bribery and corruption—the good government league—servant problem in california—the climate and its effect on wages—off to guadalajara.
my resignation being refused, i decided to stay and finish up the streets we were on. of course after this the inspector had it all his own way, and he certainly led us a dance. i continued to look out for other work, and one day the chief sewer inspector told me that he could give us all the repaving work in connection with the sewers if there was anything in it for him. i reported this to my superintendent, and was told to give the inspector ten per cent., and the cashier told me the same thing. arthur, i knew, would not have allowed it had he known it, but i was ordered not to report to him. the barefaced bribery, robbery, and swindling that went on in los angeles, in fact, in any town i knew anything about in the united states, was really surprising. however, i understand that so far as california is concerned all this has been changed since the prosecution and conviction of reuff and smidt, mayor of san francisco, 197and the formation of the good government league. a contractor was at the absolute mercy of the city officials and dared not say them nay; it was not that he wished to bribe but it was forced upon him if he hoped to remain in business at all. the same applied to his superintendents and foremen; if they were not ready to supply cigars and drinks for the inspectors their work would turn out so unsatisfactory that they did not hold their jobs long.
between the city officials and the labour unions the contractor had a bad time. los angeles had not much trouble as far as the labour unions were concerned, but san francisco was practically run by the unions during mayor smidt’s time (the man mentioned above), he himself being a union man. i do not mean to infer that i am against organised labour, for in many cases that is their sole defence against starvation wages. but when the unions allow such men as the macnamara brothers (just convicted of the times building dynamiting) to guide their destinies, they cannot expect the outsider to sort the sheep from the goats. in “frisco” a delegate came every day from the labour council to visit your gangs, and would order you to discharge any man who did not belong to their order; if you complied they sent you men in the place of those discharged, and if you refused they posted you as 198“unfair,” and you could not get men. they called off the union bricklayers on a building once because we were working non-union men laying asphalt in the cellar. we told them that there was no such thing as an asphalt union in los angeles, so that the men could not belong to it, but this made no difference to them. so we had to wait till the building was completed, and then go back and finish the asphalt work. i have heard of some extraordinary lengths to which they would carry their “unfair list,” though i will not vouch for the following story, but tell it as it was told to me: a walking delegate came to notify a doctor that he was on the “unfair list.” the doctor was surprised, as he had always been most careful to deal in stores with union clerks, to pay his servants union wages, &c. the delegate said, “you have been attending martin brady who is ill with pneumonia.” “yes,” said the doctor, “but i found out first that he was in good standing with the union.” the delegate replied that "brady got his cold through getting wet at a farmer’s pump, and we have found out that the pump was not union made."
the servant-girl problem is worse in california than in any other place i have ever been to; they get wages running from $25 to $50 per month, and in consequence are as independent as can be. my 199wife got ill, so i went to one of the employment bureaus to see about a girl, and passed through the ordeal of my life. one woman i spoke to asked me how many there were in the family, and what i did for a living, and then, when i told her the house had only five rooms (as an inducement, i thought), she turned to me and said, “five rooms, indeed, and i would like to know where you could put a girl!” one girl that came said, “i am so glad to see you have a piano as i do love to play in the evenings.” they tell of a swedish girl whose mistress asked her, the first morning after she had arrived, if the table was laid for breakfast. the girl replied, "everytang bane laid but the aigs, and i don’t tank dat bane part of ma job."
the climate of los angeles is much better than that of san francisco, but it is not all that it is cracked up to be. the winters are much damper than in texas, and though the summers are fine there are very bad dust storms at times, and it gets very hot indeed. but the residents resent complaint of their weather, as they think it is the finest on earth, and you can hardly blame them, for the climate is what brings most of the money to the town. and certainly it produced some of the finest and healthiest-looking men and women it has ever been my luck to see. this question 200of climate has a curious effect on the labour market. so many young fellows of large brain but weak bodies have flocked to the town that an office man cannot approach the wages paid to a labourer or a mechanic; good office men could be got for from $40 to $50 per month at the time when labourers could get $1.75 per day, carpenters $3.50 for eight hours’ work, and masons $6.50 per day. i had a negro raker working under me who was getting the same salary as myself, and we had a cement sidewalk finisher who was drawing more pay per week than the superintendent.
the yard foreman and i soon fell out, for the inspector was condemning the material he sent up, and, as i could not say anything, it was sent back to the yard. the yard foreman, to get even, would report more stuff sent up than i had received, and finally things got to such a pass that when we got the first of the streets finished i left. the day after i resigned i was riding up town on my bicycle when i met the manager of our big rival company. he stopped me and asked if it was true that i had left the barber people. when i told him so he asked me if i would work for him. i refused, saying that i was sick of los angeles and the trouble with the street department, and had the offer of a position in boston. he told me that if i worked for them i would have no 201further trouble with the street department, and he would give me the same salary as i had been getting, besides a bonus on any exceptionally good work. so the next day found me at work for the rival concern, and it was like coming into a harbour from a storm at sea. this concern had been making friends with the powers that ruled while arthur had been making enemies, and the inspectors helped instead of hindering the work. if any of us were called away for a time the inspector would take hold of the gang and look after things till one returned. i was surprised, till i found out that they were one and all on the company’s pay-roll, besides what the city paid them for looking after the city’s interests. thus the public was robbed; but this form of robbery is so common that the public seems to expect it, and can hardly realise such a thing as an honest contractor or honest public officials.
i was getting pretty sick of all this trickery, and was glad, a couple of months later, to hear of a new company formed in los angeles who were looking for a man to go down to mexico to take charge of a contract they had there. i reckoned that conditions would be so different there that things might be run on the square. i went to the manager and president of the new company and applied for the position of superintendent. 202he took me in his auto and we went over the different jobs i had done, with which he seemed satisfied. so we signed a contract for six months at $4.50 per day, which was to be raised at the end of six months if everything was satisfactory. i then went to see the manager of the company i was with and told him of the offer. he told me he did not wish to stand in my way if i wished to go, and that if i did not like mexico he would try to place me again if i cared to come back; but that owing to the keen competition in los angeles they could not offer me a higher salary. so on 4th september 1904 i left los angeles for guadalajara, mexico, the second largest city in the republic (population 130,000).
poor arthur, they got him a few months after i left the city, as, being an honourable man, he was unable to make a single contract pay; so the barber company dismissed him to make way for a new man who had no enemies in the city. arthur followed in my footsteps, and went to work for the company which he had been fighting for so many years. a few months later came the elections, and the street superintendent was himself turned out of office (if only arthur could have outlasted him!), and immediately started a paving company of his own to fight the other two; and owing to his general crookedness and knowledge 203of the political ropes of the town he seems to be making a success of it. the barber company is an immense corporation with hundreds of branches and dozens of different names to work under, but its most desperate fight has always been with its own men, who turn and rend it.
