Relatives of the padrones in Greece often pay the steamship passage of boys with the understanding that they are to go to the United States and serve the padrone for one year to reimburse him for the passage money advanced. A mortgage is placed on the property of the boys' father as security, purporting that the father is to receive in cash an amount equal to the wages commonly paid to Greek bootblacks for one year in the United States, but as a matter of fact a steamship ticket and $12 or $15 in money are all that is given. The cash is to serve as "show money" to help secure admission to this country past the immigration officers at the ports of entry. Advertising is systematically carried on throughout all the provinces of Greece with a view to exciting the interest of the parents so that they will send their boys to the United States, and no efforts are spared in letting it become known that there is a great demand here for boy labor at the bootblack stands. The padrones themselves even go to Greece every two or three years, and while there manage to become godfathers to the children of many families; this relationship gives them great influence, and through it they are able to secure many boys for their service.
Concerning the prevention of these abuses, the report says: "In the investigations conducted by the Bureau of Immigration many conferences were held with United States attorneys in various jurisdictions with the view of instituting proceedings against padrones, if possible, under the peonage statutes. The attorneys generally agreed that under the evidence submitted to them those laboring in shoe-shining establishments are peons, but as the elements of indebtedness and physical compulsion to work out the indebtedness are missing, peonage laws cannot apply.
"Our immigration laws as now on the statute books provide specifically for the exclusion of boys under sixteen years of age only when not accompanied by one or both of their parents. This provision cannot apply to those boys that come in company with their parents, nor to those who have their parents in the United States, nor to such as successfully deceive immigration officers by posing as the sons of immigrants in whose charge they come. If held for special inspection at the ports of entry, these aliens can only be excluded if it appears that they are destined to an occupation unsuited to their tender years. In the absence of any such evidence, the boards of inquiry generally admit. Once landed, it becomes a hard matter to trace them and almost impossible to secure evidence in the majority of cases, for the boys understand that they will be punished by deportation. This knowledge makes them persistent in withholding any information as to the manner of their entry into the United States."[69]
Quite recently a young Greek bootblack who was working at a stand in an Indianapolis office building confessed to a truant officer that he was twelve years old, whereupon the chief truant officer of the city went to the place, but on his arrival the boy had changed his mind and declared that he was fourteen years old, and every one connected with the stand supported the statement. Nevertheless the chief truant officer proceeded with the case and found that the boy had been in this country only about six months, his parents being still in Greece. An older brother had a position as a railroad porter but did not stay with the little fellow even on the few occasions he was in the city. The boy lived at the home of the proprietor of the stand, whose relationship to him was a combination of employer and guardian. This man operated four stands in the city, and his dozen or more other employees all lived at the same place. The chief truant officer charged the man with having worked the boy from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. seven days in the week, which was admitted before the Juvenile Court by the defendant, who also volunteered the information that the boy worked until 11 P.M. on holidays and on Saturdays. Of course the boy was being kept out of school.
In its issue of August 12, 1911, the Survey published a letter from a correspondent concerning a case of peonage among bootblacks in the city of Rochester, N.Y. This particular case was of a pale, thin, under-sized Greek lad who worked at a large stand in a local office building. He explained that he worked every day in the week from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M., including Sundays, and that on Saturdays the hours were lengthened to 11 P.M., adding that he had not been absent from his stand one day in four years except at one time when he was sick in the hospital.
A letter which was written by a Greek in Syracuse, N.Y., on May 4, 1911, to the editor of the Syracuse Post-Standard was printed in the same magazine.[70] This letter recites the wrongs of the bootblacks and is reproduced below because of its value as one of the rare protests which come from the victims of the system:—
"Before I came to this country from Greece, I heard that this country is free, but I don't think so. It is free for the Americans, not for the shoe shiners. In this city are too many shoe shiners' stands, and the boys which work there—they work fifteen hours a day, and Sunday, and almost eighteen on Saturdays. They make only from $12 to $18 a month and board, but we don't have any good board neither, but our patrons give us bread, tea and a piece of cheese for dinner, supper, but no breakfast. We don't have any time to go to the church, not in school, and without them we won't be good citizens. They won't let us read newspapers, because they are afraid if we learn something we will quit, but we can't quit because we can't speak English, and we can't find another job. Now I don't mean the boys working in the barber shops. They make $10 to $18 a week, and they don't work as hard as we do. We wish to work as they do. We want the public and Mr. Mayor to cut the hours from fifteen to ten, not Sundays, because we want time for school, and weekly work, not monthly. I think I wrote enough."
Peddlers and Market Children
The licensed peddlers of Boston are under orders not to engage little children to sell for them with or without compensation. "These peddlers have hitherto crowded the markets of this city by inviting children to help them in the business, frequently for no other compensation than the offal of their pushcarts or stands."[71]
The peddling of chewing gum is a common form of street occupation for children. In reality it is merely begging in disguise. The Chicago Vice Commission reports that its agents found boys under fourteen years of age selling gum late at night in the segregated districts of the city. At intervals of from two to three hours their investigators returned to the same neighborhood and found these little children still engaged in this very questionable form of work. One agent reported having seen two little girls of about eleven years in the company of a small boy of about eight years selling chewing gum in front of a saloon in the vice district between nine and ten o'clock at night.[72]