There is a group of peculiar economic institutions which have been developed by the immigrants in this country, and which are especially characteristic of the new immigration. This group includes the padrone system, the contract labor system, the immigrant bank, and two or three similar institutions, particularly the sweating system, which is now practically dependent on immigrants.
The word “padrone” is adopted from the Italian, and signifies master or “boss.” In its application to American conditions, it refers to a system of practical slavery, introduced into this country by the Italians, and subsequently utilized by a number of other southeastern European races. When immigration from Italy began to assume considerable proportions, there were already in the United States a few Italians who had been here some time, and had acquired a certain familiarity with the language and customs of the land. They were thereby especially fitted to be of assistance to their newly arrived fellow-countrymen, and also, unfortunately, to exploit them. In fact, they did both of these things. By way of assistance, they put the green immigrants in touch with employers of labor, helped them to find lodgings, and, in brief, acted as the go-between in every case of contact between the immigrant and the life of the people around him. On the other hand, the padrone charged the newcomer well for every service rendered, and in too many cases subjected him to various forms of extortion, which his ignorance kept him from either recognizing or preventing. As certain of the newer immigrants became familiar with the speech and customs of their new home, they in turn became padrones, and extended their operations over the ever increasing numbers of new arrivals. Thus the system spread.
There are certain businesses or occupations which are particularly adapted to the application of this system, such as railroad labor, peddling, boot-blacking, etc. The Italians developed it primarily in respect to the first of these. This race has now practically abandoned this system in this country, but it has been taken up by others, and is at present practiced by the Bulgarians, Turks, Macedonians, Greeks, and Mexicans, and in some cases among Austrians and Italians.[[242]]
A more concrete idea of the workings of this system may be gained by an examination of its operation in a single industry, as, for instance, the shoe-shining industry among the Greeks. This business, in a marked degree, combines the necessary elements for the successful application of the system,—small capital, cheap unskilled labor, close supervision, etc.,—and this race is well adapted to apply it to its extreme extent, partly from natural aptitude, and partly from custom and training. For the system, in its main outlines, has long been familiar in Greece, though some of the most unfortunate aspects do not develop there.
The padrone is a Greek who has been in this country for some time, and knows the ways of the land. He decides to engage in the boot-blacking trade, and to secure his necessary helpers contracts for a number of boys from his native land to come over and work for him for a certain length of time, for a specified sum. The arrangement is sometimes made with the boys, sometimes with the parents, but almost always with the parents’ consent. When these boys arrive, they are taken to a room or set of rooms, which the padrone has engaged and which thenceforth are their “home.” They are at once put to work in the shop of the boss, and kept at work continuously thereafter, with practically no time off which they can call their own, except the meager allowance made for sleep. The hours are long—twelve, fourteen, or even more hours per day. The boss furnishes board and lodging, and pays a small sum in cash, perhaps $200 per year. The rooms are frightfully overcrowded, miserably ventilated, and wholly unhygienic. The boys do their own cooking, usually in relays of two, and the noon meal is eaten hurriedly in a room in the rear of the shop. The boys are prevented from attending night school, and are forbidden to talk to patrons. In every way the padrone tries to discourage their acquiring knowledge of American ways, for the system rests on ignorance. In a majority of cases the padrone takes all the tips given to the boys, and the boys excuse him on the grounds that wages are high and expenses great.
It is obvious that the boys are wholly at the mercy of their boss, a mercy the quality of which is sadly strained. And when a boy does manage to get a grasp of the English language, and acquire a little independence, instead of turning traitor to the system, he sets up as a padrone himself. All investigators, and a number of the better class of Greeks in this country, agree that this system is a disgrace to the Greek race, or to any other race that practices it.[[243]]
The contract labor system is next of kin to the padrone system. The main differences are that the control of the boss, outside of working hours, is not so complete, and the relationship is likely to be of shorter duration. This system arises from the necessity of the capitalistic employer of labor getting in touch with the alien workman. Differences of language, ignorance of the sources and the means of communication, and a variety of other perfectly comprehensible reasons, prevent the employer from enlisting his workers directly, and the laborer from applying for work in his own person. The natural and inevitable intermediary is the immigrant who has been in this country long enough to know the language and have some influence and acquaintance among employers. Given this starting point, the process of bringing the immigrants and the employer together goes along wholly natural channels, with only minor modifications in the details. In some cases the employer pays the agent certain specified wages for each laborer furnished, and the agent pays whatever is necessary—below that figure—to secure the workers; sometimes the employer pays fixed wages to the laborers, and allows the agent a stated commission for each worker secured. This is much the more desirable system of the two. In many cases the agent is retained as overseer in charge of the men he has secured. The degree of definiteness in these arrangements varies all the way from cases where agents go over to foreign countries, definitely charged with securing laborers for some employer, to those where the employer simply lets it be known among his employees that there will be work for all their friends or relatives who wish to come, and leaves the leaven to work. It is becoming more rare for agents in this country to go abroad in person; the tendency is for them to work in connection with agents established on the other side.
The possibilities of abuse in this system are manifestly great. The agent customarily advances the passage money of those brought from abroad, taking a mortgage far in excess of his actual expense on whatever property the immigrant has to offer. Rates of interest are exorbitant, and the terms of the contract all in favor of the importer.[[244]] Sometimes the immigrant agrees to work for him seven or eight months, in return for an initial outlay of not over $100 or $125. In extreme cases, when an importer has taken mortgages far in excess of his actual expenditure, he will discharge an entire set of men, in order to make room for a new lot brought over on similar terms. The debts of the original group are still binding, and it is astonishing to note the faithfulness with which these poor unfortunates, thus thrown on their own resources, will labor on to pay off these obligations.
Not all of the laborers employed under this system are secured directly from abroad. Many of the more recent immigrants, who have been in this country for some time, are almost equally dependent on the contractor with the absolute “greeners.” Chicago is a great clearing house for the labor market of the western railroads, and labor agencies, often connected with a restaurant, or some similar place of business, abound in the foreign sections.[[245]]
A great deal of business of this general nature is carried on by aliens who are not real agents. It is very frequent for an immigrant to tell a newcomer that if he will pay him a certain sum of money he will secure him a position in the establishment where he is himself employed. All that he really does is to take the newcomer around and introduce him to the foreman, who gives him work, if there is any. But the new arrival considers himself much in the debt of his “friend,” and more than that, thereafter regards the job as his own because he has paid for it, and resents discharge for any reason as an injustice. Conscientious employers naturally do all they can to discourage such practices, but are powerless to prevent them. In fact, the eagerness of earlier immigrants to exploit their newly arrived fellow-countrymen, not only in this way, but in any other that promises a profit, is one of the most disheartening features of the whole immigration situation.