Evening Star Newspaper, November 8, 1928, Page 29

FORD HUMANIZES AMAZONIA FINANGE Quasi-Slavery of Rubber Worker Eliminated by Cash Payments. A._M._Smith. special correspondent for The Star and North American News- paper Alliance, was sent to Brazil to report "Henry Ford's progress o his four-million-acre _rubber concession in Amazonia. Following is the last of Mr. Smith’s articles: BY A. M. SMITH. Written exclusively for The Star and North ‘American Newspaper Alliance. PARA, Brazil, November 8.—An out- line of economic conditions affecting the Ford rubber enterprise on the Tapajos River would be incomplete without mention of the concessionaires’ traditional method of paying labor as contrasted with the Ford method of a straight daily wage. “Coboclos,” or native laborers, have been engaged by concession owners to gather latex—milky fluid of rubber which flows from the tapped bark of the trees in certain assigned areas of the concession. These tappers, “seringeiros,” process the latex, coagulating it by adding a small dipping gradually to a turning paddle held in dense smoke. These balls of rubber are turned in by the seringeiro to his foreman, and the foremen deliver the crude rubber to concession head- onarters. The seringeiro is credited for his product according to a scale of per- centage of the market price of rubber. This piecework system is an adequate basis of pay to the seringeiro, provided the price of rubber is high enough, the foreman is honest and the concession | policy is strietly just. Operation of System. Tt is obvious that whatever the price of rubber, the concession owner cannot operate without profit. Unfortunately, it has been the general custom of these operators to hold remuneration to the seringeiro down to what is, nominally, a trifle more than the actual cost of living. The seringeiro has no means of disposing of his rubber by any other channels of trade and transportation. Moreover, it is the rule of the con- ecession owners, generally, to require the Seringeiro to purchase all store supplies from the concession stores. Agalnsl[ these purchases is placed the credit | allowed the Seringeiro for rubber turned in. With rubber prices low, as they nave been most of the time for the past 15 years, the net result of labor has bsen merely an incr g debit on the books of the concession stores. The longer the Coboclo gathered rub- ber for the coneession comvany, the decper he found himself in debt. The working people of Amazonia have thus been held in a condition of quasi- slavery, for the same system obtains|,. in the production of Brazil nuts, the second chief trade article. There have been frequent ¢cmplaints to the government from the Seringeiros. ‘The government could render little as- sistance. The con n owners have | had = considerable political influence. ‘They maintain that they are paying the | top price to the Seringeiro on the basis of the rubber markef. The best the state governments could do has been to aid debt-burned and penniless Serin- geiros to move to some other quarter ;’}.\er-. the chance of livelinood was etier. There arrived in Para recently the second delegation of striking workmen from a rubber concession. These men, 200 in number, commandeered one of the river steamers of the company and got out, with the formal permission of the, company to borrow the boat, sinee the number of strikers seemed to indi- cate this as the only safe way around an impending scene of violence. Under order of Gov. Bentes, the “palicia” of Para met the boat on its arrival and took the strikers to police eadquarters, not under arrest, but to ! feed them until some solution of their predicament might be found. Some of these men said they had worked on this rubber concession for 16 years, and in that time had rot recelved one penny of wages in coin. ‘They said that credit for their work, on the company’s books had mnot b>en sufficient to provide them with shirts, pants, straw hats and groceries. They ‘were heavily in debt to the company. Ford’s Cash Plan. Since the beginning of the rubber industry in Amazonia, this system has prevailed. The Ford Motor Co. is the first of any commercial or industrial importance to enter the field with the policy of paying better than a living wage in comn and sclling store goods to | laborers at cost. Official Para, and official Brazil, have not been insensible to the suffering and low economic status of these thousands of Coboclos. Latin Americans are al! quickly sympathetic toward suffering. ‘The coming of the Ford Motor Co. with a program for rubber production on a large scale, and with a humane policy toward laborers, seems to Brazilians the suntise of a new economic era. ‘The method of operation of the Ford lantation is to conserve the heavier aring wild rubber trees producing good quality of rubber. ‘These trees will average about four to the acre throughout the lands of the concession, making a total of approxi- mately 16,000,000 trees. But it is about 80 miles across the concession, in either direction, the lands forming a rough square. It will be some time, therefore, before transportation facilities can open up the remote inland areas, though (ENTSDAL: v Z L PARK 1™\ Already Beautiful, It Is Now Being Improved The estate of Mr. and ® Mrs. Lyman B. Ken- dall, from which Kentsdale Park is being formed, was al- ready beautiful, but its beauty is being further enhanced to form Washing- ton’s newest and most distinctive estate communi- ty. Drives will wind through the property and expert landscap- ing will orna- ment the hills and valleys. W. H. WEST Co. Founded 1894. EXCLUSIVE SALKS REPRESENTATIVES 1519 K Street N.W. Main 9900 S S FEAC L0 o o2 3 T S here are the choicer solls and climate for the rubber tree. Yield Per Acre 405 Pounds. Wild trees on the area cleared for the plantation site, near the east bank the Tapajos, before clearing began, were tapped for 46 days in June and July of this year, yielding at the rate of 405 pounds per acre, on the basis of 80 trecs to the acre. Trees on the lower lands adjacent to rivers are the poorest vielders. Yet these trees showed produc- tivity equal to,the cultivated plantation trees of the Orient. Early in 1926 Senhor Raimundo Monteiro da Costa was commissioned by the Ford Motor Co. to procure the best rubber tree seeds in Amazonia. These seeds were planted about 70 miles from | Boa Vista, on suitable cleared land. | and there are now 100,000 of the young trees of the best selected stock ready to | b2 transplanted to Boa Vista next l Spring. Senhor da Costa and R. G. Carr, chemist, are on their way into the re- gion of the high Madeira, the nearest accessible grounds for obtaining more selected seeds of heavy-bearing, higii- quality trees. Capt. E. Oxholm says that a nursery stock of 800,000 trees, sufficient for the planting of 10,000 acres, will be devel- oped as rapidly as the seeds can grow. Construction Under Way. Meantime the task of erecting the buildings of the plantation base, clear- ing of the jungle and forest and con- structing roads, dirt and rail, into the | interior far enough to connect with the first planting sites is being vigorously pushed. Social and community life at Boa Vista is_one of the prime considera- tions. In connection with the pubii~ paik, called for by the base plans, will be every facility for outdoor games. Be- sides a theater for frequent movie shows, there will be a school, library and churches. Ford officials on the job are to have comfortable homes, modern in every respect. Homes are to be built fo family use, and all Ford representatives who have families. A complete saw mill, machinery and engines for a pow- er plant, machinery of the intake and water filtration plant, heavy tractors, power launches, machinery for refrig- eration plant and ice making, traveling cranes, agricultural implements, ma- chine shop equipment—everything, in fact, needed for the initial work on the plantation was ineluded in the cargoes of the Lake Ormoc and the Lake Farge. It is not assumed, nor has it been suggested by officials of the Ford Moto” Co., that the nearly 4,000.000 acres of the concession will be used for rubber trees. A plantation of heveas of that size, in this localitv, where the trees bear so richly, would produce about 10 times the amount of rubber at present | consumed by the entire world. Products of Region. But every acre of the ground is good for production on u profitable scale of some of the products of the region for which there is already a commercial demand, and some of them with rapidly increasing demand, such as Brazil nutz sapucaia nuts, four or five varieties of valuable oil nuts—some of them heavy bearers and with ready market; tropical cocea, cotton, rice, beans, . Country Homes Practieally every iek). Loudown (Middiedmrz). Fan- euier ( Warrenton). Clarke (Berrvville). || Orange and other 'sectians will be seni es to xive sccu | tion regardinz the ront proverties in the Dbest re; H. W. HILLEARY Main 4782 815 15th St., Washingten, D.C. Branch Offices Charlottesville, Va. Middleburg, Va. |NAMED Y. W. C. A. OFFICIAL RIS THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1928. sugar, mandioca, which yields tapioca and the farina meal, the national food of Brazillans and any and all of the tropical fruits. ‘What the Ford Motor Co. will do in development of other products besides rubber has not been stated by Ford officials. The Ford friendly invasion of the interior of Brazil has already re- sulted in increassd and friendlier in- terest on the part of Americans and other foreigners. In recent months scouts and conces- slon seekers have come in increasing Jumbers, to find out, first-hand, whether the country can yizld richly to invested | capital. Whether he foresaw it or not, Henry Ford is already credited in Para and in Rio for this increased interest and friendlier attitude of Americans and others toward a land which needs the co-operation of friends to enable it to come into the rich heritage of prosperity nature evidently intended it to enjoy. For myself, I should like to see Brazil | 2gain, two or ‘ten years from now, to measure the growth of this most significant brginning. (Copyright. 1928. by North American News- paper Alliance.) Anna V. Rice Appointed Executive | Secratary of Board. NEW YORK, November 8 (P).—Miss Anna V. Rice of New York has been appointed executive secretary of the na- tional board of the Y. W. C. A, suc- ceeding the late Mabel C. Cratty, that organization announced last night. Miss Emma Hirth and Miss Helen A. Davis will be associated with her in her new post. Miss Rice has been associated with the national board since 1%+, most re- cently as head of the national school committee. She also has conducted the Y. W. C. A. Summer School in con- junction with the Summer sessions of the University of Californi: We Specialize in Fitting Wide as Well as Extremely Narrow Feet Gtbs G S AAMA to EZEEE Y wemen t2 know e co Tide a3 EEEWikr ‘Coo Soer. of fonrse: the <martes fonFiesthe “ariest shees we know of Alio #1e oxtremely marrow fool ‘-kes on'Adied crane and ovmfort when Atled in a Wilbar Ceon Shoe. Custom-Made Siylish Stouts Complete Line of High Shoes 30 Modish Stvles. Sizes 1o 12 In ANl Leathers and Fadries $7.50 to $11 ‘ MR. J. T. NORRIS ' <{ MR. H. 0. BRUBAKER | Formerly_wits the Famile s\aog Store, are identified with uvs. CITIZENS ASK MODERN FIRE APPARATUS | Northwest Suburban Group Urge| Completion of Wisconsin Avenue Paving. Obsolete fire-fighting equipment came in for eriticism again by the Northwest Surburban Citizens’ Association at a meeting in the Janney School, Tenley- town, last night. The appeal of the association for improvement in the equipment, it was shown, had met with the response from the District Govern- ment that it was as good as th: furnished to some other sections of the city, and that it would be replaced as soon as appropriations became avail- able for the purpose. Seldom does the apparatus go out on a call, it was said, that one or the other of the pieces does not_go out of commission, and just re- cently the hose wagon was incapaci- tated. ration time, when, it was said, thou- sands of tourists will use the highway | as an entrance to the Capital. Inter: ference with business and inconven~ | tence to residents of the community were | assigned as reasons for the request. A proposed constitutional amend- | ment changing the name of the asso- | ciation was discussed and a committee |'composed of R. H. Rice, Don P. Reed |and Alfred G. Seiler was appointed | | to decide on an appropriate name and i'o make recommendations at the De- | cember meeting. The secretary was di- | | rected to send a letter of congratula- | tions to Dr. George C. Havenner on his election as president of the Federa- tion of Citizens’ Associations. New members elected were ‘John P.| Matthews, Mr. and Mrs. J. Fred Dier, | James P. Gooch, L. R. Blanchard, Mrs. | Saylor. and_ George B. Gadde. Presi- | dent Roy C. Bowker presided. | Cumberland Pastor Named. f | Special Dispatch to The Star. CUMBERLAND, Md., November 8.— Rev. Harty Evaul has been appointed pastor of Center Street Methodist Church to succeed Rev. Dr. Howard E. Thompson, who accepted a call to New burgh, N. Y. He is a graduate of {riddled with 11 bullets. Fitthsos oo Hhoocs | Sold exclusively in Washington by OYCE & LEWI CusToM FITTING SHOE 439-7" St NW. 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Purchased from a prominent manufacturer and offered for Friday at an unusual price. New fashions and new colors. A thrilling value-giving event. Street, Afternoon Evening Dresses ELEVEN BULLETS RIDDLE | REPUTED LEADER OF GANG| Philadelphian's Recovery ¢ Doubt- ful—Refuses to Identify His Aszailants, By the Associated { PHILADELPHIA, November 8.—An- other victim of gangsters’ guns was | near death in a hospital today, his body His recovery, physicians said, was doubtful. He is William Denni, reputed leader | of an underworld band. His brother | was shot down in a .gang feud less than | three weeks ago. Denni was shot as he | stood on a street corner last night, when | an automobile sped past him pumping | out a fusillade of shots. He refusad to | reveal the identity of his assailants. | Denni and his brother were witnesses | in a murder case several weeks ago. If he dies I be the twenty-eighth | victim of gang shooting, which are now | |being investigated by & special grand| Jury. 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