On the topic of organization of the emigrants the insertion in “the order of the day,” moved by “Congressman” Cabrini and carried, was:

“This assembly considers that a professional [formed by salaried organizers] organization open to all laboring men, without political or religious prejudice, is one of the very soundest methods of ameliorating the economic conditions, both moral and intellectual, of the laboring classes: holding that it is indispensable to the formation of a feeling of fraternal cordiality in the country, the control of the temporary emigration, the organization of the poor artisans; furthermore contending that for the assistance of the emigrants it is necessary that an organization of all Italian operatives consider the importance of all this and pray the Honorable Secretary of Emigration to instruct at all times, more than in the past, their leader’s actions.”

On the topic of educating the emigrant so that he may avoid being barred because of illiteracy, and may not be victimized by the patrone system, Professor Frescura introduced the following:

“All are in accord as to the necessity for instructing the emigrant. But be it held that the programme presented by Professor Galeno

When a lawyer named Cossattini had amended to increase the pay of the teachers in the districts where help was most needed, and “Congressman” Giradini had amended that instruction vary according to the exigencies of emigration, the Frescura resolution was passed.

In the matter of temporary emigration the Congress merely followed the lead of Professor Levi-Morenos, who was a member also of the International Agricultural Congress at Rome in May, 1903, in which it was bewailed that German and other ships were sharing so much Italian traffic back and forth between Italy and North and South America, and that so many emigrants were returning broken in health and injured. There was a lively row over contract labor of temporary emigrants. We are accustomed to think that our very stringent contract-labor laws are successfully excluding aliens under contract, but debate in the Congress would lead one to think the laws had merely made the patrones more powerful by making “smuggled” alien labor more valuable to American corporations.

In the matter of the “mediazione” of labor, or “bureauizing” it, as it were, to avoid the necessity or opportunity for patrones, or, as they are referred to by real sociologists of the first water on the other side, sfruttratori, a lively debate brought out some sharp attacks on government methods, Senator Bodio making a great speech and pushing to acceptance the following:

“This Congress considers it is necessary to exercise in behalf of our emigrant labor a convenient mediazione for avoiding that going forth blindly and that exposure to perfidious ‘grafters’ and innumerable perils, so coming to a condition of things that produces an obnoxious and foolish reduction of their pay, raises the animosity of their fellow-craftsmen [of America], causes prohibitive laws by the governments [American, etc.], acknowledging the purely negative character of our insufficient information and the hurtful and too widely public quality of the positive sort.

“It is our wish that a more useful and rational method of private mediazione of our labor, as already presaged in the acts of the Secretary of Emigration of Udine, come to be followed by the secretaries in similar offices in the chief places in the provinces, which action should be co-ordinated by means of a National Federation centralized, with branch sessions in each important centre of emigration in each particular province.”

It was decided to hold another Congress in Rome in two years.