Leonidas Skliris: Czar of the Greeks

Learn about the infamous labor padrone Leonidis Skliris and why he was known as “Czar of the Greeks” among Murray-Midvale smelters.

At the beginning of the 20^th Century, labor agents brought immigrants to Utah to work in the mines and smelters, on the railroad, and in the fields.  The immigrants were cheap labor for many companies, and the most famous – or infamous – labor agent was Leonidas Skliris, also known as “Czar of the Greeks.”

Skliris immigrated to the United States from Vresthena, Greece around 1897 at the age of 17.  After a brief stint selling flowers in New York City, Skliris found work on a Midwestern railroad around 1900.  By 1901, he was a section foreman, and by 1902, he was headed to Utah to become a labor agent.

Skliris championed Greeks in Utah.  He, or one of his interpreters, often appeared in court on behalf of Greek laborers during criminal proceedings, which often resulted from anti-immigrant attitudes.  In 1904, Skliris publically defended Greeks, when a Greek man allegedly committed a crime against a woman in Murray and local residents were calling to kick all Greeks out of the city.  As a labor agent for the Murray-Midvale smelter, Skliris had financial reasons for keeping Greeks in that area.

But Skliris’s endorsement had its price.  On top of being paid by various mining and railroad companies, Skliris charged laborers $10-$25 to find them jobs.  He also exacted $1 per month from each of his laborers.  Those who refused to pay this tax often did not find work. 

Some of this exploitation had serious consequences.  A Greek laborer murdered one of Skliris’s agents in 1908.  During the 1912 mining strikes, Greek laborers demanded, and won, the removal of Skliris from his lucrative position as labor agent for the Utah Copper Company.  And in 1915, Skliris was shot in front of his furniture store by a fellow Greek over money.  He recovered. 

But by 1920, Leonidis Skliris left Utah and headed for Mexico, where he purportedly owned a mine.

Image: Leonidas Skliris, leading labor agent of the West and Midwest, courtesy Utah State Historical Society.
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See Helen Zees Papanikolas, “Toil and Rage in a New Land: The Greek Immigrants in Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (Spring, 1970); Gunther Peck, “Padrones and Protest: ‘Old’ Radicals and ‘New’ Immigrants in Bingham, Utah, 1905-1912,” Western Historical Quarterly 24 (May, 1993), pp. 157-178; Gunther Peck, Re-Inventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in the North American West, 1880-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 ), pp. 31-38, 49-69; A. Kent Powell, The Next Time We Strike: Labor in Utah’s Coal Fields, 1900-1933 (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1985), pp. 84-92; The following newspapers also served as sources for this piece:  Salt Lake Herald: 11/28/1904, 5/10/1915, 6/20/1915, 7/20/1915; Salt Lake Telegram: 9/23/1912, 4/6/1915; Eastern Utah Advocate:  4/9/1915.  All newspapers accessed via Utah Digital Newspaper at http://digitalnewspapers.org.