CONGRESS. (PROTECTION OF AMERICAN SEAMEN.) 



221 



the ship too hot to hold the crew. But if the 

 -crew want to get rid of the master, they may 

 te arrested as deserters and put in jail. 



" If the master, by evil treatment, forces the 

 <;rew to desert, the law does not bring imprison- 

 ment nigh to him. He can first force them by 

 evil treatment to desert, and then he can put 

 them in jail because they have deserted. That is 

 an injustice, and there is no real reason for it. 

 It has not even the poor excuse that the crew 

 must be held to their ship by fear of prison walls, 

 lest if they leave their places may not be filled 

 by shipping a new crew. In any foreign port, or 

 in almost any foreign port, an American vessel 

 can get a new crew just as easily as in one of 

 our own ports. 



" The sailor is a citizen of the world, and a 

 crew can be enlisted in any port. He is a labor- 

 ing man, and should be a free laboring man, not 

 subject to imprisonment when he leaves his work. 

 Let him do his work freely, not held to it by 

 criminal penalties enforced by law. There may 

 be some who would abridge the freedom of labor- 

 ers and whip them to their tasks by penal stat- 

 utes, but I do not fancy that any member of this 

 House shares or tolerates such sentiments. We, 

 I take it, prefer even sailors to be free to give 

 or to withhold their labor, unawed by threat or 

 iear of imprisonment. 



"Mr. Speaker, I have prepared an amendment 

 striking out of this bill those few lines which 

 would continue in our law that old relic of the 

 "barbarism of the forecastle, imprisoning seamen 

 for the violation of a civil contract. 



" Now, Mr. Speaker, there is another provision 

 in this bill which should be wiped out by amend- 

 ment. It is the provision for allotment, by which, 

 under what is known as the ' crimping ' system, 

 the boarding-house keeper of the port manages 

 to get into his hands before the sailor leaves the 

 greater part of the wages which should come to 

 the sailor for his labor on the voyage. Poor Jack 

 Tar comes ashore on pleasure bent. He gets it 

 in his own time-honored way, and is soon in a 

 condition in which he is far from fit to transact 

 business. The boarding-house keeper, ,who makes 

 a specialty of entertaining and robbing sailors, 

 gets after him before Jack gets sober and de- 

 livers him perchance on board a ship bound for 

 another voyage, and Jack Tar wakes to a sober 

 second thought after he is once more afloat on 

 the rolling blue. He wakes to discover that for 

 no real value received he has signed away one 

 month of his pay. 



" Perhaps he has been only one night with 

 the boarding-house keeper; but when he awakes 

 lie is far away on the sea, and has signed away 

 his wages for a month. The boarding-house 

 keeper has Jack Tar's wages for a month in his 

 pocket; Jack Tar has a month of hard and dan- 

 gerous work ahead of him. The system of allot- 

 ments has had its sweet way. 



" This bill does, of course, limit that matter and 

 keep it in more narrow bounds than hitherto, 

 but it still leaves the opportunity which I have 

 stated to the boarding-house keeper and the 

 * crimper ' and the men whose business it is to 

 get what they call * blood money ' from the sea- 

 men. It still says to men of this class : ' You 

 shall be protected to the extent of one month of 

 Jack Tar's pay.' But I suppose this is a bill of 

 compromises, and we are asked to compromise in 

 this bill even with those people who carry on 

 the nefarious business of ' crimping ' one month 

 from the pay of the sailor before he leaves port." 



The full text of the measure as approved, Dec. 

 21, 1898, is as follows: 



"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 

 Representatives of the United States of America 

 in Congress assembled, That section 4510 of the 

 Revised Statutes be, and is hereby, amended so 

 as to read as follows: 



' ' SEC. 4516. In case of desertion or casualty 

 resulting in the loss of one or more seamen, the 

 master must ship, if obtainable, a number equal 

 to the number of those whose services he has 

 been deprived of by desertion or casualty, who 

 must be of the same grade or rating and equally 

 expert with those whose place or position they 

 refill, and report the same to the United States 

 consul at the first port at which he shall arrive, 

 without incurring the penalty prescribed by the 

 two preceding sections.' 



" SEC. 2. That section 4522 of the Revised Stat- 

 utes be, and is hereby, amended so as to read as 

 follows : 



"SEC. 4522. At the foot of every such con- 

 tract to ship upon such a vessel of the burden 

 of 50 tons or upward there shall be a memoran- 

 dum in writing of the day and the hour when 

 such seaman who shipped and subscribed shall 

 render himself on board to begin the voyage 

 agreed upon. If any seaman shall neglect to 

 render himself on board the vessel for which he 

 has shipped at the time mentioned in such mem- 

 orandum without giving twenty-four hours' no- 

 tice of his inability to do so, and if the master 

 of the vessel shall, on the day in which such 

 neglect happened, make an entry in the log book 

 of such vessel of the name of such seaman, and 

 shall in like manner note the time that he so 

 neglected to render himself after the time ap- 

 pointed, then every such seaman shall forfeit 

 for every hour which he shall so neglect to render 

 himself one half of one day's pay, according to 

 the rate of wages agreed upon, to be deducted 

 out of the wages. If any such seaman shall 

 wholly neglect to render himself on board of such 

 vessel, or having rendered himself on board shall 

 afterward desert, he shall forfeit all of his wages 

 or emoluments which he has then earned/ 



" SEC. 3. That section 4526 of the Revised Stat- 

 utes be, and is hereby, amended so as to read as 

 follows : 



' ' SEC. 4526. In cases where the service of any 

 seaman terminates before the period contem- 

 plated in the agreement, by reason of the loss 

 or wreck of the vessel, such seaman shall be en- 

 titled to wages for the time of service prior to 

 such termination, but not for any further period. 

 Such seaman shall be considered as a destitute 

 seaman, and shall be treated and transported 

 to port of shipment as provided in sections 4577, 

 4578, and 4579 of the Revised Statutes of the 

 United States.' 



" SEC. 4. That section 4529 of the Revised Stat- 

 utes be, and is hereby, amended so as to read as 

 follows : 



" ' SEC. 4529. The master or owner of any vessel 

 making coasting voyages shall pay to every sea- 

 man his wages within two days after the termina- 

 tion of the agreement under which he shipped, or 

 at the time such seaman is discharged, which- 

 ever first happens; and in the case of vessels 

 making foreign voyages, or from a port on the 

 Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, 

 within twenty-four hours after the cargo has 

 been discharged, or within four days after the 

 seaman has been discharged, whichever first hap- 

 pens; and in all cases the seaman shall, at the 

 time of his discharge, be entitled to be paid, on 

 account of wages, a sum equal to one third part 

 of the balance due him. Every master or owner 

 who refuses or neglects to make payment in man- 



