 

HouRS^  Wages  and  Social  Insurance 

Both  money  or  nominal  wages  and  real  wages  have  been 
increasing  steadily  in  the  Soviet  Union.  By  the  fiscal  year 
1928-29  nominal  wages  were  190%  and  real  wages  43% 
higher  than  in  191 3.  In  1930  the  annual  wages  of  all 
workers  showed  a  gain  of  12.6%  over  the  preceding  year, 
and  in  193 1  there  was  a  further  gain  of  23.5%.  The  greatest 
gains  in  wages  were  in  heavy  industry  where  the  wages  had 
been  the  lowest  before  the  Revolution. 

During  the  period  of  the  Five- Year  Plan,  increase  in 
wages  kept  pace  with  the  rapid  increase  in  production.  Thus 
the  average  annual  wages  of  workers  in  census  industry  in- 
creased from  778  rubles  in  the  fiscal  year  1926-27  to  1,167 
rubles  in  193 1,  a  gain  of  50  per  cent?-^ 

Only  recently  there  was  a  still  further  increase.  The  New 
York  Times,  April  i,  1932,  reported,  "The  industrial  pay 
rises  are  designed  to  keep  pace  with  demands  made  upon  the 
workers  by  the  scheduled  increase  of  36%  in  industrial  pro- 
duction." Thus  along  with  increases  in  production  go  in- 
creases in  pay.  This  is  in  marked  contrast  to  decreases  in 
pay  with  increases  in  production  in  capitalist  countries. 

But  cash  wages  for  work  are  only  a  part  of  the  total 
wages.  If  indirect  payments  received  by  the  Soviet  worker 
are  taken  into  account — such  as  social  insurance  benefits,  free 
medical  aid,  vacations  with  pay,  low  or  free  rent,  free  work- 


172  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

ing  clothes,  cultural  facilities,  etc., — ^wages  are  increased  by 
an  average  of  from  20  to  35%.  If  these  indirect  payments 
are  included,  real  wages  at  the  end  of  1931  may  be  estimated 
at  about  double  the  pre-war  figure.^** 

Before  we  consider  the  Soviet  benefits  from  social  insur- 
ance and  other  privileges  let  us  compare  working  hours  of 
tsarist  Russia  in  191 3  with  those  of  the  Soviet  Union  in 
193 1.  Tsarist  work  days  averaged  around  10  hours,  although 
workers  often  toiled  10  to  16  hours  a  day.  It  was  only  after 
the  October  Revolution  that  the  8-hour  day  became,  both  in 
law  and  in  practice,  the  maximum  for  the  adult  population 
and  the  6-hour  day  the  maximum  for  minors  up  to  the  age 
of  18  and  all  workers  in  hazardous  occupations.  Children 
under  16  are  forbidden  to  work  except  in  certain  instances 
when  necessary  for  their  training  or  education,  in  which 
case  children  over  14  may  work  4  hours  a  day.  Over 
70%  of  the  workers  in  large-scale  industry  are  on  the  7-hour 
day,  and  by  the  end  of  1932  it  was  planned  to  have  92%  on 
this  basis.  By  the  end  of  the  second  Five- Year  Plan  the 
6-hour  day  is  expected  to  be  universal  within  the  borders 
of  the  Soviet  Union. 

Social  insurance  has  been  developed  further  in  the  Soviet 
Union  than  in  any  country  in  the  world.  All  workers  are 
insured  from  the  very  first  day  of  their  work,  and  have 
full  rights  to  all  the  benefits.  The  worker  pays  nothing 
whatever  for  the  insurance  and  all  the«<expense  is  paid  by 
the  employers. 

A  worker  and  his  family  are  entitled  to  receive  full  medical 
aid,  i.e.,  free  medicine,  doctor's  care,  sanitariums  and  treat- 
ment, in  addition  to  cash  pay.  An  American  friend  of  the 
author,  a  former  Georgia  cotton  mill  worker,  writes  from 
Kharkov  where  her  husband  is  a  mechanic,  that  she  has 
been  getting  the  care  of  a  specialist  and  free  electric  treat- 
ments for  a  small  growth  on  her  neck.  She  says,  "such  care, 
even  if  I  could  have  aflForded  it  at  all  in  the  United  States, 
would  have  cost  a  fortune."     She  probably  contracted  the 


"FORCED  LABOR"  IN  SOVIET  UNION     173 

trouble  while  working  as  a  child  laborer  in  a  Georgia  mill — 
where  she  started  work  at  eight  years  of  age.  Now  she  is 
being  cured  free  of  charge  in  the  Soviet  Union ! 

During  temporary  disability  due  to  sickness,  accident,  or 
any  other  cause,  the  worker  gets  help  to  the  amount  of  75 
to  100%  of  his  regular  wages.  A  pregnant  woman  is  freed 
from  work  eight  weeks  before  and  eight  weeks  after  child- 
birth. Women  and  men  workers  receive  equal  pay  for  equal 
work.  All  expenses  connected  with  the  birth  of  a  child  are 
covered  for  the  worker-mother.  Then  for  nine  months  there 
is  an  allowance  for  milk.  Funeral  expenses  for  a  worker  or 
any  members  of  his  family  are  also  paid. 

Unemployment  relief  was  given  while  some  unemployment 
still  prevailed  in  the  Soviet  Union.  But  to-day,  as  has  been 
said,  there  is  no  unemployment  and,  therefore,  no  need  for 
relief. 

Pensioners  are  paid  in  case  of  complete  disability  from  in- 
dustrial accident  or  occupational  disease.  In  fixing  the  pen- 
sion the  length  of  time  the  worker  was  employed  is  not 
considered.  There  is  also  an  old  age  pension  which  begins 
at  the  age  of  60  for  men,  55  for  women  and  50  for  miners. 
It  amounts  to  as  much  as  55%  of  total  earnings. 

Safety  and  sanitation  are  stressed  throughout  the  Soviet 
industrial  system.  In  building  factories  special  attention  is 
given  to  comfort  and  health — proper  lighting,  ventilation, 
safety  devices  and  sanitation.  As  a  result  the  rate  of  fatal 
accidents  in  1929  was  lower  than  in  Germany  or  the  United 
States. 

Education  and  Culture 

Education  is  another  field  where  the  workers  in  the  Soviet 
Union  have  made  remarkable  progress.  The  years  1930-31 
marked  a  big  step  toward  the  goal  of  universal  elementary 
education.  The  total  number  of  pupils  in  the  elementary 
and  secondary  schools  in  1930-31  amounted  to  19.3  millions, 
as  compared  with  7.8  millions  in  1914  and  11.9  millions  in 


yi4i  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

1929.  During  the  past  few  years  the  development  of  the 
network  of  trade  and  technical  schools  has  advanced  at  a 
rate  even  more  rapid  than  that  of  general  schools. 

In  1 914  there  were  109,000  students  in  the  higher  institu- 
tions of  learning.  By  1931  this  number  had  more  than 
trebled.  Students  in  the  technical  and  factory  schools — 
exclusive  of  vocational  schools,  vocational  workshops  and 
the  like — ^totaled  1,808,000  in  1931,  or  practically  seven  times 
the  pre-war  figure.  In  addition,  several  million  workers  and 
collective  farmers  are  extending  their  education  by  evening 
schools,  correspondence  courses,  and  by  other  means.  In 
1 93 1  the  Soviet  government  spent  seven  and  a  half  times  as 
much  for  education  as  was  spent  in  191 4  under  the  Tsar. 

Workers  are  favored  in  many  other  ways.  Frequently 
free  tickets  are  given  to  theaters,  movies,  and  other  enter- 
tainments. Then  there  are  clubs  in  every  factory  with 
libraries,  gymnasiums  and  rest  rooms.  Some  of  the  finest 
buildings  in  the  entire  country  have  been  converted  into  club 
buildings.  The  workers  also  get  the  best  food  and  housing 
obtainable. 

Workers  in  the  Soviet  Union  enjoy  the  best  of  ever)rthing 
available.  Instead  of  the  Vanderbilts  and  the  Romanovs  it  is 
the  workers  who  are  the  privileged.  All  of  this  is  in  glaring 
contrast  to  the  situation  in  a  capitalist  country  where  a  rich 
minority  own  the  entire  country  and  are  able  to  enjoy  all  the 
material  advantages  of  life  while  hundreds  of  thousands 
starve  or  go  undernourished  for  lack  of  bread. 

General  William  N.  Haskell,  chief  of  the  American  Relief 
Administration  in  Russia  in  1921-23,  who  recently  returned 
from  the  Soviet  Union,  declares  that  what  the  worker  gets 
that  makes  him  better  off  than  any  other  class,  and  more  satis- 
fied, is  his  feeling  of  importance  in  the  socialistic  order.  He 
is  the  element  most  favored  by  the  government,  and  his  voice 
is  the  controlling  factor  in  industry  and  politics.  Thus,  "today, 
the  worker  has  a  feeling  that  he  counts — and  a  vast  hope 
for  the  future.    In  tsarist  days  he  had  nothing."  ^® 


<TORCED  LABOR'*  IN  SOVIET  UNION     175 

The  Russian  workers  had  to  overcome  many  obstacles  to 
advance  as  far  as  they  have.  After  the  Revolution  they  came 
into  possession  of  a  war-ravaged  country.  Then  followed 
violent  counter-revolution,  led  by  the  capitalists  and  mon- 
archists, backed  by  the  armies  of  England,  Japan,  France, 
the  United  States  and  other  countries.  Military  intervention 
failed  but  the  capitalist  nations  continued  to  boycott  the 
young  Soviet  Republic.  Credit  could  not  be  obtained  to  re- 
build what  had  been  destroyed  by  war  and  famine.  Backward 
methods  of  production  had  been  inherited  from  the  old 
regime.    Factories  were  idle  or  entirely  out  of  commission. 

But  though  the  capitalists  of  the  world  have  vainly  tried 
by  war,  blockade  and  lies  to  prevent  the  success  of  the  Soviet 
Union  the  workers  in  other  countries  have  helped  it.  Not 
only  have  they  blocked  war  plots  against  the  Soviets  but  many 
thousands  of  workers  from  almost  every  country  are  in  the 
factories  and  on  the  farms  of  the  Soviet  Union  helping  to 
build  socialism.  They  write  with  glowing  enthusiasm  of 
what  they  find  there. 

In  January,  1931,  a  group  of  American  workers  in  Stalin- 
grad wrote ; 

We,  a  group  of  American  technicians  employed  at  the  Stalin- 
grad Tractor  Plant,  take  exception  to  the  misleading  propaganda 
that  is  aiming  to  influence  the  minds  of  the  peoples  of  the  foreign 
countries  toward  the  Soviet  Union. 

Having  been  afforded  the  opportunity  of  living  and  working 
in  the  U.S.S.R.  during  the  epoch-making  period  ...  we  have 
witnessed  the  initial  efforts  of  the  people  in  their  industrial 
program,  which,  minus  the  prevailing  enthusiasm  of  the  masses, 
would  be  impossible  of  accomplishment. 

It  is  such  groups  of  workers,  together  with  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  workers  and  sympathizers  in  other  lands, 
who  now  form  the  real  friends  of  the  Soviet  Union.  It  is 
they  who  from  their  own  experience  as  workers  must  answer 
directly  and  sharply  the  stream  of  lies  about  "forced  labor"  in 
the  only  land  where  labor  is  really  free. 


CHAPTER  X 
SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION 

From  the  slavery  of  the  time  of  the  Egyptian  Pharaohs  to 
present-day  capitalism  the  history  of  labor  is  the  history  of 
forced  labor.  Under  slave  systems,  under  feudalism  and 
to-day  under  capitalism  all  labor  necessary  for  the  life  of 
society  has  been  carried  out  by  an  oppressed  class,  which  has 
been  deprived  of  most  of  the  good  things  of  life  created  by 
it  and  given  only  enough  to  assure  its  procreation  and  life 
from  one  day  of  toil  to  the  next.  The  various  systems  of 
labor  exploitation  have  differed  only  in  the  methods  employed 
by  the  ruling  class  to  force  the  workers  to  labor. 

Under  a  pre-capitalist  form  of  labor,  the  exploiters  use 
direct  force  for  extracting  forced  labor:  the  exploited  are 
deprived  of  personal  liberty;  serfs  are  bound  to  the  land  of  a 
manorial  lord;  compulsory  labor  laws  are  passed,  etc.  This 
is  direct  forced  labor.  Under  capitalism,  as  we  have  pointed 
out  in  Chapter  I,  the  exploiters  use  indirect,  hidden  coercion 
to  make  the  workers  produce  surplus  value.  Starvation  is 
the  principal  method  of  compulsion,  although  more  direct 
methods  of  physical  force  are  used  when  the  need  arises. 

Within  the  borders  of  the  United  States,  as  we  have  tried 
to  show  in  this  book,  we  find  forced  labor  of  the  most  direct 
type  in  connection  with  unemployment  "relief"  and  various 
public  and  private  "charitable"  institutions.  We  find  forced 
labor  in  prisons  and  on  chain  gangs.  We  find  peonage  wide- 
spread; and  in  the  American  colonies  and  semi-colonies  we 
find  every  form  of  direct  forced  labor. 

If  the  capitalists  and  their  apologists  really  want  to  find 
convict  labor  they  should  begin  their  search  at  home  and  not 
in  the  Soviet  Union,  the  only  free  labor  country  in  the  world. 

176 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  177 

As  we  have  shown  they  would  find  in  the  United  States  that 
several  hundred  thousand  prisoners  in  state,  federal,  city  and 
county  prisons  are  producing  many  millions  of  dollars  worth 
of  convict-made  goods.  These  commodities  are  being  sold 
in  the  general  market,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  under  the 
most  despicable  methods,  furnishing  cut-throat  competition 
with  "free"  labor  in  a  time  of  economic  crisis  when  at  least 
16,000,000  "free"  workers  are  jobless.  They  would  find 
that  the  conditions  under  which  these  goods  are  produced  are 
more  horrible  than  those  the  most  consummate  liar  among  all 
the  patrioteers  and  monarchists  has  been  able  to  concoct  about 
the  Soviet  Union.  In  the  United  States  we  find:  women 
hung  up  on  pegs  like  hams  of  meat;  men  confined  in  the 
stocks,  in  dungeons,  in  disease-infested  holes  on  bread  and 
water ;  men  whipped  to  death  and  smothered  in  sweat'boxes. 
In  fact  we  find  all  the  tortures  used  by  the  decadent  ruling 
classes  throughout  history.  All  these  tortures  are  adminis- 
tered for  not  doing  enough  work. 

The  prisoners  who  are  thus  exploited,  victimized  and  mur- 
dered are  workers.  Most  of  them  are  guilty  of  "crimes"  of 
hunger  and  unemployment,  many  are  the  victims  of  the  third 
degree  and  the  frame-up.  Others  are  political  prisoners  who 
are  imprisoned  for  their  labor  activities.  The  rich,  control- 
ing  the  courts  and  the  law-making  bodies,  go  free. 

The  prime  motive  of  this  system  of  convict  labor  is  the 
desire  for  profit.  This  is  true  whether  the  convict  works 
for  a  private  employer  or  for  the  state.  The  Wickersham 
report  on  penal  institutions  was  forced  to  admit  that  no 
wages,  or  at  best  in  a  few  cases  insignificant  wages,  are  paid 
the  convicts.  There  is  no  workmen's  compensation,  other 
than  nominal  compensation  in  only  two  states,  for  the  pris- 
oners who  are  forced  to  work  under  criminally  dangerous 
conditions.  The  highest  prison  authorities  are  forced  to 
admit  that  there  is  not  a  single  well-rounded-out  educational 
program  for  prison  inmates  in  a  single  prison  in  the  country. 
No  real  vocational  training  is  given.    Where  is  the  vocational 


178  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

training  in  making  a  farmer  push  a  needle  or  a  city  industrial 
worker  a  plow,  or  an  office  clerk  a  coal  shovel?  Why  are 
workers  driven  to  perform  impossible  tasks  or  suffer  in- 
human tortures  ?    Is  all  this  for  reform  ? 

Peonage  is  one  of  the  most  important  types  of  forced  labor 
in  the  United  States,  as  it  involves  tens  of  thousands  of 
industrial  workers  and  tenant  farmers,  chiefly  Negroes.  It 
is  especially  prevalent  in  the  South  where  it  has  been  used 
since  the  Civil  War  as  a  partial  substitute  for  chattel  slavery. 
It  is  also  found  in  other  parts  of  the  country,  as  for  example 
among  Mexicans  in  the  Southwest  and  in  beet  fields  in  Col- 
orado, Kansas,  Michigan. 

Contrary  to  popular  opinion  peonage  is  still  legalized  in 
several  southern  states  through  laws  which  penalize  the 
breaking  of  a  contract,  vagrancy  laws  and  emigrant  agency 
laws.  But  peonage  does  not  depend  upon  law  alone  but 
also  on  extra-legal  methods  including  physical  force  and 
terrorism. 

Though  there  is  no  way  of  determining  the  exact  propor- 
tions of  the  problem,  the  hundreds  of  instances  of  exposures 
of  peonage  cases  during  the  past  few  years,  as  well  as  many 
actual  court  prosecutions  that  were  forced  upon  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice,  indicate  that  peonage  involves  tens  of 
thousands  of  victims.  The  many  revolts,  usually  called  "race 
riots,"  against  these  conditions  are  also  eloquent  testimony 
as  to  its  prevalence. 

This  country's  record  of  exploitation  of  forced  labor  in  the 
colonies  differs  only  slightly  in  degree,  if  at  all,  from  that  of 
other  imperialist  nations.  Herbert  Hoover,  one  of  our 
foremost  "humanitarians,"  has  been  engaged  in  trafficking  in 
colonial  forced  labor  on  a  large  scale. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  one-fifth  of  all  imports  into  the 
United  States,  especially  coffee,  rubber,  tobacco,  sugar,  spices, 
oils,  fruits,  are  produced  in  whole  or  in  part  by  direct  forced 
labor.  A  part  of  these  colonial  forced  labor  goods  are  pro- 
duced in  the  colonies  dominated  by  foreign  imperialists.    But 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  179 

most  of  them  are  produced  in  United  States  colonies,  semi- 
colonies,  or  "independent"  countries  where  much  Ameri- 
can finance  capital  is  invested,  such  as  in  the  Caribbean 
islands,  in  Central  America,  in  certain  parts  of  South  Amer- 
ica, Hawaii,  the  Philippines,  Liberia  and  other  countries. 

The  historic  methods  by  which  forced  laborers  have  been 
recruited  in  these  places  is  by  the  expropriation  of  the  best 
land  by  foreign  and  domestic  landlords  and  capitalists.  In 
this  way  small  peasant  proprietors,  or  natives  who  tilled  com- 
mon lands  have  been  forced  to  seek  work  for  employers  in 
order  to  exist.  To  speed  up  this  process  special  taxes  have 
often  been  levied  so  that  the  natives  were  forced  to  seek  work 
from  exploiters  to  pay  the  taxes.  Also  native  chiefs  are 
bribed  or  compelled  to  furnish  forced  laborers. 

The  worst  direct  forced  labor  conditions  have  existed  in 
Cuba,  Guatemala,  Liberia,  Haiti,  Venezuela  and  the  Philip- 
pines. In  the  Philippines,  for  example,  Robert  W.  Hart, 
surgeon  of  the  United  States  Health  Service,  stationed  in  the 
islands  for  many  years,  estimated  in  1926  that  20%  of  the 
total  laboring  population  are  held  in  "practical  slavery." 

A  new  form  of  labor  was  ushered  in  by  the  October,  191 7, 
Revolution  in  Russia.  The  essence  of  the  Revolution  was 
the  expropriation  of  the  capitalists  and  of  the  large  land- 
owners and  the  seizure  of  power  by  the  proletariat  and  the 
poorest  strata  of  the  peasantry.  The  formerly  exploited  and 
oppressed  classes  became  the  new  ruling  class;  the  former 
exploiters  were  suppressed.  Through  the  succeeding  years 
of  the  Revolution  the  whole  economic  and  social  structure 
of  Russia  is  becoming  socialized.  The  last  bulwark  of  en- 
trenched capitalism  is  rapidly  being  overcome  by  the  col- 
lectivization of  agriculture  which  is  making  impossible  the 
existence  of  the  individual  peasant  proprietor.  The  Second 
Five- Year  Plan  lays  down  as  a  practical  task  the  emergence 
of  a  classless  society,  ready  technically  and  ideologically  to 
begin  the  transformation  to  Communism. 


180  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

The  means  of  production  and  distribution  in  the  Soviet 
Union  are  in  the  hands  of  the  workers  and  the  proletarian 
state.  The  greater  part  of  agriculture  is  already  organized 
on  socialist  lines  in  Soviet  state  and  collective  farms.  The 
whole  economy  of  the  country  has  been  reorganized  and  is  a 
planned  economy.  This  is  possible  only  under  a  socialist 
system.  A  tremendous  cultural  change  is  taking  place.  The 
material  and  cultural  conditions  of  the  workers  have  been 
greatly  improved.  Cultural  life  in  the  rural  districts  is  mak- 
ing tremendous  strides  and  the  proverbial  backwardness  of 
the  village  is  being  abolished.  Does  this  not  prove  that  the 
U.S.S.R.  is,  so  far,  ^the  only  land  of  free  labor  in  the  real 
sense  of  the  word,  the  only  land  where  the  workers  are 
masters  of  their  own  destiny? 

However,  the  workers  and  peasants  of  the  U.S.S.R.  are 
not  yet  satisfied  with  the  successes  they  have  achieved.  The 
rate  of  development  of  socialist  construction  must  be  in- 
creased still  more,  technology  must  be  mastered,  the  banner 
of  socialist  competition  must  be  raised  still  higher. 

For  the  international  capitalists  to  charge  that  Soviet  econ- 
omy is  based  on  forced  labor  in  the  face  of  the  above  facts 
gives  weight  to  the  charges  that  those  who  are  conducting 
the  holy  crusade  against  the  "terrible"  Bolsheviks  are  not 
horrified  at  the  thought  of  real  forced  labor  in  their  own 
country.  On  the  contrary  they  have  proven  themselves  utterly 
callous  on  that  score.  They  are,  in  fact,  keenly  interested  in 
''forced  labor,"  merely  as  a  pretext  for  shutting  off  Soviet- 
American  trade,  for  crippling  the  Five- Year  Plan,  and  for 
preparing  sentiment  for  war  against  the  U.S.S.R.  in  order 
— ^they  claim — ^to  free  the  poor  "forced  laborers"  in  that 
country  and  place  them  again  under  the  wonderfully  benign 
protection  of  a  capitalist  system! 

This  is  not  the  first  time  in  history  that  the  exploiting  class 
has  tried  to  discredit  a  workers*  government  and  destroy  it. 
And  this  is  not  the  first  time  that  capitalists  have  used  the 
pretext  of  wanting  "to  liberate  the  victims"  of  such  a  govern- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  181 

ment,  in  order  to  prepare  for  its  overthrow  by  drowning  it  in 
the  blood  of  the  working  class. 

The  same  thing  happened  during  the  reign  of  the  Paris 
Commune  in  1871,  when  for  a  brief  time  the  workers  of 
France  held  power.  Thiers,  leader  of  the  French  bourgeoisie, 
charged  that  the  Commune  was  a  tyranny  and  used  that  as  a 
pretext  for  destroying  it. 

"Thiers,"  writes  Karl  Marx,  "denounced  it  [the  First  Inter- 
national] as  the  despot  of  labor,  pretending  to  be  its  liberator. 
...  He  tells  Paris  that  he  was  only  anxious  to  free  it  from 
the  hideous  tyrants  who  oppress  it." 

Thus  in  1871  the  French  bourgeoisie  and  foreign  capital- 
ists waged  war  against  Red  Paris  under  slogans  similar  to 
those  now  being  used  to  prepare  war  against  the  Soviet 
Union.  The  bourgeoisie,  in  1871,  talked  about  the  "despots 
of  labor"  in  Red  Paris.  Now  they  talk  about  slaves  and 
"forced  labor"  in  Red  Russia.  The  enemies  of  the  worker 
then  said  that  Red  Paris  was  oppressed  by  tyrants.  To-day 
the  capitalists  and  their  spokesmen  say  the  Soviet  workers 
are  under  the  "bloody  tyranny"  of  the  omnipotent  O.G.P.U. 

The  rich  French  parasites  of  1871  posed  as  the  emancipa- 
tors of  labor.  The  story  of  how  they  "freed"  the  workers  of 
Paris  can  be  read  on  the  "Wall  of  the  Communards"  in  the 
cemetery,  P^re  Lachaise,  in  Paris.  The  Paris  Commune, 
the  first  workers*  government  in  history,  was  drowned  in  the 
blood  of  its  heroic  defenders.  The  workers  of  Paris  were 
shackled  again. 

The  international  capitalists,  including  those  of  the  United 
States,  who  exploit  actual  colonial  slaves  as  well  as  forced 
labor  in  their  own  countries,  would  like  to  "emancipate"  the 
Soviet  "slaves"  in  the  same  way  the  Paris  workers  were 
"freed."  Hence  the  campaign  of  hate  and  lies  about  forced 
labor  in  the  Soviet  Union.  Hence  the  preparations  for  war 
which  go  on  continually  and  which  at  present  center  chiefly 
in  the  Far  East. 


REFERENCE  NOTES 
CHAPTER  I 

1.  Karl  Marx,  Capital,  Vol.  Ill,  Charles  H.  Kerr,  p.  953. 

2.  Karl  Marx,  Value,  Price  and  Profit,  p.  84. 

3.  Karl  Marx,  Capital,  Vol.  I,  International  Publishers,  p.  715. 

4.  See  Charlotte    Todes,    The    Injunction    Menace,    International 

Pamphlets,  No.  22. 

5.  The  Yellow-Dog  Contract,  Elliot  E.  Cohen,  International  Pam- 

phlets, No.  21. 

6.  Karl  Marx,  The  Civil  War  in  France,  Postgate's  edition,  p.  29. 

7.  Karl  Marx,  Wage-Labor  and  Capital,  International  Publishers, 

p.  48. 

8.  Capital,  Vol.  I,  p.  320. 

9.  Charles  and  Mary  Beard,  Rise  of  American  Civilisation,  p.  132. 

10.  Kathleen  Simon,  Slavery,  p.  128. 

11.  Capital,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  158. 

12.  New  York  Times,  October  5,  1931. 

13.  See  1929  Report  of  Institute  for  Government  Research ;  Massacre, 

by  Robert  Gessner ;  article  in  Survey  Graphic,  January,  1929 ; 
Good  Housekeeping,  February  and  March,  1929. 

CHAPTER  II 

1.  Austin  H.  MacCormick,  "Education  in  the  Prisons  of  Tomorrow," 

chapter  in  Prisons  of  Tomorrow,  Annals  of  the  American 
Academy  for  Political  and  Social  Science,  September,  1931, 

p.  73- 

2.  New  York  Times,  July  13,  1932. 

3.  New  York  World-Telegram,  July  10,  1931. 

4.  See  Vern  Smith,  The  Frame-Up  System,  International  Pamphlets, 

No.  8. 

CHAPTER  III 

1.  New  York  Times,  March  27,  1932. 

2.  New  York  World-Telegram,  August  29,  1931. 

3.  Based  largely  on  Handbook  of  American  Prisons  and  Reforma- 

tories, 1929. 

4.  Howard  B.   Gill,  "Convict  Labor,"  chapter  in  Prisons  of  To- 

morrow, pp.  83-101. 

5.  New  York  Times,  August  22,  1892. 

CHAPTER  IV 

1.  New  York  Times,  October  24,  1931. 

2.  Report  of  National  Commission  on  Law  Observance  and  Enforce- 

ment (Wickersham  Commission),  Vol.  IX,  pp.  109-110. 
183 


184  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 

3.  United  States  Children's  Bureau,  Bulletin,  No.  182,  1928,  p.  34, 

4.  New  York  Times,  November  18,  1931. 

5.  J.  S.  Allen,  The  American  Negro,  International  Pamphlets,  No. 

18,  p.  3. 

6.  Prisons  of  Tomorrow,  p.  25. 

7.  Churchman,  January  31,  February  7,  1931. 

8.  Leon  Whipple,  Story  of  Civil  Liberties  in  the  United  States, 

pp.  290-291. 

9.  Ibid.,  p.  236. 

10.  Anna  Rochester,  Labor  and  Coal,  p.  179. 

11.  Knoxville  News-Sentinel,  February,  1931. 

CHAPTER  V 

I.  From  a  typewritten  manuscript  in  hands  of  Esther  Lowell,  author 
of  Labor  in  the  South,  International  Publishers.  Included  in 
material  gathered  by  North  Carolina  State  Board  of  Charities. 

CHAPTER  VI 

1.  Herbert  J.  Seligman,  The  Negro  Faces  America,  p.  222. 

2.  Statement   by   a    former    United    States   attorney    in   Arkansas, 

quoted  by  Seligman,  op.  cit.,  pp.  247-248. 

3.  Carter  G.  Woodson,  The  Rural  Negro,  p.  49. 

4.  Ibid.,  pp.  72-73. 

5.  Ibid.,  p.  75. 

6.  New  York  World,  November  24,  1929. 

7.  Federated  Press,  December  7,  1929. 

8.  United   States  Department  of   Labor,   Division  of   Negro  Eco- 

nomics, Negro  Migrations  in  igi6-i7,  p.  104. 

9.  International  Labor  News  Service,  August  9,  1930. 

10.  Memphis   Press-Scimitar,  April    18,    1931.     See  also  American 

Labor  Banner,  March  7,  1931. 

11.  Thomas  J.  Michie,  editor,  Georgia  Code,  1926,  Penal  Code,  Sec- 

tion 125  (P  122),  p.  1926. 

12.  Ibid.,  Section  715,  p.  2037. 

13.  Ibid.,  Section  716,  p.  2037. 

14.  219  U.S.  219  Bailey  v.  State  of  Alabama. 

15.  Alabama  laws  as  amended  in  1907,  cited  in  219  U.S.  219  Bailey 

V.  State  of  Alabama. 

16.  Florida,  Cumulative  Statutes,  1925,  Section  5161. 

17.  New  York  World,  November  24,  1929. 

18.  Jerome  Dowd,  The  Negro  in  American  Life,  chapter  on  Peonage, 

pp.  133-134- 

CHAPTER  VII 

1.  Woodson,  op.  cit.,  p.  78. 

2.  Ibid.,  p.  78. 

3.  Immigration  Commission,  Peonage,  pp.  439-449  of  Senate  Docu- 

ment No.  747,  Vol.  II,  61  St  Congress,  3rd  Session. 

4.  The  Crisis,  July,  1920,  p.  139. 

5.  Monroe  Work,  Negro  Yearbook,  1931-32,  Pp.  I39-I4i« 


REFERENCE  NOTES  186 

6.  New  York  Times,  February  2,  1927. 

7.  Work,  op.  cit.,  pp.  139- 141. 

8.  The  Crisis,  January,  February  and  March,  1928;  also  Woodson, 

op.  cit.,  pp.  86-88. 

9.  Hearings  on  the  Restriction  of  Western  Hemisphere  Immigration, 

before  Committee  on  Immigration,  U.  S.  Senate,  70th  Con- 
gress, First  Session,  p.  42. 

10.  The  Crisis,  January,  February,  March,  1928. 

11.  New  York  Times,  February  4,  1931. 

12.  Ibid. 

13.  New  Orleans  Times-Picayune,  February  17,  1931. 

14.  Woodson,  op.  cit.,  p.  88. 

15.  New  York  World,  November  24,  1929. 

16.  Knoxville   (Tennessee)  News-Sentinel,  March  27,  1930. 

17.  New  York  Sun,  December  2,  1931 ;  also  Associated  Press  report, 

December  4,  1931. 

18.  See  Moore  et  al  v.  Dempsey,  261  U.S.  86. 

19.  Seligman,  op.  cit.,  p.  234. 

20.  Charlotte  Todes,  Labor  and  Lumber,  pp.  174-178. 

21.  Seligman,  op.  cit.,  p.  317. 

22.  Allen,  op.  cit.,  p.  13. 

23.  Knoxville  (Tenn.)  News-Sentinel,  February  22,  1931. 

24.  Paul  S.  Taylor,  Mexican  Labor  in  the  United  States:  Imperial 

Valley,  University  of  California  Press,  1928,  pp.  45-52. 

25.  Labor  Research  Association,  Labor  Fact  Book,  p.  157. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

1.  Walter  H.  Liggett,  The  Rise  of  Herbert  Hoover,  pp.  137-138. 

2.  Ibid.,  p.  211. 

3.  John  Hamill,  The  Strange.  Career  of  Mr.  Hoover,  p.  160  ff. 

4.  For  a  discussion  of  American  imperialism  in  these  countries  see 

Labor  Fact  Book,  pp.  35-42. 

5.  Jessie  Lloyd,  Federated  Press,  November  19,  1930. 

6.  The  Nation,  May  23,  1928. 

7.  Current  History,  March,  1922. 

8.  Dana   G.  Mimro,   The  Five  Republics  of  Central  America,  p. 

60  #. 

9.  Quoted  by  Carleton  Beals  in  Current  History,  August,  1930. 

10.  Report  of  International  Commission  of  Inquiry  into  the  Existence 

of  Slavery  and  Forced  Labor  in  the  Republic  of  Liberia, 
1930.  The  report  was  also  summarized  in  Monthly  Labor 
Review,  May,  1931,  pp.  58-62. 

11.  R.  L.  Buell,  The  Native  Problem,  in  Africa,  p.  834. 

12.  Current  History,  April,  1929. 

13.  Leo  L.  Partlow,  Asia,  January,  1931. 

14.  Washington  Times,  August  11,  1921. 

15.  United   States    Bureau   of    Labor    Statistics,    Bulletin   No.    534, 

Labor  Conditions  in  Hawaii,  p.  15. 

16.  The  American  Chamber  of  Commerce  Journal,  June,  1930. 

17.  Moorfield  Storey  and  Marcial  P.  Lichauco,  The  Philippines  and 

the  United  States,  p.  25  ff. 

18.  R.  L.  Buell,  New  York  Times,  December  15,  1929. 

19.  Federated  Press,  September  i,  1926. 


186  FORCED  LABOR  IN  THE  U.  S. 


CHAPTER  IX 

1.  From  a  speech  delivered  by  Joseph   Stalin,   February  4,   1931, 

in  Moscow  at  the  First  All-Russian  Conference  of  Workers 
in  Socialist  Industrialization. 

2.  Statement  of  John  L.  Spivak,  Presented  to   the  Congressional 

Committee   Investigating   Communist  Propaganda,   July  24, 
1930,  American  Civil  Liberties  Union   (mimeographed). 

3.  New  Republic,  February  25,  1931,  quoting  Manchester  Guardian, 

4.  Forced  Labor  in  Russia f  published  by  British-Russian  Gazette 

and  Trade  Outlook,  London,  pp.  37-42. 

5.  See  Russian  Timber,  report  of  the  Delegation  Appointed  by  the 

Russian  Timber  Committee  of  the  Timber  Trade  Federation 
of  the  United  Kingdom. 

6.  United  States  Daily,  October  26,  1931. 

7.  New  York  Times,  April  10,  1932. 

8.  New  York  Times,  June  6,  1932. 

9.  Joseph  Freeman,  The  Soviet  Worker,  International  Publishers, 

p.  254. 

10.  New  York  World-Telegram,  July  30,  193 1. 

11.  Roger  N.  Baldwin,  Liberty  Under  the  Soviets,  p.  248. 

12.  New  York  Times,  January  19,  1931. 

13.  George  M.  Price,  Labor  Protection  in  the  Soviet  Union,  p.  55 ; 

see  also  Soviet  Trade  Unions  by  Robert  W.  Dunn. 

14.  Joseph  Freeman,  op.  cit.,  pp.  188-189. 

15.  Ibid.,  pp.  188-189. 

16.  New  York  Times,  July  5,  I93l. 


INDEX 


Abramovitch,  Rafael,  147. 
Accidents,  among  prison  workers, 

52-54. 
Adams,     John,     on     wage-labor 

under  capitalism,  16. 
Africa,  slavery  in,  18. 
Age,  of  prison  inmates,  25. 
Agricultural   Workers   Industrial 

Union,  117. 
Alabama,  value  of  prison  goods 

in,  34. 
Allegheny     County     Workhouse, 

32,  39. 
American  Civil  Liberties  Union, 

161. 
American   Federation   of    Labor, 

116,  117,  147,  170;  attitude  to- 
ward prison  labor,  62-63. 
American     Indians,     as     forced 

laborers,  22. 
American-Russian    Chamber     of 

Commerce,  154. 
Amtorg  Trading  Corp.,  146. 
Anti-unionism,  I4#. 
Arbitration,  compulsory,  18. 
Arlington       Memorial       Bridge, 

prison  labor  on,  45. 
Armstrong,   Orland  K.,  exposiure 

of,  98,  106-107. 
Asia,  slavery  in,  18. 
Auburn  prison,  value  of  products 

manufactured  in,  36. 

Baldwin,  Roger  N.,  161. 

Banana  workers,  strike  of,  144. 

Beet  workers,  22;  strike  of,  117. 

Bellamy,  Willie,  69. 

Black  Codes,  85. 

Blind,  competition  of  prison  labor 

with,  48. 
Bloodhounds,    use    of    on    chain 

gangs,  72,  73- 
Bolivia,  122. 
Borderline  types,  of  forced  labor, 

I9#. 
Brandle,  Theodore  M.,  27. 


Bribery,  in  federal  prisons,  28. 

Brisbane,  Arthur,  46. 

Brushy     Mountain     Penitentiary, 

53,    56,   58. 
Brutality,  of  chain  gang  guards, 

72ff. 
Buell,  R.  L.,  134. 

Callas,  Joseph,   100. 

Camp  Hill,  112-113, 

Canada,  embargo  on  United 
States  prison  goods,  45. 

Cannon,   Bishop  James,  Jr.,  28. 

Capitalism,  as  system  of  exploita- 
tion, i6#. 

Capitalist  opposition,  to  Soviet 
Union,  I45#. 

Carlton,  Gov.  Doyle  E.,  defense 
of  Florida  prison  system,  80. 

Catastrophes,  exposures  of  peon- 
age through,  104-106. 

Causes  of  crime,  26-27,  28. 

Central  America,  forced  labor  in, 
128-129. 

Central    Asia,    forced    labor    in, 

155. 
Chain  gangs,  25,  Chap.  V. 
Charges,    against    Soviet    Union, 

148;  answer  to,  I49#. 
Chattel   slavery,   10;   in  colonies, 

ii9#. 
Children,  in  state  mstitutions,  61- 

62. 
Chinese  Engineering  and  Mining 

Co.,  shipping  of  coolies  by,  122. 
Class  war  prisoners,  29,  66,  81. 
Clothing,  prison  made,  41-42,  44. 

45,  47,  50,  62. 
Coal  Creek  Rebellion,  48,  63-64, 

65. 
Colombia,  strike  in,  144. 
Colonies,   forced  labor  in.  Chap. 

VIII. 
Colorado  beet  workers,  strike  of, 

117. 
Colored  Farmers*  Alliance,  iia 

187 


188 


INDEX 


Commodities,  prison  made,  41-43. 
Communes,  labor,  160. 
Communists,    activities    of,    113; 

threats  of   chain   gang  against 

organizers  of,  82. 
Communist  Party,  of  Cuba,  144. 
Commimist     Party,     of      Soviet 

Union,  166,  169;  13th  Congress 

of,  164. 
Companies,    profiting    by    prison 

labor,  43. 
Company  stores,  in  Cuba,  125. 
Company   towns,    I2#. 
Competition,  of   free  and  prison 

labor,  46-49. 
Complaints,  peonage,  100. 
Connecticut,  prisons  of,  57. 
Contract  labor,  in  Cuba,  125. 
Contract  system,  zgff. 
Convict    labor.    Chaps.    II,    III; 

status  of  in  Soviet  Union,  I59#. 
Convicts,     forced    labor    among, 

34#. 
Coolies,  Chinese,  122;  in  Hawaii, 

137. 
Cooper,  Col.  Hugh  L.,  152. 
Corvee  law,  128;  revolts  against, 

143. 
Costa  Rica,  129. 
Cotton   growing,   employment   of 

convicts  in,  37. 
County  jails,  convict  labor  in,  38- 

39. 
Courson,  George  W.,  81. 
Courts,  30. 

Cowles,  Genevieve,  57. 
Cranford,  Nevin  C.,  75-78. 
Crimes,  nature  of  under  capital- 
ism, 29#. 
Criminal      syndicalism,      jailings 

for,  29. 
Crisis    of     1929,    effects    of    on 

forced  labor,  24. 
Criticism  of  the  Gotha  Program^ 

164,  165. 
Cuba,    forced  labor   in,   124-128; 

struggles   against   forced  labor 

in,   143-144. 
Cultural  pursuits,  of  Soviet  pris- 
oners, 160. 
Culture,  in  Soviet  Union,  I73#. 

Deaths,  from  prison  fires,  52. 
Debt  slavery,  86,  88. 


De  Bekker,  L.  J.,   127. 
Definition,  of  forced  labor.  Chap. 

Department  of  Justice,  inactivity 

of,  100. 
Discharge  of  workers,  in  Soviet 

Union,  171. 
Discipline    of     Russian    masses, 

168. 
Dnieprostroy,  152. 
Doctors,  false  reports  of,  78. 
Doll,  Myron  G.,  154. 
Dorsey,  Gov.   Hugh  M.,   103. 
Du  Bois,  W.  E.  B.,  113. 
Duranty,  Walter,  152,  161. 

Eddy,  Sherwood,  170. 
Education,   of   prison   population, 

25;  in  Soviet  Union,  I73#. 
Eight-hour  day,  in  Soviet  Union, 

172. 
Emergency      Immigration      Bill, 

114-11S. 
Emigrant  Agency  Law,  94-95. 
Employers,  tactics  of,   I2#.,  iii. 
Entertainments,  for  prisoners,  60. 
Exploitation,    methods    of    under 

capitalism,  16  ff. 
Exploitation,     of     convict    labor. 

Chap.  III. 
Export,    of   prison   made   goods, 

45. 

Factory    committees,     in    Soviet 

Union,  171. 
Fall,  Albert  B.,  27. 
Farmers'  Alliance,  no. 
Farms,  prison  labor  on,  42. 
Farm    laborers,    ntmiber    of    in 

Philippines,  139. 
Farm  states,  prison  labor  in,  37- 

38. 
Federated  Press,  20,  125. 
Firestone  Rubber  Co.,  I32#. 
Fire  hazards,  in  prisons,  52. 
Fish  Committee,  147. 
Five   Year   Plan,    146,    150,    158, 

166,  167,  169,  171,  179,  180. 
Florida,  peonage  in,  103. 
Food,   on   chain  gangs,  71 ;   cost 

of  in  prisons,  58. 
Foreign       intervention,      against 

peonage,  loi. 
Foreign  Policy  Assn.,  134. 


INDEX 


189 


Frame-up  charges,  29,  89. 
"Free"  labor,  io#.,  18. 
Freeman,  Joseph,  154,  163. 

Gentile,  Peter  J.,  torture  of,  57. 

Georgia,  peonage  in,  102-103,  104 ; 
profits  from  chain  gang  opera- 
tions in,  70;  value  of  prison 
goods  in,  35. 

Georgia  Nigger,  70,  74. 

Gill,  Howard  H.,  46,  50. 

Good,  Harry,  55,  56. 

Gorsky,  A.  L.,  158. 

Government  work,  peonage  on, 
107-109. 

Great  Southern  Lumber  Co.,  112, 

^  157. 

Green,  William,  63. 

Guatemala,  peonage  in,  129-131; 
revolts  in,  144;  wages  in,  130- 
131. 

Guggenheims,  slave  conditions  in 
mines  of,  122. 

Haiti,  forced  labor  conditions  in, 

127-128. 
Hammond,  J.  H.,  17. 
Harlan  strike,  29. 
Hart,  Hastings  H.,  38. 
Hart,  Robert  W.,  140. 
Haskell,  William  N.,  174. 
Hawaii,    contract   labor   in,    136- 

139. 
Hazardous  occupations,  hours  of 

work  in,  in  Soviet  Union,  172. 
Hines,  W.  D.,  133,  134. 
Hitchman    Coal    and    Coke    Co., 

methods    used    against   militant 

workers,  14. 
"Home"  life,   in   prisons,   58-59; 

on  chain  gangs,  70#. 
Honduras,  129. 
Hoover,    Herbert,    disregard    for 

native  lives,  121 -122,  132. 
Hoover,  Hiram  F.,  109. 
Hours,  in  Czarist  Russia,  172;  in 

Soviet  Union,  171. 
Hours  of  work,  of  convicts,  54- 

55;    on    government    construc- 
tion, 108. 
Housing     conditions,     in     chain 

gang  camps,  71. 
Houston,  Cecil,  72. 
Hyde,  Arthur  M.,  88. 


Illiteracy,  abolition  of  in  Soviet 

prisons,  160. 
Immigrants,  conditions  of,  loi. 
Immigration    Commission,    peon- 
age investigation,    loi,    102. 
Imperialism,  ii8#.,  I29#.;  forms 

of  labor  under,  17 ff.;  struggles 

against,   I44#. 
Imperial  Valley,  117.  ' 

Imports,   made  by   forced  labor, 

120-121. 
Indiana  State  Prison,  44. 
Indictments,  for  peonage,  ioo#. 
Injunctions,  18. 
Interest     rates,     charged     tenant 

farmers,  88. 
International  Labor  Defense,  82, 

113. 
International  Longshoremen's 

Assn.,  117. 
Interstate     commerce,    value    of 

convict  labor  in,  35. 
Investments,  in  Philippines,  139. 
Irons,  use  of  on  chain  gangs,  74. 

"Jumping  Contract"  law,  gsff- 
Justice,  under  capitalism,  30. 

Kautsky,  Karl,  147. 

Kentucky,  value  of  prison  goods 

in,  35. 
Killings,  on  chain  gangs,  72,  78- 

82;   of   Negro  tenant   farmers, 

no;  of  prisoners,  41;  of  share 

croppers,   103. 
Kirby  Lumber  Co.,  157. 
Kulaks,  exile  of,  153,  I58#. 

Labor  camps,   102. 

Labor  Code,  in  Soviet  Union, 
I54#. 

Labor  communes,  160. 

Labor  turnover,  in  Soviet  Union, 
I54#. 

Lashmg,  of  prisoners,  55,  56,  59, 
69#M  73,  7^-77,  79#.;  on  gov- 
ernment jobs,  107. 

Lawes,  Lewis  E.,  25,  36. 

Laws,  used  to  enforce  peonage, 
9iif. 

Lease  system,  40,  49,  65. 

Leavenworth,  strike  of  prisoners 
in,  59,  65. 

Leavitt,  Julian,  47,  61. 


190 


INDEX 


Lee  Memorial  Boulevard,  prison 
labor  on,  45. 

Lee,  Yuel,  31. 

Legalization,  of  peonage,  9i#. 

Lenin,  147,  162. 

Liberia,  forced  labor  in,  131 -136. 

Local  jails,  convict  labor  in,  38- 
39. 

Loudon  County,  strike  of  prison- 
ers in,  65. 

Love  joy,  C.  E.,  160. 

Lumber,  Soviet,  148-149,  I56#.; 
in  U.  S.,  157;  manufactured  by 
prisoners,  42. 

MacCormick,  Austin  H.,  25,  26. 

Man  hunting,  73. 

Maillefert,  Arthur,  69,  80,  81. 

Maine,  peonage  in,   loi. 

Marine  Corps,  143. 

Marines,  in  Haiti,  128. 

Marketing,  of  prison  goods,  43- 
45. 

Marx,  Karl,  10,  11,  12,  15,  16,  21, 
162,  164,  181. 

McDonald,  J.  E.,  81. 

Medical  aid,  in  Soviet  Union,  172. 

Methods  of  coercion,  under  capi- 
talism, 12ff. 

Mexicans,  peonage  among,  in 
United  States,  ii4#. 

Militia,  use  of  against  farm 
union,  109. 

Minnesota,  peonage  in,  102. 

Minors,  hours  of  work  of  in 
Soviet  Union,  172. 

Mississippi  flood,  peonage  ex- 
posed through,  104. 

Mississippi,  peonage  in,  103. 

Montgomery,  Mrs.  W.  A.,  82. 

Mooney,  Tom,  and  Billings,  War- 
ren  K.,   29,   z6,   56. 

Moros,  struggles  of,  141. 

Munro,  Dana  G.,  129. 

Mutilation  (self),  by  prisoners, 
55,  56. 

Nashville  State  Penitentiary, 
profits  of,  37. 

National  Association  for  Ad- 
vancement of  Colored  People, 
113. 

National  Civic  Federation,  170. 

National  Guard,  104. 


National  Workers'  Federation  of 

Cuba,  144. 
Negroes,  arrests  of  as  vagrants, 

112;  discrimination  against,  30; 

imported  into  Cuba,  I24#.,  128; 

persecution  of,  28,  31,  69,  72, 

83,  84,  88,  96,  99,  103,  107,  hi; 

in  prisons,  68,  70,  74,  76,  77  \ 

slavery      conditions      of,      40; 

struggles  of,  64,  65,   109,   no, 

114. 
North  Dakota,  peonage  in,  102. 
North,  peonage  in,  87-88,  loi. 

Obligatory      labor,      in      Soviet 

Union,  155,  156. 
Occupational      diseases,      among 

prison  workers,  52-54. 
O'Connor,  Harvey,  125. 
October  Revolution,  157,  160,  172, 

179. 
O'Hare,  Kate  Richards,  47,  55. 
Oppenheimer,   Jacob,   torture   of, 

60. 
Organization,       among       tenant 

farmers,  I09#. 
Orphan  Jones,  31. 
Overcrowding,     of     prisons,     26, 

52. 

Pacific    Northwest,    peonage    in, 

115-116. 
Padrone  system,  87-88,  102. 
Panama,  129. 
Paris  Commune,  i8r. 
Patriotic  labels,  on  prison  goods, 

44-45. 
Pawning,  132.     ^ 
Penal  methods  in   Soviet  Union, 

159. 
Pennsylvania,  prison  labor  in,  38- 

39. 
Peonage,  Chaps.  VI,  VII. 
Peterson,  Willie,  31.  ^ 
Philippines,  peonage  in,  139-141J 

struggles  in,  141. 
Pickens,  William,   113. 
Piece  price  system,  44. 
Piggott,  James  E.,  107. 
Piatt,  Thomas  C,  63-64. 
Police,  help  of  in  securing  forced 

laborers,  92. 
Political  prisoners,  32,  81. 
Price,  George  M.,  170. 


INDEX 


191 


Prisoners,  treatment  of  in  Soviet 

Union,  I59#. 
Prison  farms,  tortures  on,  82. 
Prison  goods,  value  of,  34. 
Prison  Industries,  46,  47. 
Prison  population,  24#. 
Products,  of  convict  labor,  36£f.; 

of  forced  labor,  120-122. 
Profits,  from  chain  gangs,  70. 
Property  crimes,  26. 
Prosecutions,  for  peonage,  looff. 
Public  works,  forced  labor  on,  20. 
Public  works  system,  40. 
Punishment,  of  prisoners,   5S-6i, 

68#. 

Rack,  use  of  to  break  convicts,  75. 
Rahway   Reformatory,   strike  of 

prisoners   in,    65-66. 
Rainey   Amendment,    114,    115. 
Rainey,  Henry  T.,  151. 
Real    wages    in    Soviet    Union, 

171. 
Rebellion,  against  peonage,  I09#. 
Red  Cross,  21,  104,  105,  106. 
Revolts,     against     prison     labor, 

62#. 

Rewards,    for    recapture    of    es- 
caped convicts,  72. 
Road  work,  102 ;  of  prisoners,  37. 
Roller,  Arnold,  124, 
Rope,  prison  made,  42. 

Sacco  and  Vanzetti,  29. 

Salmon,  Peter  J.,  48. 

San  Quentin  prison,  36,  53,  56, 
60. 

Schools,  in  Soviet  Union,  173- 
174. 

Scottsboro  case,  29. 

Sedition,  jailings   for,  29. 

Sex  perversion,  in  prisons,  59-  , 

Share-croppers,  85,  105;  organi- 
zation among,  109. 

Share  Croppers  Union,  113-114. 

Shock-brigades,   167  ff. 

Sickness,  care  of  workers  during, 
in  Soviet  Union,  173. 

Sinclair,  Harry,  28. 

Sing  Sing  factories,  prosperity 
of,  36. 

Six-hour  day,  in  Soviet  Union, 
172. 

Slavery,  iigff. 


Slaves,  in  colonies  of  imperialist 

powers,  18. 
Slave    trade,    in    Cuba,    125;    in 

Liberia,  132. 
Smith,  William  H.,  57. 
Social  insurance,  in  Soviet  Union, 

Socialist  competition,  i67#. 
Socialist     labor     vs.     capitalist 

labor,  i62#. 
Sodomy,  in  prisons,  59. 
Soldiers,  use  of  in  prison  revolts, 

64. 
Solitary  confinement,  56-57,  60. 
Southern  Worker,  68. 
South,   peonage   in,  84#.;  prison 

labor  in,  38,  42. 
Soviet    trade,    measures    against, 

120. 
Soviet  Union,  gff.,  46,  Chap.  IX. 
Speed-up,  in  prisons,  51,  54;  on 

chain  gangs,  72. 
Spivak,  John  L.,  70,  74. 
Stalin,  Joseph,  166,  168. 
State  account  system,  40. 
State   prisons,    convict   labor   in, 

36-38. 
State,  role  of,  15. 
State  use  system,  40,  47. 
Stimson,  Henry  L.,  19. 
Stimuli,    for    increasing    produc- 
tion in  Soviet  Union,  166. 
Stocks,  use  of  in  prisons,  60. 
Stone,  Edward  B.,  25. 
Strait- jacket,  59-61. 
Strike-breakers,   use   of   convicts 

as,  48-49- 
Strikes,  against  peonage,   i09#.; 

of  Japanese  workers  in  Hawaii, 

138;   restrictions   against  right 

to  engage  in,  18. 
Struggles,  against  forced  labor  in 

colonies,    141-144;    in    prisons, 

1931-32,  65-67. 
Struggles,  against  peonage,  I09#. 
Sugar  industry,  in  Cuba,  124. 
Sugar  prices,  reduced  by  peonage 

in  Cuba,  126. 
Supreme    Court,   upholds    yellow 

dog  contract,  14. 
Surplus  labor,  10. 
Surplus  value,  11,  163. 
Sweat  box,  60,  73-74,  75. 
Swor,  A.  D.,  83. 


192 


INDEX 


Systems,  of  employing  prisoners, 
39-41. 

Tabert,  Martin,  68-69. 
Tampa  prisoners,  81. 
Tansey,  Michael,  80. 
Tasks,  of  convicts,  S4-SS. 
Task  system,  54,  56. 
Tayug  peasants,  uprising  of,  141- 
Tenants,    number    of    in    Philip- 
pines, 139. 
Tenant  system,  in  South,  84^. 
Tennessee  Coal,  Iron  &  Railroad 

Co.,  40-41. 
Texas,  peonage  in,  103. 
Textile     industry,     in     Alabama 

prisons,  36. 
Third  degree,  30#. 
Timber,   Soviet,   156;   in  United 

States,  157. 
Tobacco      Workers'      Industrial 

Union,  81. 
Tortures,   on  chain  gangs,  72#.; 

of    female    prisoners,    62;    of 

prisoners,     30#.,     55#.>    S9-6i, 

68#. 
Trade  unions,   in   Soviet  Union, 

i7off. 
Trade  Union  Unity  League,  112, 

117;  threat  of  chain  gang  for 

organizers  of,  82. 
Trusties,  use  of,  72. 
Tuberculosis,     among    prisoners, 

S3- 
Twine,  prison  made,  42. 

Tzetlin,  Michael,  153. 
Unemployment,  as  cause  of  crime, 

2S#. 

Unemployment  relief,  as  forced 
labor,  19-20;  in  Soviet  Union, 

^73. 
Unions,  of  tenant  farmers,  109F. 
United  Fruit  Co.,  124-125,  144- 

Vagrancy,  as  excuse  for  forced 
labor,  20,  giff.,  94,  io3,  112, 
119. 

Value  of  commodities,  produced 
by  convict  labor,  34#. 


Van  Waters,  Miriam,  61. 
Venereal  diseases,  among  prison- 
ers, 59. 
Venezuela,  122. 
Vocational  training,  50. 

Wage  labor,  10,  16,  17,  118. 

Wages,  for  cotton  picking,  93; 
effect  of  prison  labor  upon,  48; 
on  government  construction 
jobs,  108;  in  Guatemala,  130- 
131;  in  Hawaii,  137-138;  of 
Mexican  farm  workers,  116;  of 
prisoners,  51-52,  65;  in  Soviet 
Union,  156,  158. 

Wales,  Henry,  152. 

West,  peonage  in,   102. 

West  Indies,  forced  labor  in,  122- 
123. 

Whalen  Documents,  146. 

Wheeler,  Burton  K.,  21. 

Whippings,  69#.,  73,  7^-77,  79#.; 
of  young  girls,  62;  on  govern- 
ment jobs,  107. 

Wichita  prison,  tortures  in,  57. 

Wickersham  Commission,  26,  27, 
30,  31,  44,  SI,  61. 

Williams,  Spencer,  154. 

Woll,  Matthew,  147,  170. 

Women  prisoners,  62. 

Women  workers,  in  Soviet 
Union,  173. 

Worcester,   Dean  C,   139. 

Workers,  under  capitalism,  io#.; 
under  fascism,  18;  in  prison, 
24;  under  serfdom,  11;  under 
Socialism,  i62#. 

Work  relief,  121. 

Yankee  imperialism,  use  of  forced 

labor  by,  122-123. 
Yazoo   County,   106. 
Yellow  dog  contracts,  14,   18. 
Young    workers,    in   prison,    61- 

62. 


Zeigler,  Wiley,  82-83. 
Zinoviev  letter,  146. 


THE  END 


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