The Employment Agents Who Sold Phantom Jobs

Labor Commissioner John Lamb has had so many complaints from working men and women of the swindling operations of employment agents that he proposes calling the attention of the mayor and city council to the matter, with a view to having a check put on the evil, even if it cannot be stopped altogether. Mr. Lamb said yesterday that, although the existence of the free employment bureau was pretty well known in the city, the employment agents continued to capture newcomers and strangers to the city, some of whom were victimized several times before they found a place where there was no inducement to swindle them. Quite a number of men have told him that they had paid fees of $1 to $2 for being sent to work at the Kent mill, which has lately been closed and gone into the hands of a receiver, probably twenty having gone there from here. Those who did find a few days' work were paid in due bills, which they will find great difficulty in collecting in the present involved condition of the Kent Mill Company's affairs, and others only went to Kent to find the mill closed. One man who was sent to another place to work was paid in a worthless due bill after having paid $2 for the job. Another man paid $3 in Tacoma for a job, and after coming here found the position filled, but could not get his money back from the agent. Yet another paid out $3.50 in fees and railroad fare and received a worthless due bill for $7.25. A man whom Mr. Lamb recommended to a call at Black Diamond said: "You are not going to cheat me, are you?" Being questioned, he said he had been cheated three times in succession by agents, who caused him to pay out money in railroad fare to places where there was no work for him. A lady paid her last $1.50 for being directed to a man whom she found beastly drunk, and who received her with abuse, and when she demanded her money back, the agent said: "The job is there for you if you want to take it." Quite a number of men have been sent to a man at Cherry Valley, who is said not only to have given them nothing, but to have abused them and driven them out of his house. Mr. Lamb has filled requests for help during July, mostly for hotel help and men to work on farms and in shingle and sawmills and camps, with an occasional demand for railroad men. The largest demand is for female help, and the only complaints have been in regard to this class of work, but none of these have found fault with the honesty of the women sent, while many letters have expressed satisfaction with the character of the help furnished. Since the bureau has been established 350 orders have been filled, but there are still 1,400 men and 400 women on the books, many of whom, however, have left the city.