THE LABORER THE FARMER'S GREATEST ASSET
"_Letting down buckets into empty wells and growing old with drawing
nothing up._"--COWPER.
Leaving the Rectory I found myself on the highway, seeking a fortune
as a berry picker. I heard rumors that men had actually made a stake
at the work,--that is, enough money (by rigid economy) to exist in the
destructive slums of a great city during the freezing winter months
when there is no work to be had.
The roads were lined with men and boys seeking work. The long drought
had been exceedingly detrimental to the fruit. It was dwarfed and of
inferior quality, which worked a hardship on the farmer as well as
on the berry pickers. The farms and farm houses were exceptionally
attractive, and seemed to abound with comforts. Many of them were
homes of wealth and resembled country seats. The day was frightfully
hot. There had been a terrific thunder storm the night before and I
was obliged to seek shelter for the night with a number of others in a
shed. It was a sleepless night for the rain came in and prevented us
from even trying to rest on the bare ground.
As I walked along the new State road, I came to an inviting shady spot
by the roadside, near a deep hedge. Almost overcome by the heat and
weary from lack of rest and sleep, I lay down with my bundle for a
pillow and was just falling asleep when I was suddenly aroused by a
voice commanding me to move on. Looking up I saw I was being accosted
by a big six-foot bully. In reply to my question, "Why?" he answered,
"It makes no difference why, move on."
Looking the man unflinchingly in the eye, I said,
"But it does make a difference why, and I will pretty quickly find out
why a man, simply because he is poor and wants to rest on the side of
the State road, is denied that privilege."
The insolent swaggerer was nonplussed for the moment. I suppose he
thought I was only a poor, starving berry picker or farm hand who, at
his command, would cringingly creep on in the boiling sun, like a dog,
to another shady spot.
"Who are you?" he then asked.
"I am a laborer looking for work," I replied, "but I am also an
American. When I am insolently ordered to 'move on' on a public
highway, I'll know the reason why if I have to go to Washington to find
out. I know your actions have been tolerated in England and Europe for
two thousand years. Since you ask me who I am, I am going to ask who
you are."
"I am foreman of this estate," he answered. "This is the country estate
of a very rich ex-United States Congressman, and the State road line
runs within six feet of the hedge."
"Well, sir," I replied, "I humbly beg your pardon. It is a principle of
mine never to ask or take something for nothing, unless it be to draw
dividends on a few blocks of nine billion dollars of watered railroad
stock. But say, if you would wall this little six-foot strip in, or put
up a sign, 'No trespassing,' or 'Beware of the dog,' as others have
done, neither your master nor yourself would have further cause to
growl."
As I wandered on I overtook an honest-looking man who said he was on
his way to a farm near Marlborough where he had worked for several
summers and had always pulled out with enough money to carry him, in a
way, through the winter. It would have been much nearer for him to have
walked the railroad track, he said, but he was told in Newburgh that
if he did so he was liable to be arrested by the West Shore Railroad
Company. They had arrested a hundred and thirty-eight wandering men at
Kingston the day before and put them in jail, and so he thought it best
to follow the country road.
A little farther on, near some great elm trees, stood an old stone
house. From the gilded signs and the many beer kegs in evidence, I
saw at once it was another one of the roadside lamps of ruin. Many men
seemed to have gathered in and about the place and without disturbance
were resting beneath the trees. I joined them and just as I did so
a farmer drove up in an automobile looking for help. Before he had
spoken, I asked, "Do you want help?"
"Well, I should say so," he answered. "The farmers are all clamoring
for men, and are wondering where the temporary farm hands are this
year."
I suggested he might find a few of them in the Kingston jail. He said
that because of the recent rains the fruit was ripening so rapidly
that it was decaying on the vines for the need of being gathered.
Considering that the earnings of the railroad company were augmented by
the fruit shipments he granted that a little persuasive argument with
the latter might be of help. But did I want work, and would I work for
him? I certainly would.
"What do you pay?" I asked.
"A cent and a half a box for strawberries,--that is, if you will stay
the season. If not, I will only pay one cent a box." The reason for
this I found was that at the last gathering of a crop the fruit is
light and the pickers cannot make nearly as much as in the beginning,
and becoming discouraged, will quit. No matter if the farmer receives
ten or thirty cents a box for his fruit, the picker receives no better
wage.
"You will board me, I suppose?"
"Oh, no, you board yourself. We have a good bunkhouse where you can
sleep."
"But I have no money. How will I get me something to eat?"
"I will pay you every night at the rate of one cent if you want it."
"But I have no money at all. What will I do for supper and breakfast?"
"Tell any of the grocers in Middlehope that you are going to work
for me and they will trust you. You can come to my place and sleep
to-night, so that you can begin work in the morning."
Passing on to the village, I asked one of the merchants if he would
trust me for a bill of edibles until the following evening. He looked
at me hesitatingly. He had been deceived and that made him cautious.
When saying that I only wanted a little, he consented and gave me the
following bill: bacon, five cents, bread, five cents, coffee, five
cents, can of corn, ten cents, total twenty-five cents.
I found later that there have been (and are still) thousands of
instances when these willing workers have been denied this confidence
and have worked all day in the burning sun without supper, breakfast
and dinner.
Reaching the farm I was not shown where to go to sleep. I was told
to go to the bunkhouse. I found a number of men already there with an
improvised stove of rock and available sticks for fuel. With the aid of
my willing contemporaries I managed to prepare and eat my supper. There
was a promiscuous pile of filthy blankets to choose from for a bed. I
went to the stable for straw on which to spread them, and as I picked
up one pair of blankets, a man who had been there for some time said,
"I wouldn't use those blankets. A sick man occupied them last."
"What was the matter with him?" I asked.
"I don't know, but he was pretty sick." Finally choosing a pair of
blankets which had the appearance of being a degree more wholesome than
the others (and with at least a clean reputation), we laid down. In
a short time, we discovered the place was literally alive with night
prowlers, which drove us all out under the trees. This was preferable
as long as it continued dry and warm, but at two A. M. a rain storm
forced us back into the shack.
The next day I put in ten long hours picking berries. When I checked up
I had earned just 50 cents--just enough to pay my store bill and buy
another meager day's rations. I tried the cherries, the raspberries
and the gooseberries, but could do no better. I discovered that the
pickers, no matter how clever they might be, did not, or could not,
average over fifty cents a day, which, if they had spent it all for
food, would only have been sufficient to purchase about two-thirds
as much as they would have eaten if they had had enough. For other
farm work the pay was one dollar, or one and a quarter dollars per
day without board. With a few exceptions board was given with the one
dollar. It was extremely difficult to get other farm work in berry
picking season. However, I myself was offered by an old farmer one
dollar a day and board, to hoe corn.
The next day was Sunday. Could I work on Sunday? Being good Irish
church people, they had been taught to remember the Sabbath day and
keep it holy. The old gentleman hesitated slightly but yielded finally
when I told him I needed the money. Then, too, I was in much better
company working by myself in the field than sitting around the village.
He would see what the old lady would say about it.
The old lady had been suffering with the toothache for the past two
days and had tried everything from ice down her back to boiling water,
when an old woman driving by suggested filling the cavity of the tooth
with fine-cut tobacco. This she declared to be a never-failing cure.
The old lady tried it, but had swallowed the tobacco, and no mortal,
she declared, ever before passed through such a sickness and survived!
Consequently life just then seemed very uncertain, and this caused,
on her part, a deep reflection on the subject of being very good. But
finally she thought it would be all right for me to hoe on the Sabbath
day, providing I did my hoeing down in the woodlot, instead of in the
open field on the hill.
It was pitiful to see these workers, after a hard day's work, walk
several miles to the village store with their few cents to buy their
suppers, knowing that they must walk back before they could cook and
eat it. Even though a man were not a drunkard, do you wonder that
he would spend a portion of that day's pitiful wage for stimulant
to create enough force to get back to his camp? All of the country
merchants had coffee, tea and sugar done up in five-cent packages ready
to hand out. They had many customers for such quantities.
One day, during my short investigation among these, a man was found
dead in a barn, where he had crawled to rest. Was it any wonder? He had
in his possession only a few cents and a little package of groceries.
Is it any marvel that another man was found dead, hanging in an
orchard, or that another was killed by an automobile, in the darkness
of the night? Seventy-five per cent of these workers were old men or
men beyond middle life. They were men of all sorts of trades, as well
as the unskilled. A great many were physically infirm, which disabled
them from following either their own trade or the more arduous work of
the common laborer.
I heard during the time I was among these toilers, the wish expressed
many times by them that they, too, could own a garden tract, a bit of
land that they could cultivate, a place, however humble, that they
could call home. No; men do not, as many will tell you, seek the open
fields to _be_ evil, but to _shun_ evil.
There exists to-day in many of the villages, towns and cities of
New York, the rule to grant to the police, marshal, or constable,
as a perquisite to his office, money for every arrest he makes. In
Milton I was told by one of its citizens that the fee was one dollar.
Consequently they are on the lookout for poor, unfortunate workingmen.
When they find one he is thrown into a dark hole of their city jail
or lockup. In one of these villages, this wretched place of detention
was partially filled with water when the men were put in. No matter
how prosperous the aspect of his farm, the farmer will tell you of the
vicissitudes he must continually encounter before his crop is gathered
and sold, that many of the farms are carrying a heavy mortgage with an
excessive rate of interest which they can not pay off, but can only
succeed in living and paying the usury,--that he is at the mercy of
the middle man (the commission man) and, above all else, what a time
he has with his help, so hard to get, so unreliable when he does get
it. If this is all true, do you wonder at it? Why, the horse, the cow
and the hogs on these farms are better treated than their help! The
animal must be well fed, housed comfortably and kept in good health to
be profitable. If these farmers would institute some kind of a recall
which would rid them of the code of ethics now practiced among them,
or which would force them to practice brotherly love, kindness and
justice; if they would create a new religion that will abolish the
death-dealing, demoralizing, destructive influences which exist among
them now; if they will cease being thoughtless; if they will begin
to think,--then the weather will have lost much of its terror. The
mortgage will be more easily raised. The faults of the commission man
may be overcome and the unpleasant specter of quantity and quality of
help will vanish. _Labor is the corner-stone to the foundation of the
edifice of prosperity._ It is left to the farmer to make his way easy,
his burden light.
Yet some who live in palaces, and many bold charlatans of trade who use
the name of philanthropy to guild their shady ways, will still cry,
"Why don't the out-of-work man help the farmer? Why don't they go onto
the land?" They certainly do not mean in the domain of the Hudson.
In talking with an editor, I once advanced the thought of the advantage
of cultivating every acre of the ground from New York to Albany. The
astonished editor replied, "Why, would you destroy the scenery of our
American Rhine?"
Destroy the scenery! I could not but ask, surprisedly, "What is more
beautiful than a cultivated vineyard, or a farm supporting an American
home?" But this was what the search light revealed. The great estates
of the greatest financiers in the world; the palaces of wealthy
brewers; the castles of whiskey distillers; monasteries of the Church
of England; Roman Catholic convents; orphans' homes, reformatories for
white slaves, States prisons, criminal insane asylums; United States
War Schools; government store-houses for high explosives; miles of
unsightly brick-yards (of the Brick Trust); acres of decaying old frame
shacks; ice-houses (of the Ice Trust;) signs, "Don't trespass" and
"Beware of the dog"--and hundreds of hungry, starving men.