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ever, since the date of that case the law of the United States affecting seamen has been changed and more freedom has been granted. A law of the 63d Congress abolishes arrest and imprisonment as a penalty for desertion. It goes so far as to stipulate that it shall be unlawful in any case to pay any seaman wages in advance of the time when he has actually earned the same, or to pay any person for the shipment of seamen when payment is deducted or to be deducted from seamen's wages. This is a clear effort to prevent the obligation of indebtedness on which involuntary servitude is based. The law goes further and provides that for quitting the vessel without leave after her arrival at the port of her delivery and before she is placed in security a seaman forfeits from his wages not more than one month's pay. This approaches the free contract perhaps as far as the conditions of seafaring will permit. Congress regulates the nature of the contract, the term of service, the payment and assignment of wages, advance payments and credits, the regulation of sailors' lodging-houses, of shipping-masters, quarters on board ship, rations, and many other details.

Railroad employees also come within the power of Congress, and it was a federal court which, while reiterating the general right of employees to quit work, suggested by way of dicta that "his quitting would not be of right and he would be liable for any danger resulting from a breach of his agreement and perhaps in some cases subject to criminal prosecution for loss of life and limb, by passengers or others, directly resulting from his abandoning his post at a time when care and watchfulness were required upon his part in the discharge of a duty he had undertaken to perform."2 Laws on this subject, excepting that of Connecticut, connect the cessation of work with combinations and strikes, and forbid engineers and railroad employees to abandon locomotives under

1 United States Laws 1914-1915, C. 153; Revised Statutes, Secs. 4529, 4530, 4596, 4610, 4611. Title: An act to promote the welfare of American seamen in the merchant marine of the United States; to abolish arrest and imprisonment as a penalty for desertion, and to secure the abrogation of treaty provisions in relation thereto; and to promote safety at sea.

Arthur v. Oakes, 63 Fed. Rep. 317 (1894).

Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

circumstances of this nature, under penalty of fine and imprisonment.

d. Padrone System. The padrone system is one step removed from contract labor. Those who work under this system permit a leader, the padrone, to make their contracts, yet the agreement is not enforceable at law. It is enforced only by their own necessities. The system started first with Italian laborers. The padrone brought over laborers from Italy, advancing the cost of their transportation, and hired them out to a contractor. He rented to them the shanties in which they lived while at work, and sold them supplies of food.

Italian laborers formerly made contracts with their padrone to serve him for one to three years, and occasionally for a longer period. The report of the Immigration Investigating Commission of 1895 shows that Italians and other foreigners had been imported "by the cargo" into the Michigan ironmines and worked on the padrone system in the early 'nineties. This was probably the time when the padroni were the most numerous and flourishing.

Formal agreements among the laborers and the padroni are being discontinued, and for this there are perhaps three reasons. First, because the alien contract labor laws make their agreements not only unenforceable at law, but actually punishable if discovered by the government. Secondly, spontaneous immigration from Italy has now become so great that it is not worth the padrone's while to risk a conviction under the contract labor laws, so that he is now merely a middleman. Thirdly, there is the condition of dependence on one side and assistance on the other. The padrone does not establish his control over a man, strictly speaking, either by force or fraud. Dr. Rossi calls the padrone system "the forced tribute which the newly arrived pays to those who are acquainted with the ways and language of the country." The system is founded on an inequality more deeply rooted than the usual inequality between the employer and the laborer. The races which work under this method are ignorant and

1 Industrial Commission, Report, Vol. XV, 1901, pp. 430-432. 2 Immigration Investigating Commission, Report, 1895, p. 26, Industrial Commission, Report, Vol. XV., 1901, p. 432.

accustomed to be commanded, and it is on their dependence and lack of knowledge that the power of the padrone rests. Seen from the standpoint of the immigrant, a remedy is to be found not so much in legal rights, as in better education, American habits of thought, efficient employment bureaus, and more adequate administration of existing laws.

e. Imprisonment for Debt. Not only as a debtor-laborer, but also as a debtor-consumer, the laborer receives consideration. Imprisonment for debt originally had no particular bearing on the labor contract or its history. The fundamental idea in the ancient German imprisonment for debt is the indirect compulsion to pay. The debtor was to be encouraged to pay what he owed by being made uncomfortable until he did so. Compulsion to work had given place to compulsion to pay.1

The abolition of imprisonment for debt was one of the issues raised by the early workingmen's parties in 1827. Kentucky, the first state to abolish imprisonment for debt, had already done so in 1821. New York followed ten years later, and a series of legislative and constitutional provisions followed at intervals throughout the country. Inability to pay one's debts, if not accompanied by embezzlement or other fraudulent conduct, is now no longer a reason for imprisonment in civilized countries.2

f. Wage Exemption. Following the abolition of imprisonment for debt is the wage exemption legislation which took on large proportions in the United States in the 'forties. At the present time every state in the union has legislation exempting wages from attachment and execution for debt. In other words, the authority given to the sheriff or other administrative officer to seize from the property of the defendant (debtor) a sufficient amount to satisfy the judgment in favor of the creditor, is invalid when applied to wages under the exempt amount. The persons covered by these laws are differently specified in different states. Several provide for exemption of "all laborers, mechanics, and day labor

1Th. Niemeyer, "Schuldhaft," Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, Vol. V, 1911, p. 593.

An important discussion of existing imprisonment for debt in England is found in E. A. Parry, The Law and the Poor.

ers," as in Georgia; "residents of the state," as in Idaho; "resident debtor," as in Iowa; all "householders," as in Indiana; "judgment debtor," as in New York; and "all who support themselves and their families by the labor of their hands," as in Wisconsin.

The amount of wages exempted varies somewhat from state to state. Some exempt sixty days' wages, others thirty days', while still others stipulate a certain percentage of wages due as exempt, or state how large a per cent. may be collected for a given period. The exempted amount runs from $20, as in Massachusetts, to not more than $100, as in the District of Columbia. The usual period of exemptions, in so far as the time is specified at all, is the two months preceding attachment. In all cases it is clear that the purport of the laws is to protect the minimum earnings of the workingman who has nothing to depend upon except his wages.

Wage exemption applies not only against execution or attachment, but also against garnishment. This is a proceeding by which the plaintiff in an action seeks to reach the rights and effects (wages in this case) of the defendant by calling into court some third party (employer) who has such effects (wages) in his possession or who is indebted to the defendant. Should the employer unwarrantedly make payments from his employee's wages, he will still be left liable to the employee himself for a second payment of the wages."

g. Homestead Exemption. All American states have provided that the means of earning a livelihood, that is, the tools of one's trade or profession, shall be exempt from execution. Along with the exemption of personal property goes homestead exemption. This legislation is designed to keep intact the family unit in society, to prevent entire destruction, and to encourage a debtor who has been reduced to the last term to try again. However, these laws are not for laborers alone, but for any person. In most states a man must be a householder or the head of a family in order to get

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1 Clark, Law of the Employment of Labor, 1911, p. 56.

Cyclopædia of Law and Procedure, Vol. XX, 1901-1914, p. 978. "While a garnishment proceeding accomplishes the same purpose as an attachment or execution, it is in no sense a levy on property, but a judicial proceeding by which a new judgment is obtained.' 'See Clark, Ibid., p. 55, and cases cited.

the exemption, but in a few states any person may be entitled to the exemption. The limitations on the homestead exemption are in both acreage and value. Rural homesteads may vary in acres from forty to 100, and city homesteads from one lot to one acre (five acres in one state). Maximum monetary

limits are $500 to $5,000.

In 1848 English statutes provided only that tools and actual necessaries of judgment debtors were not to be seized in execution. In 1883 a statute carried the exemption a little further, so as to include "the tools (if any) of his trade and the necessary wearing-apparel and bedding of himself, his wife and children, to a value, inclusive of tools and apparel and bedding, not exceeding twenty pounds ($100) in the whole." These provisions have parallels in most of the British colonies, and the exempted property amounts to about the same. Nowhere, however, is the exemption as liberal as in the United States. Homestead exemptions are peculiar to the United States, but the tools of a debtor's trade, at least, are exempted in most English-speaking countries.

h. Assignment of Wages. Assignment of wages grows out of the legal act of transferring or making over to another of the whole or part of any property, real or personal, in possession or in action, or of any estate or right therein. But if the wage-earner is to have effective exemption of wages from attachment and garnishment, it is consistent that he be prevented from making an assignment of his future wages. Assignments of unearned wages are safeguarded in various ways, as by requirement that they must be recorded, that copies must be filed with the employer, or even that the employer's consent must be obtained, or that the wife must join in the husband's assignment, or vice versa. Missouri affords a good example of effort to modify this evil. An act of 1911 provides that "all amounts of wages, salaries, or earnings must be in writing with the correct date of the assignment and the amount assigned, and the name or names of the party or parties owing the wages, salaries, and earnings so assigned, and all assignments of wages, salaries, and earnings

146 and 47 Vict., C. 31, Pt. IV, Sec. 44.

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