The Evening World New York, New York Dec. 8, 1908 ASHOKAN DAM Workmen Paid Brass Checks Instead Of Cash These are good only at "Company Stores," Where victims pay double prices Men herded like pigs in pen on city contract. When MacArthur Bros. Company, the favored contractors of the McClellan administration, got the $12,500,000 contract for building the Ashokan Dam, and John Piercer's bid, lower by $2,500,000 was rejected by the Board of Water Supply, the reason given for the award to the higher bidder was that the MacArthur Bros. Company was a more desirable contractor because they paid their labor so well. The Evening World presents some evidence today of just how well the MacArthur Bros. company is treating its labor through the installation of a system of brass checks and the "company's store," reminders of the days of "Fingy" Conners and his chain of saloons on the shores of the Great Lakes and the riots of Homestead, Pennsylvania. Section 384. 1., of the Penal Code compels the payment of wages of employees on such work as the Aqueduct in cash. Any person, or corporation, who does not pay the wages of its employees in cash as provided by Article 1 of the Labor law is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction therefore shall be fined not less than $25 nor more than $50 for each offense." Here is the result of a careful investigation of the labor conditions on the Ashokan Dam Contract: By Samuel A. STODEL - Organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World and an investigator for the Brotherhood Welfare Association. The good citizens of New York who are to be benefited by the pure water from the Catskill watershed for which they are paying $161,000,000, will be greatly surprised to learn that a system of brass checks, similar to that utilized by "Fingy" Conners along the docks of Buffalo, is now in operation at Brown's Station, in Ulster County. The proprietors of this particular brass check system are the MacArthur Bros. and Winston & Co, contractors working under the supervision of Mayor McClellan's Board of Water Supply. I went into the "water district" to investigate conditions there for the Brotherhood Welfare Assoc., to whom MacArthur Bros and Winston & Co, the latter being subsidiary contractors, had applied for men, claiming that they could furnish them employment at 20 cents an hour for laborers. Sixteen Hundred Herded Like Pigs On Nov. 18th., I arrived at Brown's Station, which is a little settlement located sixteen miles west of Kingston on the Ulster and Delaware Railroad. Aside from about 1,900 working on the Ashokan Dam in various capacities, including engineers, inspectors, etc., there are probably forty families, old settlers, still remaining in that locality. About 200 of the better paid employees live at the contractor's boarding houses, where conditions are fair, $22.50 a month being charged. About 100 engineers and inspectors live in very good condition at Brown's Farm and Brooks Beaver Kill Club. The remaining 1,600 are herded like pigs on the hill overlooking the Ulster River, which is more of a creek than anything else. These houses for the laborers are built upon piles, about 3 feet above the ground, and are of rough lumber, sheathed with inferior building paper on the outside. They are about 130 feet long and 13 feet deep and fourteen feet high. Inside they are divided off into compartments less than 13 feet square, and in each of these compartments are tiers of bunks, with accommodation for 8 persons. These bunks are made from rough lumber. There is no attempt at ventilation except from such air as comes through cracks in the floors and side walls. In each room there is a small cooking stove, which completes the furnishings. For dishes and cooking utensils old cans pickup up in the vicinity of the railroad station are pressed into use. The men are charged $1 for each blanket, most of which have previously been worn out on horses. The rent charged for these wretched quarters is $2 a man a month, or $38,500 rent a year from the workmen for premises that did not cost $1,500 to build. It was in regard to the condition of the plain laborers, their wages and their method of living, that I was sent into the district by the Brotherhood Welfare Association, my associates on the committee being John C. Calhoun, the Rev. William H. Johnston and Alexander Law. My instructions were to ascertain the true wages being paid to the laborers, how these wages were paid, and the general conditions prevailing in the district. Instead of being paid in American money for their labor, I found that these 1,600 workmen, who are employed by the City of New York through its contractors, are very seldom; if ever, paid anything other than brass checks, which the contractors have installed as a medium of exchange. No Cash Among Them These brass checks can be exchanged at a "company store" similar to those maintained at Homestead, Pa., before the great strike, for such articles of wearing apparel or food as the poor unfortunate laborer needs. During my stay of 11 days in the locality, traveling all the way from Brown's Station to High Falls, a distance of 20 miles, I was unable to change a $1 bill among the laborers. In fact, I found that there was a premium on money - $1 ? money being worth $1.50 in brass. It was not until I had visited the store and priced the articles offered for sale there that I understood the cause behind this premium. No peddlers are allowed to circulate among the men and offer their goods for sale, and any who ? to sell goods to the men are driven off by the contractor's private detectives, who hustle the intruders out of the camps. This is to force the laborers to go to the store. Very few of the laborers get over 15 cents an hour. None know when they go to work what they are going to work for. The 8 hour law is openly violated. In the fall the men worked 10 hours a day, and during my stay in the district the men were worked 9 hours a day, the extreme limit on account of the light. They are even working one driver for two carts. Store System Robbery The charges at the "company stores" are from 25 to 150 per cent more than the same grade of goods can be purchased for in any large community. Potatoes are valued at 1 cent each. Cabbage heads bring 20 cents and upward. Chuck steak brings 18 and 20 cents a pound. Butter of a very poor quality, is sold for 35 cents a pound. The poorest coffee I ever tasted sells for 30 cents a pound, a grade worse than 12 cent coffee sold on the East side. 10 cent cotton socks bring 25 cents a pair. A 35 cent undershirt or pair of drawers brings 75 cents each. A pair of pantaloons sells for $3 also. A pair of 50 cent buckskin gloves sells for $1.35. The 1,600 laborers are divided as to nationalities in about this proportion: Negroes, 400 Italians and Hungarians, 800 and the remainder principally Irish, English, German and American. When a man has worked one day he can draw $1 in brass. These checks are issued like regular money at the contractors offices in 50 cent, 25 cent, 1? cent, 5 cent and 1 cent pieces. They are paid off about the 20th of every month and twenty days pay is always held back by the contractor. "Bootleggers" Are Allowed Thus it will be seen that a man has to work fifty days before he can get hold of his first piece of American money, providing he has any left which, according to the books at the store, is still coming to him. One man, Peter McGuire, of Waterbury, Conn., drew $1.35 for his months pay ending Nov. 29?. While whiskey is no sold to the men at the store it can be got by the laborers from "bootleggers," who have the privilege of selling to them at the camps. These privileged characters, who must "stand in" with the foreman in order to get into the camps charge 50 cents a pint for "third-rail," worse is sold at any Tenth Avenue "shock house." The laborer pays for his liquor with a 50 cent brass check, which the venders rebate for 40 cents. On one Sunday one of the venders to my knowledge sold 60 pints of this whiskey, most of it in the neighborhood of the bull pen.