by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
I met a man in Wheatland with his blankets on his back,
He was an old-time hop picker, I’d seen his face before,
I knew he was a wobbly, by the button that he wore.
By the button that he wore, by the button that he wore
I knew he was a wobbly, by the button that he wore.
He took his blankets off his back and sat down on the rail
Solidarity, September 30, 1916.
And told us some sad stories ’bout the workers down in jail.
He said the way they treat them there, he never saw the like,
For they’re putting men in prison just for going out on strike.
Just for going out on strike, just for going out on strike,
They’re putting men in prison, just for going out on strike.
They have sentenced Ford and Suhr, and they’ve got them in the pen,
If they catch a wobbly in their burg, they vag him there and then.
There is one thing I can tell you, and it makes the bosses sore,
As fast as they can pinch us, we can always get some more.
We can always get some more, we can always get some more,
As fast as they can pinch us, we can always get some more.
Oh, Horst and Durst are mad as hell, they don’t know what to do.
And the rest of those hop barons are all feeling mighty blue.
Oh, we’ve tied up all their hop fields, and the scabs refuse to come,
And we’re going to keep on striking till we put them on the bum.
Till we put them on the bum, till we put them on the bum,
We’re going to keep on striking till we put them on the bum.
Now we’ve got to stick together, boys, and strive with all our might,
We must free Ford and Suhr, boys, we’ve got to win this fight.
From these scissorbill hop barons we are taking no more bluff,
We’ll pick no more damned hops for them, for
overalls and snuff. For our overalls and snuff, for our overalls and snuff
We’ll pick no more damned hops for them, for overalls and snuff.
5
Richard Brazier’s song, “When You Wear That Button,” was printed in the fourteenth edition of the I.W.W. songbook. Brazier, who was a delegate to the founding conference of the I.W.W. Agricultural Workers’ Organization, wrote these verses during the 1915 harvest drive.
WHEN YOU WEAR THAT BUTTON
By RICHARD BRAZIER
(Tune: “When You Wore a Tulip”)
I met him in Dakota when the harvesting was o’er,
A “Wob” he was, I saw by the button that he wore.
He was talking to a bunch of slaves in the jungles near the tracks;
He said “You guys whose homes are on your backs;
Why don’t you stick together with the “Wobblies” in one band
And fight to change conditions for the workers in this land.”
Chorus
When you wear that button, the “Wobblies” red button
And carry their red, red card,
No need to hike, boys, along these old pikes, boys,
Every “Wobbly” will be your pard.
The boss will be leery, the “stiffs” will be cheery
When we hit John Farmer hard,
They’ll all be affrighted, when we stand united
And carry that red, red card.
The stiffs all seemed delighted, when they heard him talk that way.
They said, “We need more pay, and a shorter working day.”
The “Wobbly” said, “You’ll get these things without the slightest doubt
If you’ll organize to knock the bosses out.
If you’ll join the One Big Union, and wear their badge of liberty
You’ll strike that blow all slaves must strike if they would be free.”
6
Pat Brennan (1878–1916) also wrote the frequently reprinted poem “Down in the Mines” (Chapter X). “Harvest War Song” was one of the most popular of the I.W.W. agricultural workers’ songs. The line, “We are Coming Home, John Farmer,” was used as the caption for several I.W.W. cartoons. The “Harvest War Song” was submitted by the prosecution in federal and state trials of I.W.W. members, as evidence of the Wobblies’ intent to destroy the crops if their demands were not met. It was printed in the seventeenth edition of the little red songbook. An earlier shorter version appeared in Solidarity (April 3, 1915).
HARVEST WAR SONG*
By PAT BRENNAN
(Tune: “Tipperary”)
We are coming home, John Farmer; We are coming back to stay.
For nigh on fifty years or more, we’ve gathered up your hay.
We have slept out in your hayfields, we have heard your morning shout;
We’ve heard you wondering where in hell’s them pesky go-abouts?
Chorus:
It’s a long way, now understand me; it’s a long way to town;
It’s a long way across the prairie, and to hell with Farmer John.
Here goes for better wages, and the hours must come down;
For we’re out for a winter’s stake this summer, and we want no scabs around.
You’ve paid the going wages, that’s what kept us on the bum.
You say you’ve done your duty, you chin-whiskered son of a gun.
We have sent your kids to college, but still you rave and shout.
And call us tramps and hoboes, and pesky go-abouts.
But now the long wintry breezes are a-shaking our poor frames,
And the long drawn days of hunger try to drive us boes insane.
It is driving us to action—we are organized today;
Us pesky tramps and hoboes are coming back to stay.
7
Elmer Rumbaugh, whom Ralph Chaplin credited with authoring the song “Paint ’Er Red,” was the author of these verses that appeared in Solidarity (June 2, 1917).
PESKY KRITTERS
By ELMER RUMBAUGH
(Tune: “Arrah Wannah”)
To the North Dakota harvest came the wobbly band,
Singing songs of revolution and One Big Union grand,
Old Farmer John sat and cussed ’em—called ’em pesky tramps
Just because they would not work by the light of carbide lamps.
Chorus:
We want more coin; that’s why we join
The One Big Union Grand—
The pork chops for to land.
And Farmer John may cuss and rare
And loudly rave and tear his hair;
But one thing understand:
For shorter hours and better wages
We all united stand.
Now fellow workers all together—Let us organize
Into One Big Fighting Union! When will you get wise?
Can’t you see the bosses rob you of your daily bread?
They half starve you, pay bum wages, with a haystack for your bed.
8
Joe Foley wrote these verses to the tune, “Down in Bom Bom Bay.” They were printed in Solidarity (June 9, 1917).
DOWN IN HARVEST LAND
By JOE FOLEY
If you’re tired of coffee an’
Beef stew, hash and liver an’
Come, be a man
Join the union grand;
Come organize with us in harvest land—
Down in harvest land.
Chorus
Down in harvest land
United we will stand,
With the A.W.O.
We’re out for the dough
Out for to make old Farmer John come through
Down in harvest land,
The one big union grand
If Farmer John don’t please us
His machine will visit Jesus,
Down in harvest land.
If you’re sick of bumming lumps,
Bread lines and religious dumps;
When you’re broke
/> You’re a joke
They tell you Jesus is your only hope,
Down in harvest land.
When the winter comes around
You are driven out of town
You’ve got to go,
In the hail and snow
Cause you wouldn’t line up with us, Bo,
Down in harvest land.
9
These verses by George G. Allen, who wrote the popular “One Big Industrial Union,” were taken from the file of I.W.W. songs and poems in the Labadie Collection. The source is not known.
ALONG THE INDUSTRIAL ROAD TO FREEDOM
By G. G. ALLEN
(Tune: “Along the Rocky Road to Dublin”)
One day a western passenger train in the northern belt of wheat
In the burning summer heat, just stopped in time to meet
A little band of “400” men who were standing by to wait,
For a faster train upon the main and surer than a freight.
Oh scenery, Bo! Oh scenery, Bo! Think while I relate:
Chorus
Along the Industrial Road to Freedom,
They were rolling along, singing a song
Though they fight the shacks they need ’em,
On the transportation lines.
And when the crew came round to collect
They never seemed to care
To try to put the dead head off
Who wouldn’t pay his fare.
For a little direct action
It sure never fails at showing the rails
The spirit of that solidarity that has for its call
An injury to one concerns us all,
Along the Industrial Road to Freedom.
Solidarity, October 14, 1916.
By and by, a hard boiled guy, who was hungry for a lunch,
Confided to the bunch that he’d follow up a hunch;
He led the way to the front of the train and all sat down in seats,
In the dining car where the good things are and ordered all the eats.
Oh jungle, ’Bo! Oh, jungle, Bo! Think of all the sweets.
10
E. F. Doree who wrote this article for the International Socialist Review (June 1915) was a leader in the Agricultural Workers’ Organization and was later sentenced to Leavenworth Penitentiary after the I.W.W. Chicago trial.
GATHERING THE GRAIN
By E. F. DOREE
The great, rich wheat belt runs from Northern Texas, through the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South and North Dakotas, into Canada, and not a few will point with pride to the fact that last year WE (?) had the largest wheat crop in the history of this country. But few are the people who know the conditions under which they work who gather in these gigantic crops. It is the object of this article to bring out some of these vital facts.
About the middle of June the real harvest commences in Northern Oklahoma and Southern Kansas. This section is known as the “headed wheat country,” that is to say, just the heads of grain are cut off and the straw is left standing in the fields, while in the “bundle country” the grain is cut close to the ground and bound into sheaves or bundles.
In the headed grain country the average wage paid is $2.50 and board per day, but in the very end of the season $3 is sometimes paid, the increase due to the drift northward of the harvest workers, who leave the farmers without sufficient help. This is not a chronic condition, as there are usually from two to five men to every job.
The board is average, although fresh meat is very scarce, salt meat being more popular with the farmer because it is cheaper. Most of the men sleep in barns, but it is not uncommon to have workers entering the sacred portals of the house. Bedding of some kind is furnished, although it is often nothing more than a buggy robe.
The exceedingly long work day is the worst feature of the harvesting so far as the worker is concerned. The men are expected to be in the fields at half past five or six o’clock in the morning until seven or half past seven o’clock at night, with from an hour to an hour and a half for dinner. It is a common slang expression of the workers that they have an “eight-hour work day”—eight in the morning and eight in the afternoon.
Most of the foreign-born farmers serve a light lunch in the fields about nine o’clock in the morning and four o’clock in the afternoon, but the American farmers who do are indeed rare.
In this section the workers are sometimes paid so much per hundred bushels, and the more they thresh the more they get. On this basis they generally make more than “goin’ wages,”* but they work themselves almost to death doing it. No worker, no matter how strong, can stand the pace long; the extremely hot weather in Kansas proves unendurable. Twenty-five men died from the heat in one day last year in a single county in Kansas.
The workers threshing “by the hundred” must pay their board while the machine is idle, due to breakdown, rain, etc.
About the time that the headed grain is reaped the bundle grain in Central and Northern Kansas and Southern Nebraska is ready for the floating army of harvesters.
Here the wages range from $2 to $2.50 and board per day. They have never gone over the $2.50 mark. Small wages are paid and accepted because thousands of workers are then drifting up from the headed wheat country and because of the general influx of men from all over the United States, who come to make their “winter’s stake.” This is about the poorest section of the entire harvest season for the worker. The following little story is told of the farmers of Central Nebraska:
“What the farmers raise they sell. What they can’t sell they feed to the cattle. What the cattle won’t eat they feed to the hogs. What the hogs won’t eat they eat themselves, and what they can’t eat they feed to the hired hands.”
In Nebraska proper the farms are smaller, as a rule, than elsewhere in the harvest country and grow more diversified crops. Almost every farmer has one or more “hired men,” and for that reason does not need so many extra men in the harvest, but in spite of this, the whole floating army marches up to get stung annually. Most of the “Army From Nowhere” cannot get jobs and have a pretty hungry time waiting for the harvest farther north to be ready.
Industrial Pioneer, July 1924.
The farmers in South Dakota do not believe in “burning daylight,” so they start the worker to his task a little before daybreak and keep him at it till a little after dark. If the farmer in South Dakota had the power of Joshua, he would inaugurate the twenty-four-hour workday.
The wages here range from $2.25 to $2.50 and board per day, while in isolated districts better wages are sometimes paid. A small part of the workers are permitted to spend the night in the houses, but most of them sleep in the barns. Sometimes they have only the canopy of the heavens for a blanket.
As soon as the harvest strikes North Dakota wages rise to $2.75 or $3.50 and board per day, the length of the workday being determined by the amount of daylight.
The improved wages are due to the fact that thousands of harvesters begin leaving the country because of the cold weather, and the fact that the farmers insist on the workers furnishing their own bedding. At the extreme end of the season wages often go up to as high as $4.00 and board, per day.
The board in North Dakota is the best in the harvest country, which is not saying much.
In North and South Dakota no worker is sure of drawing his wages, even after earning them. Some farmers do not figure on paying their “help” at all and work the same game year after year. The new threshing machine outfits are the worst on this score, as the bosses very seldom own the machines themselves and, at the end of the season, often leave the country without paying either worker or machine owner.
This, however, is not the only method used by the farmers to beat the tenderfoot. In some cases the worker is told that he can make more money by taking a steady job at about $35.00 a month and staying three or four months, the farmer always assuring him that the work will last. The average tenderfoot eagerly grabs this proposition, only t
o find that thirty days later, or as soon as the heavy work is done, the farmer “can no longer use him.” There have been many instances where the worker has kicked at the procedure and been paid off by the farmer with a pickhandle.
The best paying occupation in the harvest country is “the harvesting of the harvester,” which is heavily indulged in by train crews, railroad “bulls,” gamblers and hold-up men.
Gamblers are in evidence everywhere. No one has to gamble, yet it is almost needless to say that the card sharks make a good haul. Quite different is it, though, with the hold-up man, for before him the worker has to dig up and no argument goes. This “stick-up” game is not a small one, and hundreds of workers lose their “stake” annually at the point of a gun.
As is the rule with a migratory army, the harvesters move almost entirely by “freight,” and here is where the train crews get theirs. With them it is simply a matter of “shell up a dollar or hit the dirt.” Quite often union cards are recognized and no dollar charged, and the worker is permitted to ride unmolested.
It is safe to say that nine workers out of every ten leave the harvest fields as poor as when they entered them. Few, indeed, are those who clear $50.00 or more in the entire season.
These are, briefly, the conditions that have existed for many years, up to and including 1914, but the 1915 harvest is likely to be more interesting if the present indications materialize.
The last six months has seen the birth of two new organizations that will operate during the coming summer. The National Farm Labor Exchange, a subsidiary movement to the “jobless man to the manless job” movement, and the Agricultural Workers’ Organization of the Industrial Workers of the World.
The ostensible purpose of the National Farm Labor Exchange is to handle the men necessary for the harvest systematically, but its real purpose is to flood the country with unnecessary men, thus making it possible to reduce the wages, which the farmer really believes are too high. If the Exchange can have its way, there will be thousands of men brought into the harvest belt from the east, and particularly from the southeast. It is needless to say that these workers will be offered at least twice as much in wages as they will actually draw.